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II. Oration: Lincoln, Gettysburg Speech; Lowell, Our Literature.
III. Story: Irving, Rip Van Winkle; Cooper, "The Last of the Mo-
hicans" (Chapter III, Hawk-eye, Chingachgook, and Uncas); Poe,
The Cask of Amontillado, The Purloined Letter; Hawthorne, The
Ambitious Guest, The Great Carbuncle, The Wedding-Knell;
Mark Twain, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras
County; Bret Harte, The Luck of Roaring Camp; O. Henry,
The Ransom of Red Chief, The Last Leaf.

III. ORAL READING OF MASTERPIECES

Finally and by all means, the oral rendition of literary masterpieces should be insisted on in all the high-school grades. The surest test of real literary appreciation is the ability to reproduce in good oral reading the material studied. Memory work, then, becomes an essential aid in this practical exercise of oral reproduction. The pupils should be trained to do good oral reading directly from the text, of course, but a finished and final oral rendition from memory will fix the real literary values of a masterpiece in the child's mind in a way that no amount of mere cursory reading will do. A rapid sight reading of each selection, before the more detailed literary study is made, is essential to a consecutive grasp of the selection as a whole; but the final test of all the study put upon a selection is the pupil's ability to reproduce its thought content and its emotional and esthetic values by a good oral reading; and in the case of the shorter selections, undoubtedly the surest means of attaining this full literary appreciation on the part of the pupil is to demand of him accurate and expressive memory reproduction before the whole class or the entire school.

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AMERICAN

LITERARY READINGS

WASHINGTON IRVING

1783-1859

Washington Irving has been called "The Father of American Literature," just as the great statesman and soldier for whom he was named is called "The Father of His Country." In a certain sense, Irving is the father of American literature. He was not our first author to devote himself entirely to literature, for Charles Brockden Brown had done that just before him; but he was the first of our authors to gain recognition abroad, or as Thackeray happily phrased it in his essay "Nil Nisi Bonum," "Irving was the first ambassador whom the New World of letters sent to the Old." The Sketch Book was, in fact, the first positive answer to the tantalizing British query, "Who reads an American book?"

Irving was born in New York City, April 3, 1783, the year which marked the treaty of peace and the close of the Revolution, and his mother, who was an ardent patriot, decided to name him for the great American general, for, she said, "Washington's work is ended, and the child shall be named for him." When Irving was six years old, his old Scotch nurse presented him to President Washington for his blessing. Irving remembered the incident, remarking in later years, "That blessing has attended me through It is interesting, finally, to note in this connection that Irving's last great work was the five-volume Life of Washington, which appeared in 1859 just before his death.

Irving's parents were both born abroad, his father being of Scotch and his mother of English descent. There were born to them eleven children, of whom Washington was the youngest. He was a delicate child, and his education, so far as formal school training is concerned, was desultory. He read tales of travel and adventure, particularly the Arabian Nights and Robinson Crusoe, when he ought to have been studying his arithmetic; and it is said that he would

willingly write the other boys' compositions if they would work his sums for him. He dropped out of school at sixteen, failing to take advantage of the opportunity of attending Columbia College as two of his brothers did. Instead, he spent his time in reading tales of romance, slipping away from home before and after family prayers to attend the newly opened theater, and roaming the country roundabout, listening to the good wives' tales about ghosts and fairies in the surrounding hills and valleys. He made several long holiday. excursions into the Hudson River hill country farther north, going on one of his trips even as far north as Canada, and collecting all the while those legends and nature pictures which he has so well preserved in "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

The plan for young Irving's future was that he should become a lawyer. The chief result of his five years of desultory study of law, largely in Judge Hoffman's office, was his acquaintance with the Judge's daughter, Matilda. She was a beautiful and quick-witted girl, and Irving fell desperately in love with her. She was equally attracted to the handsome and genial youth and promised to marry him, but she developed rapid tuberculosis and died in her eighteenth year. Irving's devotion to her memory is one of the most beautiful things in his life. He did not seclude himself from society nor become sentimentally morbid; indeed, he was always delighted with the society of women, and the evidence seems to show that he had some serious intentions

of marrying later in life. But the fact remains that he never married, and after his death there were found among his cherished personal belongings a lock of Miss Hoffman's hair and her Bible and prayerbook.

Irving's constitution was still frail, and so in 1804 it was decided that he should visit Europe partly in search of health, but partly also for literary and cultural advantages. He traveled through Italy, France, and England, meeting many distinguished persons and making many friends by his genial manners and attractive personality. On his return in 1806, he was admitted to the bar, but he devoted his time more to social engagements and literary experiments than to his profession. Before his trip abroad he had contributed to a New York paper a series of light satiric letters, signing them "Jonathan Oldstyle," a name which indicates at this early period his predilection for the eighteenth-century

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