THE YOUNG SCHOLAR.

JANUARY 1, 1872.

Editor's Address.

Y DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS,-Before beginning the issue of the Young Scholar, I want you and me fully to understand one another. In this letter you will see clearly what the Young Scholar will be about, and I hope you will at once decide to enlist yourself as one of its readers.

This Magazine is intended for Scholars. Some magazines are issued for infants, some as prizes or rewards for good conduct, some for big, grown-up boys and girls who have left school. But we clearly express in our title what kind of readers belong to us; we want young people, and young people who are scholars. Boys and girls who play about the

streets and never go to school, we don't want them, we don't expect to get them, and we should not be proud of them if we did. If you are a scholar, and a young scholar, you may be certain that you are one of our own readers, and we therefore claim you at once. And more than that, if you' see any other young scholars, who do not know about this

Magazine, it is your duty to tell them all about it, and show it them, and try to get them to take it in. They belong to us; we write on purpose for them; and we shall not be satisfied till every one of them join our ranks.

But you may say, "What good will it do us to take in the Young Scholar?" We answer, much every way. It is nice for boys and girls to take in a magazine which is written on purpose for them. The doctor has his journal, the clergyman his journal, and the teacher his journal. Why should young scholars not have their journal too? They have been without it long enough, certainly, but it has come at last.

Now this Magazine is called The Young Scholar, and So there will be plenty scholars go to school and learn. of things to learn in this journal, month by month, as it At twelve o'clock in the morning and half-past comes out. four in the afternoon scholars come out of the school and play. So there will be plenty of funny and amusing things in the Young Scholar. Work and play make up a scholar's life; work and play will make up the pages of the Young Scholar. Is not that right?

But perhaps you will say, "I wish it were all play." But all play is a very bad thing, worse than all work; and you know, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Besides, work is as interesting as play if it is rightly entered We shall give stories from English History, accounts upon. of great battles, lives of famous men, descriptions of strange countries, and if these are not interesting to you it will be either our fault or your own.

We will take care there shall be a proper amount of play. Every month we shall give a fairy tale that most of our readers have never read before, and which boys and girls These fairy tales will

are never tired of reading over again. be complete, and not the bare outlines of them which appear in the penny toy-books. And then we shall have a constant

supply of tales and anecdotes, and these will make the Young Scholar interesting. But as no boy or girl enjoys his play who has not honestly done his work, so you may depend upon it the way to be pleased with what is amusing is first of all to read what is useful.

We shall have no hard words or puzzling sentences in the Young Scholar. If you can understand this letter you will be able to understand anything in it. It is a large Magazine for a penny, and at the end of the year there will be 336 pages in the first volume. Then you can take the twelve numbers to a bookbinder, and he will bind them for you, and thus you will have a useful book written on purpose for you; for one of the things we mean to advise all of you to do is to get as many good books as you can, and burn all the bad books. You should mind and keep the numbers clean, or they will not be fit to be bound at the

end of the year. But young scholars always keep their

books clean; that is one of the first lessons they learn at school.

We shall do our best to get a personal knowledge of our young readers. We cannot, of course, travel all round the kingdom and see them, but they can write to us at any time at the cost of a penny. Now there is one subject in which, more than all others, young scholars do not excel. It is writing short essays, or letters, to their friends. Very likely it arises from their being set to write on things they know nothing about, or things there is nothing worth writing about. Now we are very anxious to help you in this respect. At certain times we shall give out subjects on which our young readers may write short essays, which they may send us. We undertake to insert one or two of the best, and to give a list of the others in order of merit. The subject for February will be

"An account of the town or village in which

you live."

In this essay the situation of the town or village should be given, the population, the trade (if any), the railways which run through it or near it, and any historical event which may have taken place in its neighbourhood. The essay

should be written only on one side of the paper, and should not contain a larger number of words than would fill half or three parts of a page of this magazine. It should have at the bottom the real name and address of the writer, and the school he or she attends. If it is desired that these should not be printed, another name can be added by which the paper can be known. It should then be addressed as follows:

The Editor,

"The Young Scholar,"

141, Deansgate,

Manchester,

when it is certain to find us.

The carlier these essays are

sent the more time we shall have to give to them; they should reach us, if possible, by January 10th, 1872. If the ends of the sheets are left open, they will go through the post with halfpenny stamps; if they are put in envelopes they will require penny stamps.

And now I think we thoroughly understand each other. We want young scholars for our readers-these and these only. It does not matter what school they go to, so as they go to some school or other. We shall do our best to make you happier and wiser, and you must do your best to see we have all the readers who properly belong to us. I must now conclude, and wishing you a Happy New Year, subscribe myself, Your faithful friend,

THE EDITOR.

Fairy Tales.

[We propose, under this head, to present our young readers, month by month, with the more popular fairy tales of this and other countries, which have amused young people for hundreds of years, and which amuse them now as much as ever.]

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.

GREAT many years ago there was a king and queen who grieved very much because they had no children. At last a little daughter was born, and she was so very beautiful that the king was almost beside himself for joy. Of course they must have a grand christening, and, in order to secure happiness for his child, the king invited not only his friends and relations, but the seven fairies who lived in his kingdom, that they might bestow their favours on the young princess. There was another fairy besides these seven, but she had left the kingdom long ago, and nobody knew where she was, so the king did not trouble himself to invite her.

When the christening was over the fairies began to bestow their gifts on the child. One gave her virtue, another beauty, another modesty, another riches, and so on, till they came to the seventh. Just as the seventh was going to speak in came the fairy that had not been invited, looking very angry and malicious. "When the princess is fifteen years old," she said, "she shall pierce her hand with a spindle and die." She thought in this way to avenge the affront that was cast upon her by not inviting her to the feast. But how could they invite her when they did not know where she was?

Now we said before, that this fairy came in just as the last of the other fairies was going to speak, and it was fortunate that she did not come later, because what would have been the use of all these good qualities, when the princess was to pierce her hand with a spindle and die in her fifteenth year? The other fairy could not prevent this misfortune, but she told the king not to be grieved, for the princess should not really die, but should sleep for a hundred years, and all the people in the palace should