7 NOVEMBER 1908, Page 8

St. Merville's Scholarship Boys. By Ernest Protheroe. (R.T.S. 3s. 641)—This

may be described as a "Tale of the Educational Ladder." Jack Earle, the son of a poor widow, glad to help his mother by spending his leisure hours in a pawnbroker's shop, gets his foot on the first rung, and then mounts. There are other difficulties besides the struggle of the competition, a social struggle as well as an intellectual. All this is taken count of, and we have a spirited tale made out of it.