Literature for Children
Date: 2011-02-02T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Children's literature

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Title: Literature for Children

Author: Orton Lowe

Release date: February 1, 2011 [eBook #35138]
Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN ***

LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN

BY
ORTON LOWE
ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT OF THE ALLEGHENY COUNTY
PENNSYLVANIA, PUBLIC SCHOOLS

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1922

All rights reserved

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Copyright, 1914,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1914.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

PREFACE

This book is about books of literature. Its excuse for being at all is in the over-reading of books that are not literature. Confusion and hurry confront both child and teacher in the land of books. The hope is held that something can be done to lead the child out of this confusion.

There is no greater possibility existing in the child's educational life than the possibility of self-cultivation in the reading of great books. Nor has there ever been a greater need for the quiet reading of such books than in a time of wonderful mechanical invention. Shall a boy fly or shall he read? It seems both fair and possible to say that he may fly but he must read. Whatever be the line of work he chooses to follow, he will have spare hours. His contribution to the life of his community and the rounding out of his individual life are dependent very largely on the wise use of these spare hours. Some spare hours may be given to music or the theatre, some to social entertainment, some to outdoor sports, some to church aid work; but some must surely be given to the reading of great books.

The following pages attempt to set the boy on the right trail, so that when he reaches man's estate he will of his own accord devote a just portion of his spare hours to books of literature. To do this, attention needs to be given to these practices: the learning of a little choice poetry by heart, the learning of a few fairy stories and myths through the ear, the reading and rereading of a few great books, the saving of money to build up a small but well-selected private bookshelf, the practice of reading aloud by the fireside or in the schoolroom. The chances are that a boy so directed will find reading a pleasure and will turn to what is really worth while. The attempt by parents and teachers to bring about an abiding love for books of power is a most commendable attempt; and, if successful, the best contribution to a refined private life. To all such attempts these pages aim to contribute.

The preparation of these pages has been made easier and surer by the generous aid of Mr. Fred L. Homer, of the Central High School of Pittsburgh, and Mr. Homer L. Clark, a business man of Cleveland, in reading a greater portion of the manuscript; by Miss Emily Beal, of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, in information on illustrated editions of children's books; and by Mr. Ernest C. Noyes, of the Peabody High School of Pittsburgh, in reading the proof.

For kind permission to use copyright material the author thanks Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Messrs. Doubleday, Page and Company for "Recessional"; Professor Richard G. Moulton for the arrangement of the selections of Hebrew poetry; Houghton, Mifflin and Company for the selections from Longfellow, Holmes, Emerson, and Whittier; and The Macmillan Company for the selections from Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Clough, and Rossetti.

ORTON LOWE.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
May, 1914.

CONTENTS

| | PAGE
Preface | v

PART I. INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER
I. | The Value of Good Books | 3
II. | Books and Literature in Elementary Schools | 11
III. | The Learning of Lyric Poetry by Heart | 18

PART II. SELECTIONS FOR MEMORIZING

| First Year | 33
| Second Year | 44
| Third Year | 56
| Fourth Year | 67
| Fifth Year | 81
| Sixth Year | 96
| Seventh Year | 115
| Eighth Year | 134

PART III. SOURCES OF STANDARD PROSE FOR CHILDREN

I. | Fairy Tales, Household Tales, and Other Fanciful Tales | 159
II. | Classic Myths in Literature | 176
III. | Books to be Owned, To Be Read and Reread | 188
IV. | On the Purchase and Care of Books | 219
V. | Editions of Standard Books | 232
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 239

PART I

INTRODUCTION

LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN

CHAPTER I

THE VALUE OF GOOD BOOKS

"The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments."

—Paul's Letter To Timothy.

The man who believes that education and books are designed for the imparting only of useful information had better read no farther than this sentence; for if he does, he will be irritated many a time by what he regards as ideal and foolish and unworthy of a practical age. But if he believes life to be something more than meat and the body something more than raiment, and that he needs his books as well as his cloak brought into Macedonia, he may with patience and sympathy follow the guesses herein at the ways and means by which good books may be brought into the life of a boy. For in the living out of the great story of securing shelter and food and raiment, the boy who has never felt the charm of a great book in chimney-corner days, or the man who has never pored over a "midnight darling" by candlelight, has missed one of the most refined and harmless pleasures of life. The very books themselves are refining because they make up the art of literature, an art that is in its highest sense an expression and interpretation of life. This art deals with the beautiful. Its appeal is primarily to the feelings. Its basis is truth whether actual or hoped for. It is this very nature of literature itself that at the start brings up the question whether the investment put into it is really worth while. How far has education a right to develop a sense of the beautiful? What abiding pleasures and tastes, if any, should the boy of school age seek and cultivate? Just what equipment for life does a boy need, anyhow?

These are big questions; they are knotty questions. They have never been settled because they cannot be answered in a way satisfactory to all. They are rather questions of temperament than of logic. To attempt an investigation into the claims of literature in a scheme of education, and to draw from such claims a logical conclusion, is beyond the ability, knowledge, or inclination of the writer; only personal impressions will be attempted in the chapters that follow. And besides, such an investigation, if it could be made, would be so out of fashion among schoolmasters at the present time that it might bring nothing but reproach on the one attempting it. The very convenient plan is to assume a certain educational specific as true and from that assumption to go straight to a favourable conclusion. In accordance with this fashion it seems the easiest way to take the privilege of the day and without more ado assume that books of literature are necessary in the education of a boy, and conclude therefrom that a principal business of the teacher is to train the boy to read books intelligently and to form a substantial taste for them. And why should not a schoolmaster who dotes on a few old favourites have an unshaken faith in his assumption and go merrily on to the business of the literature itself and what may be done toward developing among school children a taste for it?

The late Professor Norton pointed out that a taste for literature is a result of cultivation more often than a gift of nature. The years of the elementary school seem to be the time in which cultivation is easiest and the one in which the taste takes deepest root. Vigorous and tactful effort will go far to develop pure taste and abiding taste for books.

The present age is more concerned about pure food than about pure books—maybe an exemplification of John Bright's wish that the working-men of England eat bacon rather than read Bacon. The bulky, coarse food of the last century has been displaced by the sealed package of condensed food done according to a formula, and a mystery to the man who eats it. So is it in our books. We do not have the frankness and vulgarity of the eighteenth century; but instead, we have the most studied forms of insinuation, the harm of which was not approached by the coarseness of former times. Many a present-day story makes the ordinary course of life seem uninteresting, a dangerous thing for a book to do, according to Ruskin. The conduct portrayed has in it too much of personal freedom arising out of caprice, breaking too much with traditional right through what a critic once designated as "debauching innuendo and ill favoured love." The book is often spectacular or sullen in tone. It may be melodramatic, leaving the reader rebellious or with a weakened sense of responsibility. Or again, it may be given to boisterous laughter over situations based on personal misfortune or bad manners—the way of the comic supplement. And worst of all, it may become the fashion; that is, a best seller. Its name and some of its motives will probably get to the children through the talk of the parents. Then to persuade the reading public that the pure taste for the healthful story is much more worth while will try the resources of the teacher. Yet that is exactly what should be expected of him—a Herculean task and a most thankless one.

To secure a stable as well as a pure taste for things worth while in books should be an aim of the teacher. He must do this in an age when the vaudeville idea is deep-rooted. Variety takes the place of sustained attention. This begets the mood for profligacy. Something new and good is expected to turn up in the shape of a book. In this mood there is nothing to inspire to steady purpose. And it seems that the best thing left for the teacher to do is to "come out strong" on a few good books. Through fortune and misfortune such books will be permanent possessions to their reader.

The responsibility for securing this pure and abiding taste rests primarily with the teacher. He needs to know and to appreciate the good books which he desires the boy to read. He needs to know the poem or story at first hand, not criticism about it. If the teacher has real appreciation for a piece of literature, the boy will discern it in his face. Then the boy can be put on the right scent and left to trail it out for himself, as Scott long ago suggested. Time must be taken to do this: a few good things must be done without fuss or hurry. It is foolish to have a taste surfeited as soon as cultivated. Here is truly a place to be temperate as well as enthusiastic.

A teacher should be able to read aloud from a book with good effect. The voice can bring out the finer touches that are likely to be missed by the eye. No explanation in reading is so good as is adequate vocal expression. In fact, as a rule, the less explaining the better. If there is a single thing that for the last dozen years has stood in the way of boys' and girls' appreciating good literature, it is the so-called laboratory method. Of all the quack educational specifics that have been advanced, the laboratory method, with a poem or an imaginative story, has been the most presumptuous and absurd. Who cares to treat fancies and fairies according to formulæ? One might as well apply the laboratory method to his faith and his hopes in his religion.

In this struggle to bring good books into the life of the boy, many opposing forces must be met with tact and with patience. Censorship of books, like inspection of foods, may be highly desirable; but by no means is it efficacious. The worthless book will continue to obtrude itself at all times and on all occasions. Then there are the reading habits of the community, the notions of parents about what the child should read, and the child's own natural or acquired tastes,—these must all be reckoned with. Here are a few of the opposing forces to be encountered in every community:

The juvenile series—the hardest problem to handle from the book side of the question. The series is always "awful long," all of the volumes are cut to the same pattern, they are always in evidence, and they are all equally stupid. The themes range from boarding school proprieties to criminal adventure; and they are all equally false to the facts of real life or the longings for true romance. What shall be done with them?

The ease of access of the child to the daily paper with headlines inviting attention to the doings of police courts and clinics.

The eagerness with which children read the comic supplement and even ask at the public library if books of that class of humour cannot be had.

The low-grade selection that is many times given the child by the school reader as subject-matter from which to learn the great art of reading.

The prejudice of parents and even of communities against fairy tales and all forms of highly imaginative literature—the hardest thing to meet from the reading side of the question. Librarians are requested not to give fairy books to children. Such books are thought to be bad. The demand is for true books. Parents have not discovered the existence of the imagination and the part it has played in the intellectual, artistic, and spiritual progress of man. But must school teachers not first recognize the truth of this last statement before parents are expected to do so?

The impression that books of information are real literature and that they ought to be sufficient subject-matter for any child's reading.

The belief that books should teach facts and point morals rather than entertain and refine and inspire.

The early acquired taste of boys and girls for stories of everyday life; boys turning to the athletic story and girls to the school story.

Excessive reading and reading done at the suggestion of a chum.

Lack of ownership of books and of the rereading of great books.

The passing of the practice of reading aloud about the fireside.

The teacher will surely need to summon his judgment, courage, and perseverance if he is to succeed measurably in the effort for good reading. Let him not forget that his most enduring work will not be seeking to cut off from the child the book that is not good, nor yet convincing the parents that this or that book is good or bad; but it will be getting the interest and confidence of the child himself. When the teacher comes to consider that a boy naturally loves a hero, and like Tom Sawyer longs to "die temporarily," or that a girl is naturally curious to open the forbidden door of the closet as was Fatima, he cannot but see that this is good ground where the right seed will spring up many fold. Here then is the place for the teacher to sow with care. For him, the pages that follow are designed as something of a guide in the field of children's books, if, whilst working as a husbandman therein, by chance he feels the need of a fellow labourer.

CHAPTER II

BOOKS AND LITERATURE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

"He hath not fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts."

—Sir Nathaniel.

The place of literature in the primary and grammar grades of schools needs neither a defence nor an apology. Being a part of that branch called reading, it is fundamental in the course. The claims set up by branches other than that of reading and speaking English do not concern us here. We assume that the first portion of time in a programme is allotted to this. The object may be dramatic expression in the lower grades, getting the exact thought from a printed page and reproducing it in the upper grades, drill in the mechanical details of the language, such as spelling and pronunciation; or it may be that rare growth of personality that comes, say, through the skilful reading of poetry aloud. Without a fair degree of mastery of the elements of reading and speaking English by the time he completes the grammar grade work, the boy will enter a secondary school or turn to earning a living, ill-equipped either to organize and express his own thoughts, or to find profit and pleasure in gathering the thoughts of another from a printed page—the greatest accomplishment that a school can give to any one. It is rather common to hear a high school student say that he cannot get the story by reading "The Lady of the Lake." This inability is a positive discredit to what should be normal mental vigour; and such a student will be found inefficient for the serious business of life or the refined pleasure of the fireside.

Now it behooves teachers to put on their thinking caps and devise ways and means that will help students to get the thought from reading, to tell this thought, and to appreciate the excellencies of good English books. And they must do this single-handed and alone in the day school, for but little help can be looked for from the Sunday school, from many public libraries, and from the home as it is now governed. The child is turned over to the teacher to train, and in that child lurk two tendencies of American social life: the hope of getting something for nothing and the passion for constant variety. And these tendencies are unchecked by any exercise of that old-time positive authority in the home, that had much salutary influence on young barbarians. But through a foolish tolerance, the boy drifts into many habits that do not include the exemplary ones of sustained attention, industry, thrift, and self-reliance,—habits that make for efficient life. A royal road to knowledge is expected, and travel thereon is to be unrestricted by respect either for age or for authority. His hay must always be sugared. He becomes a creature of whims, and with this creature the teacher finds his task in hand. What are the reading habits and tastes that he brings from his home, and how can the teacher best improve them?

It is clear to even a casual observer that children leave the public school without the groundwork for a course of reading either for pleasure or for profit through life. It is also clear that they will get little help in this line from places other than the public school as things now obtain. And it is equally clear that the reading habits formed before the age of fourteen years are the habits and tastes that last. If then, according to his natural gifts, the student is to be led to gather the fullest measure from the field of literature, it is the special duty and privilege of the teacher to direct that gathering. To this attempt to develop a taste for good literature, some one may raise the objection that it will not fit all children—and the objection is well taken. The appeal of literature is not universal. There are a few persons who find its counterpart in a study and appreciation of the beauties and wonders of nature. Then again there are many who, instead of taking themselves to the art of books, find pleasure in perhaps the greatest of all arts, the art of social intercourse—an art that is universal enough to reach from vagabondia to the very exclusive set. However, there is a vast class devoted to a subdued and refined domestic life, and here it is that good books will bear good fruit many fold. With this class the teacher must work. What then is to be given to the children?

Of course it is understood that we are to deal with the enduring literature of childhood, the literature of power. And it is also to be understood that reading is to be done in moderation and with care. Then again it is evident that a certain amount of reading must be prescribed and thoroughly mastered. Reading must be from what is standard down to the point of appeal, lest the point always hold the boy to the earth earthy. After a taste for onions has once been developed, little hope can be entertained of making the boy a judge of the delicate flavour of grapes—they will hang high. The teacher must assert a bit of that healthful positive authority that sets many an urchin on the right path. A limited choice from books that are classics may be given in good time. All the chords of life have been struck in great literature, and a fair knowledge and good judgment can reach almost any disposition, even the most whimsical.

The thing of first importance to be prescribed is learning classical poetry by heart until its music has taken a hold on the learner. Introduce the boy to the varied field of lyric poetry and you have put before him one of the rarest and most abiding pleasures of life. Here his troubled heart may always find consolation. Nothing will bring him to a sense of his own personality with such a deft touch as a perfect lyric coming to him through his own voice. The next thing to look to is a right that is a fixed right of childhood and one that it is positively vicious to suppress, the right to the land of fairy life. A free range here will be meat and drink to any boy. Much sordidness and much selfishness in old age come to the man or woman who has not a cultivated imagination. Logic and cold facts are of precious little value in the fireside life of a family. The best things of that life are not reasoned out; but they are felt out and wondered out. Again, the great field of mythology that is so fundamentally linked to that of literature, and that is a capital mark of culture, should be open to the boy that he may roam about and wonder at its mysteries. Then he may as certainly come to own an "Age of Fable" as he must own a "Golden Treasury." And what a pair are these!

From these three fields the step will be to a knowledge and classification of books and their authors, what books to own, and how to take care of them. And to this working grasp of poetry and stories may be added a little of what is possible in history, biography, and personal essay. In this age of cheap and spurious book-making the reader must know standard editions without abridged and garbled texts. Even editors of hymn books do not hesitate to mutilate great hymns to suit their particular notions. This freedom may be a form of that exaggerated idea of personal privilege that was the gift of democracy in the past century. A good knowledge of fables and proverbial wisdom will certainly temper that notion. Such are some of the things that might be prescribed by the teacher and learned by the student. The field as thus given is limited, but the friends therein are dear friends. Nor are they to be exchanged for the new friends that may come through the advertising appeal, founded on the unsubstantial instinct for constant variety.

If enough idea of authority can ever be driven into the head of the American boy to put him into the attitude of a willing learner, good things may be looked for in habits of reading—provided the teacher be equal to the responsible task that is laid upon him. The habits of reading that measure the use of spare time, and in that way the character of the individual, will work for a more sane and less showy home life and through that for a community given to other than obtrusive and frivolous social life. What bundle of habits will serve its slave better than will this bundle? Or where is keener and more subdued pleasure to be found? Though books are a bloodless substitute for life, as Stevenson has well pointed out, we need some substitute in our hours of ease, and a good book does passing well for such a substitute; and this is especially true if the book be our favourite from the wonderful Waverley series and with it we can square about to the fire, snuff the candle, and let the rest of the world go spin.

CHAPTER III

THE LEARNING OF LYRIC POETRY

"These verses be worthy to keep a room in every man's memory: they be choicely good."

—From "The Complete Angler."

The teacher who is a workman skilled in his craft looks upon a few educational practices as being of intrinsic merit—through and through in an age of veneer and cheap imitation. Of these practices the one most fruitful under cultivation, when done with care and in moderation, is that of learning good poetry by heart. The sense of having truly learned a thing by heart, of having completely mastered it, is a most pleasant sense to have. And when the thing learned is one of the many perfect lyrics from the field of English poetry, a far-sighted judge who has lived and considered what is of most value to the individual is led to say: That is well and good. In some mysterious way this possession of a few choice poems makes for a rarer personality and gives that touch which can come only through a perfect work of art. By sheer force of intellect a man may become a cold, designing man of action and set plans on foot for the time being; but the power that is back of all great movements for civilization and culture is one that is grounded in feeling and constructive imagination. The proverbial songs of a nation are a greater force than are its laws. In one of his most entertaining essays, De Quincey points out that, when the intellect sets itself up in opposition to the feelings, one should always trust to the feelings. Normal instincts are worth more than syllogisms. The man who has attuned himself to the moods and impulses of lyric poetry is a safe man in action. Yet he is more than this; he has in him that which is the groundwork of fireside pleasures and of the joys of companionship. In other words, he is a man of cultivated imagination, and he can play in many moods.

Here it may not be amiss to mention the claim of the imagination to consideration as a faculty of the mind and inquire to what extent it should be cultivated in our schools; for if its claim be not good, there is no warrant for using any of the literature of power as subject-matter for education. Bearing on this question is the following excellent remark by the late Charles Eliot Norton, who did so very much to raise the standard of culture in American education: "The imagination is the supreme intellectual faculty, and it is of all the one that receives least attention in our common system of education. The reason is not far to seek. The imagination is of all faculties the most difficult to control, it is the most elusive of all, the rarest in its full power. But upon its healthy development depend not only the sound exercise of the faculties of observation and judgment, but also the command of the reason, the control of the will, and the growth of the moral sympathies. The means for its culture which good reading affords is the most generally available and one of the most efficient." In the same discussion Professor Norton has this to say of poetry as the highest expression of the imagination: "Poetry is one of the most efficient means of education of the moral sentiment, as well as of the intelligence. It is the source of the best culture. A man may know all science and yet remain uneducated. But let him truly possess himself of the work of any one of the great poets, and no matter what else he may fail to know, he is not without education."

To the evident truth of these quotations the humanist will readily assent; and so will the true scientist whose earnest and frank devotion to truth makes it clear to him that nothing great in his field has ever been done without a constructive imagination. The loss of artistic imagination through years of painstaking investigation will be a source of regret to any one devoted to science, as was the loss of the ability to appreciate the charm of great poetry Darwin's old age regret. The taste for this great poetry is grounded on healthful and normal instincts, and it is the part of wisdom to see that this taste be developed in youth. The boy who has nurtured his youthful imagination on the magic of great verse will waken up some morning to find himself among the competent ones of his generation. His life will be bounded by that restraint which can come only through an inability to solve the mysteries and wonders that his imagination is constantly conjuring up. He wants much that he cannot understand and reason out; and the deeper things of life, things which touch him most vitally as a living creature, he looks on with reverence. If his imagination is alive to the experiences of great poetry, he cannot scoff at things felt in the soul but impossible of explanation. To him there are sacred things in the fireside life and at the altar that are not to be laid bare by the curiosity of the reasoner in his search for truth. And when the twilight of the gods falls about him he is not curious to know, but he trusts and fears. A song is worth more to him than a proof. On this he is satisfied to throw himself.

The music of the cathedral organ that Milton could hear daily as a boy stirred his imagination, and in later years he brought forth verse that for the grandeur and scope of its imagination has never been excelled. In a minor but far more human key the songs and balladry of Scotland awakened in Burns the imagination which has made him the idol of his native land and loved wherever English poetry is known. Artistic imagination for the creation or appreciation of poetry is contagious. What is true of the poet himself is also true of the reader of great poetry; its wonderful music causes him to feel and live poems that he has not the gift to write down. It is with this feeling of poems, this appreciation of the great work of poets, that we have to do. To awaken feelings a teacher must have an imagination afire with a little verse that is choicely good, must have at least felt the pure serene a time or two. This same passion for verse, be it ever so limited, can be handed over to the boy through a judicious use of the reading voice. That is the teacher's work in hand.

What kind of verse is to be handed over to the boy, and how much is there to be of it? To the latter question the only safe answer is this: not too much. Talents and tastes vary. Every student can be made to get by rote a certain amount of verse; but as for learning it by heart, feeling and appreciating its music, that is a different thing. The greatest and most painstaking of all anthologists of English verse, Francis Turner Palgrave, claims that there ought to be more than a glimpse into the Elysian fields of song. In the best collection that has yet appeared for the teacher or student, "The Children's Treasury of English Song," Professor Palgrave has this to say in the introduction: "The treasures here collected are but a few drops from an ocean, unequalled in wealth and variety by any existing literature. But the hope is held that it may prove a pleasure and gain to the dear English and English-speaking children, all the world over,—yet the editor will hold his work but half fulfilled, unless they are tempted by it to go on and wander, in whatever direction their fancy may lead them, through the roads and winding ways of this great and glorious world of English poetry. He aims only at showing them the path, and giving them a little foretaste of our treasures.—'To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.'" That hope is to be the hope of the teacher; and it needs back of it the mastering of a few choice lyrics, after which the boy is to be sent forth to browse alone to his heart's desire.

On the question of the kind of verse to give to the boy, Professor Palgrave has made the following remark: "The standard of 'suitability to childhood' must exclude many pieces that have 'merit as poetry': pictures of life as it seems to middle age—poems coloured by sentimentalism or morbid melancholy, however attractive to readers no longer children—love as personal passion or regret (not love as the groundwork of action)—artificial or highly allusive language—have, as a rule, been held unfit. The aim has been to shun scenes and sentiments alien from the temper of average healthy childhood, and hence of greater intrinsic difficulty than poems containing unusual words." The limitations of verse for children, as stated in the remark just quoted, are reasonable and something of a guide to teachers. But they are not always easy to follow. However, nothing must be given to the child unless it has real merit as poetry, no matter how it may strike the fancy at first reading. Nor is any poem that would be otherwise good, to be excluded because it is feared the child may not completely grasp it. He may read plenty of verse that is beyond him somewhat and be all the better for having done so. The thing to be avoided is poetry that is not poetry. He may be allowed to read verse at times that would not be suitable for learning by heart. But what he learns thoroughly must be through and through great poetry. And it matters little what form it may have: ballad, song, fairy poem—he will learn to know it and to love it. Nor is it to be always within the reach of his intellect; his feelings will carry him safely beyond the narrow range of understanding.

If he would reach the boy, the teacher must find a point of contact between the home life and the altogether new life in the school. This point is without doubt the nursery rhymes. Wise indeed are parents who have taught these melodies before the school age has been reached, for the teacher can start at once with the poems he intends to have learned. But where these rhymes have not been mastered in the home, it is imperative on the part of the first-grade teacher to have them mastered in the first school year. For the teacher who hesitates about the advisability of using the Mother Goose melodies, it may be well to state their claim by a quotation from Charles Welsh in his modest but most excellent collection called "A Book of Nursery Rhymes": "The direct simplicity, dramatic imagination, and spontaneous humour of the nursery rhymes of Mother Goose will probably never be excelled by any modern verse. They will for the most part doubtless remain for all time 'the light literature of the infant scholar.' Although some fragments of what has been written since the collection was first made may go to swell the volume of this inheritance from past ages, the selection of any permanent addition will be made finally by the mother and the child. The choice will be by no means a haphazard one, for it will be founded on basal elements of human character, and it will, for the very same cause, be an absolutely autocratic choice. Experience has proved these old rhymes and jingles to be best fitted for the awakening intelligence of the child. The appeal to the imagination by evoking a sense of wonder accounts for the abiding place which these rhymes and jingles have in the literature of the nursery." The truth of these words is so evident that the teacher who would make the learning of poetry by heart a pleasure must surely recognize such rhymes as the hitching-on place between the literature of the home and that of the school.

Next in simplicity, directness, and in the interest of its appeal is verse in the ballad form. It is the easiest of all poetry to learn, for it tells a dramatic tale in a simple way. But there are few short ballads in the language suited to the grammar grades, and there is not sufficient time for learning the longer ones by heart. Many of the best old English ballads have difficulties for the child in the number of obsolete words that they contain. These two things make it difficult to use this absorbing field of poetry as subject-matter for learning by heart. It is probably best to have the boy come to know the stories of the ballads by hearing a frequent reading of them aloud by the teacher. Of the ballads selected for such reading the teacher must go to the old English field to get the greater number; but the modern field must not be neglected, for no teacher could omit that powerful yet simple work of genius, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Its charm in holding the hearer is as great as was the charm of the old mariner's eye itself when telling the tale. If such a poem has been listened to in the elementary school, it can be taught with greater ease in the secondary school. The same thing is true of many poems.

The greater number of selections that follow these two simple and direct types, the nursery rhyme and the ballad, must be classic lyrics, fairly well suited to the boy, and it matters little whether the form be song, sonnet, ode, elegy, or that of Hebrew verse. In making these selections poems of a martial nature are not to be altogether neglected; but they must have fire, for without it a war ode is one of the most obsolete works of the human intellect. An objection may be raised to the effect that this type of poem is not suited to girls. To this objection the answer may be made, that what is good literature for a boy ought to be good literature for a girl. Will not a girl appreciate that great poem of a sea fight, "The 'Revenge'"? It seems unwise to put in a list of poems to be learned by heart an example of nonsense verse. This verse evidently has a definite place in the intellectual equipment of the child, and he may pick it up later of his own accord. No one would knowingly, however, deprive him of "The Owl and the Pussy Cat," or "The Jabberwocky"; even grown-ups dote on "Little Billee," as Thackeray doubtless did himself. We must all fool more or less—even in verse.

Some teachers will ask how poetry is to be taught. To that question the absolute answer is: through the ear. All poetry is to be read aloud and well read. The dry-as-dust fellow who wants to read it merely as prose should be indicted for a crime against art. Poetry must be read musically and with a natural time and swing. At this point it should be understood that part of the work of a teacher is to develop a good reading tone of voice. The present-day tendencies toward shrieking and a mouthing of words are most deplorable tendencies. Let the teacher first master the poem and then teach it by word of mouth, and teach it as music. It will finally impress itself on the child. Now this reading by which the poem is to be taught is to be merely a good natural reading—not the affected and exaggerated one of the elocutionist. Let the child get the idea that he must say the poem over and over until it has become his own. There is much pleasure in saying poetry aloud when one is walking by himself—a rare luxury in modern city or suburban life. It does not matter if passers-by look on this practice as a sort of lunacy, for it is a most commendable kind of lunacy to have and one that all persons are not so lucky as to possess.

So much is inviting us that no claim is made that the included list is by any means the best one hundred poems. But it is one that the experience of some years of schoolroom work has proved passing good. At least it is good enough for the teacher who has not made a thorough study of the subject. This, that, and t'other substitute might be offered; but when all is said, the selections as they stand, if well mastered, will be something of a king's treasury to the boy.

For the convenience of the teacher the selections are given complete. With but few exceptions the poems are unabridged and under the original titles. When an extract has been made from a longer poem, the first verse of the selection has generally been given as a title. All poems might be remembered by first verses rather than by titles, and every anthology should have an alphabetical index to first verses. The poems as given below will vary in their appeal largely according to the mood of the teacher and his natural temperament; but he can teach no poem well unless he has mastered it himself and has come to appreciate it. There are a few selections, however, as "The Fairy Life," "The Forsaken Merman," and "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," that are so wholly delightful that the teacher may hold them as favourite children of the imagination. Let the teacher master the selections given below, and if he so choose tear out the pages containing them and then throw the rest of the book away; for if he truly knows these poems by heart, he will no longer be a stranger to literature of power, and the purpose of this book will have been fulfilled.

PART II

SELECTIONS FOR MEMORIZING

FIRST YEAR

Mother Goose Songs

I

Hark, hark,
The dogs do bark,
The beggars are coming to town;
Some in tags,
Some in rags,
And some in velvet gowns.

II

Pease porridge hot,
Pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old.
Some like it hot,
Some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot, nine days old.

III

"Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?"
"I've been to London to look at the Queen."
"Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there?"
"I frightened a little mouse under a chair."

IV

Three mice went into a hole to spin;
Puss passed by and Puss looked in:
"What are you doing, my little men?"
"Weaving coats for gentlemen."
"Please let me help you to wind off your threads."
"Ah, no, Mistress Pussy, you'd bite off our heads."

V

Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,
The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn.
Where's the boy that looks after the sheep?
He's under the haycock, fast asleep.
"Will you wake him?" "No, not I;
For if I do, he'll be sure to cry."

VI

Sleep, baby, sleep!
Our cottage vale is deep:
The little lamb is on the green,
With snowy fleece so soft and clean.
Sleep, baby, sleep!

Sleep, baby, sleep!
Thy rest shall angels keep:
While on the grass the lamb shall feed,
And never suffer want or need.
Sleep, baby, sleep!

VII

Hush thee, my babby,
Lie still with thy daddy,
Thy mammy has gone to the mill,
To grind thee some wheat
To get thee some meat,
And so, my dear babby, lie still.

VIII

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,
Upstairs and downstairs, in his nightgown,
Rapping at the window, crying through the lock,
"Are the children in their beds? now it's eight o'clock."

Little Bo-peep

Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep,
And can't tell where to find them;
Leave them alone and they'll come home,
And bring their tails behind them.

Little Bo-peep fell fast asleep,
And dreamt she heard them bleating;
But when she awoke she found it a joke,
For still they all were fleeting.

Then up she took her little crook,
Determined for to find them;
She found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed,
For they'd left all their tails behind 'em.

—Mother Goose.

I Saw a Ship A-sailing

I saw a ship a-sailing,
A-sailing on the sea;
And, oh! it was all laden
With pretty things for thee.

There were comfits in the cabin,
And apples in the hold;
The sails were made of silk,
And the masts were made of gold.

The four-and-twenty sailors
That stood between the decks
Were four-and-twenty white mice,
With chains about their necks.

The captain was a duck,
With a packet on his back;
And when the ship began to move,
The captain said, "Quack! quack!"

—Mother Goose.

Three Happy Thought Songs

I

The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

II

The rain is raining all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.

III

Of speckled eggs the birdie sings
And nests among the trees;
The sailor sings of ropes and things
In ships upon the seas.

The children sing in far Japan,
The children sing in Spain;
The organ with the organ man
Is singing in the rain.

—Robert Louis Stevenson.

Boats Sail on the Rivers

Boats sail on the rivers,
And ships sail on the seas;
But clouds that sail across the sky
Are prettier far than these.

There are bridges on the rivers,
As pretty as you please;
But the bow that bridges heaven
And overtops the trees,
And builds a road from earth to sky,
Is prettier far than these.

—Christina G. Rossetti.

Who Has Seen the Wind?

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you;
But when the leaves hang trembling
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I;
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.

—Christina G. Rossetti.

The Friendly Cow

The friendly cow all red and white
I love with all my heart;
She gives me milk with all her might,
To eat with apple tart.

She wanders lowing here and there,
And yet she cannot stray,
All in the pleasant open air,
The pleasant light of day.

And blown by all the winds that pass,
And wet with all the showers,
She walks among the meadow grass
And eats the meadow flowers.

—Robert Louis Stevenson.

Windy Nights

Whenever the moon and stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?

Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
And ships are tossed at sea,
By, on the highway, low and loud,
By at the gallop goes he.
By at the gallop he goes, and then
By he comes back at the gallop again.

—Robert Louis Stevenson.

Bed in Summer

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle light;
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree;
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

—Robert Louis Stevenson.

What Does Little Birdie Say?

What does little birdie say,
In her nest at peep of day?
Let me fly, says little birdie,
Mother, let me fly away.
Birdie, rest a little longer,
Till the little wings are stronger.
So she rests a little longer,
Then she flies away.

What does little baby say,
In her bed at peep of day?
Baby says, like little birdie,
Let me rise and fly away.
Baby, sleep a little longer,
Till the little limbs are stronger.
If she sleeps a little longer,
Baby too shall fly away.

—Alfred Lord Tennyson.

A Slumber Song

Sleep, baby, sleep.
Thy father is tending the sheep:
Thy mother is shaking the dreamland tree,
And down comes a little dream on thee.
Sleep, baby, sleep.

Sleep, baby, sleep.
The large stars are the sheep:
The little stars are the lambs, I guess,
And the bright moon is the shepherdess.
Sleep, baby, sleep.

Sleep, baby, sleep.
Our Saviour loves His sheep:
He is the Lamb of God on high,
Who for our sakes came down to die.
Sleep, baby, sleep.

—From the German by Caroline Southey.

Psalm XXIII

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil:
For thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me
In the presence of mine enemies:
Thou anointest my head with oil;
My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

—King David.

SECOND YEAR

The Light-hearted Fairy

Oh, who is so merry, so merry, heigh ho!
As the light-hearted fairy? heigh ho,
Heigh ho!
He dances and sings
To the sound of his wings
With a hey and a heigh and a ho.

Oh, who is so merry, so airy, heigh ho!
As the light-headed fairy? heigh ho,
Heigh ho!
His nectar he sips
From the primroses' lips
With a hey and a heigh and a ho.

Oh, who is so merry, so merry, heigh ho!
As the light-footed fairy? heigh ho,
Heigh ho!
The night is his noon
And his sun is the moon,
With a hey and a heigh and a ho.

—Unknown.

The Land of Counterpane

When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows for my head,

And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,

With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;

Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,

And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.

—Robert Louis Stevenson.

My Shadow

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me.

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

—Robert Louis Stevenson.

Sweet and Low

Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea;
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea.
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon, and blow,
Blow him again to me;
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
Father will come to thee soon;
Rest, rest on mother's breast,
Father will come to thee soon;
Father will come to his babe in the nest,
Silver sails all out of the west
Under the silver moon;
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.

—Alfred Lord Tennyson.

LULLABY FOR TITANIA

First Fairy

You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong;
Come not near our fairy queen.

Chorus

Philomel, with melody
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby:
Never harm,
Nor spell, nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So, good night, with lullaby.

Second Fairy

Weaving spiders, come not here;
Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence;
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm nor snail, do no offence.

Chorus

Philomel, with melody
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby:
Never harm,
Nor spell, nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So, good night, with lullaby.

—William Shakespeare.

An Old Gaelic Cradle Song

Hush! the waves are rolling in,
White with foam, white with foam!
Father toils amid the din;
But baby sleeps at home.

Hush! the winds roar hoarse and deep.
On they come, on they come!
Brother seeks the lazy sheep;
But baby sleeps at home.

Hush! the rain sweeps o'er the knowes,
Where they roam, where they roam;
Sister goes to seek the cows;
But baby sleeps at home.

—Unknown.

CHILD-SONGS

I

The City Child

Dainty little maiden, whither would you wander?
Whither from this pretty home, the home where mother dwells?
"Far, and far away," said the dainty little maiden,
"All among the gardens, auriculas, anemones,
Roses and lilies and Canterbury-bells."

Dainty little maiden, whither would you wander?
Whither from this pretty house, this city-house of ours?
"Far and far away," said the dainty little maiden,
"All among the meadows, the clover and the clematis,
Daisies and kingcups, and honeysuckle-flowers."

II

Minnie and Winnie

Minnie and Winnie
Slept in a shell.
Sleep, little ladies!
And they slept well.

Pink was the shell within,
Silver without;
Sounds of the great sea
Wander'd about.

Sleep, little ladies!
Wake not soon!
Echo on echo
Dies to the moon.

Two bright stars
Peep'd into the shell.
"What are they dreaming of?
Who can tell?"

Started a green linnet
Out of the croft;
Wake, little ladies,
The sun is aloft!

—Alfred Lord Tennyson.

The Lamb

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bade thee feed
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice;
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee.
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee.
He is calléd by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb:—

He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child:
I, a child, and thou, a lamb,
We are calléd by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee;
Little Lamb, God bless thee.

—William Blake.

The Fairies

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather!

Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home:
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.

By the craggy hill-side,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees
For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
As dig them up in spite,
He shall find their sharpest thorns
In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather!

—William Allingham.

Spring

Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king;
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
Spring, the sweet Spring!

—Thomas Nash.

Lady Moon

"I love the moon and the moon loves me;
God bless the moon and God bless me."—Old Song.

"Lady Moon, Lady Moon, where are you roving?"
"Over the sea."
"Lady Moon, Lady Moon, whom are you loving?"
"All that love me."

"Are you not tired with rolling, and never
Resting to sleep?
Why look so pale and so sad as forever
Wishing to weep?"

"Ask me not this, little child, if you love me;
You are too bold.
I must obey the great Father above me,
And do as I'm told."

—Lord Houghton.

Song To Naomi

Entreat me not to leave thee,
Or to return from following after thee;
For whither thou goest, I will go;
And where thou lodgest, I will lodge;
Thy people shall be my people,
And thy God my God;
Where thou diest, will I die,
And there will I be buried;
The Lord do so to me,
And more also,
If aught but death part thee and me.

—Ruth the Moabitess.

THIRD YEAR

The Wind

I saw you toss the kites on high
And blow the birds about the sky;
And all around I heard you pass,
Like ladies' skirts across the grass;
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!

I saw the different things you did,
But always you yourself you hid.
I felt you push, I heard you call,
I could not see yourself at all:
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!

O you that are so strong and cold,
O blower, are you young or old?
Are you a beast of field and tree,
Or just a stronger child than me?
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!

—Robert Louis Stevenson.

Ariel's Songs

I

Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip's bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

II

Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd
The wild waves whist,—
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.
Hark, hark!
Bow-wow.
The watch-dogs bark:
Bow-wow.
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow!

—William Shakespeare.

Songs of Good Cheer

I

When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh the doxy over the dale,
Why then comes in the sweet o' the year:
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

II

Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
And merrily hent the stile-a:
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.

III

A great while ago the world began,
With heigh-ho the wind and the rain:
But that's all one, our play is done,
And we'll strive to please you every day.

—William Shakespeare.

The Owl

When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

When merry milkmaids click the latch,
And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch
Twice or thrice his roundelay,
Twice or thrice his roundelay;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

—Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Answer to a Child's Question

Do you ask what the birds say? The sparrow, the dove,
The linnet, and thrush, say, "I love and I love!"
In the winter they're silent—the wind is so strong.
What it says I don't know, but it sings a loud song.
But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather,
And singing, and loving,—all come back together.
But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love,
The green fields below him, the blue sky above,
That he sings, and he sings; and forever sings he—
"I love my Love, and my Love loves me!"

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Robin Redbreast

Good-bye, good-bye to Summer!
For Summer's nearly done;
The garden smiling faintly,
Cool breezes in the sun;
Our thrushes now are silent,
Our swallows flown away,—
But Robin's here with coat of brown,
And ruddy breast-knot gay.
Robin, Robin Redbreast,
O Robin dear!
Robin sings so sweetly
In the falling of the year.

Bright yellow, red, and orange,
The leaves come down in hosts;
The trees are Indian princes,
But soon they'll turn to ghosts;
The scanty pears and apples
Hang russet on the bough;
It's Autumn, Autumn, Autumn late,
'Twill soon be Winter now.
Robin, Robin Redbreast,
O Robin dear!
And what will this poor Robin do?
For pinching days are near.

The fire-side for the cricket,
The wheat-stack for the mouse,
When trembling night-winds whistle
And moan all round the house.
The frosty ways like iron,
The branches plumed with snow,—
Alas! in winter dead and dark,
Where can poor Robin go?
Robin, Robin Redbreast,
O Robin dear!
And a crumb of bread for Robin,
His little heart to cheer!

—William Allingham.

The Unseen Playmate

When children are playing alone on the green,
In comes the playmate that never was seen.
When children are happy and lonely and good,
The Friend of the Children comes out of the wood.

Nobody heard him and nobody saw,
His is a picture you never could draw,
But he's sure to be present, abroad or at home,
When children are happy and playing alone.

He lies in the laurel, he runs on the grass,
He sings when you tinkle the musical glass;
Whene'er you are happy and cannot tell why,
The Friend of the Children is sure to be by!

He loves to be little, he hates to be big,
'Tis he that inhabits the caves that you dig;
'Tis he when you play with your soldiers of tin
That sides with the Frenchmen and never can win.

'Tis he, when at night you go off to your bed,
Bids you go to your sleep and not trouble your head;
For wherever they're lying, in cupboard or shelf,
'Tis he will take care of your playthings himself!

—Robert Louis Stevenson.

A Laughing Song

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;

When the meadows laugh with lively green,
And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene;
When Mary, and Susan, and Emily,
With their sweet round mouths sing, "Ha, ha, he!"

When the painted birds laugh in the shade,
Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread:
Come live, and be merry, and join with me
To sing the sweet chorus of "Ha, ha, he!"

—William Blake.

Lullaby of an Infant Chief

Oh, hush thee, my babie! thy sire was a knight,
Thy mother a lady, both lovely and bright;
The woods and the glens, from the towers which we see,
They all are belonging, dear babie, to thee.

Oh, fear not the bugle, though loudly it blows,
It calls but the warders that guard thy repose;
Their bows would be bended, their blades would be red,
Ere the step of a foeman draw near to thy bed.

Oh, hush thee, my babie! the time soon will come,
When thy sleep shall be broken by trumpet and drum;
Then hush thee, my darling! take rest while you may;
For strife comes with manhood, and waking with day.

—Sir Walter Scott.

The Fairy Queen

(An Old Song)

Come follow, follow me,
You fairy elves that be,
Which circle on the green;
Come, follow Mab your queen.
Hand in hand let's dance around,
For this place is fairy ground.

The grasshopper, gnat, and fly,
Serve for our minstrelsy;
Grace said, we dance a while
And so the time beguile:
And if the moon doth hide her head,
The glowworm lights us home to bed.

On tops of dewy grass
So nimbly do we pass,
The young and tender stalk
Ne'er bends when we do walk;
Yet in the morning may be seen
Where we the night before have been.

—Unknown.

Ring Out, Wild Bells

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

—Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Song of Spring

The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh,
Leaping upon the mountains,
Skipping upon the hills.
My beloved is like a roe or a young hart:
Behold, he standeth behind our wall,
He looketh forth at the windows,
Showing himself through the lattice.
My beloved spake and said unto me:
Rise up, my love, my fair one,
And come away.

For, lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of the singing of birds is come,
And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs,
And the vines with the tender grape
Give a good smell.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
And come away.

—King Solomon.

FOURTH YEAR

Pippa's Song

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in his heaven—
All's right with the world!

—Robert Browning.

A Sea Dirge

Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Hark! now I hear them,—
Ding, dong, bell.

—William Shakespeare.

Hark! Hark! the Lark

Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phœbus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chalic'd flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With everything that pretty bin,
My lady sweet, arise;
Arise, arise!

—William Shakespeare.

Winter

When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail;
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;
Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marion's nose looks red and raw;
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;
Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

—William Shakespeare.

A Fairy's Song

Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green:
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

—William Shakespeare.

A Land Dirge

Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
Call unto his funeral dole
The ant, the field mouse, and the mole
To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm,
And (when gay tombs are robb'd) sustain no harm:
But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men:
For with his nails he'll dig them up again.

—John Webster.

My Heart Leaps Up

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began,
So is it now I am a man,
So be it when I shall grow old
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man:
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

—William Wordsworth.

A Morning Song

Pack, clouds, away, and welcome day:
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet air blow soft, mount larks aloft,
To give my Love good-morrow!
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark I'll borrow;
Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale, sing,
To give my Love good-morrow;
To give my Love good-morrow
Notes from them both I'll borrow.

Wake from thy nest, Robin-red-breast,
Sing, birds, in every furrow;
And from each hill, let music shrill
Give my fair Love good-morrow!
Blackbird and thrush in every bush,
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow!
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves,
Sing my fair Love good-morrow
To give my Love good-morrow;
Sing, birds, in every furrow!

—Thomas Heywood.

In March

The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter,
The green field sleeps in the sun:
The oldest and youngest
Are at work with the strongest:
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising,
There are forty feeding like one!

Like an army defeated,
The snow has retreated,
And now doth fare ill
On the top of the bare hill;
The ploughboy is whooping—anon—anon:
There's joy in the mountains;
There's life in the fountains,
Small clouds are sailing,
Blue sky prevailing,
The rain is over and gone!

—William Wordsworth.

Choral Song to the Illyrian Peasants

Up, up! ye dames, ye lasses gay!
To the meadows trip away.
'Tis you must tend the flocks this morn,
And scare the small birds from the corn.
Not a soul at home may stay:
For the shepherds must go
With lance and bow
To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.

Leave the hearth and leave the house
To the cricket and the mouse:
Find grannam out a sunny seat,
With babe and lambkin at her feet.
Not a soul at home may stay:
For the shepherds must go
With lance and bow
To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

The Forsaken Merman

Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below.
Now my brothers call from the bay;
Now the great winds shoreward blow;
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away.
This way, this way!

Call her once before you go.
Call once yet.
In a voice that she will know:
"Margaret! Margaret!"
Children's voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother's ear:
Children's voices, wild with pain.
Surely she will come again.
Call her once and come away.
This way, this way!
"Mother dear, we cannot stay.
The wild white horses foam and fret."
Margaret! Margaret!

Come, dear children, come away down.
Call no more.
One last look at the white-wall'd town,
And the little gray church on the windy shore.
Then come down.
She will not come though you call all day.
Come away, come away.

Children dear, was it yesterday
We heard the sweet bells over the bay?
In the caverns where we lay,
Through the surf and through the swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell?
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam;
Where the salt weed sways in the stream;
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail, and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye?
When did music come this way?
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me.
On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of the far-off bell.
She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea.
She said, "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray
In the little gray church on the shore to-day.
'Twill be Easter-time in the world—ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee."
I said, "Go up, dear heart, through the waves.
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves."
She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, were we long alone?
"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.
Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say.
Come," I said, and we rose through the surf in the bay.
We went up the beach, by the sandy down
Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town,
Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still,
To the little gray church on the windy hill.
From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,
But we stood without in the cold-blowing airs.
We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,
And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.
She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:
"Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here.
Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone.
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan."
But, ah! she gave me never a look,
For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book.
Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.
Come away, children, call no more.
Come away, come down, call no more.

Down, down, down;
Down to the depths of the sea.
She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.
Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy,
For the humming street, and the child with its toy;
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;
For the wheel where I spun,
And the blessèd light of the sun."
And so she sings her fill,
Singing most joyfully,
Till the shuttle falls from her hand,
And the whizzing wheel stands still.
She steals to the window, and looks at the sand;
And over the sand at the sea;
And her eyes are set in a stare;
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh
For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden,
And the gleam of her golden hair.

Come away, away, children.
Come, children, come down.
The hoarse wind blows colder;
Lights shine in the town.
She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;
She will hear the winds howling,
Will hear the waves roar.
We shall see, while above us
The waves roar and whirl,
A ceiling of amber,
A pavement of pearl.
Singing, "Here came a mortal,
But faithless was she:
And alone dwell for ever
The kings of the sea."

But, children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow;
When clear falls the moonlight;
When spring-tides are low:
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starr'd with broom;
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanch'd sands a gloom:
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie;
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hill-side—
And then come back down,
Singing, "There dwells a loved one,
But cruel is she.
She left lonely forever
The kings of the sea."

—Matthew Arnold.

Psalm VIII

O Lord, our Lord,
How excellent is thy name in all the earth!

Who hast set thy glory above the heavens,
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength,
Because of thine enemies,
That thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
The moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man that thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man, that thou visitest him?

For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels,
And hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands;
Thou hast put all things under his feet:

All sheep and oxen,
Yea, and the beasts of the field;
The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea,
And whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord,
How excellent is thy name in all the earth!

—King David.

FIFTH YEAR

The Bugle Song

The splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

—Alfred Lord Tennyson.

The Brook

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go.
But I go on forever.

—Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Hymn to Diana

Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wishèd sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever:
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright!

—Ben Jonson.

The Burning Babe

As I in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat, which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty babe, all burning bright, did in the air appear;
Who, scorchèd with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed,
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed:—
"Alas!" quoth He, "but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!

"My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns;
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defilèd souls,
For which, as now on fire I am, to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood."—
With this He vanished out of sight, and swiftly shrunk away;
And straight I callèd unto mind that it was Christmas-day.

—Robert Southwell.

At Sea

A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast
And fills the white and rustling sail
And bends the gallant mast;
And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
While like the eagle free
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.

O for a soft and gentle wind!
I heard a fair one cry;
But give to me the snoring breeze
And white waves heaving high;
And white waves heaving high, my lads,
The good ship tight and free:—
The world of waters is our home,
And merry men are we.

There's tempest in yon hornèd moon,
And lightning in yon cloud;
But hark the music, mariners!
The wind is piping loud;
The wind is piping loud, my boys,
The lightning flashes free—
While the hollow oak our palace is,
Our heritage the sea.

—Allan Cunningham.

Where Lies the Land?

Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face,
Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace;
Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below
The foaming wake far widening as we go.

On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave,
How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave!
The dripping sailor on the reeling mast
Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past.

Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

—Arthur Hugh Clough.

Under the Greenwood Tree

Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat—
Come hither, come hither, come hither!
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

Who doth ambition shun
And loves to live i' the sun,
Seeking the food he eats
And pleased with what he gets—
Come hither, come hither, come hither!
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

—William Shakespeare.

To Daffodils

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon:
As yet the early-rising Sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a Spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay
As you, or anything.
We die,
As your hours do, and dry
Away
Like to the Summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of Morning's dew
Ne'er to be found again.

—Robert Herrick.

Autumn

The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying;
And the year
On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
Is lying.
Come, Months, come away,
From November to May,
In your saddest array,—
Follow the bier
Of the dead cold year,
And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.

The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling,
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling,
For the year;
The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone
To his dwelling.
Come, Months, come away;
Put on white, black, and gray;
Let your light sisters play;
Ye, follow the bier
Of the dead cold year,
And make her grave green with tear on tear.

—Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Robin Goodfellow

From Oberon, in fairy land,
The king of ghosts and shadows there,
Mad Robin I, at his command,
Am sent to view the night-sports here.
What revel rout
Is kept about,
In every corner where I go,
I will o'ersee,
And merry be,
And make good sport, with ho, ho, ho!

More swift than lightning can I fly
About this airy welkin soon,
And, in a minute's space, descry
Each thing that's done below the moon.
There's not a hag
Or ghost shall wag,
Or cry 'ware goblins, where I go;
But, Robin, I
Their feast will spy,
And send them home with ho, ho, ho!

Whene'er such wanderers I meet,
As from their night-sports they trudge home,
With counterfeiting voice I greet,
And call them on with me to roam;
Through woods, through lakes,
Through bogs, through brakes,
Or else, unseen, with them I go,
All in the nick
To play some trick,
And frolic it, with ho, ho, ho!

Sometimes I meet them like a man,
Sometimes an ox, sometimes a hound;
And to a horse I turn me can,
To trip and trot about them round.
But if to ride,
My back they stride,
More swift than wind away I go,
O'er hedge and lands.
Through pools and ponds,
I hurry, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

By wells and rills, in meadows green,
We nightly dance our heyday guise;
And to our fairy King and Queen,
We chant our moonlight minstrelsies.
When larks 'gin sing,
Away we fling;
And babes new born steal as we go;
And elf in bed,
We leave instead,
And wend us laughing, ho, ho, ho!

From hag-bred Merlin's time have I
Thus nightly revell'd to and fro;
And for my pranks men call me by
The name of Robin Good-fellow.
Fiends, ghosts, and sprites,
Who haunt the nights,
The hags and goblins do me know;
And beldames old
So valé, valé! ho, ho, ho!

—Unknown.

Boot and Saddle

Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!
Rescue my castle before the hot day
Brightens to blue from its silvery gray,
Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!

Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say;
Many's the friend there, will listen and pray
"God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay—
Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"

Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay,
Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array,
Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, by my fay,
Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"

Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest, and gay,
Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay!
I've better counsellors; what counsel they?
Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"

—Robert Browning.

Psalm XIX

The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament showeth his handiwork.
Day unto day uttereth speech,
And night unto night sheweth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language,
Where their voice is not heard.
Their line is gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.

In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
And rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
His going forth is from the end of the heaven,
And his circuit unto the ends of it:
And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul:
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart:
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever:
The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold:
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

Moreover by them is thy servant warned:
And in keeping of them there is great reward.
Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.
Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have
dominion over me:
Then shall I be upright,
And I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight,
O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.

—King David.

SIXTH YEAR

The Northern Star

(A Tynemouth Ship)

The "Northern Star"
Sail'd over the bar
Bound to the Baltic Sea;
In the morning gray
She stretch'd away:—
'Twas a weary day to me!

For many an hour
In sleet and shower
By the lighthouse rock I stray;
And watch till dark
For the wingèd bark
Of him that is far away.

The castle's bound
I wander round,
Amidst the grassy graves:
But all I hear
Is the north-wind drear,
And all I see are the waves.

The "Northern Star"
Is set afar!
Set in the Baltic Sea:
And the waves have spread
The sandy bed
That holds my Love from me.

—Unknown.

The First Swallow

The gorse is yellow on the heath;
The banks of speedwell flowers are gay;
The oaks are budding, and beneath,
The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath,
The silver wreath of May.

The welcome guest of settled spring,
The swallow, too, is come at last
Just at sunset, when thrushes sing,
I saw her dash with rapid wing,
And hail'd her as she past.

Come, summer visitant, attach
To my reed roof your nest of clay,
And let my ear your music catch,
Low twittering underneath the thatch,
At the gray dawn of day.

—Charlotte Smith.

Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh ho! sing, heigh ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember'd not.
Heigh ho! sing, heigh ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

—William Shakespeare.

The Death of the Flowers

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perish'd long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchid died amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

—William Cullen Bryant.

The Wreck of the Hesperus

It was the schooner Hesperus,
That sail'd the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth;
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailòr,
Had sailed the Spanish Main:
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the North-east;
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frightened steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,
And do not tremble so;
For I can weather the roughest gale,
That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat,
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to a mast.

"O father! I hear the church bells ring.
O say, what may it be?"
"'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"—
And he steered for the open sea.

"O father! I hear the sound of guns,
O say, what may it be?"
"Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light,
O say, what may it be?"
But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies;
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That savèd she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the waves,
On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Towards the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf,
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a weary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side,
Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts, went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe!

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The Sands of Dee

"O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
Across the sands of Dee."
The western wind was wild and dark with foam,
And all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand,
And o'er and o'er the sand,
And round and round the sand,
As far as eye could see.
The rolling mist came down and hid the land:
And never home came she.

"O is it weed, or fish, or floating hair—
A tress of golden hair,
A drownèd maiden's hair,
Above the nets at sea?"
Was never salmon yet that shone so fair
Among the stakes of Dee.

They row'd her in across the rolling foam
The cruel crawling foam,
The cruel hungry foam,
To her grave beside the sea.
But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home,
Across the sands of Dee.

—Charles Kingsley.

Canadian Boat Song

Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep tune, and our oars keep time;
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We'll sing at St. Anne's our parting hymn.
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast;
The Rapids are near, and the daylight's past.

Why should we yet our sail unfurl?
There is not a breath the blue wave to curl;
But when the wind blows off the shore,
Oh! sweetly we'll rest our weary oar.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near, and the daylight's past.

Ottawa's tide! this trembling moon
Shall see us float over thy surges soon:
Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers,
Oh! grant us cool heavens, and favouring airs.
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near, and the daylight's past.

—Thomas Moore.

Return of the Ancient Mariner

O wedding-guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide, wide sea:
So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!

To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Now Fades the Last Long Streak of Snow

Now fades the last long streak of snow,
Now burgeons every maze of quick
About the flowering squares, and thick
By ashen roots the violets blow.

Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue,
And drown'd in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song.

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail
On winding stream or distant sea;

Where now the seamew pipes, or dives
In yonder greening gleam, and fly
The happy birds, that change their sky
To build and brood; that live their lives,

From land to land; and in my breast
Spring wakens too; and my regret
Becomes an April violet,
And buds and blossoms like the rest.

—Alfred Lord Tennyson.

How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;
At Düffield, 'twas morning as plain as could be;
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,
So, Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"

At Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle stood black every one,
To stare thro' the mist at us galloping past,
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,
With resolute shoulders, each butting away
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray;

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;
And one eye's black intelligence,—ever that glance
O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!
And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon
His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur!
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her,
We'll remember at Aix"—for one heard the quick wheeze
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,
As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

So, we were left galloping, Joris and I,
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,
'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;
Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,
And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!"

"How they'll greet us!"—and all in a moment his roan
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim.

Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall,
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.

And all I remember is—friends flocking round
As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground;
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)
Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.

—Robert Browning.

The Destruction of Sennacherib

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen;
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still.

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider, distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal,
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.

—Lord Byron.

Psalm XCI

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress:
My God; in him will I trust.
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler,
And from the noisome pestilence.
He shall cover thee with his feathers,
And under his wings shalt thou trust:
His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night;
Nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness;
Nor for the destruction that wasteth by noon-day.
A thousand shall fall at thy side,
And ten thousand at thy right hand;
But it shall not come nigh thee.
Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold
And see the reward of the wicked.

Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge,
Even the most High, thy habitation;
There shall no evil befall thee,
Neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
For he shall give his angels charge over thee,
To keep thee in all thy ways.
They shall bear thee up in their hands,
Lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder:
The young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him:
I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
He shall call upon me, and I will answer him:
I will be with him in trouble;
I will deliver him, and honour him.
With long life will I satisfy him,
And show him my salvation.

—King David.

SEVENTH YEAR

The Pilgrim

Who would true valour see
Let him come hither.
One here will constant be,
Come wind, come weather:
There's no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first-avow'd intent
To be a Pilgrim.

Whoso beset him round
With dismal stories,
Do but themselves confound;
His strength the more is.
No lion can him fright;
He'll with a giant fight;
But he will have a right
To be a Pilgrim.

Nor enemy, nor fiend,
Can daunt his spirit;
He knows he at the end
Shall Life inherit:—
Then, fancies, fly away;
He'll not fear what men say;
He'll labour night and day,
To be a Pilgrim.

—John Bunyan.

The Cloud

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noon-day dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet birds every one,
When rocked to rest on their Mother's breast,
As she dances in the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the Blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers,
Lightning, my pilot, sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the Thunder—
It struggles and howls by fits.
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the Genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;
And I, all the while, bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

—Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The Gathering Song of Donald the Black

Pibroch of Donuil Dhu
Pibroch of Donuil,
Wake thy wild voice anew,
Summon Clan Conuil.
Come away, come away,
Hark to the summons!
Come in your war-array,
Gentles and commons.

Come from deep glen, and
From mountain so rocky;
The war-pipe and pennon
Are at Inverlocky.
Come every hill-plaid, and
True heart that wears one,
Come every steel blade, and
Strong hand that bears one.

Leave untended the herd,
The flock without shelter;
Leave the corpse uninterr'd,
The bride at the altar;
Leave the deer, leave the steer,
Leave nets and barges:
Come with your fighting gear,
Broadswords and targes.

Come as the winds come, when
Forests are rended,
Come as the waves come, when
Navies are stranded:
Faster come, faster come,
Faster and faster,
Chief, vassal, page and groom,
Tenant and master.

Fast they come, fast they come;
See how they gather!
Wide waves the eagle plume
Blended with heather.
Cast your plaids, draw your blades,
Forward each man set!
Pibroch of Donuil Dhu,
Knell for the onset!

—Sir Walter Scott.

Indian Summer

From gold to gray
Our mild, sweet day
Of Indian summer fades too soon:
But tenderly
Above the sea
Hangs, white and calm, the hunter's moon.

In its pale fire
The village spire
Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance:
The painted walls
Whereon it falls
Transfigured stand in marble trance.

—John Greenleaf Whittier.

Morning

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,
Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and wreathèd Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe;
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;
And if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreprovèd pleasures free;
To hear the Lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good morrow,
Through the sweetbrier, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:
While the Cock with lively din,
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn door,
Stoutly struts his dames before,
Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill.
Sometime walking not unseen
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great Sun begins his state,
Robed in flames and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight:
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

—John Milton.

Who is Sylvia?

Who is Sylvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admirèd be.

Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness:
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness,
And, being help'd, inhabits there.

Then to Sylvia let us sing,
That Sylvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.

—William Shakespeare.

The Revenge

(A Ballad of the Fleet)

At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from far away:
"Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!"
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: "'Fore God I am no coward;
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,
And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?"

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: "I know you are no coward;
You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.
But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore.
I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,
To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain."

So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that day,
Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven;
But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land
Very carefully and slow,
Men of Bideford in Devon,
And we laid them on the ballast down below;
For we brought them all aboard,
And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain,
To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.
He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,
And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight,
With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.
"Shall we fight or shall we fly?
Good Sir Richard, tell us now,
For to fight is but to die!
There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set."
And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good English men.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,
For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet."

Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a hurrah, and so
The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;
For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen,
And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea-lane between.
Thousands of their soldiers look'd down from their decks and laugh'd,
Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft
Running on and on, till delay'd
By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hundred tons,
And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns,
Took the breath from our sails, and we stay'd.

And while now the great San Philip hung above us like a cloud
Whence the thunderbolt will fall
Long and loud,
Four galleons drew away
From the Spanish fleet that day,
And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay,
And the battle-thunder broke from them all.

But anon the great San Philip, she bethought herself and went
Having that within her womb that had left her ill content;
And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us hand to hand,
For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers,
And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that shakes his ears
When he leaps from the water to the land.

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea,
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.
Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame;
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame.
And some were sunk and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us no more—
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?

For he said "Fight on! fight on!"
Tho' his vessel was all but a wreck;
And it chanced that, when half of the short summer night was gone,
With a grisly wound to be drest he had left the deck,
But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead,
And himself he was wounded again in the side and the head,
And he said "Fight on! fight on!"

And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer sea,
And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring;
But they dared not touch us again, for they fear'd that we still could sting,
So they watch'd what the end would be.
And we had not fought them in vain,
But in perilous plight were we,
Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain,
And half of the rest of us maim'd for life
In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife;
And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold,
And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it spent;
And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side;
But Sir Richard cried in his English pride,
"We have fought such a fight for a day and a night
As may never be fought again!
We have won great glory, my men!
And a day less or more
At sea or ashore,
We die—does it matter when?
Sink me the ship, Master Gunner—sink her, split her in twain!
Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!"

And the gunner said, "Ay, ay," but the seamen made reply:
"We have children, we have wives,
And the Lord hath spared our lives.
We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to let us go;
We shall live to fight again and to strike another blow."
And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the foe.

And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then,
Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last,
And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace;
But he rose upon their decks, and he cried:
"I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true;
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do;
With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Grenville die!"
And he fell upon their decks, and he died.

And they stared at the dead that had been so valiant and true,
And had holden the power and glory of Spain so cheap
That he dared her with one little ship and his English few;
Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they knew,
But they sank his body with honour down into the deep,
And they mann'd the Revenge with a swarthier alien crew,
And away she sail'd with her loss and long'd for her own;
When a wind from the lands they had ruin'd awoke from sleep,
And the water began to heave and the weather to moan,
And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew,
And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew,
Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and their flags,
And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter'd navy of Spain,
And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags
To be lost evermore in the main.

—Alfred Lord Tennyson.

How Sleep the Brave

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung:
There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

—William Collins.

A Life on the Ocean Wave

A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep,
Where the scattered waters rave,
And the winds their revels keep!

Like an eagle caged, I pine
On this dull, unchanging shore:
Oh! give me the flashing brine,
The spray and the tempest's roar!

Once more on the deck I stand
Of my own swift-gliding craft:
Set sail! farewell to the land!
The gale follows fair abaft.
We shoot through the sparkling foam
Like an ocean-bird set free:
Like the ocean-bird, our home
We'll find far out on the sea.

The land is no longer in view,
The clouds have begun to frown:
But with a stout vessel and crew,
We'll say, Let the storm come down!
And the song of our heart shall be,
While the winds and waters rave,
A home on the rolling sea!
A life on the ocean wave!

—Epes Sargent.

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

—Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Psalm XC

Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place
In all generations.

Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Thou turnest man to destruction;
And sayest, Return, ye children of men.
For a thousand years in thy sight
Are but as yesterday when it is past,
And as a watch in the night.
Thou carriest them away as with a flood;
They are as a sleep:
In the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up;
In the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

For we are consumed by thine anger,
And by thy wrath are we troubled.

Thou hast set our iniquities before thee,
Our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
For all our days are passed away in thy wrath:
We spend our years as a tale that is told.
The days of our years are threescore years and ten;
And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,
Yet is their strength labour and sorrow;
For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Who knoweth the power of thine anger?
Even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.

So teach us to number our days,
That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Return, O Lord, how long?
And let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
O satisfy us early with thy mercy;
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us,
And the years wherein we have seen evil.
Let thy work appear unto thy servants,
And thy glory unto their children.
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us:
And establish thou the work of our hands upon us;
Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

—King David.

EIGHTH YEAR

The Concord Hymn

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:—
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company;
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.

—William Wordsworth.

The Chambered Nautilus

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In Gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
And the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,—
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from Wreathèd Horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—

Build thee more stately 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!

—Oliver Wendell Holmes.

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometime like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them,—thou hast thy music too,
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

—John Keats.

To a Waterfowl

Whither, 'midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,—
The desert and illimitable air,—
Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fann'd,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend
Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone—the abyss of heaven
Hath swallow'd up thy form—yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

He, who from zone to zone
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

—William Cullen Bryant.

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer rul'd as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

—John Keats.

Recessional

God of our fathers, known of old—
Lord of our far-flung battle line—
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies—
The Captains and the Kings depart—
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away—
On dune and headland sinks the fire—
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe—
Such boasting as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard—
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard—
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!

—Rudyard Kipling.

Sir Patrick Spens

I. The Sailing

The king sits in Dunfermline town
Drinking the blude-red wine:
"O whare will I get a skeely skipper
To sail this new ship o' mine?"

O up and spak an eldern knight,
Sat at the king's right knee:
"Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor
That ever sail'd the sea."

Our king has written a braid letter,
And seal'd it with his hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,
Was walking on the strand.

"To Noroway, to Noroway,
To Noroway o'er the faem;
The king's daughter o' Noroway,
'Tis thou must bring her hame."

The first word that Sir Patrick read
So loud, loud laugh'd he;
The neist word that Sir Patrick read
The tear blinded his e'e.

"O wha is this has done this deed
And tauld the king o' me,
To send us out, at this time o' year,
To sail upon the sea?

"Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet,
Our ship must sail the faem;
The king's daughter o' Noroway,
'Tis we must fetch her hame."

They hoysed their sails on Monenday morn
Wi' a' the speed they may;
They hae landed in Noroway
Upon a Wodensday.

II. The Return

"Mak ready, mak ready, my merry men a'!
Our gude ship sails the morn."
"Now ever alack, my master dear,
I fear a deadly storm.

"I saw the new moon late yestreen
Wi' the auld moon in her arm;
And if we gang to sea, master,
I fear we'll come to harm."

They hadna sail'd a league, a league,
A league but barely three,
When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew loud,
And gurly grew the sea.

The ankers brak, and the topmast lap,
It was sic a deadly storm:
And the waves cam owre the broken ship
Till a' her sides were torn.

"Go fetch a web o' the silken claith,
Another o' the twine,
And wap them into our ship's side,
And let nae the sea come in."

They fetch'd a web o' the silken claith
Another o' the twine,
And they wapp'd them round that gude ship's side,
But still the sea came in.

O laith, laith were our gude Scots lords
To wet their cork-heel'd shoon;
But lang or a' the play was play'd
They wat their hats aboon.

And mony was the feather bed
That flatter'd on the faem;
And mony was the gude lord's son
That never mair cam hame.

O lang, lang may the ladies sit,
Wi' their fans into their hand,
Before they see Sir Patrick Spens
Come sailing to the strand!

And lang, lang may the maidens sit
Wi' their gowd kames in their hair,
A-waiting for their ain dear loves!
For them they'll see nae mair.

Half-owre, half-owre to Aberdour,
'Tis fifty fathoms deep;
And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens,
Wi' the Scots lords at his feet!

—Unknown.

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wand'ring near her secret bow'r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke:
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike th' inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village Hampden that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes—

Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbade to wade thro' slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool, sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlettered Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate—

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove,
Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he:

"The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne.
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon agèd thorn:"

The Epitaph

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A Youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wished) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.

—Thomas Gray.

Psalm CIII

Bless the Lord, O my soul:
And all that is within me, bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all his benefits:
Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;
Who healeth all thy diseases;
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction;
Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies;
Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things;
So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.

The Lord executeth righteousness
And judgment for all that are oppressed.
He made known his ways unto Moses,
His acts unto the children of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.
He will not always chide:
Neither will he keep his anger forever.
He hath not dealt with us after our sins;
Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.

For as the heaven is high above the earth,
So great is his mercy toward them that fear him.
As far as the east is from the west,
So far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
Like as a father pitieth his children,
So the Lord pitieth them that fear him.
For he knoweth our frame;
He remembereth that we are dust.

As for man, his days are as grass:
As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone;
And the place thereof shall know it no more.
But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him,
And his righteousness unto children's children;
To such as keep his covenant,
And to those that remember his commandments to do them.

The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens;
And his kingdom ruleth over all.
Bless the Lord, ye his angels,
That excel in strength,
That do his commandments,
Hearkening unto the voice of his word.
Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts;
Ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.
Bless the Lord, all his works
In all places of his dominion:
Bless the Lord, O my soul.

—King David.

ANTHOLOGIES OF CHILDREN'S POEMS

In addition to what the student has mastered by heart he needs to own and keep within arm's reach a good anthology. He should first own "A Children's Treasury of English Song," and about the time he is ready to leave the elementary school the greatest of all collections of verse, "The Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language," must fall into his hands. The next best collection is doubtless "The Oxford Book of English Verse," by A. T. Quiller-Couch. For ballad literature "The Oxford Book of English Ballads" by the last-named editor and "The Ballad Book" by Allingham are both good. It is to be hoped that if he has a taste for verse of the ballad form, the boy may some day wander back to Percy's "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry." An occasional boy who cares little for great poetry may have a bent toward songs of war and daring. Though this tendency is to be deplored if it comes late in the boy's school life, it is best to satisfy it. A fairly good but not altogether judiciously selected anthology for this purpose is Henley's "Lyra Heroica." From this reading of poetry in anthologies the boy might go to the carefully edited and selected volumes of the great poets in the Golden Treasury Series. The step to choice complete editions is then easy.

It may chance that the boy who has once tasted of the honeydew of great poetry and who has left the elementary school to take up the actual affairs of life will go back to the authority of his teacher who first pointed out to him such a pure pleasure for his quiet hours. If this gratifying condition should come about, the teacher might name to him the following poems that are still more rare in their appeal—as he will surely come to know when he has felt the touch of "An Ode on a Grecian Urn." Here are the titles: "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day," Shakespeare; "The Time of Year Thou May'st in Me Behold," Shakespeare; "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont," Milton; "The World is too Much with Us," Wordsworth; "Milton, Thou Should'st Be Living at This Hour," Wordsworth; "Tuscan, That Wander'st in the Realms of Gloom," Longfellow; "Rose Aylmer," Landor; "Out of the Night That Covers Me," Henley; "Go Fetch to Me a Pint o' Wine," Burns; "Proud Maisie is in the Woods," Scott; "She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways," Wordsworth; "Helen, Thy Beauty is to Me," Poe; "She Walks in Beauty," Byron; "The Lost Leader," Browning; "It Was a Lover and His Lass," Shakespeare; "Callicles beneath Etna," Arnold; "La Belle Dame sans Merci," Keats; "Ode to Evening," Collins; "Ode to a Skylark," Shelley; "Ode on a Grecian Urn," Keats; "Kubla Khan," Coleridge; "Ulysses," Tennyson; "L'Allegro," Milton. From these the boy may with the coming of manhood be led to heights of such tunes of the masters as Wordsworth's powerful "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality from Earliest Childhood," and Tennyson's song that is so near to the heart of great things, "In Memoriam."

PART III

SOURCES OF STANDARD PROSE FOR CHILDREN

CHAPTER I

FAIRY TALES, HOUSEHOLD TALES, AND OTHER FANCIFUL STORIES

"In the olde times they were the only revivers of drowsy age at midnight: old and young have with his tales chim'd mattens till the cocks crow in the morning: Batchelors and Maides with his tales have compassed the Christmas fire-block till the Curfew-bell rings, Candle out: the old Shepherd and the young Plow boy after their day's labour have carol'd out a Tale of Tom Thumb to make merry with: and who but little Tom hath made long nights seem short and heavy toyles easie?"

—Said in 1611 of the Tales of Tom Thumb.

In that comforting essay, "An Apology for Idlers," Robert Louis Stevenson tells us that it is by no means certain that a man's business is the most important thing that he has to do. And somewhere else he has remarked on a club of men in Brussels who talked about the commercial affairs of Belgium during the day, but who at night came together to discuss the more serious affairs of life. These views are in accord with the Stevenson temperament that looked on life as made up of two worlds: a real workaday one to be unflinchingly faced, no matter what the task that came, and a fanciful one, a play world, that by its appeal to the ideal nature created an atmosphere of joy that made the duties of the real one more tolerable. His own life, so well balanced between work and play, so sane and healthful and inspiring in its influence on all who knew him or read his books, has shown what a romantic cast of mind can get out of life, though it suffer the handicap of ill health and worldly misfortune. The balance-wheel of his life was a playful imagination that always "hath made long nights seem short and heavy toyles easie."

Stern materialism, cold, calculatingly just, impatient with the dreamer, with no charity for lovable human frailties, has always mocked at the notion of a fanciful place where great and glorious things are going on. She spins no web from the threads of her imagination. The warp and woof of her fabric are drawn from facts; and it comes from the loom all wool, a yard wide, and used to cover the nakedness of real men and women. She has never felt the free abandon of fairy land. Her heart has never leap'd up at beholding a rainbow in the sky, a rainbow with the fabled pot of gold—though she has toiled and sweat many a day for nothing more than a mess of pottage. Whilst pointing the finger of scorn at the magic lamp, the ogre's hen, or the seven-league boots, she plays the fool and pays the fiddler in actual life merely because under it all there lurks a passion for the marvellous, founded on chance. In the business world this manifests itself in the perennial hope of a "bull market" or a "bonanza." Of course, pleasures are largely a question of taste, not a question of right, and it is everybody to his liking,—one may prefer the counting house to the back-log at the drowsy hour of midnight,—yet may we all be spared the time when fancy and romance cease to dominate men. Without them life would become mediocre, stupid, dull.

It has been claimed that a nation without fancy and romance never can hold a great place. Material prosperity without a corresponding well-being in the things of the imagination is an unfortunate prosperity. Its pleasures must necessarily be sensual pleasures that grow out of luxury. They carry the man or woman too far away from the land of childhood. Dickens saw this clearly when he said: "What enchanted us in childhood and is captivating a million young fancies now, has at the same blessed time of life, enchanted vast hosts of men and women who have done their long day's work, and laid their gray heads down to rest. It has greatly helped to keep us in some sense ever young, by preserving through our worldly ways one slender tract not overgrown with weeds, where we may walk with children sharing their delights." A good thing it is to keep that slender tract free from weeds. And the stronger the man, the more he needs to do it. Only a man who sees things out of their right proportions and who is without a sense of humour would scorn to renew his youth occasionally in the land of romance. If in life the strongest and wisest men are good at a fight, they are still better at a play. And it is no shame if their "Arabian Nights' Entertainments" is more thumbed than their Bacon's "Essays." They may be all the wiser for it. In Howard Pyle's delightful rendering of the Robin Hood tales he gives this happy admonition in the introduction: "You who so plod among serious things that you feel it a shame to give yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the land of Fancy; you who think that life hath naught to do with innocent laughter that can harm no one; these pages are not for you. Clap the leaves and go no further than this, for I tell you plainly that if you will go further you will be so scandalized by seeing good, sober folk of real history so frisk and caper in gay colours and motley that you would not know them but for the names tagged to them." And then he sees the secret of making the heart beat young whilst carrying the burdens of grown-up life, and he says, "The land of Fancy is of that pleasant kind that, when you tire of it,—whisk,—you clap the leaves of this book together and 'tis gone, and you are ready for everyday life, with no harm done."

The present age as it gives colouring to educational practices is a matter-of-fact age. Whilst boasting of freedom of thought, it has fallen into a despotism of fact. Like the Old Man of the Sea, this reign of fact has been clutching at the neck of culture and railing at the play of fancy until there is but precious little of the "merrie" life left to look to. The men who cleared away the forest can be pardoned if they lived their lives largely in the light of stern fact, and so might the sons of these men; but those as many generations removed as the present should be able to drop back to the even tenor of a domestic and school life that recognizes the play of fanciful imagination as an essential part of the business of living at all. No sooner had the founders of our nation succeeded in giving men their long-coveted political freedom than science, cock-sure of being able to solve the riddle of existence, strode upon the scene and smote the favourite creatures of the imagination hip and thigh. It not only played havoc with the fairies of our fathers, but it came perilously near doing the same with their faith. And as a result, a material and utilitarian tone has taken hold of education in most places, and boys must be practical, scientific, and wear old heads on young shoulders. This same tendency had begun in the days of Charles Lamb, for he wrote the following protest to Coleridge: "Knowledge must now come to the child in the shape of knowledge, and his empty noddle must be turned with conceit at his own powers when he has learnt that a horse is an animal and Billy is better than a horse and such like; instead of that beautiful interest in wild tales which made the child a man while all the time he suspected himself to be no bigger than a child. Science has succeeded to poetry no less in the little walks of children than with men. Is there possibility of averting this sore evil? Think of what you would have been now if, instead of being fed with tales and old wives' fables in childhood, you had been crammed with geography and natural history." And what must be said to supplanting the subject of fairy life by the anatomy and physiology of the human body? Is not a boy who knows the happy likeness of Old King Cole or Allan-a-Dale as well educated as he who recognizes the picture of an alcoholic liver? All this educational pother about having boys practical and trained to reason instead of being imaginative and romantic will die of its own accord some day, and then they may once more listen to merrie tales told under the greenwood tree.

The boy who has been nurtured on tales of fancy and who trusts to things to work out for the best of their own accord will generally fall into ways of cheerfulness and contentment. He will play the game of life out with more of heart and courage, and less of doubt and fear. He may be something of an impractical dreamer, but he will be kind and true. He will not aim to understand all mysteries and all knowledge, but will aim to make people happy rather than learned. His early experience of the feelings of pity and terror will refine his emotions as much as it did in the age of Thespias those of the Greek youth. In other words, his early familiarity with fairy tales, whether learned by word of mouth from his father, his nurse, or his teacher, will set his face in the right direction. And to keep it so turned he will of necessity have to build up a fairy library. What that library might contain and what he should know as a perfect lesson must now be considered.

A sense of fitness rather than a feeling of loyalty to the language points to the English fairy and household tales as the ones with which to begin. If the teacher has a folk-lore curiosity and interest which aid him in giving these fairy tales to the children, that is well and good. But this historic view is by no means so important as it is to know thoroughly the tales themselves and to enter into an appreciation of them with a keen and boyish interest. The present concern is with a limited number of stories that are so wholly good and so very necessary to the child that he should come to know them completely. Then from this beginning the boy can wander at his own sweet will and keep friends with Jacobs, Perrault, Grimm, Andersen, and, last of all and no doubt best of all, "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments." But from all of these the rude vigour, the dramatic directness, and above all the playful humour of the English tales will first captivate him. They have not quite the grace, simplicity, and elegance of the French tales, nor the more fanciful and romantic touches of the German tales; yet, as Mr. Jacobs has told us, "They have the quality of going home to English children. The English folk-muse wears homespun and plods afoot, albeit with a cheerful smile and a steady gaze."

"English Fairy Tales" and "More English Fairy Tales" should be in the hands of every child. The stories are told in a way that preserves all of their dramatic interest and humour of phrase and situation. This characteristic humour of English folk-fancy, Mr. Jacobs has skilfully caught. He has this to say of his way of telling them: "I am inclined to follow the traditions of my old nurse, who was not bred at Girton and scorned at times the rules of Lindley Murray and the diction of polite society. And I have left vulgarisms in the mouths of vulgar people. Children appreciate the dramatic propriety of this as much as do their elders. Generally speaking, it has been my ambition to write as a good old nurse would speak when she tells Fairy Tales. I am doubtful of my success in catching the colloquial-romantic tone appropriate for such narratives, but they had to be done or else my object, to give a book of English Fairy Tales which children would listen to, would have been unachieved. This book is to be read aloud and not merely to be taken by the eye." All children should rejoice, that, so long after Puritanism had suppressed these tales in many parts of England, and after its decline they had come to be supplanted by the Mother Goose tales of Perrault, there has come such an excellent retelling of them in the Jacobs books. If there be anything in fairy literature better than "Tom Tit Tot," I have not found it. It is altogether fitting to have it stand first in such a great collection. And with other such very good tales as "Cap o' Rushes," "The Three Sillies," and "Jack and the Golden Snuff Box," to say nothing of the dramatic telling of "Hop o' My Thumb," "Jack the Giant Killer," and "Jack and the Bean Stalk," the pleasure from reading the book at the right age will mayhap never be surpassed. One might regret that the curious and helpful information of the notes had not been reserved for a separate treatise for mature readers, did not the amusing illustration of the court-crier by John D. Batton give the warning that the tales are closed and children must not read any further. After having learned some of the best stories through the ear, the boy must certainly buy and keep these two books.

After the English tales are familiar, the boy might be given the Mother Goose tales as first collected by Charles Perrault in 1696. They had been current orally in France for many years before this, and they undoubtedly had their origin in the oldest folk-lore of the world. It is said Perrault wrote them down as he heard them with the intention of writing them over in verse after the manner of the fables done by La Fontaine. But his little son, to whom they had been told, rewrote them from memory as an exercise, and the lad's version, being so simple and direct, was given to the world in that form by his father. They slowly found their way into England and for a while supplanted the native tales. There is surely a universal appeal in such stories as "Little Red Riding Hood," "Cinderella," "Puss in Boots," and "Sleeping Beauty." The best rendering of these to-day is a small volume by Charles Welsh, entitled "The Tales of Mother Goose." It has none of the poetic justice that refuses to have the wolf eat up Little Red Riding Hood. It would be well for some publisher to reprint an edition issued in New York in 1795 under the title of "Tales of Passed Times, by Mother Goose." Some good renderings of particular tales, however, may be found scattered through collections of fairy stories that have appeared.

The temptation to say something about the famous "Cruikshank Fairy Book" in which some of these Mother Goose tales appeared cannot be resisted at this point. It is a very noticeable illustration of the inability of a man of talent always to keep to his last. No artist has ever drawn such superior pictures for children as did Cruikshank. Where can anything better be found than Jack's descent on the harp, the Ogre's flight, or the presentation of the boots to the King? Why then did not Cruikshank make a picture book with pictures only? Why did he leave his last to write the stories anew in order that he might take the opportunity to give his own views and convictions on what he considered important social and educational questions; or "to introduce a few temperance truths with a fervent hope that some good may result therefrom"? The notion that moralizing makes children good has spoiled many an artistic horn and has never made a good educational spoon.

In Cruikshank's work in illustrating "Household and Fairy Tales" by the brothers Grimm, we have a masterful production from the best period of his genius, and we have it illustrating a superior text, the translation made by Edward Taylor in 1823 and reprinted in 1868 with an introduction by John Ruskin. Thackeray said that they had been the first real, kindly, agreeable, and infinitely amusing and charming illustrations for a child's book in England, and that they united beauty, fun, and fancy. And who was a better judge of this than Thackeray? If it was not too bold to say that "Tom Tit Tot" is the best household fairy story in the language, it could be said with equal truth that Cruikshank's etching of the two elves in "The Elves and the Shoemaker" is the best fairy illustration yet done. These German stories are charming. The contention that the stories are creepy is but the contention of a moralist. It should carry no weight with the teacher who would give the boy artistic notions of beauty, love, and mystery. These notions are always safer than those of cold realism worked out in artificial conduct. Sir Walter Scott wrote in this strain to Edward Taylor in 1832: "There is a sort of wild fairy interest in them which makes me think them fully better adapted to awaken the imagination and soften the heart of childhood than the good boy stories which have in late years been composed for them. In the latter case, their minds are, as it were, put into stocks, like their feet at the dancing-school, and the moral always consists in good moral conduct being crowned with temporal success. Truth is, I would not give one tear shed over Little Red Riding Hood for all the benefit to be derived from a hundred histories of Johnny Goodchild. In a word, I think the selfish tendencies will soon enough be acquired in this arithmetical age; and that, to make the higher class of character, our wild fictions—like our own simple music—will have more effect in awakening the fancy and elevating the disposition than the colder and more elaborate compositions of modern authors and composers." It is hoped the pictures of Cruikshank and the translation of Taylor will soon appear in a large and attractive volume.

When the dramatic colloquialism and humour of the English tales, the superior grace, elegance, and beauty of the French tales, and the light, airy fancy of the German tales have been presented to the boy, the Scandinavian tales of Hans Christian Andersen will give him a refinement in fairy life that he has not found before. They do not have, save in a few such cases as "Holger the Dane," the quality of appealing to grown-ups as well as to children—the test of a child's book that is literature, or rather the test of a man yet on good terms with the world. They are somewhat dull, wearisome, and overdone in places and do not stop when the story is ended, as we find in "The Fir Tree"; yet in some way they temper the English and German tales and meet Ruskin's requirement that a child's tale should sometimes be both sweet and sad. In fact, these stories are great favourites with many children, who actually prefer "The Ugly Duckling" to "The Golden Bird." The boy might early start with a few of the individual stories so delightfully illustrated by Helen Stratton, and then when he can afford it buy the excellent edition illustrated by the Danish artist, Hans Tegner, from all of which he will get a new and pleasant touch of fairy life.

There yet remains one book, not always called a fairy book, that must be read before the boy leaves the land of fancy and wonder. It was the favourite volume of Stevenson, and small surprise is it to any one who knows the book and knows of the man. Nor is it less surprising to think that the Oriental scholar, Antoine Galland, who first gave these stories to Europe two hundred years ago, would be called out of bed at night to tell them to an eager crowd under his window, the crowd always begging for just one story more. One might search in vain for a companion volume to this most capital of all books, "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments." The tales are on a bigger scale than are the English and German tales. There is a vastness of desert and starry sky in the tent life of the Arab that is unknown in the cottage life of the English peasant. And this is reflected in the tale that is told. Immensity and Oriental mystery have taken the place of colloquial directness and humour, and we have almost pure romance. Their richness and splendour captivate the reader and transport him into a wonderland of powerful magicians and magnificent palaces. The book is elemental in its appeal and will always furnish royal entertainment for man or boy. And the man who is not too completely grown up will keep his Lane's translation within arm's reach against the hours when the dull cares of the world are weighing him down.

As fairy tales have a common plot in many languages, so has there been a common way of preserving and transmitting them. This has been by oral tradition. They were originally to be given by word of mouth, a method that is yet best fitted to curious children. The teacher must give them through the ear, if they are to be learned and retained. Whenever it is possible in doing this, he must not forget to start with the pleasant beginning, "once upon a time," nor yet to omit the best of all conclusions, "and all went well ever afterwards"—neglecting, of course, to add that truism for grown-ups, "that didn't go ill." In this practice of giving a few choice tales through the ear is the preparation for the time when a boy will eagerly thumb a favourite volume of his own in some quiet nook. But a few of the better tales must first have been mastered so that they can be told with dramatic directness. Here then the same practice must hold that is followed in all reading: do not overread. A few stories are to be well learned and a few books to be owned, but only a few. If the boy once comes to feel his strength from a limited number of good stories, the made-to-order story for the fellow with the curls will never appeal to him. What he knows he will know and be glad to know.

If it be presumption to select a limited list of stories by grades when the world is so full of stories, it must be presumption. There are stories that can have no substitutes until the world has had another accumulated experience of some hundreds of years of fireside lore. The list that follows has been found good for a limited list, yet as complete a one as a child can master. No apology need be offered for the insertion of Ruskin's great story or the two stories of jungle life by Kipling. They are modern, but form a good bridge to modern books that have real merit. A boy who will not read "Red Dog" with an interest on fire had better grow weak on a Rollo book. His taste is surely to be lamented. He will early fall in love and later fall into cynicism.

Here is the list for the first four or five grades to be given in about the order in which they are written: "The Old Woman and Her Pig," "The Three Little Pigs," and "Henny-Penny," all as told by Jacobs in "English Fairy Tales"; "The Three Bears" as told by the poet Southey, where the little old woman continues to play a part; "Little Red Riding Hood" in which the wolf eats her up, "Cinderella; or, the Glass Slipper," and "The Master Cat; or, Puss in Boots" from "The Tales of Mother Goose" as told by Charles Welsh; "Tom Tit Tot," "The History of Tom Thumb," "Jack the Giant Killer," and "Whittington and His Cat" from "English Fairy Tales"; "Beauty and the Beast" and "Hop o' My Thumb" from "The Children's Book"; "Hansel and Grethel," "The Blue Light," and "The Golden Bird" from Taylor's translation of the Grimm tales; "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Fir Tree" from Andersen; "The Story of Aladdin; or, the Wonderful Lamp," "The History of Ali Baba and the Forty Robbers Killed by One Slave," and "The Story of Sinbad the Sailor" from "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments"; "The King of the Golden River" by John Ruskin; "Kaa's Hunting" and "Red Dog" from "The Jungle Books" of Rudyard Kipling.

When these stories have been well learned through the ear, their purpose as literature and as groundwork for narrative speech will have been accomplished. Of course, the teacher must read many stories to his class besides the ones named above; but he is not to require more than a mere listening to the reading from a point of interest only. By and by the boy will fall into the habit of reading aloud to some one else, and this may now be trusted to carry him along. Wise suggestion on the part of the teacher will direct him in getting a few good volumes that he can call his own. A fairy library, not large but well selected, will become a comfort to him in later years when the lamp is getting dim. For the man who finds himself unable to read with pleasure a fairy tale that charmed him in youth proclaims himself a slave either to relentless materialism or to cold and dignified egotism. And if he be not obstinately short-sighted, he cannot help seeing that the man who yet loves a fairy tale is one who also fears God, is clear of head, and is brave of heart.

In the succession of the seasons, the coming of spring puts young blood into old veins much as it dresses the gray of winter in a lively green. The possibilities of the daughter of Ceres while she dwells beneath the earth are likewise to be found between the covers of a fairy library. A man might travel many a long way in search of a better fountain of youth.

CHAPTER II

CLASSIC MYTHS IN LITERATURE

"Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne."—Keats.

"They hear like Ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey."—Lang.

There is not the slightest necessity for schoolmen's staring at one another when it is proposed to let boys once more look through magic casements at the classic myths of Greece and Rome. These masters of knowledge can depend upon it that their pedagogic systems are wrong if they set themselves up against the primitive feelings of mystery and fear. There is yet too strong a trace in the blood to forsake the gods and heroes that have satisfied instincts, very human and commendable, for many generations. No goblin nor witch needs to be cast out when the blood flows red; it is merely an indication of abundant life drawn from the strength and courage that marked an heroic age. If a boy's talents be anything but mediocre, they will naturally turn to this age to satisfy a longing. It is small wonder that the young Keats should stay up all night reading Chapman's Homer, or should translate the Æneid into English "just for fun." These glimpses were pure serene to a poet who afterwards caught in such a rare way their classic beauty; and the gods surely loved him for it, for they decreed that he should die young.

The charm of the myths of Greek and Roman literature is enduring, because they embody both truth and beauty—sometimes held to be one and the same. Nothing but a perverted taste, that is fed on the prosaic processes of material achievements or the artificial standards of a moral system, could fail to find pleasure and inspiration in them. Their appeal is artistic, to the sense of beauty. Their truth is a deification of the longings of the human heart as it seeks for comfort and protection in a world whose mysterious events can hardly be fathomed. And their gods and heroes embody the great virtues that marked a classic people as much as they did the beauty of their intellectual achievements—the virtues of courage, patience, honour, loyalty, contentment. A normal disposition will take satisfaction in this interpretation of truth and beauty. Not only will its possessor be satisfied, but he will be ennobled by the very presence of these qualities before his keen senses. The world will seem to him more than a place in which he is to toil and spin day after day; his soul will dwell apart on a mountain where not all mortals can ever climb, a mountain crowded with culture. He can temporarily leave the common crofts, seek his solace and confession, and be all the better to ply again his allotted task. He will learn of one spot where the greed and brutality of industrial progress cannot set its heel and leave the print of what is practical and ugly.

This cry for the practical has laid a curse on the culture of many a boy. He has been educated for the eight or ten hours that he works for his board and keep, and the rest of his waking day finds him ill at ease in a field of study or an appreciation of the better things of life. Not being able to "speak Greek" or to talk with men who do speak Greek, he naturally turns to the spectacular, the ornate, the frivolous. Nothing of an order above the broadly burlesque or the melodramatic will hold his interest and attention. The theatre of Dionysus is too severely classical in the beauty with which it represents life in action, and he never learns to sit out a pure tragedy, hear "sweetest Shakespeare warble his native wood-notes wild," or dilate on the right emotions, if "Jonson's learnéd sock be on."

The boy's talents are in all probability not at fault. They are merely dressed in the prevailing fashion. This fashion is set by a standard of what is useful for material success in life. The subject-matter of education must be scientific facts, and with these facts the boy must be taught to reason. The uselessness of imagination and memory as mental powers is held up to him. It is not for him to enrich his mind by what an active and retentive memory can give him of classic literature. In fact, the memory is looked upon, by the "scientific gent" (as Thackeray labelled him) in his laboratory, as a minor concern and left to work out its own salvation—if it really needs to be saved. And as for the memory being used to chronicle the exploits of mythical heroes in an age of superstition, that would be unthinkable in the day of scientific research. Let not the boy then be held up to blame if he is no more able to name the Olympian council than was Tom Sawyer to name the first two disciples chosen. The fault is with the system, the rational scientific system.

Greek is well nigh gone from the high school course. Latin is under indictment. In their stead we are to have such substitutes as biology and chemistry. The exploits of Achilles and the wanderings of Æneas are to be supplanted by the dissection of an oyster and the making of soap. Now oysters and soap are all right in their way, and it is a good thing we have the one to eat and the other to wash with; but when it comes to using them to satisfy the instinct for a fight or for the discovery of a hidden treasure, that is a stupid and brutal forcing of a theory. If progress must come at the price of selling a boy's birthright for a mess of pottage, it is a pity some one cannot smite her with the edge of a sword. The study of the humanities that has been the bone and sinew of generations past cannot give place to the scientific vogue without wrecking the hope and desire of many a romantic youth. To leave out the classics is to proclaim a material age to be bigoted, boastful, and self-sufficient. Yet that is exactly what the scientific educator, who calls himself modern and progressive, is proposing, because business demands it. What claim has a business demand on academic policy, anyhow? Is not vagabondia as much entitled to the floor?

"The descent to Avernus is easy." Reformed spelling is not so hard as Greek roots. In fact, the plan is to follow along the line of least resistance. The memory must not be cumbered with dead matter if the boy can reason on experiments for practical business demands. And are not the myths of these Greek and Latin languages too imaginative and impractical, covered with too much of academic dust, to serve a purpose in a practical age? This is heralded from educational convention to educational convention, and whilst the breaking of idols goes merrily on, a few brave teachers who speak Greek are regularly taking a Spartan stand to preserve what yet remains of the classic structure. In a boastful age they are not going to forget. If Homer and Ovid are forced by business demands from the academic halls, what hope is there left in Israel?

The one and only one seems to be the myths in translation. Their claim to the attention of teachers can be clearly given from the preface to the best telling of them that has yet appeared, Bulfinch's "Age of Fable; or, Beauties of Mythology," a happy title to such a valuable book: "If no other knowledge deserves to be called useful but that which helps to enlarge our possessions or to raise our station in society, then Mythology has no claims to the appellation. But if that which tends to make us happier and better can be called useful, then we claim that epithet for our subject; for Mythology is the handmaid of literature, and literature is one of the best allies of virtue and promoters of happiness.

"Without a knowledge of mythology much of the elegant literature of our own language cannot be understood and appreciated. When Byron calls Rome 'the Niobe of nations,' or says of Venice, 'she looks a Sea-Cybele fresh from ocean,' he calls up to the mind of one familiar with our subject illustrations more vivid and striking than the pencil could furnish, but which are lost to the reader ignorant of mythology. Milton abounds in similar allusions. The short poem 'Comus' contains more than thirty such, and the ode 'On the Morning of the Nativity' half as many. Through 'Paradise Lost' they are scattered profusely. This is one reason why we often hear people say that they cannot enjoy Milton. But were these persons to add to their solid acquirements the easy learning of this little volume, much of the poetry of Milton which has appeared to them 'harsh and crabbed' would be found 'musical as is Apollo's lute.'"

The truth of this last statement is very evident to the English teacher in high school work. He must stop to teach myths that should be the common possession of all children before he can go on with his work in the "Minor Poems." If boys would enter the high school with some of the classic myths firmly drilled into them, they would read with pleasure the most imaginative of all the English poets. Mythology in translation is a fixed possession of English literature, and it must be grasped more or less in detail before the boy can ever expect to have the marks of literary culture and to read figurative composition with ease. With the beginning of school life must begin the learning of myths by word of mouth. No classical dictionary can later take the place of this practice. These myths are to be mastered and reproduced in good English; and after a few years of such drill the children will read the stories of gods and heroes with the same ease that they do a colloquial fairy tale. It is the same old step from the story-teller to the book and a quiet corner where no one can break the spell.

Fortunately there is not so extensive a field of mythology suitable for use as there is of fairy literature, and the boy can easily hope to make it his own. The field must exclude both the modern nature myths that have been compounded to suit the occasion, and the cruder and more recent discoveries of savage races. In short, Greek mythology must make both the beginning and the end of what is to be learned; for there has been no nation other than Greece that has developed a mythical faith so intellectual in its scope and so beautiful in its expression. This beauty has been expressed through both art and literature. It would be an almost unpardonable neglect on the part of a teacher if a boy were permitted to go through school and not be familiar with the heroic age. He should know the stories of the gods and heroes; know the Olympian council, the labours of Hercules, the adventures of Jason, of Perseus, of Achilles; he should know the Trojan War in its picturesque greatness and the wonderful exploits of Odysseus on his homeward journey; and he should know such stories as those of Apollo, of Œdipus, of Orpheus, of Admetus, of Proserpine, of Niobe, and of Psyche. This knowledge of Greek mythology will bring one of the most pleasurable and stimulating of all feelings to a boy, the consciousness of wandering at ease in a domain where all mortals have not been privileged to enter.

Almost hand in hand with the Greek myths must be taken their variations in Roman life and the few that seem to be original there. Although the Greek and Roman deities had most attributes in common, they were yet distinct, each having his particular name. It is unfortunate that the Latin names have come into such extensive use and that we always speak of Jupiter instead of Zeus, and Venus instead of Aphrodite. But the Hellenic spirit is hard to keep foremost in this commercial age. If the glare of the arc light could be screened at times and the starry sky be read as a book wherein the constellations still hold their Greek names, some of the heroes that have been made permanent might inspire the observer with a feeling to read again their story. Yet let us have the sweetness of the rose, whatever be its name.

It is rather perplexing to know what myths to give the child when he first enters school and through the first four or five years of his school life. The taste and culture of the teacher have much to do with this. But whatever is given, give it as it is written without deforming it by having it adapted to suit the years of the boy. He can understand many things of which the teacher is not aware. Take it directly from "The Age of Fable," and at the start remove all difficulties of telling by drilling on the pronunciation of proper names. Then let the boy learn the myth through the ear and tell it fluently and exactly. While doing this, the art that is so closely woven with Greek myths must become familiar also. The boy must be able to recognize such works as "Aphrodite of Melos," "Apollo of the Belvidere," "Diana of Versailles," "The Faun of Praxiteles," "The Laocoön Group," and "Niké of Samothrace." The refining influence that comes through them is not easy to explain, but it comes. Take it for what it is worth, as you take the myths themselves. And at no time should the teacher seek for philosophical arrangement and interpretation, that at best is merely a confusion of words, or moralize on something that is purely dramatic instead of didactic. The myths are stories and should be used as stories.

A reasonably good list to use for this kind of drill work in, say the first four grades, is the following, to be learned in the order written: "Latona and the Frogs," "Arachne," "Niobe," "Midas and the Golden Touch," "Apollo and Daphne," "Pandora and her Box." "Narcissus," "Ceres and Proserpine," "Ulysses and Polyphemus," "Dædalus," "Æolus," "Philemon," "Vulcan," "Cyparissus and the Stag," "Arion," "Ulysses and the Sirens," "Callisto and Areas," "Ariadne's Thread." "Io and the Gadfly," "Perseus and Medusa," "The Wooden Horse," "Phaeton," "Pygmalion and Galatea," "Æsculapius and Apollo," "Jason and the Golden Fleece," "The Death of Hector," "Cupid and Psyche," "Ulysses and Penelope," "Pegasus," "Orpheus and Eurydice," "The Labors of Hercules," "Admetus and Alcestis." After mastering these stories, the boy will be ready to read for himself.

Let him first read Hawthorne's "The Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys," and then the companion volume, "Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys; a Second Wonder-Book." These are indispensable. Then he must read a good edition of Kingsley's "Heroes; or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children." That is a delightful book, despite its deplorable tendency to preach. Now he is ready for that charming continuous tale, Lamb's "Adventures of Ulysses," which of course he must own and keep near at hand. He can now take up and learn the second most valuable work he can own as a student of literature, Bulfinch's "Age of Fable." Of course it is understood that Palgrave's "Golden Treasury" is to be the first most valuable one.

Some dozen years ago there appeared in a magazine a story called "The Little Brother of the Books." It was the story of a small crippled boy who each afternoon went his way to a certain book stall and was always found absorbed in the same book. The book was the "Age of Fable." That he did this is not strange to any one who owns the book and knows it well. There are few compilations in which the richness of a literature is gathered together and retold in a way that will make it endure as a book. Yet this is true of the "Age of Fable." Every student should own an illustrated copy of it, and preferably one that has never been edited. It is told as a story, and a captivating story it is. A quotation from the preface cannot be resisted here: "Our book is not for the learned, nor for the theologian, nor for the philosopher, but for the reader of English literature, of either sex, who wishes to comprehend the allusions so frequently made by public speakers, lecturers, essayists, and poets, and those which occur in polite conversation.

"We trust our young readers will find it a source of entertainment; those more advanced, a useful companion in their reading; those who travel, and visit museums and galleries of art, an interpreter of paintings and sculptures; those who mingle in cultivated society, a key to allusions which are occasionally made; and, last of all, those in advanced life, pleasure in retracing a path of literature which leads them back to the days of their childhood, and revives at every step the associations of the morning of life.

"The permanency of these associations is beautifully expressed in the well-known lines of Coleridge:

"'The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty
That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,
Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and watery depths; all these have vanished.
They live no longer in the faith of reason;
But still the heart doth need a language; still
Doth the old instinct bring back the old names,
Spirits or gods that used to share this earth
With man as with their friend; and at this day
'Tis Jupiter who brings whate'er is great
And Venus who brings every thing that's fair.'"

CHAPTER III

BOOKS TO BE OWNED, TO BE READ, AND TO BE REREAD

"The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I read a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one."—Goldsmith.

Just how far books and reading are questions of taste, or should be looked on as questions of taste merely, is passing hard to say. That there are prevailing fashions, local-colour variations, and a few more or less permanent models is noticeable to such a degree that an observer might conclude motley to be the only wear. The readers seem to be no more able to agree in what they like than did the urchins over the pease-porridge in the nursery rhyme:

Some like it hot,
Some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot
Nine days old.

So it goes in books with every one to his own liking, though the particular likings are a very unsubstantial guide to the literary merits of the books liked. A book may become a fashion based on conventional acquiescence and appearances rather than on real worth. Let the judgment of individualism, with courage and restraint, lay bare the fashion, and where then is its habitation or what is its name? Such judgment sets up more or less arbitrary lines of taste that run wide, and it makes a guess at what is enduring literature, a hazardous kind of guess. Yet the peculiar thing of it all is that in this guess pedantry is as likely to play false as is the capricious fancy of the reading public that takes the book of the hour, whatever it be. This makes a kind of self-constituted division of readers, each satisfied with his lot and each serving a purpose.

Some readers' tastes, however, are neither prudish nor slovenly. They are very catholic and succeed in picking out what is good from both the bookish and the popular kinds of books. They can read any book that is a book. But you recall that Charles Lamb could not reckon directories, scientific treatises, the works of Hume and Gibbon, and generally those "volumes which no gentleman's library should be without" as being books. If to these were added those books which no gentleman's library should contain, we come to a field fairly easy of investigation. In other words, we must get back to that field that includes the literature of power rather than the literature of knowledge. Of course, if somebody chooses to read blockheaded encyclopædias, withering economic essays, proper Sunday school books, sophomoric novels, or privately printed verse, that is purely his own concern; but such reading is beyond the pale of real books as they relate to well-regulated courses in the home or in school life.

How far is a teacher to be influenced in his selection of books for students by their lines of taste? That depends on how far the tastes of readers in general indicate that books of their liking are to be classed as books of power, as real literature. It is rash to say that a book has real merit because it becomes the best seller of a season; nor is it to be condemned for the very reason that it is a best seller. However, the general praise of a hundred thousand readers is not so much an index to the book's merit as the book is an index to the character of the readers who praise it. Unqualified laudation of a new book, especially a novel, is an annoying kind of hysteria that has failed to find any other outlet. But the very fact that the book is opportune or spectacular carries it along. It grows up and flourishes in a day, and in a day dies out.

It is curious to note how times change in the reading world and with them lines of taste. To-day the line most evident in the American reading public, and the one most difficult to meet in the development of a taste for good books, is the passion to be up-to-date, as its commercial phraseology would have it. It is awakened by that wonderful agent, the advertising appeal, that deals not with quality but with quantity. In books it calls for a story, and that story must be the latest or it is certain to be absolutely neglected. On being asked what dish he preferred at a dinner, Thoreau said, "The nearest." That was in keeping with his theory of cutting down the denominator; the theory of the reader of the latest is one of multiplying the numerator. As the proper thing, each new book is taken, horns, hide, and tallow. The reader's reverence for the present grows apace, and he no longer has use for old wine, old friends, and old books. This is a reflection of a widespread impression in American life that up to the present time but little truth of substantial value as to methods of living and thinking has been found out. A wonderful industrial progress, working through inventive skill, has given the notion that anything over a generation old is scarcely worth a passing notice, a notion fatal to all art. Every one must seize in a hurry the newest thing in the market, lest he be branded as out of date. And it all looks as if everybody was trying to do what Alice found them trying to do in Wonderland, running as fast as they could to keep where they were.

This mad rush for the latest is largely aided and abetted by that invention of the devil, the literary section of many Sunday newspapers. Finding research a bit dull, the ambitious or needy doctor of philosophy launches into literary criticism for the reading public. He at once discovers that the college sophomore who wrote a particular story is another Thackeray in style. Then in turn a Dickens or a Balzac is found out. Finally the news is passed on the Rialto that there is being issued a story combining the delightful characteristics of the three old masters. And thus and thus it goes, with the whirligig of Sunday newspaper criticism spinning out the tastes of the reading public.

Now if these titled critics ever cease discovering great new books as regularly as the day of rest comes around, or if the paper reading public cease to take these critics as truthful, then the teacher may hope to find a more sympathetic field in which to work. Of course the teacher must shake off his pedantry and quit his foolishness in taking a classic beyond the years of the boy whose veins are full of red blood, and putting it on a dissecting table for the study of etymology and syntax. He must know fairly well the boy's likes and dislikes and remember that they are very strong. And he must also remember that the boy is joined to his idols, and these are not to be broken until better ones are substituted. Iconoclasm for its own sake is sheer waste. The teacher himself must be wedded to good literature, or his efforts will avail little. If he knows, from his own quiet reading, a few good books well, that is enough. Sympathetic appreciation, like good nature, is contagious. If the teacher does not appreciate the book, the boy will not—unless he does it out of pardonable perversity.

The teacher has more to do with shaping the boy's reading than he at first sees. He is apt to hesitate because the public library, ambitious for a circulation record, gives the boy what he will be likely to read; the Sunday school library, anxious to inculcate moral principles through stories false to life, gives him what he does not want; the home, eager to please him in every way, gives him anything he asks for. Yet in the face of this threefold condition, the wise and sympathetic teacher can direct an average course of reading that has in it more good than poor books. To do this, he must work along two lines: discourage overreading and encourage ownership in books. The practice of overreading is the worst reading practice in modern life. Like all extremism, it is hard to meet. It is as unpopular to oppose unlimited reading as it is to oppose unlimited charity or unlimited education; yet they all need to be carried out in moderation. The aim should be the mastery of a few good books and the discouragement of the passion for constant variety that indicates a lack of singleness of purpose through a lack of self-control and the power of sustained attention. The greatest aid to this will be the encouragement of small savings and the buying of good editions. When this is done, encourage the boy to read out loud to his family at home in the evenings the portions of his book he likes best. If he does this, he and his book are friends as long as he continues reading. Soon he will have a small, well-chosen, and much-used library. The boy who will buy a book with his own money, will read aloud from it to his family, will reread it, is safely started on the way to becoming a well-read man.

After feeling the need of good books in the home where they can be turned to as the fancy directs, and after feeling a desire to buy such books, the boy will next need to know what titles to select. And that is no easy question. Temperament, home circumstances, occupation, and many other factors enter into it. But the thing that helps out is the fact that the range of books of power is universal, embracing so many moods, that enough good titles may be found for any one, however whimsical his tastes may be. In fact the boy will find many more good books to his liking than he will ever find time to read, or than he needs to read. The problem will become one of exclusion. Two lists for two boys of different dispositions may vary widely and yet both be good literature. But in the range of English books there are a few that the common judgment of readers and the praise of critics have so generally classed as necessary to the shelves of a cultivated man, that they should be given first place and in some way or other a reading and a rereading of them be secured. It is not meant that reading is never to depart from this seemingly arbitrary standard. That would be at least prudish, to say nothing of its being impracticable. What is meant is that such things as comic supplements, at once stupid, silly, and debauching to both the intellectual and the artistic tastes, should be kept from all boys. The daily newspaper with its sensational head-lines telling of crimes is as bad, and the schoolboy has no business with it at all. But maybe the practice most widespread and fatal to an appreciation of books of real worth and power is the addiction to "juveniles" in the ever issuing series. If he has drunk to excess of these, the boy will have hopelessly weakened his ability ever to appreciate anything great. He will never be able to warm to the powerful deeds of Odysseus, Hector, or Joshua—he will be only a tolerable but proper grown-up. In the face of these and many more hindrances, reading will have to be rigidly directed, and in that directing, lines of appeal in the field of good literature can be drawn out. Generally the reason for a boy's revolting against a good book is the fact that whoever is in control of his reading presupposes that very thing. The book is often timidly handed out and with something of an apologetic air. By some peculiar piece of judgment it is believed that the boy prefers the book that is both insipid and stupid. This ineffectual effort arises from a lack of courage on the part of preceptor and parent: the old, old story of overindulgence. What may be sauce for the father should not always be sauce for the son. The theory that what is good for the one ought to be good for the other, even to food and drink, is only another sophism of a falsely sentimental age that is over-tolerant of what is called personal rights. The fact that Senator Hoar delighted in an occasional yellow back, is no reason why a boy should have such a story when he should be learning his catechism.

Before venturing on a list of books that will serve the boy fairly well as he passes through the primary and the grammar grades of school, a few of the superior books that have stood the test of time must be noticed. They are fundamental in school and in general reading. The arguments of literary critics as to what constitutes this good literature have no place in a work of this nature that aims to aid teachers and parents in selecting books for their children. It is enough to know that the verdict of time has been rendered in favour of such books as "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments," "Robinson Crusoe," and "Gulliver's Travels." A knowledge of such books is fundamental to any one who is ambitious to master the elements of English literature. And the mere fact that he knows them well will give him a conscious strength and pardonable feeling of superiority that the unlettered youth cannot have. After this he can be trusted to browse pretty much as he chooses. He may occasionally find the bars down, or maybe later go over the fences; but he has learned to judge of what is worth while, and will surely return to the books that gave him happy hours, whatever other tasks were laid on him.

In selecting this list for schoolboys there is a temptation to take works too mature for school age. This may come from that lingering instinct that supposes every one, no matter what the age, to be interested in the same things in which you are interested. The very best things for manhood are to be reserved for that time of life. Grammar school boys cannot appreciate the playful humour of Lamb, the prophetic scolding of Carlyle, or Thackeray's keen analysis of human weaknesses and foibles; neither can a high school boy do it, and it is foolish to insist that it be done. Schoolboys are not men, and they might be told to reserve the greater part of Carlyle and Thackeray until two or three years after they have cast their first vote. Neither author is adapted to a beardless youth. But then we have that wonderful pair of story-tellers, Scott and Stevenson! What boy can resist them or would ever think of trying to do so? If Margaret Ogilvy would not lay down a book of "that Stevenson man" until she had found out how the laddie got out of the barrel, do you suppose that a boy with adventurous blood in his veins could do so? Though the best test for a child's book is the fact that it has charms for the grown-up, he would certainly be foolish who would insist that the great books for mature men and women be read in youth. It is after all school days are ended and the boy has become a man well started in the actual affairs of life that he can read and appreciate "Vanity Fair," "Adam Bede," "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," or "Anna Karénina." The tendency to take great books for mature readers, abridge and overedit them, and then present them to adventurous boys by a laboratory method of minute dissection, is annoying and foolish. Boys who still enjoy harnessing a dog to a wagon are neither university students nor good literary critics. But they do like to find out how Robinson Crusoe made a canoe, Tom Canty ate his first royal dinner, or David Balfour helped Alan Breck defend the roundhouse.

Naturally, the first book to put into the hands of the primary school child to be called his own is a good illustrated edition of the Mother Goose rhymes. There is nothing to take the place of that accumulated wisdom of the nursery that is so charming to the ear. He has learned many of the jingles by word of mouth before his school age; but he now needs to own the book himself, read the words, and look at the pictures. The whole thing must be in one volume for him. But what volume? It is hardly safe to presuppose the possession of these nursery rhyme books before the school age, though that is exactly where they belong. Maybe for this reason it is better to start with the edition of Kate Greenaway that makes up in refinement and delicacy for what it lacks in power and intensity. It is unfortunate that there is no available reprint of the original edition of "Mother Goose's Melody" compiled by Oliver Goldsmith for John Newbery about 1765, which contained the "most celebrated songs and lullabies of the old British nurses, calculated to amuse children and incite them to sleep." To own such a quaint edition would surely be a delight. Nearly as quaint and delightful, especially the illustrations, is the "Only True Mother Goose Melodies" now reprinted from the Boston edition of 1839. Of the editions of recent years there are many good ones, the one appearing under the title of "National Rhymes of the Nursery" having superior illustrations by Leslie Brooke, but being marred by an artificial arrangement. If some artist with the genius of Cruikshank would give a few of the best years of his life to illustrating a complete collection of these rhymes, he would become a benefactor of childhood. And if such an edition were well made mechanically, printed on good unglazed linen paper from large type and good woodcuts, well sewed, and bound in linen or leather, the boy might consider himself favoured of the gods if he could call such a book his own. These "things that are old and pretty" deserve to be well arrayed. Yet they deserve to be read for their own sake, an enduring charm of sound. Professor Saintsbury has clearly pointed out that they should never be twisted into an authentic meaning according to the spirit of severest "scientism"; but they should be made "to serve as anthems and doxologies to the goddess whom in this context it is not satirical to call 'Divine Nonsensia,' who still in all lands and times condescends now and then to unbind the burden of meaning from the backs and brains of men, and lets them rejoice once more in pure, natural, senseless sound."

After the nursery rhymes, the next volumes for the boy's book shelf will be collections of fables and fairy tales. The animal fable is easiest to start with, and children like it best as a rule. Talking beasts kindle their imagination and stimulate their awakening powers. Fables are direct, simple, wise, and have a universal appeal. In the delightful first chapter of "The Newcomes," Thackeray tells us that long ages before Æsop, asses under lions' manes roared in Hebrew, sly foxes flattered in Etruscan, and wolves in sheep's clothing gnashed their teeth in Sanscrit. They are a common inheritance for childhood. The English-speaking child has a number of very good collections at his command, among them being the one recently issued with illustrations by Arthur Rackham and another in the New Cranford series illustrated by Richard Heighway, and he should surely own the one or the other. But in neither is the drawing quite so charming as is that of Boutet de Monvel for the French fables of La Fontaine.

What a pity that there is no single volume of fairy tales to meet the child's demands! It should contain the best of the English folk tales, the best of Perrault, the brothers Grimm, Andersen, and others; should have illustrations of the merit of Cruikshank's; should be artistically printed and bound—and it should be a big book. Children love big books. A child's book on thin paper and bound in limp leather would not be a child's book. Coloured illustrations are not necessary; children like a few lines in black and white; but it is necessary to have the book a kind of "ponderous tome." Then it can be read on the floor while it rests on the boy's knees as he sits cross-legged before the fire; or, better still, while he lies on his belly, his chin in his hands and his feet swaying in the air. While he is small, no real boy was ever designed to sit upright on a chair and hold a small book ten inches from his eyes, with the light coming over his left shoulder. Maybe some philanthropic publisher will some day issue a big book of tales to be owned by the boy and read at his ease. But the lack of it to-day necessitates the building up of a fairy library.

The first book to be put into the fairy library might be the charming "Golden Goose Book" of Leslie Brooke, followed by Cruikshank's "Fairy Book." The Mother Goose tales as first collected by Perrault should now be owned in a well-illustrated English translation. On account of their humour and their common everyday tone, the English household and folk tales will make a strong appeal. Scudder's "Folk Stories," S. Baring-Gould's "Old English Fairy Tales," and "Fairy-Gold" by Ernest Rhys are all good in their way; but "English Fairy Tales" by Joseph Jacobs, with its amusing illustrations by John Batton, is told in the simplest and most dramatic way, and it should be owned by every boy.

There is one collection of fairy tales that should come into the boy's possession about the end of the third school year, and that book is the excellent work of the brothers Grimm, whatever be the title. The one superior translation is the one made by Edward Taylor about 1826, and a reprint of it issued in 1878, with Cruikshank's etchings and Ruskin's introduction. But there are many good and simple translations that are well illustrated. After these highly imaginative tales of the German fireside, there should be owned a good translation of the romantic and refined tales of the North, the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen. To these stories are many excellent illustrations, including those of Stratton, Tegner, and Dulac. It may not be possible and maybe not desirable to own editions of the tales of D'Aulnoy, Laboulaye, Hauff, and others, for the best of their stories may be found in some compilations. Among these are "Mother Goose Nursery Tales" issued by Nister, Andrew Lang's "Blue Fairy Book," "Big Book of Fairy Tales" collected by Walter Jerrold, "A Child's Book of Stories" illustrated by Jessie Wilcox Smith and the recently issued attractive edition of "The Fairy Book" by Dinah Maria Mulock. A distinct service could have been rendered to children if Andrew Lang had selected the best of the stories from his voluminous and unequally good colour fairy books and had issued them in one large, well-made volume with artistic illustrations.

And yet there remains the greatest and most wonderful of all fairy tales, the "Tales of a Thousand and One Nights," to be begun with the easier tales now, but only to be enjoyed thoroughly in the upper grammar grades. No other book is so romantic or so entrancing, nor does anybody ever get too old to read it. It worked its spell on Coleridge, for he wrote: "Give me the 'Arabian Nights' Entertainments' which I used to watch, till the sun shining on the bookcase appeared, and, glowing full upon it, gave me the courage to take it from the shelf." And was it not this book that made wonderful little Marjorie Fleming willing to sleep at the foot of the bed where she could continually read it? The translation made by Edward William Lane in 1839 and illustrated by William Harvey under his direction will never be surpassed; but Jonathan Scott's translation is easier for the boy to read. Many well-illustrated but not always well-edited editions may be found.

Will a boy read "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"? Should a boy read "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"? Yes and yes! Any boy who cannot enjoy the most delightful fooling that was ever put into a book deserves the greatest of sympathy. He is certainly full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. Where else was there ever such clever and curious nonsense? What mathematician other than Dodgson ever put before boys and girls such enduring work? It is a case where two and two does not always make four, but it does always make the pleasing thing. Much that goes as serious literature is not half so wise as is the playfulness of this book, nor is it so worthy of being thoroughly known and appreciated. Of course there are a few perpendicular people who see not that it has abiding charms. They cannot double or shake to the mood of its nonsense—nor do they find it grow "curiouser and curiouser" with each reading. Yet it is a classic for children, and it is going to endure.

As a general rule, books for children are cast in a rather serious mood. This is true of the myth and the romantic fairy tale. But the element of humour creeps into the English and the German household tales, for humour is necessary to all earnest living. How far this sense of humour is to be developed is a question hard to answer. This much is true, however: in mature years and under the full responsibility of life, a keen sense of humour is about the only thing that will save a man from himself at times, preserve his balance when he is nearing the borderland of tragedy. Now what is to be the nature of this humour? Is it to be the insipid burlesque that finds its pleasure in the medical almanac and the comic supplement? Or is it to be the kind that wears the sock with brains and taste, the kind that Touchstone has? The latter is the one that sparkles and is worth while. It is the kind that the child starts with in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "The Rose and the Ring." It is the product of men who possess qualities of mind and heart such as Thackeray did. How Shakespeare must have doted on his jesters! And what musical nonsense refrains he wrote.

All this bears out De Quincey's saying that only a man of extraordinary talent can write nonsense. And nonsense literature is a test of the ability of a reader. Pitt once exclaimed: "Don't tell me of a man's being able to talk sense; every one can talk sense. Can he talk nonsense?" Now a child will talk nonsense and delight in it, even if it is nothing but a counting-out rhyme. Then he will come to prefer nonsense of a refined type, innocent and fantastic verse. A book of this kind that he will take a fancy to is Edward Lear's "Nonsense Songs"; and if it is the edition illustrated by Leslie Brooke, he will be grateful when a nonsense mood is on him. Ruskin called it the most beneficent and innocent of all nonsense books. The boy might start with this book, go to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," and then try "The Rose and the Ring." When he reaches the upper grammar grades, he will then enjoy the splendid retelling of "The Adventures of Don Quixote," by Judge Parry, with Walter Crane's illustrations. If he does this, on reaching man's estate he will keep some favourite translation of this wonderful book of Cervantes in a convenient pocket edition along with his "Pickwick Papers."

Before going to the class of books based on myths, one brief work must be mentioned, not only because it marks an epoch in the making of children's books, but also because it is a child's classic with real merit, and about the only one on such a theme. Nearly all others of this kind are prudish, priggish, and inartistic. This one happens to have a loftiness of tone. Its style is as charming as this whimsical title: "The History of Little Goody Two Shoes, otherwise called Mrs. Marjory Two Shoes, the means by which she acquired her learning and wisdom, and in consequence thereof her estate; set forth at large for the benefit of those

"Who from a state of Rags and Care,
And having Shoes but half a Pair;
Their Fortune and their Fame would fix,
And gallop in a Coach and Six."

If any one is in doubt as to who wrote this book, the inscription "to all young gentlemen and ladies who are good, or intend to be good" ought to convince him. Intend to be good, was not that Goldsmith—and the rest of us? An edition of this historic story with pictures after the original woodcuts of 1765 should be in the hands of every child.

Though America's contribution to children's literature of an enduring type has been limited, it is gratifying to know that America's most finished artist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, has given to that literature two books that every boy must know, "Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys" and "Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys; a Second Wonder-Book." That every boy who is going to become a mature reader of good books needs to know the myths of Greece and Rome, goes without saying. Now he had better learn these from a book having a literary touch than from the ordinary telling of text-books. For this reason he should completely master these two books by Hawthorne. The illustrated edition of the former by Walter Crane and George Wharton Edwards' illustrations of the latter are both fine. Not so good as these two, yet necessary, is Charles Kingsley's "Heroes; or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children." And the telling of the story of the Odyssey by Charles Lamb in his "Adventures of Ulysses" is good to read, but rather difficult before the last year of the grammar grades. The wonderful exploits of the heroes in the Iliad should be familiar to every boy, and he can get them about all in Bulfinch's "Age of Fable" as well as anywhere else. This book he must surely own, and whether it is called merely a text-book or not, it is the best work that has yet appeared on the mythology of the world as it is found in classical allusions of English books. If he learns the story of the siege of Troy and the return to Ithaca from this book, he may want to hear Chapman speak out loud and bold a few years later.

Does any schoolboy from a home other than one in which Puritan notions yet prevail read "Pilgrim's Progress"? If he does not, the fault is not in the book. It is as interesting as it is vitally true, and has been positively helpful. According to Macaulay, it has been loved by those too simple to admire it. There is really no such thing as an uninteresting great book. There are uninterested people, though there should not be an uninterested normal boy. If there is, he is a victim of the emasculating process of sugar-coated teaching, parental indulgence, and vaudeville amusement. Or maybe he has the habit of the boy's series, that cuts all characters to the same fashion, the fashion of prudery. In either case he will never be a pilgrim. Of course it would be foolish to insist on a boy's reading many such books, even if there were more like it written. You might as well insist on seven sermons a week for a man. One in seven days seems often enough to be effective; and one great book like this one, if well mastered, is all that the boy needs. In mature years he can again read it and marvel at its intrinsic greatness and find it something of a reflection of his own experiences in life. And by having done this he may chance to read such great poetical allegories as the "Faerie Queene" and the "Divine Comedy."

As this allegory of Bunyan's represented the spiritual experiences of life as the Puritan saw it, so does "Robinson Crusoe" represent the Puritan view of the practical virtues in experience, such as the virtues of prudence, ingenuity, and patience. But for all this it is one of the most fascinating and typical of English stories, and one of the really great ones. Every lad must know this book. Stevenson tells of a Welsh blacksmith who learned to read that he might add this hero to his possibilities of experience.

The third book of that great half-century following the Restoration is one of the few books written to be read by men that has become a child's classic. No wonder Swift afterwards exclaimed, "What a genius I had when I wrote that book!" Yet children read it with pleasure without seeing anything in it but the interesting adventures of Gulliver. Of course, the voyages to Lilliput and to Brobdingnag are the only ones to be given to the boy, and it is unfortunate that publishers have not generally recognized this in issuing "Gulliver's Travels" for children. It is less necessary to read the other two voyages than it is to read the second part of "Pilgrim's Progress" and the "Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe."

There is a field of reading very much akin to the field of mythology in which there is no single book that the boy can read that is so permanent in its form as is the "Wonder-Book," yet it is a field in which the boy should feel at home. That is the field that includes the Arthurian legends and the Robin Hood stories. Among the many books that have appeared, the excellent work done by the poet Lanier in his "Boy's King Arthur" and by the late artist Howard Pyle should surely find a place on every boy's book shelf. Much of Malory is retained in the former, and the conventional drawings in the latter make a strong appeal despite the widespread mania for colour. The boy who has become attached to his "Age of Fable" might satisfy his curiosity in this romantic field by the almost equally good "Age of Chivalry" and "The Legends of Charlemagne."

At what age should a boy turn to Shakespeare? That depends on the boy. If he is an average child, he should have something of the plays read to him at a fairly young age; but it is doubtful if he can do much on his own account before the high school age is reached. He might, however, be urged to attempt "A Midsummer-Night's Dream," "The Tempest," and "King Henry V." At about the age of twelve or fourteen years he should own a good illustrated edition in one volume such as the one done by Sir John Gilbert. But be this as it may, he has a right to get something of a glimpse of the wonderful things in these plays through that admirable telling of some of them in Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare." Though it may be Lamb instead of Shakespeare, there is no better book of retold stones in English than this work of Thackeray's "Dear Saint Charles" and his sister Mary.

This brings up the question of the boy's reading of poetry and the books that he should own. As suggested in a former chapter, the one good collection is Palgrave's "Children's Treasury of English Song." There is no second one in this class; for all others seem to have some fatal defects of judgment, though they are usually printed in more attractive form. The publishers of this anthology need to issue a well printed, well illustrated, and well bound edition, and the book stores need to put it on their shelves, where it is now almost a total stranger. But the approach to such a collection should be gradual. It might start in the second grade with Kate Greenaway's edition of "Dame Wiggins of Lee and Her Seven Wonderful Cats; a Humorous Tale Written Principally by a Lady of Ninety," and Caldecott's "John Gilpin's Ride." This could be followed with Kate Greenaway's or Hope Dunlap's "Pied Piper of Hamelin." And all children must have Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses" with illustrations by either Florence Edith Storer or Jessie Wilcox Smith. Eugene Field's "Poems of Childhood," illustrated by Maxfield Parrish, deserves a place, as does the dainty volume of Blake's "Songs of Innocence," illustrated by Geraldine Morris. If on reaching the upper grammar grades the boy has found pleasure in his "Children's Treasury of English Song," he might be urged to own complete editions of a few of the poets. The first volume should be the poems of Longfellow, not because of his greatness but because he is the best loved of our noted poets and the easiest one for the boy to read. The next volume should be one of Tennyson, where he will find things actually great. If he comes to prefer "The Passing of Arthur" to "Enoch Arden," he is developing taste and judgment and will later enjoy Milton and Wordsworth.

There are two books of recent years, "The Jungle Book" and "The Second Jungle Book," that have intrinsic worth and charm and should be owned by every boy about his fifth school year. The superior tales are the Mowgli stories, and it is a pity they are not issued in a single volume. Where was there ever a more intense or dramatic story written than "Red Dog"? How does it happen that teachers seldom give these stories to children, but manage to waste plenty of good time on insipid, made-to-order stories designed to teach mercy to animals? These animal stories for a purpose are like most verse for an occasion—an offence against literary art. Let the boy learn of the charms and the tragedies of animal life in the jungle.

When the boy's reading shifts toward the romance and the novel, he needs to guard against overreading, indiscriminate reading, and being bewildered by the multitude of books from which to choose. For a while he had better keep to such books as "The Prince and the Pauper" and "Treasure Island." If he is not at once interested in that plot based on the universal desire to change lots with some one else, or the universal longing to find a hidden treasure, he either has perverted tastes or is without any tastes at all. From these it is an easy step to the forest life of "The Last of the Mohicans" and the life of chivalry presented in "Ivanhoe." He will then surely like that charming story of romantic home life, "Lorna Doone."

Some teacher may wonder if books other than stories and verse are not to be read. Of course they are, and they will be anyhow. Yet they are not books of power, fundamental to the growth of personality; they are books of knowledge of one kind or another. Just where the division line is to be drawn and which is the right class for this book and that, is hard to say, and matters little when it is determined; but the place of a few has been definitely fixed by experience, and they happen to be stories. That great literary field of comfort to men, the personal essay, is beyond the schoolboy. And so is much of biography and history. But there can be found for him to read many books, such as "Tales of a Grandfather," "A Child's History of England," Southey's "Life of Nelson," "Two Years Before the Mast," "The Oregon Trail," Franklin's "Autobiography," and some good abridgment of "Plutarch's Lives," that make an order of books different from "Robinson Crusoe," "Pilgrim's Progress," and "Arabian Nights' Entertainments"; yet they ought to be read after a few of the greater ones have been mastered. Many a boy may be greatly helped and inspired to honest effort by Samuel Smiles' "Self-Help," yet no one would think of classing it as great literature. This, together with books on travel and the wonders of science and invention will take care of themselves, and the average boy will pick up enough of them of his own accord. What he needs is a book that by its imaginative power lifts him above the commonplace facts of everyday life. If the foundation be laid in the enduring work of a few great books, what is built thereon will abundantly reward the early effort of mastering them.

There is yet one book of powerful and pure English that must be mentioned. The boy should have early heard it read aloud, learned passages from it by heart, and have read parts of it on his own account. In proportion as he has gathered the richness of this book will he have a grasp on clear language and clear understanding. That book is the version of the Bible authorized by King James. It gave to our fathers not only their faith but also that grip on racy, clear, and vigorous English that made many an artisan a better talker and writer than the man trained in the halls of higher learning. It has had a power above all other books in English to stir the imagination and move the soul, and this without regard to any particular religious belief. No book has ever told stories with the ease, directness, and intensity of this one. Its style expresses the strongest and deepest feelings of English-speaking men. And this style has been caught by such masters of prose in their own centuries as Bunyan and Lincoln. Yet it is evident to teachers that the great stories of the Scriptures are not known by children. The Bible needs to be dusted and read, even if it is brought about by the strong hand of authority in the home and in the school.

Taste in books can be directed, or at least modified, and the authority to direct must be about its business with the urchins at school. The aphorism that you can lead a horse to the water but you cannot make him drink, is only half true. If the water is kept under his nose and there is a good grip on the halter, he will be drinking before he is aware of it. In fact, he may need to be led away at times to keep him from drinking too much. The business of the school teacher is to get the boy to the trough and then see that he does not drink too much. This will be a thing of effort, for at every turn there are the springs of juvenile series, Sunday School Pharisees, comic supplements, and penny-dreadfuls that flow as if they would never cease. The boy needs to develop a sort of anchorite spirit and seek out a secluded place with an armful of books that are really worth while.

The armful which he needs to own and be friends with might be something like the following, if such a list can be ventured without offence to that strong spirit of individualism that will call it wooden and lock-step; yet that in its iconoclasm and mental anarchy gets nowhere and does nothing. This is the list by grades: First grade—"Mother Goose Rhymes," Brooke's "The Golden Goose Book," "Dame Wiggins of Lee and Her Seven Wonderful Cats"; second grade—"Æsop's Fables," "The Cruikshank Fairy Book," Goldsmith's "The History of Little Goody Two Shoes"; third grade—Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," Jacobs' "English Fairy Tales," Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses," Scudder's "The Children's Book"; fourth grade—Grimm's "Fairy and Household Tales," Andersen's "Fairy Tales," Browne's "Granny's Wonderful Chair," Thackeray's "The Rose and the Ring"; fifth grade—Hawthorne's "The Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys" and "Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys; a Second Wonder-Book," Kingsley's "Heroes; or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children," Swift's "Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World," Kipling's "The Jungle Book" and "The Second Jungle Book"; sixth grade—"Arabian Nights' Entertainments," Lamb's "Adventures of Ulysses," Defoe's "The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe," Pyle's "The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood," Palgrave's "The Children's Treasury of English Song"; seventh grade—Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress," Lanier's "The Boy's King Arthur," Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper," Cervantes' "The Adventures of Don Quixote of the Mancha," Stevenson's "Treasure Island"; eighth grade—Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare," Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans," Scott's "Ivanhoe," Blackmore's "Lorna Doone," Bulfinch's "The Age of Fable; or, the Beauties of Mythology."

The savings necessary to buy these books, the time spent in reading and rereading them, the power and taste that will come from both of these efforts,—these will serve the boy when he comes to man's estate. For no work in a finishing school or in college English can ever give him what he will get of his own accord by having good books as his companions during his public school life. Let him try the list with the hope that it will meet Ruskin's comment: "Of course you must or will read other books for amusement, once or twice; but you will find that these have an element of perpetuity in them."

CHAPTER IV

ON THE PURCHASE AND CARE OF BOOKS

"Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me,
From my own library, with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom."—Prospero.

The publishing of books is like the brook in the poem, it goes on forever. The number and variety found on sale at the end of each year is truly bewildering. The flesh is becoming wearied with the number and the spirit perturbed with the variety. The prospective buyer does not know where or how to begin, and about the only way out of the confusion is to do as the brothers did in the story, buy them by the yard. For the man of long purse it is a convenient way to untie the library knot; but after this has been done the question of where to begin reading is a harder one than where to begin buying had been. There was much philosophy in the remark of the quickly made millionaire, who after having bought many editions de luxe of standard authors, said: "Now give me something that I can read, a few stories of Old Sleuth and Nick Carter." Though his taste might be questioned, his remark hit the nail on the head—a few books that can be read.

That is what the average buyer is after. And these few must be books that are worth while, must be taken from the multitude, and must be taken one or two at a time if they are to be properly enjoyed. Each season brings a few of these in new and attractive editions. By them must the library be slowly built up. The purchase of many volumes at a time, even if they are good volumes, is something few readers can stand. It is like the sudden acquisition of wealth or the sudden coming into fame: a stumbling block to the greatest of pleasures, the slow but certain enrichment of life. Many a good student has been spoiled by being turned loose in a school library that cost him no effort or inconvenience to acquire. Ease of access and intemperance of use are things on which he will fall down. And therein is the foolishness of parents in supplying their children all at once with that great and varied load that has several times appeared under different names, but with the general title of libraries for young folk. There is much good and conveniently arranged material in all of them; but it is this very thing of coming into the child's possession all at once that makes them objectionable. Books, like many other luxuries, should not be indulged in to excess.

Books for the boy should largely be purchased out of his own savings. No book bought in this way will be left unread. Some persuasion on the part of teachers and parents will be necessary to bring about this practice of saving. A month or so before Christmas or the summer vacation the town boy ought to be told to save the money he is used to spending on candy and picture shows that he may buy for himself a book. The country boy can do the same thing by hoeing corn a few more days for a neighbour or raising a few more chickens on his own account. As they should, books will also come as gifts, and poor judgment on the part of the giver is very unfortunate. The giving of a poor book that can hardly be afforded is kind-hearted as an act; but the boy who feels by courtesy bound to read it is surely a helpless victim. Yet in his own family he should be given a book twice each year, on his birthday and at Christmas time. In fact he needs to be taught always to celebrate the one and hang up his stocking on the other; for no two practices will be so likely to keep him from falling into cynicism in mature years—especially if each anniversary brings with it a helpful book. Highly prized as will be these good books the boy receives as gifts, they will never mean quite the same to him as the books bought at a sacrifice to himself. When all is said and done, about the best indication of practical wisdom in this age of prodigality is economy of savings. It will surely be followed by economy of time and energy. The boy who is taught to save money for the purchase of something of permanent value has a good start in the right direction. The most reasonable thing to buy with these savings is a few good books.

What shall the reader buy, and where shall it be bought? To the former question a partial answer has already been attempted, but to the latter one the answer is more uncertain. In a general way a book might be bought as any other article is bought, where the same quality can be bought cheapest. But that principle is based on the advertising appeal, an appeal that is strong where extravagance and wastefulness abound. The making, selling, and buying of books is no exception to this rule of trade. Books, like other articles, are now bought and sold according to fashion, and the official pot of fashion must be kept boiling if it takes the last penny. And like other fashions book fashions change, even to morals and heroines; so that a body might as well be out of the reading world as to be out of fashion in it. Just now the fashion seems to turn out books with morbid morals and mediocre heroines, and yet the people continue to read them and talk about them. The story is drawn, printed, bought, read, dramatized, heard, and praised—even from the pulpit. And before there is time for you to compose yourself in peace, a new emotion is sprung on which all must dilate alike. This is the hubbub about the multitude of new books that makes the buying of a few standard ones something of a problem. The classics, especially for children, either in old or in new editions, are hidden in the confusion. And because of the talk the youngsters hear they want to read the book their parents are reading, as they are curious to read the daily paper, a thing never designed for any schoolboy to do. For this reason they need to be urged strongly to buy the book that is old and tried by years of helpful reading.

The advertising appeal that persuades a buyer of books to invest in what he does not want and cannot use is active in two ways, through travelling agents and at the book counters of department stores. Of all the hindrances to the building up of a small library out of savings for that purpose, the proverbial book agent is the greatest. This master of the art of persuasive perseverance, with his oilcloth bag hidden under the frock of his coat, has filched many a hard-earned dollar from the farmer. If he had had either the artifice or the charity to get the money and not deliver the book, the effect of his pernicious activity would not be so marked. Yet what he sells as a book takes its place on the centre-table with others of its kind to waste the time of winter evenings and wet days for a generation. That interesting and rather convenient character, the pedler with his pack, has passed away; but the agent and his book continue to flourish. Can no one propose a short way with book agents?

In the city the confusion is wrought by the woman agent and the girl clerk. Next to resisting civilly the entreaties of the agent in black is for a man, after having threaded that modern labyrinth, the department store, and having halted at the book counter to take his bearings, to be pounced upon by the clerk in black before he has had time to thumb a single volume, and asked if he has been waited on. He watches the cosmopolitan stream of buyers tossing about the cosmopolitan collection of book bargains on the main aisle counter, and then retreats in confusion to seek some old-fashioned book store where he can loaf in ease and think of what he wants to buy. Though scarcely willing to admit the claim of many buyers and readers of books that it is not good book-buying etiquette to purchase a book at a department store, he feels at least that it is not a quiet, convenient, and wise way. And the pity of it all is, that out of this shuffle and clatter the child is made the victim of the poor book that is bought because it can be bought cheap.

The fairly well arranged book store is the one place where a book for a boy may be bought in proper form. Though the second-hand book store is an interesting place for the man who has not the germ fear, it is no place to get a boy's book. And the old-fashioned book shop that must have been a joy to the man of reading tastes has passed, as has the old apothecary shop. From their modern offspring, the book store and the drug store, we must get our books and our physic. It is on the shelves of these book stores that buyers like to explore and make discoveries of editions. If the particular edition be known, a good way to buy is to order books directly by mail from the publisher. In fact, this is what often has to be done in small towns and in country districts where well-stocked shelves are not within reach. Yet few buyers can adjust themselves to the practice of buying anything that they have not seen. They like to feel the response of the book to the touch, see the type and the illustrations and the binding. This is all good where the store carries a complete stock; but if every good book wanted has to be ordered for the buyer, he might as well do it himself directly from the publisher. From these publishers good descriptive catalogues may be had for the asking, and by means of them the book not found at the store may be ordered.

At the usual book store, whether purely secular or connected with the publishing house of a denominational church, books for men are bought with greater ease than books for children. A well-selected list of titles for boys is seldom found. The ubiquitous juveniles are lined up as usual, but good reprints of children's classics are absent. The uninformed buyer is at the mercy of the more uninformed clerk. Out of the indecision of the one and the advice of the other something wholly unfit for the boy is bought. The poor book received as a gift is beyond the boy's control and a delicate matter to handle; but the buying of a poor book with good money is a serious blunder. About the only safe way is to know what you want before you go into the store, dig it out from the shelves yourself, and have the clerk do nothing but wrap it up and give you your change. If you are not settled on what you want, get into the habit of reading the book numbers of some journal like The Nation, or consult with the well-informed heads of the children's departments of public libraries.

The particular edition of a book to be bought is largely a question of taste and of the money at the command of the buyer. Many a boy sees little in fine, well-illustrated editions. What he wants is the story without regard to its dress. He may become wedded to the poorly made, unattractive book that has opened up new lands to him, just as many a child has formed a greater attachment for a small rag doll than for an expensive one of wax. Again, circumstances may necessitate the buying of a twenty-five or fifty-cent edition of a book instead of a two or three dollar one. Yet this is true: if the book is bought at a sacrifice and is to serve for a lifetime (and no old book that has served its owner well ought ever to be replaced by a new one), the best edition available should be bought, even if it is expensive. Of course, this largely depends on the book. Mother Goose, some treasury of poetry, Æsop, stories from Shakespeare, a favourite collection of fairy tales, and all such books often used need to be in the best of editions; but the ones less often read may be in cheaper form.

In selecting an edition the first thing to look to is the type and paper. Even a standard edition may be printed from worn plates giving an indistinct impression. A clear-cut, large type on unglazed paper is certainly the best. The detailed colour illustration on a special sized plate-paper does not appeal to the average child any more than do the simpler black and white drawings done in a few lines and put on the ordinary reading page. But the best illustrations that are being done to-day are very often done in colour, and at first glance they catch the fancy of the child—then, too, they are the fashion. Whatever kind they may be, illustrations are almost necessary to a child's book. The next consideration is the binding. What may have been gained in attractiveness of page has surely been lost in mechanical execution on binding. Books, even high-priced books, are now cased instead of bound. The machine-made back is hung to the book in an insecure way. There is no hand shaping or building of the back to the book. A child's book costing three dollars will in a short time become loose, hollow-backed, and the plate illustrations will fall out. Hand-craft at a reasonable price has gone by the way here as it has in many other fields of workmanship. What the publisher has failed to do in the binding of the book, the boy must be urged to make up in the handling of it.

This brings up the question of the care of books. Vandalism may do its work among books as well as anywhere else. A good book deserves the best of care and needs to be secure from the hand that would soil or deface it. It is a friend to be kept in comfortable quarters, and its rights are to be respected. It is never to be used as a flower press nor as a window stick; neither is it to have its back carelessly broken nor its leaves turned down. It was made to be read and to be enjoyed, and this without regard to the fact that it came as a gift or was bought with hard-earned money. The boy should early be taught how to take care of it as he would any other product of art.

The best-made book may be broken by opening it carelessly the first time. Glue is flexible under slow pressure, but will break under sudden strain. If the book is taken in the middle and the halves suddenly jerked open, it will be broken beyond repair; but if the back of the book is placed on a table and the leaves turned down slowly from both covers to the centre, the glue will give and the book will not be damaged. By going over the whole book carefully in this way once or twice, it will be ready for use. At no time, however, while reading, should the covers or leaves be turned farther back than they would be in lying flat open on a table. The next thing for the boy to learn is how to take care of the leaves of the book. The leaves should be carefully turned with the dry tips of the fingers from the top of the page and pressed down gently but firmly. And under no circumstances should the corner of a leaf be turned down to mark the place where the reader left off—an interested memory and a book mark are designed for that purpose. To keep his books, every boy should have a book shelf or two of his own that he can easily reach. Any kind of home-made shelf will do; and in it the books are to be set on end, never on the front of the book, each in its particular place so that it might be found in the dark. He ought to learn all of his books by touch. After each reading the book is to be carefully put in its stall and left there until the owner chooses to take it out again.

When a book has been bought or received as a gift, the boy should, according to the old style, write therein his name, the date it came into his possession, and the warning that it is his book. Book plates are really unnecessary to a small library, unless the owner can well afford them. But it is necessary that the owner's name be written in each one. Now, should the boy lend his book? It is a question whether the refusal to lend it is a selfish act or not. Like umbrellas, books are often looked on as stray blessings to be taken in by any one who chances to come across them or who needs them. The well-conceived chaining idea has long since disappeared, but the purloining habit still lingers. It and its handmaiden, borrowing, have wrought much confusion and inconvenience in private libraries. Few people ever think to return a book, or at least to return it in good condition. If the truth were always told, the couplet of the satirist would fit the possessor of many a repleted library:

"Next, o'er his books his eyes began to roll,
In pleasant memory of all he stole."

Selfish or not selfish, the wise thing for the boy to do is to refuse to lend his books. It is too much like lending a meal or a friend; but they can all be shared in the presence of the owner. If the boy's chum has a hungry mind and clean hands, he may be asked to drop in and read the book where it belongs, but not to carry it off elsewhere. Or better still: the owner of the book who knows its riches may fall into the habit of reading his favourite portions aloud to his boy friends who have gathered in for that purpose. No single thing will awaken such a love for good literature as the gathering of choice bits of it through the ear. That is the good lesson that has come from the tent of the Arab. And it is a lesson that readers must learn to-day. By no means let the book of the boy fail to entertain his chums, but let it entertain them at his own home.

Does any one who has laboured hard to build a house move out of it as soon as it is completed? Does any one who has cultivated a friendship give it up as soon as it is secure? Should any one who has learned to thoroughly enjoy a good book throw it aside as soon as this is done? Like the house or the friend, that book should continue to be a comfort to him who has learned to appreciate it. In short, the boy must make friends with a few books and then keep them without capitulation. If he does, he may some day feel the truth of these verses:

"Books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good;
Round these with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastimes and our happiness will grow."

CHAPTER V

EDITIONS OF STANDARD BOOKS

"A precious treasure had I long possessed,
A little yellow canvas-covered book,
A slender abstract of the Arabian Tales;
And for companions in a new abode,
When first I learnt, that this dear prize of mine
Was but a block hewn from a mighty quarry—
That there were four more volumes, laden all
With kindred matter, 'twas to me, in truth,
A promise scarcely earthly."          —Wordsworth.

What edition of a book to buy is determined in about the same way as is the pattern of our clothes—by a compromise between our means and our likings. But in the case of our children it is a pretty well-known fact that their likings must be directed and the means at their disposal regulated—even in the purchase and reading of books. A boy left to himself will about as often fall into extravagant habits of taste as he will into extravagant habits in the use of his pocket money. He is no more able to judge of the good investment of knowledge than of the good investment of money. In the desire to appear as a good fellow among his companions he disregards either economy of time or economy of means. He needs to be shown the wisdom of saving along both lines. This can be done in no better way than by indicating to him an edition of a book that will require some sacrifice on his part to buy, and maybe to find time to read. This may all have to be done without regard to his tastes.

To let the mere notions of a boy determine the edition of a book to be bought and to estimate the merits of different editions by these same notions is foolish. This is neither directing nor cultivating tastes. The old plan of fencing in the pasture and of not letting the boy wander too far afield was many times a very good plan. Tastes need to be directed and boundaries fixed. Instead of permitting the boy to determine the merits of the illustrations and the binding, he should have pointed out to him repeatedly what good illustrations and good binding are, and whether they can both be afforded.

Both tastes and circumstances may lead to the buying of a cheap, modest-looking book. This may serve its owner well, and he may never miss what might be called the charm of a well-illustrated, well-printed, and well-bound edition—one pleasant to look into and to touch. He may be as little able to judge of the artistic make-up of a book as of the cut of his clothes or the quality of his food; what he wants is something to satisfy hunger and to cover nakedness, in whatever form it may be given. Because of this the boy can bury himself in the pages of an ill-made book if the words tell an enchanting story. But it is safe to say that most boys do like well-made books with good illustrations.

The pencil of the artist seems almost necessary to give the right touch to a child's book that is great literature. Not in that they enable the boy to get the story more easily are illustrations valuable, but in the fact that they lend an artistic touch to a thing that is of itself a work of art. A guess, however, at the kind of illustrations needed for children's books would be very arbitrary. No one could hold that the present-day coloured illustrations, with what is termed life in action instead of decoration and convention, are the only right ones for children. Nor are the old line-drawings in black and white to be discarded. We need woodcuts as well as the engraved colour-plate; we need Cruikshank, Tenniel, Greenaway, and Crane, as well as Brooke, Rackham, Parrish, and Smith, for each has added a charm to some of the great literature of childhood. May children's books continue to fare well at the hands of talented artists. No more enduring work can be wrought than that in which a keen and sympathetic imagination gives expression to a picture that was first put into words.

The work in hand for the teacher is to secure the buying of as good an edition of a book as the boy can afford. The fact should be kept before him at all times that he can usually get the good edition if he is willing to do so. If it should happen that in any particular year the boy cannot afford all of the books that might be bought in that year, the teacher should see that the one or two most valuable ones are secured. For example, if he is a sixth-grade boy, he must by some means manage to get "Robinson Crusoe" and "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments." The teacher's own interest, enthusiasm, and good taste will successfully solve what is to be done. As an aid in this direction it is to be hoped that book stores will display a number of good editions of each title of the standard books for children in order that a more satisfactory choice may be made of any one title. And the stores could do a good turn by having well-informed and painstaking clerks to aid in the selection of the right edition.

In the list that follows, a few low-priced editions without illustrations are given as well as the more artistic and expensive ones. The teacher may not care to own the large illustrated edition that appeals to the boy. Nor does he want an abridged edition. He may have to depart from the list in order to get a complete copy of such great books as "Don Quixote." For this particular title the teacher may range from the single volume of Motteaux's translation in "Everyman's Library" (one of the best issues of standard books for the teacher to select from at a low price) to that of the excellent translation by Shelton issued in the expensive "Tudor Translations." So does he need some complete edition of Lane's translation of "A Thousand and One Nights" with Harvey's illustrations if possible, such as the three-volume edition imported by Scribner, the four-volume edition in "Bohn's Standard Library," or the six-volume edition in the "Ariel Classics." Then again, it may happen that an edition such as the two-shilling edition of Grimm translated by Taylor and illustrated by Cruikshank, issued by the Oxford Press, is as good for the teacher as for the boy. But the appended list will not include and designate editions suitable for teachers only. The working out of such a list by the teacher for himself will indicate his interest in the task that is before him.

The list is not intended as a guide in building up an extensive library for the use of children. Its chief merit, no doubt, is in the fact that it is a limited list. And its first good result must be in the practice of the boy's buying a few books that are good and that will be read and reread. But little comment will be offered here and there on the preference of one edition over another. All editions designated by a star are well worth owning. A guess at the age for reading a book has been made, but with considerable latitude because of the unequal reading ability among children. The age from six to ten years, the primary grades of public school, will be indicated by the letter "P" placed before the title; the age from ten to fifteen years, the grammar grades of school, will be indicated by the letter "G" placed before the title. Any suggestions on included editions found unsatisfactory by experience, or on good editions omitted, will be gladly received. The sole aim herein is to present a list that will be of help to the teacher and the boys under him in finding the best that publishers have to give of the enduring literature for children.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MOTHER GOOSE NURSERY RHYMES

P—but must be learned even if done in the college class in English.

*"Randolph Caldecott's Picture Books." Any or all of the following are merrily done: "The House That Jack Built"; "Sing a Song of Sixpence"; "The Queen of Hearts"; "Hey Diddle Diddle, and Baby Bunting"; "Ride a Cock Horse"; "The Frog That Would a-Wooing Go." 4to. Picture wrappers, 25 cents each. Warne.

"The Baby's Opera: Old Rhymes with New Dresses, Set to Music." Walter Crane. Small 4to. Varnished boards, $1.50. Warne. A second volume is "The Baby's Bouquet."

*"Our Old Nursery Rhymes." The original tunes harmonized by Alfred Moffat. Illustrated in colour by H. Willebeek LeMair. 11 × 9. Cloth, $1.50. McKay. Thirty well-known rhymes with dainty and aristocratic illustrations of unusual beauty. A second volume is called "Little Songs of Long Ago."

"Thirty Old-time Nursery Songs." Arranged by Joseph Moorat and pictured by Paul Woodroffe. Large 4to. Boards, $2.00. Schirmer.

"Old Songs and Rounds." Decorated in full colour by Boutet de Monvel. Arranged to music by Wider. Cloth, $2.25. Duffield. Both English and French texts are given. There is nothing more charming in all the realm of picture books, according to The Nation.

*"Mother Goose; or, The Old Nursery Rhymes." Illustrated in colour by Kate Greenaway. 16mo. Decorated boards, 60 cents. Warne. Forty-four rhymes done with this artist's usual charm and nursery propriety.

"The Only True Mother Goose Melodies." An exact reproduction of the text and illustrations of the original edition printed in Boston in 1834 by Munroe and Francis. An introduction by Edward Everett Hale. 16mo. Cloth, 60 cents. Houghton.

*"The Nursery Rhyme Book." Collected by Andrew Lang and illustrated by Leslie Brooke. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Warne. Well illustrated.

"National Rhymes of the Nursery." Collected by George Saintsbury and illustrated by Gordon Browne. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Stokes. A splendid introduction for a teacher to read.

"Big Book of Nursery Rhymes." Edited by Walter Jerrold and illustrated by Charles Robinson. 8vo. Cloth, $3.00. Dutton.

"A Book of Nursery Songs and Rhymes." Edited by S. Baring-Gould. Illustrated and decorated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. McClurg.

"Mother Goose's Melodies for Children; or, Songs for the Nursery." Edited by William A. Wheeler. Illustrated by numerous woodcuts. 4to. Cloth, $1.50. Houghton.

*"Mother Goose." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Arthur Rackham. 4to. Cloth, $2.50. Century. Fine for a child.

"Mother Goose." Illustrated in colour by Fanny Y. Cory. 4to. Cloth, $1.50. Bobbs-Merrill.

"Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Tenniel, Hardy, and others. 4to. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton. A Nister book.

"Mother Goose." Edited by Clifton Johnson. Illustrated in duo-tone with line cuts by Will Bradley and others. Square 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Baker.

"Nursery Rhymes." Chosen by Louey Chisholm. Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by F. M. B. Blaikie. 4to. Cloth, $2.00. Stokes.

"Nursery Rhymes from Mother Goose." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Grace E. Wiederseim. Large square 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Scribner.

"The Complete Mother Goose." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Ethel Franklin Betts. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Stokes.

"Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes." Collected by Walter Jerrold. Illustrated by John Hassall. 6-1/2×9. Cloth, $1.50. Dodge.

"Our Nursery Rhyme Book." Edited by Letty and Frank Littlewood. Illustrated by Honor C. Appleton. Small 4to. Cloth, $1.50. Dana.

"Favourite Rhymes of Mother Goose." Illustrated in colour by Maria L. Kirk. Large 4to. Cloth, $1.25. Cupples.

*"Old Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes." Illustrated by E. Stewart Hardy. Decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.25. Dutton.

"Mother Goose in Silhouettes." Cut by Katharine G. Buffum. 6×6. Cloth, 75 cents. Lathrop. Forty-one clever pictures to twenty-three old rhymes.

"Mother Goose Book of Nursery Rhymes and Songs." From Everyman's Library. 12mo. Cloth, 35 cents; leather, 70 cents. Dutton.

*"Mother Goose: A Book of Nursery Rhymes." Collected by Charles Welsh. Illustrated by Clara E. Atwood. 12mo. Cloth, 30 cents. Heath. A good cheap edition.

"Heart of Oak Books: Book I." Edited by Charles Eliot Norton. Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill. 12mo. Cloth, 25 cents. Heath.

*"This Little Pig's Picture Book." Illustrated by Walter Crane. 4to. Cloth, $1.25. Lane. Contains also "The Fairy Ship and King Luckieboy's Party."

"Mother Hubbard's Picture Book." Illustrated by Walter Crane. 4to. Paper, $.25. Lane.

"April Baby's Book of Tunes, The." By the author of "Elizabeth and her German Garden." Col. Ill. by Kate Greenaway. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan.

"Jingle Book." By Carolyn Wells. (Standard School Library.) Ill. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Macmillan.

G—COLLECTIONS OF VERSE

*"The Children's Treasury of English Song." Selected by Francis Turner Palgrave. 16mo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan. This is the best collection that has yet been made for children. The publishers of this collection could do a great service by issuing a large, attractive, well-illustrated edition, adding to it a judicious selection from the great volume of verse covering the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

"The Children's Garland from the Best Poets." Selected by Coventry Patmore. 16mo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan.

"The Blue Book of Poetry." Selected by Andrew Lang. Illustrated by H. J. Ford and Lancelot Speed. Large crown 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Longmans.

"A Book of Famous Verse." Selected by Agnes Repplier. 16mo. Cloth, 75 cents. Houghton. A good selection, especially for boys.

"One Thousand Poems for Children: A Choice of the Best Verse Old and New." Selected by Roger Ingpen. 8vo. Cloth, $1.25. Jacobs.

"Lyra Heroica: A Book of Verse for Boys." Selected and arranged by William Ernest Henley. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Scribner.

"Our Children's Songs." Illustrated. 8vo. Cloth, $1.25. Harper.

*"The Listening Child: A Selection from the Songs of English Verse, Made for the Youngest Readers and Hearers." Selected by Lucy W. Thatcher. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan. An edition at $.50.

"A Book of Verse for Children." Compiled by E. V. Lucas. 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Holt.

"The Posy Ring: A Book of Verse for Children." Selected by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Doubleday.

"Poems Children Love." Edited by Peurhyn W. Coussens. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Dodge.

"Little Folks' Book of Verse." Edited by Clifton Johnson. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Baker.

"A Treasury of Verse for Little Children." Selected by M. G. Edgar. Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by W. Pogány. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Crowell.

"The Golden Staircase." Selected by Louey Chisholm Illustrated in colour by M. Dibdin Spooner. Large 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Putnam.

"A Child's Book of Old Verse." Selected and illustrated by Jessie Wilcox Smith. Large 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Duffield.

"The Treasure Book of Children's Verse." Edited by Mabel and Lillian Quiller-Couch. Illustrated in colour by M. Ethelred Gray. 4to. Cloth, $5.00. Hodder. Popular edition, $2.00.

*"The Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyric Poems in the English Language." By Francis Turner Palgrave. 16mo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan. Before entering high school, the boy should own some edition of this great collection of verse.

"The Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics." Illustrated by Hugh Thompson, W. Heath Robinson, and A. C. Michael. Small 4to. Cloth, $1.50. Hodder. A good edition.

"The Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics." Illustrated in colour by Maxfield Parrish. 4to. Cloth, $2.50. Duffield.

"Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics." Illustrated in colour by Anning Bell. Square 8vo. Cloth, $3.00. Dutton.

"The Oxford Book of English Verse." By Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.90; leather and India paper, $3.50. Oxford Press. A good substitute for "The Golden Treasury."

"The Boy's Percy." Being old ballads of war, adventure, and love, from Bishop Thomas Percy's "Reliques of Ancient Poetry." Edited for boys by Sidney Lanier. Illustrated from original designs by E. B. Bonsell. 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Scribner. A capital book for any boy who is a real reader.

*"A Book of English Ballads." Collected by Hamilton Wright Mabie. Decorative illustrations by George Wharton Edwards. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Macmillan.

"The Ballad Book." Katharine Lee Bates. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Sibley. A very good selection deserving a more attractive make-up.

"The Ballad Book." William Allingham. 16mo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan.

*"Robin Hood: His Deeds and Adventures." The original ballads illustrated in colour by Lucy Fitch Perkins. 4to. Cloth, $1.00. Stokes.

"Ballads of Famous Fights." Illustrated in colour by W. H. C. Groome, Archibald Webb, and Dudley Fennant. Large 4to. Decorated boards, $1.25. Doran.

"The Oxford Book of Ballads." Chosen and edited by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $2.00; leather and India paper, $3.50. Oxford Press. Very complete and good for the high school age.

"English Narrative Poems." Selected and edited by Claude M. Fuers and Henry N. Sanborn. 24mo. (Pocket Classics.) Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

"Story Telling Poems." Edited by Frances J. Olcott. Narrow 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Houghton.

"Old English Ballads and Folk Songs." (Pocket Classics.) Edited by W. D. Armes. 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

"Collection of Poetry for School Reading." By M. White. 12mo. Cloth, $.40. Macmillan.

"Another Book of Verses for Children." By E. V. Lucas. Col. Ill. 8vo. $1.50. Macmillan.

"Nature Pictures by American Poets." By Annie R. Marble. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Macmillan.

"The Sunday Book of Poetry for the Young." Selected by C. F. Alexander. (Golden Treasury Series.) 16mo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan.

"English Poets, The. Selections." 4 vols. By T. Humphry Ward. Each, 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan. For reference and for the use of the teacher.

"Treasury of Irish Poetry, A." (Globe.) By S. A. Brooke and T. W. Rolleston. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75. Macmillan.

INDIVIDUAL WRITERS OF VERSE

*P—"Dame Wiggins of Lee and Her Seven Wonderful Cats." Written principally by a lady of ninety (Mrs. Sharp) and edited by John Ruskin. Illustrated by Kate Greenaway. 16mo. Cloth, 1s. Allen.

*P—"John Gilpin's Ride." By William Cowper. Illustrated by Randolph Caldecott. 4to. Paper, 25 cents. Warne.

*P—"Nonsense Songs." By Edward Lear. Illustrated in colour by Leslie Brooke. Small 4to. Cloth, $2.00. Warne.

*P—"The Pied Piper of Hamelin." By Robert Browning. Illustrated in colour by Kate Greenaway. Post 4to. Varnished boards, $1.50. Warne.

"The Pied Piper of Hamelin." Illustrated in colour by Hope Dunlap. 4to. Cloth, $1.25. Rand.

"The Pied Piper of Hamelin." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Margaret Terrant. 8vo. Decorated cloth, $1.25. Dutton.

*P—"A Child's Garden of Verses." By Robert Louis Stevenson. Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Florence Storer. Square 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Scribner.

"A Child's Garden of Verses." Illustrated by Charles Robinson. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Scribner.

"A Child's Garden of Verses." Illustrated in colour by Jessie Wilcox Smith. Royal 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Scribner.

"A Child's Garden of Verses." Illustrated by Bessie Collins Pease. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50; leather, $2.00. Dodge.

"A Child's Garden of Verses." Illustrated in colour. 4to. Cloth, $2.00. Harper.

"A Child's Garden of Verses." Illustrated by Millicent Sowerby. 12mo. Cloth, 75 cents. McKay.

"A Child's Garden of Verses." Illustrated. In the Ariel Classics. 16mo. Limp leather, 75 cents. Putnam. Good for a teacher.

*P—"Songs of Innocence." By William Blake. Illustrated by Geraldine Morris. 16mo. Cloth, 50 cents; leather, 75 cents. Lane.

"Songs of Innocence." Illustrated in colour by Honor C. Appleton. 4to. Cloth, $1.50. Dana.

"Songs of Innocence." In Ariel Classics. 16mo. Leather, $.75. Putnam.

*P—"Sing Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book." By Christina Rossetti. Illustrated by Arthur Hughes. 16mo. Cloth, $.80. Macmillan.

*P—"Lullaby Land." By Eugene Field. Selected by Kenneth Graham and illustrated by Charles Robinson. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Scribner.

*P—"Poems of Childhood." By Eugene Field. Illustrated in colour by Maxfield Parrish. Royal 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Scribner.

*G—"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." By Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Illustrated in colour by W. Pogány. 4to. Cloth, $5.00. Crowell.

G—"Tales of a Wayside Inn." By Henry W. Longfellow. Edited by J. H. Castleman. 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

*G—"The Song of Hiawatha." By Henry W. Longfellow. Cover in colour by Maxfield Parrish, frontispiece in colour by N. C. Wyeth, and 400 text illustrations by Frederic Remington. Square 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Houghton. A good edition.

G—"Hiawatha." By Henry W. Longfellow. Illustrated by Harrison Fisher. Large 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Bobbs-Merrill.

G—"The Children's Longfellow." Illustrated in colour. 8vo. Cloth, $3.00. Houghton.

G—"Poetical Works." Sir Walter Scott. With a memoir by Palgrave. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75. (New Globe Poets.) Macmillan.

G—"Lyrical Poems." Alfred Lord Tennyson. Edited by Palgrave. 16mo. Cloth, $1.00. (Golden Treasury Series.) Macmillan.

FAIRY STORIES

P—General Collections of Fairy and Household Stories

*"Puss in Boots" and "Jack and the Beanstalk." Illustrated by H. M. Brock. 10-1/2×9. Art boards, $1.00. Warne. Delightful!

*"Beauty and the Beast Picture Book." Done by Walter Crane. Large 4to. Cloth, $1.25. Lane. Contains also "The Frog Prince" and "The Hind in the Wood."

*"The Golden Goose Book." Illustrated by Leslie Brooke. Square 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Warne. Contains also "The Three Bears," "The Three Pigs," and "The History of Tom Thumb." A delightful volume.

*"The Cruikshank Fairy Book." Illustrated by George Cruikshank. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $2.00; a cheaper edition at $1.00. Putnam. Contains the famous stories of "Puss in Boots," "Jack and the Beanstalk," "Hop o' My Thumb," and "Cinderella." Every child should own this book.

*"English Fairy Tales." Edited by Joseph Jacobs. Illustrated by John D. Batton. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.25. Putnam. Too entertaining to miss. The editor and illustrator have done almost as good work in "More English Fairy Tales," "Celtic Fairy Tales," and "More Celtic Fairy Tales."

"English Fairy Tales." Edited by Ernest and Grace Rhys. Illustrated by Anning Bell and Herbert Cole. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Dutton. A few of the more common tales.

"Mother Goose Nursery Tales." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by E. Stewart Hardy and others. 4to. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton. A Nister book.

"Tales of Past Times." As written down by Perrault. Illustrated by Charles Robinson. 16mo. Cloth, $.40; leather, $.60. Dutton.

"Perrault's Fairy Tales." Illustrated with colour plates by Honor C. Appleton. 4to. Cloth, $1.50. Dana.

"Perrault's Tales of Mother Goose." Edited by Charles Welsh and illustrated after Doré. 12mo. Cloth, $.20. Heath.

"Mother Goose Nursery Tales." Edited by Walter Jerrold and illustrated by A. E. Jackson. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Dutton.

"The English Fairy Book." Edited by Ernest Rhys. Illustrated in colours. 12mo. Cloth, $1.35. Stokes. Uniform with this may be had well-selected, well-illustrated, and well-made volumes of Scottish and Italian fairy tales.

"Fairy Gold: A Book of Old English Fairy Tales." Chosen by Ernest Rhys and illustrated by Herbert Cole. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton. A cheap edition in Everyman's Library.

"A Child's Book of Stories." Edited by Peurhyn Wingfield Coussens. Illustrated in colour by Jessie Wilcox Smith. Quarto. Cloth, $2.25. Duffield. Eighty-seven well-known tales.

"The Big Book of Fairy Tales." Selected and edited by Walter Jerrold. Illustrated by Charles Robinson. Large 4to. Cloth, $2.50. Caldwell. Thirty well-known tales.

*"The Fairy Book." Edited by Dinah Maria Mulock. Illustrated with 36 plates in colour by Walter Goble. Large 8vo. Cloth, $5.00. Macmillan. An excellent edition of one of the best collections of fairy tales ever made. Dainty and artistic coloured plates.

"The Blue Fairy Book." Edited by Andrew Lang. Illustrated by H. J. Ford and G. P. Jacont Hood. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Longmans. The dozen colour fairy books are not all equally good, this being the best one.

"The Fairy Book." Collected by Dinah Maria Mulock. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Harper. Thirty-six familiar tales.

"The Oak Tree Fairy Book." Edited by Clifton Johnson. Illustrated from pictures by Willard Bonte. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Little. A half-hundred stories with all of the terrible taken out. There are more tree books.

"The Fairy Ring." Edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. Illustrated by E. M. Mackinstry. 8vo. Cloth, $1.35. Doubleday. Other titles by the same editors are "Magic Casements," "Tales of Wonder," and "Tales of Laughter."

"Fairy Tales Old and New." With colour plates and text illustrations by Arthur Rackham and other artists. 8vo. Cloth, $1.25. Cassell.

"In Fairy Land: Tales Told Again." Edited by Louey Chisholm. Illustrated in colour by Katharine Cameron. 8vo. Cloth, $3.00. Putnam. Twenty-six familiar tales. A second volume is "The Enchanted Land."

"The Reign of King Oberon." Edited by Walter Jerrold and illustrated by Charles Robinson. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Dutton. A cheap edition in Everyman's Library. In uniform editions are "The Reign of King Cole" and "The Reign of King Herla."

"Household Tales and Fairy Stories." Illustrated by Sir John Gilbert and others. 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Dutton.

"Forty Famous Fairy Tales." From Jacobs, Grimm, Perrault, and Andersen. Fully illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.00. Putnam.

"Fairy Tales Children Love." Edited by Charles Welsh. 12mo. Cloth, $1.35. Dodge.

"The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales from the Old French." Retold by Sir Arthur T. Quiller-Couch. Illustrated in colour by Edmund Dulac. 4to. Cloth, $5.00. Hodder. Contains "Beauty and the Beast," "Cinderella," and "Bluebeard," as well as a good introduction and artistic plates. Popular edition at $2.00.

"Old, Old Fairy Tales." Selected by Mrs. Valentine. Fully illustrated. Square crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.75. Warne. Also in the Chandos Classics at $.75. Thirteen good tales.

"The Fairy Book." (Everychild's Series.) By Kate Forrest Oswell. 16mo. Ill. Cloth, $.40. Macmillan.

"The Twenty Best Fairy Tales." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Lucy Fitch Perkins. 4to. Cloth, $1.00. Stokes.

"Favourite Fairy Tales." Illustrated by Peter Newell. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Harper. Seventeen familiar stories.

"The Rose Fairy Book." Edited by Mrs. Herbert Strang. Illustrated by Lillian A. Govey. Large 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Doran.

"Where the Wind Blows: Being Ten Fairy Tales from Ten Nations." Collected by Katharine Pyle and illustrated by Bertha Corson Day, in colour. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00. Dutton.

"The Wild Flower Fairy Book." Compiled by Esther Singleton. Illustrated by Charles Buckles Falls. 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Dodd. Twenty-five tales from all countries.

"Fairy Tales." Comtesse d'Aulnoy. Translated by J. R, Planché. Illustrated by Gordon Browne and Lydia F. Emmet. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. McKay.

"Fairy Tales." By Edward Laboulaye. Fully illustrated by Arthur A. Dixon. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton. A Nister book.

"Fairy Tales." By William Hauff. Translated by L. L. Weedon. Fully illustrated by Arthur A. Dixon. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton. A Nister book.

"The Hungarian Fairy Book." Collected by Nander Pogány and illustrated in black and red by Willy Pogány. 12mo. Cloth, $1.35. Stokes. With all of the terrible left in.

"Folk Tales From Many Lands." Collected by Lillian Gask and illustrated by Willy Pogány. Large 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Crowell.

"Outlook Fairy Book for Little People." By Laura Winnington. Ill. 8vo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan.

"Folk Tales of East and West." Collected by John Harrington Cox. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Little.

"The Book of Folk Stories." Rewritten by Horace E. Scudder. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Houghton. Good for a teacher.

"Fairy Tales." Selected and adapted by W. J. Rolf. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. American.

"Fairy Tales." Illustrated by Charles Copeland. 16mo. Cloth, 2 vols., $.35 each. Ginn.

"Six Nursery Classics." Edited by M. V. O'Shea. Illustrated by Ernest Fosbery. 12mo. Cloth, $.20. Heath. Contains "Dame Wiggins of Lee" with the Greenaway pictures.

"Old World Wonder Stories." Edited by M. V. O'Shea. Illustrated by J. V. Hollis. 12mo. Cloth, $.20. Heath.

*"The Children's Book." A collection of the best and most famous poems and stories in the English language, chosen by Horace E. Scudder. Illustrated in fifteen full-page plates and many text illustrations by Doré, Chruikshank, and others. Cover design by Maxfield Parrish. Small 4to. Cloth, $2.50. Houghton. In this book are ballads, fables, fairy stories from Grimm, Perrault, Andersen, "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," and other sources, as well as "Goody Two Shoes," selections from "Gulliver's Travels," classic myths, and other well-known stories. The best single book for a child to own. Big and good.

"TALES OF A THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS"

P and G—or any age. Lovers of a good tale, both young and old, should be thankful for this work of Queen Scheherazade, done as it was to prevent her husband from cutting off her head. While kings are yet in fashion could not some other one succeed as well?

*"Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights." Retold by Gladys Davidson and illustrated by Helen Stratton. Large 4to. Cloth, 5s. Blackie. Eight tales for young children.

"The Arabian Nights." Selected and retold by Gladys Davidson. Illustrated by Helen Stratton. Large crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Caldwell.

*"Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights." Edited by E. Dixon. Illustrated by John D. Batton. Large 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Dent. Sixteen of the better-known tales told for boys and girls. An attractive edition.

"The Arabian Nights." Edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Longmans.

"The Arabian Nights." Edited by W. H. D. Rouse. Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Walter Paget. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton. A Nister book. Eight tales that are well known.

"The Arabian Nights: Their Best Known Tales." Edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. Illustrated in colour by Maxfield Parrish. Square 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Scribner. Eleven tales.

"The Arabian Nights." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Rene Bull. Large 8vo. Cloth, $3.50. Dodd.

"Stories from the Arabian Nights." Retold by Laurence Houseman. Illustrated by Edmund Dulac, with 50 colour plates. Large square 8vo. Cloth, $5.00. Hodder. Six tales. Issued in an edition at $1.50.

"Arabian Nights." A six-volume edition from the Lane text with additions by Stanley Lane-Poole. 16mo. Leather, $.75 a volume. Putnam. In the Ariel Classics. Good for the teacher.

"The Arabian Nights' Entertainments." Translated by E. W. Lane. Edited by S. Lane-Poole. 4 vols. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00 each. Macmillan.

"Arabian Nights' Entertainments." Translated by Edward William Lane. Illustrated from the original Lane designs by eminent artists. Royal 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. McKay. Good for the teacher.

*"Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights." 12mo. Cloth, $.35; leather, $.75. Dutton. Everyman's Library.

"The Arabian Nights' Entertainments." Edited by George Tyler Townsend. Fully illustrated. Square crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.75. Warne. Issued also in the Chandos Classics at $.75.

"The Arabian Nights." Illustrated by W. Heath Robinson, Helen Stratton, and others. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Dodge.

*"The Arabian Nights." Edited by Frances J. Olcott, from the Lane translation. Illustrated by Munro Orr. 12mo. Cloth, $2.50. Heath. A judicious selection of stories.

"The Arabian Nights." Edited by Clifton Johnson. Illustrated by Casper Emerson and Leon D'Elmo. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Baker.

"Stories from the Arabian Nights." Illustrated. 16mo. Half leather, $.60. Houghton. In the Riverside School Library.

"Arabian Nights." Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

"The Arabian Nights." Selected and edited by Edward Everett Hale. 12mo. Cloth, $.45. Ginn.

"Stories from the Arabian Nights." 12mo. Cloth, $.60. American.

P—"FAIRY AND HOUSEHOLD TALES"

As Collected and Arranged by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

*"Grimm's Fairy Tales: Selected and Edited for Little Folks." Illustrated by Helen Stratton. Large 4to. Cloth, 6s. Blackie. Fifteen tales well done.

"Grimm's Fairy Tales." Translated by L. L. Weeden. Illustrated in colour by Ada Dennis and black-and-white by E. Stewart Hardy. 4to. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton. A Nister book. Thirty-two tales illustrated for young children.

*"Household Stories." Translated from the German of the Brothers Grimm by Lucy Crane and done into pictures by Walter Crane. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan. In the New Cranford Series. "A lasting joy."

"Grimm's Household Tales." Translated by Marion Edwards. Illustrated by R. Anning Bell. 12mo. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton. Forty-nine tales.

"Grimm's Household Stories." Edited and illustrated by J. R. Monsell, in colour and black-and-white. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Cassell.

*"Grimm's Fairy Tales." From the Taylor translation with an introduction by John Ruskin. Illustrated in colour by Charles Folkard. 8vo. Cloth, 6s. Black. Fifty-six tales.

"Fairy Tales from Grimm." With an introduction by S. Barring-Gould and illustrations by Gordon Browne. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Stokes. Forty-four tales.

"Grimm's Fairy Tales." All of the best-known stories edited by Walter Jerrold. Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Charles Robinson. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Dutton.

"Grimm's Fairy Tales." Illustrated in colour by Hope Dunlap. Large 8vo. Cloth, $1.20. Rand.

"Grimm's Fairy Tales." Translated by Mrs. Edgar Lucas and illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Large 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Lippincott. Sixty-three tales.

"Grimm's Fairy Tales and Stories." A complete translation by Mrs. H. B. Paull. Fully illustrated in colour and black-and-white. Square 8vo. Cloth, $1.75. Warne. Also in the Chandos Classics at $.75.

"Grimm's Fairy Tales." Illustrated with colour plates by Noel Pocock. Large 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Doran. Fifty-five tales.

"The House in the Woods and Other Fairy Stories." Illustrated in colour and pen-and-ink drawings by Leslie Brooke. Large 8vo. Boards, $1.35. Warne.

"Grimm's Animal Stories." Decorations and pictures in colour by John Rae. Small 4to. Cloth, $1.50. Duffield.

*"Gammer Grethel; or, Fairy Tales and Stories." The original stories as taken down from a peasant woman by Jacob Grimm. Illustrated with woodcuts after George Cruikshank. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. In Bohn's Illustrated Library. Macmillan.

"The Popular Stories Collected by the Brothers Grimm." A reprint of the first English edition, with notes and illustrations by George Cruikshank. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Oxford Press.

"Grimm's Fairy Tales." 12mo. Cloth, $.35; leather, $.70. In Everyman's Library. Dutton. Any one of the last three would be good for the teacher.

"Grimm's Household Tales." Illustrated. 16mo. Half leather, $.60. Houghton. In the Riverside School Library.

"Grimm's Tales." Translated by Lucy Crane. Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

"Grimm's Fairy Tales." Edited by J. H. Fassett. (Pocket Classics Series.) 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

*"Grimm's Fairy Tales." Illustrated with 50 colour plates and black-and-white drawings by Arthur Rackham. 7-1/2×10. Cloth, $6.00. Doubleday. An elegant edition. In cheaper form at $1.50.

P—"DANISH LEGENDS AND FAIRY TALES"

By Hans Christian Andersen

*"Andersen's Fairy Stories for Youngest Children." Translated by Mrs. E. Lucas and illustrated by Helen Stratton. Large 4to. Cloth, 5s. Blackie.

*"Wonder Stories Told for Children." Illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.00. Houghton.

"Andersen's Fairy Tales." Illustrated in colour by A. Duncan Carse. 8vo. Cloth, 6s. Black.

"Andersen's Fairy Tales." Translated by Mrs. E. Lucas. Illustrated by Thomas, Charles, and William Robinson. 12mo. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton. Thirty-eight of the best-known tales.

*"Fairy Tales from Hans Andersen." Translated by Mrs. E. Lucas. Illustrated with colour plates and line drawings by Maxwell Armfield. Large 8vo. Cloth, $3.00. Dutton. Forty-one tales.

"Fairy Tales from Hans Andersen." Edited by Walter Jerrold. Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by F. Papé. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Dutton.

"Fairy Tales from Hans Andersen." Translated by W. Angledorff. Illustrated by E. Stewart Hardy, in colour and black-and-white. 4to. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton. A Nister book. Twenty-nine tales.

"Andersen's Fairy Tales." Introduction by Edward Everett Hale. Illustrated by Helen Stratton. Large square 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Lippincott.

"Fairy Tales from Hans Andersen." With an introduction by Edward Clodd and illustrations by Gordon Browne. Large 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Stokes. Twenty-five tales.

"Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales." Illustrated by J. J. Mora. 4to. Cloth, $1.00. Dana.

"Danish Legends and Fairy Tales." Fully illustrated by wood engravings. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. In Bohn's Illustrated Library. Macmillan.

"Andersen's Fairy Tales." 12mo. Cloth, $.35; leather, $.70. In Everyman's Library. Dutton. Either of the last two is convenient for the teacher.

"Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales." Fully illustrated. Square crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.75. Warne. Also in the Chandos Classics at $.75.

"Andersen's Fairy Tales." Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

"Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales." Translated by H. Oscar Sommer. Illustrated in colour by Cecile Walton. Large 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Stokes.

*"Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales and Stories." Translated by H. L. Breakstead, with an introduction by Edmund Gosse and illustrations by Hans Tegner. Imperial 4to. Cloth, $5.00. Century. Forty-two stories.

"Stories from Hans Andersen." Illustrated with 28 colour-plates by Edmund Dulac. 4to. Cloth, $5.00. Doran. Six tales, including "The Snow Queen."

"Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales." Illustrated in colour by W. Heath Robinson. 4to. Cloth, $3.50. Heath.

"The Snow Queen and Other Stories from Hans Andersen." Illustrated in colour-plates by Edmund Dulac. Small 4to. Cloth, $2.00. Doran.

"Danish Fairy Legends and Tales." By Hans Andersen. Trans, by Caroline Peachey and H. W. Dulcken. Introd. by Sarah C. Brooks. (Pocket Classics Series.) 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

P—"The History of Little Goody Two Shoes, Otherwise Called Mrs. Margery Two Shoes"

BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH

*"Little Goody Two Shoes." Illustrated by Marion L. Peabody after the woodcuts of the original edition of 1765. 12mo. Cloth, $.20. Heath.

"Little Goody Two Shoes." Illustrated by Jessie M. King. 16mo. Leather, $.75. Dutton.

"Little Goody Two Shoes." Found in the second book of the "Heart of Oak Books." Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill. 12mo. Cloth, $.35. Heath.

P—"Granny's Wonderful Chair and its Tales of Fairy Times"

BY FRANCES BROWNE

*"Granny's Wonderful Chair and the Tales That It Told." Edited by M. V. O'Shea. Illustrated by Clara E. Atwood after Mrs. Seymour Lucas. 12mo. Cloth, $.30. Heath. Fairy tales of great merit.

"Granny's Wonderful Chair and Its Tales of Fairy Times." Illustrated in colour by W. H. Margetson. Square 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Doran.

"Granny's Wonderful Chair." 12mo. Cloth, $.35; leather, $.70. In Everyman's Library. Dutton.

P—"The Rose and the Ring; or, the History of Prince Giglio and Prince Bulbo
A Fireside Pantomime for Great and Small Children"

BY MR. M. A. TITMARSH (THACKERAY)

*"The Rose and the Ring." With an introduction by Edward Everett Hale and woodcuts after the originals by Thackeray. 12mo. Cloth, $.20. Heath.

"The Rose and the Ring." Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Macmillan.

"The Rose and the Ring." 16mo. Leather, $.75. In Ariel Classics. Putnam.

"The Rose and the Ring." Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $1.25. Dutton.

*"The Rose and the Ring." The original illustrations with others in colour by J. R. Monsell. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Crowell.

P—"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

BY LEWIS CARROLL

*"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan. It is hard to prefer any other edition to this one.

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $.75. Putnam.

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Illustrated by John Tenniel with colour plates by Maria L. Kirk. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Stokes.

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Illustrated by John Tenniel. 16mo. Leather, $.75. Putnam. In the Ariel Classics. Good for the teacher.

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

*"Alice in Wonderland." Illustrated in colour by Arthur Rackham. 8vo. Cloth, $1.40. Doubleday. A fine edition.

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Bessie Collins Pease. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Dodge.

"Alice in Wonderland." Illustrated in colour and line by George Soper. Square 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Baker.

"Alice in Wonderland." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Charles Robinson. 8vo. Cloth, $1.10. Cassell.

"Alice in Wonderland." Pictures in colour by Millicent Sowerby. 8vo. Cloth, $1.25. Duffield.

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." (Standard School Library.) Ill. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Macmillan.

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Illustrated in colour and line by W. H. Walker. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Lane.

"Alice in Wonderland." With an introduction by E. S. Martin and illustrations by Peter Newell. 8vo. Cloth, $3.00. Harper.

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Illustrated with 90 coloured plates by Henry Rosentree. Large 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Nelson.

P—"Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There"

BY LEWIS CARROLL

*"Through the Looking Glass." Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan.

"Through the Looking Glass." Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $.75. Putnam.

"Through the Looking Glass." Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel. 16mo. Leather, $.75. In the Ariel Classics. Putnam.

"Through the Looking Glass." Illustrated in colour and pen-and-ink sketches by Bessie Collins Pease. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Dodge.

"Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There." (Standard School Library.) 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Macmillan.

"Through the Looking Glass." Illustrated by Peter Newell. 8vo. Cloth, $.60. Harper.

"Through the Looking Glass." Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

"Through the Looking Glass." Bound with "Alice in Wonderland." Illustrated in colour by Eleanore Plaisted Abbot. Original illustrations by Tenniel. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Jacobs.

P—"The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby"

BY CHARLES KINGSLEY

"Water Babies." Illustrated in colour by Katherine Cameron. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Stokes.

*"Water-Babies." With an introduction by Rose G. Kingsley and illustrations in colour by Margaret W. Tarrant. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton.

"The Water-Babies." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Arthur Dixon. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton. A Nister book.

"The Water-Babies." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by George Soper. Square 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Baker.

"The Water-Babies." Illustrated in colour by Ethel Everett. 12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.25. Little.

*"The Water-Babies." Illustrated by Linley Sanbourne. 12 mo. Cloth, $1.25. Macmillan.

*"The Water-Babies." Illustrated by C. E. Brock. 12mo. Cloth, $.80. Macmillan.

"Water-Babies." Illustrated in colour by Agnes Foringe. Square 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Doran.

"The Water-Babies." Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

"Water-Babies, The." (Standard School Library.) Ill. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Macmillan.

G—"At the Back of the North Wind"

BY GEORGE MACDONALD

"At the Back of the North Wind." Illustrated in colour by Frank C. Papé and in black-and-white by Arthur Hughes. Large crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Caldwell.

"At the Back of the North Wind." Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Dutton.

*"At the Back of the North Wind." With the original illustrations by Arthur Hughes and plates in colour by Maria L. Kirk. Large 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Lippincott.

"At the Back of the North Wind." Illustrated in colour. 8vo. Cloth, 3s. 6d. Blackie.

FOUR WORTHIES

"Æsop's Fables"

P—This enduring form of literature may be read in almost any grade. The edition is to be determined largely by the grade for which it is designed. In point of effectiveness in showing human experiences and weaknesses by means of animal action, the classic fable has never been equalled by any other form of literature. He would be a rash man who would claim that Lincoln owed to Euclid more of his power to think out a question and carry his point than he did to Æsop. Fables are imaginative literature, and in that lies their power rather than in their didactic assertion that later became attached as a moral to be pointed. They need but one moral, as G. K. Chesterton so aptly observes; for nothing in this world has more than one moral.

*"The Fables of Æsop." Selected and told anew by Joseph Jacobs. Illustrated by Richard Heighway. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. In the New Cranford Series. Macmillan. Good for younger children, but should be printed without notes and advertisements.

*"Æsop's Fables." Illustrated by Arthur Rackham, in colour-plates. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Doubleday. An attractive edition, except the poor binding, for older children. The introduction by G. K. Chesterton is very readable for grown-ups.

*"A Hundred Fables of Æsop." From the English version of Sir Roger L'Estrange with an introduction by Kenneth Grahame and illustrations by Percy J. Billinghurst. Square 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Lane. Good in its quaint English.

"Æsop's Fables." Illustrated by Boyd Smith. 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Century.

"The Fables of Æsop." Illustrated with colour-plates by Edward Detmond. Large 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Doran.

"Æsop's Fables." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Harrison Weir. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Harper.

"Æsop's Fables." Edited by Gordon Holmes and illustrated by Charles Folkard. 8vo. Cloth, 6s. Black.

"Big Book of Fables." Edited by Walter Jerrold and illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Charles Robinson. Royal 8vo. Cloth, $3.00. Caldwell.

"Æsop's Fables." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by J. M. Condé. 8vo. Cloth, $1.25. Moffat.

"Æsop's Fables." Illustrated in colour and line by Lucy Fitch Perkins. 4to. Cloth, $1.00. Stokes.

"The Book of Fables." Chosen and phrased by Horace E. Scudder. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Houghton. Good.

"Æsop's Fables." Translated from the original sources by the Reverend Thomas James. Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel. In the Ariel Classics. 16mo. Leather, $.75. Putnam. A useful old edition for the teacher and for the older boy who will read a dainty book done in red binding.

"Æsop's Fables." Illustrated. In the Chandos Classics. 12mo. Cloth, $.75. Warne. Good for the teacher.

"Æsop's Fables." Edited by J. H. Stickney. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $.35. Ginn.

"The Talking Beasts: A Book of Fable Wisdom." Edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. Illustrated by Harold Nelson. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Doubleday. From Æsop, La Fontaine, Bidpai, and other sources.

*"Select Fables from La Fontaine adapted from the Translation of Elizier Wright for the Use of the Young." Illustrated in colour by Boutet de Monvel. 11 x 9. Cloth, $2.25. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. No better illustrations have yet appeared to any child's book.

G—"Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World"

BY JONATHAN SWIFT

Though abridged texts are generally a presumption and a blunder, there is little warrant for school children's having more than the first two voyages, to Lilliput and to Brobdingnag, of this remarkable book. An expurgated edition is probably necessary in an age accustomed to a cloak of conventional insinuation in a story rather than to the blunt frankness that obtained in the times of Swift.

*"Gulliver's Voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag." Illustrated in colour by P. A. Stozios. 8vo. Cloth, $2.25. Holt.

"Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Arthur Rackham. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton.

"Gulliver's Travels." Adapted for the young by W. B. Scott. Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by A. E. Jackson. 4to. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton. A Nister book.

"Gulliver's Travels." (Pocket Classics Series.) Edited by C. Johnson. 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

"Gulliver's Travels." Illustrated by Stephen de la Bere. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00. Macmillan.

*"Gulliver's Travels." With an introduction by Sir Henry Craik and illustrations by C. E. Brock. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. In the New Cranford Series. Macmillan. All of the voyages with old-fashioned spelling and capitalization that make it an attractive edition to the student.

*"Gulliver's Travels." The voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag, illustrated by Arthur Rackham. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Dutton. Good edition.

"Gulliver's Travels." Illustrated in imitation of woodcuts by Louis Rhead. Introduction by William Dean Howells. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Harper.

"Gulliver's Travels." Reprinted from the first edition, expurgated and revised. Illustrated by Herbert Cole. Square 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Lane.

"Gulliver's Travels." Illustrated by Gordon Browne. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Scribner.

*"Gulliver's Travels." The separate voyages each in a single volume. In the Ariel Classics. 16mo. Leather, $.75. Putnam.

"Gulliver's Travels." Illustrated. 16mo. Half-leather, $.60. In the Riverside School Library. Houghton.

"Gulliver's Travels." In Everyman's Library. 12mo. Cloth, $.35; leather, $.75. Dutton.

"Gulliver's Travels." Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

*"Gulliver's Travels." The voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag only. Edited by T. M. Balliet. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $.30. Heath.

"Gulliver's Travels." Illustrated in colour by Leo Winter. Large 8vo. Cloth, $1.20. Rand.

G—"The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which is to Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream"

BY JOHN BUNYAN

*"The Pilgrim's Progress." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Frank C. Papé. 8vo. Cloth, $3.00. Dutton. A stately edition of both parts.

"The Pilgrim's Progress." Fourteen etchings by William Strang. A new and cheaper reissue of the original plates. Large 8vo. Cloth, $3.00. Dutton. A good edition.

"The Pilgrim's Progress." With an introduction by the Bishop of Durham. Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Walter Paget. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. A Nister book. Dutton.

"The Pilgrim's Progress." Illustrated in colour by Byam Shaw. Square 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Scribner importation. A fine edition.

"The Pilgrim's Progress." With a life of the author by the Reverend John Brown. Illustrated in colour by James Clark. Super royal 8vo. Cloth, $3.40. Cassell.

"The Pilgrim's Progress." Illustrated in colour by Gertrude Hammond. 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Macmillan.

*"The Pilgrim's Progress." Introduction by the Reverend H. R. Haweis. Illuminated pages and 120 designs by the Brothers Rhead. Large 4to. Cloth, $1.50. Century. This attractive edition contains the first part only.

"The Pilgrim's Progress." Illustrated by Harold Copping. Large 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Revel. Has the authentic text with illustrations in Puritan dress.

*"The Pilgrim's Progress." Illustrated. 16mo. Half-leather, $.60. Houghton. In the Riverside School Library.

"The Pilgrim's Progress." Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

*"The Pilgrim's Progress." Edited by Canon Venable and Mabel Peacock. With illustrations by George Cruikshank. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Oxford Press.

"The Pilgrim's Progress." 12mo. Linen boards, $.75. In the Chandos Classics. Warne.

*"The Pilgrim's Progress." Edited by Ernest C. Noyes. 16mo. Cloth, $.40. The first part only. Merrill.

"The Pilgrim's Progress." In Everyman's Library. 12mo. Cloth, $.35; leather, $.70. Dutton.

"The Pilgrim's Progress." Edited by D. H. Montgomery. 12mo. Cloth, $.30. Ginn.

G—"The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner, as Related by Himself"

BY DANIEL DEFOE

*"Robinson Crusoe." Illustrated with 24 separately mounted colour plates by Noel Pocock. Large 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Hodder. A fine edition, including the first part only. The cover page, illustrated with nothing but a human footprint in the sand, could not have been more happily done.

*"Robinson Crusoe." Illustrated with over a hundred pen-and-ink drawings, head-and-tail pieces, and decorations done in old woodcut style by the Brothers Rhead. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Harper. The first part only. A good edition.

*"Robinson Crusoe." Illustrated in colour and with chapter headings by E. Boyd Smith. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Houghton. The first part only. Good.

"Robinson Crusoe." Illustrated in colour by W. B. Robinson. Large 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Stokes.

"Robinson Crusoe." Edited by Walter Jerrold and illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Archibald Webb. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Dutton.

"Robinson Crusoe." Edited by H. Kingsley. Illustrated in colour. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Macmillan.

"Robinson Crusoe." Illustrated by Gordon Browne. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.25. Scribner importation.

"Robinson Crusoe." Illustrated in colour by Eleanore P. Abbott. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Jacobs.

"Robinson Crusoe." Edited with introduction and notes by Charles R. Gaston. (Pocket Classics Series.) 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

*"Robinson Crusoe." Edited by Ernest C. Noyes. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. The first part only. Merrill.

"Robinson Crusoe." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Walter Paget. 8vo. Cloth, $1.40. Cassell. Both parts.

"Robinson Crusoe." Illustrated in colour and line by J. A. Symington. 12mo. Cloth, $2.50. A Nister book. Dutton. Both parts.

"Robinson Crusoe." Reprinted from the original edition of 1718 with an introduction by William Lee, Esq. Illustrated by Ernest Griset. Square crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.75. Warne. Also in the Chandos Classics at $.75.

"Robinson Crusoe." Illustrated. 16mo. Half-leather, $.60. In the Riverside School Library. Houghton.

*"Robinson Crusoe." Reprinted from the edition of 1719. With an introduction by Edward Everett Hale and illustrations by C. E. Brock and D. L. Munro. 12mo. Cloth, $.60. Heath. The first part only.

"Robinson Crusoe." In Everyman's Library. 12mo. Cloth, $.35; leather, $.70. Dutton.

"Robinson Crusoe." 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

"Robinson Crusoe." 12mo. Cloth, $.25. Cassell.

BOOKS OF DISTINCTION MADE FROM OTHER BOOKS ON PURPOSE FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

"Tales from Shakespeare"

BY CHARLES AND MARY LAMB

*"Tales from Shakespeare." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Arthur Rackham. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton.

"Tales from Shakespeare." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by George Soper. Square 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Baker. An attractive edition.

*"Tales from Shakespeare." Illustrated by Byam Shaw. 8vo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan. An 8vo. edition at $2.50.

"Tales from Shakespeare." Illustrated in colour by N. M. Price. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Scribner importation.

"Tales from Shakespeare." Illustrated by twelve plates from the Boydell Gallery. 8vo. Cloth, $3.00. Scribner importation.

"Tales from Shakespeare." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Walter Paget. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. A Nister book. Dutton. With the original preface and with "Pericles" omitted.

"Tales from Shakespeare." Introduction by Andrew Lang. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Lippincott.

*"Tales from Shakespeare." Illustrated by Romney, Hamilton, Kauffman, and others, selected from the Boydell engravings. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Oxford Press.

"Tales from Shakespeare." Illustrated. 16mo. Half-leather, $.60. In the Riverside School Library. Houghton.

"Tales from Shakespeare." Illustrated by Homer W. Colby after Pillé. 12mo. Cloth, $.40. Heath.

"Tales from Shakespeare." Illustrated. 12mo. Linen boards, $.75. In the Chandos Classics. Warne.

"Tales from Shakespeare." 12mo. Cloth, $.35; leather, $.70. In Everyman's Library. Dutton.

"Tales from Shakespeare." 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

"Tales from Shakespeare." 12mo. Cloth, $.25. Cassell.

"Lamb's Tragedies and Comedies." Edited by W. J. Rolfe. 12mo. Cloth, $.60. American.

"Lamb: Tales from Shakespeare." Edited by A. Ainger. (Pocket Classics Series.) 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

It might not be amiss to insert several other volumes of tales from Shakespeare's plays at this point. Among these the following have proved themselves good:

"Shakespeare in Tale and Verse." By G. Louis Hufford. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan.

"The Shakespeare Story-Book." Told by Mary Macleod. With an introduction by Sidney Lee and illustrations by Gordon Browne. 8vo. Cloth, 6s. Gardner. Sixteen tragedies and comedies.

"Stories from Shakespeare." Told by Thomas Carter. Illustrated in colour by Gertrude Hammond. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Crowell.

*"Shakespeare's Stories of the English Kings." Illustrated in colour by Gertrude Hammond. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Crowell. This and the preceding volume are rich in excerpts from the plays. After Lamb has been appreciated, the reading of these stories will help the boy along toward the plays in the original text.

"Historic Tales from Shakespeare." Told by Sir Arthur T. Quiller-Couch. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Scribner.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream." Edited by Ernest C. Noyes. 24mo. Cloth, $.25. (Pocket Classics.) Macmillan.

"The Tempest." Edited by S. C. Newson. 24mo. Cloth, $.25. (Pocket Classics.) Macmillan.

"The Merchant of Venice." Edited by Charlotte Underwood. 24mo. Cloth, $.25. (Pocket Classics.) Macmillan.

G—"The Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys." "Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys: A Second Wonder-Book."

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

"Hawthorne's Wonder-Book." (Pocket Classics Series.) Edited by L. E. Wolfe. 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

"Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales." (Pocket Classics Series.) Edited by R. H. Beggs. 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

*"A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys." Illustrated in colour and decorated by Walter Crane. Square 8vo. Cloth, $3.00. Houghton. A fine edition.

*"Tanglewood Tales." Illustrated and decorated by George Wharton Edwards. 4to. Cloth, $2.50. Houghton.

*"The Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Tales." Illustrated in colour by Maxfield Parrish. Large 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Duffield. A very good edition.

*"A Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Tales." Illustrated in colour by H. Granville Fell. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton. The pictures have a classic touch.

"A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys." Illustrated by F. S. Church. 4to. Cloth, $2.50. Houghton.

"A Wonder-Book." Illustrated in colour by Lucy Fitch Perkins. 4to. Cloth, $1.00. Stokes.

"The Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Tales." Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Jacobs.

"A Wonder-Book." Illustrated in colour by Leo Winter. Large 8vo. Cloth, $1.20. Rand.

"Tanglewood Tales." Illustrated in colour by Leo Winter. Large 8vo. Cloth, $1.20. Rand.

"Tanglewood Tales." Illustrated in colour by George Soper. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Crowell.

*"A Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Tales." Illustrated 8vo. Half-leather, $.75. In the Riverside School Library. Houghton.

"Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Tales." In Everyman's Library. 12mo. Cloth, $.35; leather, $.75. Dutton.

"Wonder-Book." Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

"Tanglewood Tales." Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

G—"The Adventures of Ulysses"

BY CHARLES LAMB

It is strange that educators and publishers have not recognized the merits of this work and that it has not been issued in a well-illustrated form. Lamb's own estimate of it in a letter to a friend is right: "Chapman is divine and my abridgement has not quite emptied him of his divinity."

*"The Adventures of Ulysses." Edited by W. P. Trent and illustrated after Flaxman. 12mo. Cloth, $.25. Heath.

"The Adventures of Ulysses." 12mo. Cloth, $.30. Ginn.

*"The Adventures of Ulysses." With an introduction by Andrew Lang. Square 8vo. Cloth, $.50. Longmans.

"The Heart of Oak Books." Book IV. Illustrations after Flaxman, Turner, and Burne-Jones. 12mo. Cloth, $.45. Heath.

P—"The Heroes; or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children"

BY CHARLES KINGSLEY

"Heroes; or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children." Illustrated in colour by T. H. Robinson. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton. A Nister book.

*"The Heroes; or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children." Illustrated in colour and line by George Soper. Square 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Baker.

*"The Heroes; or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children." Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Macmillan.

"Greek Heroes." Illustrated. 16mo. Limp leather, $.75. In the Ariel Classics. Putnam.

"Greek Heroes." In Everyman's Library. 12mo. Cloth, $.35; leather, $.70. Dutton.

*"Greek Heroes." Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

"Greek Heroes." Edited by John Tetlow. 16mo. Cloth, $.30. Ginn.

"Kingsley's Heroes: Greek Fairy Tales." Edited by C. A. McMurry. (Pocket Classics Series.) 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

"Kingsley's Heroes." American edition. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan.

G—"The Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha"

BY MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA

*"Don Quixote of the Mancha." Retold for children by Judge Parry from Shelton's translation. Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Walter Crane. Square 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Lane. A delightful volume that will entertain royally any boy who has a sense of humour. The right one to own.

"Don Quixote." Adapted for the young from Motteaux's translation. Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Paul Hardy. 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Dutton.

"The Adventures of Don Quixote." Translated and abridged by Dominick Daly. Illustrated in colour by Stephen de la Bere. Square 8vo. Cloth, 6s. Black.

*"Don Quixote." Edited by Clifton Johnson. 12mo. Cloth, $.75. Macmillan.

"Don Quixote de la Mancha." Abridged from the translation of Duffield and Shelton by Mary E. Burt and Lucy Leffingwell Cable. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Scribner.

"Don Quixote of La Mancha." Abridged and edited by Mabel E. Wharton. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Ginn.

"Don Quixote for Young People." Rewritten by James Baldwin. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. American.

"Adventures of Don Quixote." Translated by D. Daly and illustrated in colour by S. B. de la Bere. 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Macmillan. For the teacher.

MYTHS, LEGENDS, AND STORIES OF ROMANCE FROM VARIOUS SOURCES

G—Robin Hood

*"The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire." Written and illustrated by Howard Pyle. Royal 8vo. Cloth, $3.00. Scribner. A capital book for any boy.

"Robin Hood and His Adventures." Written by Paul Cheswick and illustrated by T. H. Robinson. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. A Nister book. Dutton.

*"Robin Hood." Written by Henry Gilbert. Illustrated in colour by Walter Crane. Large 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Stokes.

*"The Story of Robin Hood and His Merry Men." Told by John Finnemore and illustrated in colour by Allen Stewart. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan.

"Bold Robin Hood and His Outlaw Band." Penned and pictured by Louis Rhead. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Harper.

"Robin Hood." Told by Clifton Johnson. Illustrated by Bonté. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Baker.

*"Life in the Greenwood." Edited by Marion Florence Lancing and illustrated by Charles Copeland. 16mo. Cloth, $.35. Ginn. For very young children.

"Robin Hood: His Book." Told by Eva March Tappan. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Little.

G—King Arthur

*"The Boy's King Arthur." Edited by Sidney Lanier. Illustrated by Alfred Kepper, Alfred Fredericks, and E. B. Bonsell. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Scribner. The boy should also read the author's "Knightly Legends of Wales."

"The Story of King Arthur and His Knights." Written and illustrated by Howard Pyle. Royal 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Scribner. The author has these volumes to his credit. "The Story of the Champions of the Round Table," "The Story of Sir Lancelot," "The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur."

"King Arthur's Knights." Told by Henry Gilbert and illustrated in colour by Walter Crane. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Stokes.

*"The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights: Stories from Sir Thomas Malory's Morte D'Arthur." Told by Mary Macleod and illustrated by A. G. Walker. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Stokes.

"Tales of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table." Told by Margaret Vere Farrington. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.25. Putnam.

"The King Who Never Died." By Dorothy Senior. Illustrated in colour plates. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan.

"The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights." Compiled from Malory by Sir James Knowles. Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Lancelot Speed. Large 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Warne.

"Malory's King Arthur and His Knights." Version by B. H. Lathrop. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Baker.

*"Page, Esquire, and Knight." Told by Marion Lancing and illustrated by Charles Copeland. 16mo. Cloth, $.35. Ginn. For young children.

*"The Age of Chivalry; or, Legends of King Arthur." By Thomas Bulfinch. Edited by J. Loughran Scott. Fully illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. McKay. This is about as good a telling as the studious boy can find. But if he has a taste for pure literary form, he will surely come to know Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" and prefer it to any prose version.

"Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. Text of Caxton." (Globe.) 12mo. Cloth, $1.75. Macmillan.

"Malory's Morte d'Arthur Selections." (Pocket Classics Series.) Edited by D. W. Swiggett. 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

G—Classic Myths of Greece and Rome

*"The Age of Fable; or, the Beauties of Mythology." Told by Thomas Bulfinch. Edited by J. Loughran Scott. Fully illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.25. McKay. Every boy should own this or some other edition of this great work.

"The Age of Fable; or, the Beauties of Mythology." Edited by W. H. Knapp. Fully illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Altemus.

"The Age of Fable; or, the Beauties of Mythology." Edited by Edward Everett Hale. Fully illustrated. 8vo. Cloth, $1.25. Lathrop.

"The Æneid for Boys and Girls." By Alfred J. Church. Illustrated in colour. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan.

*"A Story of the Golden Age." Told by James Baldwin and illustrated by Howard Pyle. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Scribner. Ends where the Iliad begins.

"The Greek Heroes: Stories Translated from Niebuhr." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Arthur Rackham. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Cassell.

"The Boy's Iliad." Told by Walter C. Perry. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan.

"The Boy's Odyssey." Told by Walter C. Perry. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan.

*"Story of the Iliad." Told by Alfred John Church. With illustrations after Flaxman. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan. An edition in colour plates at $1.50.

"Story of the Odyssey." Told by Alfred John Church. With illustrations after Flaxman. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan. An edition in colour plates at $1.50.

"Heroes of Chivalry and Romance." By A. J. Church. Ill. in colour plates by G. Morrow. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75. Macmillan.

"Heroes of the Olden Time." By Pamela M. Cole. Ill. 12mo. Cloth, $.40. Macmillan.

"Story of the Golden Apple." By Pamela M. Cole. Ill. 12mo. Cloth, $.40. Macmillan.

*"Adventures of Odysseus." By F. S. Marvin and others. Illustrated by Charles Robinson. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Dutton. An easy telling done with attractive pictures.

"The Odyssey Translated into English Prose." By George H. Palmer. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.00. Houghton. A complete story that will be a little difficult for the child to read, but well worth his while.

"Half-a-Hundred Hero Tales of Ulysses and the Men of Old." Edited by Francis Storr and illustrated by Frank C. Papé. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Holt.

"Gods and Heroes; or, the Kingdom of Jupiter." By Robert Edward Francillion. The authorized American edition. 12mo. Cloth, $.40. Ginn.

*"Stories of Old Greece and Rome." By Emilie Kip Baker. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan. A very good combination of literature and mythology. An edition with pronouncing index at $1.00.

G—Norse Myths

*"Norse Stories Told from the Eddas." By Hamilton Wright Mabie. Illustrated in colour and decorated by George Wright. 8vo. Cloth, $1.80. Dodd.

"In the Days of Giants: A Book of Norse Tales." By Abbie F. Brown. Illustrated by E. Boyd Smith. Square 8vo. Cloth, $1.10. Houghton. Easier to read than the one above.

"Stories of the Norse Heroes." Retold from the Eddas and Sagas by E. M. Wilmot-Buxton. Illustrated by J. C. Donaldson. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Crowell.

"One for Wod and One for Lok." Told by Thomas Cartwright. Illustrated in colour. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Dutton.

*"Heroes of Asgard." By A. and E. Keary. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Macmillan.

"Brave Beowulf." Told by Thomas Cartwright. Illustrated in colour by Patten Wilson. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Dutton.

"Beowulf." Told by John Harrington Cox. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Little.

"Popular Tales from the Norse." By Sir George Webb Dasent. Illustrated. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Putnam. A collection of folk-tales.

"Out of the Northland." By E. K. Baker. (Pocket Classics Series.) 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

*"Stories from Northern Myths." By E. K. Baker. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan.

G—From Chaucer

*"Tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims." Told by F. J. H. Darton. With an introduction by F. J. Furnival and illustrations by Hugh Thompson. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Stokes.

"The Chaucer Story Book." By Eva March Tappan. Illustrated. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Houghton.

"Canterbury Chimes; or, Chaucer Tales Retold to Children." By Francis Storr and Hawes Turner. 12mo. Cloth, 3s. 6d. Kegan Paul.

"The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Modern Version in Prose of the Prologue and Ten Tales." By Percy MacKaye. Illustrated in colour by Walter Appleton Clark. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Duffield.

"Stories from Chaucer." By J. W. McSpaden. Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

"Chaucer's Prologue to the Book of the Tales of Canterbury." (Pocket Classics Series.) Edited by A. Ingraham. 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

G—"The Faerie Queene"

*"Stories from the Faerie Queene." Told by Mary Macleod. Illustrated by A. G. Walker. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Stokes. Well done.

"Fairy Queen and Her Knights, The." By Alfred J. Church. Col. Ill. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan.

"Stories from the Faerie Queene." Told by Lawrence Dawson. Illustrated by Gertrude D. Hammond. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Crowell.

"Una and the Red Cross Knight and Other Tales from Spenser's Faerie Queene." By N. G. Royde-Smith. Illustrated in colour and decorated by T. H. Robinson. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton.

G—Other Legend and Romance

*"Book of Legends." Gathered and rewritten by Horace E. Scudder. Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Houghton. Such tales as "St. George and the Dragon," "The Wandering Jew," and "The Flying Dutchman."

"Heroic Legends." By Agnes Grazier Herbertson. Illustrated in colour by Helen Stratton. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Caldwell. Stories of "Valentine and Orsen," "St. George and the Dragon," "Christopher," and others.

*"Wonder-Book of Old Romance." Told by F. J. H. Darton and illustrated by A. G. Walker. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Stokes. Stories such as "Guy of Warwick," "King Horn," and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight."

"Stories from Old French Romance." Told by E. M. Wilmot-Buxton. 12mo. Cloth, $.75. Stokes. Stories such as "Ogier the Dane" and "Aucassin and Nicolete."

"Heroes of Chivalry and Romance." By A. J. Church. Illustrated in colour by Grace Morrow. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75. Macmillan.

"The Story of Roland." Told by James Baldwin and illustrated by Reginald B. Birch. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Scribner.

*"A Chevalier of Old France." The Song of Roland translated and adapted from Old French texts by John Harrington Cox. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Little.

"Book of Romance." By Andrew Lang. Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by H. J. Ford. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.60. Longmans. The stories of King Arthur, Robin Hood, Roland, and others.

"Stories of Persian Heroes." Told by E. M. Wilmot-Buxton. Illustrated and decorated. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Crowell.

"Children's Tales from Scottish Ballads." Told by E. W. Grievson and illustrated in colour by A. Stewart. 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Macmillan.

"Book of Ballad Stories." Told by Mary Macleod. With an introduction by Edward Dowden and illustrations by A. G. Walker. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Stokes. "Robin Hood," "Patient Griselda," "Sir Cauline," and many other romantic tales.

"Almost True Stories." Fully illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.00. Putnam. Among others are found "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," "The Paradise of Children," "The Lady of Shalot," and "Cupid and Psyche."

"Great Opera Stories." By M. S. Bender. (Everychild's Series.) Ill. 16mo. Cloth, $.40. Macmillan.

"Thirty Indian Legends." By Margaret Bemister. Ill. 12mo. Cloth, $.40. Macmillan.

"Stories from the Classic Literature of Many Nations." Edited by Bertha Palmer. (Standard School Library.) 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Macmillan.

*"Children's Book of Celtic Stories." By E. W. Grievson. Illustrated in colour by A. Stewart. 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Macmillan.

G—A FEW LONG STORIES OF ROMANTIC ADVENTURE

"Treasure Island"
BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

*"Treasure Island." Illustrated in colour by N. C. Wyeth. Royal 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Scribner. An excellent edition.

*"Treasure Island." Illustrated in colour by John C. Cameron. 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Cassell.

"Treasure Island." Illustrated by Walter Paget. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Scribner.

"Treasure Island." Small 12mo. Cloth, $1.25; limp leather, $1.50. Small.

"Treasure Island." Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Jacobs.

"Treasure Island." In Everyman's Library. 12mo. Cloth, $.35; leather, $.70. Dutton.

*"Treasure Island." Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

"Treasure Island." 12mo. Cloth, $.25. Scribner.

"Stevenson's Treasure Island." (Pocket Classics Series.) Edited by H. A. Vance. 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

The boy who has read this capital story of adventure must of necessity have more of Stevenson and had better try "Kidnapped" next. He may sometime become absorbed in the wonderful tales of a favourite of Stevenson himself, Dumas. Listen to the testimony of Thackeray about the great French story-teller as it was written in the essay, "On a Lazy, Idle Boy": "What was the book in the hands of my lad as he stood by the river shore? Do you suppose that it was Livy, or the Greek grammar? No: it was D'Artagnan locking up General Monk in a box, or the prisoner of the Château d'If cutting himself out of the sack fifty feet under water and swimming to the island of Monte Cristo. Be assured the lazy boy was reading Dumas; and as for the tender pleadings of his mother that he should not let his supper grow cold—I don't believe the scapegrace cared one fig. No! Figs are sweet, but fictions are sweeter."

G—"The Last of the Mohicans"

BY JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

*"Last of the Mohicans." Illustrated by E. Boyd Smith. 12mo. Cloth, $1.35. Holt.

"Last of the Mohicans." Fully illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.25. Putnam.

"The Last of the Mohicans." Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Crowell.

"The Last of the Mohicans." Illustrated. 2 vols. 16mo. Cloth, $3.00. Macmillan.

*"The Last of the Mohicans." Illustrated by H. M. Brock. 12mo. Cloth, $.80. Macmillan.

"The Last of the Mohicans." Illustrated. Crown 8vo. Half-leather, $.70. In the Riverside School Library. Houghton.

"Last of the Mohicans." In Everyman's Library. 12mo. Cloth, $.35; leather, $.70. Dutton.

*"Last of the Mohicans." 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Heath.

"Last of the Mohicans." 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

If the boy does not own, he should at least read, the other four volumes of the Leather Stocking Tales as well as one or two of Cooper's sea tales, such as "The Pilot," and "The Red Rover."

G—"Ivanhoe: a Romance"

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT

"Ivanhoe." Illustrated in colour. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Lippincott.

"Ivanhoe." Illustrated by H. M. Eaton. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Crowell.

"Ivanhoe." Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Appleton.

"Ivanhoe." Fully illustrated. Post 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. In the Andrew Lang edition. Dana.

*"Ivanhoe." Fully illustrated. Post 8vo. Cloth, $1.00. In the Heather edition. Harper.

"Ivanhoe." Illustrated. Crown 8vo. Half-leather, $.70. Houghton. In the Riverside School Library.

"Ivanhoe." 12mo. Cloth, $.35; leather, $.70. Dutton. Everyman's Library.

*"Ivanhoe." Illustrated by C. E. Brock. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. Heath.

*"Ivanhoe." Illustrated in colour by E. Boyd Smith. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Houghton.

"Ivanhoe." 12mo. Cloth, $.60. Ginn.

"Ivanhoe." 12mo. Cloth, $.40. American.

"Ivanhoe." 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

*"Ivanhoe." (Dryburgh Edition.) 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Macmillan.

This introduction to Scott should certainly be followed by a reading of "Quentin Durward," "Rob Roy," "The Talisman," and "Guy Mannering."

G—"Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor"

BY RICHARD D. BLACKMORE

*"Lorna Doone." Illustrated in colour by Christopher Clarke. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Crowell. A very good edition.

*"Lorna Doone." Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Gordon Browne. 4to. Cloth, $4.20. Stokes.

"Lorna Doone." Illustrated with photogravures. 2 vols. 16mo. Cloth, $2.50; limp leather, $3.00. Putnam.

"Lorna Doone." Illustrated by plates printed in sepia. 2 vols. 12mo. Cloth, $3.00; leather, $5.00. Rand.

*"Lorna Doone." Illustrated by Mrs. Catharine Weed Ward. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Harper.

"Lorna Doone." Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Crowell.

*"Lorna Doone." Illustrated. Large 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Putnam.

"Lorna Doone." Illustrated. Large 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Rand.

"Lorna Doone." Illustrated. Post 8vo. Cloth, $1.00. Scribner.

*"Lorna Doone." 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

The great field of realistic fiction will later open up to the boy, but he must be in no hurry to enter it. When he does enter it, however, see that he selects well, and urge him to read in moderation. He might well start with such books as "David Copperfield" and "The Mill on the Floss," leaving Thackeray untouched for a few years until he can better appreciate him. With a taste once formed for any one of these great novelists, he will stand in little danger from the almost countless current stories that are always getting in his way.

G—TRAVEL, BIOGRAPHY, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, AND HISTORY

*"Two Years Before the Mast." By Richard H. Dana, Jr. Illustrated in colour by E. Boyd Smith. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Houghton.

"Two Years before the Mast." By Richard H. Dana, Jr. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. Half-leather, $.70. Houghton.

"Two Years before the Mast." By Richard H. Dana, Jr. 12mo. Cloth, $.60. Crowell.

*"Two Years before the Mast." By Richard H. Dana, Jr. 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

*"The Oregon Trail." By Francis Parkman. Fully illustrated by Frederic Remington. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Little. A fine edition to own.

"The Oregon Trail." By Francis Parkman. Four illustrations by Remington. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Little.

*"Parkman's Oregon Trail." Edited by C. H. J. Douglas. (Pocket Classics Series.) 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

"The Oregon Trail." By Francis Parkman. 18mo. Cloth, $.35. Crowell.

"Boys of Other Countries." By Bayard Taylor. Illustrated in colour by Frederick Simpson Coburn. 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Putnam.

"The Cruise of the Catchelot around the World after Sperm Whales." By Frank T. Bullen. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Appleton.

*"Plutarch for Boys and Girls." Edited by John S. White. Illustrated. 8vo. Cloth, $1.75. Putnam.

*"The Children's Plutarch: Tales of the Greeks." Edited by F. J. Gould with an introduction by William Dean Howells. Illustrated by Walter Crane. 12mo. Cloth, $.75. Harper. "Tales of the Romans" uniform with the above at the same price.

"Plutarch's Lives." Retold by W. H. Weston and illustrated in colour by W. Ramey. Large 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Stokes.

"Plutarch's Lives." Edited by Edward Ginn. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $.45. Ginn.

"Plutarch. Lives of Cæsar, Brutus, and Anthony." Edited by Martha Brier. (Pocket Classics Series.) 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

"Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair." Edited by H. H. Kingsley. (Pocket Classics Series.) 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

*"Grandfather's Chair and Biographical Stories." By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth. $.70. Houghton.

"Tales of a Grandfather." By Sir Walter Scott. 12mo. Cloth, $2.50. Macmillan.

"Tales of a Grandfather." By Sir Walter Scott. Selected by Edward Ginn. 12mo. Cloth, $.40. Ginn.

*"Life of Lord Nelson." By Robert Southey. Illustrated by engravings. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan. In Bohn's Illustrated Library.

"Life of Lord Nelson." By Robert Southey. 12mo. Boards, $.75. Warne. In the Chandos Classics.

*"The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin." The unmutilated and correct version by John Bigelow. 8vo. Cloth, $1.25. Putnam. In the Ariel Classics at $.75.

"Franklin's Autobiography." Edited by D. H. Montgomery. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $.40. Ginn.

"Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography." With a chapter completing the story of his life. Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.75. Houghton.

"Franklin's Autobiography." 24mo. (Pocket Classics.) Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

"A Child's History of England." By Charles Dickens. Illustrated by Patten Wilson. 12mo. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton.

"A Child's History of England." Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Macmillan.

*"The Boy's Parkman." Compiled by Louise C. Hasbrouck. Illustrated by Howard Pyle and others. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.00. Little. The passages in Parkman's words have to do with the manners, customs, and characteristics of the Indians.

*"Stories from Froissart." By Henry Newbolt. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan. Also in a $.50 edition.

"The Boy's Froissart." By Sidney Lanier. Illustrated by Alfred Kappes. 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Scribner.

G—OLD FAVOURITES

"Mrs. Leicester's School." By Charles and Mary Lamb. Illustrated in colour and pen-and-ink by Winifred Green. Small 4to. Decorated cloth, $1.50. Dutton. "One of the loveliest things in the language."—The Nation.

"Mrs. Lester's School." By Charles and Mary Lamb. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan.

"Tales from Maria Edgeworth." With an introduction by Austin Dodson and illustrations by Hugh Thompson. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Stokes.

"Parent's Assistant." By Maria Edgeworth. Illustrated by Chris Hammond. 12mo. Cloth, $.80; leather, $1.25. Macmillan.

"Old-Fashioned Tales." Collected by E. V. Lucas and illustrated by F. D. Bedford. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Stokes. Stories from Thomas Day, Mary Lamb, Peter Parley, and others.

"Stories Grandmother Knew." Fully illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.00. Putnam. From Goldsmith, Edgeworth, Sinclair, and others.

"Old Time Tales." By Kate Forrest Oswell. (Everychild's Series.) Ill. 16mo. Cloth, $.40. Macmillan.

"Stories Grandmother Told." By Kate Forrest Oswell. (Everychild's Series.) Ill. 16mo. Cloth, $.40. Macmillan.

"The Swiss Family Robinson." By J. R. Wyss. Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Charles Folkard. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Dutton.

*"The Swiss Family Robinson." By J. R. Wyss. With an introduction by William Dean Howells. Illustrated from drawings made by Louis Rhead. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Harper.

"Swiss Family Robinson." By J. R. Wyss. Illustrated in colour. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Lippincott.

"The Swiss Family Robinson." By J. R. Wyss. Illustrated by E. Prater. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Dutton.

"The Swiss Family Robinson." By J. R. Wyss. Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, $.50. Crowell.

"The Swiss Family Robinson." By J. R. Wyss. Illustrated by T. H. Robinson with 25 colour-plates. Large 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Doran.

"Little Lame Prince." By Mrs. Dinah Mulock Craik. (Boy's and Girl's Series.) Ill. 12mo. Cloth, $.75. Macmillan.

"The Child's Rip Van Winkle." Illustrated in colour by Maria L. Kirk. 4to. Cloth, $1.50. Stokes.

"Rip Van Winkle and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow." By Washington Irving. Photogravures and text cuts. 2 vols. 8vo. Cloth, $3.50. Putnam. Also in the Ariel Classics at $1.50.

*"Rip Van Winkle and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow." By Washington Irving. Illustrated by George Boughton. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan. In the New Cranford Series. Some day the child should own an edition of Irving.

"Rip Van Winkle." By Washington Irving. Illustrated with 50 colour-plates by Arthur Rackham. 7×10. Cloth, $5.00. Doubleday.

*"Old Christmas." By Washington Irving. Illustrated by R. Caldecott. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. (Cranford Series.) Also in an $.80 edition. Macmillan.

"The Alhambra." By Washington Irving. Illustrated by J. Pennell. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. (Cranford Series.) Macmillan. Also in an $.80 edition.

"Irving's Alhambra." Edited by A. M. Hitchcock. (Pocket Classics Series.) 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

"Irving's Sketch Book." (Pocket Classics Series.) 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

"A Christmas Carol." By Charles Dickens. Illustrated in colour by A. C. Michael. 4to. Cloth, $2.00. Doran.

"Dickens' Christmas Carol." Edited by J. M. Sawin and Ida N. Thomas. (Pocket Classics Series.) 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

"A Christmas Carol." By Charles Dickens. Illustrated in colour and line by George Alfred Williams. Square 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Baker.

"A Christmas Carol." By Charles Dickens. Illustrated with photogravures by F. S. Coburn. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75. Putnam.

"A Christmas Carol." By Charles Dickens. Illustrated in colour by Ethel Everett. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Crowell.

*"A Christmas Carol." Illustrated in colour by C. E. Brock. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Dutton.

"A Christmas Carol." By Charles Dickens. Illustrated. 16mo. Half-leather, $.60. Houghton.

"Westward Ho!" By Charles Kingsley. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Also in an $.80 edition illustrated by C. E. Brock. Macmillan.

"Tom Brown's School Days." By Thomas Hughes. Edited by F. Sedgwick. Illustrated in colour. 8vo. Cloth, $3.25. Putnam.

"Tom Brown's School Days." By Thomas Hughes. Illustrated by Louis Rhead. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Harper.

*"Tom Brown's School Days." By Thomas Hughes. Illustrated by E. J. Sullivan. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. In the New Cranford Series. Macmillan.

"Tom Brown's School Days." By Thomas Hughes. Illustrated. 16mo. Half-leather, $.60. Houghton.

"Quentin Durward." By Sir Walter Scott. Edited by A. L. Eno. 24mo. (Pocket Classics.) Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

"Little Women." By Louisa May Alcott. Fully illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Little.

"Madam How and Lady Why." By Charles Kingsley. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $.50. (Standard School Library.) Macmillan.

*"The Sundering Flood: A Romance." By William Morris. Royal 8vo. Cloth, $2.25. Longmans.

*"Tales from the Travels of Baron Munchausen." Edited by Edward Everett Hale. Illustrated by H. P. Barnes after Doré. 12mo. Cloth, $.20. Heath. For a boy with a sense of humour this will afford a rare treat.

"The Adventures of Baron Munchausen." Illustrated. 16mo. Limp leather, $.75. In the Ariel Classics. Putnam.

"Girls and Boys." By Anatole France. Illustrated in charming colour-plates by Boutet de Monvel. 4to. Boards, $2.25. Duffield.

G—MORE RECENT BOOKS

*P—"The Prince and the Pauper." By Mark Twain. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.75. Harper. A capital story.

P—"Uncle Remus and Bre'r Rabbit." By Joel Chandler Harris. Illustrated in colour by J. A. Condé. Oblong 4to. Cloth, $1.00. Stokes.

"Uncle Remus and the Little Boy." Illustrated by J. M. Condé, in colour. 4to. Cloth, $1.25. Small.

*"Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings." By Joel Chandler Harris. Fully illustrated by A. B. Frost. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00. Appleton. Charming folk-lore to read aloud to children.

"The Jungle Book." By Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated by W. A. Drake and others. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Century.

*"The Jungle Book." Illustrated in 16 full-page coloured plates by Maurice and Edward Detmold. 12mo. Cloth, $2.50. Century. A fine book for a child to own.

*"The Second Jungle Book." By Rudyard Kipling. Decorated by J. Lockwood Kipling. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Century.

*P—"Just-So Stories." By Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated in full colour by J. M. Gleason. Royal 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Doubleday. There is a cheaper edition illustrated by the author at $1.25.

"Red Cap Tales." By S. R. Crockett. Illustrated in colour plates by S. H. Vedder. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00. Macmillan. An edition at $.50.

*"Men of Iron." Written and illustrated by Howard Pyle. Post 8vo. Cloth, $2.00. Harper. A romantic story of the England of Henry IV. As popular with girls as with boys.

"The Wonder Clock." Written and illustrated by Howard Pyle. 4to. Cloth, $2.00. Harper. Twenty-four good tales. Equally as good are "Twilight Land" and "Pepper and Salt," delightful fairy tales.

"Stevenson's Kidnapped." Edited by John Thompson Brown. (Pocket Classics Series.) 24mo. Cloth, $.25. Macmillan.

"Pinocchio Under the Sea." Translated from the Italian by Carolyn Della Chiesa. Edited by John W. Davis. With numerous illustrations and decorations in colours and black-and-white, by Florence Rutledge Abel Wilde. 12mo. Dec. cloth, $1.25. Macmillan.

"Peter Pan Picture Book, The." By Alice B. Woodward and Daniel O'Connor. Fourth Edition. Col. Ill. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan.

"Peter Pan: The Story Of." By Daniel O'Connor. Ill. 12mo. Cloth, $.30. Macmillan.

"Voyage of the Hoppergrass." By Edmund Lester Pearson. Ill. 12mo. Cloth, $1.35. Macmillan.

"Children of the Wild." By Charles G. D. Roberts. Ill. 12mo. Dec. cloth, $1.35. Macmillan.

"Christmas Tales and Christmas Verse." By Eugene Field. Illustrated by Florence Storer. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Scribner.

"Christmas Every Day." By William Dean Howells. Illustrated and decorated in colour. Small 4to. Cloth, $1.75. Harper.

"Fairies—Of Sorts." By Mrs. Molesworth. Illus. by Gertrude Hammond. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan.

"Magic Nuts, The." By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. Macmillan.

"The Queen's Museum and Other Fanciful Tales." By Frank R. Stockton. Illustrated in colour and black-and-white by Frederick Richardson. Royal 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. Scribner.

"Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic." By Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Ill. by Albert Herter. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Macmillan.

"Captains Courageous." By Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated by Taber. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Century.

THE HOLY BIBLE

"The Child's Bible." Arranged from the Authorized Version with an introduction by Bishop Doane. Illustrated with 100 full-page plates by modern artists. 4to. Cloth, $3.50. Cassell.

*"The Bible for Young People." Arranged from the Authorized Version by Mrs. Joseph B. Gilder. Illustrated with engravings from paintings by the old masters. 4to. Cloth, $1.50. Century. For children under twelve years.

"The Old, Old Story-Book." Arranged from the Authorized Version by Eva Marsh Tappan. Illustrated. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. Houghton.

"Bible Story Retold for Young People." By W. H. Bennett and W. F. Adeney. 2 parts: I. Old Testament Story. II. New Testament Story. Maps. Ill. 12mo. Each $.60; in one vol., $1.00. Macmillan.

"Bible Stories." (Children's Series of the Modern Reader's Bible.) By R. G. Moulton. 2 vols.: I. Old Testament; II. New Testament. 16mo. Cloth, each, $.50. Macmillan.

*"Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature." (Modern Reader's Bible.) Edited by R. G. Moulton. 24mo. Cloth, $.50; leather, $.60. Macmillan.

It is doubtful if Bible stories in simple language form are of much value to the boy. If he is too young to read the language on his own account, the stories had better be read aloud to him from the Authorized Version. Then as early as possible let him cultivate the habit of learning this wonderful book first hand. Nothing in the field of literature will serve him better than will this reading habit.

*"Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments; Translated out of the Original Tongues, and with Former Translation Diligently Compared and Revised, by His Majesty's Special Command." 8vo. Cloth, $1.30. Self-pronouncing in long primer type. Oxford Press.

INDEX TO FIRST LINES OF POEMS

| PAGE
A great while ago the world began | 58
A life on the ocean wave | 130
As I in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow | 85
At Flores in the Azores, Sir Richard Grenville lay | 122
A wet sheet and a flowing sea | 86
Bless the Lord, O my soul | 152
Blow, blow, thou winter wind | 98
Boats sail on the rivers | 38
Boot, saddle, to horse and away | 93
By the rude bridge that arched the flood | 134
Call for the robin redbreast and the wren | 70
Come, dear children, let us away | 73
Come follow, follow me | 64
Come unto these yellow sands | 57
Dainty little maiden, whither would you wander | 49
Do you ask what the birds say? the sparrow, the dove | 59
Entreat me not to leave thee | 55
Faintly as tolls the evening chime | 105
Fair Daffodils, we weep to see | 89
From gold to gray | 119
From Oberon, in fairy land | 91
Full fathom five thy father lies | 67
God of our fathers, known of old | 141
Good-bye, good-bye to Summer | 60
Hark, hark, the dogs do bark | 33
Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings | 68
Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee | 120
He clasps the crag with crooked hands | 131
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high | 113
How sleep the brave who sink to rest | 130
Hush thee, my babby | 35
Hush! the waves are rolling in | 49
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers | 116
I come from haunts of coot and hern | 82
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me | 46
In winter I get up at night | 40
I saw a ship a-sailing | 36
I saw you toss the kites on high | 56
I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he | 108
It was the schooner Hesperus | 100
I wandered lonely as a cloud | 135
Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way | 58
Lady Moon, Lady Moon, where are you roving | 54
Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep | 35
Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn | 34
Little Lamb, who made thee | 51
Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place | 132
Minnie and Winnie lived in a shell | 50
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold | 140
My heart leaps up when I behold | 70
Now fades the last long streak of snow | 107
Of speckled eggs the birdie sings | 37
Oh, hush thee, my babie! thy sire was a knight | 63
Oh, who is so merry, so merry, heigh-ho | 44
O Lord, our Lord | 79
O Mary, go and call the cattle home | 104
Over hill, over dale | 69
O wedding-guest! this soul hath been | 106
Pack, clouds, away, and welcome day | 71
Pease porridge hot | 33
Pibroch of Donuil Dhu | 117
Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been | 33
Queen and huntress, chaste and fair | 84
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky | 65
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness | 137
Sleep, baby, sleep, our cottage vale is deep | 34
Sleep, baby, sleep, thy father is tending the sheep | 41
Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king | 53
Sweet and low, sweet and low | 47
The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold | 111
The cock is crowing | 72
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day | 146
The friendly cow, all red and white | 39
The gorse is yellow on the heath | 97
The heavens declare the glory of God | 94
The king sits in Dunfermline town | 142
The Lord is my shepherd | 42
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year | 99
The Northern Star sailed over the bar | 96
The rain is raining all around | 37
The splendour falls on castle walls | 81
The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh | 65
The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing | 90
The world is so full of a number of things | 37
The year's at the spring | 67
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign | 136
Three mice went into a hole to spin | 34
Under the greenwood tree | 88
Up the airy mountain | 52
Up, up, ye dames, ye lasses gay | 73
Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town | 35
What does little birdie say | 41
When cats run home and light is come | 58
When children are playing alone on the green | 61
When daffodils begin to peer | 58
Whenever the moon and stars are set | 39
When icicles hang by the wall | 68
When I was sick and lay a-bed | 45
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy | 62
Where lies the land to which the ship would go | 87
Where the bee sucks, there suck I | 57
Whither, 'midst falling dew | 139
Who has seen the wind | 38
Who is Sylvia? what is she | 121
Who would true valour see | 115
You spotted snakes with double tongue | 47

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will appear.

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Table of Contents

LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN
PREFACE
CONTENTS
PART I
LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
PART II

FIRST YEAR

- Mother Goose Songs
- Little Bo-peep
- I Saw a Ship A-sailing
- Three Happy Thought Songs
- Boats Sail on the Rivers
- Who Has Seen the Wind?
- The Friendly Cow
- Windy Nights
- Bed in Summer
- What Does Little Birdie Say?
- A Slumber Song
- Psalm XXIII

SECOND YEAR

- The Light-hearted Fairy
- The Land of Counterpane
- My Shadow
- Sweet and Low
- LULLABY FOR TITANIA
- An Old Gaelic Cradle Song
- CHILD-SONGS
- The Lamb
- The Fairies
- Spring
- Lady Moon
- Song To Naomi

THIRD YEAR

- The Wind
- Ariel's Songs
- Songs of Good Cheer
- The Owl
- Answer to a Child's Question
- Robin Redbreast
- The Unseen Playmate
- A Laughing Song
- Lullaby of an Infant Chief
- The Fairy Queen
- Ring Out, Wild Bells
- Song of Spring

FOURTH YEAR

- Pippa's Song
- A Sea Dirge
- Hark! Hark! the Lark
- Winter
- A Fairy's Song
- A Land Dirge
- My Heart Leaps Up
- A Morning Song
- In March
- Choral Song to the Illyrian Peasants
- The Forsaken Merman
- Psalm VIII

FIFTH YEAR

- The Bugle Song
- The Brook
- Hymn to Diana
- The Burning Babe
- At Sea
- Where Lies the Land?
- Under the Greenwood Tree
- To Daffodils
- Autumn
- Robin Goodfellow
- Boot and Saddle
- Psalm XIX

SIXTH YEAR

- The Northern Star
- The First Swallow
- Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind
- The Death of the Flowers
- The Wreck of the Hesperus
- The Sands of Dee
- Canadian Boat Song
- Return of the Ancient Mariner
- Now Fades the Last Long Streak of Snow

- How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix

- The Destruction of Sennacherib

- Psalm XCI

SEVENTH YEAR

- The Pilgrim
- The Cloud
- The Gathering Song of Donald the Black
- Indian Summer
- Morning
- Who is Sylvia?
- The Revenge
- How Sleep the Brave
- A Life on the Ocean Wave
- The Eagle
- Psalm XC

EIGHTH YEAR

- The Concord Hymn
- I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
- The Chambered Nautilus
- To Autumn
- To a Waterfowl
- On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
- Recessional
- Sir Patrick Spens
- Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
- Psalm CIII

ANTHOLOGIES OF CHILDREN'S POEMS
PART III
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V

BIBLIOGRAPHY

- MOTHER GOOSE NURSERY RHYMES
- G—COLLECTIONS OF VERSE
- INDIVIDUAL WRITERS OF VERSE
- FAIRY STORIES
- "TALES OF A THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS"
- P—"FAIRY AND HOUSEHOLD TALES"
- P—"DANISH LEGENDS AND FAIRY TALES"

- P—"The History of Little Goody Two Shoes, Otherwise Called Mrs. Margery Two Shoes"

- P—"Granny's Wonderful Chair and its Tales of Fairy Times"

- P—"The Rose and the Ring; or, the History of Prince Giglio and Prince Bulbo A Fireside Pantomime for Great and Small Children"

- P—"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

- P—"Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There"

- P—"The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby"

- G—"At the Back of the North Wind"

- FOUR WORTHIES

- G—"Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World"

- G—"The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which is to Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream"

- G—"The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner, as Related by Himself"

- BOOKS OF DISTINCTION MADE FROM OTHER BOOKS ON PURPOSE FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

- G—"The Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys." "Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys: A Second Wonder-Book."

- G—"The Adventures of Ulysses"

- P—"The Heroes; or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children"

- G—"The Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha"

- MYTHS, LEGENDS, AND STORIES OF ROMANCE FROM VARIOUS SOURCES G—Robin Hood

- G—King Arthur
- G—Classic Myths of Greece and Rome
- G—Norse Myths
- G—From Chaucer
- G—"The Faerie Queene"
- G—Other Legend and Romance
- G—A FEW LONG STORIES OF ROMANTIC ADVENTURE
- G—"The Last of the Mohicans"
- G—"Ivanhoe: a Romance"
- G—"Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor"

- G—TRAVEL, BIOGRAPHY, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, AND HISTORY

- G—OLD FAVOURITES
- G—MORE RECENT BOOKS
- THE HOLY BIBLE

INDEX TO FIRST LINES OF POEMS

- Transcriber's Notes:

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