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You can afford to put aside Dora Thorne and Mrs. 

 South worth, and the Duchess and Frank Leslie and the 

 New York Ledger and lots of other socalled literature 

 for a short year and a half and devote what time you 

 have for reading to a slight preparation for the treat 

 before you. Suppose you were to be invited to an ele- 

 gant banquet given by the State Dairy Association 

 next month, and the bill of fare were sent you showing 

 the most delicious layout of everything that could be 

 made out of first-class milk, lovely Charlotte Russe, 

 rich cream, delicate cheeses of all kinds, ice cream, 

 superb Elgin butter and milk punch, and suppose you 

 were obliged to respond to that invitation, "Thank 

 you, I should very much like to go, but my digestive 

 organs have never been trained to eat anything better 

 than skim-milk and sour whey and I can't appreciate 

 your menu." No, you wouldn't do that, you would get 

 right straight to work at cultivating an appetite for 

 what. you knew were better things. 



Boys and girls, go to reading and to reading good 

 books. If it goes a little hard at first, don't be dis- 

 couraged, every chapter will be easier and after a 

 while you will begin to feel that only the best is good 

 enough for you. If it is hard to read alone, get up a 

 combine. Choose a good book, invite your young 

 friends, or perhaps one particular young friend, to 

 come together once or twice a week and pass the book 

 around, take turns reading, stop when you strike some- 

 thing you don't understand, ask each other questions, 

 look up the answers in the encyclopedia or somewhere 

 else, keep a bright look-out for suggestive articles in 

 your weeklies and monthlies, keep a scrap-book, divide 

 it into topics — architecture, mechanics, costumes, his 

 torical anecdotes, art and a hundred others. Carry it 



