THROUGH ILLUSTRATIVE READINGS 24 Adelaide Amis Qt. BY SARAH E. SIMONS HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH IN THE HIGH SCHOOLS, CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON PREFACE THIS volume is intended as a handbook for high-school students of American literature. The purpose of the book is to give a fair view of what has been done and is still being done in the domain of American letters, and to stimulate, through the illustrations, further reading in and appreciation of American authors. The work is by no means exhaustive, but it is believed that it is representative of the periods and the personalities in our literary development. A relatively large space has been given to living writers and recent literary activities because the highschool pupil's interest is emphatically in the present-day author and his reading is chiefly from contemporary productions. Hence he needs direction and guidance in this field as much as anywhere. Moreover, through the study of the good modern writer, he may be drawn to the classic when he sees the dependence of the new writer on the old, when he realizes the modern author's appreciation of the great and the good in the achievement of earlier men. All work of a critical nature has been purposely omitted as outside the sphere of interest and comprehension of the high-school student. Even in the bibliographies no mention is made of books which are works of appraisal mainly. Further readings in the particular authors are indicated and reference is made to works which shed light on the period and on the environment of the author, for the sake of atmosphere and background. The character of such a course in American literature as is intended by the use of this handbook is extensive rather than intensive. The pupils must, from the nature of the case, make free use of the library. The mere handling of many books is valuable training. A splendid opportunity is also offered for the preparation of special topics. Here the work should become more specialized and detailed than for the daily class preparation. And last, but not least important, such a course gives frequent chance for oral reading. Perhaps, indeed, this is the most effective means of inducing appreciation of the author under consideration. Says Professor Rose Colby in Literature and Life in the School: "The best response to be secured by the teacher from the student," in the work on any bit of literature, "is the fullest interpretative vocal rendering of it." Thus such a course in American literature may be viewed incidentally from various angles as a course in library work, or a course in special-topic reports, or a course in oral reading—any one of which would be valuable per se. The bibliographies contain suggestions for further readings in the authors treated in this volume and also suggestions for readings in certain authors from whom, owing to copyright restrictions, it was impossible to get extracts. Thanks are due to the publishers for permission to use the following selections: The Open Shop, by Lyman Abbott, The Outlook Company; The Story of the Doodang, from Uncle Remus and the Little Boy, by Joel Chandler Harris, Small, Maynard & Co; To the Death, from The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, Some Memories of Childhood, from Richard Carvel, by Winston Churchill, The Child and America to England, by George E. Woodberry, Bimini and the Fountain of Youth, from Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Changes of the Nineteenth Century, from Democracy and Education, by Nicholas Murray Butler, Ode on the Centenary of Abraham Lincoln, by Percy MacKaye, The Macmillan Company; The Wheat Pit, from The Pit, by Frank Norris, The Count and the Wedding Guest, by "O. Henry," Nature in Poetry, from Songs of Nature, by John Burroughs, The Man with the Hoe, by Edwin Markham, Doubleday, Page & Company; The Call of the Bugles, by Richard Hovey, Duffield & Company; John Gilley, from John Gilley, Maine Farmer and Fisherman, by Charles W. Eliot, Hugh's School Days, from Hugh Wynne: Free Quaker, by S. Weir Mitchell, China to the Ranging Eye, from The Changing Chinese, by Edward Alsworth Ross, The Century Company; The Old Man and Jim, by James Whitcomb Riley, The Bobbs-Merrill Company; By the Pacific Ocean and Dead in the Sierras, by Joaquin Miller, The Death of McKinley, from The Lessons of the Tragedy, in The Voice of the Scholar, by David Starr Jordan, The Whitaker & Ray-Wiggin Company; Worth While and Recrimination, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, The W. B. Conkey Company; My Double and How He Undid Me, by Edward Everett Hale, Little, Brown & Company; His Christmas Miracle, from The Raid of the Guerilla, by Mary N. Murfree, The J. B. Lippincott Company; A Southern Girl, and My Little Girl, by Samuel Minturn Peck, The Frederick A. Stokes Company; The Vocabulary, from Self-Cultivation in English, by George H. Palmer, The Thomas Y. Crowell Company; The Death of the Flowers, To a Waterfowl, The Hurricane, and To the Fringed Gentian, by William Cullen Bryant, D. Appleton & Company; A Coon Song, by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, The Feeling for Literature, from Books and Culture, by Hamilton Wright Mabie, The Other One, by Harry Thurston Peck, Dodd, Mead & Company. |