Steady and Strong. By R. M. Freeman. (Griffith, Ferran, Okeden,
and Welsh.)—This is a good public-school story, which runs on almost too conventional lines. It gives the familiar weakish or susceptible boy, Owen, who is pulled one way by his good genius and school-companion, Cartwright, and another by evil influences, the worst of which is contributed by another com- panion, Marshall. The fight between Cartwright and Marshall has also a familiar look. But the dangers which environ boys who from their characters are easily led, and are supposed to have a superfluity of money at their command, are gone more care- fully into than in almost any story of the kind that has recently been published; and a novelty is introduced in the person of Cartwright's father, a hard-headed barrister, who is instrumental in getting Owen out of all his difficulties. Steady and Strong is, indeed, an excellent book to place in the hands of a boy. It is written carefully, the teaching conveyed by it is thoroughly sound, and its pictures of boy-life have the air of reality. The enthusiasm of the Chudleians for the school that made them, and for the " Head " who made the school, is delightfully contagious.
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