"A classic is something neither ancient nor modern, always new and incapable of growing old." - JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 588612 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1917. Reprinted June, 1917; August, 1917. d PREFACE THIS series of Readers has been prepared in the belief that the instruction in reading in the schools should be based on a selection of the classics of our literature. The child is introduced not only to what is excellent in itself but to what his father and mother have read before him, to what has become a valued part of the heritage of the nation and the race. All other school reading should be supplementary to this study of what is best in literature. A classic is not necessarily something old; rather it is something so good that it never grows old. The selections in this series are EVERYDAY CLASSICS because they are stories and poems that have really become a part of our everyday thinking and feeling. The teacher will not find novelties here; but this literature that has endeared itself to so many will all be new to the child. Its vistas of history, its records of bravery and sacrifice, its sentiment and its sunshine, will be for him as new as they are wonderful and important. This FIFTH READER is primarily a book of stories. In the THIRD READER the interest was in legend and folk tale; in the FOURTH READER, in out of doors; and here it is in stories of action and their revelations of character. It is a book of adventure and wonder, but the adventure is not confined to marvelous deeds; for there are also 5 |