DANGEROUS READING.

The following explains itself.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE N. Y. EVENING POST - Sir : The other day my son, aged about fifteen years, asked me the meaning of a certain objectionable passage in a play of Shakespeare, which, he said, he was instructed by his school teacher to analyze. Surprised that the boy should have such subject matter given for his lucubrations at so early an age, I made inquiry at the school, at the same time expressing my desire that he should receive other subject-matter for his studies in composition. I was informed in reply that, as the boy was understood to be preparing for entry at Harvard, the rules required as part of the examination papers an analytical knowledge of certain of Shakespeare's plays, including the disgusting one, "Othello." The rules also required, that the boy entering should have a knowledge of the novel called "The Mill on the Floss." Appreciating the propriety of keeping such literary stuff out of a boy's head at so early an age, I have changed my resolution of sending my son to the above university. I will seek to place him in Columbia or some other college, where the faculty may have sufficient common sense and discrimination to select from the wide field of English classic literature material for the education of youth that may be quite as useful for the mental and more suitable for the moral education of those to be placed under their charge.

PARENT.NEW YORK, NOV. 28, 1882

["Parent" is quite right not to send his son to Harvard. His mistake is in resolving to send him to Columbia or anywhere else. A young man who cannot be trusted to read "The Mill on the Floss" or "Othello" should not be sent to any college whatever or allowed to go at large at all, but should be kept safe at home. - Ed. Evening Post.]