^OF-CAilFO% \\E L'NiVERV Ul-J ~ vWnr o w>-i 3j$ %13D.MV-S01^ SPECIAL METHOD OF COMPLETE ENGLISH CLASSICS IN THE GRADES OF THE COMMON SCHOOL BY CHARLES A. McMURRY, Ph.D. FOURTH EDITION. PUBLIC-SCHOOL PUBLISHING COMPANY BLOOMINGTON, ILLINOIS J899 Copyright, 1894. BY C. A. McMuRRY, NORMAL,, ILL. Press of Pantograph Printing and Stationery Co., Bloomington, III. library 10 TO THE FOLLOWING TEACHERS WITH WHOM THE IDEAS TREATED IN ITS PAGES WERE DISCUSSED IN ROUND TABLE CONFERENCES IN CHICAGO. THEIR STRONG INTEREST IN THE PROBLEMS RAISED AND THEIR PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS, SPRINGING FROM THEIR LONG EXPERIENCE IN SCHOOLS, HAVE BEEN VERT HELPFUL AND ENCOURAGING. P. R. WALKER, ' . . Rockford, 111. O. T BRIGHT, . . . Chicago. 111. W. H. HATCH, . . Oak Park, 111. N. D. GILBERT. . . Austin, 111. H. H. KINGSLEY, . . Evanston, 111. J. H. FREEMAN, . . Aurora, 111. A. V. GREENMAN, . . . Aurora, 111. F. E. SANFORD. . . La Grange, 111. F. H. HALL, . . Waukegan, 111. ROB'T McKAT, . . Blue Island, 111. C. W. MINARD, . Maywood, 111. PREFACE. This little book is a continuation of the series of Special Methods, of which it is the third num- ber. The Special Method in Literature and His- tory is a preparation for this book. It deals with the oral treatment of fairy stories, Crusoe, and myths before the children are old enough to read them and prepares them for the reading discussed in this book. The effort to gather into a rising series the best classic products of our English tongue and to appropriate them to direct school purposes is very inspiring. It opens up a field of great rich- ness and culture to both teachers and children. If all our teachers in the common schools should read with thoughtful appreciation ten or a dozen of the best books in the series, it would surely improve the teaching in all our schools by twenty- five per cent. The best literature suited to the grades has a variety of close and vital relations to nearly all the other studies as, for example, to history, ge- ography, natural science, and language. Since literature is so elevating and so many-sided in its culture influence, it supplies a solid basis for the correlation and unification of studies now so much discussed. The other books of the series can be seen in the price list at the end of this book. NORMAL, ILLINOIS, Sept. 1, 1895. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGES The Value of Complete Classic Masterpieces in the Common School, 7 CHAPTER II. The Literature of the First Four Grades, . . . . . -J CHAPTER III. Literary and Historical Materials in the Four Grades from Fifth to Eighth Inclusive, ...... 38 CHAPTER IV. The Value of Classics to the Teacher, .... CHAPTER V. Method in Primary Grades, ....... 80 CHAPTER VI. Class-room Method in Reading, ..... CHAPTER VII. List of Books Suggestions, ...... CHAPTER I. The Value of Complete Classic Masterpieces in the Common School. The purpose to introduce complete classics as readers into each grade of the common school is the controlling 1 thought in the following chapters. In the first two or three grades, it may not be possible to execute fully this plan, but the inquiry to what extent it maybe done, even here, is worth serious thought and experiment. What is a classic? One of the elements that goes into its make-up is an important, underlying, permanent truth. Whether written today or per- chance in the fifth century B.C., it must contain lasting qualities that do not fade away or bleach out or decay. Time and weather do not stain or destroy its merit. Some classics, as Gray's Elegy or Thanatopsis, are like cut diamonds. The quality that gives them force and brilliancy is inherent, and the form in which they appear has -been wrought out by an artist. The fundamental value of a classic is the deep, significant truth which, like the grain in fine woods, is wrought into their very structure. The artist who moulds- a master- piece like Enoch Arden or The Scarlet Letter is M< tltod. not a writer of temporary fame. The truth to which he feels impelled to give expression is strong, natural, human truth, which has no begin- ning and no end. It is true forever. Schiller's William Tell, though idealized, is a human hero with the hearty thoughts of a real man. Shylock is a Jew of flesh and blood, who will laugh if he is tickled, and break into anger if he is thwarted. The true poet builds upon eternal foundations. The book-maker or rhymer is satisfied with empty or fleeting thoughts and with a passing notoriety. New books are often caught up and blazoned as classics which a few years reveal as patchwork and tinsel. Time is a sure test. Showy tinsel rusts and dulls its lustre, while simple poetic truth shines with growing brightness. But truth in poetic dress is an object of suspi- cion to many people. If it were plain, ungarnished, even ugly, they could give it a heartier reception, as being closer to the real and practical. But true poetry stands closer to real life and in quicker touch with the daily motives of conduct than peo- ple dream. How far away and unpractical to the unbeliever are the poetic truths of Scripture; how fundamental and strong and real they are when wrought in.to the conduct of a faithful witness. It is profoundly well with us when we see truth not only in its strength but in its beauty. It is the magic of literary artists to reveal truth to pupils and teachers in this double potency. There is no form of inspiring truth which does not find expression in literature, but it is first of all a revelation of human life and experience, a proclamation from the housetops of the supreme beauty and excellence of truth and virtue. Classics are of strong 1 and lasting" value to the schools because they bring out human conduct and character in a rich variety of forms correspond- ing to life. Against the background of scenery created by the poet, men and women and children march along to their varied performances. The- seus, Ulysses, Crusoe, Aladdin, Alfred, Horatius, Cinderella, Portia, Evangeline they speak and act before us with all the realism and fidelity to human instincts peculiar to the poet's art. These men and women, who are set in action before us, stir up ail our dormant thought-energy. We observe and judge their motives and approve or condemn their actions. We are stirred to sym- pathy or pity or anger. Such an intense 'study of motives and conduct, as offered in literature, is like a fresh spring from -which well up healing waters. The warmth and energy with which judg- ments are passed upon the deeds of children and adults is the original source of moral ideas. Liter- ature is especially rich in opportunities to regis- ter these convictions. It is not the bare knowl- edge of right and wrong developed, but the deep springs of feeling and emotion are opened, which gush up into volitions and acts. 10 Special Method. Just as we form opinions of people from their individual acts, and draw inferences as to their character and motives, so the overt act of Brutus or of Miles Standish stands out so clear against the background of passing events that an uner- ring judgment falls upon the doer. A single act, seen in its relations, always calls forth such a sen- tence of good or ill. Whether it be a gentle deed of mercy, or the hammer-stroke that fells a giant or routs an army, as with Charles Martel or Al- fred's war-cry, the sense of right and wrong is the deep underflow that gives meaning to all events and stamps character. There is, however, a deeper and more intense moral teaching in literature than that which flows from the right or wrong of individual acts. The whole life and evolution of character in a person, if graphically drawn, reveal the principles of con- duct and their fruitage. Character is a growth. Deeds are only the outward signs of the direction in which the soul is moving. A dramatist like Shakespeare, or a novelist like George Eliot, gives us a biographical development. Deeds are done which leave their traces. Tendencies are formed which grow into habits, and thus a character rip- ens steadily towards its reward. We become con- scious that certain deeper principles control thought and action, whether good or bad. There is a rule of law, a sort of fatalism, in human life. "The mills of the gods grind slow, but they grind Beading. 11 exceedingly small. " It is the function of the dramatist or novelist to reveal these working principles in conduct. When the principle adopted by the actor is a good one, it works out well-being in spite of misfortunes; when evil, the furies are on the track of the evil doer. Men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. As we move on from step to step in a life history, the sympathy deepens. The fatal influence of a false step, followed up, is keenly felt by the reader; the upward tendency of a right act inspires and lifts into freedom. But whether we love or hate or pity, the character moves on in the course which his deeds mark out. When finally he is overwhelmed in shame and defeat, we see the early tendencies and later forces which have led to this result. If final triumph is achieved, we recognize the reward of generous, unselfish im- pulses followed out. As the interest in such a life-history deepens the lessons it evolves come out with convincing and overwhelming power. The effect of a great novel or drama is more intense and lasting than any sermon. The elements of thought and feel- ing have been accumulating energy and momen- tum through all the scenes, and when contracted into a single current at the close they sweep forward with the strength of a river. A master- piece w r orks at the foundations of our sympathies and moral judgments. To bring ourselves under 12 Social Method. the spell of a great author and to allow him, hour after hour and perhaps for days in succes- sion, to sway our feelings and rule far up among the sources of our moral judgments, is to give him great opportunity to stamp our character with his convictions. We seldom spend so many hours in close companionship with a living" friend as with some master of the art of character-delinea- tion. Children are susceptible to this mighty in- fluence. Many of them take to books easily, and many others need but wise direction to bring" them under the touch of the same formative influences. A book sometimes produces a more lasting" effect upon the character and conduct of a child than a close companion. Nor is this true only in the case of book-lovers. It is probable that the great ma- jority of children may feel the wholesome effect of such books if wisely used at the right time. To se- lect a few of the best books as companions to a child and teach him to love their companionship is one of the most hopeful things in education. The boy or girl who reads some of our choice epics, stories, novels, dramas, and biographies, allowing the mind to ponder upon the problems of conduct involved, will receive many deep and permanent moral lessons. The realism with which the artist clothes his characters only strengthens the effect and makes them lasting food for thought in the coming years. Even in early childhood we are able to detect clearly w r hat is noble and debasing Reading. 13 in conduct as thus graphically revealed, and a : Id fells an unerring- judgment along moral lines. The best influence that literature has to bestow, therefore, may produce its effect early in tender , rs, where impressions are deep and permanent. s our aim to choose and employ such books ;y with children even of the three primary There are many other elements of last- <-ulture-value in the study of literature, but it of all the deep and permanent truths taught the classics are those of human life and con- t. These are the greatest and simplest prob- ?ms for human souls to ponder. Besides the moral element, or fundamental ruth involved, every classic masterpiece is in- fused with an element of fancy. Whether in prose 4 erse the artist reveals himself in the creative touch. The rich coloring and imagery of his own mind give a tint to every object. The literary ist is never lacking in a certain, perhaps, inde- finable charm. He possesses a magic wand that rms into beauty every commonplace object that is met. We observe this in Irving, Hawthorne, Warner, as well as in still greater literary mas- ters. Our poets, novelists, and essayists must all dip their pens in this magic ink. Even Web- ster and Burke, Lincoln and Sumner, must rise to t.H- region of fancy if they give their thought suf- fl -rrength of wing to carry it into the coming The themes upon which they discoursed 14 kindled the imagination and caused them to break forth into figures of speech and poetic license. The creative fancy is that which gives beauty, picturesqueness, and charm to all the work of poet or novelist. This element of fancy diffuses itself as a living glow through every classic pro- duct that was made to endure. In the masters of style the rythmic flow and energy of language are enlivened by poetic imagery. Figures of speech in architectural simplicity and chasteness stand out to symbolize thought. That keenness and originality which astonishes us in master thinkers is due to the magic vigor and picturesqueness of their images. Underneath and permeating all this wealth of ideas is the versatile and original mind which sees everything in the glow of its own poetic temperament, kindling the susceptible reader to like inspiration. Among literary mas- ters the power of fancy shows istelf in an innnite variety of forms, pours itself through a hundred divergent channels and links itself so closely with the individuality of the writer as to merge imper- ceptibly into his character and style. But as we can not secure wholesome bread without yeast, so we shall fail of a classic without fancy. A fixed classic form is not always necessary. We need many of the classics that were written in other languages. Fortunately some of the works of the old poets are capable of taking on a new dress. The story of Ulysses has been told in verse Tti'rtfJing. If) and prose, in translation, paraphrase, and simple narrative form for children. Much, indeed, of the old beauty and original strength of the poem is lost in all these renderings; but the central truths which give the poetic work its persistent value are still retained. Such a poem is like a person; the underlying thought, though dressed up by different persons with varying taste and skill, is yet the same; the same heart beats beneath the kingly robes and the peasant's frock. Robinson Crusoe likewise has had many forms, but remains the same old story in spite of variations. The Bible has been translated into all modern tongues, but it is a classic in each. The Germans claim they have as good a Shakespeare as we. Some classic products, like the Paradise Lost, Thanatopsis, and Hamlet, show such a perfect fit- ness of word to thought that every effort to change or modify is profanation. The classic form and the classic thought go together. As far as possi- ble, therefore, it is desirable to leave these clas- sics in their native strength and not to mar the work of masters. The poet has moulded his thought and feeling into these forms and trans- fused them with his own imagery and individual- ity. The power of the writer is in his peculiar mingling of the classic elements. Our English and American classics, therefore, should be read in their full original form as far as possible. But many of the best masterpieces were orig- 10 Special Method, inally written in other languages, and to be of use to us the ancient form of thought must be bro- ken. The spirit of the old masters must be poured into new moulds. In educating our children we need the stories of Bellerophon, Perseus, Hercules, Rustum, Tell, Siegfried, Virginius, Roland, King Arthur. Happily some of the best modern writ- ers have come to our help. Walter Scott, Macau- lay, Dickens, Kingsley, Hawthorne, Irving, and Arnold, have gathered up the old wine and poured it into new bottles. They have told the old sto- ries in simple Anglo-Saxon for the boys and girls of our homes and schools. Nor are these render- ings of the old classics lacking in that element of fancy and vigor of expression which distinguish classic writers. They have entered freely and fondly into the old spirit, and have allowed it to pour itself copiously through these modern chan- nels. It takes a poet in fact to modernize an an- cient classic. There are, indeed, many render- ings of the old stories which are not classic, which, however, we sometimes use for lack of anything better. We conclude, therefore, that a classic master- piece must embody a lasting truth, reveal the permeating glow of an artist's fancy, and find ex- pression in some form of beauty and strength. Having made plain what we mean by a classic and, in our lists, having indicated what classics should be chosen, we will next consider why such Raid ha/. 17 masterpieces should be read as complete wholes, not by fragments or extracts, but whole works of literary art. 1. A stronger interest is developed by the study, for several weeks, of a longer complete mas- terpiece. The interest grows as we move into such a story or poem as Sohrab and Rustum. A longer and closer acquaintance with the characters rep- resented produces a stronger personal sympathy, as in the case of Cordelia in King Lear, or of Silas Marner. The time usually spent in school upon some classic fragment or selection is barely suffi- cient to start up an interest. It does not bring us past the threshold of a work of art. We drop it just at the point where the momentum of interest begins to show itself. Think of the full story of Aladdin or Crusoe or Ulysses. Take an extract from Lady of the Lake, Rip Van Winkle, Evan- geline : The usual three or four pages given in the reader, even if taken from the first part, would scarcely suffice to bring the children into the movement of the story; but oftentimes the fragment is extracted from the body of the play without preliminary or sequence. In reading a novel, story, or poem, we do not begin* to feel the author's power till two or thiee chapters are passed. The interest begins ... deepen, the plot thickens, and a desire springs up to fo^ow out the fortune of the characters. We become inter- ested in the persons, and our thoughts are busy is Special Method. with them in the midst of other employments or in leisure moments. The personality of the hero takes hold of us as that of an intimate friend. Such an interest, gradually awakened and deep- ened as we move into the comprehension of a work of art, is the open sesame to all the riches of an author's storehouse of thought. 2. A much deeper insight into the author's purpose and meaning is secured. A great author approaches his deeper thought step by step. He has many side-lights, variety of episode and pre- liminary. He provides for the proper scenery and setting for his thought. He does not bring us at once, point blank, upon his hero or upon the hero's fate. There is great variety of inference and suggestion in the preparation and grouping of the artist's work. As in climbing some mountain peak, we wind through a canon, along rugged hill- sides and spurs, only now and then catching a glimpse of the towering object of our climb, reach- ing, after many a devious and toilsome march, the rugged backbone of the giant; so the poet carries us along many a winding road, through by-w r ays and thickets, over hill and plain, before he brings us into full view of the main object of search. But after a while we do stand face to face with a real character and are conscious of the frame- work upon which it is built. Saul has run his course and is about to reap the reward of his do- ings; to lie down in the bed which he has pre- 19 pared. We see the author's deeper plan and real- ize that his characters act along the line of the silent but invincible laws of social life and con- duct. These deep significant truths of human ex- perience do not lie upon the surface. If we are really to get a deep insight into human character, as portrayed by the masters, we must not be in haste. We should be willing to follow our guide patiently and wait for results. 3. The moral effect of a complete masterpiece is deeper and more permanent. Not only do we see a person acting in more situations, revealing thus his motives and hidden springs of action, but the thread of his thought and life is unraveled in a steady sequence. Later acts are seen as the re- sult of former tendencies. The silent reign of moral law in human actions is discovered. Slowly but surely conduct works out its own reward along the line of these deeper principles of action. Even in the books read in the early grades these pro- found lessons of life come out clear and strong. Robinson Crusoe, Theseus, Siegfried, Hiawatha, Beauty and the Beast, Jason, King Arthur, and Ulysses are not holiday guests. They are face to face with the serious problems of life. Each per- son is seen in the present make-up and tendency of his character. When the eventual wind-up comes, be it a collapse or an ascension, we see how surely and fatally such results spring from such motives and tendencies. Washington is found 20 Special Method. to be first in the hearts of his countrymen ; Arnold ia execrated; King Lear moves on blindly to the reward which his own folly has prearranged; Mac- beth entangles himself in a network of fatal er- rors; Adam Bede emerges from the bitter ordeal of disappointment with his manly qualities sub- dued but stronger. Give the novelist or poet time and opportunity, and he is the true interpreter of conduct and destiny. He reveals in real and yet ideal characters the working out in life of the fundamental principles of moral action. 4. A complete masterpiece, studied as a whole, reveals the author's power. It gives some ade- quate perception of his style and compass. A play, a poem, a novel, a biography, is a unit. No single part can give a satisfactory idea of the whole. A single scene from Crusoe or from the Merchant of Venice does not give us the author's meaning. An extract from one of Burke's speeches supplies no adequate notion of his statesmanlike grasp of thought. To get some impression of what Daniel Webster was we must read a whole speech. A literary product is like a masterpiece of architecture. The whole must stand out in the due proportion of its parts to reveal the master's thought. " Walk about Zion, and go round about her Tell the towers thereof, Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; That ye may tell it to the generations following." Reading. 21 To have read through with care and thought- ful appreciation a single literary masterpiece and to have felt the full measure of a master's power, is a rare and lasting stroke of culture. As chil- dren move up through the grades they may re- ceive the strong and abiding impress of the mas- ters of style. Let it come to them in its undi- minished strength. To feel the powerful tonic effect of the best stories and poems suited to their age will give them such an appreciation of what is genuine and good in literature that frivolous and trashy reading is measured at its true value. The fragments and extracts with which our higher readers are filled are not without power and influence upon culture. They have given many children their first taste of the beauty and strength of literature. But it is a great mistake to tear these gems of thought from their setting in literature and life and to jam them into the close and crowded quarters of a text-book. Why satisfy ourselves with crumbs and fragments when a full rich feast may be had for the asking? 5. A classic work is often a picture of an age, a panoramic survey of an historical epoch. Scott's Marmion is such a graphic and dramatic portrayal of feudalism in Scotland. The castle with its lord, attendants, and household, the steep frown- ing walls and turrets, the moat, drawbridge, and dungeon, the chapel, halls and feasting, the knight clad in armor, on horseback with squire and 22 Special Method. troop, these are the details of the first picture. The cloister and nuns with their sequestered hab- its and dress, their devotion and masses, supply the other characteristic picture of that age, with Rome in the background. The court scene and ball in king James' palace, before the day of Flod- den, the view of Scotland's army from the moun- tain side, with the motley hordes from Highland and Lowland and neighboring isles, and lastly the battle of Flodden itself where wisdom is weighed and valor put to the final test all these are but the parts of a well-adjusted picture of life in feudal times on the Scottish border. There is in- cidental to the narrative much vivid description of Scotch scenery and geography, of mountain or valley, of frowning castle or rocky coast, much of Scotch tradition, custom, superstition and clan- nishness. The scenes in cloister and dungeon and on the battle-field are more intensely real than historical narratives can be., "While not strict his- tory, this is truer than history because it brings us closer to the spirit of that time. Marmion and Douglas stand out more clear and life-like than the men of history. Although feudalism underwent constant changes and modifications in every country of Europe, it is still true tliat Marmion is a type of feudal con- ditions not only in Scotland but in other parts of Europe, and a full perception of Scott's poem will make one at home in any part of European Reading. 23 hititory during feudal times. As a historical pic- ture of life it is a key to the spirit and animating ideas that swayed the western nations during several centuries. It is fiction, not history, in the usual sense, and yet it gives a more real and vivid consciousness of the forces at work in that age than history proper. While the plot of the story covers a narrow field, only a few days of time and a small area of country, its roots go deep into the whole social, religious, and political fabric of that time. It touches real history at a critical point in the rela- tions between England and Scotland. It is stirred also by the spirit of the Scotch bard and of min- strelsy. It shows what a hold Rome had in those days even in the highlands of Scotland. It is full of Scotch scenery and geography. It rings with the clarion of war and of battle. It reveals the contempt in which letters were held even by the most powerful nobles. Oxen are described as drawing cannon upon the field of Plodden, and in time these guns broke down the walls of feudal- ism. As a historical picture Marmion is many- sided and the roots of the story reach out through the whole fabric of society, showing how all the parts cohere. Such a piece of historical litera- ture may serve as 'a center around which to gather much and varied information through other school and home readings. Children may find time to read Ivanhoe,the Crusades, Roland. Don Quixote, 24 Special Method. The Golden Leg-end, Macbeth, Gootz von Berlicn- ingen, etc. They will have a nucleus upon which to gather many related facts and ideas. It should also be brought into proper connection with the regular lessons in history and geography. His- tory reveals itself to the poet in these wonder- fully vivid and life-like types. In many of these historical poems, as William Tell, Evangeline, Crusoe, The Nibelung Song, Miles Standish, The Odyssey, Sohrab and Rustum, some hero stands in the center of the narrative and can be under- stood as a representative figure of his times only as the whole series of events in his life is un- rolled. We conclude that the use of complete classic works in the grades of the common school is to be recommended because they awaken a stronger and keener interest and give a deeper insight into the author's storehouse of thought. The moral effect of such character-delineation is powerful because it is so graphic and continuous in its se- quence, and because the author has such an open field in which to reveal the full measure and com- pass of his power as a writer. Lastly, many of the best classics for children are graphic histo- rical pictures of great typical significance in the history of the world. Besides the longer classic masterpieces that we have had chiefly in mind, there is a multitude of shorter classics which should be liberally read 25 and studied in these grades. They should be grouped around the central predominating ideas in our series of literary materials for the grades. Many of the finest classic poems are short. But they should not stand alone. They express, in an intense form, ideas which are found elsewhere in our history and literature, and with which they should be brought into the closest relation. 28 Special Method. CHAPTER II. The Literature of the First Four Grades. 1. There is quite a variety of classic literature that is directly serviceable in the first four years of school. Nursery melodies, folk-lore stories and fairy tales, fables, Robinson Crusoe, and the clas- sic myths furnish the waxing, changing- minds of children with varied and stirring matter for thought. When children begin to read in the first school year, they need the simplest material, and yet something that stirs the interest and fancy. The nursery rhymes, such as appear in Verse and Prose for beginners, and in Heart of Oak No. 1, are good because they are already partly known to the children and have excited their mirth and curiosity. To meet and recognize these familiar stories in print is to carry some of the joy of the nursery into the school-room. Some of these things are fantastic and ridiculous and even ab- surd to older people*, but little children are by nature better judges than their sedate elders. Whatever in the shape of literature is fit for the home is fit for the school. The very fact that many of these rhymes have been familiar in the 27 best homes for some generations is the best proof that they are the right material for the first grade. They are often very ridiculous and fanciful, and for that reason are exactly fit to the children's need; for children are most of all appreciative of the fanciful and grotesque. Some of the best of these quibbling verses come from Shakespeare and Ruskin and Kingsley. The farcical side of human life shows itself early and late and is a true sign of health and soundness. To use these rhymes in the first grade is to conduce to the nat- ural joyousness and delight of children. Then the rhymes and repetitions have a charm as language. It is the first rude form of the aesthetic in liter- ature, the harmony of sound and sense, the music of words. It is also permanent, for these simple literary flowers do not lose their aroma. We never outgrow them, as we do trivial or trashy books. 2. The helpful or harmful effect of the litera- ture of the fancy in early years is a subject of much dispute. The opening-up of this dispute is one of the best fruits of recent pedagogical study. Shall we clip the wings of fancy in children, or shall we encourage them to unfold and carry the children gently over many a blooming meadow? The most characteristic mark in all the literature we mentioned for the first four grades is its fanci- ful spirit. There is scarely any literature for the earlier grades in which the fancy is not a predom- 28 Special Method. inating element. We noticed above that the fancy is a pervading- element in all permanent literary products. But the literature of- children, in its whole framework and structure, is built up by the imagination out of the real elements of experience. We acknowledge the power and domain of fancy in the works of Hawthorne, Bunyan, Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe. Such novelists as Scott, Irving, Eliot, Dickens, and Thackeray, lead us to the real world only through the portals of fancy. We al- low, then, the supreme value of the fancy in all the highest forms of literature, and yet we ques- tion the classic stories of fancy for children. There is a strong disposition among the serious- minded to draw the lines of reality close and stiff around the children, to shut them up to nature - study, to real life and history, to reduce Pegasus to a plow-horse. Many can not reconcile them- selves to the fairy tale because it is such a way- ward child, so blissful in its ignorance of realities. But this period of childhood is the golden age of the fancy, the one time when the fancy holds the sole right of eminent domain. Children at this time are by spontaneity fanciful. They en- dow every plaything with life, they personify bird and flower and tree; they draw crude pictures and make rude machines which, through the fancy, stand for the complete realities. Without sug- gestion from mother or teacher .they live, move, and construct in a world of fancy. Heading. 29 There are indeed two worlds that seem to have nearly equal hold upon a child's thoughts, the w r orld of realities, and the world of idealities. He never tires of seeing, examining', handling, modifying, using things. But a close observation of his activities will reveal that ideas which his fancy has created are the objective points toward which he works. He has seen a river and bridge, and at home he makes a river, valley, and bridge, out of sand and sticks, not identical with the one seen, but one his fancy has created. He has heard the story of Crusoe's raft or cave, and he builds a raft or digs a cave, and arranges them according to his own notions of plan and construction. A healthy child is astonishingly active in his exper- imentation with material objects and in making them conform to or realize the ideal aims that his fancy constantly creates and sets up as guides. The classic literature which suits these early years is thoroughly saturated with fancy. It gives healthy development to a healthy impulse. The mind of a child leaps toward results, it leaps past physical barriers and hindrances, and comes straight at the desired end. It is the early su- premacy of mind over matter. Later he learns the limitations, but at this early stage rejoices in this unchecked exercise of his power. But even a child is not led astray by his fancy. He is con- scious of the freaks which his thought is playing, of the underlying realities which it skips over so 30 Special Method. smoothly and gracefully. Much of the enjoyment, indeed, in fairy lore, is perhaps due to this hide- and-seek game with nature's truths. To accuse the fairy tale of dishonesty is to accuse the strongest trait of ingenuous childhood of duplic- ity, for the story is the idealized form of the child's thought. Why should grown people allow themselves the pleasures of imagination in the noble works of the best poets, and exclude child- ren from such a pleasure when their whole thought and, activity are enshrined in a halo of fanciful illusion? But it is not simply that we desire to secure the children in the enjoyment of a rich feast of thought natural to their appetites. We have an eye also to the coming years, when the fancy, though subdued and regulated, still possesses strong powers of flight. These are the only wings that can carry a child, in later school years, to many a rugged hill-top or deep into many a rocky glen. The child whose mind is hitched to a vig- orous fancy will scale the walls of truth at every point, while the prosaic mind, encumbered with dull realities, will stand bedumbed before impos- sible barriers. In intermediate and grammar grades an active and rich fancy is able to enliven the dullness of studies as an irrigating stream, poured upon the parched soil of our western plains, brings the shimmer of green fields and the variety of groves and orchards. Reading, :\ \ In the middle and upper grades of the common school an active, well-developed fancy is one of the chief means of invigorating- and intensifying the thought of children. It is one of the deep, living sources from which original energy is im- parted to study. To neglect, therefore, the healthful exercise of the fancy in primary grades, where it breaks forth spontaneously, is to dry up those springs from which refreshment comes in later years. It is an admitted fact that much of the journey through the grades is over dry and parched sands. An occasional oasis may appear in sight, but there is a good deal of the monotony of desert barrenness. Lessons in reading, geography, natural sci- ence, and arithmetic are beholden in a score of ways to a fruitful fancy. The teacher in the mid- dle grades who has an active fancy and can awaken like activities in children will make the anvils ring as in a busy workshop, and every blow will count, for the materials are made plastic and the striking arm is invigorated by the fancy. 3. In second and third grade readers the fable holds an important place. Its superior quality as classic can be seen in several points. In nearly all cases it is a personification of plant or animal life. The talking trees, flowers, and birds touch the child's fancy and draw him into close sympathy with living things in nature. The moral truth involved in a fable is best felt 32 Special Method. not in the formulated conclusion, but in the acts of the persons represented. It is better for a child to see the virtues and faults objectified in clear and graphic forms which do not bear at first upon his own conduct. Let a child's judgment be first clear and positive as applied to the conduct of others. There will be abundant later oppor- tunity to throw the clear light of this judgment back upon his own acts. It would be difficult to find a more potent form of moral culture than these convincing judgments with their keen edge incisively applied by the children to their own actions. The teacher in the primary school has many occasions to compare the life of bird or tree, as depicted in fable, with school-room and play- ground episodes. As reading exercises the fables are adapted to a very early use in first or second grade. There is no invariable form in which they are worded. The brief sententious fable may be expanded and simplified so as to be adapted to very early read- ing. The dialogue, which so often appears, is a happy medium through which children learn to represent different objects. This additional ex- ercise of the fancy brings increased interest to the fable and lends greater vim and naturalness to the reading. While the springs, from which natural interest and expressive reading emerge, are thus kept freely flowing, the retrospect upon these uplands of school life is always pleasing. The truths so simple and plain to a child, prove deep and last- ing-. They find their application in a wide field of later human experiences. 4. Robinson Crusoe, as a basis for oral work in second grade and as a reading book in third grade, is a good example of concentration of studies in these two grades. The pedagogical value and fit* ness of this story for second-grade children (oral narrative) was discussed in the Special Method in History and Literature, Chapter III. In second grade, the oral presentation and re- production of the continuous story of Crusoe was found to gather into a focus a variety of studies. The range of employments that Crusoe illustrates gives the children their first clear view into the varied industries and forms of manual labor that surround each child in his home-village or neigh- borhood. The language lessons are as varied and interesting as can be devised. The study of plants, domestic animals, seasons, and tools, sug- gested by Crusoe and well adapted for science lessons, is abundant for the uses of second grade. The drawing lessons hinted at by the story of Crusoe and by the natural science topics related to it are the best means of coming closer to the objects and of bringing into action the executive and creative powers of a child. In the third grade, the story of Crusoe can be read and enjoyed in the printed form. It is hardly Q possible, with live teaching-, that the narrative will lose interest by repetition. The interest and meaning of the life of the hero acquire a deeper significance. If the realism of the story is pro- vided for by continual study of the representative objects and occupations about the home, it can scarcely grow wearisome. In the third grade our plan of studies includes, as introductory geogra- phy, the study of the home by means of excur- sions. This is a direct continuation of the Crusoe employments begun in. second grade. It is alto- gether probable that the variety of information and interesting incident brought out in the oral treatment of the story in second grade will pave the way for appreciative and expressive reading of the same incidents in third grade. Instead of overdoing the Crusoe story, as many would be inclined to think, by making it deeply realistic and tangible and relating it in so many ways to other studies and to our own surround- ings and concerns, we are strengthening- the effect. To make a subject instructive and interesting there is need, not so much of something new and novel at every step, as some deep insight into re- alities, abundance of detail and experimentation with sensible objects, and a constant relationship of our previous to our incoming stores of knowl- edge. The Crusoe story has been lauded by writers on education as a rich treasure-house of ideas and of incentive for children. But we shall Beadnnj. 35 not exploit the resources of this or of any other rich reservoir of culture ideas by* a hasty or super- ficial reading of the story. The children may drink deep and long at such fountains if they are really opened up in their fulness. The whole complex of ideas involved in the story must find a deep and fixed setting" in the midst of the child's circle of thought and experience. The entangle- ment of ideas must be close, many-sided, and per- manent if the desired effect on character, as deter- mined by the range and connection of ideas, is to be secured. 5. As the fairy or folk-lore tales are expressive of the childhood of the race and lead us back into the thoughts and life of our early European an- cestors, so the classic myths lead us into the very presence of the representative men and ideas of the vigorous and youthful nations of Europe. To read these old heroic epics is to taste of the very spirit and conditions of our ancestors in this period of youthful exuberance. He who touches these living stones has his hands upon the primi- tive strength of European culture. And it is a strength that is by no means exhausted. It has permeated and vivified much of the classic pro- ducts which later periods of culture have brought to light. The heroic myths of the Greeks, Teu- tons, and Norsemen are the bearers of poetry, music, art, religion, and patriotism. They con- tained the germs of later national life and cul- M'thod. ture. For a child, therefore, to drink of these fountains, is to acquire a vantage for the appre- ciation of later ideas and institutions. We are not disposed to emphasize this merit of the old myths. That which is of most value to children in these old classic myths is more immediate and direct. Heroic characters are attractive expo- nents of heroic qualities. The ideals of early na- tions are personified in energetic, life-like repre- sentatives, and appeal to children from the side of their strongest natural impulses. The heroic myths are of unquestioned classic merit. They contain much of the finest poetry and imagery of the ages. The father of poetry is the reputed author of the greatest of all thf myths, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Nibelungen Song has been held by the mas- ters of literature as almost of equal merit with the Greek myths, and the Norse myths are astonish- ingly rich in fanciful enterprise. All these stories require adaptation to school-room use. They must be chiseled and wrought into forms better adapted to our needs. But -these are the quarries from which the materials of youthful culture are to be hewn and fashioned. The quality of the material is of the finest, and it remains for poets and school- masters to pour these old songs into the new mould of our Anglo-Saxon speech. Many at- tempts in this direction have been already made, some by authors of high repute like Hawthorne 37 and Kingsley, and some by less genial writers. But the labor is a noble one, and will sooner or later bring the heroic boys of the antique world close to the thought and feeling of our boys and girls in these early years. 38 Special Method. CHAPTER III Literary and Historical Materials in the Four Grades from Fifth to Eighth Inclusive. In the upper half (last four grades) of the com- mon school, all will agree to the extensive use of good literature. It is only a question of choice and arrangement. A good part of the materials suggested for fifth and sixth grades is both his- torical and classical. The age of myths is not yet fully past, and Hiawatha and the King of the Golden River continue to echo the mythical ideas of the third and fourth grades. The Black Beauty stands apart from the historical line, but it takes a deep, strong hold upon children, and brings out some hearty, wholesome lessons of gentleness and kindness in dealing with horses. Its teachings are no less valuable than those of chivalry and heroism, though in strange contrast to them. The Lays of Ancient Rome,Higginson's Ameri- can Explorers, Tales from English History, He- roic Ballads, Magna Charta Stories, Grandfather's Chair, Miles Standish, Sketch Book, Tales of a Grandfather, Stories of Waverly, and the Autobi- ography of Franklin are historical, and, to a large extent, classic. Some of them are indigenous to America, some to Scotland and to other countries .'59 of Europe. The Lays of Ancient Rome, the Bal- lads, the MagnaCharta stories, and the Tales from English History, belong" to the heroic series. Though far separated in time and place, they breathe the same spirit of personal energy, self- sacrifice, and love of country. They reveal manly resistance to cruelty and tyranny. It is well to begin this series with a term's work upon Macau- lay's Lays and a few other choice stories in prose and verse. Thereafter we may insert other bal- lads, where needed, in connection with history, and in amplification of longer stories or master- pieces like Scott's Tales of a Grandfather, and Marmion. In the fifth grade, children are of an age when these stories of heroism in olden days strike a responsive chord. They delight in such tales, memorize them, and enter into the full en- ergy of their spirited reproduction. The main purpose at first is to appreciate their thought as an expression of history, tradition, and national life. A complete and absorbing study of a single series of these warlike ballads, as of Macaulay's, supplies also an excellent standard of compari- son for other more or less similar episodes in the history of Switzerland, Greece, England, and America. In the oral history lessons given on alternate days in fourth grade (see Special Method in His- tory and Literature, p. 53,) we have made a spir- ited entrance to American history through the 40 Special Method. Pioneer Stories of the Mississippi Valley. These should precede and pave the way for classic read- ings in American history. In the fifth grade, the stories of Columbus and of the chief navigators, also the narratives of the Atlantic-coasfpioneers are told. The regular history work of the sixth grade should be a study of the growth of the lead- ing colonies during the colonial period and- the Prench-and-Indian wars. In the fifth grade we may begin to read some of the hero narratives of our own pioneer epoch as ren- dered by the best writers; for instance, Higginson's American Explorers, Pilgrims and Puritans, Sto- ries of Our Country and Grandfather's Chair. They are life-like and spirited, and introduce us to the realism of our early history in its rugged exposure and trials, while they bring out those stern but high ideals of life which the Puritan and the Cavalier, the navigator, the pioneer hunter and explorer, illustrate. Higginson's collection of letters and reports of the early explorers, with their quaint language and eye-witness descrip- tions, is strikingly vivid in its portraiture of early scenes upon our shores. Hawthorne, in Grand- father's Chair, has moulded the hardy biography of New England leaders into literary form. Irving's Sketch Book and Longfellow's Miles Standish give a still more pronounced and pleas- ing literary cast to two of the characteristic forms of life in our colonial history, the Puritan and the Read'mij. 41 Dutch Patroon. If the children have reached this point where they can read and enjoy the Sketch Book, it will be worth much as a description of life along the Hudson and will develop taste and ap- preciation for literary excellence. Even the fan- ciful and ridiculous elements conduce to mental health and soundness by showing 1 up in pleasing satire the weaknesses and foibles of well-meaning people. The Autobiography of Franklin has many graphic touches from American life. His intense practical personality, his many-sidedness, and public spirit, make up a character that will long instruct and open out in many directions the minds of the young. His clear sense and wisdom in small affairs as in great, and the pleasing style of his narrative, are sufficiently characteristic to have a strong personal impression. It will hardly be necessary to take the whole of the autobiography, but the more attractive parts, leaving the rest to the private reading of children. Poor Richard's Almanac intensifies the notion of Franklin's prac- tical and every-day wisdom, and at the same time introduces the children to a form of literature that in colonial days, under Franklin's patronage, had a wide acceptance and lasting influence in America. Snow Bound, Songs o f Labor, and Among the Hills, while not historical in the usual sense, are still plainly American and may well be associated with other poetic delineations of American life. 42 Special Method. Snow Bound is a picture of New England life, with its pleasing- and deep-rooted memories. Its family life and idealization of common objects and joys make it a classic which reaches the hearts of boys and girls. Among the Hills is also a picture of home life in New England mountains, a contrast of the mean and low in home environment to the beauty of thrift and taste and unselfish home joys. The Songs of Labor are descriptive of the toils and spirit of our varied employments in New England and of that larger New England which the migrat- ing Yankees have established between the oceans. Evangeline is another literary pearl that en- shrines in sad and mournful measures a story of colonial days and teaches several great lessons, as of the harshness and injustice of war, of fair- mindedness and sympathy for those of alien speech and country, of patience and gentleness and loy- alty to high ideals in a character familiar and sa- cred to us all. It appears in the foregoing references that there is much variety of literary portrayal of co- lonial life and events, of heroic adventure, graphic history, poem, charming satire, proverbial wis- dom; of home life and manners as reflected by the genial master in transparent biographical pic- turesall these are intensely imbued with the old American spirit. As we approach the Revolutionary crisis a new body of choice literary products, aglow with the Heading. 43 fire of patriotism and independence, is found stored up for the joy and stimulus of our growing" young Americans. Paul Revere's Ride, Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill, Washington's Letters, A Bal- lad of the Boston Tea Party, Ode for Washington's Birthday, Lexington (Holmes), The Song of Ma- rion's Men, The Green Mountain Boys, Webster's Speeches at Bunker Hill and on Adams and Jeffer- son, Old Ticonderoga (Hawthorne), Burke 's Speech on the American War, Washington's Farewell to the Army, The Declaration of Independence, Under the Old Elm, and descriptions of some of the great scenes of the war by our best historians. It is to be desired that children in the seventh grade may have opportunity in regular history lessons to study in detail a few of the central topics of the Revolutionary epoch. This will put them in touch with the spirit and surroundings of the Americans. Let the period of the Revolution be taken for the special study of the seventh grade. With a lesson of twenty or thirty minutes on alter- nate days, they could read and discuss, during the three terms of this year, three excellent books, Scudder's Life of Washington, Fiske's War of Independence, and Hosmer's Life of Samuel Ad- ams. These books are sufficiently comprehensive, graphic, and interesting to serve as a clear and lively introduction to the history of this epoch and as a basis for the reading of its literature. In the reading lessons of the same grade we 44 Special Method may well afford to discover and feel what our best patriots and men of letters have said and felt in view of the struggle for freedom. The noblest expressions of sentiment upon great men and their achievements are contagious with the young. Patriotism can find no better soil in which to strike its deepest roots than the noble out- bursts of our orators and poets and patriotic statesmen. The cumulative effect of these varied but kindred materials is greater than when scat- tered and disconnected. They mutually support each other, and when they are brought into close dependence upon parallel historical studies, we may well say that the children are drinking from the deep and pure sources of true Americanism. That period of our history which falls later than the Revolutionary war opens up a series of great and perplexing problems, so vast, complex, and far-reaching that it is a serious question what to do with them below the high school. The pedagogy of the future must determine what use can be made of this perplexing wealth of mate- rials. The past hundred years has been fruitful in sweeping changes and developments. The building and launching of the constitution, inter- nal improvements, immigration, inventions, the slavery conflict, growth of the public and higher schools, railroads, civil service, the religious or- ders, labor and capital, these are too great for a child to grasp, and yet he must be led to a few Keadiinj. \'< look-out points where he can catch a glimpse of these mighty movements. It seems best to study in eighth grade such topics, subsequent to the Revolution, as children can best understand and as will give them a clear view of the chief move- ments of this century. We suggest three books for reading and discussion in this grade: Life of John Quincy Adams, Life of Daniel Webster, and Life of Abraham Lincoln. (First two of States- man's series.) See Special Method in Literature and History; last chapter, p. 107. Parallel to whatever history we attempt to teach in the eighth grade should run a selection of the best literary products that our American authors can furnish, and here again we are rich in resources. The thought and life of our people find their high- water mark in the poet's clarion note and the statesman's impassioned appeal. No others have perceived the destiny of our young republic as our cherished poets, Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, Holmes, and Emerson. They have stood upon the mountain tops, looking far and wide through the clear atmosphere while the great army of the people have been tenting in the valleys below. These wakeful priests and proph- ets have caught the bright tints of the morning while the people were still asleep, and have wit- nessed the suffused glory of the sunset clouds when the weary masses below had already forgot- ten the day's toil. One thing at least, and that 46 Si>n-!iil Method. the greatest, can be done for our children before they finish the common school course. They may rise into this pure atmosphere of poet, patriot, sage, and prophet. They may hear these death- less strains and feel the thrill of these clarion notes. Let their ears be once attuned to the strength and harmony of this music and it will not cease to echo in their deeper being. The fu- ture patriots will be at hand and the coming years will see them rising to the great duties that in- evitably await them. We have a body of noble, patriotic material which is capable of producing this effect if handled by skillful teachers. The Ordinance of 1787, The Federalist, numbers 1 and 2, Washington's Inaugurals and the Farewell Ad- dress, Everett's Oration on Washington, O, Mother of a Mighty Race (Bryant); Our Country's Call (Bryant); Abraham Lincoln (Bryant); Lincoln's Inaugurals and Gettysburg Speech, Army Hymn, and The Flower of Liberty (Holmes); Webster's Second Speech on Foot's -Resolution, The Eman- cipation Proclamation, The Fortune of the Re- public, etc., (Emerson); Antiquity of Freedom (Bryant); Centennial Hymn (Whittier); The Build- ing of the Ship (Longfellow); The Poor Voter on Election Day (Whittier). Why not gather together these sources of power, of unselfish patriotism, of self-sacrifice, of noble and inspiring impulse? Let this fruit-bring- ing seed be sown deep in the minds and hearts of Reading. 47 the receptive young-. What has inspired the best of men to high thinking and living can touch them. It is not by reading and declaiming a few mis- cellaneous fragments of patriotic gush, not by waving flags and banners and following proces- sions, that the deeper sentiments of patriotism and humanity are to be touched, but by gathering and concentrating these fuller, richer sources of spir- itual power and conscious national destiny. The school-room is by far the best place to consolidate these purifying and conserving sentiments. By gathering into a rising series and focusing in the higher grades the various forms, in prose and verse, in which the genius of our country has found its strongest expression; by associating these ringing sentiments with the epochs and crises of our history, with the valorous deeds of patriots upon the field and of statesmen in the senate, with the life and longings of home nur- tured poets and sages we shall plant seed whose fruitage will not disappoint the lovers of the Fa- therland. Mr. Horace E. Scudder in his two essays on Literature and American Classics in the common school has portrayed with convincing clearness the spiritual power and high-toned American- ism which breathe from those literary monuments which have been quarried from our own hillsides and chiseled by American hands. We recommend to .every teacher the reading in full of these essays from which we quote at much length: is Special Method. "Fifty years ago there were living in America six men of mark of whom the youngest was then nineteen years of age, the oldest forty-four. Three of the six are in their graves and three still breathe the kindly air. (Since this was written in 1888 the last of the six has passed away.) One only of the six has held high place in the national councils and it is not by that distinction that he is known and loved. They have not been in battle; they have had no armies at their com- mand; they have not amassed great fortunes, nor have great industries waited on their move- ments. Those pageants of circumstances which kindle the imagination have been remote from their names. They were born on American soil; they have breathed American air; they were nurtured on American ideas. They are Americans of Americans. They are as truly the issue of our national life, as are the common schools in which we glory. During the fifty years in which our common-school system has been growing up to maturity these six have lived and sung; and I dare say that the lives and songs of Bryant, Em- erson, Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, and Lowell, have an imperishable value, regarded as expo- nents of national life, not for a moment to be out- weighed in the balance by the most elaborate sys- tem of common schools which the wit of man may devise. The nation may command armies and schools to rise from the soil, but it cannot call Itcadhx/. 49 into life a poet. Yet when the poet comes and we hear his voice in the upper air, then we know the nation he owns is worthy of the name. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles ? Even so, pure poetry springs from no rank soil of national life. ' 'I am not arguing for the critical study of our great authors, in the higher grades of our schools. They are not the best subjects for critical schol- arship; criticism demands greater remoteness, greater foreignness of nature. Moreover, critical study is not the surest method of securing the full measure of spiritual light, though it yields abund- ant gain in the refinement of the intellectual na- ture and in the quickening of the perceptive fac- ulties. I am arguing for the free, generous use of these authors in the principal years of school life. It is then that their power is most profoundly needed, and will be most strongly felt. We need to put our children in their impressionable years into instant and close connection with the high- est manifestation of our national life. Away with the bottle and the tube. Give them a lusty draft at the mother's full breast! " Nor do I fear that such a course will breed a narrow and parochial Americanism. On the con- trary, it would destroy a vulgar pride in country, help the young to see humanity from the heights on which the masters of song have dwelt, and open the mind to the more hospitable entertain- 50 Special Method. ment of the best literature of every clime and age. I am convinced that there is no surer way to in- troduce the best English literature into our schools than to give the place of honor to American liter- ature. In the order of nature a youth must be a citizen of his own country before he can become naturalized in the world. We recognize this in our geography and history; we may wisely recog- nize it also in our reading. " The place, then, of literature in our common- school education is in spiritualizing life, letting light into the mind, inspiring and feeding the higher forces of human nature. "It is the business of the old to transmit to the young the great traditions of the past of the country; to feed anew the undying flame of pa- triotism. There is the element of destiny. No nation lives upon its past; it is already dead when it says: 'Let us eat and drink to-day; to-morrow we die.' But what that destiny is to be may be read in the ideals which the young are forming; and those ideals, again, it is the business of the old to guide. They cannot form them; the young must form them for themselves; but whether these ideals shall be large or petty, honorable or mean, will depend upon the sustenance on which they are fed. " Now, in a democracy more signally than under any other form of national organization, it is vitally necessary that there should be an unceas- Reading. 51 in-, unimpeded circulation of the spiritual life of the people. The sacrifice of the men and women who have made and preserved America, from the days of Virginia and New England to this hour, has been ascending from the earth in a never- ending cloud; they have fallen again in strains of music, in sculpture, in painting, in memorial hall, in tale, in oration, in poem, in consecration of life; and the spirit which ascended is the same as that which descended. In literature above all is this spirit enshrined. You have but to throw open the shrine and the spirit comes with its outspread blessings upon millions of waiting souls. Entering them, it reissues in countless shapes, and thus is the life of the nation in its highest form kept ever in motion, and without motion is no life. "The deposit of nationality is in laws, institu- tions, art, character, and religion; but laws, insti- tutions, character, and religion are expressed through art and mainly through the art of let- ters. It is literature, therefore, that holds in precipitation the genius of the country, and the higher the form of literature, the more consum- mate the expression of that spirit which does not so much seek a materialization as it shapes itself inevitably in fitting form. Long may we read and ponder the life of Washington, yet at last fall back content upon those graphic lines of Lowell in Under the Old Elm, which cause the figure of the great American to outline itself upon .'ii: Special Method. the imagination with large and strong portrait- ure. The spirit of the orations of Webster and Benton, the whole history of the young giant poised in conscious strength before his triumph- ant struggle, one may catch in a breath in those glowing lines which end The Building of the Ship. The deep passion of the war for the Union may be overlooked in some formal study of battles and ^campaigns, but rises pure, strong, and flaming in the immortal Gettysburg Speech. "Precisely thus the sentiment of patriotism must be kept fresh and living in the hearts of the young through quick and immediate contact with the sources of that sentiment; and the most help- ful means are those spiritual deposits of patriot- ism which we find in noble poetry and lofty prose, as communicated by men who have lived pa- triotic lives and been fed with coals from the altar. "It is from the men and women bred on Ameri- can soil that the fittest words come for the spir- itual enrichment of American youth. I believe heartily in the advantage of enlarging one's ho- rizon by taking in other climes and other ages, but first let us make sure of that great expan- sive power which lies close at hand. I am sure there never was a time or country where national education, under the guidance of national art and thought, was so possible as in America to-day. "The body of wholesome, strong American lit-, erature is large enough to make it possible to keep 53 boys and girls upon it from the time when they be- gin to recognize the element of authorship until they leave the school, and it is varied and flexible enough to give employment to the mind in all its stages of development. Moreover, this literature is interesting, and is allied with interesting con- cerns; half the hard places are overcome by the willing mind, and the boy who stumbles over some jejune lesson in his reading book will run over a bit of genuine prose from Irving which the school book maker, with his calipers pronounces too hard. "We have gone quite far enough in the mechan- ical development of the common school system. What we most need is the breath of life, and read- ing offers the noblest means for receiving and im- parting this breath of life. The spiritual element in education in our common schools will be found to lie in reserve in literature, and, as I believe, most effectively in American literature. "Think for a moment of that great, silent, re- sistless power for good which might at this mo- ment be lifting the youth of the country, were the hours for reading in school expended upon the un- dying, life-giving books! Think of the substantial growth of a generous Americanism, were the boys and girls to be fed from the fresh springs of Amer- ican literature. It would be no narrow provincial- ism into which they would emerge. The windows in Longfellow's mind looked to the east, and the 54 Special Method. children who have entered into possession of his wealth travel far. Bryant's flight carries one through upper air, over broad champaigns. The lover of Emerson has learned to get a remote vision. The companion of Thoreau finds Concord become suddenly the center of a very wide hori- zon. Irving has annexed Spain to America. Haw- thorne has nationalized the gods of Greece and given an atmosphere to New England. Whittier has translated the Hebrew Scriptures into the American dialect. Lowell gives the American boy an academy without cutting dow r n a stick of timber in the grove, or disturbing the birds. Holmes supplies that hickory which makes one careless of the crackling of thorns. Franklin makes the America of a past generation a part of the great world before treaties had bound the floating states into formal connection with vener- able nations. What is all this but saying that the rich inheritance we have is no local ten-acre lot, but a part of the undivided estate of humanity. Universality, Cosmopolitanism these are fine words, but no man ever secured the freedom of the Universe who did not first pay taxes and vote in his own village." "Literature in School," Houghton and Mifflin. The series of American classics is nowise con- fined to the ideas of local or national patriotism, but above and beyond that deep and powerful sentiment which magnifies the opportunity and lieadi/i'/. 55 manifest destiny of our nation, it grasps at the ideal form and content of those Christian virtues which now and evermore carry healing and com- fort to the toiling 1 millions. Our poets, as they have pondered on the past and looked into the future, were not able to be content with less than the best. As the vision of the coming years un- rolled itself before them they looked upon it with joy mingled with solicitude. In the mighty con- flicts now upon us only those of generous and saintly purpose and of pure hearts can prevail. " Brief is the time, I know, The warfare scarce begun; Yet all may win the triumphs thou hast won. Still flows the fount whose waters strengthened thee, The victors' names are yet too few to fill Heaven's mighty roll; the glorious armory That ministered to thee is open still.'' Bryant. To reveal this Christian armory, the defenses of the soul against the assaults of evil, has been the highest inspiration of our poets. What depth and beauty and impersonation of Christlike vir tues do we find in Snow Bound, Among the Hills, Evangeline, The Psalm of Life, The Village Blacksmith, The Conqueror's Grave, To a Water- fowl, The Groves were God's First Temples, The Living Temple, The Sun Day Hymn, The Cham- bered Nautilus, Vision of Sir Launfal, The Great Stone Face. 5ti ^iti'dal Method. The Bible-is no longer generally admissible as a school text-book, but the spirit of Christianity, clad in the forms of strength and grace, is imma- nent in the works of our poets. So universal, so human, so fit to the needs and destinies of men, are the truths of the great evangel that the prophets and seers of our race drift evermore into the sheltering haven they supply. To drink in these potent truths through poetry and song, to see them enshrined in the imagery and fervor of the sacred masterpieces of our literature, is more than culture, more than morality; it is the portal and sanctuary of religious thought; and children may enter here. But our writers and literary leaders were not simply Americans. They were also Europeans. The Puritan brought his religion with him, the Cavalier acquired his gentlemanly instincts in the old home, not in the untrodden forests of the New World. Much of what we call American is the wine of the Old World poured into the bearskins and buckskins of the west, with a flavor of the freedom of our western wilds. Though born and bred on American soil and to the last exem- plars of the American spirit, our literary leaders have derived their ideas and inspiration from the literature, tradition, and history of the Old World. It will be no small part of our purpose, therefore, to open up to the children of our common schools the best entrance to the history and literature of Readmy f>7 Europe. Our own writers and poets have done this for us in a variety of instances. Hawthorne's rendering of the Greek Myths, Bryant's Transla- tion of the Iliad and Odyssey, a good half of Irving's Sketch Book, Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal, Aladdin, and Prometheus; Irving's Al- hambra, Longfellow's Golden Legend, Sandol- phin ; Taylor's Boys of Other Countries. Nearly the whole of our literature, even when deal- ing ostensibly with American topics, is suf- fused with the spirit and imagery of the Old World traditions. For example, Hiawatha, Evan- geline, and Little People of the Snow. There is also a large collection of prose versions of Eu- ropean traditions and stories, which, while not classic, are still lively renderings of classic stories and well suited to the collateral reading of chil- dren. Such are Gods and Heroes, Tales from Eng- lish History, Tales from Spencer, Heroes of Asgard, Story of the Iliad and Odyssey. The transition from our own poets, who have handled European themes, to English writers who have done the same, is easy and natural; Macau- lay's Lays of Ancient Rome, Scott's Tales of a Grandfather, The Stories of Waverly, the Christ- mas Carol, Kingsley's Greek Heroes and Water Babies, Ruskin's King of the Golden River, Lady of the Lake, Marmion, Roger de Coverley Papers, Merchant of Venice, Arabian Nights, Peasant and Prince, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Gulliver's 68 Special Method. Travels, and others have become by inheritance and birthright as much a part of the American child's culture as the more distinctive products of our own writers. No line can be drawn between those writing's which are American and those which sprung from the soil of England and Europe. So intimate and vital is the connection between our present and our past, between our children and their cousins across the water. These American and European literary pro- ducts lie side by side in the school course, though the predominating spirit through the middle and higher grades up to the eighth should be Ameri- can. We have noticed that in the earlier grades most of our classic reading matter comes from Eu- rope, the nursery rhymes, the folk-lore, fables, and myths; because the childhood of our culture per- iods was in Europe. But into the fourth grade, and from there on, beginning with the pioneers on sea and land, our American history and litera- ture enter as a powerful agent of culture. It brings us into quick and vital contact not simply with the outward facts but with the inmost spirit of our national life and struggle toward develop- ment. This gives the American impulse free and full expansion and fortunate are we, beyond ex- pression, that pure and lofty poets stand at the threshold to usher the children into this realm founded deep in the realism of our past history, and rising grandly into the idealism of our pure Beading. 59 desires and hopes. As we advance into the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades the literature of Eu- rope begins again to increase in. quantity and in- fluence and to share equally with American au- thors the attention of the children. The Americanism of our poets and prose writ- ers has also another side to it which is one sign of the breadth and many-sidedness of literature as a study for the young. North America is a land rich in variety of natural scenery and resource. Nature has decked the new world with a lavish hand, forest and mountain, lake and river, prairie and desert, the summer land of flowers, and the home of New England winters. The masterpieces of our poets are full of the scenery, vegetation, sunsets, mountains, and prairies of the western empire. The flowers, the birds, the wild beasts, the pathless forests, the limitless stretches of plain, have mirrored themselves in the songs of our poets and have rendered them dearer to us because seen and realized in this idealism. Unconsciously perhaps the feeling of patriotism is largely based upon this knowledge of the rich and varied beauty and bounty of our native land. " I love thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills, My heart with rapture thrills, Like that above." As along the shores of our northern lakes the clear and quiet waters reflect the green banks, the 60 Special Method. rolling- forest -crowned hills, the rocky bluffs, the floating- clouds and over-arching sky of blue, so in the homespun, classic verse and prose of our own writers are imaged the myriad charms of our native land. Bryant especially is the poet of for- est and glade. The Forest Hymn, The Death of the Flowers, The Return of the Birds, A Summer Ramble, The Fringed Gentian, The Hunter of the Prairies, The White-footed Deer, To a Waterfowl, Thanatopsis, and many others. Longfellow's Hia- watha,Evangeline; Whittier's Barefoot Boy, Songs of Labor, Among the Hills, and Snow Bound; Hawthorne's Tales of the White Hills, Holmes' Spring, Lowell's Indian Summer Reverie, The Oak, and many more. Verging more toward pure science, and still aglow with the poet's love of nature, are Bur- roughs' Wake Robin, Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes, etc. ; Thoreau's Succession of Forest Trees and Wild Apples; Warner's Hunting of the Deer, etc., and many other choice products of our own liter- ature. The love of nature in all her forms can not be better instilled than by following these poets in their rambles. Nature study, as demanded by the lovers of pure science, must become an inte- gral and vital part of our school course. While the study of literature as it images nature, can not take the place of pure science, it is the most powerful ally that the scientists can call in. The poets can do as much to idealize science study, to Reading. 61 wake the dull eye, and quicken the languid inter- est in nature, as scientists themselves. Away with this presumed antagonism between litera- ture and science ! Neither is complete without the other. Neither can stand on its own feet. But together, in mutual support, they can not be tripped up. The facts, the laws, the utilities, adaptations, and wonders in nature are not so marvelous but the poet's eye will pierce beneath and above them, will give them a deeper inter- pretation and clothe them in a garment of beauty and praise. There is nothing beautiful or grand or praiseworthy that the poet's eye will not detect it, and the poet's art reveal it in living and lasting forms. Let the scientist delve and the poet sing. The messages between them should be only those of cheer. The literature selected for these grades has a wide scope. It is instinct with the best Ameri- canism. It draws from Europe at every breath, while enjoying the freedom of the west. Social, political, and home life and virtue are portrayed in great variety of dress. Nature also and nat- ural science reveal the myriad forms of beauty and utility. 62 Special Method. CHAPTER IV. The Value of Classics to the Teacher. In discussing the value and fruitfulness of this field of study to children it is impossible to for- bear the suggestion of its scope and significance for teachers. If the masters of song and expres- sion are able to work so strongly upon the imma- ture minds of children, how much deeper the influ- ence upon the mature and thoughtful minds of teachable teachers! They above all others should have dispositions receptive of the best educational influences. The duties and experiences of their daily work predispose them toward an earnest and teachable spirit. In very many cases, there- fore, their minds are wide open to the reception of the best. And how deep and wide and many- sided is this enfranchisement of the soul through literature! It is a gateway to history; not, however, that castaway shell which our text-books, in the form of a dull recital of facts, call history; but its heart and soul, the living, breathing men and women, the source and incentive of great movements and struggles toward the light. Literature does not make the study of history superfluous, but it puts a purpose into history which lies deeper than the Beading. 63 facts, it sifts out the wheat from the chaff, casts aside the superficial and accidental, and gets down into the deep current of events where living causes are at work. The Courtship of Miles Standish, for example, is deeper and stronger than history because it idealizes the stern and rigid qualities of the Puri- tan, while John Alden and Priscilla touch a deeper universal sympathy, and body forth in forms of beauty that pulsing human love which antedates the Puritan and underlies all forms of religion and society. Illustrative cases have been given in sufficient abundance to show that literature, among other things, has a strong political side. It grasps with a master hand those questions which involve true patriotism. It exalts them into ideals, and fires the hearts of the people to devotion and sacrifice for their fulfillment. Burke 's Oration on the American War is to one who has studied American history an astonishing confirmation of how righteous and far-sighted were the principles for which Samuel Adams and the other patriots struggled at the opening of the Revolution. Webster's speech at Bunker Hill is a graphic and fervent retrospect on the past of a great struggle and a prophetic view of the swell- ing tide of individual, social, and national well- being. If the teacher is to interpret history to school 64 Special Method. children, he must learn to grasp what is essential and vital, he must be able to discriminate between those events which are trivial and those of lasting concern. The study of our best American litera- ture will reveal to him this distinction and make him a keen and comprehensive critic of political affairs. Literature is also a mirror that reflects many sides of social life and usage. There is no part of a teacher's education that is so vital to i;is prac- tical success as social culture. John Locke's Thoughts on Education are, in the main, an in- quiry into the methods and means by which an English gentleman can be formed. The aim of the tutor who has this difficult task, is not chiefly to give learning, to fill the mind with information, to develop mentality, but to train the practical judgment in harmony with gentlemanly conduct. The tutor, himself a scholar, is to know the world, its ins and outs, its varieties of social distinction and usage, its snares and pitfalls, its wise men and fools. The child is to learn to look the world in the face and understand it, to know himself and to be master of himself and of his conduct, to appreciate other people in their moods and char- acters, and to adapt himself prudently and with tact to the practical needs. The gentleman whom Locke sets up as his ideal is not a fashion-plate figure, not a drawing-room gallant, but a clear- headed man who understands other people and Reading. <;." himseif, and has been led by insensible degrees to so shape his habitual conduct as most wisely to answer his needs in the real world. Emerson, with all his lofty idealism and unconventionaiism, has an ideal of education nearly akin to that of Locke. This social ideal of Locke and Emerson is one that American teachers can well afford to ponder. As a nation we have been accustomed to think that a certain amount of roughness and boorishness was necessary as a veil to cover the strongest manly qualities. Smoothness and tact and polish, however successful they may be in real life, are, theoretically at least, at a discount. The Adamses, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Thoreau, were men who did violence in a good many ways to social usages, and we may admire them too much for it. To the teacher who stands in the presence of thirty to fifty distinct species of incipient men and women, social insight and culture, the ability to ap- preciate each in his individual traits, his strength or weakness, is a prime essential to good educa- tive work. Now,there are two avenues through which so- cial culture is attainable, contact with men and women in the social environment w r hich envelops us all, and literature. Literature is first of all a hundred-sided revelation of human conduct as springing from motive. Irving, Hawthorne, Long- fellow, Holmes, and Lowell are revealers of hu 66 Special Method. manity. Still more so are Dickens, and Eliot, and Shakespeare, and Goethe. To study these authors is not simply to enjoy the graphic power of an artist, but to look into the lives of so many varieties of men and women. They lay bare the heart and its inward promptings. Our apprecia- tion for many forms of life under widely differing conditions is awakened. We come in touch with those typical varieties of men and woman whom we shall daily meet if we will but notice. It broadens one's perceptions and sympathies, it re- veals the many-sidedness of human life. It sug- gests to a teacher that the forty varieties of hu- manity in her schoolroom are not after one pat- tern, nor to be manipulated according to a single device. Literature is also a sharp and caustic critic of our own follies or foibles, to one who can reflect. It has a multitude of surprises by which we are able, as Burns wished, " To see oursel's as ithers see us." Practical social life and literature are not dis- tinct modes of culture. They are one, they inter- act upon each other in scores of ways. Give a teacher social opportunities, give him the best of our classic literature, let these two work their full influence upon him, then if he cannot be- come a teacher, it is a hopeless case. Let him go to the shop, to the farm, or to the legislature; there is no place for him in the schoolroom. Beading. 67 It is in literature, also, and in those lives and scenes from history which literary artists have worked up that the teacher can best develop his own moral ideals and strengthen the groundwork of his own moral character. The stream will not rise above its source, and a teacher's moral influence in a school will not reach above the in- spirations from high sources which he himself has felt. Those teachers who have devoted them- selves solely to the mastery of the texts they teach, who have read little from our best writers, are drawing upon a slender capital of moral re- source. Not even if home influences have laid a sound basis of moral habits are these sufficient re- serves for the exigencies of teaching. The moral nature of the teacher needs constant stimulus to upward growing, and the children need examples, ideal illustrations, life and blood impersonations of the virtues, and literature is the chief and only safe reservoir from which to draw them. Besides the historical, social, and. moral tu- ition for teachers in literature, there are several other important culture effects in it. The deepest religious incentives are touched, nature in her myriad phases is observed with the eye of the poet and scientist, and the esthetic side of poetry and rhythmic prose, its charm and graces of style, its music and eloquence, work their influence upon the reader. Literature is a harp of many strings, and happy is that teacher who has learned to de 68 Special Method. tect its tones and overtones, who has listened with pleasure to its varied raptures, and has felt that expansion of soul which it produces. Literature, in the ense in which we have been using 1 it, has been called the literature of power, the literature of the spirit. That is, it has gener- ative, spiritual life. It is not simple knowledge, it is knowledge energized, charged with potency. It is knowledge into which the poet has breathed the breath of life. The difference between bare knowledge and the literature of power is like the difference between a perfect statue in stone and a living, pulsing, human form. One of the virtues of literature, therefore, is the mental stimulus, the joy, the awakening, the intensity of thought it spontaneously calls forth. Text-books are usually a bore, but literature is a natural resource even in hours of weariness. Who would dream of enlivening leisure hours or vaca- tion rest with text-books of grammar, or arithme- tic, or history, or science? But the poet soothes with music, solemn or gay, according to our choice. If we go to the woods or lakes to escape our friends, we take one of the masters of song with us. After a day of toil and j weariness, we can turn to Evangeline, or Lady of the Lake, or Vis- ion of Sir Launfal, and soon we are listening to "The murmuring pines and the hemlocks," or the echo of tjie hupter's horn. Reading. 69 "The deep-mouthed blood-hound's heavy bay Resounded up the rocky "way, And faint, from farther distance borne Were heard the clanging hoof and horn." At a time when we are not fit for the irksome and perfunctory preparation of text-book lessons, we are still capable of receiving" abundant enter- tainment or hearty inspiration from Warner's How I Killed a Bear, or Tennyson's Enoch Arden, or Sleepy Hollow. Literature is recreation in its double sense. It gives rest and relief, and it builds up. Teachers should shake themselves free from the conviction that severe disciplinary studies are the best part of education. They have their well- merited place. But there are higher spiritual fountains from which to draw. Read the lives of Scott, Macaulay, Irving, and Hawthorne, and Em- erson, and discover that the things we do with the greatest inward spontaneity and pleasure and ease are often the best. Literature, both in prose and verse, is what the teacher needs, because our best authors are our best teachers in their method of handling their subjects. They know how to find access to the reader's mind \>y making their ideas attractive, interesting, and beautiful. They seem to know how to sharpen the edge of truth, to render it more keen and incisive. They drive truth deeper so that it remains imbedded in the life and 70 Special Method. thought. Let a poet clothe an idea with strength and wing 1 it with fancy and it will find its way straight to the heart. First of all, nearly all our classic writers, especially those we use in the grades, handle their subjects from the concrete, graphic, picturesque side. They not only illus- trate abundantly from nature and real things in life; they nearly always individualize and per- sonify their ideas. Virtue to a poet is nothing unless it is impersonated. A true poet is never abstract or dry or formal in his treatment of a subject. It is natural for a literary artist, whether in verse or prose, to create pictures, to put all his ideas into life forms and bring them close to the real ones in nature. Homer's idea of wisdom is Minerva, war is Mars, strength is Ajax, skill and prudence are Ulysses, fidelity is Penelope. Dickens does not talk about schoolmasters in gen- eral, but of Squeers. Shakespeare's idea of jeal- ousy is not a definition,not a formula, but Othello. Those books which have enthralled the world, like Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, Gulli- ver's Travels, Arabian Nights, Evangeline, Ivan- hoe, Merchant of Venice, they deal with no form of classified or generalized knowledge; they give us no definitions, they are scenes from real life. They stand among realities, and their roots are down in the soil of things. They are persons hemmed in by the close environment of facts. This realism, this objectifying of thought, this Heading. 71 living form of knowledge is characteristic of all great writers in prose or verse. The novelist, the romancer, the poet, the orator, and even the essay- ist will always put the breath of reality into his work by an infusion of concreteness, of graphic personification. The poet's fancy, building out of the abundant materials of sense experience, is what gives color and warmth to all his thoughts. Strong writers make incessant use of figures of speech. Their thought must clothe itself with the whole panoply of imagery and graphic rep- resentation in order to be efficient in the warfare for truth. What a lesson for the teacher! What models upon which to develop his style of thinking! If the teaching profession and its work could be weighed in the balance, the scale would fall on the side of the abstract with a heavy thud. Not that object-lessons will save us. They only parody the truth. For the object-lesson as a separate thing we have no use at all. But to ground every idea and every study in realism, to pass up stead- ily through real objects and experience to a per- ception of truths which have wide application, to science this is the true philosophy of teaching. The classic writers lead us even one grand step beyond realism. The fancy builds better than the cold reason. It adorns and ennobles thought till it becomes full-fledged for the flight toward the ideal. 72 Special Method. As the poet, standing- by the sea-shore, poll ders the life that has been in the now empty she'll washed up from the deep, his fancy discovers in the shell a resemblance to human life and destiny, and he cries: " Build thee more stetely mansions, O, my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! Is it possible that one could fall under the sway of the poets and prose artists, appropriate their images and fruitful style of thought, be wrought upon by their fancies, and still remain dull and lifeless and prosaic in the classroom? No wonder that true literature has been called the literature of power, as distinguished from the literature of knowledge (supplementary readers, pure science, information books, etc.) The lives and works of our best writers contain an expan- sive spiritual energy, which, working into the mind of a teacher, breaks the shell of mechanism and formality. The artist gives bright tints and colors to ideas which would otherwise be faded and bleached. The study of the best classic literature adapted to children in each age is a fruitful form of psy- chology and child study. The series of books selected for the different grades is supposed to Heading. 73 be adapted to the children at each period. The books which suit the temper and taste of children in primary grades are peculiar in quality and fit those pupils better than older ones. In inter- mediate classes the boyhood spirit, which delights in myth, physical deeds of prowess, etc., shows itself, and many of the stories, ballads, and longer poems breathe this spirit. In grammar grades the expanding, maturing minds of children leap forward to the appreciation of more complex and extended forms of literature which deal with some of the great problems of life more seri- ously, as Snow Bound, Evangeline, Roger de Co- verly, Merchant of Venice, etc. Any classic product which is suited to pupils of the common school, may generally be used in several grades. Hawthorne's Wonder Book, for instance, may be used anywhere from the third to the eighth grade by a skillful teacher. But for us the important question is, to what grade of children is it best adapted? Where does its style of thought best fit the temper of the children? Children in the eighth grade may read it and get pleasure and good from it, but it does not come up to the full measure of their needs. Children of the third grade cannot master it with sufficient ease, but in the latter part of the fourth or first part of the fifth grade it seems to exactly suit the wants, that is, the spiritual wants of the children, it will vary, of course, in different schools and 74 Special Method. classes. Now, it is a problem for our serious con- sideration to determine what classics to use and just where each classic belongs, within reasonable limits. Let us inquire where the best culture effect can be realized from each book used, where it is cal- culated to work its best and strongest influence. To accomplish this result it is necessary to study equally the temper of the children and the quality of the books, to seek the proper food for the grow- ing mind at its different stages. This is not chiefly a matter of simplicity or complexity of language. Our readers are largely graded by the difficulty of language. But literature should be distributed through the school grades according to its power to arouse thought and interest. Language will have to be regarded, but as secondary. Look first to the thought-material which is to engage child- ren's minds, and then force the language into sub- servience to that end. The final test to determine the place of a classic in the school course must be the experiment of the class-room. We may exer- cise our best judgment beforehand, and later find that a classic belongs one or two grades higher or lower than we thought. We really need some comprehensive principle upon which to make the selection of classics as adapted to the nature (psychology) of children. The theory of the culture epochs of race history* as parallel to child-development offers at least a suggestion. A few of the great periods of history MeadinQ. 75 seem to correspond fairly well to certain epochs of child growth. The age of folk-lore and the fairy tale is often called the childhood of the race; the predominance of the imagination and of the childlike interpretation of things in nature reminds us strikingly of the fancies of children. We find also that the literary remains of this epoch in the world's history, the fairy tales, are the peculiar delight of children from four to six. In like manner the heroic age and its literary products seem to fascinate the children of nine to eleven years. In connection with this theory it is observed that the greatest poets of the world in different countries are those who have given poetic form and expression to the typical ideas and characters of some epoch of history. So Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton, Scott. The best literature is much of it the precipitate of the thought and life of historical epochs in race de- velopment. Experiment has shown that much of this literature is peculiarly adapted to exert strong culture influence upon children. The literary her- itage of the chief culture epochs is destined there- fore to enter as a powerful agent in the education of children in our schools, and the place of a piece of literature in history suggests at least its place in child culture. The study of these literary masterpieces, the choicest of the world, while it offers a broad per- spective of history, also enters deep into the psy- 76 Special Method. chology of children and their periods of growth and change. What a study for the teacher! Suppose now that a wise selection of the best classics for school use had been made. The books for each grade would respond not only to the ability but to the characteristic temper and men- tal status of children at that age. The books would arouse the full compass of the children's mental power, their emotional as well as intellec- tual capacities, their sympathy, interest, and feeling. The teacher who is about to undertake the training- of these children may not know much about children of that age. How can she best put herself into an attitude by which she can meet and understand the children on their own ground? Not simply their intellectual ability and stand- ing, but, better still, their impulses and sym- pathies, their motives and hearts. Most people as they reach maturity and advance in years have a tendency to grow away from their childhood. Their purposes have changed from those of child- hood to those of mature life. They are no longer interested in the things that interest children. They seem trivial and even incomprehensible. Now the person who is preparing to be a teacher should grow back into his childhood. Without losing the dignity or purpose of mature life, he should allow the memories and sympathies of childhood to revive. The insight which comes from companionship and sympathy with children Reading. 77 he needs in order to guide them with tact and wisdom. The literature which belongs to any age of childhood is perhaps the best key to the spirit and disposition of that period. The fact that it is classic makes it a fit instrument with which the teacher may re-awaken the dormant experiences and memories of that period in his own life. The teacher who finds it impossible to re-awaken his in- terest in the literature that goes home to the hearts of children has prima facie evidence that he is not qualified to stimulate and guide their mental movements. The human element in letters is the source of its deep and lasting power; the human element in children is the center of their educative life and he who disregards this and thinks only of intellectual exercises is a poor machine. .The lit- erature which children appreciate and love is the key to their soul life. It has power to stimulate teacher and pupil alike and is therefore a common ground where they may both stand and look into each other's faces with sympathy. This is not so much the statement of a theory as a direct inference from many observations. It has been observed repeatedly in different schools under many teachers, that The Lady of the Lake, Vision of Sir Launfal, Sleepy Hollow, or Merchant of Venice, have had an astonishing power to bring teacher and children into near and cherished com- panionship. It is not possible to express the pro- 78 Special Method. found lessons of life that children get from the poets. In the prelude to Whittier's Among- the Hills, what a picture is drawn of the coarse, hard lot of parents and children in an ungarnished home, "so pinched and bare and comfortless," while the poem itself, a view of that home among the hills which thrift and taste and love have made, "Invites the eye to see and heart to feel The beauty and the joy within their reach; Home and home loves and the beatitudes Of nature free to all." To study such poetry in its effect upon children is a monopoly of the rich educational opportunity which falls naturally into the hands of teachers. Psychology, as derived from text- books, is apt to be cold and formal; that which springs from the contact of young minds with the fountains of song lives and breathes. If a teacher desires to fit her- self for primary instruction she can do nothing so well calculated to bring herself en rapport with little children as to read the nursery rhymes, the fairy tales, fables, and early myths. They bring her along a charming road into the realm of child- like fancies and sympathies which were almost faded from her memory. The same door is opened through well selected literature to the hearts of children in intermediate and grammar grades. A brief retrospect will show the profitableness of classics to the teacher. They show a deep per- Reading. 79 spective into the spirit and inner workings of his- tory. The social life and insight developed by the study of literature give tact and judgment to understand and respect the many-sided individu- alities found in every school. The teacher's own moral and esthetic and religious ideals are con- stantly lifted and strengthened by the study of classics. Such reading is a recreation and relief even in hours of weariness and solitude. It is an expansive spiritual power rather than a burden. Literary artists are also a standing illustration of the graphic, spirited manner of handling subjects. Finally, this rich and varied realm of classic thought and expression is the doorway by which we enter again into the moods and impulses and fancies of childhood. We thus revive our own youth and fit ourselves for a quick and apprecia- tive perception of children's needs. It is the best kind of child- study. 80 Special Method. CHAPTER V. Method in Primary Grades. The first requisite to good reading- is something worth reading, something valuable and interesting to the children, and adapted to their minds. We must take it for granted in this discussion that the best literature and the best stories have been selected, and what the teacher has to do is, first, to appreciate these masterpieces for herself, and second, to bring the children in the reading les- sons to appreciate and enjoy them. In the pri- mary grades we are not so richly supplied with choice materials from good literature as in inter- mediate and grammar grades. For several years, however, primary teachers have been selecting and adapting the best stgries, and some of the leading publishers have ^Brought out in choice school-book form, books which are well adapted to the reading of primary grades. We should like to assume one other advantage. If children have been treated orally to Robinson Crusoe in the second grade, they will appreciate and read the story much better in the third grade. If some of Grimm's stories are told in first grade, they can be read with ease in the second grade. The teacher's oral presentation of the stories is Heading. 8] the rig-he way to bring- them close to the life and interest of children. In the first grade it is the only way, because the children can not yet read. But even if they could read, the oral treatment is much better. The oral presentation is more lively, natural, and realistic. The teacher can adapt the story and the language to the immediate needs of the class as no author can. She can question, or suggest lines of thought, or call up ideas from the children's experience. The oral manner is the true way to let the children delve into the rich culture-content of stories and to awaken a taste for their beauty and truth. We could well wish that before children read mythical stories in fourth grade, they had been stirred up to enjoy them by oral narration and discussion in the pre- ceding year. In the same way, if the reading bears on interesting- science topics previously studied, it will be a distinct advantage to the reading lesson. Children like to read about things that have prevlbusly excited their inter- est, whether in story or science. The difficulties of formal reading will also be partly overcome by familiarity with the harder names and words. Our conclusion is that reading lessons, alone, can not provide all the conditions favorable to good read- ing. Some of these can be well supplied by other studies or by preliminary lessons which pave the way for the reading proper. Special Method'. FOLK-LORE STORIES AS READING EXERCISES FOR FIRST GRADE. Let it be supposed that a class of first-grade children has learned to tell a certain story orally. It has interested them and stirred up their thought. Let them next learn to read the same story in a very simple form. This will lead to a series of elementary reading lessons in connection with the story, and the aim should be strictly that of mas- tering the first difficulties of reading. The teacher recalls the story, and asks for a statement from its beginning. If the sentence furnished by the child is simple and suitable, the teacher writes it on the blackboard in plain large script, and it is then made the basis of an analytic study. Each child reads it through and points out the words. Let there be a lively drill upon the sentence till the picture of each word becomes clear and dis- tinct. During the first lesson, two or three short sentences can be handled with success. As new words are learned, they should be mixed up on the board with those learned before, and a quick and varied drill on the words in sentences or in columns be employed to establish the forms in memory. Speed, variety in device, and watch- fulness to keep all busy and attentive,, are neces- sary to secure good results. One or two of the simpler words in a lesson may be taken for phonetic analysis. The simple sounds are practiced upon and associated with the letters that represent them. These familiar let- ters are later met and identified in new words, and, as soon as a number of sounds with their symbols has been learned, new words can be con structed and pronounced from these known ele- ments. In the same way, they recognize old words in sentences and new or changed combinations of old forms, and begin to read new sentences which combine old words in new relations. In short, the sentence, word, and phonic meth- ods are all used in fitting alternation, while orig- inality and variety of device are necessary in the best exercise of teaching power. The processes of learning to read by such board- script work are partly analj r tic and partly syn- thetic. Children begin with sentences, analyze them into words, and some of the words into their simple sounds. But when these sounds begin to grow familiar, they are identified again in other words, thus combining them into new forms. In the same way, words once learned by the ana- lytic study of sentences are recognized again in new sentences, and thus interpreted in new rela- tions. The short sentences, derived from a familiar story, when ranged together supply a brief, sim- ple outline of the story. If now this series of sen- tences be written on the board or printed on slips S4 Special Method. of paper, the whole story may be reviewed by the class from day to day till the word and sentence- forms are well mastered. For making- these printed slips, some teachers use a small printing- press or a type-writer. Eventually several sto- ries may be collected and sewed together, so as to form a little reading book which is the result of the constructive work of teacher and pupils. The reading lessonsjust described, are entirely separate from the oral treatment and reproduc- tion of the stories; yet the thought and interest awakened in the oral work are helpful in keeping- up a lively effort in the reading class. The thought material in a good story is itself a mental stimu- lus, and produces a wakefulness which is favora- ble to imprinting the forms as well as the content of thought. Expression, also, that is, natural and vivid rendering of the thought, is always aimed at in reading, and springs spontaneously from in- teresting thought-studies. Many teachers use the materials furnished by oral lessons in natural science as a similar intro- duction to reading in first grade. The science les- sons furnish good thought-matter for simple sen- tences, and there is no good reason why, in learn- ing to read, children should not use sentences drawn both from literature and from natural sci- ence. -8 READING IN THE SECOND GRADE. The oral lessons in good stories, and the later board use of these materials in learning 1 the ele- ments of formal reading, are an excellent prepa- ration for the fuller and more extended reading of similar matter in the second and third grades. When the oral work of the first grade has thus kindled the fancy of a child upon these charming pictures, and the later board- work has acquainted him with letter and word symbols which express such thought, the reading of the same and other stories of like character (a year later) will follow as an easy and natural sequence. As a prelimin- ary to all good reading exercises, there should be rich and fruitful thought adapted to the age of children. The realm of classic folk-lore contains abundant thought-material peculiar in its fitness to awaken the interest and fancy of children in the first two grades. To bring these choice sto- ries close to the hearts of children should be the aim of much of the work in both these grades. Such an aim, skillfully carried out, not only con- duces to the joy of children in first grade, but in- fuses the reading lessons of second grade with thought and culture of the best quality. Interest and vigor of thought are certain to help right expression and reading. Reading, like every other study, should be based upon realities. When there is real thought and feeling in the children, a correct expression of them is more 8(5. Special Method. easily secured than by formal demands or by in- timidation. The stories to be read in second or third grade may be fuller and longer than the brief outline sentences used for bdard-work in the first grade. Besides, these tales, being classic and of perma- nent value, do not lose their charm by repetition. METHOD. By oral reading, we mean /the giving of the thought obtained from a printed page to others through the medium of the voice. There is first the training of the eye in taking in a number of words at a glance a mechanical process; then the interpretation of these groups of words a mental process; next the making known of the ideas thus obtained, to others, by means of the voice also a mechanical process. The children need special help in each step. We are apt to overdo one at the expense of the others. 1. Eye -training is the foundation of all good reading. Various devices are resorted to in ob- taining it. We will suggest a few, not new at all, but useful. (a) A strip of cardboard on which is a clause or sentence is held before the class, for a moment only, and then removed. The children are asked to give it verbatim. The length of the task is in- creased as the eye becomes trained to this kind of work. 87 (b) The children open their books at a signal from the teacher, glance through a line, or part of one indicated by the teacher, close book at once and give the line. (c) The teacher places on- the board clauses or sentences bearing on the lesson, and covers with a map. The map is rolled up to show one of these, which is almost immediately erased. The chil- dren are then asked to give it. The map is then rolled up higher, exposing another, which also is speedily erased and so on until all have been given to the children and erased. 2. The child needs not only to be able to recog- nize groups of words, but he must be able to get thought from them. The following are some de- vices to that end: (a) Suggestive pictures can be made use of to advantage, all through the primary grades. If the child reads part of the story in the picture, and finds it interesting, he will want to read from the printed page, the part not given in the pic- ture. (b) Where there is no picture or even where there is one an aim may be useful to arouse in- terest in the thought, i. e. , a thoughtful question may be put by the teacher, which the children can answer only by reading the story; e. g., in the supplementary reader, "Easy Steps for Little Feet, " is found the story of "The Pin and Isiee- dle." There is no picture. The teacher says as 88 Special Method. the class are seated, " Now we have a story about a big quarrel between a pin and a needle over the question, 'Which one is the better fellow?' Of what could the needle boast? Of what the pin? Let us see which won. " (c) Let all the pupils look through one or more paragraphs, reading silently, to get the thought, before any one is called upon to read aloud. If a child comes to a word that he does not know, dur- ing the silent reading, the teacher helps him to get it from the context if possible if not, by the sounds of the letters which compose it. As each child finishes the task assigned, he raises his eyes from the book, showing by this act that he is ready to tell what he has just read. The thought may be given by the child in his own language to assure the teacher that he has it. Usually, however, in the lower grades, this is un- necessary, the language of the book being nearly as simple as his own. The advantage of having all the pupils kept busy instead of one alone who might be called upon to read the paragraph, is evident. Ever;/ child reads silently all of the lesson. Time would not permit that this be done orally, were it advis- able to do so. When the child gets up to read, he is not likely to stumble, for he has both the thought and the expression for it, at the start. While aiming to have the children compre- hend the thought, the teacher should not forget, 89 on the other hand, that this is the reading hour, and not the time for much oral instruction and re- production. There are other recitations in which the child is trained to free oral expression of thought, as in science and literature. Such off- hand oral expression of his own ideas is not the primary aim of the reading lesson. Its purpose is to lend life to the recitation. 3. Steps 1 and 2 deal with preparation for the reading. Up to this time, no oral reading has been done. Now we are ready to begin. v Children will generally express the thought with the proper emphasis if they not only see its meaning but also feel it. Suppose the children are interested in the thought of the piece, they still fail, sometimes, to give the proper emphasis. How can the teacher by questioning, get them to realize the more important part of the thought? (a) The teacher has gone deeper into the mean- ing than have the children. Her questions should be such as to make real to the children the more emphatic part of the thought; e. g., in the River- side Primer we have, "Poor Bun, good dog, did you think I meant to hit you?" John reads, "Do you think I meant to hit you?" The teacher says, "You may be Bun, John. What is it that you do not want Bun to think?" ("That I meant to hit him.") "But you did mean to hit something. What was it you did not mean to hit? Tell Bun." ("I did not mean to hit you.") Now ask him if he 90 Special Method. thought that you did." ("Did you think I meant to hit you?'') (b) When the story is in the form of a dialogue, the children may personate the characters in the story. Thus, getting into the real spirit of the piece, their emphasis will naturally fall where it properly belongs. (c) Sometimes the teacher will find it necessary to show the child how to read a passage properly, by reading it himself. It is seldom best to do this certainly not if the correct expression can be reached through questioning. Many a teacher makes a practice of giving the proper emphasis to the child, he copying it from her voice. Frequently, children taught in this way, can read one piece after another in their readers with excellent expression, but when ques- tioned, show that their minds are a blank as to the meaning of what they are reading. In working for expression, a great many teach- ers waste the time and energy of the pupils by in- definite directions. The emphasis is not correctly placed, so the teacher says, "I do not like that; try it again, May." Now, May has no idea in what particular point she has failed, so she gives it again, very likely as she gave it before, or she may put the emphasis on some other word, hop- ing by so doing to please the teacher. ' ' Why, no, May, yo.u surely can do better than that," says the teacher. So May makes another fruitless at tempt, when the teacher, disgusted, calls on an- Heading. other pupil to show her how to read. May has gained no clearer insight into the thought than she started out with, no power to grapple more successfully with a similar difficulty another time, and has lost, partly, at least her interest in the piece. She has been bothered and discouraged, and the class wearied. Sometimes when the " expression is otherwise good, the children pitch their voices too high or too low. Natural tones must be insisted upon. A good aid to the children in this respect is the ha- bitual example of quiet, clear tones in the teacher. Another fault, of otherwise good reading, is a failure to enunciate distinctly. Children are in- clined to slight many sounds, especially at the end of the words, and the teacher is apt to think, "That doesn't make so very much difference, since they are only children. When they get older they will see that their pronunciation is babyish, and adopt a correct form." This is unsound reasoning. Every time the child says las for last he is estab- lishing more firmly a habit, which, if he overcomes, it will be with much difficulty. In the pronunciation of words as well as in the reading of a sentence, much time is wasted through failure to point out the exact word, and the syllable in the word, in which the mistake has been made. The child cannot improve unless he knows in what particular there is room for im- provement.* NOTE. Much of the above treatment of primary reading is taken from an article in the Public-School Journal, by Mrs. Lida B. McMurrv 92 Special Method. CHAPTER VI. Class-room,' Method in Reading. 1. The doorway. There is a strong comfort in the idea that in the preparation of a masterpiece for a reading class the teacher may be dealing with a unity of thought in a variety of relations that makes the study a comprehensive culture-product both to herself and to the children. To become a student of Hiawatha as a whole and in its relations to In- dian life and tradition, early aboriginal history, and Longfellow's connection with the same, is to throw a deep glance into history and anthropol- ogy and to recognize literature as the permanent form of expressing their best spirit. There are a good many side-lights that a teacher needs to get from history and other literature in order to see a literary masterpiece in its true setting. It is the part of the poet to make his work intensely real and ideal, the two elements that appeal with trenchant force to children. The teacher needs not only to see the graphic pictures drawn by the artist, but to gather about these central points of view other collateral, explanatory facts that give a deeper setting to the picture. Fortu- nately, such study as this is not burdensome. <).'{ There is a joyousness and sparkle to it that can relieve many an hour of tedium. Literature in its best forms is recreation and brings an infusion of spiritual energy. We should not allow our- selves to confuse it with those more humdrum forms of school employment, like spelling, figur- ing, reading in the formal sense, grammar, writ- ing, etc. Literature is the spiritual side of school effort, the uplands of thought, where gushing springs well from the roots and shade of over- arching trees. There is jollity and music, beauty and grandeur, the freshness of cool breezes and of mountain scenery in such profusion as to sat- isfy the exuberance of youthful spirit, and to in- fuse new energy into old and tired natures. If the teacher can only get out of the narrow streets of the town and from between the dead walls of the schoolroom, up among the meadows and groves and brooks, in company with Bryant or Longfellow or Whittier, if she can only take a draft of these spirit-waters before walking into the schoolroom, her thought and conduct will be tempered into a fit instrument of culture. The teacher's preparation is not only in the in- vftellectual grasp of the thought, but in the sympa- thy, feeling, and pleasure germane to a classic. The esthetic and emotional elements, the charm of poetry and the sparkle of wit and glint of literary elegance and aptness, are what give relish and delight to true literary products. Literature ap- 94 tip-i anything 1 less than a classic is not fit for the children. 8. The leading publishing houses are now com- peting" vigorously in bringing" out the best com- plete classics in cheap, durable, well-printed form for school use. In our list the names of the pub- lishers are given. Most of the companies can be addressed in Chicago. Where this is not the case the city is usually given. Most of the companies publish the classics complete. Maynard, Merrill & Co. have abbreviated many of the classics in their extensive series. Some teachers may prefer them for this reason. Most of the books bound in boards or cloth range in price from twenty-five to fifty cents. The pamphlet editions are from twelve to fifteen cents. The larger books of mis- cellaneous collections and some of the science classics range from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a quarter. Persons so desiring may order any of the books through the Public-School Publishing Co., of Bloomington, 111. 130 Special Method. Lists of choice reading" matter for the grades: FIRST GRADE First Series. Cyrs Primer, Ginn & Co. Cyrs First Reader, Ginn & Co. First Reader (Hodskins), Ginn & Co. Riverside Primer and First Reader, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Nature Stories for Young Readers (Plants), D. C. Heath & Co. /Second Series. Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew, Maynard, Merrill & Co. A Child's Garden of Verses. Chas. Scribner's Sons. Selections to be made from the latter book by the teacher. Third Series. The Adventures of a Brownie (for teacher) Harper Brothers, New York. Kindergarten Stories and Morning Talks (Wiltse), Ginn & Co. Talks for Kindergartens and Primary Schools (Wiltse) , Ginn & Co. The last three books supply interesting 1 stories to read to the children. In the first half of the first grade the exercises in reading are mostly script lessons on the black- board, and chart work. Reading books, therefore, will be less employed than in any other grade, and these of the simplest possible kind which con- tain well expressed and interesting thought Reading. i:;i SECOND GRADE First Series. Nature Stories for Young Readers (Continued), D. C. Heath & Co. Easy Steps for Little Feet, American Book Co. Classic Stories for the Little Ones, Public-School Pub- lishing Co., Bloomington, 111. Verse and Prose for Beginners, Houghton, Mifllin&Co. Grimm's Fairy Tales (Wiltse), Ginn & Co. Second Series. Heart of Oak, No. 1, D. C. Heath & Co. German Fairy Tales (Grimm), Maynard, Merrill & Co. Fables and Folk Lore (Scudder), Houghton. Mifflin A: Co. Nature Stories for Young Readers (Animals), D. C. Heath & Co. Cat-Tails and Other Tales, Kindergarten Literature Co. Danish Fairy Tales (Andersen), Maynard, Merrill & Co. Third Series. Poetry for Children (Eliot). Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The Story Hour (Wiggin), Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The last two books are for use by the teacher, containing selections for occasional use, reading or tellinir them to the children. THIRD GRADE First Series. Robinson Crusoe, Public-School Publishing Co. Golden Book of Choice Reading, American Book Co. ^ZEsop's Fables (Stickney), Ginn & Co. Andersen's Fairy Tales, Part I, Ginn & Co. Seven Little Sisters, Ginn & Co. Heart of Oak, No. 2, D. C. Heath & Co. K52 Special Method. Second Series. Hans Andersen's Stories, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Fairy Tales in Verse and Prose (Rolfe), Harper & Brothers, New York. Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children, Ginn & Co. Andersen's Fairy Tales, Part II, Ginn & Co. Open Sesame, Part I, Ginn & Co. The last book contains a variety of selections in verse of the choicest charecter, which may be used by the teacher to supplement the reading' of third and fourth grades. A set of these books'for occasional use is needed. Third Series. Child Life in Poetry, Houghton. Miffln & Co. Child Life in Prose, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Stories from the History of Rome, Macmillan. My Saturday with a Bird Class, D. C. Heath & Co. Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe (Yonge), MacMillan. Robinson Crusoe, Maynard, Merrill & Co. Arabian Nights, Aladdin. Maynard, Merrill & Co. The third list consists of books which may be occasionally read to the class. Some of th m may be simple enough for sight-reading. They may serve also for collateral or home reading. FOURH GRADE First Series. Hawthorne's Wonder Book, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Stories of the Old^World (Church), Ginn & Co. Ulysses Among the^Phasacians (Bryant), Houghton Mifflin & Co. Kingsley's Water Babies, Macmillan, Ginn & Ce. Heading, !:{.{ Six Stories from the Arabian Nights, Houghton, Mitl'- lin & Co. Gulliver's Voyage to Lilliput, Maynard, Merrill & Co. Second Series. Kingsley's Greek Heroes, Ginn & Co. Story of the Illiad, Macmillan. Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales, Houghton, Miftiin & Co. Tales from Spenser, Macmillan. Arabian Nights (Hale), Ginn & Co. Gods and Heroes, Ginn & Co. Open Sesame, Vol. II. (Selected parts). Ginn & Co. Third Series. Heroes of Asgard, Macmillan. Story of the Odyssey, Macmillan. Gulliver's Travels, Ginn & Co. Tales of Troy, Public-School Publishing Co. Homer's Illiad, Books 1-8 (Pope), Maynard. Merrill & Co. Adventures of Ulysses (Lamb), Ginn & Co. Open Sesame, Vol. I (Continued), Ginn & Co. Up and Down the Brook (Ramford), Houghton. Miff- lin & Co. Homer, The Odyssey (Collins), J. B. Lippencott & Co., Philadelphia. Homer, The Illiad (Collins), J. B. Lippencott & Co., Philadelphia. The last four books are of special value to the teacher. * FIFTH GRADE First Series. Hiawatha, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Lays of Ancient Rome, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.; May- nard, Merrill & Co. l-'{4 Special Method. Black Beauty, Public-School Publishing Co. Songs of Labor, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. King of the Golden River, Ginn & Co. Higginson's American Explorers (pamphlets or bound volume), Lee & Shepherd, Boston. Wake Robin (selections by teacher), Houghton, Miff- lin & Co. Second Series. Tales from English History, Harper Brothers, N. Y. Ten Boys on the Road from Long Ago, Ginn & Co. Heroic Ballads, Ginn & Co. Stories from Herodotus, Maynard, Merrill & Co. Heart of Oak, No. 3 (two or three grades), D. C. Heath & Co. Children's Treasury of English Song (Choice poems fourth to seventh grades), Macmillan. Third Series. Tales of Chivalry, Harper Brothers, N. Y. Magna Charta Stories, Inter-State Publishing Co. r Boston. Stories of Colonial Children, Ed. Pub. Co. Stories of Our Country, American Book Co. Stories of Other Lands, American Book Co. Ballad Book, Leach, Shewell & Sanborn. Pioneer History Stories, Public-School Publishing Co. Book of Golden Deeds (Younge), Macmillan. The Foot-Path Way (Torrey), Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Several of these books are not classics, but they contain interesting historical and biograph- ical stories which reveal the spirit of this legend- ary and heroic epoch, from which many of the ballads and other poems spring. SIXTH (TRADE -First S< //<>. Grandfather's Chair, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The Sketch Book, Ginn & Co.; Am. Book Co.; May- nard, Merrill & Co. Miles Standish, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Snow Bound, etc., Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Tales of a Grandfather, Ginn & Co. Birds and Bees, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Second Series. The Christmas-Carol, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.: Maynard, Merrill cS; Co. The Stories of Waverly, Macmillan. The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Ginn & Co.: Maynard, Merrill & Co. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Ginn & Co.: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.; Maynard. Merrill & Co. Hunting of the Deer, etc., Houghton, Mifflin & C'o. Heart of Oak, No. 4, D. C. Heath & Co. Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics (for teacher), Macmillan. Third Series. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Ginn Co. Jason's Quest, Leach. Shewell & Sanborn. Ten Great Events in History, American Book Co. Madam How and Lady Why (Kingsley), Macmillan. Ivanhoe, Ginn & Co. Rob Roy, Ginn & Co. SEVENTH GRAVE First Series. Evangeline, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.; Maynard, Merrill & Co. Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill, etc., Houghton, Mifflin & Co. l.'J() Special Method. Sella, Thanatopsis, and other poems, Houghton, Miff- lin & Co.; Maynard, Merrill & Co. Washington's Rules of Conduct, etc., Houghton, Miff- lin & Co. Declaration of Independence (Old South Leaflets), D. C. Heath & Co. Tales of Shakespeare (Lamb), Macmillan. Sharp Eyes and Other Papers, Houghton. Mifflin & Co. Second Series. Tales of the White Hills (Hawthorne), Houghton, Miff- lin & Co. Enoch Arden and The Lotus Eaters, Maynard, Merrill & Co. Sohrab and Rustum, Leach, Shewell & Sanborn; Ameri- can Book Co. Bunker Hill Monument (Webster), Ginn & Co.: Hough- ton, Mifflin & Co.; Leach, Shewell & Sauborn; American Book Co. Poor Richard's Almanac, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Seven American Classics, American Book Co. Open Sesame, Vol. Ill, Ginn & Co. Third Series. Cricket on the Hearth, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.; May- nard, Merrill & Co. George Washington (Scudder), Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The Succession of Forest Trees, Houghton, Miffl in & Co. The Two Great Retreats, Ginn & Co. Peasant and Prince, Ginn & Co. Rab and His Friends (Brown), Home Book Co.; May- nard, Merrill & Co. Silas Marner (Eliot), Leach, Shewell & Sanborn. EIGHTH GRADE First Series. Vision of Sir Launfal, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Under the Old Elm, etc., Houghton, Mifflin & Co. . r.r, Julius Caesar, American Book Co. Lady of the Lake, American Book Co.; Maynard, Mer- rill & Co.: Ginn & Co.; Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Burke's American Orations, D. C. Heath \- Co.: May- nard, Merrill & Co. Webster's Reply to Hayne, Maynard, Merrill & Co. Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech, etc., Houghton, Mifflin A- ( to. Second Series. Merchant of Venice, American Book Co.; Ginn & Co. Marmion, Ginn & Co.; Maynard, Merrill & Co.; Hough- ton, Mifflin & Co. Masterpiece of American Literature, Houghton, Miff- lin & Co. Roger de Coverly Papers, American Book Co.: Hough- ton, Mifflin & Co.; Leach, Shevvell & Sanborn. Heart of Oak, No. 5, D. C. Heath Co. Words of Lincoln, Maynard, Merrill & Co. Selections from Ruskin, Ginn & Co.: Leach, Shewell A: Sanborn. Emerson's Fortune of the Republic, etc., Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Third Series. Bacon's Essays, Ginn & Co.; Maynard, Merrill & Co. The Holy Grail and Sir Galahad, Maynard, Merrill & Co. The American Scholar, etc. (Emerson), American Book Co. Plutarch's Lives, Ginn & Co. Vicar of Wakefield, Ginn & Go. Rasselas, Leach, Shewell & Sanborn; Ginn Co. PUBLIC-SCHOOL PUBLISHING CO. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. SUBJECT TO FINE IF WAR 6 1961 MAR 1 4 63 JAN 7 1965 RECEIV EDUCATION LIBRARY MC if- TVO1 Rfc arm L9-32m-8,'57(.C8680s4)444 WED TO A 000 994 455 4 UCLA-ED/PSYCH Library LB 1573 M22s L 005 618 828 7 Education Libran- LB M22s OF-CALlFO% \\\E UNIVERSE