Excerpt from Der Geissbub Von Engelberg Within the last twelve or fifteen years, a decided change has taken place in the character of German juvenile literature. True to the motto on their banner, that even the best is not too good for the young, educators all over the Fatherland have joined hands in an uncompromising war against everything mediocre in the domain of reading for immature minds. Former favor ites, whenever suspected of producing a morbid sensitiveness by unduly stimulating the fancy and starving the intellect, have been condemned, and new standards have stepped to the fore: History, biography, geography, ethnology, travel, sport of every sort, and physical science in all its branches, are now forcibly pointed out as the sources from which to draw for wholesome reading for the young, for such entertaining and instructive fiction as is fitted to advance the intellect, impart practical sense, create ennobling emotions, and inspire to high ideals. And why should the graphic account of some stirring event lose anything of its intrinsic attractiveness and artistic effect by the unstrained instilling through a master's hand of such useful information as will help to prepare the child, as the father of the man, for meeting successfully in after-years the high-strung demands of modern life? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.