I give with each lecture the titles of books bearing on the subject, to which you can probably get access in your public library, but you will also find every day as you read your newspaper fresh things worth cutting out to use in your lectures. Indeed, if you are ever hard up for a subject, take the leading news items of the past week, and explain them in an interesting way with maps, etc.
I have found the value of this also in dealing with grown-ups in men's clubs, hospitals, etc.
The "History of England" by H. O. Arnold-Forster will at all times give you useful subjects in most interesting form. For your own information read "Duty," by Samuel Smiles.
I have endeavoured to make the Handbook readable by the boy himself, since a boy should be encouraged to read for himself. The worst of it is that the literature to which as a rule he has access is the cheap and nasty press with little else than crimes and tragedies and big football matches to catch his attention.
He thus becomes educated downwards instead of being elevated by good examples to higher deeds.
The reading of such books as "Golden Deeds," "Deeds that Won the Empire," and so on, are the best of antidotes, especially if impressed by means of modern examples, illustrations and lantern slides, and acting the incidents.
COURSE OF INSTRUCTION.
I suggest the following scheme of work, to be altered according to local circumstances.
Give a week to each chapter of the book.
On Saturday evening give a lecture with practical demonstrations and, where possible, with lantern slides, on the subject of the following week's instruction.