我亲爱的孩子们， - 当我是你的年龄，并没有对这些儿童书籍，现在有。那些我们已很少，失去光泽，并在他们的照片丑，是指：当你已经没有多少，清楚，有趣的书的选择，漂亮，以及真正的指导，对其中只有五十多年交谈对象以前由少数有学问的人，很少了解他们甚至。因此，如果仅仅读的书会作出明智的男人，你应该长大了比我们更聪明老头。但仅仅是明智的书籍阅读，不会让你聪明的人：你必须为自己使用的是哪些书作出明智的工具就是 - 你的眼睛，耳朵和常识。
    现在，在这些非常愚蠢的老式男孩'的书籍之一的教我，所以我很感激它，如果它不是作为所有美妙的自然历史书图文并茂你见过了。它的名字是晚上在家中以及在它被称为“眼睛和没有眼睛的故事”;定期古板，拘谨，简洁的故事，它开始是这样的： -
    “哦，罗伯特，你去哪儿了今天下午走？”安德鲁斯先生表示，以他的一个学生在一个假期结束。
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    My dear boys,--When I was your age, there were no such children's books as there are now. Those which we had were few and dull, and the pictures in them ugly and mean: while you have your choice of books without number, clear, amusing, and pretty, as well as really instructive, on subjects which were only talked of fifty years ago by a few learned men, and very little understood even by them. So if mere reading of books would make wise men, you ought to grow up much wiser than us old fellows. But mere reading of wise books will not make you wise men: you must use for yourselves the tools with which books are made wise; and that is-- your eyes, and ears, and common sense.
    Now, among those very stupid old-fashioned boys' books was one which taught me that; and therefore I am more grateful to it than if it had been as full of wonderful pictures as all the natural history books you ever saw. Its name was Evenings at Home; and in it was a story called "Eyes and no Eyes;" a regular old-fashioned, prim, sententious story; and it began thus:-
    "Well, Robert, where have you been walking this afternoon?" said Mr. Andrews to one of his pupils at the close of a holiday.