His Introduction to the Library The eternal prerogative of childhood is curiosity; and why should it not be so? Thrust into a strange and wonderful world, with latent powers of understanding, capable of infinite expansion, the child stands at the threshold of life. "Why," "when,"—"where," "who," "what," and "how" are the only keys the child has, but these are sufficient and each new door opens to enlarged vistas which reveal vaster and vaster unexplored regions. No matter how far the child—or grown-up person—progresses in life, he still says with Shakespeare, "Why, then the world's mine oyster.
But he cannot continue, "Which I with sword will open," for life itself is not atenable to the sword. It only gives up ity secrets to the inquisitive mind.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.