Through the kindness of the proprietors of _The Youth's Companion,_ I am permitted to print it here.

I think, on the whole, that is better than to undertake to tell the story in other phraseology adapted to maturer readers.

Indeed, I am not sure that the best examples of good English are not to be found in books written for children.
When we have to tell a story to a small boy or girl, we avoid little pomposities, and seek for the plainest, clearest and most direct phrase.
I believe that boys nowadays are more manly and mature than they were in my time.

Perhaps this is partly because the boys show more gravity in my presence, now I am an old man, than they did when I was a boy myself.

But in giving an account of the life of a boy sixty years ago, I must describe it as I saw it, even if it appear altogether childish and undignified.
The life and character of a country are determined in a large degree by the sports of its boys.