of new active life, broadened interests and intense loyalties and devotions. These new experiences should be caught up by an appealing literature and made the motive force toward the development of reading habits and skills that will be of lifelong service to the individual. Interests in nature, in science, in adventure, in human relationships, in romance, in personal and social ideals, in the human conquest of physical nature, and in the subordination of the less desirable human qualities to the nobler ones- these are the impelling motives which should make reading in the earlier adolescent years the vehicle for achieving a mastery of English literature and particularly of English prose. SILENT READING The current emphasis on silent reading is a useful stressing of an important school activity. Most of a person's school reading is done silently and nearly all of his reading after school years is silent. The school should, therefore, seek to perfect young people in silent reading skill, to enable them to get meaning from printed pages rapidly and accurately. There should be constant improvement in these matters on through the upper grades and the high school. Recent educational researches have developed new methods for improving silent reading skill, and use is made of the results of these investigations in the study material throughout this series of books. At one or another place many of these newer techniques are used as directions to the pupil. A skillful teacher will extend these devices to other selections and thus provide greatly increased opportunity for learning good methods of work. VOCABULARY Probably the most important means of improving reading power, aside from extensive reading, is the study of vocabulary. The words which a person understands will serve to show his range of information, his ability to think, and his general capacity for intellectual work better than almost any other index to his intelligence and attainment. To increase his vocabulary should be the desire of every student, and to aid in this process should be a definite aim of every teacher of reading. Growth in vocabulary consists not merely in the acquisition of new words, but in attaining more precise meanings for old words. Reading and Literature offers abundant opportunities for exercise in both these directions. A good writer uses words with exactness often after searching a long time to find the right word to express his meaning with discrimination and precision. To understand this nicety of expression one must know the shades of meaning which words may convey. Rightly followed, the study of words is an interesting subject, and these books afford rich possibilities for such study. The glossary at the end of the book provides practical definitions for many of the more difficult words. A mastery of this glossary will enlarge the reading attainments of a pupil and better fit him for his future reading needs. Informal tests based on this glossary will serve to show where a pupil stands in word knowledge and should stimulate him to improvement. ORAL READING While the days of formal "elocution" are happily over, oral reading remains an excellent means for teaching both the understanding and the appreciation of literature. Repeatedly in the study directions in this book emphasis is placed on the oral reading of poetry because only by such means can the beauty of sound and the rhythm of poetic form be adequately portrayed. In many cases this reading should be done by the teacher, for whom oral reading skill is a most valuable asset. But the pupils also should acquire the habit of fluent reading and easy abandon to the music of verse. If such habits are acquired in school days, they will remain in mature life an avenue for personal enjoyment and a means of giving pleasure to others. Practice in oral reading gives opportunity for exercise in clear articulation and in accuracy of speech, attainments of the utmost importance to cultured men and women. Aside from the advantages which clear and pleasing speech gives to an individual in the ordinary contacts of life, it also equips him for those occasions when he must present his ideas for instruction or entertainment before an audience. The material in Reading and Literature gives ample opportunity for oral reading. The wise teacher will make generous use of the selections for this purpose. Only he who knows the pupils he can teaches their needs, their capacities, and their interests properly prescribe the oral reading assignments, but both prose and poetry should be used for this purpose. STUDY HELPS The study helps that follow the selections are not intended as a substitute for a good teacher. There is no such substitute. The helps are suggestive of the types of introductory information that should be supplied, and the kinds of tasks that may be multiplied and modified for the purpose of enabling pupils to improve in the tech nique of reading and in the understanding and appreciation of literature. Particular emphasis is placed upon the understanding of English prose and the mastery of English vocabulary. At various places in the books are given illustrations of every important method which modern scientific investigation has approved for the teaching of reading and literature. The teacher will wish to amplify the use of the methods which he finds particularly useful, and to apply them to other selections than the ones to which they are here appended. READING AND APPRECIATION Reading skill, however important, is not the only aim of school reading. Quite as essential is the development of appreciation and taste for good literature. Not all that is written is of equal value, and since a person can read but little of what is written, it is important that he choose well what he does read. The reading which a pupil does in school should train him to make wise and useful choices when he comes to select his own reading. The cheap and tawdry he should learn easily to reject, and he should acquire the power and the desire to recognize and seize upon the better and more useful things. To judge accurately the merit of a poem or a bit of prose, we may call appreciation; to prefer the better to the poorer, we may call taste. Employing these definitions, we may say that the study of reading in the junior high school years should lead young people to an appreciation of good literature and a taste for it. Understanding, expression, appreciation, and taste in the realm of English prose and English poetry may then be assumed as the chief ends to be attained by the study of the material arranged in the three volumes of Reading and Literature. The books are intended for use in the junior high school or the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades. While the selections chosen are such as will interest young people of these grades, they also represent acceptable standards of literary quality and reflect largely the life and ideals of the American people and of their European progenitors. THE READER'S WORKING TOOLS To the Pupils AN apprentice must learn to use the tools of his craft if he would become a skilled workman. In the business of learning to read there are some necessary tools, in the use of which you should become expert. A few of them are listed here. I. DICTIONARIES Webster's New International Dictionary. G. and C. Merriam Company The Standard Dictionary. Funk and Wagnalls Company English Synonyms, Antonyms, and Prepositions by JAMES C. FERNALD. Funk and Wagnalls Company 2. ENCYCLOPEDIAS Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia. 10 vols. F. E. Compton and Company The Book of Knowledge. 20 vols. The Grolier Society Century Cyclopedia of Names. The Century Company The Reader's Handbook of Facts, Characters, Plots, and References, by E. COBHAM BREWER. J. B. Lippincott Company The Outline of Science by J. ARTHUR THOMSON. 4 vols. G. P. Putnam's Sons 3. USEFUL BOoks for RefeRENCE The following books, while not so necessary as those named above, will be found useful in extending your reading beyond the limits of this book. ASHMUN, MARGARET. Modern Prose and Poetry for Secondary Schools. Houghton Mifflin Company BOYNTON, PERCY H. Milestones in American Literature. Ginn and Company CALHOUN, MARY E., and MACALARNEY, EMMA L. Readings from American Literature. Ginn and Company DE MILLE, A. B. American Poetry. Allyn and Bacon MABIE, HAMILTON WRIGHT, and HALE, EDWARD EVERETT. Men and PAYNE, LEONIDAS WARREN, JR., and HILL, NINA. Selections from |