PREFACE The chief aim in preparing this basal reader for use in the upper grades of grammar schools has been to make a collection of standard literature which shall appeal to the interest of the pupils. Oral reading, to be most effective, should have this constant stimulus. A large proportion, therefore, of the selections included in this volume have that dramatic or narrative quality which best holds the attention of boys and girls. On the other hand, there are certain masterpieces of literary art which, while they may arouse no immediate response from young people, ought to be familiar to them. A judicious selection of such pieces will be found in the following pages. An effort has also been made to present typical extracts from the work of foreign writers, and to establish the proper perspective in regard to literature in general. History, biography, essays, travels, and scientific works, as well as poetry and fiction, have all been drawn upon for suitable material. The range of authorship here represented will inevitably broaden and educate the perception of literary values. The selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Herbert Palmer, and Edward Rowland Sill are used by the kind permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, the publishers of the writings of these authors. Grateful acknowledgment is also made to the publishing houses named below for the use of the following copyrighted material: "The Way to Wealth," by Benjamin Franklin, "A Japanese Village," by Isabella L. Bird, "The Beginnings of Tennessee" and "The Surprise of Kaskaskia," by Theodore Roosevelt (G. P. Putnam's Sons); "In the Ice Pack," by Norman Duncan (Doubleday, Page & Co.); "The Growth of a Nation," by John Fiske, "Comets," by Sir Robert Stawell Ball, “Ribaut's First Expedition," by Francis Parkman, and "The Flag," by Denis A. McCarthy (Little, Brown & Co.); "A Night among the Pines," by Robert Louis Stevenson (Charles Scribner's Sons); "The Doors of Opportunity," by Hamilton Wright Mabie (Hall & Locke Company, publishers of The Young Folks' Library); "Hatto the Hermit," by Selma Lagerlöf (Ess Ess Publishing Company); "The Price of War," from The Human Harvest, by David Starr Jordan (American Unitarian Association); and "The Parting of the Ways," by Joseph B. Gilder (Harper & Bros.). THE AUTHORS |