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SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY

For permission to use copyrighted material grateful acknowledgment is made to The Mark Twain Company, the Estate of Samuel L. Clemens, and to Harper and Brothers for "How Tom Sawyer Whitewashed the Fence" from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain; to Ererybody's Magazine and the author for "The Elephant Remembers," by Edison Marshall; to Macmillan and Company, Ltd., for "The Wonders of the World We Live In" from The Beauties of Nature, by Sir John Lubbock; to Fleming H. Revell Company for "America" from From Alien to Citizen, by Edward A. Steiner; to Small, Maynard and Company for "Trees" from April Airs, by Bliss Carman; to Colliers and the author for "The Citizen," by James Francis Dwyer; to the author for "1620-1920," by L. B. R. Briggs; to the Century Magazine and Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt for "Working Together in a Democracy" from "Fellow-Feeling as a Political Factor," by Theodore Roosevelt; to Henry Holt and Company for "The Tuft of Flowers" from A Boy's Will, by Robert Frost; to The Macmillan Company and the author for "The Hemp Fields" from The Reign of Law, by James Lane Allen; to Charles Scribner's Sons for "Trees and the Master" from Poems, by Sidney Lanier; to Poetry and the author for "April-North Carolina," by Harriet Monroe; to D. Appleton and Company, Poetry, and the author for "On the Great Plateau” from The Wind in the Corn, by Edith Wyatt; to Doubleday, Page and Company for "Plowing on a Wheat Ranch" from The Octopus, by Frank Norris, and for "The Romance of a Busy Broker," from The Four Million, by O. Henry; to Amy Lowell for "Lilacs"; to Letta Eulalia Thomas for "What America Means to Me"; to Edwin Markham for "Lincoln, the Man of the People" and "Creed." "Opportunity," by Edward R. Sill, is used by permission of and special arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers.

For permission to use copyrighted pictures our thanks are tendered to Small, Maynard and Company for the halftone copy (in With Stevenson in Samoa, by J. B. Moors, copyright 1910) from which the picture on page 83 was adapted; to Agnes C. Gale for the halftone copy (in The Children's Odyssey, copyright 1912 by the Public School Publishing Company) for the picture on page 210; to Joseph Pennell for the drawing (in Pictures of the Wonder of Work, copyright 1916 by J. B. Lippincott Company) for the picture on page 563; to Underwood and Underwood for the photograph on page 480; and to The International News Service for the photograph on page 514.

PREFACE

This volume, like Junior High School Literature, Books One and Two, provides a one-year course in literature so organized as to make deep and lasting impressions upon the student.

The book includes an abundant supply of carefully chosen selections from the best writers of all time. Of the fifty or more authors represented, one half are masters of former times whose works have become classics; the other half are recent or contemporary writers who are recognized interpreters of our own time. Thus the book gives full recognition not only to the past but also to the living present. To this abundance of material taken from the rich heritage of song and story comes the added zest of variety.

A glance at the Contents will show that the editors have not regarded it as their task merely to supply a large amount of carefully chosen material in rich variety and of recognized excellence. They have felt, as many other teachers also have felt, that many anthologies are mere scrapbooks. But the purpose of the study of literature is more than momentary recreation. The collection of literary masterpieces used in a school year may leave an impression but little more permanent than the impression left by the current magazine. The editors of this book recognize the value of the magazine for its own particular field; they do not believe that the textbook of literature should be a sort of glorified magazine, ten months' issues bound within a single cover. On the contrary they believe the material should be so organized as to make permanent impressions of the dominant ideas and ideals of the literature.

This volume, like Books One and Two of this series, is so organized as to bring out clearly certain fundamental relations, with particular stress upon the ideal of good citizenship: a. the debt we owe the past; b. the relations of human brotherhood; c. the relations between man and

Nature. As Emerson rightly held, these three relations are the foundation of all education: the mind of the past, the world of action, the world of Nature. The book, by such organization, cannot fail to reënforce powerfully the study of history, of social and political conditions, and of science-the three main divisions into which school and college courses are grouped. The study of literature, therefore, is not an occupation for leisure hours but is made the heart of the school.

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To this end, care has been taken not only to secure the right selection of literature, grouped under these fundamental divisions, but also to secure proper understanding of them as individual units and also as parts of a group. This is accomplished, first, through the various introductions, written for the pupil, as in Books One and Two of this series. general and special introductions, taken together, are an elementary treatise on how to read, on literary criticism, on the service of literature to life. They are better than such a mere treatise would be, for they are accompanied by the selections from great literature that aptly illustrate the various points. They should be studied by the pupil and made the basis of discussion in class. At intervals they should be reviewed in the light of the literature that has been read. These introductions cover a great variety of subjects: the nature of literature, the characteristics of poetry, the relation of literature to human history and the development of institutions, the types of literature, etc.

The other aids to study are equally distinctive. Classics are provided with a minimum of annotation, and this annotation is always directed to the needs of the pupil. The editors have sought to avoid the over-annotation which always results from regarding the masterpiece as a unit in itself. The notes are not designed to show editorial erudition or minuteness; they are put in to enable the pupil to come

to a complete understanding of his reading without interrupting that reading a moment longer than necessary.

Therefore, words that can be looked up in a good secondary-school dictionary are not annotated. It is assumed that the pupil possesses such a dictionary, and that he will use it. The explanations of special terms, printed as footnotes, are designed to help the student to read intelligently, not to form the basis for questions by the teacher. At the end of the selection, or, in the case of longer units, at the chapter or scene divisions, will be found helps of two kinds. The first of these consists of explanatory notes designed to give additional information necessary to intelligent reading; the second and more important consists of questions to guide the pupil's reading as he prepares his lesson and also as the basis for class discussion. In reading a selection such as Julius Caesar mainly for the story, notes intended for detailed study may well be disregarded. Many of the questions involve independent thinking. Many of them seek to connect the pupil's reading with other interests; for the relation between literature and life in this series is no fanciful relation. It is organic, interwoven in many different ways into the body of the book and its method. Teachers will also find, at frequent intervals, exercises in oral composition, suggestions for library reading, and suggestions for class reading and for dramatization. At the end of the book will be found a biographical index in which the necessary information is given concerning the lives of all the authors represented in the book, major authors being presented with due regard to the special needs of the pupil who is reading the selections in the body of the book. These biographies are not essays such as older students would use, but are written expressly from the standpoint of the book. There is also a brief dictionary of technical terms in criticism, for occasional reference or for study as the teacher may decide.

In this book two general conditions have influenced the choice of materials. In the first place, the masterpieces required for admission to college under the conference plan are so fully represented as to make unnecessary the purchase of

separate classics. Besides the advantage of economy, there is also in this plan the advantage of careful gradation and organization. Through many years of experience by hundreds of teachers there has grown up a fairly standardized list of minimum essentials, a list of books that every student should know. These are presented without curtailment except in the case of some of the longer novels, in which a plan for library reading with class discussion has been worked out. Teachers may supply, through the school library, a sufficient number of complete copies of these few books to enable the pupils to read them in connection with the study plans given in the text.

The second point is that the editors are in entire agreement with the statement of the aims and scope of the course in English as set forth in the recent report of the Committee on English of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. This volume does not limit itself to a few selections for intensive study; around these major works are grouped many others, so that there is abundant material for choice. Teachers may decide for themselves which selections are to be read rapidly and which are to be studied carefully and with detail. They may also condense and omit at will. The generous quantity of literature makes this book especially adapted for use in schools that organize classes on organize classes on a basis of uniform abilities.

The course here provided has been checked carefully with such documents as the Report of the Committee of the National Council of Teachers of English, the Uniform Entrance and the Special Requirements in English, and the special courses and syllabi provided by the states of New York, Pennsylvania, and others. Moreover, it illustrates the leading tendencies in the best modern teaching: a. wide variety and interest of subject matter; b. indisputable quality; c. the union of the contemporary and the classic; d. the study of such types of literature as the drama, the epic, the metrical romance, the ballad, the lyric, and prose fiction. The book thus provides for all the purposes that a collection of literature for this grade should supply.

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