  "All Taut" is the fifth volume of "The Boat-Builder Series," which will be finished in the next book. Nearly all the characters presented, and all who take prominent parts in the story, have been introduced in the preceding volumes. The principal of the Beech Hill Industrial School entertains some doubts in regard to the principle upon which he has been conducting the institution, and brings about a partial change in its character. He is a firm believer in the utility of the school as he has organized it; and, apart from its industrial mission, he believes it may accomplish another purpose that will render it still more valuable to the community in which he resides. The founder of the school has demonstrated to his own satisfaction, to say the least, that the institution is a practicable cure for some of the evils of American society; and he adds to it the feature of making it partly reformatory. The subjects of his new experiment In spite of the rather formidable reformatory plan of Captain Gildrock, the book contains about the same amount of incident and adventure as its predecessors in the series; but they are events which forward the action of the principal, and illustrate his method of reforming bad boys. The Lily is rigged, and makes a very good record as a fast sailer on the lake. The principal, though the actual work to be done by the students is only to rig a fore-and-aft schooner, explains to them the different kinds of vessels, classed by their rig, and fully illustrates the system by which the spars, rigging, and sails of a ship are named, so that he makes quite an easy matter of it for the boys. The next and last volume of the series will be devoted to the sailing of boats; though, as in the other books, the subject will be amplified so as to include nautical manoeuvres of larger vessels. Dorchester, Mass., May 31, 1886. |
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