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diff --git a/37795.txt b/37795.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f970727 --- /dev/null +++ b/37795.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7826 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The World's Best Books, by Frank Parsons + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The World's Best Books + A Key to the Treasures of Literature + +Author: Frank Parsons + +Release Date: October 19, 2011 [EBook #37795] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Matthew Wheaton and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS + + A KEY TO THE TREASURES OF LITERATURE + + BY + + FRANK PARSONS + + + THIRD EDITION + + REVISED AND ENLARGED + + BOSTON + + LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY + + 1893 + _Copyright, 1889, 1891, 1893,_ + + BY FRANK PARSONS. + + UNIVERSITY PRESS: + + JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. + + + + +PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. + + +At the request of the publishers the following statement is made as a +substitute for the former indefinite arrangement in respect to +authorship. + +The plan and composition of the book were mine; the work of my +colleagues, F. E. Crawford and H. T. Richardson, consisting of +criticism, verifications, and assistance in gathering materials for the +appendix,--services of great value to me, and of which I wish to express +my high appreciation. + +A few additions have been made in this edition, and the book has been +carefully revised throughout. + +FRANK PARSONS. + +BOSTON, January, 1893. + + + + +PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. + + +The public and the critics have met us with a welcome far more cordial +than we had dared to expect, though not more so, of course, than we +hoped for. When did a thing such as that ever happen? We are glad to +discover that in forming our expectations we underrated their +discernment, or our own merit (probably not the latter, judging by the +remarks of two or three of our critics), and in real earnest we are +grateful for their high appreciation of our work. + +Some few--a very few--have found fault with us, and our thanks are due +to them also; for honest, kindly, intelligent criticism is one of the +most powerful means of growth. The fact that this little volume is not +intended as an _infallible_ guide, or as anything more than a _stimulus_ +to seek the best, and a _suggestion_ of the method of guiding one's self +and one's children, has been missed by some, though it appears +distinctly in various places through the book, and is involved in what +we deem the most useful part of our work,--the remarks following Table +V., wherein we endeavor to show the student how he may learn to estimate +the value of a book for himself. So far were we from wishing to _decide_ +matters which manifestly vary with the wants and capacities of each +individual, that we emphatically advised the reader not to accept the +opinions of any one as final, but to form his own judgments. + +Some have failed to perceive that, _in ranking the books, we have +considered, not merely their intrinsic merit, but also the needs and +abilities of the average English reader_, making a compound test by +which to judge, not the relative greatness of the books simply, but +their relative claims on the attention of the ordinary reader. This also +was set forth, as we thought, quite distinctly, and was in fact +understood by nearly every one, but not by all, for some have objected +to the order of the books in Table I., affirming, for example, that the +"Federalist" and Bryce's "American Commonwealth" are far _superior_ to +"Our Country," and should be placed above it. That would be true if +intrinsic greatness alone decided the matter. But the average reader +with his needs and abilities is a factor in the problem, as well as the +book with its subject and style. Now, the ordinary reader's time and his +mental power are both limited. "Our Country" is briefer and simpler than +the others, and its contents are of vital interest to every American, of +even more vital interest than the discussions of the "Federalist" or +Bryce; and so, although as a work of art it is inferior to these, it +must rank above them in this book, because of its superior claims upon +the attention of the average reader. In a similar manner other questions +of precedence are determined on the principles contained in the remarks +on Table V. It is not pretended, however, that the arrangement is +perfect even in respect to our own tests, especially among the authors +on the second shelf of Table I. The difficulties of making a true list +may be illustrated by the fact that one critic of much ability affirms +that Marietta Holley ought to head the tenth column, as the best +humorist of all time; another says it is absurd to place her above the +Roman wits Juvenal and Lucian; and a third declares with equal +positiveness that she ought not to appear in the list at all. We differ +from them all, and think the high place we have given Miss Holley is +very near the truth. + +Communications have been received from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Marietta +Holley, Senator Hoar, Phillips Brooks, Bishop J. H. Vincent, Brooke +Herford, Francis Parkman, ex-Gov. John D. Long, Gen. Benj. F. Butler, T. +W. Higginson, and many other eminent persons, bringing to us a number of +suggestions, most of which we have adopted to the great advantage of our +book, as we hope and believe. + +We have added a number of valuable works to the lists of the first +edition, and have written a new chapter on the guidance of children, the +means of training them to good habits of reading, and the books best +adapted to boys and girls of various ages. + +If any one, on noting some of the changes that have been made in this +edition, feels inclined to raise the cry of inconsistency, we ask him to +remember the declaration of Wendell Phillips, that "Inconsistency is +Progress." There is room for still further inconsistency, we do not +doubt; and criticism or suggestion will be gladly received. + +FRANK PARSONS. + +BOSTON, January, 1891. + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. + + Purposes of the book briefly stated + + System in reading + + Purposes of reading + + Its influence on health and mind + + on character + + on beauty and accomplishments + + Its pleasures + + Quantity and quality of reading + + Selection of books + + Order of reading + + Method of reading + + Importance of owning the books you read + + Effect of bad books + + useless books + + good books + + ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS WORK + + NOTE OF EXPLANATION + + THE FIRST TWO SHELVES OF THE WORLD'S LIBRARY + (TABLE.) + + REMARKS ON TABLE I. + + Religion and Morals + + Poetry and the Drama + + Science + + Biography + + History + + Philosophy + + Essays + + Fiction + + Oratory + + Wit and Humor + + Fables and Fairy Tales + + Travel + + Guides + + Miscellaneous + + GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT FIELDS OF THOUGHT, + + Arranged for the purpose of securing breadth of + mind (Table II.) + + A SERIES OF BRIEF BUT VERY CHOICE SELECTIONS + from general literature, constituting a year's + course for the formation of a true literary taste + (Table III.) + + Groups I. and II., Poetry + + Group III., Prose + + Group IV., Wit and Humor + + A SHORT COURSE SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE LAST + (Table IV.) + + WHAT TO GIVE THE CHILDREN + + SPECIAL STUDIES + + THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORLD'S GREAT AUTHORS + in time and space, with a parallel column of contemporaneous + noted historic events (Table V.) + + REMARKS ON TABLE V. + + Definitions and divisions + + Eight tests for the choice of books + + Intrinsic merit + + Periods of English Literature + + The Pre-Shakspearian age + + The Shakspearian age + + The Post-Shakspearian age + + Time of Milton + + Dryden + + Pope + + The novelists, historians, and scientists + + The greatest names of other literatures:-- + Greece, Rome, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, + Persia, Portugal, Denmark, Russia + + The fountains of national literatures:-- + Homer, Nibelungenlied, Cid, Chansons, Morte + D'Arthur, etc. + + APPENDIX I. + + THE BEST THOUGHTS OF GREAT MEN ABOUT + BOOKS AND READING + + APPENDIX II. + + BOOKS USED IN THE BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS + AS SUPPLEMENTARY READING, TEXT-BOOKS, + etc. + + + + +THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS. + + + + +INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. + + +This book is the result of much reading and thought, teaching, +lecturing, and conversation, in the direction of its subject-matter. Its +purpose is fivefold: _First_, to call attention to the importance of +reading the best literature to the exclusion of all that is inferior, by +setting forth the benefits that may be derived from the former and the +injuries that are sure to result from the latter. _Second_, to select +the best things from all the literatures of the world; to make a survey +of the whole field of literature and locate the mines most worthy of our +effort, where with the smallest amount of digging we may find the +richest ore; and to do this with far greater precision, definiteness, +and detail than it has ever been done before. _Third_, to place the +great names of the world's literature in their proper relations +of time and space to each other and to the great events of +history,--accompanying the picture with a few remarks about the several +periods of English Literature and the Golden Age of literature in each +of the great nations. _Fourth_, to discuss briefly the best methods of +reading, and the importance of system, quantity, quality, due +proportion, and thoroughness in reading, and of the ownership of books +and the order in which they should be read. _Fifth_, to gather into a +shining group, like a constellation of stars, the splendid thoughts of +the greatest men upon these subjects. + +The book is meant to be a practical handbook of universal literature for +the use of students, business men, teachers, and any other persons who +direct the reading of others, and for the guidance of scholars in +departments other than their own. + +1. =System= in reading is of as much importance as it is in the business +of a bank or any other mercantile pursuit. + +2. =The Purposes of Reading= should ever be kept in mind. They are +the purposes of life; namely, health, mental power, character, beauty, +accomplishments, pleasure, and the knowledge which will be of use in +relation to our business, domestic life, and citizenship. Literature can +aid the _health_, indirectly, by imparting a knowledge of the means of +its attainment and preservation (as in works on physiology and hygiene); +and directly, by supplying that exercise of the mind which is essential +to the balance of the functions necessary to perfect health. A study of +literature will develop the _mind_--the perception, memory, reason +(especially true of science and philosophy), and the imagination +(especially the study of poetry and science)--directly, by exercising +those all-important faculties; and indirectly, by yielding a knowledge +of the conditions of their existence and strength. On the other hand, +the mind may be greatly injured, if not wholly destroyed, by pouring +into it a flood of filth and nonsense; or by a torrent of even the best +in literature, so rapid and long continued that it cannot be properly +absorbed and digested. The evil effects of cramming the mind are only +too often seen about us. + +Literature can build or destroy the _character_ both directly and +indirectly. Poetry, religion, philosophy, fiction, biography, +history,--indeed, all sorts of writings in some degree make us more +sympathetic, loving, tender, noble, generous, kind, and just, or the +opposite, by the simple power of exercise, if for no other reason. If we +freely exercise the muscles of the arm, we shall have more vigor there. +If we continually love, our power and tendency to love will grow. The +poet's passion, passing the gates of the eye and ear into our souls, +rouses our sympathies to kindred states of feeling. We love when he +loves, and weep when he weeps; and all the while he is moulding our +characters, taking from or adding to the very substance of our souls. +Brave words change the coward to a hero; a coward's cry chills the +bravest heart. A boy who reads of crime and bravery sadly mixed by some +foul traitor to the race, soon thinks that to be brave and grand he must +be coarse and have the blood of villainy and rashness pulsing from his +misled heart. Not all the books that picture vice are harmful. If they +show it in its truth, they drive us from it by its very loathsomeness; +but if they gild it and plume it with pleasure and power, beware. +Literature, too, can give us a knowledge of the means for the +development of character, and the inspiration to make the best use of +these means. Books of morals, religion, biography, science, poetry, and +fiction especially hold these treasures. + +In the attainment and enrichment of _beauty_, literature has a work to +do. The choicest beauty is the loveliness of soul that lights the eye +and prints its virtue in the face; and as our reading moulds the mind +and heart to beauty, their servants at the doorways ever bend to their +instructions and put on the livery of their lords. Even that beauty +which is of the rounded form, the soft cheek's blooming tinge, the rosy +mouth, and pearly lip, owes its debt to health; and that, as has been +seen, may profit much by literature. And beyond all this we learn the +means of great improvement in our comeliness,--how crooked may be +changed to straight, and hollow cheeks to oval; frowns to smiles, and +lean or gross to plump; ill-fitting, ill-adapted dress to beautiful +attire; a shambling gait to a well-conducted walk,--and even the stupid +stare of ignorance be turned to angel glances of indwelling power and +interested comprehension. + +_Accomplishments_, too, find help in written works of genius, not merely +as affording a record of the best methods of acquiring any given art, +but directly as supplying the substance of some of the greatest of all +accomplishments,--those of inspiring eloquent conversation, and of +writing clear and beautiful English. + +_Pleasure_ manifestly is, by all these aids to beauty, health, and +power, much beholden to the books we read; but more than this, the very +reading of a worthy book is a delicious joy, and one that does not drain +but fills the fount from which the happiness of others comes. Plato, +Fenelon, Gibbon, and a host of others name the love of books the +chiefest charm and glory of their lives. + +3. =The Quantity and Quality= of what we read should have our careful +thought. Whoever lives on literary husks and intoxicants, when corn and +wheat and milk are just as easily within his reach, is certainly no +wiser than one who treats his physical receptacle in the same way, and +will as surely suffer from ill feeding in diminished vital force. +Indeed, he may be glad if he escapes acquiring intellectual dyspepsia or +spiritual delirium tremens. Even of the best of reading there may be too +much as well as not enough. More than we can assimilate is waste of time +and energy. Besides the regulation of the _total_ quantity we read, with +reference to our powers of digestion, we must watch the _relative_ +amounts of all the various kinds of literary sustenance we take. A due +proportion ought to be maintained by careful mixture of religious, +scientific, poetic, philosophic, humorous, and other reading. A man who +exercises but one small muscle all his days would violate the laws of +health and power. The greatest mind is that which comes the nearest to +attainment of a present perfect picture in the mind of all the universe, +past, present, and to come. The greatest character is that which gets +the greatest happiness for self through fullest and most powerful +activities for others, and requires for its own work, existence, and +delight, the least subtraction from the world's resources of enjoyment. +The greatest man is he who combines in due proportion and completest +harmony the fullest physical, emotional, and intellectual life. + +4. =The Selection= of books is of the utmost importance, in view of +their influence upon character. All the reasons for care that apply to +the choice of friends among the living, have equal force in reference to +the dead. The same tests avail in one case as in the other,--reputation +and personal observation of the words and deeds of those we think to +make companions. We may at will and at slight cost have all the great +and noble for our intimate friends and daily guests, who will come when +we call, answer the questions we put, and go when we wish. And better +yet, however long we talk to them, no other friends will be kept waiting +in the anterooms, longing to take our place. Our most engrossing +friendship, though we keep them _always_ with us, will produce no +interference with their equal friendship with all the world besides. We +may associate with angels and become angelic, or with demons and become +satanic. + +Besides the difference in the nature of books, the very number of them +commands a choice. In one library there are three million volumes; in +the Boston Public Library about three hundred thousand, or five hundred +thousand including pamphlets. In your short life you can read but a +trifling part of the world's literature. Suppose you are fortunate +enough to be able to read one book a week, in thirty years you would +read but fifteen hundred books. Use, then, every care to get the best. +If it were in your equal choice to go to one of two reputed +entertainments and but one, it surely would be worth your while to know +their character before selecting. One might be Beethoven's loveliest +symphony, the other but a minstrel show. + +5. =The Order of our Reading= must be carefully attended to. The very +best books are not always to be first read. If the reader is young or of +little culture, the _simplicity_ of the writing must be taken into +account, for it is of no use to read a book that cannot be understood. +One of mature and cultivated mind who begins a course of systematic +reading may follow the order of absolute value; but a child must be +supplied with easy books in each department, and, as his powers develop, +with works of increasing difficulty, until he is able to grasp the most +complex and abstruse. If you take up a book that is recommended to you +as one of the world's best, and find it uninteresting, be sure the +trouble is in you. Do not reject it utterly, do not tell people you do +not like it; wait a few months or years, then try it again, and it may +become to you one of the most precious of books. + +6. =The Method= of your reading is an important factor in determining +its value to you. It is in proportion to your _conquest_ of what is +worthy in literature that you gain. If you pour it into your mind so +fast that each succeeding wave forces the former out before its form and +color have been fixed, you are not better off, but rather worse, because +the process washes out the power of memory. Memory depends on health, +attention, repetition, reflection, association of ideas, and practice. +Some books should be very carefully read, looking to both thought and +form; the best passages should be marked and marginal notes made; +reflection should digest the best ideas, until they become a part of the +tissue of your own thought; and the most beautiful and striking +expressions should be verbally committed. If you saw a diamond in the +sand, surely you would fix it where it might adorn your person. If you +find a sparkling jewel in your reading, fix it in your heart and let it +beautify your conversation. Shakspeare, Milton, Homer, Bacon, AEschylus, +and Emerson, and nearly all the selections in Table III. should be read +in this way. Other books have value principally by reason of the line of +thought or argument of which the whole book is an expression; such for +the most part are books of history, science, and philosophy. While +reading them marks or notes should be made; so that when the book is +finished, the steps of thought may several times be rapidly retraced, +until the force and meaning of the book becomes your own forever. Still +other books may be simply glanced through, it being sufficient for the +purposes of the general reader to have an idea of the nature of their +contents, so that he may know what he can find in them if he has need. +Such books to us are the Koran, the works of the lesser essayists, +orators, and philosophers. Ruskin says that no book should be read fast; +but it would be as sensible to say that we should never walk or ride +fast over a comparatively uninteresting country. Adaptation of method to +the work in hand is the true rule. We should not read "Robert Elsmere" +as slowly and carefully as Shakspeare. As the importance of the book +diminishes, the speed of our journey through it ought to increase. +Otherwise we give an inferior book equal attention with its superiors. + +7. =Own the Books you Read,= if possible, so that you may mark them and +often refer to them. If you are able, buy the best editions, with the +fullest notes and finest binding,--the more beautiful, the better. A +lovely frame adds beauty to the picture. If you cannot buy the +best-dressed books, get those of modest form and good large type. If +pennies must be counted, get the catalogues of all the cheap libraries +that are multiplying so rapidly of late,--the Elzevir, Bohn, Morley, +Camelot, National, Cassel, Irving, Chandos, People's Library, World's +Library, etc.,--and own the books you learn to love. Use the public +libraries for reference, but do not rely on them for the standard +literature you read. It is better far to have an eight cent Bunyan, +twelve cent Bacon, or seven cent Hamlet within your reach from day to +day, and marked to suit yourself, than to read such books from the +library and have to take them back. That is giving up the rich +companionship of new-found friends as soon as gained. The difference +between talking with a sage or poet for a few brief moments once in your +lifetime, and having him daily with you as your friend and teacher is +the difference between the vales and summits of this life. The immense +importance of possessing the best books for your own cannot be too +strongly impressed upon you, nor the value of clothing your noble +friends as richly as you can. If they come to you with outward beauty, +they will claim more easily their proper share of your attention and +regard. Get an Elzevir Shakspeare if you can afford no other, but +purchase the splendid edition by Richard Grant White, if you can. Even +if you have to save on drink and smoke and pie-crust for the purpose, +you never will regret the barter. + +8. =Bad Books= corrupt us as bad people do. Whenever they are made +companions, insensibly we learn to think and feel and talk and act as +they do in degree proportioned to the closeness that we hug them to our +hearts. Books may be bad, not only by imparting evil thoughts, awakening +lust and gilding vice, but by developing a false philosophy, ignoble +views of life, or errors in whatever parts of science or religion they +may touch. Avoid foul books as you would shun foul men, for fear you may +be like them; but seek the errors out and conquer them. Spend little +time in following a teacher you have tested and found false, but do the +testing for yourselves, and take no other person's judgment as to what +is truth or error. Truth is always growing; you may be the first to +catch the morning light. The friend who warns you of some book's untruth +may be himself in error, led by training, custom, or tradition, or +unclearly seeing in the darkness of his prejudice. + +9. =Useless Books=. Many books that are not positively bad are yet mere +waste of time. A wise man will not spend the capital of his life, or +part with the wealth of his energies except he gets a fair equivalent. +He will demand the highest market price for his time, and will not give +his hours and moments--precious pieces of his life--for trash, when he +can buy with them the richest treasures of three thousand years of +thought. You have not time to drink the whole of human life from out the +many colored bottles of our literature; will you take the rich cream, or +cast that aside for the skimmed milk below, or turn it all out on the +pathway and swallow the dirt and the dregs in the bottom? + +10. =Good Books=.--=A Short Sermon=.--If you are a scholar, professor or +lawyer, doctor or clergyman, do not stay locked in the narrow prison of +your own department, but go out into the world of thought and breathe +the air that comes from all the quarters of the globe. Read other books +than those that deal with your profession,--poetry, philosophy, and +travel. Get out of the valleys up on to the ridges, where you can see +what relation your home bears to the rest of the world. Go stand in the +clamor of tongues, that you may learn that the truth is broader than any +man's conception of it and become tolerant. Look at the standards that +other men use, and correct your own by them. Learn what other thinkers +and workers are doing, that you may appreciate them and aid them. Learn +the Past, that you may know the Future. Do not look out upon the world +through one small window; open all the doorways of your soul, let all +genius and beauty come in, that your life may be bright with their +glory. + +If you are a busy merchant, artisan, or laborer, you too can give a +little time each day to books that are the best. If Plato, Homer, +Shakspeare, Tennyson, or Milton came to town to-day, you would not let +the busiest hour prevent your catching sight of him; you would stand a +half day on the street in the sun or the snow to catch but a glimpse of +the famous form; but how much better to receive his spirit in the heart +than only get his image on the eye! His choicest thought is yours for +the asking. + +If you are a thoughtless boy or silly girl, trying the arts that win the +matrimonial prize, remember that there are no wings that fly so high as +those of sense and thought and inward beauty. Remember the old song that +ends,-- + + "Beauty vanish, wealth depart, + Wit has won the lady's heart." + +Even as a preparation for a noble and successful courtship, the best +literature is an absolute necessity. Perhaps you cannot travel: +Humboldt, Cook, and Darwin, Livingstone, and Stanley will tell you more +than you could see if you should go where they have travelled. Perhaps +you cannot have the finest teachers in the studies you pursue: what a +splendid education one could get if he could learn philosophy with +Plato, Kant, and Spencer; astronomy with Galileo, Herschel, and Laplace; +mathematics with Newton or Leibniz; natural history with Cuvier or +Agassiz; botany with Gray; geology with Lyell or Dawson; history with +Bancroft; and poetry with Shakspeare, Milton, Dante, and Homer! Well, +those very teachers at their best are yours if you will read their +books. Each life is a mixture of white and black, no one is perfect; but +every worthy passage and ennobling thought you read adds to the white +and crowds out the black; and of what enormous import a few brief +moments daily spent with noble books may be, appears when we remember +that each act brings after it an infinite series of consequences. It is +an awe-inspiring truth to me that with the color of my thought I tinge +the stream of life to its remotest hour; that some poor brother far out +on the ocean of the future, struggling to breast the billows of +temptation, may by my hand be pulled beneath the waves, ruined by the +influences I put in action now; that, standing here, I make the depths +of all eternities to follow tremble to the music of my life: as Tennyson +has put it so beautifully in his "Bugle Song,"-- + + "Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: + Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. + + "O love, they die in yon rich sky, + They faint on hill or field or river: + _Our echoes roll from soul to soul_, + _And grow for ever and for ever_." + +How careful we should be of every moment if we had imaginative power +enough to fully realize the meaning of the truth that slightly differing +actions now may build results at last as wide apart as poles of opposite +eternities! Even idleness, the negative of goodness, would have no +welcome at our door. Some persons dream away two thirds of life, and +deem quiescence joy; but that is certainly a sad mistake. The nearer to +complete inaction we attain, the nearer we are clay and stone; the more +activity we gain, that does not draw from future power, the higher up +the cliffs of life we climb, and nearer to celestial life that never +sleeps. Let no hour go idly by that can be rendered rich and happy with +a glorious bit of Shakspeare, Dante, or Carlyle. Let us never be deluded +with the praise of peace, excepting that of heart and conscience clear +of all remorse. It is ambition that has climbed the heights, and will +through all the future. Give me not the dead and hopeless calm of +indolent contentment, but far rather the storm and the battle of life, +with the star of my hopes above me. Let me sail the central flow of the +stream, and travel the tides at the river's heart. I do not wish to stay +in any shady nook of quiet water, where the river's rushing current +never comes, and straws and bubbles lie at rest or slowly eddying round +and round at anchor in their mimic harbor. How often are we all like +these imprisoned straws, revolving listlessly within the narrow circle +of the daily duties of our lives, gaining no new truth, nor deeper love +or power or tenderness or joy, while all the world around is sweeping to +the sea! How often do we let the days and moments, with their wealth of +life, fly past us with their treasure! Youth lies in her loveliness, +dreaming in her drifting boat, and wakes to find her necklace has in +some way come unfast, and from the loosened ribbon trailing o'er the +rail the lustrous pearls have one by one been slipping far beyond her +reach in those deep waters over which her slumbers passed. Do not let +the pearls be lost. Do not let the moments pass you till they yield +their wealth and add their beauty to your lives. + +11. =Abbreviations=.-- + + R. means, Read carefully. + + D. means, Digest the best passages; make the thought and + feeling your own. + + C. means, Commit passages in which valuable thought or feeling + is _exquisitely expressed_. + + G. means, Grasp the idea of the whole book; that is, the train + of the author's thought, his conclusions, and the reasons for + them. + + S. means, Swallow; that is, read as fast as you choose, it not + being worth while to do more than get a general impression of + the book. + + T. means, Taste; that is, skip here and there, just to get an + idea of the book, and see if you wish to read more. + + e. means _easy_; that is, of such character as to be within the + easy comprehension of one having no more than a grammar-school + education or its equivalent; and it applies to all books that + can be understood without either close attention or more than + an ordinary New England grammar-school training. + + m. means _medium_; that is, of such character as to require the + close attention called "study," or a high-school education, or + both; and it applies to books the degree of whose difficulty + places them above the class e. and below the class _d_. + + d. means _difficult_; that is, beyond the comprehension of an + ordinary person having only a New England high-school education + or its equivalent, even with close study, unless the reader + already has a fair understanding of the _subject_ of the book. + In order to read with advantage books that are marked _d._, the + mind should be prepared by special reading of simpler books in + the same department of thought. + + + + +TABLE I. + +NOTE OF EXPLANATION. + + + +----------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's note: The original format of the table exceeded | + | the width requirements for e-text. Therefore the table was | + | reformatted. It is now from top to bottom in the order of | + | importance. The first shelf and second shelf are arranged | + | side by side. | + +----------------------------------------------------------------+ + +TABLE I. contains a list of authors whose books, on principle and +authority, have the strongest claims on the attention of the average +reader of English. They are arranged from left to right in the order of +importance of the divisions of the subject matter regarded as wholes, +and from above downward in the order of their value in relation to the +highest standard in their own department. The _numbers_ have nothing to +do with the ranking, but refer to notes that will be found on the pages +following the table. There is also, at the head of the notes relating to +each column of the table, a special note on the subject matter of that +column. + +The upper part of the table represents the first shelf of the world's +library, and contains the books having the very strongest claims upon +the attention of all,--books with which every one should endeavor to +gain an acquaintance, at least _to the extent_ indicated in the notes. + +The lower part of the table represents the second shelf of the world's +library, and contains books which in addition to those of the first +shelf should enter into a liberal education. + +It must be always kept in mind that intrinsic merit alone does not +decide the position of a book in this table; for in order to test the +claim of a book upon the attention of a reader we have to consider not +only the artistic value of the author's work, and its subject matter, +but also the needs and abilities of the reader. Thus it happens that it +is not always the work of the greatest genius which stands highest in +the list. Moreover, no claim is made that the ranking is perfect, +especially on the second shelf. The table is an example of the +application of the principles set forth in the remarks following Table +V., to the case of the general reader. For every one above or below the +average reader the lists would have to be changed, and even the average +list has no quality of the absolute. It is but a suggestion,--a +suggestion, however, in which we have a good deal of confidence, one +that is based on a very wide induction,--and we have no hesitation in +affirming that the upper shelf represents the best literature the world +affords. + +In addition to Table I., there will be found in Tables III. and IV., and +in the remarks upon the Guidance of Children following Table IV., a +number of pieces of literary work of the very highest merit and value. +Some of the most important are Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal," one of +the very finest American poems; Browning's "Ivan Ivanovitch;" Guyot's +"Earth and Man;" Mary Treat's "Home Book of Nature;" Burroughs' +"Pepacton," "Signs and Seasons," "Wake Robin," etc.; Buckley's "Fairy +Land of Science," etc.; Ragozin's "Chaldea;" Fenelon's "Lives of the +Philosophers;" Bolton's "Poor Boys who became Famous;" Rives' "Story of +Arnon;" Drake's "Culprit Fay;" Dr. Brown's "Rab and his Friends;" Mary +Mapes Dodge's "Hans Brinker;" Andrews' "Ten Boys on the Road;" Arnold's +"Sweetness and Light;" Higginson's "Vacations for Saints;" and General +Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out," a book of great power, +which sets forth the most practical method yet proposed for the +immediate relief of society from the burdens of pauperism and vice. + + + +TABLE I.--THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS. + + +[See explanation on the preceding pages.] + + (first shelf) (second shelf) + + 1. Religion & Morals. + + Bible[1] Milton[11] + Bunyan[2] Keble[12] + Taylor[3] Cicero[13] + Kempis[4] Pascal[14] + Spencer[5] Channing[15] + M. Aurelius[6] Aristotle[16] + Plutarch[7] St. Augustine[17] + Seleca[8] Butler[18] + Epictetus[9] Spinoza[19] + Brooks[10] + Drummond[10] + + 2. Poetry & the Drama. + + Shakspeare[20] Spenser[27] + Homer[21] Lowell[28] + Dante[22] Whittier[29] + Goethe[23] Tennyson[30] + Milton[24] Scott[32] + AEschylus[25] Byron[33] + Fragments[26] Shelley[34] + Keats[35] + Campbell[36] + Moore[37] + Thomson[38] + Macaulay[39] + Dryden[40] + Collins[41] + Ingelow[42] + Bryant[43] + Longfellow[44] + Herbert[45] + Goldsmith[46] + Coleridge[47] + Wordsworth[48] + Pope[49] + Southey[50] + Walton[51] + Browning[52] + Young[53] + Jonson[54] + Beaumont & F.[55] + Marlowe[56] + Sheridan[57] + Carleton[58] + Virgil[60] + Horace[61] + Lucretius[62] + Ovid[63] + Sophocles[64] + Euripides[65] + Aristophanes[66] + Pindar[67] + Hesiod[68] + Heine[69] + Schiller[70] + Corneille[71] + Racine[71] + Moliere[71] + Musset[74] + Calderon[75] + Petrarch[76] + Ariosto[77] + Tasso[78] + Camoens[79] + Omar[80] + Firdusi[81] + Hafiz[81] + Saadi[81] + Arnold[82] + Pushkin[83] + Lermontoff[84] + + 3. Science. + + Physiology and Hygiene[85] De Tocqueville[99] + "Our Country"[86] Von Holst[100] + Federalist[88] Smith[101] + Bryce[89] Malthus[102] + Montesquieu[90] Carey[103] + Bagehot[90] Cairnes[104] + Mill[91] Freeman[105] + Bain[92] Jevons[106] + Spencer[93] Mulford[107] + Darwin[94] Hobbes[108] + Herschel[95] Machiavelli[109] + Proctor[95] Max Mueller[110] + Lyell[96] Trench[111] + Lubbock[96] Taylor[112] + Dawson[96] White[113] + Wood[97] Cuvier[114] + Whewell[98] Cook[115] + Tyndall[116] + Airy[117] + Faraday[118] + Helmholtz[119] + Huxley[120] + Gray[121] + Agassiz[122] + Silliman[123] + + 4. Biography. + + Plutarch[124] G. Smith[139] + Phillips[125] Bourrienne[140] + Boswell[126] Johnson[141] + Lockhart[127] Walton[142] + Marshall[128] Stanley[143] + Franklin[128] Irving[144] + Nicolay & H.[129] Southey[145] + Grant[129] Stanhope[146] + Carlyle[130] Moore[147] + Renan[130] Jameson[148] + Farrar[131] Baring-Gould[149] + Emerson[132] Field[150] + [100] Greatest Men[133] Hamilton[151] + Parton[134] Darwin[151] + Hale[135] Alcott[151] + Drake[136] Talleyrand[151] + Fox[137] Macaulay[151] + Grimm[138] Bashkirtseff[151] + Guerin[151] + Jefferson[151] + American Statesmen[151] + English Men of Letters[151] + + 5. History. + + Green[152] Creasy [155a] + Bancroft[153] Lecky[156] + Guizot[154] Clarke[157] + Buckle[154] Moffat[158] + Parkman[155] Draper[159] + Freeman[155] Hallam[160] + Fiske[155] May[161] + Fyffe[155] Hume[162] + Macaulay[163] + Froude[164] + Gibbon[165] + Grote[166] + Palfrey[167] + Prescott[168] + Motley[169] + Frothingham [169a] + Wilkinson[170] + Niebuhr[171] + Menzel[172] + Milman[173] + Ranke[174] + Sismondi[175] + Michelet[176] + Carlyle[177] + Thierry[178] + Tacitus[179] + Livy[180] + Sallust[181] + Herodotus[182] + Xenophon[183] + Thucydides[184] + Josephus[185] + Mackenzie[185] + Rawlinson[185] + + 6. Philosophy. + + Spencer[186] Mill[192] + Plato[187] Mansel[193] + Berkeley[188] Buechner[194] + Kant[189] Edwards[195] + Locke & Hobbes[190] Bentham[196] + Comte[191] Maurice[197] + Lewes Hume[198] + or Ueberweg Hamilton[199] + or Schwegler Aristotle[200] + or Schlegel Descartes[201] + on the Cousin[201] + History of Hegel & Schelling[202] + Philosophy. Fichte[203] + Erasmus[204] + Fiske[205] + Hickok[206] + McCosh[207] + Spinoza[208] + + 7. Essays. + + Emerson[209] Macaulay + Bacon[210] Leigh Hunt + Montaigne[211] Arnold + Ruskin[212] Buckle + Carlyle[212] Hume + Addison[212] Froude + Symonds + Steele + Browne + Johnson + De Quincey + Foster + Hazlitt + Lessing + Sparks + Disraeli + Whipple + Lamb + Schiller + Coleridge + + 8. Fiction. + + Scott[213] Rousseau[235] + Eliot[214] Saintine[235] + Dickens[215] Coffin[236] + Hawthorne[216] Reade[236] + Goldsmith[217] Warren[236] + Bulwer[218] Landor[237] + MacDonald[219] Turgenieff[237] + Thackeray[220] Sue[237] + Kingsley[221] Manzoni[237] + Wallace[222] Cottin[238] + Tourgee[223] Besant[238] + Hugo[224] Stevenson[238] + Dumas[224] Ward[239] + Defoe[225] Deland[239] + Hughes[225] Sewell[239] + Stowe[226] Bret Harte[239] + Cooper[226] Green[240] + Curtis[227] Mulock[240] + Warner[227] Disraeli[240] + Aldrich[228] Howells[240] + Hearn[228] Tolstoi[240] + Ebers[229] Sand[241] + Sienkiewicz[229] Black[241] + Austen[230] Blackmore[241] + Bronte[230] Schreiner[241] + Alcott[231] Bremer[242] + Burnett[231] Trollope[242] + Cable[232] Winthrop[242] + Craddock[232] Richardson[243] + Whitney[233] Smollett[243] + Jewett[233] Boccaccio[243] + Fielding[234] + Le Sage[234] + Balzac[234] + + 9. Oratory. + + Demosthenes Sumner + Burke Henry + Fox Otis + Pitt Jay + Webster Madison + Clay Jefferson + Phillips Beecher + Lincoln Brooks + Everett Choate + Bright Garfield + Ingersoll + Erskine + Sheridan + Gladstone + Cicero + Quintilian + Bossuet + Saint Chrysostom + + 10. Wit & Humor. + + Lowell[244] Ingersoll[248] + Holmes[245] Holley[249] + Dickens[246] Curtis[250] + Cervantes[247] Depew[251] + Twain[252] + Warner[253] + Edwards[254] + Hale[255] + Nasby[256] + Ward[257] + Jerrold[258] + Voltaire[259] + Byron[259] + Butler[260] + Swift[260] + Rabelais[261] + Sterne[261] + Juvenal[262] + Lucian[262] + + 11. Fables & Fairy Tales. + + Andersen[263] Bulfinch[268] + La Fontaine[264] Saxe[269] + AEsop[265] Florian[270] + Grimm[266] Kipling[270] + Goethe[267] Babrius[271] + Hawthorne[267] Hauff[272] + Ovid[273] + Curtin[273] + Fiske[273] + + 12. Travel. + + Cook[274] Marco Polo[277] + Humboldt[275] Kane[278] + Darwin[276] Livingstone[279] + Stanley[280] + Du Chaillu[281] + Niebuhr[282] + Bruce[283] + Heber[284] + Lander[285] + Waterton[286] + Mungo Park[287] + Ouseley[288] + Barth[289] + Boteler[290] + Maundeville[291] + Warburton[292] + + 13. Guides. + + Foster[293] Brook[303] + Pall Mall[294] Leypoldt[304] + Morley[295] Richardson[305] + Welsh[296] Harrison[306] + Taine[297] Ruskin[307] + Botta[298] Bright[308] + Allibone[299] Dunlop[309] + Bartlett[300] Baldwin[309] + Ballou[301] Adams[309] + Bryant[302] + Palgrave[302] + Roget's Thesaurus + Dictionaries + Encyclopaedias + + 14. Miscellaneous. + + Smiles' Self-Help[310] Sheking[324] + Irving's Sketch Book[311] Analects of Confucius[325] + Bacon's New Atlantis[312] Mesnevi[326] + Bellamy[313] Buddhism[327] + Arabian Nights[314] Mahabharata[328] + Munchausen[315] Ramayana[329] + Beowulf[316] Vedas[330] + Anglo-Saxon Chronicle[317] Koran[331] + Froissart[318] Talmud[332] + Nibelungenlied[319] Hooker[333] + Icelandic Sagas[320] Swedenborg[333] + Elder Edda[321] Newton[333] + The Cid[322] Kepler[333] + Morte D'Arthur[323] Copernicus[333] + Laplace[333] + + + + +REMARKS ON TABLE I. + + + + +RELIGION AND MORALS. + + +Religion and Morals, though not identical, are so closely related that +they are grouped together. The books in Column 1 by no means exhaust +these subjects, for they run like threads of gold through the whole warp +and woof of poetry. Philosophy, fiction, and fable, biography, history, +and essays, oratory and humor, seem rather satellites that attend upon +moral feelings than independent orbs, and even science is not dumb upon +these all-absorbing topics. If we are to be as broad-minded in our +religious views as we seek to be in other matters, we must become +somewhat acquainted with the worship of races other than our own. This +may be done through Homer, Hesiod, Ovid, Confucius, Buddha, the Vedas, +Koran, Talmud, Edda, Sagas, Beowulf, Nibelungenlied, Shah Nameh, etc. +(which are all in some sense "Bibles," or books that have grown out of +the hearts of the people), and through general works, such as Clarke's +"Ten Great Religions." + +[1] Especially Job, and Psalms 19, 103, 104, 107, in the Old Testament; +and in the New the four Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles. (m. R. D. +C. G.) + +[2] Next to the Bible, probably no book is so much read by the English +peoples as Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," a simple, vivid, helpful story +of Christian life and its obstacles. No writer has so well portrayed the +central truths of Christianity as this great, untrained, imaginative +genius, pouring his life upon the deathless pages of his poetic allegory +during the twelve long years in the latter part of the 17th century, +when he was imprisoned, under the Restoration, merely because of his +religious principles. (e. R. D.) + +[3] Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying" is a wise, frank talk about the +care of our time, purity of intention, practice of the presence of God, +temperance, justice, modesty, humility, envy, contentedness, etc. Some +portions of the first hundred and fifty pages are of the utmost +practical value. Even Ruskin admits that Taylor and Bunyan are rightly +placed among the world's best. (Eng., 17th cent.--m. R. D.) + +[4] "Imitation of Christ" is a sister book to the last, written in the +15th century by Thomas a Kempis, a German monk, of pure and beautiful +life and thought. It is a world-famous book, having been translated into +every civilized language, and having passed through more than five +hundred editions in the present century. (m. R. D.) + +[5] Spencer's "Data of Ethics" is one of the most important books in +literature, having to the science of ethics much the same relation as +Newton's "Principia" to astronomy, or Darwin's "Origin of Species" to +biology. Note especially the parts concerning altruistic selfishness, +the morality of health, and the development of moral feeling in general. +(Eng., 19th cent.--d. R. D. G.) Spencer's "First Principles" is also +necessary to an understanding of the scientific religious thinking of +the day. In connection with Spencer's works, "The Idea of God" and the +"Destiny of Man," by Fiske, may be read with profit. The author of these +books is in large part a follower and expounder of Spencer. + +[6] The "Meditations" of M. Aurelius is a book that is full of deep, +pure beauty and philosophy; one of the sweetest influences that can be +brought into the life, and one of Canon Farrar's twelve favorites out of +all literature. (Rome, 2d cent.--m. R. D.) + +[7] Plutarch's "Morals" supplied much of the cream used by Taylor in the +churning that produced the "Holy Living and Dying." Emerson says that we +owe more to Plutarch than to all the other ancients. Many great authors +have been indebted to him,--Rabelais, Montaigne, Montesquieu, Voltaire, +Rousseau, Shakspeare, Bacon, and Dryden, among the number. Plutarch's +"Morals" is a treasure-house of wisdom and beauty. There is a very fine +edition with an introduction by Emerson. (Rome, 1st cent.--m. R. D.) + +[8] Seneca's "Morals" is a fit companion of the preceding six books, +full of deep thought upon topics of every-day import, set out in clear +and forceful language. The Camelot Library contains a very good +selection from his ethical treatises and his delightful letters, which +are really moral essays. (Rome, 1st cent.--m. R. D.) + +[9] Epictetus was another grand moralist, the teacher of Marcus +Aurelius. Next to Bunyan and Kempis, the books of these great stoics, +filled as they are with the serenity of minds that had made themselves +independent of circumstance and passion, have the greatest popularity +accorded to any ethical works. Epictetus was a Roman slave in the 1st +century A. D. (m. R. D.) + +[10] The little book on "Tolerance" by Phillips Brooks ought to be read +by every one. See Table III. side No. 23. The sermons of Dr. Brooks and +of Robertson are among the most helpful and inspiring reading we know. +Drummond's "Natural Law in the Spiritual World" is a book of ingenious +and often poetic analogies between the physical and spiritual worlds. If +read as poetry, no fault can be found with it; but the reader must be +careful to test thoroughly the laws laid down, and make sure that there +is some weightier proof than mere analogy, before hanging important +conclusions on the statements of this author. A later book by Drummond +entitled "The Greatest Thing in the World" is also worthy of attention. +(U. S., 19th cent.) + +[11] "Areopagitica." A noble plea for liberty of speech and press. +(Eng., early 17th cent.) + +[12] Keble's beautiful "Christian Year." + +[13] Cicero's "Offices" is a very valuable ethical work. It directs a +young Roman how he may attain distinction and the respect and confidence +of his fellow-citizens. Its underlying principles are of eternal value, +and its arrangement is admirable. Dr. Peabody's translation is the best. +(Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) + +[14] "Pensees." Pascal's "Thoughts" are known the world over for their +depth and beauty. (France, 17th cent.) + +[15] "The Perfect Life" and other works. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[16] Ethics. (Greece, 4th cent. B. C.) + +[17] "Confessions" and "The City of God." (Rome, 4th cent.) + +[18] Analogy of Religion. (Eng., 18th cent.) + +[19] Ethics and theologico-political speculation. (Dutch, 17th cent.) + + + + +POETRY AND THE DRAMA. + + +The faculty which most widely distinguishes man from his possible +relatives, the lower animals, and the varying power of which most +clearly marks the place of each individual in the scale of superiority, +is imagination. It lies at the bottom of intellect and character. +Memory, reason, and discovery are built upon it; and sympathy, the +mother of kindness, tenderness, and love, is itself the child of the +imagination. Poetry is the married harmony of imagination and beauty. +The poet is the man of fancy and the man of music. This is why in all +ages mankind instinctively feel that poetry is supreme. Of all kinds of +literature, it is the most stimulating, broadening, beautifying, and +should have a large place in every life. Buy the best poets, read them +carefully, mark the finest passages, and recur to them many, many times. +A poem is like a violin: it must be kept and played upon a long time +before it yields to us its sweetest music. + +The drama, or representation of human thought and life, has come into +being, among very many peoples, as a natural outgrowth of the faculty of +mimicry in human nature. Among the South Sea Islanders there is a rude +drama, and in China such representations have existed from remote ages. +Greece first brought the art to high perfection; and her greatest tragic +artists, AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, of the fifth century B. C., +are still the highest names in tragedy. The Greek drama with AEschylus +was only a dialogue. Sophocles introduced a third actor. It would be a +dull play to us that should fill the evening with three players. In +another thing the Grecian play was widely different from ours. The aim +of ancient playwrights was to bring to view some thought in giant form +and with tremendous emphasis. The whole drama was built around, moulded, +and adapted to one great idea. The aim of English writers is to give an +interesting glimpse of actual life in all its multiplicity of interwoven +thought and passion, and let it speak its lessons, as the great +schoolmistress, Nature, gives us hers. The French and Italian drama +follow that of Greece, but Spain and England follow Nature. + +_Mystery and miracle plays_ were introduced about 1100 A. D., by +Hilarius, and were intended to enforce religious truths. God, Adam, the +Angels, Satan, Eve, Noah, etc., were the characters. In the beginning of +the 15th century, _morality plays_ became popular. They personified +faith, hope, sadness, magnificence, conceit, etc., though there might +seem little need of invention to personify the latter. About the time of +Henry VIII., _masques_ were introduced from Italy. In them the +performers wore extravagant costumes and covered the face, and lords and +ladies played the parts. It was at such a frolic that King Henry met +Anne Boleyn. The first English comedy was written in 1540, by Udall; and +the first tragedy in 1561, by Sackville and Norton. It was called +"Ferrex and Porrex." From this time the English drama rapidly rose to +its summit in Shakspeare's richest years at the close of the same +century. At first the theatre was in the inn-yard,--just a platform, +with no scenery but what the imagination of the drinking, swearing, +jeering crowd of common folk standing in the rain or sunlight round the +rough-made stage could paint. + +On the stage sat a few gentlefolk able to pay a shilling for the +privilege. They smoked, played cards, insulted the pit, "who gave it to +them back, and threw apples at them into the bargain." Such were the +beginnings of what in Shakspeare's hands became the greatest drama that +the world has ever seen. + +The manner of reading all good poetry should be: R. D. C. G. + +If the reader wishes to study poetry critically, he will find abundant +materials in Lanier's "Science of English Verse" and Dowden's "Mind and +Art of Shakspeare" (books that once read by a lover of poetry will ever +after be cherished as among the choicest of his possessions); Lowell's +"Fable for Critics," "My Study Windows," and "Among my Books;" Arnold's +"Essays;" Hazlitt's "English Poets;" "English Men of Letters;" Poe's +"Essay on the Composition of the Raven;" Taine's "English Literature;" +Swinburne's "Essays and Studies;" Stedman's "Victorian Poets;" Shairp's +"Studies in Poetry;" Warton's "History of English Poetry;" Ward's +"History of English Dramatic Literature;" and Schlegel's "Dramatic +Literature." + +[20] Shakspeare is the summit of the world's literature. In a higher +degree than any other man who has lived on this planet, he possessed +that vivid, accurate, exhaustive imagination which creates a second +universe in the poet's brain. Between our thought of a man and the man +himself, or a complete representation of him with all his thoughts, +feelings, motives, and possibilities, there is a vast gulf. If we had a +perfect knowledge of him, we could tell what he would think and do. To +this ultimate knowledge Shakspeare more nearly approached than any other +mortal. He so well understood the machinery of human nature, that he +could create men and women beyond our power to detect an error in his +work. This grasp of the most difficult subject of thought, and the +oceanic, myriad-minded greatness of his plays prove him intellectually +the greatest of the human race. It is simple nonsense to suppose that +Bacon wrote the dramas that bear the name of Shakspeare. They were +published during Shakspeare's life under his name; and Greene, Jonson, +Milton, and other contemporaries speak with unmistakable clearness of +the great master. Donnelly's Cryptogram is a palpable sham; and to the +argument that an uneducated man like Shakspeare could not have written +such grand poetry, while Bacon, as we know, did have a splendid ability, +it is a sufficient answer to remark that Shakspeare's sonnets, the +authorship of which is not and cannot be questioned, show far higher +poetical powers than anything that can be found in Bacon's acknowledged +works. Richard Grant White's edition is the best; and certainly every +one should have the very best of Shakspeare, if no other book is ever +bought. (16th cent.) See Table III. No. 1. + +With Shakspeare may be used Dowden's "Shakspeare Primer," and "The Mind +and Art of Shakspeare," Abbott's "Shakspearian Grammar," Lanier's +"Science of English Verse," Hazlitt's "Characters of Shakspeare's Plays" +and "Age of Elizabeth," Lamb's "Tales from Shakspeare," Ward's "English +Dramatic Literature, and History of the Drama," Lewes' "Actors and the +Art of Acting," Hutton's "Plays and Players," Leigh Hunt's "Imagination +and Fancy," and Whipple's "Literature of the Age of Elizabeth." + +[21] Homer is the world's greatest epic poet. He is the brother of +Shakspeare, full of sublimity and pathos, tenderness, simplicity, and +inexhaustible vigor. Pope's translation is still the best on the whole, +but should be read with Derby's Iliad and Worsley's Odyssey. In some +parts these are fuller of power and beauty; in others, Pope is far +better. Flaxman's designs are a great help in enjoying Homer, as are +also the writings of Gladstone, Arnold, and Symonds. (Greece, about 1000 +B. C.) See Table III. No. 2. + +[22] Ruskin thinks Dante is the first figure of history, the only man in +whom the moral, intellectual, and imaginative faculties met in great +power and in perfect balance. (Italy, 14th cent.) Follow the advice +given in Table III. No. 5, and, if possible, read Longfellow's +translation. See note 24, p. 30. + +Among writings that will be found useful in connection with Dante, are +Rossetti's "Shadow of Dante," Lowell's Essay in "Among my Books," +Symonds' "Introduction to the Study of Dante," Farrar's "Lecture on +Dante," Mrs. Ward's "Life of Dante," Botta's "Dante as a Philosopher," +and Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship." + +[23] Goethe is unquestionably the greatest German, and one of the first +six names in literature. His "Faust" is a history of the soul. Read +Bayard Taylor's translation, and the explanation of the drama's meaning +given in Taylor's "Studies in German Literature." "Faust" was the work +of half a century, and completed in 1818, when Goethe was past eighty. + +As a preparation for Goethe it is interesting to study the story of +Faust in Butterworth's "Zigzag Journeys," and read Marlowe's "Drama of +Faustus." The novel "Wilhelm Meister" has been splendidly translated by +Carlyle, and is full of the richest poetic thought, crammed with wisdom, +and pervaded by a delicious sweetness forever provoking the mind to +fresh activity. As a work of genius, it is preferred by some critics +even to Hamlet. See Table III. No. 15. + +[24] Milton stands in his age like an oak among hazel-bushes. The +nobility of his character, the sublimity of his thought, and the classic +beauty of his style give him, in spite of some coldness and some lack of +naturalness in his conception of the characters of Adam and Eve, the +second place in English literature. His "Lycidas" is a beautiful elegy. +His "Comus" is the best masque in English, and certainly a charming +picture of chastity and its triumph over temptation. It should be read +along with Spenser's "Britomart." His "L' Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," +on mirth and melancholy, are among the best lyrics of the world. His +"Paradise Lost" is the greatest epic in English, and the greatest that +any literature has had since Dante's "Divine Comedy." The two books +should be read together. Milton shows us Satan in all the pride and pomp +and power this world oft throws around his cloven Majesty. Dante tears +away the wrappings, and we see the horrid heart and actual loathsomeness +of sin. (Eng., 17th cent.) See Table III. No. 2. + +The writings of Stopford Brooke, Macaulay, Dr. Johnson, De Quincey, and +Pattison about Milton may be profitably referred to. + +[25] AEschylus was the greatest of the noble triumvirate of Greek tragedy +writers. Sublimity reached in his soul the greatest purity and power +that it has yet attained on earth. One can no more afford to tread in +life's low levels all his days and never climb above the clouds to +thought's clear-ethered heights with AEschylus, than to dwell at the foot +of a cliff in New Mexico and never climb to see the Rockies in the blue +and misty distance, with their snowy summits shining in the sun. Read, +at any rate, his "Prometheus Bound" and his "Agamemnon." (5th cent. B. +C., the Golden Age of Grecian literature.) See Table III. No. 4. + +The student of AEschylus will find much of value to him in Mahaffy's +"Greek Literature," "Old Greek Life," and "Social Life in Greece;" +Schlegel's "Dramatic Literature;" Donaldson's "Theatre of the Greeks," +and Froude's "Sea Studies." Following the "Prometheus" of AEschylus, it +is a good plan to read the works of Goethe, Shelley, Lowell, and +Longfellow on the same topic. We thus bring close the ideas and fancies +of five great minds in respect to the myth of Prometheus. + +[26] Many a selection in Table III. is of very high merit, and belongs +on the world's first shelf, although the poetic works of the author as a +whole cannot be allowed such honor. In the section preceding Table V. +also will be found a number of short writings of the very highest merit. +See explanatory note to Table I. + +[27] Edmund Spenser is the third name in English literature. No modern +poet is more like Homer. He is simple, clear, and natural, redundant and +ingenuous. He is a Platonic dreamer, and worships beauty, a love sublime +and chaste; for all the beauty that the eye can see is only, in his +view, an incomplete expression of celestial beauty in the soul of man +and Nature, the light within gleaming and sparkling through the loose +woven texture of this garment of God called Nature, or pouring at every +pore a flood of soft, translucent loveliness, as the radiance of a +calcium flame flows through a porcelain globe. Spenser was Milton's +model. The "Faerie Queen," the "Shepherd's Calendar," and the "Wedding +Hymn" should be carefully read; and if the former is studied +sufficiently to arrive at the underlying spiritual meaning, it will ever +after be one of the most precious of books. (Eng., 16th cent.) See Table +III. No. 6. See also Lowell's "Among my Books," Craik's "Spenser and his +Poetry," and Taine's "English Literature." + +[28] Lowell is one of the foremost humorists of all time. No one, except +Shakspeare, has ever combined so much mastery of the weapons of wit with +so much poetic power, bonhomie, and common-sense. Every American should +read his poems carefully, and digest the best. (Amer., 19th cent.) See +Table III. Nos. 12 and 24. + +[29] Whittier is America's greatest lyric poet. Read what Lowell says of +him in the "Fable for Critics," and get acquainted with his poetry of +Nature and quiet country life, as pure as the snow and as sweet as the +clover. (Amer., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 11. + +[30] Tennyson is the first poet of our age; and though he cannot rank +with the great names on the upper shelf, yet his tenderness, and noble +purity, and the almost absolutely perfect music of much of his poetry +commands our love and admiration. Read his "In Memoriam," "Princess," +"Idylls of the King," etc. (Eng., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 11. + +[31] Burns is like a whiff of the pure sea air. He is a sprig of +arbutus under the snow; full of tenderness and genuine gayety, always in +love, and singing forever in tune to the throbs of his heart. Read "The +Jolly Beggars," "The Twa Dogs," and see Table III. No. 11. (Scot., 18th +cent.) + +[32] Probably nothing is so likely to awaken a love for poetry as the +reading of Scott. (Scot., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 7. + +[33] Byron is the greatest English poet since Milton, and except Goethe +the greatest poet of his age in the world. His music, his wonderful +control of language, his impassioned strength passing from vehemence to +pathos, his fine sense of the beautiful, and his combination of passion +with beauty would place him high on the first shelf of the world's +literature if it were not for his moral aberration. Read his "Childe +Harold." (Eng., 1788-1824.) See Table III. No. 13. + +[34] Shelley is indistinct, abstract, impracticable, but full of love +for all that is noble, of magnificent poetic power and marvellous music. +Read "Prometheus Unbound," and see Table III. No. 13. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[35] Keats is the poetic brother of Shelley. He is deserving of the +title "marvellous boy" in a far higher degree than Chatterton. If the +lives of Shakspeare, Milton, and Wordsworth had ended at twenty-five, as +did the life of Keats, they would have left no poetry comparable with +that of this impassioned dreamer. Like Shakspeare, he had no fortune or +opportunity of high education. Read "Hyperion," "Lamia," "Eve of Saint +Agnes," "Endymion," and see Table III. No. 13. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[36] Campbell clothed in romantic sweetness and delicate diction, the +fancies of the fairy land of youthful dreams, and poured forth with a +master voice the pride and grandeur of patriotic song. Read his +"Pleasures of Hope," "Gertrude of Wyoming," and see Table III. No. 12. +(Eng., 19th cent.) + +[37] Moore is a singer of wonderful melody and elegance and of +inexhaustible imagery. Read his "Irish Melodies." (Eng., 19th cent.) See +Table III. No. 11. + +[38] Thomson is one of the most intense lovers of Nature, and sees with +a clear eye the correspondences between the inner and outer worlds upon +which poetry is built. Read his "Seasons" and "The Castle of Indolence." +(Eng., 18th cent.) + +[39] Read Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome." "Horatius" cannot fail to +make the reader pulse with all the heroism and patriotism that is in his +heart, and "Virginia" will fill each heart with mutiny and every eye +with tears. (Eng., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 12. + +[40] Dryden's song is not so smooth as Pope's, but doubly strong. His +translation of Virgil has more fire than the original, though less +elegance. He was the literary king of his time, but knew better _how_ to +say things than _what_ to say. (Eng., 17th cent.) See Table III. No. 14. + +[41] Collins was a poet of fine genius. Beauty, simplicity, and sweet +harmony combine in his works, but he wrote very little. Read his odes, +"To Pity," "To Evening," "To Mercy," "To Simplicity." See Table III. No. +14. (Eng., 18th cent.) + +[42] Jean Ingelow's poems deserve at least tasting, which will scarcely +fail to lead to assimilation. (Eng., 1862.) See Table III. No. 14. + +[43] Bryant's "Thanatopsis," written at eighteen, gave promise of high +poetic power; but in the life of a journalist the current of energy was +drawn away from poetry, and America lost the full fruitage of her best +poetic tree. He is serene and lofty in thought, and strong in his +descriptive power and the noble simplicity of his language. (Amer., 19th +cent.) See Table III. No. 13. + +[44] Longfellow's poetry is earnest and full of melody, but _as a whole_ +lacks passion and imagery. Relatively to a world standard he is not a +great poet and has written little worthy of universal reading, but as +bone of our bone he has a claim on us as Americans for sufficient +attention at least to investigate for ourselves his merits. (Amer., 19th +cent.) See Table III. No. 10. + +[45] Lowell says that George Herbert is as "holy as a flower on a +grave." (Eng., 1631.) See Table III. No. 13. + +[46] Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" and "Traveller" will live as long as +the language. They are full of wisdom and lovely poetry. His dramas +abound in fun. Read "The Good-Natured Man" and "She Stoops to Conquer." +(Eng., 18th cent.) See Table IV. + +[47] Read Coleridge's "Christabel," and get somebody to explain its +mysterious beauty to you; also his "Remorse," "Ode to the Departing +Year," "Ancient Mariner," and "Kubla Khan." The latter is the most +magnificent creation of his time, but needs a good deal of study for +most readers to perceive the beautiful underlying thought, as is the +case also with the "Mariner." Coleridge is difficult reading. He wrote +very little excellently, but that little should be bound in gold, and +read till the inner light of it shines into the soul of the reader. The +terrible opium habit ruined him. Read his life; it is a thrilling story. +(Eng., 1772-1834.) Table III. No. 11. + +[48] Lowell says, in his "Fable for Critics," that he is always +discovering new depths + + "in Wordsworth, undreamed of before,-- + That divinely inspired, wise, deep, tender, grand--bore." + +Nothing could sum up this poet better than that. His intense delight in +Nature and especially in mountain scenery, and his pure, serene, +earnest, majestic reflectiveness are his great charms. His "Excursion" +is one of the great works of our literature, and stands in the front +rank of the world's philosophical poetry. Its thousand lines of blank +verse roll through the soul like the stately music of a cathedral organ. +(Eng., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 13. + +[49] Pope is the greatest of the world's machine poets, the noblest of +the great army who place a higher value on skilful execution than on +originality and beauty of conception. The "Rape of the Lock" is his most +successful effort, and is the best of all mock-heroic poems. "The +sharpest wit, the keenest dissection of the follies of fashionable life, +the finest grace of diction, and the softest flow of melody adorn a tale +in which we learn how a fine gentleman stole a lock of a lady's hair." +Read also his "Essay on Man," and glance at his "Dunciad," a satire on +fellow-writers. (Eng., 1688-1744.) See Table III. No. 13, and Table IV. + +[50] Southey had great ideas of what poetry should be, and strove for +purity, unity, and fine imagery; but there was no pathos or depth of +emotion in him, and the stream of his poetry is not the gush of the +river, but the uninteresting flow of the canal. Byron says, "God help +thee, Southey, and thy readers too." Glance at his "Thalaba the +Destroyer" and "Curse of Kehama." (Eng., 1774-1843.) + +[51] Walton's "Compleat Angler" is worthy of a glance. (Eng., 1653.) + +[52] Browning is very obscure, and neither on authority nor principle a +first-rate poet; but he is a strong thinker, and dear to those who have +taken the pains to dig out the nuggets of gold. Canon Farrar puts him +among the three living authors whose works he would be most anxious to +save from the flames. Mrs. Browning has more imagination than her +husband, and is perhaps his equal in other respects. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[53] Read Young's "Night Thoughts." + +[54] Jonson, on account of his noble aims, comparative purity, and +classic style, stands next to Shakspeare in the history of English +drama. Read "The Alchemist," "Catiline," "The Devil as an Ass," +"Cynthia's Revels," and "The Silent Woman." The plot of the latter is +very humorous. (Eng., 1700.) + +[55] The dramas of Beaumont and Fletcher are poetically the best in the +language except those of Shakspeare. Read "Philaster," "The Fair Maid of +the Inn," "Thierry and Theodoret," "The Maid's Tragedy." (Eng., 17th +cent.) + +[56] Marlowe's "Mighty Line" is known to all lovers of poetry who have +made a wide hunt. His energy is intense. Read "The Tragical History of +Dr. Faustus," based on that wonderfully fascinating story of the doctor +who offered his soul to hell in exchange for a short term of power and +pleasure, on which Goethe expended the flower of his genius, and around +which grew hundreds of plays all over Europe. (Eng., 17th cent.) + +[57] For whimsical and ludicrous situations and a rapid fire of +witticisms, Sheridan's plays have no equals. Read "The School for +Scandal" and "The Rivals." (Eng., 18th cent.) + +[58] Carleton's poetry is not of a lofty order, but exceedingly +enjoyable. Read his "Farm Ballads." (Amer., 19th cent.) + +[60] Virgil is the greatest name in Roman literature. His "AEneid" is +the national poem of Rome. His poetry is of great purity and elegance, +and for variety, harmony, and power second in epic verse only to his +great model, Homer. (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) Read Dryden's translation if +you cannot read the original. + +[61] The Odes of Horace combine wit, grace, sense, fire, and affection +in a perfection of form never attained by any other writer. He is +untranslatable; but Martin's version and commentary will give some idea +of this most interesting man, "the most modern and most familiar of the +ancients." (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) + +[62] Lucretius is a philosophic poet. He aimed to explain Nature; and +his poem has much of wisdom, beauty, sublimity, and imagination to +commend it. Virgil imitated whole passages from Lucretius. (Rome, 1st +cent. B. C.) + +[63] Ovid is gross but fertile, and his "Metamorphoses" and "Epistles" +have been great favorites. (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) + +[64] The "Antigone" and "OEdipus at Colonus" of Sophocles are of +exquisite tenderness and beauty. In pathos Shakspeare only is his equal. +(Greece, 5th cent. B. C.) + +[65] Euripides is the third of the great triumvirate of Greek +dramatists. His works were very much admired by Milton and Fox. Read his +"Alcestis," "Iphigenia," "Medea," and the "Bacchanals." (Greece, 5th +cent. B. C.) + +[66] Aristophanes is the greatest of Greek comedy writers. His plays are +great favorites with scholars, as a rule. Read the "Clouds," "Birds," +"Knights," and "Plutus." (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.) + +[67] Pindar's triumphal odes stand in the front rank of the world's +lyric poetry. (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.) + +[68] Hesiod's "Theogony" contains the religious faith of Greece. He +lived in or near the time of Homer. + +[69] Heine is the most remarkable German poet of this century. He has +written many gems of rare beauty, and many sketches of life unmatched +for racy freshness and graphic power. + +[70] Schiller is the second name in German literature; indeed, as a +lover of men and as a poet of exquisite fancy, he far excels Goethe. He +was a great philosopher, historian, and critic. Read his "Song of the +Bell," and his drama of "Wallenstein," translated by Coleridge. +(Germany, 18th cent.) + +[71] Corneille, Racine, and Moliere are the great French triumvirate of +dramatists. Their object is to produce one massive impression. In this +they follow the classic writers. A French, Greek, or Roman drama is to a +Shakspearean play as a statue to a picture, as an idea carved out of +Nature and rendered magnificently impressive by its isolation and the +beauty of its modelling, to Nature itself. The historical and ethical +value of the French plays is very great. Corneille is one of the +grandest of modern poets. Read "The Cid" ("As beautiful as the Cid" +became a proverb in France), and "Horace" (which is even more original +and grand than "The Cid"), and "Cinna" (which Voltaire thought the best +of all). Racine excels in grace, tenderness, and versatility. Read his +"Phedre." Moliere was almost as profound a master of human nature on its +humorous side as Shakspeare. He hates folly, meanness, and falsehood; he +is always wise, tender, and good. Read "Le Misanthrope," or "The +Man-Hater," and "Tartuffe," or "The Impostor." (17th cent.) + +[74] Alfred de Musset is a famous French poet of this century, and is a +great favorite with those who can enjoy charming and inspiring thoughts +though mixed with the grotesque and extravagant. + +[75] Calderon de la Barca is one of the greatest dramatists of the +world. His purity, power, and passion, his magnificent imagination and +wonderful fertility, will place him in company with Shakspeare in the +eternal society of the great. Read Shelley's fragments from Calderon, +and Fitzgerald's translation, especially "Zalamea" and "The +Wonder-Working Magician," two of his greatest plays. (Spain, 17th cent.) + +[76] Petrarch's lyrics have been models to all the great poets of +Southern Europe. The subject of nearly all his poems is his hopeless +affection for the high-minded and beautiful Laura de Sade. His purity is +above reproach. He is pre-eminent for sweetness, pathos, elegance, and +melody. (Italy, 14th cent.) + +[77] Ariosto is Italy's great epic poet. Read his "Orlando Furioso," a +hundred-fold tale of knights and ladies, giants and magicians. (Italy, +1474-1533). + +[78] Tasso is the second name in Italian epic poetry; and by some he is +placed above Ariosto and named in the same breath with Homer and Virgil. +Read his "Jerusalem Delivered," and "Aminta," and glance at his minor +poems composed while in confinement. (Italy, 16th cent.) + +[79] Camoens is the glory of Portugal, her only poet whose fame has +flown far beyond her narrow borders. Read his grand and beautiful poem, +the "Lusiad," a national epic grouping together all the great and +interesting events in the history of his country. (16th cent.) + +[80] Omar Khayyam, the great astronomer poet of Persia, has no equal in +the world in the concise magnificence with which he can paint a grand +poetic conception in a single complete, well-rounded, melodious stanza. +Read Fitzgerald's translation. (12th cent.) + +[81] Firdusi, the author of the "Shah Nameh," or Poetic History of the +great deeds of the sultans. Hafiz, the poet of love, and Saadi are other +great Persian poets deserving at least a glance of investigation. +(11th-14th cents.) + +[82] Arnold's "Light of Asia" claims our attention for the additions it +can make to our breadth of thought, giving us as it does briefly and +beautifully the current of thinking of a great people very unlike +ourselves. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[83] Pushkin is called the Byron of Russia. Russian songs have a +peculiar, mournful tenderness. "They are the sorrows of a century +blended in one everlasting sigh." (19th cent.) + +[84] Lermontoff is the Russian Schiller. (19th cent.) + + + + +SCIENCE. + + +The most important sciences for the ordinary reader are Physiology, +Hygiene, Psychology, Logic, Political Economy, Sociology and the Science +of Government, Astronomy, Geology, and Natural History; but an +elementary knowledge of all the sciences is very desirable on account of +the breadth of mind and grasp of method which result therefrom. The +International Scientific Series is very helpful in giving the brief +comprehensive treatment of such subjects that is needed for those who +are not specialists. The best books in this department are continually +changing, because science is growing fast, and the latest books are apt +to be fuller and better than the old ones. The best thing that can be +done by one who wishes to be sure of obtaining the finest works upon any +given subject in the region of scientific research, is to write to a +professor who teaches that subject in some good university,--a professor +who has not himself written a book on the subject,--and get his judgment +on the matter. + +[85] Physical health is the basis of all life and activity, and it is +of the utmost importance to secure at once the best knowledge the world +has attained in relation to its procurement and preservation. This +matter has far too little attention. If a man is going to bring up +chickens, he will study chicken books no end of hours to see just what +will make them lay and make them fat and how he may produce the finest +stock; but if he only has to bring up a few children, he will give no +time to the study of the physical conditions of their full and fine +development. Some few people, however, have a strange idea that a child +is nearly as valuable as a rooster. There is no book as yet written +which gives in clear, easily understood language the known laws of diet, +exercise, care of the teeth, hair, skin, lungs, etc., and simple +remedies. Perhaps Dalton's "Physiology," Flint's "Nervous System," +Cutter's "Hygiene," Blaikie's "How to get Strong," and Duncan's "How to +be Plump," Beard's "Eating and Drinking," Bellows' "Philosophy of +Eating," Smith on Foods, Holbrook's "Eating for Strength," "Fruit and +Bread," "Hygiene for the Brain," "How to Strengthen the Memory," and +Kay's book on the Memory, Walter's "Nutritive Cure," Clark's "Sex in +Education," Alice Stockham's "Tokology" or "Hygiene for Married Women," +and Naphy's "Transmission of Life" will together give some idea of this +all-valuable subject, though none of these books except the first are in +themselves, apart from their subject, worthy of a place on the first +shelf. + +[86] Dr. Strong's little book, "Our Country," is of the most intense +interest to every American who loves his country and wishes its welfare. +(U. S., 19th cent.) + +[88] The "Federalist" was a series of essays by Hamilton, Jay, and +Madison, in favor of the Federal Constitution, and is the best and +deepest book on the science of government that the world contains. +(Amer., 1788.) + +[89] Bryce on the American Commonwealth is a splendid book, a complete, +critical, philosophic work, an era-making book, and should be read by +every American who wishes to know how our institutions appear to a +genial, cultured, broad-minded foreigner. Mr. Bryce has the chair of +Political Economy in Oxford, and is a member of Parliament. His chief +criticism of our great republic is that it is _hard to fix +responsibility_ for lawlessness under our institutions, which is always +an encouragement to wrongdoers. His book should be read with De +Tocqueville. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[90] Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws" is a profound analysis of law in +relation to government, customs, climate, religion, and commerce. It is +the greatest book of the 18th century. Read with it Bagehot's "Physics +and Politics." + +[91] Mill's "Logic" and "Political Economy" are simply necessities to +any, even moderately, thorough preparation for civilized life in +America. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[92] Read Bain on the "Emotions and the Will," "Mind and Body," etc. +(Eng., 19th cent.) + +[93] Herbert Spencer is the foremost name in the philosophic literature +of the world. He is the Shakspeare of science. He has a grander grasp of +knowledge, and more perfect _conscious_ correspondence with the external +universe, than any other human being who ever looked wonderingly out +into the starry depths; and his few errors flow from an over-anxiety to +exert his splendid power of making beautiful generalizations. Read his +"First Principles," "Data of Ethics," "Education," and "Classification +of the Sciences," at any rate; and if possible, all he has written. +Plato and Spencer are brothers. Plato would have done what Spencer has, +had he lived in the 19th century. + +[94] Darwin's "Origin of Species" stands in history by the side of +Newton's "Principia." The thought of both has to a great extent become +the common inheritance of the race; and it is perhaps sufficient for the +general reader to refer to a good account of the book and its arguments, +such as may be found in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica." (Eng., 19th +cent.) + +[95] Read Herschel and Proctor in Astronomy, to broaden and deepen the +mind with the grand and beautiful conceptions of this most poetic of the +sciences. Proctor's books are more fascinating than any fiction. (Eng., +19th cent.) + +[96] For a knowledge of what has been going on in this dim spot beneath +the sun, in the ages before man came upon the stage, and for an idea +about what kind of a fellow man was when he first set up housekeeping +here, and how long ago that was, read Lyell's "Geology;" Lubbock's +"Prehistoric Times," "Origin of Civilization and Primitive Condition of +Man," and Lyell's "Antiquity of Man" (Eng., 19th cent.); and Dawson's +"Chain of Life." (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[97] Read Wood's beautiful and interesting books on Natural History; +especially his "Evidences of Mind in Animals," "Out of Doors," +"Anecdotes of Animals," "Man and Beast," "Here and Hereafter." (Eng., +19th cent.) + +[98] Whewell's "History of the Inductive Sciences" is a very broadening +book. + +[99] De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" is one of the great books, +and is superior in depth and style even to Bryce. The two books +supplement each other. See note 89: (France, 18th cent.) + +[100] "Constitutional History of the United States." (Ger., 19th cent.) + +[101] "Wealth of Nations," "Moral Sentiments." (Eng., 18th cent.) + +[102] "Principles of Population." One of the most celebrated of books. +(Eng., 18th cent.) + +[103] "Principles of Social Philosophy." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[104] "Essays on Political Economy," "Leading Principles of Political +Economy." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[105] "Comparative Politics." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[106] "The Theory of Political Economy," "The Logic of Statistics." +(Eng., 19th cent.) + +[107] "The Nation, the Foundation of Civil Order and Political Life in +the United States." (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[108] "Leviathan." See note 190. (Eng., 16th cent.) + +[109] "The Prince." (Italy, 1469-1527.) + +[110] "Chips from a German Workshop," and various works on Philology. +(Ger., 19th cent.) + +[111] "Study of Words," etc. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[112] "Words and Places." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[113] "Natural History of Selborne." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[114] "Animal Kingdom." (France, early 19th cent.) + +[115] "Voyages." (Eng., 18th cent.) + +[116] "Heat as a Mode of Motion," "Forms of Water," etc. (Eng., 19th +cent.) + +[117] "On Sound." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[118] "Scientific Researches." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[119] "Conservation of Energy." In a book on this subject edited by E. +L. Youmans. (Ger., 19th cent.) + +[120] "Man's Place in Nature." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[121] Botany. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[122] "Methods of Study in Natural History." (U. S. 19th cent.) + +[123] Physics. (U. S., 19th cent.) + + + + +BIOGRAPHY. + + +Biography carefully read will cast a flood of light before us on the +path of life. Read Longfellow's "Psalm of Life," and try to find the +teachings he refers to in the lives of great men. The world still lacks +what it very much needs,--a book of _brief_ biographies of the greatest +and noblest men and women of every age and country, by a master hand. +The aim should be to extract from the past what it can teach us of value +for the future; and to do this biography must become a comparative +science, events and lives must be grouped over the whole range of the +years, that by similarities and contrasts the truth may appear. Smiles's +"Self-Help" is a partial realization of this plan. + +The manner of reading should be: R. D. + +[124] Plutarch's "Lives" comes nearer to a comparative biography than +any other book we have. He contrasts his characters in pairs, a Greek +and a Roman in each couplet. It is one of the most delightful of books, +and among those most universally read by cultured people of all nations. +Dryden's translation revised by Clough is the best. (Rome, 1st cent.) + +[125] In Wendell Phillips's oration on "Toussaint L'Ouverture," there is +a fascinating comparison of the noble negro warrior with Napoleon. (U. +S., 19th cent.) + +[126] Boswell's "Johnson" is admittedly the greatest life of a single +person yet written. (Eng., 18th cent.) + +[127] Lockhart's "Life of Scott" is a favorite with all who read it. +Wilkie Collins especially recommends it as finely picturing genius and +nobility of character. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[128] Marshall's "Life of Washington" is an inspiring book. Gladstone +said to Mr. Depew: "Sixty years ago I read Chief-Justice Marshall's +'Life of Washington,' and I was forced to the conclusion that he was +quite the greatest man that ever lived. The sixty years that have passed +have not changed that impression; and to any Englishman who seeks my +advice in the line of his development and equipment I invariably say, +'Begin by reading the Life of George Washington.'" (U. S., 19th cent.) + +Franklin's "Autobiography" is brief, philosophic, and delightfully frank +and clear. (U. S., 18th cent.) + +[129] "The Life of Lincoln," by Nicolay and Hay, is a book that has very +strong claims to the attention of every American, and every lover of +liberty, greatness, nobility, and kindliness. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +Grant's "Memoirs" deserves reading for similar reasons. The great +General lived an epic, and wrote a classic. (U. S. 19th cent.) + +[130] Read Carlyle's "Life of John Sterling," "Oliver Cromwell's +Letters and Speeches," and "Heroes and Hero Worship." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +Renan's "Life of Christ." (France, 19th cent.) + +[131] Canon Farrar's little "Life of Dante" is, considering its brevity, +one of the best things in this department. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[132] Emerson's "Representative Men" most strongly stirs thought and +inspires the resolution. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[133] "The Portrait Collection of the Hundred Greatest Men," published +by Sampson, Low, & Co., 1879. + +[134] Read Parton's "Sketches of Men of Progress." (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[135] "Lights of Two Centuries." (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[136] "Our Great Benefactors." (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[137] "Book of Martyrs." (Eng., early 16th cent.) + +[138] "The Life and Times of Goethe," and "Michaelangelo." Most +interesting books. (Germany, 19th cent.) + +[139] "English Statesmen." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[140] "Life of Napoleon." (France, 19th cent.) + +[141] "Lives of the Poets." (Eng., 18th cent.) + +[142] Walton's "Lives." (Eng., 17th cent.) + +[143] "Life of Dr. Arnold." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[144] "Life of Washington." (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[145] "Life of Nelson." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[146] "Life of Pitt." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[147] "Life of Byron." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[148] "Lives of Female Sovereigns and Illustrious Women." (Eng., 19th +cent.) + +[149] "Lives of the Saints." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[150] "Memories of many Men." (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[151] "Reminiscences." (U. S., 18th cent.) + +The Life and Letters of Darwin, Talleyrand, and Macaulay; the Journals +of Miss Alcott, Marie Bashkirtseff, and Eugenie de Guerin; the +Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson; the "American Statesmen" series, +edited by John T. Morse, Jr., and the "English Men of Letters" series +are all valuable books. The Journals of Miss Alcott and Marie +Bashkirtseff are stories of heart struggles, longings, failures, and +triumphs, and are of exceeding interest and great popularity. The +Journal of Eugenie de Guerin deserves to be better known than it is, for +the delicate sweetness of feeling that fills its pages. + + + + +HISTORY. + + +Remarks may be made about History very similar to those in the special +remarks concerning Biography. The field is too vast for an ordinary +life, and there is no book that will give in brief compass the net +results and profits of man's investment in experience and life,--the +dividends have not been declared. Guizot and Buckle come nearer to doing +this than any other writers; but _the_ book that shall reduce the past +to principles that will guide the future has not yet been written. The +student will be greatly assisted by the "Manual of Historical +Literature," by C. K. Adams. It is an admirable guide. Putnam's series, +"The Stories of the Nations," and Scribner's "Epoch" series are very +useful, especially for young people. + +The manner of reading the best history should be: R. D. G. + +[152] Green's "History of the English People" has probably the first +claims on the general reader. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[153] Bancroft's "History of the United States" should be read by every +American citizen, along with Dr. Strong's "Our Country." (U. S., 19th +cent.) The only trouble with Bancroft is that he does not bring the +history down to recent times. Hildreth for the student, and Ridpath for +practical business men supply this defect. Doyle's "History of the +United States" is perhaps the best small book, and his "American +Colonies" is also good. McMaster's "History of the People of the United +States" is a brilliant work, given largely to an account of the social +life of the people. + +[154] Guizot's "History of Civilization" and "History of France" +(France, 19th cent.) are among the greatest books of the world; and with +Buckle's "History of Civilization" (Eng., 19th cent.) will give a +careful reader an intellectual breadth and training far above what is +attained by the majority even of reading men. + +[155] Parkman is the Macaulay of the New World. He invests the truths of +sober history with all the charms of poetic imagination and graceful +style. His literary work must take its place by the side of Scott and +Irving. Read his "France and England in North America," "Conspiracy of +Pontiac," and "The Oregon Trail." + +Freeman, Fiske, and Fyffe are also great historians, who require notice +here. Freeman's "Comparative Politics," "History of the Saracens," +"Growth of the English Constitution," "History of Federal Government," +and "General Sketch of History" are all great works,--the last being the +best brief account of general history that we possess. (Eng., 19th +cent.) + +Fiske's "Civil Government," "War of Independence," and "Critical Period +of American History" are standard books. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +Fyffe's "Modern Europe" is called the most brilliant picture of the +Revolutionary Period in existence. It is certainly one of the best of +histories. + +[155a] "Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[156] "History of England in the 18th Century," "History of European +Morals." These books take very high rank in respect to style, accuracy, +and completeness. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[157] "Ten Great Religions," by James Freeman Clarke. (U. S., 19th +cent.) + +[158] "Comparative History of Religion." + +[159] "Intellectual Development of Europe." A work of great power. (U. +S., 19th cent.) + +[160] "Middle Ages." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[161] "Constitutional History of England." Bagehot's "English +Constitution" should be read with the works of Hallam, Freeman, and May +on this topic, because of its brilliant generalizations and ingenious +suggestions. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[162] "History of England." (Eng., 18th cent.) + +[163] "History of England." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[164] "History of England." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[165] "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." (Eng., 18th cent.) + +[166] "History of Greece." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[167] "History of New England." (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[168] "Conquest of Mexico," "Peru," "Ferdinand and Isabella," etc. +Prescott's style is of the very best, clear, graphic, and ever +interesting. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[169] "Rise of the Dutch Republic." (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[169a] "Rise of the Republic of the United States." (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[170] "Ancient Egyptians." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[171] "History of Rome." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[172] "History of the Germans." (Ger., 1798.) + +[173] "Latin Christianity." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[174] "History of the Papacy in the 16th and 17th Centuries." Ranke is +one of the strongest names in history. (Ger., 19th cent.) + +[175] "Italian Republics." (France, 1773-1842.) + +[176] "History of France." (France, 19th cent.) + +[177] "French Revolution." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[178] "History of France," "Norman Conquest of England." (France, 19th +cent.) + +[179] "Germania." His "Life of Agricola" is also worthy of note for the +insight into character, the pathos, vigor, and affection manifested in +its flattering pages. (Rome, 1st cent.) + +[180] "History of Rome." (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) + +[181] "The War of Catiline." (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) + +[182] History of nearly all the nations known at the time he wrote. +(Greece, 5th cent. B. C.) + +[183] "Anabasis, the Retreat of the Greek Mercenaries of the Persian +King." (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.) + +[184] "History of the Athenian Domination of Greece." (Greece, 5th cent. +B. C.) + +[185] "History of the Jewish Wars." (Jerusalem, 1st cent.) + +Mackenzie's "History of the Nineteenth Century" is the best English book +on the subject. + +Rawlinson's "Five Great Monarchies" is strongly recommended. + + + + +PHILOSOPHY. + + +There have been, since the waters of thought began to flow, two great +streams running side by side,--Rationalism and Mysticism. Those who sail +upon the former recognize Reason as king; those upon the latter enthrone +some vague and shadowy power, in general known as Intuition. The +tendency of the one is to begin with sense impressions, and out of these +to build up a universe in the brain corresponding to the outer world, +and to arrive at a belief in God by climbing the stairway of induction +and analogy. The tendency of the other is to start with the affirmed +nature of God, arrived at, the thinker knows not how, and deduce the +universe from the conception of the Divine Nature. If this matter is +kept in mind, the earnest student will be able to see through the mists +sufficiently to discover what the philosophers are talking about +whenever it chances that they themselves knew. Spencer, Plato, Berkeley, +Kant, Locke, are all worthy of a thorough reading; and Comte's +philosophy of Mathematics is of great importance. + +The manner of reading good philosophic works should be: R. D. G. + +[186] Spencer's Philosophy is the grandest body of thought that any one +man has ever given to the world. No one who wishes to move with the tide +can afford to be unfamiliar with his books, from "First Principles" to +his Essays. He believes that all ideas, or their materials, have come +through the avenues of the senses. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[187] Plato and Socrates are a double star in the sky of Philosophy that +the strongest telescopes have failed to resolve. Socrates wrote nothing, +but talked much. Plato was a pupil of his, and makes Socrates the chief +character in his writings. Ten schools of philosophy claimed Socrates as +their head, but Plato alone represented the master with fulness. +Considering the times in which he lived, the grandeur of his thought, +the power of his imagination, and the nobility, elegance, originality, +and beauty of his writings, Plato has no superior in the whole range of +literature. With Plato, ideas are the only realities, things are +imperfect expressions of them, and all knowledge is reminiscence of what +the soul learned when it was in the land of spirit, face to face with +ideas unveiled. Read his dialogues, especially "Phaedo" and the +"Republic." (Greece, 429-348 B. C.) + +[188] A most acute idealist, whose argument against the existence of +matter is one of the great passages of literature. (Eng., 18th cent.) + +[189] Kant argues that the _forms_ of _thought_, _time_, and _space_ are +necessarily intuitive, and not derived from sensation, since they are +prerequisites to sensation. Read the "Critique of Pure Reason," +"Critique of Practical Reason," in which he treats moral philosophy, and +"Observations on the Sublime and Beautiful." (Germany, 18th cent.) + +[190] Locke bases knowledge on sensation. His "Essay on the Conduct of +the Understanding" is one of the most valuable books in the language. +Spencer, Mill, and Locke have so fully imbibed all that was good in +Hobbes that it is scarcely necessary to read him. (Eng., 17th cent.) + +[191] Comte's "Positive Philosophy" rejects intuitive knowledge. It is +characterized by force of logic, immense research, great power of +generalization (which is frequently carried beyond the warrant of +facts), and immense bulk. (France, 19th cent.) + +[192] Sensationalist. A very strong writer. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[193] "Limits of Religious Thought." A very powerful exposure of the +weakness of human imagination. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[194] "Matter and Force." A powerful presentation of Materialism. (Ger., +19th cent.) + +[195] "Freedom of the Will." A demonstration of the impossibility of +free will. (Amer., 18th cent.) + +[196] A very acute English philosopher. (Eng., 1748-1832.) + +[197] Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[198] A deep, clear thinker, of sceptical character, who laid bare the +flaws in the old philosophies. (Eng., 1711-1776.) + +[199] One of the most profound metaphysicians the world can boast, and +inventor of quaternions, the latest addition to Mathematics. (Scot., +19th cent.) + +[200] Aristotle was the Bacon of the Old World. His method was the very +opposite of Plato's. He sought knowledge chiefly by carefully looking +out upon the world, instead of by introspection. No one has exerted a +greater influence on the thought of the world than this deep and earnest +thinker. (Greece, 4th cent. B. C.) + +[201] A very beautiful writer of the idealist school, though he claims +to be eclectic. (France, 19th cent.) + +[202] Hegel endeavored, by the method set forth in his "Absolute Logic," +to reduce all knowledge to one science. (Ger., 1770-1831.) Schelling, in +his "Philosophy of Identity," tries to prove that the same laws hold in +the world of spirit as in the world of matter. Schelling bases his +system on an _intuition_ superior to reason, and admitting neither doubt +nor explanation. (Ger., 1775-1854.) + +[203] Fichte carries the doctrines of Kant to their limit: to him all +except the life of the mind is a delusion. (Ger., 18th cent.) + +[204] A great German philosopher of the time of Luther (16th cent.), +very learned, refined, and witty. Read his "Familiar Colloquies." + +[205] "Cosmic Philosophy." (Amer. 19th cent.) + +[206] "Rational Cosmology, or the Eternal Principles and Necessary Laws +of the Universe." (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[207] Scottish Philosophy. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[208] Theologico-politico-moral, voluminous dissertations. (Amsterdam, +17th cent.) + + + + +ESSAYS. + + +Next to Shakspeare's Plays, Emerson's Essays and Lectures are to me the +richest inspiration. At every turn new and delightful paths open before +the mind; and the poetic feeling and imagery are often of the best. Only +the music and the power of discriminating the wheat from the chaff were +lacking to have made one of the world's greatest poets. To pour into the +life the spirit of Emerson, Bacon, and Montaigne is a liberal education +in itself. Addison's "Spectator" is inimitable in its union of humor, +sense, and imagination. A number of eminent men, Franklin among them, +have referred to it as the source of their literary power. + +Read these essays: R. D. C. G. + +[209] Emerson's Essays and Lectures certainly deserve our first +attention in this department, because of their poetic beauty and +stimulating effect upon the imagination and all that is pure and strong +and noble in the character. (Amer., 19th cent.) + +[210] Nowhere can be found so much wit and wisdom to the square inch as +in Bacon's Essays. (Eng., 1600.) + +[211] Montaigne is the most popular of all the world's essayists, +because of his common-sense, keen insight, and perfect frankness. The +only author we certainly know to have been in Shakspeare's own library. +(France, 1580.) + +[212] Ruskin's "Ethics of the Dust," "Crown of Wild Olives," "Sesame +and Lilies," while somewhat wild in substance as well as in title, are +well worthy of reading for the intellectual stimulus afforded by their +breadth of view, novelty of expression and illustration, and the intense +force--almost fanaticism--which characterizes all that Ruskin says. +Ruskin is one of three living writers whom Farrar says he would first +save from a conflagration of the world's library. Carlyle is another of +the same sort. Read his "Past and Present," a grand essay on Justice. +(Eng., 19th cent.) + +So far as style is concerned, Addison's Essays in the "Spectator" are +probably the best in the world. + + + + +FICTION. + + +In modern times much that is best in literature has gone into the pages +of the novel. The men and women of genius who would in other days have +been great poets, philosophers, dramatists, essayists, and humorists +have concentrated their powers, and poured out all their wealth to set +in gold a story of human life. Don't neglect the novels; but be sure to +read _good_ ones, and don't read too many. + +In fiction, England, America, and France are far ahead of the rest of +the world. Scott may well be held to lead the list, considering the +quantity and quality of what he wrote; and Dickens, I presume, by many +would be written next, though I prefer the philosophic novelists, like +George Eliot, Macdonald, Kingsley, Hugo, etc. Fielding, Richardson, +Goldsmith, Sterne, and Defoe, Jane Austen, Cooper, and Marryat all claim +our attention on one account or another. + +The United States can boast of Hawthorne, Tourgee, Wallace, Hearn, +Aldrich, Warner, Curtis, Jewett, Craddock, and many others. + +France has a glorious army, led by Victor Hugo, George Sand, Balzac, +Dumas, Gautier, Merimee, etc. But the magnificent powers of these +artists are combined with sad defects. Hugo is the greatest literary +force since Goethe and Scott; but his digressions are sometimes terribly +tedious, his profundity darkness, and his "unities," his plot, and +reasons for lugging in certain things hard to find. Balzac gives us a +monotony of wickedness. George Sand is prone to idealize lust. "Notre +Dame" and "Les Miserables," "Le Pere Goriot" and "Eugenie Grandet," +"Consuelo" and "La Mare au Diable," "Capitaine Fracasse" and "Vingt Ans +Apres," are great books; but they will not rank with "Tom Jones" +artistically, nor with the "Vicar of Wakefield," "Ivanhoe," "Adam Bede," +"Romola," or "The Scarlet Letter," considering all the elements that go +to make a great novel. + +Germany, Italy, and Spain have no fiction that compares with ours. + +No doubt many will be surprised to find Fielding, Balzac, Tolstoi, and +others placed so low in the list as they are. The reason is that the +moral tone of a book is, with us, a weightier test of its claims on the +attention of the general reader, than the style of the author or the +merit of his work from an artistic point of view. There might be some +doubt whether or no we ought not to exclude from our tables entirely all +books that are not noble enough in character to admit of their being +read aloud in the family. The trouble is that much of the finest +literature of the world would have to be excluded. So there seems to be +no course but to admit these men, with a note as to their character. + +One who wishes to make a study of the novel will be interested in +Dunlop's "History of Fiction," Tuckerman's "History of English Prose +Fiction," Hazlitt's "English Novelists," Lanier's "Novel," Masson's +"British Novelists and their Styles," and Jeaffreson's "Novels and +Novelists." + +The best fiction should be read: R. D. G. + +[213] "Heart of Midlothian," "Waverley," "Ivanhoe," "Kenilworth," "Guy +Mannering," "The Antiquary," "Rob Roy," "Old Mortality," "Red Gauntlet," +etc. Scott is by very many--and among them some of the greatest--loved +more than any other novelist. The purity, beauty, breadth, and power of +his works will ever place them among the most desirable reading. (Eng., +19th cent.) Hutton's "Sir Walter Scott," Carlyle's "Essay on Scott," +Hazlitt's Essay in "The Spirit of the Age," and other books referred to +in the head notes to Poetry and Fiction will be useful to the student of +Scott. + +[214] "Adam Bede," "Mill on the Floss," "Romola," "Silas Marner," etc. +Deep philosophy and insight into character mark all George Eliot's +writings. (Eng., 19th cent.) Lanier's "Development of the Novel" is +practically only an enthusiastic study of George Eliot. + +[215] "Pickwick," "David Copperfield," "Bleak House," "Martin +Chuzzlewit," "Old Curiosity Shop," etc. Dickens needs no comment. His +fame is in every house. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[216] Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter," "Marble Faun," "Great Stone Face," +etc., are by universal consent accorded the first place in the lists of +American novels, and are among the best to be found anywhere. (U. S., +19th cent.) + +[217] "Vicar of Wakefield." One of Goethe's earliest favorites. (Eng., +18th cent.) + +[218] "Rienzi," "Last Days of Pompeii," "Last of the Barons," etc. Most +powerful, delightful, and broadening books. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[219] "Malcolm," "Marquis o' Lossie," "David Elginbrod," etc. Books of +marvellous spiritual helpfulness. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[220] "Esmond," "Vanity Fair," etc. Very famous books. (Eng., 19th +cent.) + +[221] "Westward, Ho!" "Two Years Ago," etc. Among the best and most +famous pictures of true English character. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[222] "Ben Hur." This book has been placed close to the Bible and +Bunyan. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[223] "Hot Plowshares," "The Fool's Errand," "The Invisible Empire," +"Appeal to Caesar," etc. Books widely known, but whose great merit is not +fully recognized. Tourgee, though uneven, seems to us a writer of very +great power. His "Hot Plowshares" is a powerful historical novel; and +few books in the whole range of literature are so intensely interesting, +and so free from all that is objectionable in subject or execution. (U. +S., 19th cent.) + +[224] "Les Miserables," "Notre Dame de Paris," "Les Travailleurs de la +Mer," etc. Wraxall's translations of these great French novels are most +excellent. (France, 19th cent.) + +Some critics think that no characters in Shakspeare are better drawn +than those of Dumas. "Monte Cristo," "The Vicomte de Bragelonne" +(Stevenson's favorite), "The Three Musketeers," "Twenty Years After," +"The Marie Antoinette Romances," etc., are powerful and intensely +interesting novels. (France, 19th cent.) + +[225] "Robinson Crusoe." There are few persons who do not get delight +and inspiration from Defoe's wonderful story. (Eng., 1661-1731.) + +"Tom Brown at Rugby" and "Tom Brown at Oxford," by Thomas Hughes, are +delightful books for boys. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[226] Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," was God's bugle-call to the war +against slavery. Her "Oldtown Folks" and "Sam Lawson's Fireside Stories" +are very humorous sketches of New England life. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +Cooper's "The Spy," "The Pilot," "Leather Stocking," "Deerslayer," +"Pathfinder," etc., are books that interfere with food and sleep, and +chain us to their pages. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[227] "Prue and I," by George William Curtis, is one of the most +suggestive stories in print, and is in every way a delightful book. +"Potiphar Papers," "Our Best Society," "Trumps," "Lotus Eaters,"--in +fact, everything Mr. Curtis writes, is of the highest interest, and +worthy of the most careful attention. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +The same may be said of the works of Charles Dudley Warner,--"Being a +Boy," "A Hunting of the Deer," "In the Wilderness," "Backlog Studies," +"My Summer in a Garden," etc. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[228] T. B. Aldrich, while perhaps not destined to rank with Scott, +Eliot, and Hawthorne, is nevertheless one of the most wholesome and +interesting of living authors. "The Stillwater Tragedy" is his strongest +book. "Prudence Palfrey," "The Story of a Bad Boy," "Margery Daw," and +"The Queen of Sheba" will doubtless be read by those who once become +acquainted with the author. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +The first part of Hearn's "Chita" exceeds in beauty and strength any +other piece of descriptive writing with which we are familiar. (U. S., +19th cent.) + +[229] Ebers' "Homo Sum," "Uarda," and "An Egyptian Princess" are very +powerful studies of Egyptian life and history. (Ger., 19th cent.) + +"With Fire and Sword," and its sequels, "The Deluge" and "Pan Michael," +by Henryk Sienkiewicz, are among the greatest books of modern times. +They are historical romances of the conflict between Russia, Poland, and +Sweden; and their power may be guessed from the fact that critics have +compared the author favorably with Scott, Dumas, Schiller, Cervantes, +Thackeray, Turgenieff, Homer, and even Shakspeare. (Poland, 19th cent.) + +[230] Miss Austen's "Emma," "Pride and Prejudice" (Eng., 19th cent.), +and Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" (Eng., 19th cent.), are all noble and +renowned novels. + +[231] Louisa Alcott's "Little Women" is a lovely story of home life; and +its exceeding popularity is one of the most encouraging signs of the +growth of a taste for pure, gentle, natural literature. (U. S., 19th +cent.) + +Mrs. Burnett's "Little Lord Fauntleroy" deservedly met at once a high +reward of popularity, and was placed in the front rank among stories of +child-life. As a teacher of gentleness and good manners it is +invaluable. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[232] Cable's "Grande Pointe," "The Grandissimes," etc., should be read +by all who wish to know the best living novelists. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +Craddock's "Where the Battle was Fought," "Despot of Broomsedge Cove," +"Prophet of Great Smoky Mountain," "Story of Keedon Bluffs," and "Down +the Ravine" are fascinating stories, the last two being fine books for +children. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[233] Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney's "Sights and Insights," though somewhat +too wordy for this busy world, is worthy a place here, because of its +spiritual beauty and its keen common-sense in respect to marriage and +courtship. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +Sarah Orne Jewett has won a good name by her excellent stories, +"Deephaven," "Betty Leicester," etc. Her "Play Days" is a fine book for +girls. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[234] Fielding, Le Sage, and Balzac are writers of great power, whose +works are studied for their artistic merit, their wit, and the intense +excitement some of them yield; but the general moral tone of their +writings places them below the purer writers above spoken of in respect +to their value to the general reader, one of whose deepest interests is +character-forming. + +Fielding's "Tom Jones" is by many considered the finest novel in +existence; and it undoubtedly would be, if along with its literary skill +it possessed the high tone of Curtis or Scott. "Jonathan Wild" is also a +powerful story. (Eng., 18th cent.) + +"Gil Blas," by Le Sage, is one of the most famous and widely read books +in the world. (France, 1668--1747.) + +Balzac's best are "Le Pere Goriot" (and especially the magnificent +preface to this book), "La Recherche de l'Absolu," "Eugenie Grandet," +"La Peau de Chagrin," etc. (France, 19th cent.) + +[235] Rousseau's "Emile" has been called the greatest book ever written; +but we presume that bias and limitation of knowledge on the part of +critics (not rare accomplishments of theirs) might procure a similar +judgment in respect to almost any strong and peculiar book. Rousseau's +"Confessions" are worth some attention. (France, 18th cent.) + +Saintine's "Picciola" is a beautiful story. (France, 19th cent.) + +[236] Coffin's "Boys of '76," "Boys of '61," "Story of Liberty," etc., +are splendid books for young people. The last describes the march of the +human race from slavery to freedom. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +Charles Reade's "Hard Cash," "Peg Woffington," "Cloister and Hearth" are +fascinating stories. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +Warren's "Ten Thousand a Year." + +[237] Landor's "Imaginary Conversations of Great Men." (Eng., 18th +cent.) + +Turgenieff's "Liza," "Smoke," and "Fathers and Sons." (Russia, 19th +cent.) + +Eugene Sue's "Wandering Jew." + +Manzoni's "I promessi Sposi." + +[238] Cottin's "Elizabeth." + +Besant's "All Sorts and Conditions of Men." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." A book that +teaches the danger of giving way to the evil side of our nature. + +[239] Mrs. Ward's "Robert Elsmere" is a famous picture of the struggle +in the religious mind to-day. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +Margaret Deland's "John Ward, Preacher," is a book of the same class as +the last, but is not as interesting as her "Florida Days" or her Poems. +(U. S., 19th cent.) + +Anna Sewell's "Black Beauty" is the autobiography of a noble horse, and +is tender and intelligent. A book that every one who has anything to do +with horses, or indeed with animals of any sort, cannot afford to +neglect. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +Bret Harte's "Luck of Roaring Camp" is an interesting picture of Western +life, and opens a new vein of fiction. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[240] Green's "Hand and Ring," "Leavenworth Case," etc., are splendid +examples of reasoning, without any of the objectionable features usually +found in detective stories. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +Miss Mulock's "John Halifax, Gentleman," is a great and famous book. +(Eng., 19th cent.) + +Disraeli's "Lothair," "Endymion," etc., are strong books; requiring the +notice of one who reads widely in English fiction. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +Howells' "A Modern Instance," "The Undiscovered Country," "A Hazard of +New Fortunes," "A Chance Acquaintance," "Lady of the Aroostook," etc., +are not objectionable. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +Tolstoi's "Anna Karenina" deserves mention, though we cannot by any +means agree with Howells that Tolstoi is the greatest of novelists. The +motive and atmosphere of his books are not lofty, and some of his work +is positively disgraceful. (Russia, 19th cent.) + +[241] George Sand's "Consuelo" is a great book in more senses than one; +and although it deserves a place in this lower list, yet there are so +many better books, that if one follows the true order, life would be +likely to depart before he had time to read a four-volume novel by an +author of the tone of George Sand. (France, 19th cent.) + +Black's "Strange Adventures of a Phaeton," "Princess of Thule." (Eng., +19th cent.) + +Blackmore's "Lorna Doone." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +Olive Schreiner's "Story of an African Farm" is powerful, but not +altogether wholesome. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[242] Bremer's "The Neighbors." (Norway, 19th cent.) + +Trollope's "Last Chronicles of Barsetshire." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +Winthrop's "Cecil Dreeme," "John Brent." (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[243] Richardson's "Pamela" and "Clarissa Harlowe" are interesting, +because they were the beginning of the English novel; but they are not +nice or natural, and have no attractions except their historic position. +(Eng., 1689-1761.) + +Smollett's "Humphrey Clinker" is his strongest work. "Peregrine Pickle" +is very witty, and "Adventures of an Atom" altogether a miserable book. +Smollett possessed power, but his work is on a very low plane. (Eng., +18th cent.) + +Boccaccio's "Decameron" is a series of splendidly told tales, from which +Chaucer drew much besides his inspiration. The book is strong, but of +very inferior moral tone. + + + + +ORATORY. + + +Great and successful oratory requires deep knowledge of the human mind +and character, personal force, vivid imagination, control of language +and temper, and a faculty of putting the greatest truths in such clear +and simple and forceful form, that they may not only be grasped by +untrained minds, but will break down the barriers of prejudice and +interest, and fight their way to the throne of the will. Oratory is +religion, science, philosophy, biography, history, wit, pathos, and +poetry _in action_. This department of literature is therefore of the +greatest value in the development of mind and heart, and of the power to +influence and control our fellows. Especially read and study Demosthenes +on the Crown, Burke's "Warren Hastings' Oration," Webster's "Reply to +Hayne," Phillips' "Lovejoy" and "Toussaint L'Ouverture," and Lincoln's +"Gettysburg," his debates with Douglas, and his great speeches in New +York and the East before the War, in which fun, pathos, and logic were +all welded together in such masterly shape that professors of oratory +followed him about from city to city, studying him as a model of +eloquence. There is a book called "Great Orations of Great Orators" that +is very valuable, and there is a series of three volumes containing the +best British orations (fifteen orators), and another similar series of +American speeches (thirty-two orators). + + + + +WIT AND HUMOR. + + +In what wit consists, and why it is we laugh, are questions hard to +answer (read on that subject Spencer and Hobbes, and Mathews' "Wit and +Humor; their Use and Abuse"); but certain it is that a little seasoning +of fun makes intellectual food very palatable, and much better adapts it +for universal and permanent assimilation. Most men can keep what is tied +to their memories with a joke. Considering all things, Lowell, Holmes, +Dickens, and Cervantes are the best humorists the world affords. See +Table III. Group 4. They exhibit a union of power and purpose that is +not found elsewhere. They always subordinate wit to wisdom, always aim +at something far higher than making fun for its own sake, never appear +to make any effort for their effects, and always polish their work to +perfection. A great deal of the keenest wit will be found in books whose +general character puts them in some other column,--Poetry, Fiction, +Oratory, etc. The works of Shakspeare, Addison, Eliot, Sheridan, +Goldsmith, Irving, Higginson, Carleton, Thackeray, Hood, Saxe, Fielding, +Smollett, Aristophanes, Moliere, etc., abound in wit and humor. + +The student of humor will be interested in Hazlitt's "English Comic +Writers," Thackeray's "English Humorists," and Besant's "French +Humorists." + +[244] "Fable for Critics," "Biglow Papers." Considering the keenness and +variety of wit, the depth of sarcasm, the breadth of view, and the +importance of its subject, the "Biglow Papers" is the greatest humorous +work of all history. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[245] "Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table," "Professor at the +Breakfast-Table," etc. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[246] "Pickwick Papers." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[247] "Don Quixote." (Spain, 1547-1616.) + +[248] Along with much violent scoffing, and calling of his betters by +hard names, Ingersoll's speeches contain some of the keenest wit in the +language. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[249] Marietta Holley's "Sweet Cicely," "Samantha at the Centennial," +"Betsey Bobbet," "My Wayward Pardner," "Samantha at Saratoga," "Samantha +among the Brethren," etc., are full of quaint fun, keen insight, and +common-sense. They are somewhat more wordy than we wish they were, but +they are wholesome, and the author's purpose is always a lofty one. Her +fun is not mere fun, but is like the laughing eye and smiling lip of one +whose words are full of thought and elevated feeling. (U. S., 19th +cent.) + +[250] G. W. Curtis's "Potiphar Papers" is a good example of quiet, +refined humor. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[251] Chauncey M. Depew's Orations and After-Dinner Speeches are worthy +of perusal by all lovers of wit and sense. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[252] Mark Twain is the greatest of those who make humor the primary +object. He does not, like Artemus Ward, make it the sole object,--there +is a large amount of keen common-sense in his "A Yankee in King Arthur's +Court," and there is also in it an open-mindedness to the newest +currents of thought that proves the author to be one of the most +wide-awake men of the day. "Innocents Abroad," "The Prince and the +Pauper," "Roughing It," etc., are very amusing books, the only drawback +being that the reader is sometimes conscious of an effort to be funny. +(U. S., 19th cent.) + +253: Charles Dudley Warner's "In the Wilderness" gives +some exceedingly amusing sketches of backwoods life. See +also other books mentioned under the head of Fiction. (U. S., +19th cent.) + +[254] S. K. Edwards' "Two Runaways, and Other Stories" is a book that no +lover of humor can afford to be without. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[255] E. E. Hale's "My Double, and How He Undid Me," and other stories +contain much innocent recreation. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[256] Nasby's "Ekoes from Kentucky" and "Swingin' round the Circle" are +full of the keenest political sarcasm. Lincoln was so impressed with +Nasby's power, that he said he had rather possess such gifts than be +President of the United States. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[257] "Artemus Ward His Book," is funny, but lacks purpose beyond the +raising of a laugh. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[258] "Caudle Lectures," "Catspaw," etc. Jerrold is one of the sharpest +of wits. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[259] Voltaire was the Ingersoll of France, only more so. His +"Dictionnaire" is full of stinging sarcasm and fierce wit. (France, 18th +cent.) + +"English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." The sharpest edge of Byron's keen +mind. (Eng., 1788-1824.) + +[260] "Hudibras." A tirade against the Puritans. (Eng., 17th cent.) + +"Gulliver's Travels," "Tale of a Tub," etc. Coarse raillery. (Eng., 18th +cent.) + +[261] "Gargantua and Pantagruel." Immense coarse wit. (France, 16th +cent.) + +"Tristram Shandy." Not delicate, but full of humor. (Eng., 18th cent.) + +[262] Juvenal is one of the world's greatest satirists. (Rome, 1st +cent.) + +Lucian is the Voltaire of the Old World. In his "Dialogues of the Gods" +he covers with ridicule the religious notions of the people. (Greek Lit, +2d cent. A. D.) + + + + +FABLES AND FAIRY TALES. + + +Fables and fairy tales are condensed dramas, and some of them are +crystal drops from the fountains of poetic thought. Often they express +in picture language the deepest lessons that mankind have learned; and +one who wishes to gather to himself the intellectual wealth of the +nations must not neglect them. In the section of the book devoted to +remarks upon the Guidance of Children, the literature of this subject +receives more extended attention. Among the books that will most +interest the student of this subject may be mentioned the works of Fiske +and Bulfinch, named below, Baldwin's "Story of the Golden Age," +Ragozin's "Chaldea," Kingsley's "Greek Heroes," Cox's "Tales of Ancient +Greece," Hanson's "Stories of Charlemagne," Church's "Story of the +Iliad" and "Story of the AEneid," and the books mentioned in connection +with the "Morte D'Arthur," note 323 following:-- + +[263] "Fairy Tales," "Shoes of Fortune," etc. (Denmark, 19th cent.) + +[264] The inimitable French poet of Fable. (France, 17th cent.) + +[265] The world-famous Greek fabulist. His popularity in all ages has +been unbounded. Socrates amused himself with his stories. (Greece, 6th +cent. B. C.) + +[266] "Household Tales." (Ger., early 19th cent.) + +[267] "Reineke Fox." (Bohn Lib.) (Ger., early 19th cent.) + +Kipling's "Indian Tales." (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[268] "Age of Fable," "Age of Chivalry," etc. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[269] Fables in his poems. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[270] A French fabulist, next in fame to La Fontaine. (18th cent.) + +[271] Greek Fables. (About com. Christ. era.) + +[272] "Tales." (Ger., 19th cent.) + +[273] "Metamorphoses." An account of the mythology of the ancients. Ovid +was one of Rome's greatest poets. (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) + +Curtin's "Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland," "Myths and Folk-Tales of the +Russians," etc. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +Fiske's "Myths and Myth Makers." (U. S., 19th cent.) + + + + +TRAVEL. + + +Nothing favors breadth more than travel and contact with those of +differing modes of life and variant belief. The tolerance and sympathy +that are folding in the world in these modern days owe much to the vast +increase of travel that has resulted from growth of commerce, the +development of wealth, and the cheapness and rapidity of steam +transportation. Even a wider view of the world comes to us through the +literature of travel than we could ever gain by personal experience, +however much of wealth and time we had at our disposal; and though the +vividness is less in each particular picture of the written page than if +we saw the full original reality that is painted for us, yet this is +more than compensated by the breadth and insight and perception of the +meaning of the scenes portrayed, which we can take at once from the +writer, to whom perhaps the gaining of what he gives so easily has been +a very costly, tedious process, and would be so to us if we had to rely +on personal observation. Voyages and travels therefore are of much +importance in our studies, and delightful reading too. Stanley's +opinions have been much relied on in selecting the following books:-- + +[274] Voyages. (Eng., 18th cent.) + +[275] Cosmos; Travels. (Ger., 1762-1832.) + +[276] Naturalist on the Beagle. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[277] Travels. (Venice, 14th cent.) + +[278] Arctic Explorations. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[279] South Africa. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[280] Through the Dark Continent; In Darkest Africa. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[281] Travels in Africa. (France, 19th cent.) + +[282] On Egypt. (Germany, 19th cent.) + +[283] Abyssinia. (Eng., 19th cent.) + +[284] India. + +[285] Niger. + +[286] South America. + +[287] Upper Niger. + +[288] Persia. + +[289] Central Africa. + +[290] West Coast of Africa. + +[291] Travelled for thirty years, then wrote the marvels he had seen and +heard; and his book became very popular in the 14th and 15th centuries. +(Eng., 14th cent.) + +[292] The Nile. + + + + +GUIDES. + + +In this column of "Guides" are placed books that will be useful in +arriving at a fuller knowledge of literature and authors, in determining +what to read, and in our own literary efforts. + +[293] "What to Read on the Subject of Reading," by William E. Foster, +Librarian of the Providence Public Library. Every one who is interested +in books should keep an eye on this thorough and enthusiastic worker, +and take advantage of the information he lavishes in his bulletins. + +[294] The "Pall Mall Extra," containing Sir John Lubbock's "List of the +Best Hundred Books," and letters from many distinguished men. + +[295] English Literature. + +[296] English Literature. + +[297] "English Literature." The most philosophic work on the subject; +but it is difficult, and requires a previous knowledge of the principal +English authors. + +[298] Handbook of Universal Literature. + +[299] Dictionary of Authors. + +[300] Bartlett's "Familiar Quotations" is one of the most famous and +valuable of books. + +[301] "Edge-Tools of Speech." Brief quotations arranged under heads such +as Books, Government, Love, etc. + +[302] "Library of Poetry and Song;" but for the general reader +Palgrave's exquisite little "Golden Treasury" is better. + +[303] "Primer of English Literature." The best very brief book on the +subject. + +[304] Bibliographical Aids. + +[305] "Motive and Habit of Reading." + +[306] "Choice of Books." + +[307] "Sesame and Lilies." + +[308] "The Love of Books." + +[309] "History of Prose Fiction." + +Baldwin's "Book Lover" is valuable for its lists of books bearing on +special topics. + +C. K. Adams' "Manual of Historical Literature" is invaluable to the +student of history. There ought to be similar books relating to +Philosophy, Fiction, Science, etc. + + + + +MISCELLANEOUS. + + +In the column "Miscellaneous" are placed a number of books which should +be at least glanced through to open the doors of thought on all sides +and to take such account of their riches as will place them at command +when needed. + +[310] One of the noblest little books in existence; to read it is to +pour into the life and character the inspiration of hundreds of the best +and most successful lives. Every page should be carefully read and +digested. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[311] An exquisite book; one of Robert Collyer's early favorites. Put +its beauty in your heart. (U. S., 19th cent.) + +[312] A book that should be read for its breadth. (Eng., early 17th +cent.) + +[313] Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward" is one of the same class of +books to which Bacon's "New Atlantis," More's "Utopia," etc., belong, +and may be read with much pleasure and profit along with them. It is +really a looking forward to an ideal commonwealth, in which the labor +troubles and despotisms of to-day shall be adjusted on the same +principle as the political troubles and despotisms of the last century +were settled; namely, the principle that each citizen shall be +industrially the equal of every other, as all are now political equals. +It is a very famous book, and has been called the greatest book of the +century, which, happily for the immortality of Spencer and Darwin, +Carlyle and Ruskin, Parkman and Bancroft, Guizot and Bryce, Goethe and +Hugo, Byron and Burns, Scott and Tennyson, Whittier and Lowell, Bulwer +and Thackeray, Dickens and Eliot, is only the judgment of personal +friendship and blissful ignorance. But while the book cannot feel at +home in the society of the great, it is nevertheless a very entertaining +story, and one vastly stimulative of thought. The idea of a coming +_industrial democracy_, bearing more or less analogy to the political +democracy, the triumph of which we have seen, is one that has probably +occurred to every thoughtful person; and in Bellamy's book may be found +an ingenious expansion of the idea much preferable to the ordinary +socialistic plans of the day, though not wholly free from the injustice +that inheres in all social schemes that do not aim to secure to each man +the wealth or other advantage that his lawful efforts naturally produce. +(U. S., 19th cent.) + +[314] Everywhere a favorite. It opens up wide regions of imagination. +Ruskin says he read it many times when he might have been better +employed, and crosses it from his list. But the very fact that he read +the book so often shows that even his deep mind found irresistible +attraction in it. (First introduced into Europe in 17th cent.) + +[315] The most colossal lies known to science. (Ger., 18th cent.) + +[316] The poem of "Beowulf" should be looked into by all who wish to +know the character of the men from whom we sprang, and therefore realize +the basic elements of our own character. (Eng., early Saxon times.) + +[317] Should be glanced at for the light it throws on English history +and development. (9th-12th cents.) + +[318] Froissart's "Chronicles" constitute a graphic story of the States +of Europe from 1322 to the end of the 14th century. Scott said that +Froissart was his master. Breadth demands at least a glance at the old +itinerant tale-gatherer. Note especially the great rally of the rebels +of Ghent. + +[319] This masterpiece of Old German Minstrelsy is too much neglected by +us. Read it with the three preceding. (Early German.) + +[320] _Saga_ means "tale" or "narrative," and is applied in Iceland to +every kind of tradition, true or fabulous. Read the "Heimskringla," +Njal's Saga, and Grettir's Saga, (9th-13th cents.) + +[321] Along with the last should be read the poems of the elder Edda. +(Compiled by Samund the Wise, 12th cent.) + +[322] The epic of Spain, containing a wonderful account of the prowess +of a great leader and chief. (Spain, before the 13th cent.) + +[323] A collection of fragments about the famous King Arthur and his +Round Table. They crop out in every age of English literature. Read the +book with Tennyson's "Idylls of the King,"--a poem inspired by Malory's +"Morte D'Arthur,"--Cervantes' "Don Quixote," and Twain's "Yankee in the +Court of King Arthur," Lanier's "Boy's King Arthur," Ritson's "Ancient +English Metrical Romances," Ellis' Introduction to the Study of the +same, Preston's "Troubadours and Trouveres," Sismondi's "Literature of +Southern Europe," Chapon's "Troubadours," and Van Laun's "History of +French Literature" may be referred to with advantage by the student of +Malory. + +[324] A collection of Chinese odes. + +[325] This and the last are recommended, not for intrinsic merit, but +for breadth, and to open the way to an understanding of and sympathy +with four hundred millions of mankind who hold these books in profound +veneration. (China, as early as 5th cent. B. C.) + +[326] This is the Bible of the Sufis of Persia, one of the +manifestations of that great spirit of mysticism which flows like a +great current through the world's history, side by side with the stream +of Rationalism. It found certain outlets in Schelling, Swedenborg, +Emerson, etc., and is bubbling up even now through the strata of +worldliness in the United States in the shape of Theosophy. (7th cent.) + +[327] Read Saint Hilaire's "Buddha" and Arnold's "Light of Asia." They +will open great regions of thought. + +[328] These are epitomized by Talboys Wheeler in his "History of India." +Very interesting and broadening. (Very ancient.) + +[330] Not valuable reading intrinsically, but as opening the doors of +communication with the minds and hearts of whole races of men, most +useful. The Vedas are the Bible of the Hindus, and contain the +revelation of Brahma (15th cent.). The Koran is the Mohammedan Bible +(6th cent.). The Talmud belongs to the Rabbinical literature of the +Jews, and is a collection of Jewish traditions (3d cent.). + +[333] The works of Hooker, Swedenborg, Newton, Kepler, Copernicus, +Laplace, should be actually _handled_ and _glanced through_ to form a +nucleus of experience, around which may gather a little knowledge of +these famous men and what they did. This remark applies with more or +less of force to all the names on the second shelf. Few can hope to +_read all_ these books, but it is practicable by means of general works, +such as those mentioned in Column 13, to gain an idea of each man, his +character and work; and there is no better way to put a hook in the +memory on which such knowledge of an author may be securely kept, than +to take his book in your hands, note its size and peculiarities (visual +and tactual impressions are more easily remembered than others as a +rule), glance through its contents, and read a passage or two. + + + + +SHORT COURSES. + + +When the reader has a special purpose in view, it is of the greatest +advantage to arrange in systematic order the books that will be most +helpful in the accomplishment of his purpose, study them one after the +other, mark them, compare them, make cross references from one to +another, digest and assimilate the vital portions of each, and seek to +obtain a mastery of all that the best minds of the past have given us in +reference to the object of his effort. For example: a person who has +devoted himself exclusively to one line of ideas will be greatly +benefited by reading a short course of books that will give him a +glimpse of each of the great fields of thought. One who is lacking in +humor should get a good list of fine humorous works and devote himself +to them, and to the society of fun-loving people, until he can see and +enjoy a good joke as keenly as they do,--not only to quicken his +perception of humor, but that the organ of fun (the gland that secretes +wit and humor) may be roused into normal activity. Again, if a gentleman +finds that he does not appreciate Shakspeare, Dante, Irving, etc., as he +sees or is told that literary people do; if he prefers his newspaper to +the English classics as a source of pleasure and profit; if he sees +little difference between Tennyson and Tupper, enjoys Bill Nye as much +or more than Holmes, and is able to compare the verses he writes to his +sweetheart with Milton without any very distinct feeling except perhaps +a disgust for Milton,--if any of these things are true, he has need of a +course to develop a literary taste. + +In the three tables following will be found a suggestion of several +important short courses, and others will be found on page 123 _et seq._ + + + + +TABLE II. + + +A short special course, to gather _ideas_ of practical importance to +every life, and to make a beginning in the gaining of that _breadth of +mind_ which is of such vital value by reason of its influence on morals +and the aid it gives in the attainment of truth. + +1. Physiology and Hygiene. Read and digest the best books. See Table I. +Col. 3. + +2. "Our Country," by Strong; the Constitution of the United States; the +Declaration of Independence, and Washington's Farewell. (All m. R. D.) + +3. Mill's Logic; at any rate, the Canons of Induction and the Chapter on +Fallacies, (m. R. D. C. G.) + +4. Smiles's "Self-Help." (m. R. D.) + +5. Wood's books on Natural History; especially his anecdotes of animals, +and evidences of mind, etc., in animals (e. R. D.). Proctor's books on +Astronomy, "Other Worlds than Ours," etc. (e. R. G.). Lubbock's +"Primitive Condition of Man" (m. R.). Dawson's "Chain of Life" (m. R.). +In some good brief way, as by using the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," read +_about_ Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Darwin, Herschel, Lyell, +Harvey, and Torricelli. + +6. Spencer's "First Principles." (d. R. D. G.) + +7. Green's "Short History of the English People" (m. R. D. G.). +Bancroft's "History of the United States" (m. R. D. G). Guizot's +"History of Civilization" (m. R. D. G.). + +8. Max Mueller's philological works, or some of them (m. R.). Taylor's +"Words and Places" (m. R.). + +9. In some public library, if the books are not accessible elsewhere, +get into your hands the books named in Columns 12 and 13 of Table I., +and not already spoken of in this table, and glance through each, +reading a little here and there to make a rapid survey of the ground, +acquire some idea of it, and note the places where it may seem to you +worth while to dig for gold. + + + + +TABLE III. + + +A short course of the choicest selections from the whole field of +general literature. It may easily be read through in a year, and will +form a taste and provide a standard that will enable the reader ever +after to judge for himself of the quality and value of whatever books +may come before the senate of his soul to ask for an appropriation of +his time in their behalf. + +Very few books are requisite for this course, but it will awaken a +desire that will demand a library of standard literature. No. 1, No. 2, +etc., refer to the numbers of the "100 Choice Selections." Monroe's +"Sixth Reader" and Palgrave's "Golden Treasury" are also referred to, +because they contain a great number of these gems, and are books likely +to be in the possession of the reader. + +For the meaning of the other abbreviations, see the last section of the +Introductory Remarks. + + + GROUP I.--_Poetry._ + + [*] in headings denotes "Degree of Difficulty." + + +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ + | | [*] | Manner | | + | | | of | Where found. | + | | | Reading. | | + +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ + | 1. SHAKSPEARE. | | | | + | | | | | + | Hamlet, especially noting Hamlet's | | | Shakspeare's | + | conversations with the Ghost, | | | Plays are | + | with his mother and Ophelia, his | | | published | + | advice to the players, his | | | separately, | + | soliloquy, and his discourse on | d. | R.D.C.G. | and also | + | the nobleness of man | | | together, | + | Merchant of Venice, especially | | | Richard Grant | + | noting the scene in court, and | | | White's | + | the parts relating to Portia | e. | R.D.C.G. | edition being | + | Julius Caesar, especially noting the | | | the best. | + | speeches of Brutus and Antony, | | | | + | and the quarrel of Brutus and | m. | R.D.C.G. | | + | Cassius | | | | + | Taming of the Shrew | e. | R.G. | | + | Henry the Eighth | m. | R.D. | | + | Henry the Fourth, read for the wit | | | | + | of Falstaff | m. | R.D. | | + | Henry the Fifth, noting especially | | | | + | the wooing | m. | R.D. | | + | Coriolanus, noting especially the | | | | + | grand fire and force and | | | | + | frankness of Coriolanus | m. | R.D.C.G. | | + | Sonnets in Palgrave's Golden | | | | + | Treasury, Nos. 3, 6, 11, 12, 13, | | | | + | 14, 18, 36, 46 | m. | R.D.C. | | + | | | | | + | 2. MILTON. | | | | + | | | | | + | The Opening of the Gates of Hell, | | | | + | one of the sublimest conceptions | | | | + | in literature. It is in Paradise | | | | + | Lost, about six pages from the | | | | + | end of Book II. Read sixty lines | | | | + | beginning, "Thus saying, from her | | | | + | side the fatal key, Sad | | | | + | instrument of all our woe" | d. | R.D.G. | Milton's | + | Satan's Throne, ten lines at the | | | Poems. | + | beginning of Book II. | m. | R.D.G. | | + | Opening of Paradise Lost, 26 lines | | | | + | at the beginning of Book I. | m. | R.D.G. | | + | The Angels uprooting the Mountains | | | | + | and hurling them on the Rebels. | | | | + | Fifty lines beginning about the | | | | + | 640th line of Book VI., "So they | | | | + | in pleasant vein," etc. | m. | R.D.G. | | + | "Hail, Holy Light," fifty-five | | | | + | lines at the beginning of Book | m. | R.D.G. | | + | III. | | | | + | Comus, a masque, and one of the | | | | + | masterpieces of English | d. | R.D.C.G. | Milton's | + | literature | | | Poems. | + | L' Allegro, a short poem on mirth | d. | R.D.C.G. | The last | + | Il Penseroso, a short poem | | | three of this | + | on melancholy | d. | R.D.C.G. | list are in | + | Lycidas, a celebrated elegy | d. | R.G. | Palgrave. | + | | | | | + | 3. HOMER. | | | | + | | | | | + | | | | Homer has had | + | | | | many | + | Pope's translation. At least the | | | translators, | + | first book of the Iliad. A | | | Pope, Derby, | + | simple, clear story of battles | | | Worsley, | + | and quarrels, and counsels, | | | Chapman, | + | charming in its sublimity, | | | Flaxman, | + | pathos, vigor, and naturalness. | | | Lang, Bryant, | + | The world's greatest epic | e. | R.D.C.G. | etc. | + | | | | | + | 4. AESCHYLUS. | | | | + | | | | Potter, | + | | | | Morshead, | + | Prometheus Bound, the sublimest of | | | Swanwick, | + | the sublime. Be sure to reach and | | | Milman, and | + | grasp the grand picture of the | | | Browning have | + | human race and its troubles which | | | translated | + | underlies this most magnificent | | | AEschylus. The | + | poem | d. | R.D.C.G. | first two are | + | Agamemnon, the grandest tragedy | | | the best. | + | in the world | m. | R.D.G. | Flaxman's | + | | | | designs add | + | | | | much. | + | | | | | + | 5. DANTE. | | | | + | | | | | + | Divine Comedy. Read Farrar's little | | | Translated by | + | Life of Dante (John Alden, | | | Longfellow, | + | N. Y.), and then take the Comedy | | | Carey, John | + | and read the thirty-third canto, | | | Carlyle, | + | the portions relating to the | | | Butler, and | + | Hells of Incontinence and of | | | Dean Church. | + | Fraud, thepicture of Satan, and | | | | + | the whole of the Purgatorio | d. | R.D.G. | | + | | | | | + | 6. SPENSER. | | | | + | | | | | + | Faerie Queen, noting specially the | | | | + | first book and the book of | | | | + | Britomart, endeavoring to grasp | | | | + | and apply to your own life the | | | | + | truths that underlie the rich and | | | | + | beautiful imagery | d. | R.D.G. | Spenser's | + | Hymn in Honor of his own Wedding | d. | R.D.G. | Poems. The | + | Fable of the Oak and the Briar, in | | | Calendar is | + | Shepherd's Calendar, February | m. | R. | published | + | | | | separately. | + | | | | | + | 7. SCOTT. | | | | + | | | | | + | Lady of the Lake | e. | R. | Scott's Poems,| + | Marmion | e. | R. | or separate. | + +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ + + + +---------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's note: Numbers 8 and 9 are missing in the | + | original. | + +---------------------------------------------------------+ + + + GROUP II.--_Short Poetical Selections._ + + +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ + | | | Manner | | + | | [*] | of | Where found. | + | | | Reading. | | + +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ + | 10. PAYNE. | | | | + | Home, Sweet Home | e. | C. | | + | | | | | + | LONGFELLOW. | | | | + | Psalm of Life. | | R.D.C. | Longfellow's | + | Paul Revere's Ride | | | Poems. | + | The Building of the Ship | e. | R. | | + | (These may be found in most | | | | + | of the reading-books.) | e. | | | + | Suspiria, and the close of | | | | + | Morituri Salutamus | m. | R.D. | | + | | | | | + | HOLMES. | | | | + | Nautilus; the last stanza | | | Autocrat of | + | commit | m. | R.D. | the | + | The Stars and Flowers, a | | | Breakfast- | + | lovely little poem,--the | | | Table. | + | first verses in the | | | | + | Autocrat of the | | | | + | Breakfast-Table | e. | R.D. | | + | | | | | + | HUNT. | | | | + | Abou Ben Adhem | e. | R.D. | Monroe. | + | | | | | + | CAREW. | | | | + | The True Beauty | e. | R.D. | Palgrave, 87. | + | | | | | + | GRAY. | | | | + | Elegy in a Country Churchyard | m. | R.D.C. | " 147. | + | Hymn to Adversity | m. | R.D. | " 159. | + | Progress of Poesy | m. | R.D. | " 140. | + | The Bard | m. | R.D. | " 123. | + | | | | | + | SAXE. | | | | + | The Blind Men and the Elephant| e. | R.D. | No. 4. | + | | | | | + | JACKSON. | | | Poems of | + | The Release | m. | R.D. | H. H. Jackson.| + | | | | | + | 11. HOOD. | | | | + | Bridge of Sighs | m. | R.D. | Palgrave, 231.| + | Song of the Shirt | e. | R.D. | No. 2. | + | | | | | + | BURNS. | | | | + | Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie | | | | + | Doon | e. | R.D. | Palgrave, 139.| + | To a Field-mouse | e. | R.D. | " 144.| + | Mary Morrison | e. | R.D. | " 148.| + | Bonnie Lesley | e. | R.D. | " 149.| + | Jean | e. | R.D. | " 155.| + | John Anderson | e. | R.D. | " 156.| + | A Man's a Man for a' that | e. | R.D. | Burns's Poems.| + | Auld Lang Syne | e. | R.D. | | + | Robert Bruce's Address to his | | | | + | Army | e. | R.D. | | + | | | | | + | MOORE. | | | | + | The Light of other Days | e. | R.D. | Palgrave, 225.| + | Come rest in this Bosom | e. | R.D. | Irish Melodies| + | At the Mid Hour of Night | e. | R.D. | Irish Melodies| + | Those Evening Bells | e. | R.D. | Monroe. | + | | | | | + | COLERIDGE. | | | | + | Rime of the Ancient Mariner | d. | R.D.G. | Coleridge's | + | Kubla Khan; a Picture of the | | | Poems. | + | Stream of Life | d. | R.D.G. | | + | Vale of Chamouni | e. | R. | Monroe. | + | | | | | + | WHITTIER. | | | | + | The Farmer's Wooing, in Among | | | | + | the Hills | m. | R.D.C. | Whittier's | + | The Harp at Nature's Advent | | | Poems. | + | Strung, etc., in Tent on | | | | + | the Beach | m. | R.D.C. | | + | Snow Bound, Centennial Hymn | | | | + | (No. 13), and at least | | | | + | glance athis Voices of | | | | + | Freedom | m. | R.D.C. | | + | Barefoot Boy | e. | R.D.C. | | + | | | | | + | TENNYSON. | | | | + | "Break, break, break, on thy | | | Tennyson's | + | cold gray Stones, O Sea" | m. | R.D.C. | Poems. | + | "Ring out, wild Bells," in | | | | + | the In Memoriam | m. | R.D.C. | | + | Bugle Song, in The Princess | m. | R.D.C. | No. 2. | + | Charge of the Light Brigade | e. | R.D.C. | No. 2. | + | The Brook | e. | R.D.C. | Monroe. | + | | | | | + | CHAUCER. | | | | + | The Clerk's Tale, or the | | | | + | Story of Grisilde, in the | | | Chaucer's | + | Canterbury Tales | m. | R. | Poems. | + | | | | | + | 12. KEY. | | | | + | The Star-Spangled Banner | e. | C. | No. 4. | + | | | | | + | DRAKE. | | | | + | The American Flag | e. | R. | No. 1. | + | | | | | + | SMITH. | | | | + | "My Country, 'tis of thee" | e. | C. | | + | | | | | + | BOKER. | | | | + | The Black Regiment | e. | R. | No. 1. | + | | | | | + | CAMPBELL, | | | | + | full of fire | | | | + | and martial music. | | | | + | Ye Mariners of England | m. | R.D.C. | Palgrave, 206.| + | Battle of the Baltic | m. | R.C. | " 207.| + | Soldier's Dream | m. | R.C. | " 267.| + | Hohenlinden | m. | R.C. | " 215.| + | Lord Ullin's Daughter | m. | R.C. | " 181.| + | Love's Beginning | m. | R.C. | " 183.| + | Ode to Winter | m. | R.C. | " 256.| + | | | | | + | THOMSON. | | | | + | Rule Britannia | m. | R.C. | Palgrave, 122.| + | | | | | + | LOWELL. | | | | + | The Crisis | d. | R.D.C.G. | Lowell's | + | Harvard Commemoration Ode | d. | R.D.C.G. | Poems. | + | The Fountain | e. | R.D.C.G. | | + | | | | | + | HALLECK. | | | | + | Marco Bozzaris | e. | R. | No. 1. | + | | | | | + | MACAULAY. | | | | + | Lays of Ancient Rome, | | | | + | especially Horatius, and | e. | R.D. | No. 2. | + | Virginia, also the Battle of | | | | + | Ivry | m. | R.D. | No. 5. | + | | | | | + | O'HARA. | | | | + | The Bivouac of the Dead | | | | + | | | | | + | MITFORD. | | | | + | Rienzi's Address | m. | R. | No. 1. | + | | | | | + | CROLY. | | | | + | Belshazzar | m. | R. | No. 4. | + | | | | | + | 13. SHELLEY. | | | Shelley's | + | | | | Poems. | + | Ode to the West Wind | m. | R.D.C. | Palgrave, 275.| + | Ode to a Skylark | m. | R.D.C. | " 241.| + | To a Lady with a Guitar | m. | R.D.C. | " 252.| + | Italy | m. | R.D.C. | " 274.| + | Naples | m. | R.D.C. | " 227.| + | The Poet's Dream | d. | R.D.C. | " 277.| + | The Cloud, Sensitive Plant, | | | | + | etc. | m. | R.D.C. | | + | | | | | + | BYRON. | | | Byron's Poems.| + | All for Love | m. | R.D. | Palgrave, 169.| + | Beauty | m. | R.D. | " 171.| + | Apostrophe to the Ocean, and | | | | + | The Eve of Waterloo | m. | R.D.C. | Monroe. | + | The Field of Waterloo | m. | R.D.C. | No. 1. | + | (These are among the most | | | | + | magnificent poems in any | | | | + | language.) | | | | + | | | | | + | BRYANT. | | | | + | Thanatopsis | m. | R.C.G. | No. 1. | + | | | | | + | PRENTICE. | | | | + | The Closing Year | m. | R.C.G. | No. 1. | + | | | | | + | POE. | | | | + | The Bells; The Raven | m. | R.C.G. | No. 1. | + | Annabel Lee | m. | R. | No. 5. | + | | | | | + | KEATS. | | | Keats's Poems.| + | The Star | m. | R. | Palgrave, 198.| + | Ode to a Nightingale | m. | R. | " 244.| + | Ode to Autumn | m. | R. | " 255.| + | Ode on the Poets | m. | R. | " 167.| + | | | | | + | WORDSWORTH. | | | | + | A Beautiful Woman | e. | R.C. | Palgrave, 174.| + | The Reaper | m. | R. | " 250.| + | Simon Lee | m. | R. | " 219.| + | Intimations of Immortality | | | " 367.| + | | | | | + | HERBERT. | | | | + | Gifts of God | e. | R.D.C. | " 74.| + | | | | | + | READ. | | | | + | Drifting | m. | R.D.C. | No. 1. | + | Sheridan's Ride | e. | R. | " | + | | | | | + | FLETCHER. | | | | + | Melancholy | e. | R. | Palgrave, 104.| + | | | | | + | POPE. | | | | + | Rape of the Lock | m. | R. | Pope's Poems. | + | | | | | + | 14. INGELOW. | | | | + | The Brides of Enderby | m. | R. | No. 2. | + | High Tide, etc. | | | | + | | | | | + | COWPER. | | | | + | Loss of the Royal George | e. | R. | Palgrave, 129.| + | Solitude of Selkirk | m. | R. | " 160.| + | | | | | + | DRYDEN. | | | | + | Alexander's Feast | d. | R. | " 116.| + | | | | | + | COLLINS. | | | | + | The Passions | d. | R. | " 141.| + | | | | | + | JONSON. | | | | + | Hymn to Diana | m. | R. | " 78.| + | | | | | + | ADDISON. | | | | + | Cato's Soliloquy | m. | R. | No. 1. | + | | | | | + | LODGE. | | | | + | Rosaline | m. | R. | Palgrave, 16.| + | | | | | + | HERRICK. | | | | + | Counsel to Girls | e. | R. | " 82.| + | The Poetry of Dress | e. | R. | " 92.| + | | | | | + | 15. GOETHE. | | | | + | Raphael Chorus,--a wonderful | | | | + | chorus of three stanzas in | | | | + | Faust. Read Shelley's | | | | + | translations, both literal | | | | + | and free, in his Fragments | m. | R.C.G. | Shelley's | + | | | | Poems. | + | OMAR KHAYYAM. | | | | + | Rubaiyat, especially the | | | | + | "moving shadow-shape" and the | | | | + | "phantom caravan" stanzas, | | | | + | for their magnificent imagery | m. | R.C.G. | Fitzgerald's | + | | | | Translation. | + | EURIPIDES. | | | | + | Chorus in Medea--Campbell's | | | | + | translation | m. | R.C.G. | Campbell's | + | | | | Poems. | + | | | | | + | CALDERON. | | | | + | Read Shelley's Fragments | m. | R.C.G. | Shelley's | + | | | | Poems. | + | SCHILLER. | | | Schiller's | + | The Battle | m. | R. | Poems. No. 4. | + | The Song of the Bell | m. | R. | Publ. | + | | | | separately. | + | MOLIERE. | | | | + | Tartuffe, or The Hypocrite | e. | R.D. | Moliere's | + | Le Misanthrope, or The | | | Plays. | + | Man-Hater | e. | R.D. | | + +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ + + GROUP III.--_Short Prose Selections._ + + +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ + | | | Manner | | + | | [*] | of | Where found. | + | | | Reading. | | + +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ + | | | | | + | 16. LINCOLN. | | | | + | Gettysburg Oration. Famous | | | | + | for its calm, clear, simple | | | | + | beauty, breadth, and power | m. | R.C. | No. 2. | + | | | | | + | IRVING | | | | + | our greatest | | | | + | master of style; | | | | + | his prose is poetry. | | | | + | Rip Van Winkle | e. | R.D.C. | Sketch Book. | + | The Spectre Bridegroom | e. | R.D.C. | " " | + | The Art of Book-Making | e. | R.D.C. | " " | + | The Legend of Sleepy Hollow | e. | R.D.C. | " " | + | | | | | + | 17. BACON. | | | | + | Essay on Studies. Note the | | | | + | clearness and completeness | | | | + | of Bacon, and his tremendous| | | | + | condensation of thought | m. | R.D.C. | Bacon's | + | | | | Essays. | + | CARLYLE. | | | | + | Apostrophe to Columbus, p. | | | | + | 193 of Past and Present,-- | | | | + | Carlyle's finest passage | m. | R.D.C. | | + | Await the Issue | m. | R.D.C. | Monroe. | + | The account of the | | | | + | conversational powers of | | | | + | Coleridge, given in | | | | + | Carlyle's Life of Sterling | e. | R.D.C. | | + | | | | | + | 18. WEBSTER. | | | | + | Liberty and Union,--a | | | | + | selection from the answer to| | | | + | Hayne in the United States | | | | + | Senate, on the question of | | | | + | the power of a State to | | | | + | nullify the acts of | | | | + | Congress, and to withdraw | | | | + | from the Union,--the | | | | + | greatest of American | | | | + | orations, and worthy to | | | | + | rank side by side with the | | | | + | world's best | m. | R.D.C. | No. 1. | + | | | | | + | PHILLIPS. | | | | + | Comparison of Toussaint | | | | + | L'Ouverture with Napoleon, | | | Phillips's | + | in his oration on Toussaint | m. | R.D.C. | Speeches. | + | | | | | + | 19. EVERETT. | | | | + | Discoveries of Galileo | m. | R. | No. 1. | + | | | | | + | BURRITT. | | | | + | One Niche the Highest | e. | R. | No. 7. | + | | | | | + | 20. HUGO. | | | | + | The Monster Cannon, one of | | | | + | the great Frenchman's master| | | | + | strokes,--a very thrilling | | | | + | scene, splendidly painted | e. | R. | No. 11. | + | Rome and Carthage | m. | R. | No. 6. | + | | | | | + | DE QUINCEY. | | | | + | Noble Revenge | m. | R. | No. 7. | + | | | | | + | 21. POE. | | | | + | Murders in the Rue Morgue | d. | R. | Little | + | | | | Classics. | + | INGERSOLL. | | | | + | Oration at the funeral of his | | | Ingersoll's | + | brother | m. | R. | Prose Poems. | + | | | | | + | 22. SCOTT. | | | | + | Thirty-sixth chapter of the | | | | + | Heart of Midlothian | m. | R. | | + | | | | | + | CURTIS. | | | | + | Nations and Humanity | m. | R. | No. 11. | + | | | | | + | 23. TAYLOR. | | | | + | The sections on Temperance | | | | + | and Chastity in the Holy | | | | + | Living and Dying | m. | R.D. | | + | | | | | + | BROOKS. | | | | + | Pamphlet on Tolerance,--the | | | | + | best book in the world on a | | | | + | most vital subject | m. | R.D. | | + +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ + + GROUP IV.--_Wit and Humor_--_Short List._ + + +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ + | | | Manner | | + | | [*] | of | Where found. | + | | | Reading. | | + +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ + | | | | | + | 24. LOWELL. | | | | + | Biglow Papers | e. | R.D. | Lowell's | + | Fable for Critics | d. | R.D. | Poems. | + | The Courtin' | e. | R.D. | | + | | | | | + | HOLMES. | | | | + | Autocrat of the | | | | + | Breakfast-Table | m. | R.D. | | + | | | | | + | 25. CARLETON. | | | | + | Farm Ballads, especially the | | | | + | Visit of the School | | | | + | Committee, and The Rivals | e. | S. | | + | | | | | + | STOWE. | | | | + | Laughin' in Meetin' | e. | S. | No. 11. | + | | | | | + | TWAIN. | | | | + | On New England Weather | e. | S. | No. 13. | + | European Guides, and | | | Innocents | + | Turkish Baths | e. | S. | Abroad. | + | | | | | + | 26. DICKENS. | | | | + | Pickwick Papers | e. | S. | | + | | | | | + | JAMES DE MILLE. | | | Cumnock's | + | A Senator Entangled | e. | S. | Choice | + | | | | Readings. | + | LOVER. | | | | + | The Gridiron | e. | S. | " " | + | | | | | + | WHATELY. | | | | + | Historic Doubts regarding | | | Publ. | + | Napoleon | e. | S. | separately. | + +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ + + + + +TABLE IV. + + +SUPPLEMENTARY GENERAL READING. + +In addition to the short courses set forth in Tables II. and III., at +the same time, if the reader has a sufficiency of spare hours, but +always in subordination to the above courses, it is recommended that +attention be given to the following books:-- + +Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. (e. R. D.) + +Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. (e. S.) + +Dickens' Christmas Carol (m. R. D.); Cricket on the Hearth. (m. R. D.) + +Ruskin's Crown of Wild Olive (m. R. D.); Ethics of the Dust (m. R. D.); +Sesame and Lilies. (m. R. D.) + +Emerson's Essays (d. R. D. C.); especially those on Manners, Gifts, +Love, Friendship, The Poet, and on Representative Men. + +Demosthenes on the Crown. (m. R. D. C. G.) + +Burke's Warren Hastings Oration. (m. R. D. C. G.) + +Phillips' Speeches on Lovejoy and Garrison. (m. R. D. C. G.) + +La Fontaine's Fables. (m. R. D.) + +Short Biographies of the World's Hundred Greatest Men. (m. R. D.) + +Marshall's Life of Washington. (m. R. D. G.) + +Carlyle's Cromwell. (m. R. D. G.) + +Tennyson's In Memoriam. (d. R. D. C.) + +Byron's Childe Harold. (m. R. D. C.) + +Burns' Cotter's Saturday Night. (m. R. D.) + +Keats' Endymion. (d. R. D. C.) + +Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. (d. R. D. C. G.) + +Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. (m. R. D. C.) + +Goldsmith's Deserted Village. (m. R. D. C.) + +Pope's Essay on Man. (m. R. D. C.) + +Thomson's Seasons. (m. R. D. C.) + + + + +CHILDREN. + + +So far we have spoken of reading for grown people. Now we must deal with +the reading of young folks,--a subject of the utmost importance. For to +give a child good habits of reading, to make him like to read and master +strong, pure books,--books filled with wisdom and beauty,--and equally +eager to shun bad books, is to do for him and the world a service of the +highest possible character; and to neglect the right care of a child in +this matter is to do him an injury far greater than to mutilate his face +or cut off his arm. + + + + +WHAT TO GIVE THE CHILDREN. + + +Parents, teachers, and others interested in the welfare of young people +have not only to solve the problem of selecting books for their own +nourishment, but also the more difficult problem of providing the young +folks with appropriate literary food. As literature may be made one of +the most powerful influences in the development of a child, the greatest +care should be taken to make the influence true, pure, and tender, and +give it in every respect the highest possible character, which requires +as much care to see that bad books do not come into the child's +possession and use, as to see that good books do. The ability to read +adds to life a wonderful power, but it is a power for evil as well as +good. As Lowell says, "It is the key which admits us to the whole world +of thought and fancy and imagination,--to the company of saint and sage, +of the wisest and wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moments. It +enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and +listen to the sweetest voices of all time. More than that, it +annihilates time and space for us,--reviving without a miracle the Age +of Wonder, and endowing us with the shoes of swiftness and the cap of +darkness." Yes, but it opens our minds to the thoughts of the vile as +well as to those of the virtuous; it unlocks the prisons and haunts of +vice as well as the school and the church; it drags us through the sewer +as well as gives us admission to the palace; it feeds us on filth as +well as the finest food; it pours upon our souls the deepest degradation +as well as the spirit of divinity. Parents will do well to keep from +their children such books as Richardson's "Pamela" and "Clarissa +Harlowe;" Fielding's "Joseph Andrews," "Jonathan Wild," and "Tom Jones;" +Smollett's "Humphrey Clinker," "Peregrine Pickle," and "Adventures of an +Atom;" Sterne's "Tristram Shandy;" Swift's "Gulliver," and their modern +relatives. Many of these coarse pictures of depravity and microscopic +analyses of filth I cannot read without feeling insulted by their +vulgarity, as I do when some one tells an indecent story in my presence. +Whatever the power or wit of a book, if its motive is not high and its +expression lofty, it should not come into contact with any life, at +least until its character is fixed and hardened in the mould of virtue +beyond the period of plasticity that might receive the imprint of the +badness in the book. There are plenty of splendid books that are pure +and ennobling as well as strong and humorous,--more of them than any one +person can ever read,--so that there is no necessity of contact with +imperfect literature. If a boy comes into possession of a book that he +would not like to read aloud to his mother or sister, he has something +that is not good for him to read,--something that is not altogether the +very best for anybody to read. Some liberty of choice, however, ought to +be allowed the children. It will add much to the vigor and enthusiasm of +a boy's reading if, instead of prescribing the precise volume he is to +have at each step, he is permitted to make his own selection from a list +of three or four chosen by the person who is guiding him. What these +three or four should be, is the problem. I cannot agree with Lowell, +when he says that young people ought to "confine themselves to the +supreme books in whatever literature, or, still better, choose some one +great author and make themselves thoroughly familiar with him." It is +possible to know something of people in general about me without +neglecting my best friends. It is possible to enjoy the society of +Shakspeare, Goethe, AEschylus, Dante, Homer, Plato, Spencer, Scott, +Eliot, Marcus Aurelius, and Irving, without remaining in ignorance of +the power and beauty to be found in Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Byron, +Burns, Goldsmith, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, Longfellow, Whittier, +Holmes, and Lowell, Ingersoll, Omar, Arnold, Brooks, and Robertson, +Curtis, Aldrich, Warner, Jewett, Burroughs, Bulwer, Tourgee, Hearn, +Kingsley, MacDonald, Hawthorne, Dickens, Thackeray, Carlyle, Ruskin, +Hugo, Bronte, Sienkiewicz, and a host of others. Scarcely a day passes +that I do not spend a little time with Shakspeare, Goethe, AEschylus, +Spencer, and Irving; but I should be sorry to have any one of those I +have named beyond call at any time. There are parts of Holmes, Lowell, +Brooks, Emerson, Omar, Arnold, Tourgee, and Hearn that are as dear to me +as any passages of equal size in Goethe or Irving. So it does not seem +best to me to _confine_ the attention to the supreme books; a just +_proportion_ is the true rule. Let the supreme books have the supreme +attention, absorb them, print them on the brain, carry them about in the +heart, but give a due share of time to other books. I like the +suggestion of Marietta Holley: "I would feed children with little sweet +crumbs of the best of books, and teach them that a whole rich feast +awaited them in the full pages," only taking care in each instance that +the crumb is well rounded, the picture not torn or distorted. There are +paragraphs and pages in many works of the second rank that are equal to +almost anything in the supreme books, and superior to much the latter +contain. These passages should be sought and cherished; and the work of +condensing the thought and beauty of literature--making a sort of +literary prayer-book--is an undertaking that ought not to be much longer +delayed. Until it is done, however, there is no way but to read widely, +adapting the speed and care to the value of the volume. Some things may +be best read by deputy, as Mark Twain climbed the Alps by agent; +newspapers, for example, and many of the novels that flame up like a +haystack on fire, and fade like a meteor in its fall, striking the earth +never to rise again. The time that many a young man spends upon +newspapers would be sufficient to make him familiar with a dozen +undying books every year. Newspapers are not to be despised, but they +should not be allowed to crowd out more important things. I keep track +of the progress of events by reading the "Outlook" in the "Christian +Union" every week, and glancing at the head-lines of the "Herald" or +"Journal," reading a little of anything specially important, or getting +an abstract from a friend who always reads the paper. A good way to +economize time is for a number of friends to take the same paper, the +first page being allotted to one, the second to another, and so on, each +vocally informing the others of the substance of his page. If time +cannot be found for both the newspaper and the classic, the former, not +the latter, should receive the neglect. + +This matter of the use of time is one concerning which parents should +strive to give their children good habits from the first. If you teach a +child to economize time, and fill him with a love of good books, you +ensure him an education far beyond anything he can get in the +university,--an education that will cease only with his life. The +creation of a habit of industrious study of books that will improve the +character, develop the powers, and store the mind with force and +beauty,--that is the great object. + +A good example is the best teacher. It is well for parents to keep close +to the child until he grows old enough to learn how to determine for +himself what he should read (which usually is not before fifteen or +twenty, and in many cases never); for children, and grown folks too for +that matter, crave intellectual as much as they do physical +companionship. + +The methods of guiding the young in the paths of literature fall +naturally into two groups,--the first being adapted to childhood not yet +arrived at the power of reading alone, the second adapted to later +years. There is no sharp line of division or exclusion, but only a +general separation; for the methods peculiarly appropriate to each +period apply to some extent in the other. Some children are able to read +weighty books at three or four years of age, but most boys and girls +have to plod along till they are eight or ten before they can read much +alone. I will consider the periods of child life I have referred to, +each by itself. + +=The Age of Stories=.--It is not necessary or proper to wait until a +child can read, before introducing it to the best literature. Most of +the books written for children have no permanent value, and most of the +reading books used in primary and grammar schools contain little or no +genuine literature, and what they do contain is in fragments. Portions +of good books are useful, if the story of each part is complete, but +children do not like the middle of a story without the beginning and +end; they have the sense of entirety, and it should be satisfied. And it +is not difficult to do this. Literature affords a multitude of beautiful +stories of exceeding interest to children, and of permanent +attractiveness through all the after years of their lives. Such +literature is as available, as a means of teaching the art of reading, +as is the trash in dreary droning over which the precious years of +childhood are spent in our public schools. The development of the child +mind follows the same course as the development of the mind of the race. +The little boy loves the wonderful and the strong, and nearly everything +is wonderful to him except himself. Living things especially interest +him. Every child is a born naturalist; his heart turns to birds and +beasts, flowers and stars. He is hungry for stories of animals, giants, +fairies, etc. Myths and fairy tales are his natural food. His power of +absorbing and retaining them is marvellous. One evening a few weeks ago +a little boy who is as yet scarcely able to read words of two and three +letters asked me for a story. I made an agreement with him that whatever +I told him, he should afterward repeat to me, and then gave him the +story of the elephant who squirted muddy water over the cruel tailor +that pricked his trunk with a needle. No sooner had I finished than he +threw his arms around my neck and begged for another story. I told him +eight in rapid succession, some of them occupying three or four minutes, +and then asked him to tell me about the elephants, dogs, bears, etc., +that I had spoken of. He recited every story with astonishing accuracy +and readiness, and apparently without effort, and would have been ready +for eight more bits of Wood or Andersen, if his bedtime had not +intervened. If parents would take as much pains to satisfy the mind +hunger of their children as they do to fulfil their physical wants, and +give them the best literature as well as the best beef and potatoes, the +boys and girls would have digested the greater part of mythology, +natural science, and the best fiction by the time they are able to read. +Children should be fed with the literature that represents the childhood +of the race. Out of that literature has grown all literature. Give a +child the contents of the great books of the dawn, and you give him the +best foundation for subsequent literary growth, and in after life he +will be able to follow the intricate interweaving of the old threads +throughout all modern thought. He has an immense affinity for those old +books, for they are full of music and picturesqueness, teeming with +vigorous life, bursting with the strange and wonderful. In the following +list parents and teachers will find abundant materials for the culture +of the little ones, either by reading aloud to them, or still better by +telling them the substance of what they have gathered by their own +reading of these famous stories and ditties. Pictures are always of the +utmost value in connection with books and stories, as they impart a +vividness of conception that words alone are powerless to produce. One +plea for sincerity I must make,--truth and frankness from the cradle to +the grave. Do not delude the children. Do not persuade them that a fairy +tale is history. I have a sad memory of my disgust and loss of +confidence in human probity when I discovered the mythical character of +Kriss Kringle, and I believe many children are needlessly shocked in +this way. + + _List of Materials for Story-telling and for the Instruction + and Amusement of Childhood._ + + "Mother Goose," "Jack and the Bean-Stalk," "Jack the + Giant-Killer," "Three Bears," "Red Riding-Hood," "The Ark," + "Hop o' my Thumb," "Puss in Boots," "Samson," "Ugly Duckling," + "The Horse of Troy" (Virgil), "Daniel in the Lion's Den," etc. + + Andersen's "Fairy Tales." Delightful to all children. + + Grimm's "Fairy Tales." + + De Garmo's "Fairy Tales." + + Craik's "Adventures of a Brownie." + + "Parents' Assistant," by Maria Edgeworth, recommended by George + William Curtis, Mary Mapes Dodge, Charles Dudley Warner, etc. + + "Zigzag Journeys," a series of twelve books, written by + Hezekiah Butterworth, one of the editors of the "Youth's + Companion." As might be supposed, they are among the very best + and most enduringly popular books ever written for young + people. + + Wood's books of Anecdotes about Animals, and many other works + of similar character, that may be obtained from the American + Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 19 Milk + Street, Boston. The literature distributed by this Society is + filled with the spirit of love and tenderness for all living + things, and is one of the best influences that can come into a + child's life. + + Mary Treat's "Home Book of Nature." One of the best books of + science for young people. + + Bulfinch's "Age of Fable." A book that is exhaustive of Greek + and Roman mythology, but meant for grown folks. + + Bulfinch's "Age of Chivalry." + + Fiske's "Myths and Myth Makers." Brief, deep, and suggestive. + + Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" and "Tanglewood Tales." Books that no + house containing children should lack. + + Cox's "Tales of Ancient Greece." + + Baldwin's "Stories of the Golden Age." + + Forestier's "Echoes from Mist Land." An interesting study of + the Nibelungenlied. + + Lucian's "Dialogues of the Gods." Written to ridicule ancient + superstitions. + + Curtin's "Folk Lore of Ireland." + + Stories of Greek Heroes, Kingsley. + + Stories from Bryant's Odyssey. + + Stories from Church's "Story of the Iliad." + + Stories from Church's "Story of the AEneid." + + Stories from Herodotus, Church. + + Stories from the Greek Tragedians, Church. + + Stories of Charlemagne, Hanson. + + Stories from "Arabian Nights," Bulfinch. + + Stories from "Munchausen," and Maundeville. + + Stories from Chaucer, especially "Griselda." (From Chaucer, or + from Mrs. Haweis' book.) + + Stories told to a Child, by Jean Ingelow. + + Stories from the "Morte D'Arthur," Malory or Lanier. + + Stories from Lanier's "Froissart." + + Stories from Shakspeare. + + Stories of the Revolution, Riedesel. + + Stories from American and English History about the Magna + Charta, Henry VIII., Queen Elizabeth, Cromwell, Pitt, + Gladstone, Boston Tea Party, Declaration of Independence, + Washington, Rebellion, Lincoln, etc. + + Stories of American life, from "Oldtown Folks," "Sam Lawson's + Fireside Stories," and from the best novels. + + Stories from the "Book of Golden Deeds," Miss Yonge. + + Stories from Bolton's "Poor Boys who became Famous," and "Girls + who became Famous." + + Stories from Smiles's "Self-Help." Full of brief, inspiring + stories of great men. + + Stones from Todd's "Students' Manual." + + Stories from Irving's "Sketch Book," Rip Van Winkle, etc. + + Stories from Green's "Short History of the English People." + + Stories from Doyle's "History of the United States." One of the + very best brief histories. + + Stories from Mackenzie's "History of the Nineteenth Century." + + Stories from Coffin's "Story of Liberty." + + Stories from Freeman's "General Sketch of History." + + Stories from the "Stories of the Nations." (Putnam's Series.) + + Stories from the books of Columns 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 12, and 14 of + Table I. + + The story of Christ and his Apostles. (It is scarcely needful + to mention Bible stories in general. Every child born into a + civilized family is saturated with them; but the simple story + of Christ's life as an entirety is too seldom told them.) + + The story of Buddha, from the "Light of Asia." + + The story of Mahomet, Irving. + + The story of Confucius. + + The story of Socrates drinking the hemlock, from Plato, or from + Fenelon's "Lives of the Philosophers," which contains many + splendid Greek stories. + + The story of Prometheus, from AEschylus. + + The story of Diogenes in his Tub. + + The story of Thermopylae and other battles, from Cressy. + + The story of Carthage, from Putnam's series of the "Stories of + the Nations." (Nine to eleven years.) + + The story of Roland, Baldwin. + + The story of the Cid, Southey. + + The story of the Nibelungenlied. (See Baldwin's "Story of + Siegfried.") + + The story of Faust, from "Zigzag Journeys." + + The story of "Reynard the Fox," Goethe. + + The story of Pythagoras and the transmigration of souls. + + The story of Astronomy, from Herschel, Proctor, etc. + + The story of Geology, from Lyell, Dawson, Miller, etc., or from + Dana's "The Geological Story, Briefly Told." + + The story of Athena, Pluto, Neptune, Apollo, Juno, Mars, + Jupiter, Mercury, Charon, Vulcan, Zeus, Io, Orpheus, and + Eurydice, Phaeton, Arachne, Ariadne, Iphigenia, Ceres, Vesta, + Herakles, Minerva, Venus, Scylla and Charybdis, Hercules, + Ulysses, Helen, Achilles, AEneas, etc., from Bulfinch's "Age of + Fable," "Zigzag Journeys," etc. + + The story of William Tell, the Man in the Moon, etc., from S. + Baring Gould's "Curious Myths." + + The story of the Courtship of Miles Standish. + + The story of the Nuernburg Stove, from Ouida's "Bimbi." + + The story of Robert Bruce. + + The story of Circe's Palace, from "Tanglewood Tales." + + The story of Pandora's Box, from the "Wonder Book." + + The story of Little Nell, from "The Old Curiosity Shop." + + The story of the Boy in "Vanity Fair." + + Many other books might be placed on the list of parent-helpers. + Indeed, the perfect guidance of youth would require a perfect + knowledge of literature throughout its breadth and depth; but + the above suggestions, if followed in any large degree, will + result in a far better training than most children now receive. + + + + +THE FORMATION OF A GOOD READING HABIT. + + +As the child learns to read by itself, the books from which were drawn +the stones it has heard may be given to it, care being taken that every +gift shall be adapted to the ability of the little one. The fact that +the boy has heard the story of Horatius at the Bridge does not diminish, +but vastly increases, his desire to read the "Lays of Ancient Rome." +When he comes to the possession of the book, it seems to him like a +discovery of the face of a dear friend with whose voice he has long been +familiar. I well remember with what delight I adopted the "Sketch Book" +as one of my favorites on finding Rip Van Winkle in it. + +Below will be found a list of books intended as a suggestion of what +should be given to children of various ages. The larger the number of +good books the child can be induced to read each year, the better of +course, so long as his powers are not overtaxed, and the reading is done +with due thoroughness. But if only four or five are selected from each +year's list, the boy will know more of standard literature by the time +he is sixteen, than most of his elders do. Each book enters the list at +the earliest age an ordinary child would be able to read it with ease, +and it may be used then or at any subsequent age; for no books are +mentioned which are not of everlasting interest and profit to childhood, +manhood, and age. Many of the volumes named below may also be used by +parents and teachers as story-mines. There is no sharp line between the +periods of story-telling and of reading. Most children read simple +English readily at eight or ten years of age; many do a large amount of +reading long before that, and nearly all do some individual work in the +earlier period. The change should be gradual. For the stimulus that +comparison gives, story-telling and reading aloud should be continued +long after the child is able to read alone; in truth, it ought never to +cease. Story-telling ought to be a universal practice. Stories should be +told to and _by_ everybody. One of the best things grown folks can do is +to tell each other the substance of their experience from day to day; +and probably no finer means of education exists than to have the +children give an account at supper or in the hour or two following, of +what they have seen, heard, read, thought, and felt during the day. In +the same way reading _solus_ should lap over into the early period as +far as possible. One of the greatest needs of the day is a class of +books that shall put _solid sense_ into _very_ simple words. A child can +grasp the wonderful, strong, loving, pathetic, and even the humorous and +critical, long before it can overcome the mechanical difficulties of +reading. By so much as we diminish these, we push education nearer to +the cradle. Charles Dudley Warner says, "As a general thing, I do not +believe in books written for children;" and Phillips Brooks, Marietta +Holley, Brooke Herford, and others express a similar feeling. But the +trouble is not with the _plan_ of writing for children, but with the +execution. If the highest _thoughts_ and feelings were written in the +simplest words,--written as a wise parent _tells_ them to his little +ones,--then we should have a juvenile literature that could be +recommended. As it is, most writers for babies seem to have far less +sense than the babies. Their books are filled with unnatural, +make-believe emotions, and egregious nonsense in the place of ideas. The +best prose for young people will be found in the works of Hawthorne, +Curtis, Warner, Holmes, Irving, Addison, Goldsmith, Burroughs, and Poe; +and the best poets for them are Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Burns, and +Homer. Books that flavor sense with fun, as do those of Curtis, Holmes, +Lowell, Holley, Stowe, Irving, Goldsmith, Warner, Addison, and +Burroughs, are among the best means of creating in any heart, young or +old, a love for fine, pure writing. P. T. Barnum, a man whose great +success is largely due to his attainment of that serenity of mind which +Lowell calls the highest result of culture, says: "I should, above +almost everything else, try to cultivate in the child a kindly sense of +humor. Wherever a pure, hearty laugh rings through literature, he should +be permitted and taught to enjoy it." This judgment comes from a +knowledge of the sustaining power a love of humor gives a man immersed +in mental cares and worriments. Lincoln is, perhaps, the best example of +its power. + +It is often an inspiration to a boy to know that a book he is reading +has helped and been beloved by some one whose name is to him a synonym +of greatness,--to know, for example, that Franklin got his style from +the "Spectator," which he studied diligently when a boy; that Francis +Parkman from fifteen to twenty-one obtained more pleasure and profit +from Scott than from any other writer; that Darwin was very fond of Mark +Twain's "Treatise on the Frog;" that Marietta Holley places Emerson, +Tennyson, and Eliot next to the Bible in her list of favorites; that +Senator Hoar writes Emerson, Wordsworth, and Scott next after the Bible +and Shakspeare; that Robert Collyer took great delight in Irving's +"Sketch Book," when a youth; that the great historian Lecky is said to +be in the habit of taking Irving with him when he goes to bed; that +Phillips Brooks read Jonson many times when a boy, and that Lockhart's +Scott was a great favorite with him, though the Doctor attaches no +special significance to either of these facts; that Susan Coolidge +thinks "Hans Brinker" is the best of all American books for children, +etc. Similar facts may be found in relation to very many of the best +books, and will aid much in arousing an interest in them. + +Plato, Bacon, Goethe, Spencer, Emerson, and many others of the best are +for the most part too difficult to be properly grasped until the mind is +more mature than it usually is at sixteen. No precise rules, however, +can be laid down on this subject, I have known a boy read Spencer's +"First Principles" and Goethe's "Faust" and "Wilhelm Meister" at +sixteen, and gain a mastery of them. All I have attempted to do is to +make broad suggestions; experiment in each case must do the rest. + + _Literature adapted to a Child Six or Eight Years of Age and + upward._ + + Little Lord Fauntleroy. A book that cannot fail to delight and + improve every reader. + + King of the Golden River, Ruskin. + + "Rosebud," from "Harvard Sophomore Stories." + + Christmas all the Year round, Howells. + + Mrs. Stowe's "Laughin' in Meetin'." An exceedingly funny story. + + "Each and All" and "Seven Little Sisters," by Jane Andrews. + Used in the Boston Public Schools as supplementary reading. + + Classics in Babyland, Bates. + + Scudder's "Fables and Folk Stories." Fine books for little + ones. + + AEsop. + + Rainbows for Children, Lydia Maria Child. + + Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell. The autobiography of a splendid + horse, and the best teacher of kindness to animals we know of. + + Burroughs' "Birds and Bees." In fact, all his beautiful and + simple stories of Nature--"Pepacton," "Fresh Fields," "Wake + Robin," "Winter Sunshine," "Signs and Seasons," etc.--are the + delight of children as soon as they can read. + + Winslow's "Fairy Geography." + + By Sea-side and Wayside, Wright. + + _Literature adapted to a Child Eight to Nine Years of Age and + upward._ + + Sandford and Merton, Day. One of the very best of children's + books. + + Play Days, Sarah Orne Jewett. + + Andersen's "Fairy Tales." Cannot be too highly praised. + + Stories from King Arthur, Hanson. A good foundation for the + study of Malory, Tennyson, etc. + + "Winners in Life's Race," and "Life and her Children," by Miss + Arabella Buckley. Books that charm many children of eight or + nine. + + Fairy Frisket; or, Peeps at Insect Life. Nelson & Sons. + + Physiology, with pictures. + + Queer Little People, Mrs. Stowe. + + Kingsley's "Water Babies." A beautiful book, as indeed are all + of Kingsley's. + + Longfellow's "Building of the Ship." + + The Fountain, Lowell. + + Ye Mariners of England, Campbell. + + Carleton's "Farm Ballads and Farm Legends." Humorous, pathetic, + sensible. + + _Literature adapted to a Child Nine to Ten Years of Age and + upward._ + + Story of a Bad Boy, Aldrich. A splendid book for boys. + + Boys of '76, Coffin. An eight-year-old boy read it five times, + he was so pleased with it. + + New Year's Bargain, Coolidge. + + Pussy Willow, Stowe. + + Hanson's "Homer and Virgil." Brief, clear, simple, clean. + + Stories from Homer, Hanson. + + Stories from Pliny, White. + + Grimm's "Fairy Tales." + + Legend of Sleeping Beauty. + + Clodd's "The Childhood of the World." A splendid book to teach + children the development of the world. + + "Friends in Feathers and Fur," "Wings and Fins," "Paws and + Claws," by Johonnot. Books much liked by the little ones. + + First Book of Zoology, Morse. + + Halleck's "Marco Bozzaris." + + Wordsworth's "Peter Bell." + + Mary, Queen of Scots, Strickland. + + The Prince and the Pauper, Twain. A book that mingles no small + amount of sense with its abounding fun and occasional tragedy. + + _Literature adapted to a Child Ten or Eleven Years of Age and + upward._ + + Being a Boy, Warner. + + Little Women, Alcott. One of the most popular books of the day. + + A Dog's Mission, Stowe. + + Two Years before the Mast, Dana. Recommended by Sarah Orne + Jewett, George William Curtis, and others. + + Ten Boys on the Road, Andrews. A great favorite with the boys. + + Jan of the Windmill, Ewing. The story of a poor boy who becomes + a famous painter. + + Hawthorne's "Celestial Railroad." + + Little People of Asia, Miller. + + Hawthorne's "Tanglewood Tales" and "Wonder Book" should belong + to every child old enough to read ordinary English. + + Adventures of a Brownie, Craik. + + Stories from Chaucer, Seymour. + + Stories from Livy, Church. + + Lives of the Philosophers, Fenelon. An excellent book. + + What Darwin saw in his Trip round the World in the Ship Beagle. + + Fairy Land of Science, Miss Buckley. An author who writes for + children to perfection. + + Animal Life in the Sea and on the Land, Cooper. Very fine + indeed. + + Darwin's chapter on the "Habits of Ants" (in the "Origin of + Species") is very interesting and amusing to little ones, and + together with Burroughs' books prepares them to read such works + as Lubbock's "Ants, Bees, and Wasps." + + Ragozin's "Chaldea." One of the indispensable books for + children. + + Longfellow's "Psalm of Life." + + Longfellow's "Hiawatha." + + Lowell's "Under the Old Elm." + + Wordsworth's "White Doe of Rylstone." + + Lamb's Essay on Roast Pig. A piece of fun always enjoyed by + boys and girls. + + _Literature adapted to a Child Eleven to Twelve Years of Age + and upward._ + + Shakspeare's "Merchant of Venice." + + Marcus Aurelius. In a school where the book was at their call + children from ten to thirteen carried it to and from school, + charmed with its beautiful thoughts. + + Hans Brinker, Mary Mapes Dodge. One of the very best stories + for children. + + Dickens' "Christmas Carol." + + Hawthorne's "Great Stone Face." Highly appreciated by the young + folks. + + Uncle Tom's Cabin, Mrs. Stowe. A book that every child should + have as soon as he is able to read it. + + Another Flock of Girls, Nora Perry. + + At the Back of the North Wind, Macdonald. A beautiful story, + with a high motive. + + A Hunting of the Deer, Warner. + + Crusade of the Children, Gray. A thrilling story. + + Bryant's translation of the Odyssey. + + Story of the Iliad, Church. + + Stories from Herodotus, Church. + + Mary Treat's "Home Book of Nature." + + Half Hours with the Stars, Proctor. + + Guyot's "Earth and Man." A most excellent book. + + First Book in Geology, Shaler. + + First Steps in Chemistry, Brewster. + + First Steps in Scientific Knowledge, Best. + + Abou Ben Adhem, Hunt. + + Scott's "Lady of the Lake." + + Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome." + + Longfellow's "Tales of a Wayside Inn." + + Whittier's "Snow Bound." + + How they Brought the Good News to Aix, Browning. + + Wordsworth's "We are Seven." + + Franklin's Autobiography. + + Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech. + + Samantha at the Centennial. + + _Literature adapted to a Child Twelve to Thirteen Years of Age + and upward._ + + Shakspeare's "Julius Caesar." + + Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan. Indispensable. + + Meditation of Thomas a Kempis. A strong influence for sweetness + and purity. + + Vicar of Wakefield, Goldsmith. Full of fun and good feeling; + one of the most indispensable of books. + + Cooper's novels, especially "The Spy" and the "Last of the + Mohicans." Books that are fascinating and yet wholesome. + + "My Summer in a Garden," and "In the Wilderness," Warner. Very + humorous. + + "The Dog of Flanders," from "Little Classics." + + Picciola, Saintine. A great favorite. + + The Story of Arnon, Amelie Rives. + + Drake's "Culprit Fay." + + Dr. Brown's "Rab and his Friends." + + "The Man without a Country," "My Double and How He Undid Me," + etc., by E. E. Hale. The cast is extremely funny. + + The Hoosier Schoolmaster, Eggleston. + + Boots and Saddles, Mrs. Custer. + + Story of the AEneid, Church. + + Stories from Greek Tragedians, Church. + + Plumptre's "Sophocles." + + Ruskin's "Athena." + + Boys and Girls in Biology, Stevenson. + + Other Worlds than Ours, Proctor. + + Captains of Industry, Parton. + + Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal." One of the great poet's + finest productions. + + Byron's "Eve of Waterloo." + + Longfellow's "Evangeline." + + Scott's "Marmion." + + Milton's "Comus." + + "The Two Runaways," "The Born Inventor," "Idyl of Sinkin' + Mountain," etc., by Edwards. Very funny. + + _Literature adapted to a Child Thirteen to Fourteen Years of + Age and upward._ + + Shakspeare's "Coriolanus" and "Taming of the Shrew." + + Scott's "Ivanhoe," "Heart of Midlothian," "Guy Mannering," etc. + It is the making of a boy if he learns to love Scott. He will + make a gentleman of him, and give him an undying love of good + literature. + + Journal of Eugenie de Guerin. Full of delicacy and quiet + strength. + + Tom Brown, Hughes. An universal favorite. + + Curtis' "Prue and I." One of the very choicest books, both in + substance and expression,--especially remarkable for its moral + suggestiveness. + + Craddock's "Floating down Lost Creek." Most excellent. + + Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson. A story with a powerful + moral,--if we give scope to our evil nature, it will master us. + + Goldsmith's "Good-Natured Man." + + Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship." + + Ben Hur, Wallace. + + The Fool's Errand, Tourgee. + + The Boys' King Arthur, Lanier. + + Epictetus. + + Physiology for Girls, Shepard. + + Physiology for Boys, Shepard. + + What Young People should Know, Wilder. A book that no boy or + girl should be without. + + How Plants Behave, Gray. + + Goethe's "Erl King." + + Browning's "Ivan Ivanovitch." A favorite. + + The Forsaken Merman, Matthew Arnold. An exquisite poem. + + Longfellow's "Miles Standish." + + Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel." + + The Veiled Statue of Truth, Schiller. + + Guetenburg, and the Art of Printing. + + Doyle's "United States History." + + John Bright's "Speeches on the American Question." + + Backlog Studies, Warner. + + "Encyclopaedia of Persons and Places," and "Encyclopaedia of + Common Things," by Champlin, should be within the reach of + every child over twelve or thirteen years of age. + + _Literature adapted to a Child Fourteen to Fifteen Years of + Age._ + + Shakespeare's "Henry Fourth" and "Henry Fifth." + + Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, Holmes; and Irving's "Sketch + Book." Two of the best books in all the world. + + George Eliot's novels, especially "Silas Marner," "The Mill on + the Floss," "Romola," and "Adam Bede." + + The Wit and Wisdom of George Eliot. + + Our Best Society, Curtis. + + Bulwer's "Rienzi." + + The Marble Faun, Hawthorne. + + Sad Little Prince, Fawcett. + + Chita, or Youma, by Hearn, a master of English style. + + Grande Pointe, Cable. + + La Fontaine's Fables. + + Plutarch's "Morals." + + Ethics of the Dust, Ruskin. + + Lady How and Madam Why, Kingsley. + + Sketches of Creation, Winchell. Very interesting to children of + fourteen or fifteen. + + The Geological Story, Briefly Told, Dana. + + Ready for Business, or Choosing an Occupation, Fowler and + Wells. + + Ode to a Skylark, Shelley. + + Birds of Aristophanes, Frere. + + Alfred the Great, Hughes. + + Plutarch's "Lives." + + Green's "Short History of the English People." + + Demosthenes on the Crown. The finest of all orations. + + The Biglow Papers, Lowell. The best of fun and sense. + + Sweet Cicely, Holley. Quiet humor and unfailing wisdom. + + Higginson's "Vacations for Saints." A splendid example of + humorous writing. + + _Literature adapted to a Child Fifteen to Sixteen Years of Age + and upward._ + + Shakspeare's "Hamlet" and "The Tempest." + + Dante's "Inferno." + + Dickens' "Pickwick Papers," "David Copperfield," "Old Curiosity + Shop," etc. + + Thackeray's "Vanity Fair." + + Tourgee's "Hot Plowshares," and "With Fire and Sword," by + Sienkiewicz. Two of the greatest historical novels. + + Carlyle's "Past and Present." + + Arnold's "Sweetness and Light." + + Ruskin's "Crown of Wild Olive." + + Emerson's Essays on "Manners," "Self-Reliance," "Eloquence," + "Friendship," "Representative Men," etc. + + Mrs. Whitney's "Sights and Insights." A book that is filled + with beautiful thoughts and unselfish actions. + + Spencer's "Data of Ethics." Indispensable to a complete + understanding of ethical subjects. + + "The Light of Asia." A book that cannot fail to broaden and + deepen every life it touches. + + Ten Great Religions, Clarke. + + Omar. Superb poetry. + + Bryant's "Thanatopsis." + + Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." A lesson of the awfulness of + cruelty. + + Auld Lang Syne, Burns. + + Toilers of the Sea, Hugo. + + Huxley's "Man's Place in Nature." + + Tyndall's "Forms of Water." + + Our Country, Strong. A book that ought to be in the hands of + every young person. + + Bryce's "American Commonwealth." + + Guizot's "History of Civilization." + + Mill's "Logic." No young man can afford to remain unacquainted + with this book. + + The Hand and Ring, Green. One of the finest examples of + reasoning in the language. + + Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue" is another such example, and + his "Gold Bug" is another. + + Phillips' Speeches + + Webster's "Liberty and Union." + + Golden Treasury, Palgrave. + + The Spectator. One of the very best books to study, in order to + form a good style. Franklin and others attribute their success + largely to reading it carefully in boyhood. + + The Fable for Critics, Lowell. + + The Yankee at the Court of King Arthur, Twain. Fun and sense + welded together to make the most delightful book the author has + written. + + + + +SPECIAL STUDIES. + + +Next in value to a love of good reading is a habit of concentrating the +attention upon one subject through a long course of reading. In this way +only can any thorough mastery be obtained. The child should be taught +not to be satisfied with the thought of any one writer, but to +investigate the ideas of all upon the topic in hand, and then form his +own opinion. Thus he will gain breadth, depth, tolerance, independence, +and scientific method in the search for truth. Of course it is +impossible in a work of this kind to map out lines of study for the +multitudinous needs of young people. The universities and the libraries +provide the means of gaining full information as to the literature of +any subject that may be selected. A few topic-clusters may, however, be +of use here in the way of illustration. Many examples will be found in +Baldwin's "The Book Lover." + +=The Industrial Question=.--Suppose a young man desired to study the +industrial question, which is one of the most important subjects of +to-day, the proper method would be to go to one of the great libraries, +or examine the catalogues of the large publishing-houses, to discover +the names of recent books on the given topic, or on such subjects as +Labor and Capital, Socialism, Co-operation, etc. Such books usually +refer to others, and name many kindred works on the last pages. Thus the +student's list will swell. I have myself investigated more than two +hundred books on this topic and those it led me to. A few of the more +important I will name as a starting-point for any one wishing to follow +this research. + + Labor, Thornton. + + Conflict of Labor and Capital, Bolles; also, Howell. + + Political Economy, Mill. + + Progress and Poverty, George. + + Profit-Sharing, Gilman. + + In Darkest England, Booth. + + Wages and the Wages Class, Walker. + + Book of the New Moral World, Owen. + + Communistic Societies of the United States, Nordhoff. + + Dynamic Sociology, Ward. + + Looking Backward, Bellamy. + + Destinee Sociale, Considerant. + + More's "Utopia." + + Co-operative Societies, Watts. + + History of Co-operation, Holyoake. + + The Margin of Profits, Atkinson. + + Gronlund's "Co-operative Commonwealth." + + Capital, Karl Marx. + + The State in relation to Labor, Jevons. + + Organisation du Travail, Louis Blanc. + + Co-operative Stores, Morrison. + + Labor and Capital, Jervis. + + Newton's "Co-operative Production and Co-operative + Distribution in the United States." + + Property and Progress, Mallock. + + Principles of Sociology, Spencer. + + Mill on Socialism. + + The Progress of the Working Classes, Giffen. + + Ely's "French and German Socialism," "Problems of To-day," + and "Labor Movement in America." + + Dilke's "Problems of Greater Britain." + + Contemporary Socialism, Rae. + + Outlines of an Industrial Science, Symes. + + Early History of Land-holding among the Germans, + Ross; etc. + +=Malthusianism=.--To take a smaller example. Suppose the student wishes +to make a thorough study of the doctrine of Malthusius in regard to +population, he will have to refer to Macaulay's "Essay on Sadler," and +the works on Political Economy of Ricardo, Chalmers, Roscher, etc., in +support of Malthus, and to George's "Progress and Poverty," Spencer's +"Biology" (Vol. II.), Sadler's "Law of Population," and the works of +Godwin, Greg, Rickards, Doubleday, Carey, Alison, etc., against him. + +For an example of a very different kind, cluster about the myth of Cupid +the poems "Cupid and my Campaspe," by Lilly; "The Threat of Cupid," +translated by Herrick; "Cupid Drowned," by Leigh Hunt; and "Cupid +Stung," by Moore. + +A great deal depends on selecting some department of thought and +exhausting it. To know something of everything and everything of +something is the true aim. If a child displays fine musical or artistic +ability, among the books given it ought to be many that bear upon music +and art,--the "Autobiography of Rubenstein;" the Lives of Beethoven, +Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Mendelssohn; and Rocksho's "History of Music," +Upton's "Woman in Music," Clayton's "Queens of Song," Lillie's "Music +and the Musician," Haweis' "Music and Morals," Jameson's "Lives of the +Painters," Crowest's "Tone Poets," Clement's "Painting and Sculpture," +Mereweather's "Semele, or the Spirit of Beauty," etc. + +Probably these examples, with those to be found in the notes to Table +I., are amply sufficient to show what is meant by grouping the lights of +literature about a single point so as to illuminate it intensely; but +one more specimen will be given, because of the interest the subject has +for us now and is likely to have for many years. + +=The Tariff Question= may be studied in Ely's "Problems of To-day," +Greeley's "Political Economy," Carey's "Principles of Social Science," +E. P. Smith's "Manual of Political Economy," Byles's "Sophisms of Free +Trade," Thompson's "Social Science and National Economy," Bastiat's +"Sophisms of Protection," Mill's "Political Economy," Sumner's "Lectures +on the History of Protection in the United States," Fawcett's "Free +Trade and Protection," Mongredien's "History of the Free Trade +Movement," Butt's "Protection Free Trade," Walters' "What is Free +Trade," "The Gladstone-Blaine Debate," etc. + + + + +TABLE V. + + +_Showing the Distribution of the Best Literature in Time and Space, with +a Parallel Reference to some of the World's Great Events._ + + [It was impossible to get the writers of the eighteenth and + nineteenth centuries into the unit space. The former fills a + space twice the unit width, and the latter, when it is + complete, will require five units.] + + +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + | | | | | + | GREECE | B.C. | ISRAEL | | + | Homer | 1000 | David, The | | + | Hesiod | | Psalms | | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | | 900 | | | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | | 800 | | Rome founded | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | AEsop | 700 | | | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | | 600 | INDIA | Nebuchadnezzar, | + | | | Buddha | king of Babylon | + | | | | | + | | | | Republic | + | | | | established at | + | | | | Rome | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | THE GOLDEN AGE OF GRECIAN | 500 | Mahabharata | Darius, king of | + | LITERATURE | | Ramayana | Persia | + | Pindar AEschylus Herodotus | |(Epics of India)| GREECE | + | Sophocles Thucydides| | | Battle of | + | | | | Marathon | + | Pericles Euripides Xenophon | | | " " Thermopylae | + | Aristophanes | | | " " Salamis | + | | | | Cincinnatus at | + | | | | Rome | + | Socrates | | |Ezra at Jerusalem | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | Plato | 400 | | Alexander | + | Aristotle | | | The Gauls burn | + | Demosthenes | | | Rome | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | | 300 | | Wars of Rome | + | | | | against Carthage | + | | | |Hannibal in Italy | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | | 200 | | Greece becomes a | + | | | | Roman Province | + | | | | | + | | | | ROME | + | | | | The Gracchi, | + | | | | Marius, and | + | | | | Sylla | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + |ROME. AUGUSTAN AGE, 31 | 100 | | ROME | + | B. C. TO A. D. 14. | | | | + | Reatinus Ovid | | | Pompey | + | Sallust Livy | | | Civil War, | + | Cicero Lucretius | | | Empire | + | Virgil | | | established | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | Tacitus | A.D. | | Jerusalem taken | + | | | | by Titus | + | Plutarch Juvenal | | | Pompeii | + | | | | overwhelmed | + | Pliny | | Josephus | Romans conquer | + | | | | Britain | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | Epictetus | 100 | | Church Fathers | + | Marcus Aurelius | | | | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | | 200 | | | + | | | | Aurelian conquers | + | | | | Zenobia | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | | 300 | | Under Constantine | + | | | | Christianity | + | | | | becomes the | + | | | | State religion | + | | | | Roman Empire | + | | | | divided | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | | 400 | | Angles and Saxons | + | | | | drive out the | + | | | | Britons | + | | | | Huns under Attila | + | | | | invade the | + | | | | Roman Empire | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | | 500 | | Christianity | + | | | | carried to | + | | | | England by | + | | | | Augustine | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | ENGLISH LITERATURE | 600 | ARABIA | | + | Caedmon | | Mahomet | | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | Baeda | 700 | | FRANCE | + | Cynewulf | | | Charlemagne | + | | | | founds the | + | | | | Empire of the | + | | | | West | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | AElfred, 850-900 | 800 | | Danes overrun | + | | | | England | + | | | | _AElfred's_ | + | | | | _glorious | + | | | | _reign_ | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | | 900 | | Chivalry begins | + | | | | Capetian kings in | + | | | | France | + | | | | ENGLAND | + | | | | Saint Dunstan | + | | | | Papal supremacy | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | | 1000 | PERSIA | ENGLAND | + | | | Firdusi's Shah| Canute the Great| + | | | Nameh | 1066. | + | | | | _Norman_ | + | | | | _Conquest_ | + | | | | Peter the Hermit | + | | | | First Crusade | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | Geoffrey of Monmouth | 1100 |PERSIA | ENGLAND | + | | | Omar Khayyam | Plantagenets | + | | |GERMANY | Richard I. | + | | | Nibelungenlied| | + | | | SPAIN | FRANCE | + | | | Chronicle of | Second and Third| + | | | the Cid | Crusades | + | | | | Saint Bernard | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | Layamon | 1200 |PERSIA | ENGLAND | + | Roger Bacon | | Saadi | 1215. Runnymede,| + | | | | Magna Charta | + | | | | Edward I. | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | Mandeville | 1300 | ITALY | ENGLAND | + | Langland | | Dante | Chivalry at its | + | Wycliffe Chaucer | | Petrarch | height | + | Gower | | Boccaccio | The Black Prince| + | | | | _Gunpowder_ | + | | | | | + | | |PERSIA | FRANCE | + | | | Hafiz | Battles of | + | | | | Crecy, | + | | | | Poictiers, and| + | | | | Agincourt | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | Lydgate | 1400 |GERMANY | ENGLAND | + | Fortescue | | Thomas a | Henry VIII. | + | Malory | | Kempis | shook off the | + | | | | Pope | + | | | Arabian Nights |_Movable Type_ | + | | | (probably) |_Discovery of_ | + | | |PERSIA |_America_ | + | | | Jami | Joan of Arc | + | | | | Wars of the Roses | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | | | | _Copernicus_ | + | More Ascham | 1500 | ITALY | _Kepler_ | + | Lyly Sackville | | Ariosto | _The Armada_ | + | Sidney | | Tasso | ENGLAND | + | Marlowe Fox | | Galileo | Henry VIII., | + | Spenser Hooker | | | Elizabeth | + | | | | GERMANY | + | | |FRANCE | 1515. _Luther's_ | + | | | Montaigne | _Reformation_ | + | | | | FRANCE | + | | | | Massacre of St. | + | | | | Bartholomew | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | Jonson Bacon Herbert | 1600 |SPAIN. | 1620. Plymouth | + | Shakspeare Newton J.Taylor| | Cervantes | Rock and the | + | Chapman Hobbes | | Calderon | "Mayflower" | + | Beaumont & Walton | |GERMANY | 1649 | + | Fletcher S. Butler | | Kepler | _Cromwell_ | + | Milton Locke | |FRANCE | 1660 Restoration | + | Bunyan Pepys | | Descartes |1688 Revolution | + | Dryden | | Corneille | William and Mary | + | | | Racine | FRANCE. | + | | | Moliere | Louis XIV. | + | | | La Fontain | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | Addison Cowper Otis | 1700 |FRANCE | 1776. American | + | Steele Burns Jay | | Montesquieu | Revolution | + | Pope Rogers Adams | | Le Sage | 1789-94. French | + | Defoe Hume Hamilton | | Rousseau | Revolution | + | Swift Edwards Madison | | Voltaire | ENGLAND | + | Berkeley A. Smith Jefferson| | | Marlborough | + | J. Butler Bentham Pitt | |GERMANY | | + | Moore Gibbon Burke | | Munchausen | | + | Thomson Johnson Fox | | Lessing | | + | Young Boswell Erskine | | | | + | Gray Malthus P. Henry.| | | | + | Goldsmith Mackintosh | | | | + | Sterne Paine | | | | + | | | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + | | | | | + | Scott Herschel DeQuincey| 1800 |GERMANY | 1807. Fulton's | + | Byron Whewell Whately | | Schiller | Steamboat | + | Bryant Ricardo Jeffrey | | Goethe | Wellington | + | Drake Carey Brougham | | Kant | 1815. Waterloo | + | Wordsworth Faraday S. Smith | | Fichte | 1815. White wives | + | Keats Lyell C. North | | Hegel | sold in England | + | Shelley Agassiz N. Webster| | Schelling | 1830. Passenger | + | Payne Whitney H. H. White| | Niebuhr | railway | + | Keble A. Gray D. Webster| | Schlosser | 1833. Matches | + | Halleck Hallam Sparks | | Heine | 1844. Telegraph | + | Key Prescott Story | | Haeckel | 1845. Mexican War | + | Macaulay Lewes Gould | | Helmholtz | | + | Hood Milman Cooper | | Grimm | | + | Poe Buckle Disraeli | | Froebel | | + | Read Merivale Dickens | | | | + | Tennyson Hildreth Thackeray| |FRANCE | 1860. Rebellion | + | Browning Freeman Bronte | | La Place | 1863. Emancipation| + | Lowell Draper Hawthorne| | Guizot | | + | Longfellow Froude Irving | | De Tocqueville| | + | Carleton Walpole Hughes | | Comte | | + | Ingelow Lecky Kingsley | | Hugo | | + | Whittier Parkman Eliot | | Dumas | 1870. Franco- | + | Mill Bancroft Collins | | Balzac | German War | + | Spencer Whipple Macdonald| | Renan | 1874. The | + | Ruskin Twain Hunt | | Taine | Telephone | + | Arnold Jerrold Wallace | | | Emancipation of | + | Curtis Choate Clarke | |RUSSIA | serfs in | + | Holmes Lincoln Landor | | Pushkin | Russia | + | Mansel Phillips Tourgee | | Lermontoff | | + | Carlyle Everett Holland | | Bashkirtseff | | + | Emerson Sumner Howells | | Tolstoi | | + | Darwin Garfield Mrs. Whitney| | | | + | Huxley Gladstone Miss Alcott| |DENMARK | | + | Dana A. D. White Bellamy | | Andersen | | + | Tyndall Beecher Gronlund | | | | + | Lubbock P. Brooks Gilman | |POLAND | | + | Proctor Lamb Holley | | Sienkiewicz | | + | Davy Hazlitt Dodge | | | | + | Proctor Lamb Jewett | | | | + | Davy Hazlitt Burroughs| | | | + | Bright Rives Stowe | | | | + | Fiske Aldrich Hearn | | | | + | Curtin Warner Burnett | | | | + | Hale Curtis | | | | + | Edwards Higginson | | | | + | | | | | + | | 1900 | | | + +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ + + + + +REMARKS ON TABLE V. + + +=Definitions and Divisions=.--Literature is life pulsing through life +upon life; but only when the middle life imparts new beauty to the first +is literature produced in any true and proper sense. The last life is +that of the reader; the middle one that of the author; the first that of +the person or age he pictures. Literature is the past pouring itself +into the present. Every great man consumes and digests his own times. +Shakspeare gives us the England of the 16th century, with the added +qualities of beauty, ideality, and order. When we read Gibbon's "Rome," +it is really the life of all those turbulent times of which he writes +that is pouring upon us through the channels of genius. Dante paints +with his own sublime skill the portraits of Italy in the 14th century, +of his own rich, inner life, and of the universal human soul in one +composite masterpiece of art. In one of Munchausen's stories, a bugler +on the stage-top in St. Petersburg was surprised to find that the bugle +stopped in the middle of the song. Afterward, in Italy, sweet music was +heard, and upon investigation it was found that a part of the song had +been frozen in the instrument in Russia, and thawed in the warmer air of +Italy. So the music of river and breeze, of battle and banquet, was +frozen in the verse of Homer nearly three thousand years ago, and is +ready at any time, under the heat of our earnest study, to pour its +harmony into our lives. + +It is the fact that beauty is added by the author which distinguishes +_Literature_ from the pictures of life that are given to us by newspaper +reporters, tables of statistics, etc. Literature is not merely life,--it +is life _crystallized in art_. This is the first great line dividing the +Literary from the Non-Literary. The first class is again divided into +Poetry and Prose. In the first the form is measured, and the substance +imagery and imagination. In the latter the form is unmeasured, and the +substance direct. Imagery is the heart of poetry, and rhythm its body. +The thought must be expressed not in words merely, but in words that +convey other thoughts through which the first shines. The inner life is +pictured in the language of external Nature, and Nature is painted in +the colors of the heart. The poet must dip his brush in that eternal +paint-pot from which the forests and fields, the mountains, the sky, and +the stars were painted. He must throw human life out upon the world, and +draw the world into the stream of his own thought. Sometimes we find the +substance of the poetic in the dress of prose, as in Emerson's and in +Ingersoll's lectures, and then we have the prose poem; and sometimes we +find the form of poetry with only the direct expression, which is the +substance of prose, or perhaps without even the substance of _literary_ +prose, as in parts of Wordsworth, Pope, Longfellow, Homer, Tennyson, +and even sometimes in Shakspeare; see, for example, Tennyson's "Dirge." + +=Tests for the Choice of Books=.--In deciding which of those glorious +ships that sail the ages, bringing their precious freight of genius to +every time and people, we shall invite into our ports, we must consider +the nature of the crew, the beauty, strength, and size of the vessel, +the depth of our harbor, the character of the cargo, and our own wants. +In estimating the value of a book, we have to note (1) the kind of life +that forms its material; (2) the qualities of the author,--that is, of +the life through which the stream comes to us, and whose spirit is +caught by the current, as the breezes that come through the garden bear +with them the perfume of flowers that they touch; (3) the form of the +book, its music, simplicity, size, and artistic shape; (4) its merits, +compared with the rest of the books in its own sphere of thought; (5) +its fame; (6) our abilities; and (7) our needs. There result several +tests of the claims of any book upon our attention. + +I. What effect will it have upon character? Will it make me more +careful, earnest, sincere, placid, sympathetic, gay, enthusiastic, +loving, generous, pure, and brave by exercising these emotions in me, +and more abhorrent of evil by showing me its loathsomeness; or more +sorrowful, fretful, cruel, envious, vindictive, cowardly, and false, +less reverent of right and more attracted by evil, by picturing good as +coming from contemptible sources, and evil as clothed with beauty? Is +the author such a man as I would wish to be the companion of my heart, +or such as I must study to avoid? + +II. What effect will the book produce upon the mind? Will it exercise +and strengthen my fancy, imagination, memory, invention, originality, +insight, breadth, common-sense, and philosophic power? Will it make me +bright, witty, reasonable, and tolerant? Will it give me the quality of +intellectual beauty? Will it give me a deeper knowledge of human life, +of Nature, and of my business, or open the doorways of any great temple +of science where I am as yet a stranger? Will it help to build a +standard of taste in literature for the guidance of myself and others? +Will it give me a knowledge of what other people are thinking and +feeling, thus opening the avenues of communication between my life and +theirs? + +III. What will be the effect on my skills and accomplishments? Will it +store my mind full of beautiful thoughts and images that will make my +conversation a delight and profit to my friends? Will it teach me how to +write with power, give me the art of thinking clearly and expressing my +thought with force and attractiveness? Will it supply a knowledge of the +best means of attaining any other desired art or accomplishment? + +IV. Is the book simple enough for me? Is it within my grasp? If not, I +must wait till I have come upon a level with it. + +V. Will the book impart a pleasure in the very reading? This test alone +is not reliable; for till our taste is formed, the trouble may not be in +it but in ourselves. + +VI. Has it been superseded by a later book, or has its truth passed into +the every-day life of the race? If so, I do not need to read it. Other +things equal, the authors nearest to us in time and space have the +greatest claims on our attention. Especially is this true in science, in +which each succeeding great book sucks the life out of all its +predecessors. In poetry there is a principle that operates in the +opposite direction; for what comes last is often but an imitation, that +lacks the fire and force of the original. Nature is best painted, not +from books, but from her own sweet face. + +VII. What is the relation of the book to the completeness of my +development? Will it fill a gap in the walls of my building? Other +things equal, I had better read about something I know nothing of than +about something I am familiar with; for the aim is to get a picture of +the universe in my brain, and a full development of my whole nature. It +is a good plan to read everything of something and something of +everything. A too general reader seems vague and hazy, as if he were fed +on fog; and a too special reader is narrow and hard, as if fed on +needles. + +VIII. Is the matter inviting my attention of permanent value? The +profits of reading what is merely of the moment are not so great as +those accruing from the reading of literature that is of all time. To +hear the gossip of the street is not as valuable as to hear the lectures +of Joseph Cook, or the sermons of Beecher and Brooks. On this principle, +most of our time should be spent on classics, and very little upon +transient matter. There is a vast amount of energy wasted in this +country in the reading of newspapers and periodicals. The newspaper is a +wonderful thing. It brings the whole huge earth to me in a little brown +wrapper every morning. The editor is a sort of travelling stage-manager, +who sets up his booth on my desk every day, bringing with him the +greatest performers from all the countries of the world, to play their +parts before my eyes. Yonder is an immense mass-meeting; and that mite, +brandishing his mandibles in an excited manner, is the great Mr. +So-and-So, explaining his position amid the tumultuous explosions of an +appreciative multitude. That puffet of smoke and dust to the right is a +revolution. There in the shadow of the wood comes an old man who lays +down a scythe and glass while he shifts the scenes, and we see a bony +hand reaching out to snatch back a player in the midst of his part, and +even trying to clutch the showman himself. For three dollars a year I +can buy a season ticket to this great Globe theatre, for which God +writes the dramas, whose scene-shifter is Time, and whose curtain is +rung down by Death.[1] But theatre-going, if kept up continuously, is +very enervating. 'T is better far to read the hand-bills and placards +at the door, and only when the play is great go in. Glance at the +head-lines of the paper always; read the mighty pages seldom. The +editors could save the nation millions of rich hours by a daily column +of _brief but complete_ statements of the paper's contents, instead of +those flaring head-lines that allure but do not satisfy, and only lead +us on to read that Mr. Windbag nominated Mr. Darkhorse amid great +applause, and that Mr. Darkhorse accepted in a three-column speech +skilfully constructed so as to commit himself to nothing; or that Mr. +Bondholder's daughter was married, and that Mrs. So-and-So wore cream +satin and point lace, with roses, etc. + +[1] Adapted from Lowell. + +=Intrinsic Merit=.--It must be noted that the tests of intrinsic merit +are not precisely the same as the tests for the choice of books. The +latter include the former and more. Intrinsic merit depends on the +character impressed upon the book by its subject-matter and the author; +but in determining the claims of a book upon the attention of the +ordinary English reader, it is necessary not only to look at the book +itself, but also to consider the needs and abilities of the reader. One +may not be able to read the book that is intrinsically the best, because +of the want of time or lack of sufficient mental development. Green's +"Short History of England" and Dickens' "Child's History of England" may +not be the greatest works in their department, but they may have the +_greatest claims on the attention_ of one whose time or ability is +limited. A chief need of every one is to know what others are thinking +and feeling. To open up avenues of communication between mind and mind +is one of the great objects of reading. Now it often happens that a book +of no very high merit artistically considered--a book that can never +take rank as a classic--becomes very famous, and is for a time the +subject of much comment and conversation. In such cases all who would +remain in thorough sympathy with their fellows must give the book at +least a hasty reading, or in some way gain a knowledge of its contents. +Intrinsically "Robert Elsmere" and "Looking Backward" may not be worthy +of high rank (though I am by no means so sure of this as many of the +critics seem to be); but their fame, joined as it is with high motive, +entitles them to a reading. + +It is always a good plan, however, to endeavor to ascertain the absolute +or intrinsic merit of a book first, and afterward arrive at the relative +value or claim upon the attention by making the correction required by +the time and place, later publications in the same department, the +peculiar needs and abilities of readers, etc. + +In testing intrinsic worth we must consider-- + + Motive. + Magnitude. + Unity. + Universality. + Suggestiveness. + Expression. + +=Motive=.--The purpose of the author and the emotional character of the +subject matter are of great importance. A noble subject nobly handled +begets nobility in the reader, and a spirit of meanness brought into a +book by its subject or author also impresses itself upon those who come +in contact with it. Kind, loving books make the world more +tender-hearted; coarse and lustful books degrade mankind. The nobility +of the sentiment in and underlying a work is therefore a test of prime +importance. + + Whittier's "Voices of Freedom," + Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal," + Tennyson's "Locksley Hall," + Warner's "A-Hunting of the Deer," + Shakspeare's "Coriolanus," + Macaulay's "Horatius" and "Virginia," + AEschylus' "Prometheus," + Dickens' "Christmas Carol," + Sewell's "Black Beauty," + Chaucer's "Griselda," + Browning's "Ivan Ivanovitch," + Arnold's "Forsaken Merman," and "The Light of Asia," + +are fine examples of high motive. + +=Magnitude=.--The grander the subject, the deeper the impression upon +us. In reading a book like "The Light of Asia," that reveals the heart +of a great religion, or Guizot's "Civilization in Europe," that deals +with the life of a continent, or Darwin's "Origin of Species," or +Spencer's "Nebular Hypothesis," that grapples with problems as wide as +the world and as deep as the starry spaces,--in reading such books we +receive into ourselves a larger part of the universe than when we devote +ourselves to the history of the town we live in, or the account of the +latest game of base ball. + +=Unity=.--A book, picture, statue, play, or oratorio is an artistic +unity when no part of it could be removed without injury to the whole +effect. True art masses many forces to a single central purpose. The +more complex a book is in its substance (not its expression),--that is +to say, the greater the variety of thoughts and feelings compressed +within its lids,--the higher it will rank, if the parts are good in +themselves and are so related as to produce one tremendous effect. But +no intrusion of anything not essentially related to the supreme purpose +can be tolerated. A good book is like a soldier who will not burden +himself with anything that will not increase his fighting power, +because, if he did, its weight would _diminish_ his fighting force. In +the same way, if a book contains unnecessary matter, a portion of the +attention that should be concentrated upon the real purpose of the +volume, is absorbed by the superfluous pages, rendering the effect less +powerful than it would otherwise be. Most of the examples of high motive +named above, would be in place here, especially,-- + + Prometheus. + The Forsaken Merman. + The Light of Asia. + +Other fine specimens of unity are,-- + + Holmes's "Nautilus." + Hood's "Bridge of Sighs." + Gray's "Elegy." + Hunt's "Abou Ben Adhem." + Longfellow's "Psalm of Life." + Whittier's "Barefoot Boy." + Shelley's "Ode to a Skylark." + Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind." + Byron's "Eve of Waterloo." + Bryant's "Thanatopsis." + Reed's "Drifting." + Drake's "Culprit Fay." + Irving's "Art of Bookmaking," etc. (in "Sketch Book"). + Rives' "Story of Arnon." + Dante's "Divine Comedy." + Schiller's "Veiled Statue of Truth." + Goethe's "Erl King." + +Humor alone has a right to violate unity even apparently; and although +wit and humor produce their effects by displaying incongruities, yet +underlying all high art, in this department as in others, there is +always a deep unity,--a truth revealed and enforced by the destruction +of its contradictories accomplished by the sallies of wit and humor. + +=Universality=.--Other things equal, the more people interested in the +subject the more important the book. A matter which affects a million +people is of more consequence than one which affects only a single +person. National affairs, and all matters of magnitude, of course +possess this quality; but magnitude is not necessary to +universality,--the thoughts, feelings, and actions of an unpretentious +person in a little village may be types of what passes in the life of +every human being, and by their representativeness attain a more +universal interest for mankind than the business and politics of a +state. + +The rules of tennis are not of so wide importance as an English grammar, +nor is the latter so universal as Dante's "Inferno" or "The Meditations +of Marcus Aurelius,"--these being among the books that in the highest +degree possess the quality under discussion. Other fine examples are-- + + Goethe's "Faust." + Shakespeare's Plays and Sonnets. + Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." + Arnold's "Light of Asia." + Bacon's and Emerson's Essays. + "Uncle Tom's Cabin." + Sewell's "Black Beauty." + Eliot's "Romola." + Curtis' "Prue and I." + Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans." + Tourgee's "Hot Plowshares." + Irving's "Sketch Book." + Plato, Spencer, etc. + +In fact, all books that express love, longing, admiration, tenderness, +sorrow, laughter, joy, victory over nature or man, or any other thought +or feeling common to men, have the attribute of universality in greater +or less degree. + +=Suggestiveness=.--Every great work of art suggests far more than it +expresses. This truth is illustrated by paintings like Bierstadt's +"Yosemite" or his "Drummer Boy," Millet's "Angelus," or Turner's "Slave +Ship." Statues like the "Greek Slave" or "The Forced Prayer;" speeches +like those of Phillips, Fox, Clay, Pitt, Bright, Webster, and Brooks; +songs like "Home, Sweet Home," "My Country," "Douglas," "Annie Laurie;" +and books like + + Emerson's Essays. + AEschylus' "Prometheus." + Goethe's "Faust" and "Wilhelm Meister." + Dante's "Divine Comedy." + "Hamlet" and many other of Shakspeare's Plays. + Curtis' "Prue and I." + The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. + The Sermons of Phillips Brooks and Robertson. + "My Summer in a Garden," by Warner; etc. + +A single sentence in Emerson often suggests a train of thought that +would fill a volume; and a single inflection of Patti's voice in singing +"Home, Sweet Home" will fill the heart to overflowing. + +=Expression=.--Like a musician, an author must study technique. A book +may possess high motive, artistic unity, universality, suggestiveness, +magnitude of thought, and yet be lacking in clearness, purity, music, +smoothness, force, finish, tone-color, or even in proper grammatical +construction. The style ought to be carefully adapted to the subject and +to the readers likely to be interested in it. _Force_ and _beauty_ may +be imparted to the subject by a good style. In poetry beauty is the +supreme object, the projection of truth upon the _mind_ being +subordinate. Poetry expresses the truths of the soul. In prose, on the +other hand, truth is the main purpose, and beauty is used as a helper. +As a soldier studies his guns, and a dentist his tools, so a writer must +study the laws of rhythm, accent, phrasing, alliteration, phonetic +syzygy, run-on and double-ending lines, rhyme, and, last but not least, +the melodies of common speech. The first three and the last are the most +important, and should be thoroughly studied in Shakspeare, Addison, +Irving, and other masters of style by every one who wishes to write or +to judge the work of others. Except as to rhyme, the arts of writing +prose and poetry are substantially the same. Theoretically there is a +fundamental difference in respect to rhythm,--that of a poem being +limited to the repetition of some chosen type, that of prose being +unlimited. A little study makes it clear, however, that the highest +poetry, as that of Shakspeare's later plays, crowds the type with the +forms of common speech; while the highest efforts of prose, as that of +Addison, Irving, Phillips, Ingersoll's oration over his dead brother, +etc., display rhythms that approach the order and precision of poetry. +In practice the best prose and the best poetry approach each other very +closely, moving from different directions toward the same point. + +It is of great advantage to form the habit of noticing the _tunes_ of +speech used by those around us; the study will soon become very +pleasurable, and will be highly profitable by teaching the observer what +mode of expression is appropriate to each variety of thought and +feeling. There is a rhythm that of itself produces a comic effect, no +matter how sober the words may be; and it is the same that we find in +"Pinafore," in the "Mariner's Duet" in the opera of "Paul Jones," and in +the minstrel dance. For fifteen centuries all the great battle-songs +have been written in the same rhythm; they fall into it naturally, +because it expresses the movement of mighty conflict. See Lanier's +"Science of English Verse," pages 151 _et seq._, 231 _et seq._ This is +the best book upon technique; but Spencer's Essay on the Philosophy of +Style, and Poe's Essay on his composition of "The Raven" should not be +overlooked. Franklin and many others have discovered the laws of style +simply by careful study of the "Spectator." + +Of course it is not easy to decide the true rank of a book, even when we +have tested it in respect to all the elements we have named. One book +may be superior in expression, another in suggestiveness, and so on. +Then we have to take note of the relative importance of these various +elements of greatness. A little superiority in motive or suggestiveness +is worth far more than the same degree of superiority as to unity or +magnitude. A book filled with noble sentiment, though lacking unity, +should rank far above "Don Juan," or any other volume that expresses +the ignoble part of human nature, however perfect the work may be from +an artistic point of view. Having now examined the tests of intrinsic +merit, let me revert for a moment to my remark, a few pages back, to the +effect that "Looking Backward" and "Robert Elsmere" deserve a high rank. +They are books of _lofty aim_, great magnitude of subject and thought, +fine unity, _wide universality_, _exhaustless suggestiveness_, and more +than ordinary power of expression. Doubtless they are not _absolute_ +classics,--not books of all time,--for their subjects are transitional, +not eternal. They deal with _doubts_, religious and industrial; when +these have passed away, the mission of the books will be fulfilled, and +their importance will be less. But they are _relative_ classics,--books +that are of great value to their age, and will be great as long as their +subjects are prominent. + + + + +SUPREME BOOKS + + IN THE LITERATURES OF ENGLAND, AMERICA, GREECE, ROME, ITALY, + FRANCE, SPAIN, GERMANY, PERSIA, PORTUGAL, DENMARK, RUSSIA. + + + + +PERIODS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. + + +The highest summit of our literature--and indeed of the literature of +the world--is Shakspeare. He brings us life in the greatest force and +volume, of the highest quality, and clothed in the richest beauty. His +age, which was practically identical with the reign of Elizabeth, is the +golden age of English letters; and taking it for a basis of division, we +have the Pre-Shakspearian Age from 600 to 1559, the Shakspearian Age +from 1559 to 1620, and the Post-Shakspearian Age from 1620 to the +present. + +=The first age= is divided into three periods. + +_First_, the Early Period, from 600 to the Norman Conquest in 1066, +which holds the names of Beowulf,[2] Caedmon,[3] Baeda,[4] Cynewulf, and +AElfred, the great king who did so much for the learning of his country, +bringing many great scholars into England from all over the world, and +himself writing the best prose that had been produced in English, and +changing the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle"--till his time a mere record of +noble births and deaths--into a valuable periodical, the progenitor of +the vast horde that threatens to expel the classics in our day. The +literature of this period has little claim upon us except on the ground +of breadth. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, and the poems of _Beowulf_, +_Caedmon_, and _Cynewulf_, should be glanced at to see what sort of +people our ancestors were. + +[2] An epic poem, full of the life, in peace and war, of our Saxon +fathers before they came to England. + +[3] The writer of a paraphrase on the Bible; a feeble Milton. + +[4] A very learned man, who gathered many scholars about him, and who +finished translating the Gospel of John on his death-bed and with his +latest breath. + +_Second_, the Period of Chaucer, from 1066 to the death of Chaucer in +1400. The great books of this period were _Mandeville's Travels_, +Langland's "Piers the Ploughman." Wycliffe's translation of the Bible +(these two books, with Wycliffe's tracts, went all over England among +the common people, rousing them against the Catholic Church, and +starting the reformation that afterward grew into Puritanism, and gained +control of the nation under Cromwell), Gower's Poems, and _Chaucer's +Canterbury Tales_. Those in italics are the only books that claim our +reading. Mandeville travelled thirty years, and then wrote all he saw +and all he heard from the mouth of rumor. Chaucer is half French and +two-thirds Italian. He drank in the spirit of the Golden Age of Italy, +which was in the early part of his own century. Probably he met Petrarch +and Boccaccio, and certainly he drew largely from their works as well as +from Dante's, and he dug into poor Gower as into a stone quarry. He is +still our best story-teller in verse, and one of our most musical poets; +and every one should know something of this "morning star of English +poetry," by far the greatest light before the Elizabethan age, and still +easily among the first five or six of our poets. + +_Third_, the Later Period, from 1400 to 1559, in which _Malory's Morte +D'Arthur_, containing fragments of the stories about King Arthur and the +knights of his round table, which like a bed-rock crop out so often in +English Literature, should be read while reading Tennyson's "Idylls of +the King," which is based upon Malory; and _Sir Thomas More's Utopia_ +also claims some attention on the plea of breadth, as it is the work of +a great mind, thoroughly and practically versed in government, and sets +forth his idea of a perfect commonwealth. + +In this age of nine and a half centuries there were, then, ten +noteworthy books and one great book; eight only of the eleven, however, +have any claim upon our attention, the last three being all that are +entitled to more than a rapid reading by the general student; and only +Chaucer for continuous companionship can rank high, and even he cannot +be put on the first shelf. + + * * * * * + +=In the Shakspearian Age= the great books were (1) _Roger Ascham's +Schoolmaster_, which was a fine argument for kindness in teaching and +nobility in the teacher, but has been superseded by Spencer's +"Education." (2) _Sackville's Induction_ to a series of political +tragedies, called "A Mirror for Magistrates." The poet goes down into +hell like Dante, and meets Remorse, Famine, War, Misery, Care, Sleep, +Death, etc., and talks with noted Englishmen who had fallen. This +"Mirror" was of great fame and influence in its day; and the +"Induction," though far inferior to both Chaucer and Spenser, is yet the +best poetic work done in the time between those masters. (3) _John +Lyly's Euphues_, a book that expressed the thought of Ascham's +"Schoolmaster" in a style peculiar for its puns, antitheses, and +floweriness,--a style which made a witty handling of language the chief +aim of writing. Lyly was a master of the art, and the ladies of the +court committed his sentences in great numbers, that they might shine in +society. The book has given a word to the language; that affected +word-placing style is known as _euphuistic_. The book has no claims upon +our reading. (4) _Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia_, a romance in the same +conceited style as the "Euphues," and only valuable as a mine for poetic +images. (5) _Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity_, which was a defence of the +church system against the Puritans. The latter said that no such system +of church government could be found in the Bible, and therefore should +not exist. Hooker answered that Nature was a revelation from God as well +as the Bible; and if in Nature and society there were good reasons for +the existence of an institution, that was enough. The book is not of +importance to the general reader to-day, for the truth of its principles +is universally admitted. (6) _The Plays of Marlowe_, a very powerful but +gross writer. His "Dr. Faustus" may very properly receive attention, +but only after the best plays of Shakspeare, Jonson, Calderon, Racine, +Moliere, Corneille, AEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes +have been carefully read. (7) _The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher_, +which are filled with beauty and imagination, mingled with the immodesty +and vulgarity that were natural to this age. The remark just made about +Marlowe applies here. (8) _Fox's Book of Martyrs_, which for the sake of +breadth should be glanced at by every one. The marvellous heroism and +devotion to faith on one side, and cruelty on the other that come to us +through the pages of this history, open a new world to the modern mind. +(9) _Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene_, which combines the poetry of a +Homer with the allegory of a Bunyan. It presents moral truth under vast +and beautiful imagery. In English poetry it claims our attention next to +Shakspeare and Milton. (10) _Ben Jonson's Plays_, which stand next to +those of Shakspeare in English drama. (11) _The Plays of Shakspeare_, +which need no comment, as they have already been placed at the summit of +all literature; and (12) _Bacon's Works_, including the _Novum Organum_, +the _New Atlantis_, and the _Essays_, the first of which, though one of +the greatest books of the world, setting forth the true methods of +arriving at truth by experiment and observation and the collation of +facts, we do not need to read, because the substance of it may be found +in better form in Mill's Logic. The "Essays," however, are world-famed +for their condensed wit and wisdom on topics of never-dying interest, +and stand among the very best books on the upper shelf. The "New +Atlantis" also should be read for breadth, with More's "Utopia;" the +subject being the same, namely, an ideal commonwealth. + +From this sixty-one years of prolific writing, in which no less than two +hundred and thirty authors gathered their poems together and published +them, to say nothing of all the scattered writings, twelve volumes have +come down to us with a large measure of fame. Only the last seven call +for our reading; but two of them, Shakspeare and Bacon, are among the +very most important books on the first shelf of the world's library. + + * * * * * + +=The Post-Shakspearian Age= is divided into four times, or periods,--the +Time of Milton; the Time of Dryden; the Time of Pope; and the Time of +the Novelists, Historians, and Scientists. + +THE TIME OF MILTON, from 1620 to 1674, was contemporary with the Golden +Age of literature in France. The great English books of this time were +(1) _Chapman's Translation of Homer_, which is superseded by Pope's. (2) +_Hobbes's Leviathan_, a discourse on government. Hobbes taught that +government exists for the people, and rests not on the divine right of +kings, but on a compact or agreement of all the citizens to give up a +portion of their liberties in order by social co-operation the better +to secure the remainder. He is one of our greatest philosophers; but the +general reader will find the substance of Hobbes's whole philosophy +better put in Locke, Mill, and Herbert Spencer. (3) _Walton's Complete +Angler_, the work of a retired merchant who combined a love of fishing +with a poetic perception of the beauties of Nature. It will repay a +glance. (4) _S. Butler's Hudibras_, a keen satire on the Puritans who +went too far in their effort to compel all men to conform their lives to +the Puritan standard of abstinence from worldly pleasures. In spite of +its vulgarity, the book stands very high in the literature of humor. (5) +_George Herbert's Poems_, many of which are as sweet and holy as a +flower upon a grave, and are beloved by all spiritually minded people. +(6) _Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying_, a book that in the strength +of its claim upon us must rank close after the Bible, Shakspeare, and +the Science of Physiology and Hygiene. (7) _Milton's Poems_, of which +the "Paradise Lost" and "Comus," for their sublimity and beauty, rank +next after Shakspeare in English poetry. AEschylus, Dante, and Milton are +the three sublimest souls in history. + +From this time of fifty-four years seven great books have come to us, +Milton and Taylor being among our most precious possessions. + +THE TIME OF DRYDEN.--From the death of Milton, in 1674, to the death of +Dryden, in 1700, the latter held undisputed kingship in the realm of +letters. This and the succeeding time of Pope were marked by the +development of a classic style and a fine literary and critical taste, +but were lacking in great creative power. The great books were (1) +_Newton's Principia_, the highest summit in the region of astronomy, +unless the "Mecanique Celeste" of Laplace must be excepted. Newton's +discovery of the law of gravitation, and his theory of fluxions place +him at the head of the mathematical thinkers of the world. His books, +however, need not be read by the general student, for in these sciences +the later books are better. (2) _Locke's Works_ upon Government and the +Understanding are among the best in the world, but their results will +all be found in the later works of Spencer, Mill, and Bryce; and the +only part of the writings of Locke that claims our reading to-day is the +little book upon the _Conduct of the Understanding_, which tells us how +to watch the processes of our thought, to keep clear of prejudice, +careless observation, etc., and should be in the hands of every one who +ever presumes to do any thinking. (3) _Dryden's Translation of Virgil_ +is the best we have, and contains the finest writing of our great John. +(4) _Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress_ picturing in magnificent allegory the +journey of a Christian soul toward heaven, and his "Holy War," telling +of the conflict between good and evil, and the devil's efforts to +capture and hold the town of "Mansoul," should be among the first books +we read. The "Progress" holds a place in the affections of all +English-speaking peoples second only to the Bible. (5) _Sam Pepys's +Diary_ is the greatest book of its kind in the world, and is much read +for its vividness and interesting detail. It has, however, no claims to +be read until all the books on the first shelf of Table I. have been +mastered, and a large portion of the second shelf pretty thoroughly +looked into. + +Of the five great works of these twenty-six years, Bunyan and Locke are +far the most important for us. + +THE TIME OF POPE, or the _Time of the Essayists and Satirists_, covers a +period of forty years, from 1700 to 1740, during which the great +translator of Homer held the sceptre of literary power by unanimous +assent. The great works of this time were (1) _The Essays of Addison and +Steele_ in the "Tatler" and "Spectator," which, though of great merit, +must rank below those of Emerson, Bacon, and Montaigne. (2) _Defoe's +Robinson Crusoe_, the boy's own book. (3) _Swift's Satires_,--the "Tale +of a Tub," "Gulliver's Travels," and the "Battle of the Books,"--all +full of the strongest mixture of grossness, fierceness, and intense wit +that the world has seen. The "Battle of the Books" may be read with +great advantage by the general reader as well as by the student of +humor. (4) _Berkeley's Human Knowledge_, exceedingly interesting for the +keenness of its confutation of any knowledge of the existence of matter. +(5) _Pope's Poems_--the "Rape of the Lock" (which means the theft of a +lock of hair), the "Essay on Man," and his translation of Homer--must +form a part of every wide course of reading. Their mechanical execution, +especially, is of the very finest. (6) _Thomson's Seasons_, a beautiful +poem of the second class. (7) _Butler's Analogy_, chiefly noted for its +proof of the existence of God from the fact that there is evidence of +design in Nature. + +Of these writers, Pope and Defoe are far the most important for us. + +We have, down to this time of 1740, out of a literature covering eleven +and a half centuries, recommended to the chief attention of the reader +ten great authors,--Chaucer and Spenser, Shakspeare and Bacon, Milton +and Taylor, Bunyan and Locke, Pope and Defoe. We now come to the TIME OF +NOVELISTS, HISTORIANS, AND SCIENTISTS, a period in the history of our +literature that is so prolific of great writers in all the vastly +multiplied departments of thought, that it is no longer possible to +particularize in the manner we have done in regard to the preceding +ages. A sufficient illustration has been given of the methods of judging +books and the results of their application. With the ample materials of +Table I. before him, the reader must now be left to make his own +judgments in regard to the relative merits of the books of the modern +period. We shall confine our remarks on this last time of English +literature to the recommendation of ten great authors to match the ten +great names of former times. In history, we shall name _Parkman_, the +greatest of American historians; in philosophy, _Herbert Spencer_, the +greatest name in the whole list of philosophers; in poetry, _Byron_ and +_Tennyson_, neither of them equal to Shakspeare and Milton, but standing +in the next file behind them; in fiction, _Scott_, _Eliot_, and +_Dickens_; in poetic humor, _Lowell_, the greatest of all names in this +department; and in general literature, _Carlyle_ and _Ruskin_, two of +the purest, wisest, and most forcible writers of all the past, and, +curiously enough, both of them very eccentric and very wordy,--a sort of +English double star, which will be counted in this list as a unit, in +order to crowd in _Emerson_, who belongs in this great company, and is +not by any means the least worthy member of it. One more writer there is +in this time greater than any we have named, except Spencer and Scott; +namely, the author of "The Origin of Species." _Darwin_ stands by the +side of Newton in the history of scientific thought; but, like his great +compeer, the essence of his book has come to be a part of modern thought +that floats in the air we breathe; and so his claims to being read are +less than those of authors who cannot be called so great when speaking +of intrinsic merit. + +Having introduced the greatest ten of old, and ten that may be deemed +the greatest of the new, in English letters, we shall pass to take a +bird's-eye view of what is best in Greece and Rome, France, Italy, and +Spain, and say a word of Persia, Germany, and Portugal. + + + + +THE GREATEST NAMES OF OTHER LITERATURES. + + +=Greece=, in her thirteen centuries of almost continuous literary +productiveness from Homer to Longus, gave the world its greatest epic +poet, _Homer_; the finest of lyric poets, _Pindar_; the prince of +orators, _Demosthenes_; aside from our own Bacon and Spencer, the +greatest philosophers of all the ages, _Plato_ and _Aristotle_; the most +noted of fabulists, _AEsop_; the most powerful writer of comedy, +_Aristophanes_ (Moliere, however, is much to be preferred for modern +reading, because of his fuller applicability to our life); and the three +greatest writers of pure tragedy, _AEschylus_, _Sophocles_, and +_Euripides_,--the first remarkable for his gloomy grandeur and gigantic, +dark, and terrible sublimity; the second for his sweet majesty and +pathos; and third for the power with which he paints men as they are in +real life. Euripides was a great favorite with Milton and Fox. + +To one who is not acquainted with these ten great Greeks, much of the +sweetest and grandest of life remains untasted and unknown. Begin with +Homer, Plato's "Phaedo" and "Republic," AEschylus' "Prometheus Bound," +Sophocles' "OEdipus," and Demosthenes' "On the Crown." + +A liberal reading must also include the Greek historians Herodotus, +Thucydides, and Xenophon. + +=Rome= taught the world the art of war, but was herself a pupil in the +halls of Grecian letters. Only three writers--_Plutarch_, _Marcus +Aurelius_ (who both wrote in Greek), and _Epictetus_--can claim our +attention in anything like an equal degree with the authors of Athens +named just above. Its literature as a whole is on a far lower plane than +that of Greece or England. A liberal education must include Virgil's +"AEneid," the national epic of Rome (which, however, must take its place +in our lives and hearts far after Homer, Shakspeare, Milton, Dante, and +Goethe), for its elegance and imagination; Horace, for his wit, grace, +sense, and inimitable witchery of phrase; Lucretius, for his depth of +meditation; Tacitus, for knowledge of our ancestors; Ovid and Catullus, +for their beauty of expression; Juvenal, for the keenness of his satire; +and Plautus and Terence, for their insight into the characters of men. +But these books should wait until at least the three first named in this +paragraph, with the ten Greek and twenty English writers spoken of in +the preceding paragraphs, have come to be familiar friends. + +=Italy=, in Chaucer's century, produced a noble literature. _Dante_ is +the Shakspeare of the Latin races. He stands among the first creators of +sublimity. AEschylus and Milton only can claim a place beside him. +_Petrarch_ takes lofty rank as a lyric poet, breathing the heart of +love. Boccaccio may be put with Chaucer. Ariosto and Tasso wrote the +finest epics of Italian poetry. A liberal education must neglect no one +of these. Every life should hold communion with the soul of Dante, and +get a taste at least of Petrarch. + +=France= has a glorious literature; in science, the best in the world. +In history, _Guizot_; in jurisprudence, in its widest sense, +_Montesquieu_; and in picturing the literary history of a nation, +_Taine_, stand unrivalled anywhere. Among essayists, _Montaigne_; among +writers of fiction, _Le Sage_, _Victor Hugo_, and _Balzac_; among the +dramatists, _Corneille_ the grand, _Racine_ the graceful and tender, and +_Moliere_ the creator of modern comedy; and among fabulists, the +inimitable poet of fable, _La Fontaine_, demand a share of our time with +the best. Descartes, Pascal, Rousseau, Voltaire, and Comte belong in +every liberal scheme of culture and to every student of philosophy. + +=Spain= gives us two most glorious names, _Cervantes_ and _Pedro +Calderon de la Barca_,--the former one of the world's very greatest +humorists, the brother spirit of Lowell; the latter, a princely +dramatist, the brother of Shakspeare. + +=Germany= boasts one summit on which the shadow of no other falls. +_Goethe's_ "Faust" and "Wilhelm Meister" and his minor poems cannot be +neglected if we want the best the world affords; _Schiller_, too, and +_Humboldt_, _Kant_ and _Heine_, _Helmholtz_ and _Haeckel_ must be read. +In science and history, the list of German greatness is a very long and +bright one. + +=Persia= calls us to read her magnificent astronomer-poet, _Omar +Khayyam_; her splendid epic, the _Shah Nameh of Firdusi_, the story of +whose labors, successes, and misfortunes is one of the most interesting +passages in the history of poetry; and taste at least of her extravagant +singer of the troubles and ecstasies of love, Hafiz. + +=Portugal= has given us _Camoens_, with his great poem the "Luciad." +=Denmark= brings us her charming _Andersen_; and =Russia= comes to us +with her Byronic Pushkin and her Schiller-hearted poet, Lermontoff, at +least for a glance. + +We have thus named as the chiefs, twenty authors in English, ten in +Greek, three of Rome, two of Italy, ten of France, two of Spain, seven +of Germany, three of Persia, one of Portugal, one of Denmark, and two of +Russia,--sixty-one in all,--which, if read in the manner indicated, will +impart a pretty thorough knowledge of the literary treasures of the +world. + + + + +THE FOUNTAINS OF NATIONAL LITERATURES. + + +In the early history of every great people there has grown up a body of +songs celebrating the heroism of their valiant warriors and the charms +of their beautiful women. These have, generation after generation, been +passed by word of mouth from one group of singers to their +successors,--by each new set of artists somewhat polished and +improved,--until they come to us as Homer's Iliad, the "Nibelungenlied" +of the Germans, the "Chronicle of the Cid" of the Spanish, the "Chansons +de Gestes," the "Romans," and the "Fabliaux" of the French, and +"Beowulf" and the "Morte D'Arthur" of English literature. These great +poems are the sources of a vast portion of what is best in subsequent +art. From them Virgil, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Rabelais, Moliere, +Shakspeare, Calderon, and a host of others have drawn their inspiration. +Malory has wrought the Arthurian songs into a mould of the purest +English. The closing books, in their quiet pathos and reserved +strength,--in their melody, winged words, and inimitable turns of +phrase,--rank with the best poetry of Europe. Southey called the "Cid" +the finest poem in the Spanish language, and Prescott said it was "the +most remarkable performance of the Middle Ages." This may be going +rather too far; but it certainly stands in the very front rank of +national poems. It has been translated by Lockhart in verse, by Southey +in prose, and there is a splendid fragment by Frere. Of the French early +epics, the "Chanson de Roland" and the "Roman du Renart" are the best. +The "Nibelungenlied" is the embodiment of the wild and tragic,--the +highest note of the barbaric drama of the North. That last terrific +scene in the Hall of Etzel will rest forever in the memory of every +reader of the book. Carlyle has given a sketch of the poem in his +"Miscellanies," vol. iii., and there exists a complete but prolix and +altogether miserable translation of the great epic, but we sadly need a +condensed version of the myth of "Siegfried" the brave, and "Chriemhild" +the beautiful, in the stirring prose of Malory or Southey. No reader +will regret a perusal of these songs of the people; it is a journey to +the head-waters of the literary Nile. + +The reader of this little book we hope has gained an inspiration--if it +were not his before--that, with a strong and steady step, will lead him +into all the paths of beauty and of truth. Each glorious emotion and +each glowing thought that comes to us, becomes a centre of new growth. +Each wave of pathos, humor, or sublimity that pulses through the heart +or passes to the brain, sets up vibrations that will never die, but +beautify the hours and years that follow to the end of life. These waves +that pass into the soul do not conceal their music in the heart, but +echo back upon the world in waves of kindred power; and these return +forever from the world into the heart that gave them forth. It is as on +the evening river, where the boatman bends his homeward oar. Each lusty +call that leaves his lips, or song, or bugle blast that slips the +tensioned bars, and wings the breeze, to teach its rhythm to the trees +that crown the rocky twilight steep o'er which the lengthening shadows +creep, returns and enters, softened, sweet, and clear, the waiting +portal of the sender's ear. The man who fills his being with the noblest +books, and pours their beauty out in word and deed, is like the merry +singers on the placid moonlit lake. Backward the ripples o'er the silver +sheet come on the echoes' winged feet; the hills and valleys all around +gather the gentle shower of sound, and pour the stream upon the boat in +which the happy singers float, chanting the hymns they loved of yore, +shipping the glistening wave-washed oar, to hear reflected from the +shore their every charmed note. Oh, loosen from _thy_ lip, my friend, no +tone thine ear would with remorseful sorrow hear, hurling it back from +far and near, the listening landscape oft repeat! Rather a melody send +to greet the mountains beyond the silver sheet. Life's the soul's song; +sing sweetly, then, that when the silence comes again, and ere it comes, +from every glen the echoes shall be sweet. + + + + +APPENDIX. + +THE BEST THOUGHTS OF GREAT MEN ABOUT BOOKS AND READING. + + + + +APPENDIX I. + + +THE BEST THOUGHTS OF GREAT MEN ABOUT BOOKS AND READING. + +=Addison=. "Books are the legacies that genius leaves to mankind." + +"Knowledge of books is a torch in the hands of one who is willing and +able to show those who are bewildered the way which leads to prosperity +and welfare." + +=Alcott, A. B=. "My favorite books have a personality and complexion as +distinctly drawn as if the author's portrait were framed into the +paragraphs, and smiled upon me as I read his illustrated pages." + +"Next to a friend's discourse, no morsel is more delicious than a ripe +book,--a book whose flavor is as refreshing at the thousandth tasting as +at the first." + +"Next to a personal introduction, a list of one's favorite authors were +the best admittance to his character and manners." + +"A good book perpetuates its fame from age to age, and makes eras in the +lives of its readers." + +=Atkinson, W. P=. "Who can over-estimate the value of good books,--those +ships of thought, as Bacon so finely calls them, voyaging through the +sea of time, and carrying their precious freight so safely from +generation to generation?" + +=Arnott, Dr=. "Books,--the miracle of all possessions, more wonderful +than the wishing-cap of the Arabian tales; for they transport instantly, +not only to all places, but to all times." + +=Bacon=. "Studies serve for pastimes, for ornaments, for abilities. +Their chief use for pastimes is in privateness and retiring; for +ornaments, in discourse; and for ability, in judgment.... To spend too +much time in them is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is +affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a +scholar. They perfect nature, and are themselves perfected by +experience. Crafty men contemn them, wise men use them, simple men +admire them; for they teach not their own use, but that there is a +wisdom without them and above them won by observation. Read not to +contradict, nor to believe, but to weigh and consider.... Reading maketh +a full man, conference a ready, and writing an exact man. Therefore, if +a man write little, he had need of a great memory; if he confer little, +he hath need of a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have +much cunning to seem to know that he doth not know. Histories make men +wise, poets witty, the mathematicians subtile, natural philosophy deep, +moral grave, logic and rhetoric able to contend." + +=Barrow=. "He who loveth a book will never want a faithful friend, a +wholesome counsellor, a cheerful companion, or an effectual comforter." + +=Bartholin=. "Without books God is silent, justice dormant, natural +science at a stand, philosophy lame, letters dumb, and all things +involved in Cimmerian darkness." + +=Beaconsfield, Lord=. "The idea that human happiness is dependent on the +cultivation of the mind and on the discovery of truth is, next to the +conviction of our immortality, the idea the most full of consolation to +man; for the cultivation of the mind has no limits, and truth is the +only thing that is eternal." + +"Knowledge is like the mystic ladder in the patriarch's dream. Its base +rests on the primeval earth, its crest is lost in the shadowy splendor +of the empyrean; while the great authors, who for traditionary ages have +held the chain of science and philosophy, of poesy and erudition, are +the angels ascending and descending the sacred scale, and maintaining, +as it were, the communication between man and heaven." + +=Beecher, Henry Ward=. "A book is good company. It seems to enter the +memory, and to hover in a silvery transformation there until the outward +book is but a body, and its soul and spirit are flown to you, and +possess your memory like a spirit." + +"Books are the windows through which the soul looks out. A home without +books is like a room without windows...." + +=Bright, John=. "What is a great love of books? It is something like a +personal introduction to the great and good men of all past time." + +=Brooks, Phillips=. "Is it not a new England for a child to be born in +since Shakspeare gathered up the centuries and told the story of +humanity up to his time? Will not Carlyle and Tennyson make the man who +begins to live from them the 'heir of all ages' which have distilled +their richness into the books of the sage and the singer of the +nineteenth century?" + +=Browning, Elizabeth Barrett=. + + "When we gloriously forget ourselves and plunge + Soul forward, headlong into a book's profound, + Impassioned for its beauty, and salt of truth-- + 'Tis then we get the right good from a book." + +=Bruyere=. "When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble +and courageous feelings, seek for no other rule to judge the event by; +it is good, and made by a good workman." + +=Bury, Richard de=. "You, O Books! are golden urns in which manna is +laid up; rocks flowing with honey, or rather, indeed, honeycombs; udders +most copiously yielding the milk of life, store-rooms ever full; the +four-streamed river of Paradise, where the human mind is fed, and the +arid intellect moistened and watered; fruitful olives, vines of Engaddi, +fig-trees knowing no sterility; burning lamps to be ever held in the +hand." + +"In books we find the dead, as it were, living.... The truth written in +a book ... enters the chamber of intellect, reposes itself upon the +couch of memory, and there congenerates the eternal truth of the mind." + +=Carlyle=. "Evermore is _Wisdom_ the highest of conquests to every son +of Adam,--nay, in a large sense, the one conquest; and the precept to +every one of us is ever, 'Above all thy gettings get understanding.'" + +"Of all the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most +momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call books." + +"All that mankind has done, thought, gained, and been, is lying as in +magic preservation in the pages of books." + +=Channing, Dr. Wm. E=. "God be thanked for books! They are the voices of +the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of +past ages. Books are the true levellers. They give to all who will +faithfully use them the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and +greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am; no matter though the +prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling: if the +sacred writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof,--if +Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of Paradise; and +Shakspeare, to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of +the human heart; and Franklin, to enrich me with his practical +wisdom,--I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I +may become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the +best society in the place where I live." + +=Chaucer=. + + "And as for me, though that I know but lyte[5] + On bokes for to rede I me delyte, + And to them give I (feyth[6]) and ful credence, + And in myn herte have them in reverence + So hertily that there is pastime noon,[7] + That from my bokes maketh me to goon + But yt be seldom on the holy day, + Save, certeynly, whan that the monethe of May + Is comen, and I here the foules synge, + And that the floures gynnen for to sprynge; + Farewell my boke, and my devocioun." + +[5] Little. + +[6] Faith. + +[7] None. + +=Cicero=. "Studies are the aliment of youth, the comfort of old age, an +adornment of prosperity, a refuge and a solace in adversity, and a +delight in our home." + +=Clarke, James Freeman=. "When I consider what some books have done for +the world, and what they are doing,--how they keep up our hope, awaken +new courage and faith, give an ideal life to those whose homes are hard +and cold, bind together distant ages and foreign lands, create new +worlds of beauty, bring down truths from Heaven,--I give eternal +blessings for this gift, and pray that we may use it aright, and abuse +it not." + +=Coleridge=. "Some readers are like the hour-glass. Their reading is as +the sand; it runs in and runs out, but leaves not a vestige behind. +Some, like a sponge, which imbibes everything, and returns it in the +same state, only a little dirtier. Some, like a jelly-bag, which allows +all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse and dregs. +The fourth class may be compared to the slave of Golconda, who, casting +away all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gems." + +=Collyer, Robert=. "Do you want to know how I manage to talk to you in +this simple Saxon? I will tell you. I read Bunyan, Crusoe, and Goldsmith +when I was a boy, morning, noon, and night; all the rest was task work. +These were my delight, with the stories in the Bible, and with +Shakspeare, when at last the mighty master came within our doors. These +were like a well of pure water; and this is the first step I seem to +have taken of my own free will toward the pulpit. From the days when we +used to spell out Crusoe and old Bunyan, there had grown up in me a +devouring hunger to read books.... I could not go home for the Christmas +of 1839, and was feeling very sad about it all, for I was only a boy; +and sitting by the fire, an old farmer came in and said, 'I notice +thou's fond o' reading, so I brought thee summat to read.' It was +Irving's 'Sketch Book.' I had never heard of the work. I went at it, and +was 'as them that dream.' No such delight had touched me since the old +days of Crusoe." + +=Curtis, G. W=. "Books are the ever-burning lamps of accumulated +wisdom." + +=De Quincey=. "Every one owes to the impassioned books he has read many +a thousand more of emotions than he can consciously trace back to +them.... A great scholar depends not simply on an infinite memory, but +also on an infinite and electrical power of combination,--bringing +together from the four winds, like the Angel of the Resurrection, what +else were dust from dead men's bones into the unity of breathing life." + +=Diodorus=. "Books are the medicine of the mind." + +=Emerson=. "The profit of books is according to the sensibility of the +reader." + +=Erasmus=. "A little before you go to sleep read something that is +exquisite and worth remembering, and contemplate upon it till you fall +asleep; and when you awake in the morning call yourself to an account +for it." + +=Farrar, Canon=. "If all the books of the world were in a blaze, the +first twelve which I should snatch out of the flames would be the Bible, +the Imitation of Christ, Homer, AEschylus, Thucydides, Tacitus, Virgil, +Marcus Aurelius, Dante, Shakspeare, Milton, Wordsworth. Of living +writers I would save, first, the works of Tennyson, Browning, and +Ruskin." + +=Fenelon=. "If the crowns of all the kingdoms of the empire were laid +down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading, I would +spurn them all." + +=Freeman, E. A=. (the historian). "I feel myself quite unable to draw up +a list (of the best books), as I could not trust my own judgment on any +matters not bearing on my special studies, and I should be doubtless +tempted to give too great prominence to them." + +=Fuller, Thomas=. "It is thought and digestion which make books +serviceable, and give health and vigor to the mind." + +=Gibbon=. "A taste for books is the pleasure and glory of my life. I +would not exchange it for the glory of the Indies." + +=Gladstone=. "When I was a boy I used to be fond of looking into a +bookseller's shop; but there was nothing to be seen there that was +accessible to the working-man of that day. Take a Shakspeare, for +example. I remember very well that I gave L2 16_s._ 0_d._ for my first +copy; but you can get any one of Shakspeare's Plays for seven cents. +Those books are accessible now which were formerly quite inaccessible. +We may be told that you want amusement, but that does not include +improvement. There are a set of worthless books written now and at times +which you should avoid, which profess to give amusement; but in reading +the works of such authors as Shakspeare and Scott there is the greatest +possible amusement in its best form. Do you suppose when you see men +engaged in study that they dislike it? No!... I want you to understand +that multitudes of books are constantly being prepared and placed within +reach of the population at large, for the most part executed by writers +of a high stamp, having subjects of the greatest interest, and which +enable you, at a moderate price, not to get cheap literature which is +secondary in its quality, but to go straight into the very heart,--if I +may so say, into the sanctuary of the temple of literature,--and become +acquainted with the greatest and best works that men of our country have +produced." + +=Godwin, William=. "It is impossible that we can be much accustomed to +such companions without attaining some resemblance to them." + +=Goldsmith=. "An author may be considered as a merciful substitute to +the legislature. He acts not by punishing crimes, but by preventing +them." + +=Hale, Sir Matthew=. "Read the Bible reverently and attentively, set +your heart upon it, and lay it up in your memory, and make it the +direction of your life; it will make you a wise and good man." + +=Hamerton, P. H=. "The art of reading is to skip judiciously." + +=Harrison, Frederic=. "The best authors are never dark horses. The world +has long ago closed the great assize of letters, and judged the first +places everywhere." + +"The reading of great books is usually an acquired faculty, not a +natural gift. If you have not got the faculty, seek for it with all your +might." + +"Of Walter Scott one need as little speak as of Shakspeare. He belongs +to mankind,--to every age and race; and he certainly must be counted as +in the first line of the great creative minds of the world. His unique +glory is to have definitely succeeded in the ideal reproduction of +historical types, so as to preserve at once beauty, life, and truth,--a +task which neither Ariosto and Tasso, nor Corneille and Racine, nor +Alfieri, nor Goethe, nor Schiller,--no, nor even Shakspeare himself, +entirely achieved.... In brilliancy of conception, in wealth of +character, in dramatic art, in glow and harmony of color, Scott put +forth all the powers of a master poet.... The genius of Scott has raised +up a school of historical romance; and though the best work of +Chateaubriand, Manzoni, and Bulwer may take rank as true art, the +endless crowd of inferior imitations are nothing but a weariness to the +flesh.... Scott is a perfect library in himself.... The poetic beauty of +Scott's creations is almost the least of his great qualities. It is the +universality of his sympathy that is so truly great, the justice of his +estimates, the insight into the spirit of each age, his intense +absorption of self in the vast epic of human civilization." + +=Hazlitt, William=. "Books let us into the souls of men, and lay open to +us the secrets of our own." + +=Heinsius=. "I no sooner come into the library but I bolt the door to +me, excluding Lust, Ambition, Avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse +is Idleness, the Mother of Ignorance and Melancholy. In the very lap of +eternity, among so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a +spirit and sweet content, that I pity all that know not this happiness." + +=Herbert, George=. "This _book of stars_ [the Bible] lights to eternal +bliss." + +=Herschel, Sir J=. "Give a man this taste [for good books] and the means +of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making a happy man. You +place him in contact with the best society in every period of +history,--with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and +the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen +of all nations, a contemporary of all ages." + +=Hillard, George S=. "Here we have immortal flowers of poetry, wet with +Castilian dew, and the golden fruit of Wisdom that had long ripened on +the bough.... We should any of us esteem it a great privilege to pass an +evening with Shakspeare or Bacon.... We may be sure that Shakspeare +never out-talked his 'Hamlet,' nor Bacon his 'Essays.'... To the gentle +hearted youth, far from his home, in the midst of a pitiless city, +'homeless among a thousand homes,' the approach of evening brings with +it an aching sense of loneliness and desolation. In this mood his best +impulses become a snare to him; and he is led astray because he is +social, affectionate, sympathetic, and warm-hearted. The hours from +sunset to bedtime are his hours of peril. Let me say to such young men +that books are the friends of the friendless, and that a library is the +home of the homeless." + +=Holmes, O. W=. "Books are the 'negative' pictures of thought; and the +more sensitive the mind that receives the images, the more nicely the +finest lines are reproduced." + +=Houghton, Lord=. "It [a book] is a portion of the eternal mind, caught +in its process through the world, stamped in an instant, and preserved +for eternity." + +=Irving=. "The scholar only knows how dear these silent yet eloquent +companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours become in the season of +adversity." + +=Johnson, Dr=. "No man should consider so highly of himself as to think +he can receive but little light from books, nor so meanly as to believe +he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them." + +=Jonson, Ben=. "A prince without letters is a pilot without eyes." + +=King, Thomas Starr=. "By cultivating an interest in a few good books, +which contain the result of the toil or the quintessence of the genius +of some of the most gifted thinkers of the world, we need not live on +the marsh and in the mists; the slopes and the summits invite us." + +=Kingsley, Charles=. "Except a living man, there is nothing more +wonderful than a book!--a message to us from the dead, from human souls +whom we never saw, who lived, perhaps, thousands of miles away; and yet +these, on those little sheets of paper, speak to us, amuse us, vivify +us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as to brothers." + +=Lamb, Charles=. "Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be +played before you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which who +listens had need bring docile thoughts and purged ears." + +=Landor, Walter Savage=. "The writings of the wise are the only riches +our posterity cannot squander." + +=Langford=. "Strong as man and tender as woman, they welcome you in +every mood, and never turn from you in distress." + +=Lowell=. "Have you ever rightly considered what the mere ability to +read means? That it is the key that admits us to the whole world of +thought and fancy and imagination, to the company of saint and sage, of +the wisest and the wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moments? That +it enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, +and listen to the sweetest voices of all time?... One is sometimes asked +by young people to recommend a course of reading. My advice would be +that they should confine themselves to the supreme books in whatever +literature, or, still better, to choose some one great author, and make +themselves thoroughly familiar with him." + +=Luther=. "To read many books produceth confusion, rather than learning, +like as those who dwell everywhere are not anywhere at home." + +=Lyly, John=. "Far more seemly were it ... to have thy study full of +books than thy purse full of money." + +=Lytton, Lord=. + + "Laws die, books never." + + "Beneath the rule of men entirely great + The pen is mightier than the sword." + + "Ye ever-living and imperial Souls, + Who rule us from the page in which ye breathe." + + "The Wise + (Minstrel or Sage) _out_ of their books are clay; + But _in_ their books, as from their graves, they rise, + Angels--that, side by side, upon our way, + Walk with and warn us!" + + "We call some books immortal! _Do they live?_ + If so, believe me, TIME hath made them pure. + In Books the veriest wicked rest in peace,-- + God wills that nothing evil should endure; + The grosser parts fly off and leave the whole, + As the dust leaves the disembodied soul!" + +=Macaulay=. "A great writer is the friend and benefactor of his +readers." + +=Milton=. "As good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a +man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good +book kills reason itself,--kills the image of God, as it were, in the +eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the +precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on +purpose to a life beyond." + +=Montaigne=. "To divert myself from a troublesome fancy, 'tis but to run +to my books." + +"As to what concerns my other reading, that mixes a little more profit +with the pleasure, and from whence I learn how to marshal my opinions +and qualities, the books that serve me to this purpose are Plutarch and +Seneca,--both of which have this great convenience suited to my humor, +that the knowledge I seek is discoursed in loose pieces that do not +engage me in any great trouble of reading long, of which I am +impatient.... Plutarch is frank throughout. Seneca abounds with brisk +touches and sallies. Plutarch, with things that heat and move you more; +this contents and pays you better. As to Cicero, those of his works that +are most useful to my design are they that treat of philosophy, +especially moral; but boldly to confess the truth, his way of writing, +and that of all other long-winded authors, appears to me very tedious." + +=Morley, John=. "The consolation of reading is not futile nor imaginary. +It is no chimera of the recluse or the bookworm, but a potent reality. +As a stimulus to flagging energies, as an inspirer of lofty aim, +literature stands unrivalled." + +=Morris, William=. "The greater part of the Latins I should call _sham_ +classics. I suppose that they have some good literary qualities; but I +cannot help thinking that it is difficult to find out how much. I +suspect superstition and authority have influenced our estimate of them +till it has become a mere matter of convention. Of modern fiction, I +should like to say here that I yield to no one, not even Ruskin, in my +love and admiration for Scott; also that, to my mind, of the novelists +of our generation, Dickens is immeasurably ahead." + +=Mueller, Max=. "I know few books, if any, which I should call good from +beginning to end. Take the greatest poet of antiquity, and if I am to +speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I must say +that there are long passages, even in Homer, which seem to me extremely +tedious." + +=Parker, Theodore=. "What a joy is there in a good book, writ by some +great master of thought, who breaks into beauty, as in summer the meadow +into grass and dandelions and violets, with geraniums and manifold +sweetness.... The books which help you most are those which make you +think most.... A great book ... is a ship of thought deep freighted with +thought, with beauty too. It sails the ocean, driven by the winds of +heaven, breaking the level sea of life into beauty where it goes, +leaving behind it a train of sparkling loveliness, widening as the ship +goes on. And what treasures it brings to every land, scattering the +seeds of truth, justice, love, and piety, to bless the world in ages yet +to come." + +=Peacham, Henry=. "To desire to have many books and never to use them, +is like a child that will have a candle burning by him all the while he +is sleeping." + +=Petrarch=. "I have friends whose society is extremely agreeable to me; +they are of all ages and of every country. They have distinguished +themselves both in the cabinet and in the field, and obtained high +honors for their knowledge of the sciences. It is easy to gain access to +them, for they are always at my service; and I admit them to my company +and dismiss them from it whenever I please. They are never troublesome, +but immediately answer every question I ask them. Some relate to me the +events of past ages, while others reveal to me the secrets of Nature. +Some teach me how to live, and others how to die. Some, by their +vivacity, drive away my cares and exhilarate my spirits; while others +give fortitude to my mind, and teach me the important lesson how to +restrain my desires and to depend wholly on myself. They open to me, in +short, the various avenues of all the arts and sciences, and upon their +information I safely rely in all emergencies." + +=Phelps, E. J=. (United States Minister to the Court of St. James). "I +cannot think the _finis et fructus_ of liberal reading is reached by him +who has not obtained in the best writings of our English tongue the +generous acquaintance that ripens into affection. If he must stint +himself, let him save elsewhere." + +=Plato=. "Books are the immortal sons deifying their sires." + +=Plutarch=. "We ought to regard books as we do sweetmeats,--not wholly +to aim at the pleasantest, but chiefly to respect the wholesomest." + +=Potter, Dr=. "It is nearly an axiom that people will not be better than +the books they read." + +=Raleigh, Walter=. "We may gather out of history a policy no less wise +than eternal, by the comparison and application of other men's +fore-passed miseries with our own like errors and ill-deservings." + +=Richardson, C. F=. "No book, indeed, is of universal value and +appropriateness.... Here, as in every other question involved in the +choice of books, the golden key to knowledge, a key that will only fit +its own proper doors, is _purpose_." + +=Ruskin=. "All books are divisible into two classes,--the books of the +hour and the books of all time." Books of the hour, though useful, are, +"strictly speaking, not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers +in good print," and should not be allowed "to usurp the place of true +books." + +"Of all the plagues that afflict mortality, the venom of a bad book to +weak people, and the charms of a foolish one to simple people, are +without question the deadliest; and they are so far from being redeemed +by the too imperfect work of the best writers, that I never would wish +to see a child taught to read at all, unless the other conditions of its +education were alike gentle and judicious." + +Ruskin says a well-trained man should know the literature of his own +country and half a dozen classics thoroughly; but unless he wishes to +travel, the language and literature of modern Europe and of the East are +unnecessary. To read fast any book worth reading is folly. Ruskin would +not have us read Grote's "History of Greece," for any one could write it +if "he had the vanity to waste his time;" "Confessions of Saint +Augustine," for it is not good to think so much about ourselves; John +Stuart Mill, for his day is over; Charles Kingsley, for his sentiment is +false, his tragedy frightful. Hypatia is the most ghastly story in +Christian tradition, and should forever have been left in silence; +Darwin, for we should know what _we are_, not what _our embryo was_, or +_our skeleton will be_; Gibbon, for we should study the growth and +standing of things, not the Decline and Fall (moreover, he wrote the +worst English ever written by an educated Englishmen); Voltaire, for his +work is to good literature what nitric acid is to wine, and sulphuretted +hydrogen to air. + +Ruskin also crosses out Marcus Aurelius, Confucius, Aristotle (except +his "Politics"), Mahomet, Saint Augustine, Thomas a Kempis, Pascal, +Spinoza, Butler, Keble, Lucretius, the Nibelungenlied, Malory's Morte +D'Arthur, Firdusi, the Mahabharata, and Ramayana, the Sheking, +Sophocles, and Euripides, Hume, Adam Smith, Locke, Descartes, Berkeley, +Lewes, Southey, Longfellow, Swift, Macaulay, Emerson, Goethe, Thackeray, +Kingsley, George Eliot, and Bulwer. + +His especial favorites are Scott, Carlyle, Plato, and Dickens. AEschylus, +Taylor, Bunyan, Bacon, Shakspeare, Milton, Dante, Spenser, Wordsworth, +Pope, Goldsmith, Defoe, Boswell, Burke, Addison, Montaigne, Moliere, +Sheridan, AEsop, Demosthenes, Plutarch, Horace, Cicero, Homer, Hesiod, +Virgil, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucydides, and Tacitus, he +condescends to admit as proper to be read. + +=Schopenhauer=. "Recollect that he who writes for fools finds an +enormous audience." + +=Seneca=. "If you devote your time to study, you will avoid all the +irksomeness of this life." + +"It does not matter how many, but how good, books you have." + +"Leisure without study is death, and the grave of a living man." + +=Shakspeare=. "A book! oh, rare one! be not, as in this fangled world, a +garment nobler than it covers." + +"My library was dukedom large enough." + +=Sidney, Sir Philip=. "Nature never set forth the earth in so rich +tapestry as divers poets have done." + +=Smiles, Sam=. "Men often discover their affinity to each other by the +mutual love they have for a book." + +=Smith, Alexander=. "We read books not so much for what they say as for +what they suggest." + +=Socrates=. "Employ your time in improving yourselves by other men's +documents; so shall you come easily by what others have labored hard to +win." + +=Solomon=. "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise." + +=Spencer, Herbert=. "My reading has been much more in the direction of +science than in the direction of general literature; and of such works +in general literature as I have looked into, I know comparatively +little, being an impatient reader, and usually soon satisfied." + +=Stanley, Henry M=. "I carried [across Africa] a great many +books,--three loads, or about one hundred and eighty pounds' weight; but +as my men lessened in numbers,--stricken by famine, fighting, and +sickness,--one by one they were reluctantly thrown away, until finally, +when less than three hundred miles from the Atlantic, I possessed only +the Bible, Shakspeare, Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, Norie's Navigation, +and the Nautical Almanac for 1877. Poor Shakspeare was afterwards burned +by demand of the foolish people of Zinga. At Bonea, Carlyle and Norie +and the Nautical Almanac were pitched away, and I had only the old Bible +left." + +=Swinburne, A. C=. "It would be superfluous for any educated Englishman +to say that he does not question the pre-eminence of such names as Bacon +and Darwin." + +=Taylor, Bayard=. "Not many, but good books." + +=Thoreau=. "Books that are books are all that you want, and there are +but half a dozen in any thousand." + +=Trollope, Anthony=. "The habit of reading is the only enjoyment I know +in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade." + +=Waller, Sir William=. "In my study I am sure to converse with none but +wise men; but abroad, it is impossible for me to avoid the society of +fools." + +=Whateley, Richard=. "If, in reading books, a man does not choose +wisely, at any rate he has the chance offered him of doing so." + +=Whipple, Edwin P=. "Books,--lighthouses erected in the sea of time." + +=White, Andrew D=., President of Cornell, speaking of Scott, says: +"Never was there a more healthful and health-ministering literature than +that which he gave to the world. To go back to it from Flaubert and +Daudet and Tolstoi is like listening to the song of the lark after the +shrieking passion of the midnight pianoforte; nay, it is like coming out +of the glare and heat and reeking vapor of a palace ball into a grove in +the first light and music and breezes of the morning.... So far from +stimulating an unhealthy taste, the enjoyment of this fiction created +distinctly a taste for what is usually called 'solid reading,' and +especially a love for that historical reading and study which has been a +leading inspiration and solace of a busy life." + +=Whitman, Walt=. "For us, along the great highways of time, those +monuments stand,--those forms of majesty and beauty. For us those +beacons burn through all the night." + +=Wolseley, Gen. Lord=. "During the mutiny and China war I carried a +Testament, two volumes of Shakspeare that contained his best plays; and +since then, when in the field, I have always carried a Book of Common +Prayer, Thomas a Kempis, Soldier's Pocket Book, depending on a +well-organized postal service to supply me weekly with plenty of +newspapers." + +=Wordsworth=. "These hoards of wealth you can unlock at will." + + + + +APPENDIX II. + +BOOKS FOR SUPPLEMENTARY READING. + + +BOYS' LATIN SCHOOL. + +Moss' First Greek Reader. Tomlinson's Latin for Sight Reading. Walford's +Extracts from Cicero (Part I.). Jackson's Manual of Astronomical +Geography. Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles. + + +GIRLS' LATIN SCHOOL. + +Sheldon's Greek and Roman History. Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles. + + +LATIN AND HIGH SCHOOLS. + +Books required for admission to Harvard College. + +A list of suitable books, carefully prepared under the direction of the +Committee on Text-Books, is presented to the Board for adoption. After +this list has been adopted, a master may make requisition on the +Committee on Supplies for one set (of not more than thirty-five copies) +of a book. This committee, after the approval of the Committee on +Text-Books has been obtained, will purchase the books and send them to +the school for permanent use. No book will be purchased until called for +in the manner described. + +_English._--Barnes's History of Ancient Peoples; Church's Stories from +the East, from Herodotus; Church's Story of the Persian War, from +Herodotus; Church's Stories from the Greek Tragedians; Kingsley's Greek +Heroes; Abbott's Lives of Cyrus and Alexander; Froude's Caesar; +Forsythe's Life of Cicero; Ware's Aurelian; Cox's Crusades; Masson's +Abridgment of Guizot's History of France; Scott's Abbot; Scott's +Monastery; Scott's Talisman; Scott's Quentin Durward; Scott's Marmion +(Rolfe's Student series); Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel (Rolfe's +Student series); Kingsley's Hereward; Kingsley's Westward Ho; Melville's +Holmby House; Macaulay's Essay on Frederic; Macaulay's Essay on Clive; +Macaulay's Essay on Dr. Johnson; Motley's Essay on Peter the Great; +Thackeray's Henry Esmond; Thackeray's The Virginians; Thackeray's The +Four Georges; Dickens' Tale of Two Cities; George Eliot's Silas Marner; +Irving's Alhambra; Irving's Bracebridge Hall; Miss Buckley's Life and +her Children; Miss Buckley's Winners in Life's Race; Bulfinch's Age of +Fable (revised edition); The Boy's Froissart; Ballads and Lyrics; Vicar +of Wakefield; Essays of Elia; Tennyson's Selected Poems (Rolfe's Student +series); Tennyson's Elaine; Tennyson's In Memoriam; Byron's Prisoner of +Chillon; Goldsmith's Deserted Village; Goldsmith's Traveller; +Coleridge's Ancient Mariner; Wordsworth's Excursion; Monroe's Sixth +Reader; Webster--Section 2 [Annotated English Classics, Ginn & Co.]; +Wordsworth's Poems--Section 2 [Annotated English Classics, Ginn & Co.]; +Sheldon's Greek and Roman History; Monroe's Fifth Reader (old edition). + +_French._--St. German's Pour une Epingle; Achard's Le Clos Pommier; +Feuillet's Roman d'un Homme Pauvre; Dumas's La Tulipe Noire; Vigny's +Cinq Mars; Lacombe's La Petite Histoire du Peuple Francais. + +_German._--Andersen's Maerchen; Simmondson's Balladenbuch; Krurnmacher's +Parabeln; Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris; Goethe's Prose; Schiller's +Jungfrau von Orleans; Schiller's Prose; Boisen's German Prose; +Bernhardt's Novellen Bibliothek. + + +GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. + +CLASS VI. (_about Ten Years old_). + +Seven Little Sisters, first half-year. Each and All, second half-year. +This is simple, interesting class-reading, which will aid the geography, +and furnish material for both oral and written language lessons. +Hooker's Child's Book of Nature; those chapters of Parts I. and II., +which will supplement properly the observational studies of plants and +animals, and those chapters of Part III., on air, water, and heat, which +will aid the instruction in Geography. Our World Reader, NO. 1. Our +World, NO. 1; the reading to be kept parallel with the instruction in +Geography through the year. Poetry for Children; selections appropriate +for reading and recitation. + + +CLASS V. (_about Eleven Years old_). + +Stories of American History; for practice in reading at sight, and for +material for language lessons. Guyot's Introduction to Geography; the +reading to be kept parallel with the instruction in Geography through +the year. Hooker's Child's Book of Nature, and Poetry for Children; as +in Class VI. Robinson Crusoe. + + +CLASS IV. (_about Twelve Years old_). + +The Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales, as collateral to the oral +instruction in Stories in Mythology. Hooker's Child's Book of Nature, +and Poetry for Children; as in Classes VI. and V. Readings from Nature's +Book (revised edition). Robinson Crusoe. + + +CLASS III. (_about Thirteen Years old_). + +Hooker's Child's Book of Nature; as supplementary to oral lessons. +American Poems, with Biographical Sketches and Notes; appropriate +selections therefrom. + + +CLASS II. (_about Fourteen Years old_). + +Selections from American authors; as in part collateral to the United +States History. American Poems; appropriate selections therefrom. + + +CLASS I. (_about Fifteen Years old_). + +Selections from American authors. Early England--Harper's Half-Hour +Series, Nos. 6 and 14. American Poems; selections therefrom. Green's +Readings from English History. Phillips's Historical Readers, Nos. 1, 2, +3, 4. + + +ANY CLASS. + +Six Stories from the Arabian Nights. Holmes' and Longfellow Leaflets, +published by Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. Book of Golden Deeds. Jackson's +Manual of Astronomical Geography. Parkman Leaflets, published by Little, +Brown, & Co. + + +CIRCULATING LIBRARY FOR GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. + +Zigzag Journeys in Europe (revised edition); Zigzag Journeys in the +Orient (revised edition); Scudder's Boston Town; Drake's The Making of +New England; Towle's Pizarro; Towle's Vasco da Gama; Towle's Magellan; +Fairy Land of Science; Hawthorne's True Stories; Higginson's Young +Folks' Book of Explorers; Scott's Ivanhoe; Longfellow's Evangeline; +Little Folks in Feathers and Fur; What Mr. Darwin saw in his Voyage +around the World in the Ship Beagle; Muloch's A Noble Life; M. E. +Dodge's Hans Brinker; Lambert's Robinson Crusoe; Lamb's Tales from +Shakspeare (revised edition, Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.); Abbott's Jonas +on a Farm in Summer; Smiles' Robert Dick, Geologist and Botanist; Eyes +Right; Alcott's Little Men; Alcott's Little Women; Stoddard's Dab +Kinzer; Scott's Kenilworth; Tom Brown's School-Days at Rugby; Abbott's +Mary Queen of Scots; Abbott's Charles I.; Taylor's Boys of Other +Countries; How Marjory Helped; Little People in Asia; Gilman's Magna +Charta Stories; Overhead; Yonge's Lances of Linwood; Memory Gems; +Geographical Plays; Ten Boys Who Lived on the Road from Long Ago till +Now; Scott's Tales of a Grandfather; Hayes' Cast Away in the Cold; Sharp +Eyes and other Papers; Lessons on Practical Subjects; Stories of Mother +Nature; Play Days; Jackanapes; Children's Stories of American Progress; +Little Lord Fauntleroy; Gilman's Historical Readers (three volumes); +Pilgrims and Puritans; The Patriotic Reader; Ballou's Footprints of +Travel. + + +PRIMARY SCHOOLS. +PERMANENT SUPPLEMENTARY READING. + +Easy Steps for Little Feet. Popular Tales (first and second series.) +Parker & Marvel's Supplementary Reading (first book). Tweed's Graded +Supplementary Reading. Modern Series Primary Reading, Part I. An +Illustrated Primer (D. C. Heath & Co.). + + +CIRCULATING SUPPLEMENTARY READING. + +_First Readers._--Monroe's, Monroe's Advanced First, Appleton's, +Harvey's, Eclectic, Sheldon's, Barnes' New National, Sheldon & Co.'s, +Harper's, The Nursery Primer, Parker & Marvel's Supplementary Reading +(second book), Wood's First Natural History Reader, Stickney's First +Reader, Stickney's First Reader (new edition), McGuffey's Alternate +First Reader. + +_Second Readers._--Monroe's, Monroe's Advanced Second, Appleton's, +Harvey's, Lippincott's, Sheldon & Co.'s, Barnes' New National, +Analytical, Macmillan's, Swinton's, New Normal, Stickney's Second Reader +(new edition), Harper's Easy Book (published by Shorey), Turner's +Stories for Young Children, Our Little Ones, Golden Book of Choice +Reading, When I was a Little Girl, Johonnot's Friends in Feathers and +Fur, Woodward's Number Stories, Wood's Second Natural History Reader, +Young Folks' Library, Nos. 5 and 6 (Silver, Burdett, & Co.). + + + + +SUPPLEMENTARY READING IN ONE BUILDING, NOVEMBER, 1890. + + +GRAMMAR SCHOOL. + + +CLASS I. (_about Fifteen Years old_). + +Longfellow's Poems. + + +CLASS II. (_about Fourteen Years old_). + +Hans Brinker. Mary Mapes Dodge. + +How Marjory Helped. M. Caroll. + +Magellan's Voyages. + +Ivanhoe. Scott. + + +CLASS III. (_about Thirteen Years old_). + +American Explorers. Higginson. + + +CLASS IV. (_about Twelve Years old_). + +Playdays. Sarah O. Jewett. + +Water Babies. Kingsley. + +Physiology. + +A Child's Book of Nature. W. Hooker. + + +CLASS V. (_about Eleven Years old_). + +Stories of American History. N. S. Dodge. + +Guyot's Geography. + + +CLASS VI. (_about Ten Years old_). + +The Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Six stories by Samuel Eliot. + +Our World. Mary L. Hall. + +The Seven Little Sisters. Jane Andrews. + +Each and All. Jane Andrews. + +Poetry for Children. Samuel Eliot. + + + + +TEXT-BOOKS. + +PRIMARY SCHOOLS. + + +_Third Class._--Franklin Primer and Advanced First Reader. Munroe's +Primary Reading Charts. + +_Second Class._--Franklin Second Reader. Franklin Advanced Second +Reader. First Music Reader. + +_First Class._--Franklin Third Reader. [8]New Franklin Third Reader. +First Music Reader. + +[8] To be furnished at the discretion of the Committee on Supplies. + +_Upper Classes._--[9]Franklin Primary Arithmetic. First Lessons in +Natural History and Language, Parts I. and II. Child's Book of Language, +Nos. 1, 2, 3. [By J. H. Stickney.] + +[9] Each Primary-School building occupied by a first or second class to +be supplied with one set of the Franklin Primary Arithmetic; the number +in a set to be sixty, or, if less be needed, less than sixty; the +Committee on Supplies are authorized to supply additional copies of the +book at their discretion, if needed. + +_All the Classes._--American Text-books of Art Education. First Primary +Music Chart. Prang's Natural History Series, one set for each building. + +Magnus & Jeffries's Color Chart; "Color Blindness," by Dr. B. Joy +Jeffries.--One copy of the Chart and one copy of the book for use in +each Primary-School building. + +Normal Music Course in the Rice Training School and in the schools of +the third and sixth divisions. National Music Course (revised edition) +in the schools of the first and second divisions. + + +GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. + +_Sixth Class._--Franklin Advanced Third Reader. [10]Warren's Primary +Geography. Intermediate Music Reader. Franklin Elementary Arithmetic. +[11]Greenleaf's Manual of Mental Arithmetic. Worcester's Spelling-Book. + +[10] Swinton's Introductory Geography allowed in Charlestown Schools. + +[11] To be used in the manner recommended by the Board of Supervisors in +School Document No. 14, 1883; one set of sixty copies to be supplied for +the classes on each floor of a Grammar-School building occupied by +pupils in either of the four lower classes, and for each colony of a +Grammar School. + +_Fifth Class._--Franklin Intermediate Reader. [12] New Franklin Fourth +Reader. Franklin Elementary Arithmetic. [13]Greenleaf's Manual of Mental +Arithmetic. [14]Warren's Primary Geography. Intermediate Music Reader. +Worcester's Spelling-Book. + +[12] To be furnished at the discretion of the Committee on Supplies. + +[13] To be used in the manner recommended by the Board of Supervisors in +School Document No. 14, 1883; one set of sixty copies to be supplied for +the classes on each floor of a Grammar-School building occupied by +pupils in either of the four lower classes, and for each colony of a +Grammar School. + +[14] The revised edition to be furnished at the discretion of the +Committee on Supplies to schools where this book is used. Swinton's +Grammar-School Geography allowed in Charlestown Schools. + +_Fourth Class._--Franklin Fourth Reader. [15]New Franklin Fourth Reader. +Worcester's Comprehensive Dictionary. Franklin Written Arithmetic. +[16]Greenleaf's Manual of Mental Arithmetic. [17]Warren's Common-School +Geography. Intermediate Music Reader. Worcester's Spelling-Book. +[18]Blaisdell's How to Keep Well. + +[15] To be furnished at the discretion of the Committee on Supplies. + +[16] To be used in the manner recommended by the Board of Supervisors in +School Document No. 14, 1883; one set of sixty copies to be supplied for +the classes on each floor of a Grammar-School building occupied by +pupils in either of the four lower classes, and for each colony of a +Grammar School. + +[17] The revised edition to be furnished at the discretion of the +Committee on Supplies to schools where this book is used. Swinton's +Grammar-School Geography allowed in Charlestown Schools. + +[18] One set of not more than sixty copies, or, if determined by the +Committee on Supplies to be necessary, more than one set, be placed in +each Grammar School, for use as collateral reading in the third and +fourth classes. + +_Third Class._--Franklin Fifth Reader. [19]New Franklin Fifth Reader. +Franklin Written Arithmetic. [20]Greenleaf's Manual of Mental +Arithmetic. [21]Warren's Common-School Geography. Swinton's New Language +Lessons. Worcester's Comprehensive Dictionary. Higginson's History of +the United States. [22]Fourth Music Reader. [Revised edition.] +[23]Blaisdell's How to Keep Well. + +[19] To be furnished at the discretion of the Committee on Supplies. + +[20] To be used in the manner recommended by the Board of Supervisors in +School Document No. 14, 1883; one set of sixty copies to be supplied for +the classes on each floor of a Grammar-School building occupied by +pupils in either of the four lower classes, and for each colony of a +Grammar School. + +[21] The revised edition to be furnished at the discretion of the +Committee on Supplies to schools where this book is used. Swinton's +Grammar-School Geography allowed in Charlestown Schools. + +[22] The revised edition to be supplied as new books are needed. + +[23] One set of not more than sixty copies, or, if determined by the +Committee on Supplies to be necessary, more than one set, be placed in +each Grammar School, for use as collateral reading in the third and +fourth classes. + +_Second Class._--Franklin Fifth Reader. [24]New Franklin Fifth Reader. +Franklin Written Arithmetic. [25]Warren's Common-School Geography. +Tweed's Grammar for Common Schools. Worcester's Comprehensive +Dictionary. Higginson's History of the United States. [26]Fourth Music +Reader. [Revised edition.] Smith's Elementary Physiology and Hygiene. + +[24] To be furnished at the discretion of the Committee on Supplies. + +[25] The revised edition to be furnished at the discretion of the +Committee on Supplies to schools where this book is used. Swinton's +Grammar-School Geography allowed in Charlestown Schools. + +[26] The revised edition to be supplied as new books are needed. + +_First Class._--Franklin Sixth Reader. Franklin Written Arithmetic. +Meservey's Book-keeping, Single Entry. [27]Warren's Common School +Geography. Tweed's Grammar for Common Schools. Worcester's Comprehensive +Dictionary. Stone's History of England. Cooley's Elements of Philosophy. +[28]Fourth Music Reader. [Revised edition.] + +[27] The revised edition to be furnished at the discretion of the +Committee on Supplies to schools where this book is used. Swinton's +Grammar-School Geography allowed in Charlestown Schools. + +[28] The revised edition to be supplied as new books are needed. + +_Fifth and Sixth Classes._--First Lessons in Natural History and +Language. Parts III. and IV. + +_All Classes._--American Text-books of Art Education. Writing-Books: +Duntonian Series; Payson, Dunton, and Scribner's; Harper's Copy-books; +Appleton's Writing-Books. Child's Book of Language; and Letters and +Lessons in Language, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4. [By J. H. Stickney.] Prang's Aids +for Object Teaching, "Trades," one set for each building. + +Normal Music Course in the Rice Training School and the schools of the +third and sixth divisions. National Music Course (revised edition) in +the schools of the first and second divisions. + + +HIGH SCHOOLS. + +_English._--Abbott's How to Write Clearly. Hill's _or_ Kellogg's +Rhetoric. Meiklejohn's English Language. Scott's Lady of the Lake. +Selections from Addison's Papers in the Spectator, with Macaulay's Essay +on Addison. Irving's Sketch-Book. Trevelyan's Selections from Macaulay. +Hales' Longer English Poems. Shakspeare,--Rolfe's _or_ Hudson's +Selections. Selections from Chaucer. Selections from Milton. [Clarendon +Press Edition. Vol. I.] Worcester's Comprehensive Dictionary. + +_Latin._--Allen & Greenough's Latin Grammar. [Roxbury, W. Roxbury, and +Brighton High Schools.] Harkness' Latin Grammar. [English, Girls', +Dorchester, Charlestown, and East Boston High Schools.] Harkness' +Complete Course in Latin for the first year. Gildersleeve's Latin +Primer. Collar & Daniell's Beginners' Latin Book. [Roxbury, West +Roxbury, and Brighton High Schools.] Harkness' Caesar. Lindsey's +Cornelius Nepos. Chase's, Frieze's, _or_ Greenough's Virgil, or any +edition approved by the Committee on Text-Books. Greenough's _or_ +Harkness' Cicero. Chase's _or_ Lincoln's Horace, or any edition approved +by the Committee on Text-books. + +_History._--[29]Anderson's New General History. Martin's Civil +Government. + +[29] To be dropped from list of authorized text-books, July 1, 1890. + +_Mythology._--Berens's Hand-book of Mythology. + +_Mathematics._--Meservey's Book-keeping. Bradbury & Emery's Academic +Algebra. [30]Wentworth & Hill's Exercises in Algebra. Bradbury's +Elementary Geometry, _or_ Chauvenet's Geometry, _or_ Wells's Geometry. +Greenleaf's Trigonometry. [31]Metric Apparatus. + +[30] This book is not intended to, and does not in fact displace any +text-book now in use, but is intended merely to furnish additional +problems in algebra. + +[31] Not exceeding $15 for each school. + +_Physics._--Cooley's New Text-book of Physics. Avery's Physics, _or_ +Gage's Introduction to Physical Science. + +_Astronomy._--Sharpless & Phillips' Astronomy. + +_Chemistry._--Williams's Chemistry. Williams's Laboratory Manual. Eliot +& Storer's Elementary Manual of Chemistry, edited by Nichols. Eliot & +Storer's Qualitative Analysis. Hill's Lecture Notes on Qualitative +Analysis. Tables for the Determination of Common Minerals. [Girls' High +School.] White's Outlines of Chemical Theory. + +_Botany._--Gray's School and Field Book of Botany. + +_Zoology._--Morse's Zoology and Packard's Zoology. + +_Physiology._--Hutchinson's Physiology. Blaisdell's Our Bodies and How +We Live. + +_Drawing._--American Text-books of Art Education. + +_Music._--Eichberg's High-School Music Reader. Eichberg's Girls' +High-School Music Reader. [Girls' High School.] + +LATIN SCHOOLS. + +_Latin._--White's Abridged Lexicon. Harkness' Grammar. Harkness' Reader. +Harkness' Complete Course in Latin for the first year. Harkness' Prose +Composition, _or_ Allen's Latin Composition. Harkness' Caesar. Lindsey's +Cornelius Nepos. Greenough's Catiline of Sallust. Lincoln's Ovid. +Greenough's Ovid. Greenough's Virgil. Greenough's _or_ Harkness' +Orations of Cicero. Smith's Principia Latina, Part II. + +_Greek._--Liddell & Scott's Abridged Lexicon. Goodwin's Grammar. White's +Lessons. Jones' Prose Composition. Goodwin's Reader. The Anabasis of +Xenophon. Boise's Homer's Iliad. Beaumlein's Edition of Homer's Iliad. + +_English._--Soule's Hand-book of Pronunciation. Hill's General Rules for +Punctuation. Tweed's Grammar for Common Schools (in fifth and sixth +classes). Hawthorne's Wonder Book. Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales. +Plutarch's Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans. Macaulay's Lays of Ancient +Rome. Higginson's History of the United States. Hughes' Tom Brown's +School-Days at Rugby. Dana's Two Years before the Mast. Charles and Mary +Lamb's Tales from Shakspeare. [Revised Edition, Houghton, Mifflin, & +Co.] Scott's Ivanhoe. Hawthorne's True Stories. Greene's Readings from +English History. [32]Church's Stories from Homer. [32]Church's Stories +of the Old World. Selections from American Authors,--Franklin, Adams, +Cooper, and Longfellow. American Poems, with Biographical Sketches and +Notes. Irving's Sketch-Book. Selections from Addison's Papers in the +Spectator. Ballads and Lyrics. Hales' Longer English Poems. Three plays +of Shakspeare,--Rolfe's _or_ Hudson's Selections. + +[32] No more copies of Church's Stories from Homer to be purchased, but +as books are worn out their place to be supplied with Church's Stories +of the Old World. + +_History._--Leighton's History of Rome. Smith's Smaller History of +Greece. Long's _or_ Ginn & Heath's Classical Atlas. Smith's Smaller +Classical Dictionary,--Student's Series. + +_Mythology._--Bulfinch's Age of Fable. + +_Geography._--Geikie's Primer of Physical Geography. Warren's +Common-School Geography. + +_Physiology._--Mace's History of a Mouthful of Bread. Foster's +Physiology (Science Primer). Blaisdell's Our Bodies and How We Live. + +_Botany._--Gray's School and Field Book of Botany. + +_Zoology._--Morse's Zoology and Packard's Zoology. + +_Mineralogy._--Tables for the Determination of Common Minerals. [Girls' +Latin School.] + +_Mathematics._--The Franklin Written Arithmetic. Bradbury's Eaton's +Algebra. [33]Wentworth & Hill's Exercises in Algebra. Chauvenet's +Geometry. Lodge's Elementary Mechanics. + +[33] This book is not intended to, and does not in fact, displace any +text-book now in use, but is intended merely to furnish additional +problems in algebra. + +_Physics._--Arnott's _or_ Avery's Physics, _or_ Gage's Physics. + +_Drawing._--American Text-books of Art Education. + +_Music._--Eichberg's High-School Music Reader. Eichberg's Girls' +High-School Music Reader. [Girls' Latin School] + +LATIN AND HIGH SCHOOLS. + +_French._--Keetel's Elementary Grammar. Keetel's Analytical French +Reader. Super's French Reader. [34]Sauveur's Petites Causeries. +Hennequin's Lessons in Idiomatic French. Gasc's French Dictionary. +Erckmann-Chatrian's Le Conscrit de 1813. Erckmann-Chatrian's Madame +Therese. Bocher's College Series of French Plays. Nouvelles Genevoises. +Souvestre's Au Coin du Feu. Racine's Andromaque. Racine's Iphigenie. +Racine's Athalie. Moliere's Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Moliere's Precieuses +Ridicules. Corneille's Les Horaces. Corneille's Cid. Herrig's La France +Litteraire. Roemer's French Course, Vol. II. Ventura's Peppino. Halevy's +L'Abbe Constantin. La Fontaine's Fables. About's La Mere de la Marquise. +Daudet's Siege de Berlin. Daudet's Extraits. Daudet's La Belle +Nivarnaise. + +[34] To be furnished as new French Readers are needed. The use of the +book confined for this year to the English, Charlestown, Roxbury, and +West Roxbury High Schools. + +_German._--Whitney's German Dictionary. Whitney's Grammar. Collar's +Eysenbach. Otto's _or_ Whitney's Reader. Der Zerbrochene Krug. +Schiller's Wilhelm Tell. Schiller's Maria Stuart. Goethe's Hermann und +Dorothea. Putlitz's Das Herz Vergessen. Grimm's Maerchen. Goethe's Prose. +Schiller's Prose. Stein's German Exercises. Heine's Die Harzreise. Im +Zwielicht. Vols. I. and II. Traumerein. Buckheim's German Poetry for +Repetition. + + +NORMAL SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS. + +The text-books used in this school shall be such of the text-books used +in the other public schools of the city as are needed for the course of +study, and such others as shall be authorized by the Board. + +Normal Music Course. + + +HORACE MANN SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS. + +Such text-books shall be supplied to the Horace Mann School as the +committee on that school shall approve. + + +EVENING HIGH SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS. + +Benn Pitman's Manual of Phonography. Reporter's Companion. The +Phonographic Reader. The Reporter's First Reader. Bradbury's Elementary +Geometry. + +The text-books used in this school shall be such of the text-books +authorized in the other public schools as are approved by the Committee +on Evening Schools and the Committee on Supplies. + +_East Boston Branch._--Graded Lessons in Shorthand. Parts 1 and 2, by +Mrs. Mary A. Chandler. + + +EVENING ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS. + +Munroe's Charts. Franklin Primer. Franklin Reader. Stories of American +History. Harper's Introductory Geography. The Franklin Elementary +Arithmetic. The Franklin Written Arithmetic. [35]Andersen's Maerchen. +Writing-books, Plain Copy-books; and such of the text-books authorized +in the other public schools as are approved by the Committee on Evening +Schools and the Committee on Supplies. + +[35] In schools in which the English language is taught to German +pupils. + + +SCHOOLS OF COOKERY. + +Boston School Kitchen Text-book, by Mrs. D. A. Lincoln. + + + + +REFERENCE-BOOKS. + + +PRIMARY SCHOOLS. + +Worcester's Comprehensive Dictionary. National Music Teacher. Munroe's +Vocal Gymnastics. Lessons in Color (one copy for each Primary-School +teacher's desk). White's Oral Lessons in Number (one copy for each +Primary-School teacher's desk). Smith's Primer of Physiology and Hygiene +(one copy for each Primary-School teacher's desk). + +Observation Lessons in the Primary Schools, by Mrs. L. P. Hopkins (one +copy for each Primary-School teacher's desk). + +Simple Object Lessons (two series), by W. Hewitt Beck. Natural History +Object Lessons, by G. Ricks (one set of books of each title for each +Primary-School teacher's desk). + + +GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. + +Appleton's American Encyclopaedia _or_ Johnson's Encyclopaedia. Chambers's +Encyclopaedia. Anthon's Classical Dictionary. Thomas's Dictionary of +Biography and Mythology. + +Worcester's Quarto Unabridged Dictionary. Webster's Quarto Unabridged +Dictionary. Webster's National Pictorial Dictionary. + +Lippincott's Gazetteer. Johnson's Atlas. Reclus' Earth. Reclus' Ocean. +Flammarion's Atmosphere. Weber's Universal History. Bancroft's History +of the United States. Battle Maps of the Revolution. Palfrey's History +of New England. Martin's Civil Government. Frothingham's Rise of the +Republic. Lossing's Field-book of the Revolution. Shurtleff's +Topographical History of Boston. Frothingham's Siege of Boston. +Lingard's History of England. Smith's Primer of Physiology and Hygiene +(one copy for the desk of each teacher of the fifth and sixth classes). + +Goold-Brown's Grammar of English Grammars. Wilson's Punctuation. +Philbrick's Union Speaker. Methods of Teaching Geography (one copy for +each teacher of Geography). + +_First Classes._--Physiography (Longmans & Co.). Copies for teachers' +desks. + +_Second Classes._--Harper's Cyclopaedia of United States History. + +_Maps and Globes._--Cutter's Physiological Charts. Charts of the Human +Body (Milton Bradley & Co.). White's Manikin. Cornell's Series Maps, +_or_ Guyot's Series Maps, Nos. 1, 2, 3. (Not exceeding one set to each +floor.) Hughes's Series of Maps. Joslyn's fifteen-inch Terrestrial +Globe, on Tripod (one for each Grammar School). Nine-inch Hand Globe, +Loring's Magnetic (one for each Grammar School room). Cosmograph. O. W. +Gray & Son's Atlas. (To be furnished as new atlases are needed.) + + +LATIN AND HIGH SCHOOLS. + +Lingard's History of England. Harper's Latin Lexicon. Liddell & Scott's +Greek Lexicon, unabridged. Eugene's French Grammar. Labberton's +Historical Atlas and General History (one book for the desk of each +teacher). Guyot's and Cameron's Maps of the Roman Empire, Greece, and +Italy. Strang's English Lessons (for use on teachers' desks). + + +NORMAL SCHOOL. + +Observation Lessons in Primary Schools, by Mrs. L. P. Hopkins (one set). + + +NORMAL AND HIGH SCHOOLS. + +Charts of Life. Wilson's Human Anatomical and Physiological Charts. +Hough's American Woods. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The World's Best Books, by Frank Parsons + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS *** + +***** This file should be named 37795.txt or 37795.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/7/9/37795/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Matthew Wheaton and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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