The near approach of the long summer vacation naturally brings up, among other things, the question of summer reading. Very few of us care to bind and restrict ourselves to any one prescribed course of reading during the summer, while at the same time we all acknowledge that something should be read. Of course, a large majority consider "History, Biography and Travel" far too heavy work for the warm weather, and turn naturally to the novel as the great staple of summer reading. But herein is the difficulty. Of course it is a very easy thing to read the latest and lightest that comes to hand and gain enough from the reading to aid in passing the time. It is true that warm weather is not calculated to inspire a great desire to do anything that resembles work, and that this influence extends to our choice of reading. But if we spend a little more forethought on what we ought to have by us when the desire to spend an hour or two in reading came upon us, we would gain great returns for our trouble. A great part of the aimless reading of the summer is a direct result of pure carelessness. If we should only take proper precautions to have by us some of the books which we have determined to read before the advent of warm weather, we would undoubtedly accomplish far more than if we trusted to chance to furnish us with our reading material. Every one, if he but gives the matter a moment's thought, must find that he is lamentably deficient in his knowledge of the works of this or that noted writer, and that there are innumerable books, well fitted for perusal during the summer, of which he knows nothing. It is to these books that our summer reading should be directed. For, during the winter period, a person of ordinarily laborious habits can find but little time for becoming acquainted with this class of books, and it is only when the more serious work is laid aside that there can be found a proper leisure for such a purpose. Although Emerson advised no one to read a book that was not one year old, we would not, if we looked about us, have need of his advice, for there are so many good books that have been already many years before the public which ought to claim our attention, that we need have no cause to fall back upon the spasmodic appearance of a "latest" to supply us with reading.