x EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION. 
part of their readers than all other influences com- 
bined. 
It is therefore much more a matter of importance 
to get the nght kind of book than to get a living 
teacher. The book which teaches results, and at the 
same time gives in an intelligible manner the steps of 
discovery and the methods employed, is a book 
which will stimulate the student to repeat the ex- 
periments described and get beyond these into fields 
of original research himself. Every one remem- 
bers the published lectures of Faraday on chemistry, 
which exercised a wide influence in changing the style 
of books on natural science, causing them to deal 
with method more than results, and thus to train 
the reader’s power of conducting original research. 
Robinson Crusoe for nearly two hundred years has 
stimulated adventure and prompted young men to 
resort to the border lands of civilization. A library 
of home reading should contain books that stimulate 
to self-activity and arouse the spirit of inquiry. The 
books should treat of methods of discovery and evo- 
lution. All nature is unified by the discovery of 
the law of evolution. Each and every being in the 
world is now explained by the process of development 
to which it belongs. Every fact now throws light on 
all the others by illustrating the process of growth in 
which each has its end and aim. 
The Home Reading Books are to be classed as 
follows: 
First Division. Natural history, including popular 
scientific treatises on plants and animals, and also de- 
