This book, intended as a supplementary reader for pupils in the seventh and eighth grades of school, has been prepared with a view to meeting a real need of the times. While there are a large number of text-books, and several readers, dealing with citizenship from the political point of view, the higher aspects of citizenship--the moral and ethical--have been seriously overlooked. The authors of this work have searched in vain for something which would serve as an aid to the joint development of the natural faculties and the moral instincts, so as to produce a well-rounded manhood, upon which a higher type of citizenship might be built. The development of character appears, to us, to be of far greater importance, in the preparation of the youth for the discharge of the duties of public life, than is mere political instruction; for only by introducing loftier ethical standards can the grade and quality of our citizenship be raised.