"Square and Compasses" is the third volume of "The Boat-Builder Series." All the characters connected with the Beech Hill Industrial School who were presented in the preceding story will appear in the present issue. In addition to these, the students of another educational institution, on the other side of the lake, are introduced, as well as a gang of ruffianly young marauders residing in the vicinity of the Champlain mechanics.

These additions to the acting force of the story are made, not merely for the sake of the incidents and adventures to which their appearance gives rise, but for the contrast between well-behaved mechanics and ill-behaved gentlemen, and between boys well-trained and those not trained at all, as in the example of the Topovers.

It is true that the writer regards a reasonable amount of exciting incident and adventure as necessary to hold the attention of his readers, but he has never been satisfied to present only these. While naked didactic pages covering the duties of young people are usually skipped or favored with only a hasty glance, the moral quality of the actions and speech of a favorite character may produce a deep impression on the mind and heart of the reader. What the Good Samaritan or the Unjust Steward said and did, convey lessons which simple precepts may fail to impart. The moral of the writer's stories is in the words and actions of the characters, and the contrast between the lives of the good and those of the bad.

The author adheres to the rule he has followed for the lifetime of a generation: never to present bad characters in such a light as to win the admiration and sympathy of the reader; and he still believes in the old-fashioned practice of rewarding the good and punishing the evil in the story.

As in the last volume, it is a part of the writer's purpose to interest young people in the mechanic arts, and to illustrate the results of good discipline. He is a firm believer in Industrial Schools, whether public or private, and is satisfied that our country has reached a stage in its development when more attention than ever before must be given to practical agriculture and the mechanic arts. He sincerely hopes the present series will do something to promote the cultivation of a taste in this direction, as well as to afford moral instruction and innocent amusement.

Dorchester, Mass., Aug. 20, 1884.