Dr. Drury, through his long and intimate connection with St. Paul's School, has had an unexcelled opportunity to observe and to study the thoughts, the hopes, and the fallings of youth. When he undertakes, therefore, to "show the young reader what are the best things in our common day", it is certain that the young reader will find Dr. Drury's thoughts well worth listening to.

"The Thoughts of Youth" is a moral exhortation. Each essay abounds in solid morality, and the whole sets up a code of morals and a standard of conduct excellent for the practice of the young and the study of their parents.

But the very fact that the book is a moral exhortation sets up limits to its effectiveness. A code of moral conduct in the form of essays is one of the most difficult things imaginable to "put across" into the minds of boys of the preparatory school age. "Most of my readers", Dr. Drury says, "belong to a privileged class--the class of summer resters". It may be ventured that no class could be more difficult to reach.

It could hardly be expected, that anyone in an attempt to regulate and advise beys as to their personal relations with parents, teachers, and friends would absolutely escape from the utterance of truisms and platitudes.

Similarly in urging youth to temper its daily conduct with thoughtfulness, it is difficult to escape the form "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not". Moral exhortations in these forms are excellent in their way but indigestible when not highly tempered by imagination and especially when administered in large doses. They lose effectiveness in proportion as they increase in number and lack imagination. When a schoolboy hears "My Vacation" spoken of as a "fearsome opportunity of time", he is not apt to be properly terrified.

To say that the thoughts suffer in the form of expression, detracts in no way from the value of the thoughts themselves. And indeed we find truly inspirational passages, as in "My Vacation": "But if in no part of the day I have been or tried to be at my best, . . . then no part of the day is sweet". "My Family" contains a protest against triviality and commonplaceness in daily relations, and a call to growth and adventure which is a timely appeal from the common acceptance of mediocrity.

To such essays as "My Teacher" and some of those following Dr. Drury brings an authoritative judgment and a lightness of touch which make excellent reading. But hard as he has tried, and excellent as the result is in a great many ways, it is still questionable whether the author has entered fully into the thoughts of youth.