Page:Tom Brown's School Days (6th ed).djvu/18

This page has been validated.

INTRODUCTION BY W. D. HOWELLS

with the joy in the sylvan life which is the birthright of all the boys born within reach of them. The American school-boy of this generation will as freshly taste the pleasure of the school life at Rugby as the American school-boys of the two generations past, and he can hardly fail to rise from it with the noble intentions, the magnanimous ambitions which only good books can inspire.

W. D. Howells.