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LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN

BY

ORTON LOWE

ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT OF THE ALLEGHENY COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA, PUBLIC
SCHOOLS

          New York
          THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
          1922

          _All rights reserved_




          PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

          COPYRIGHT, 1914,
          BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

          Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1914.

          Norwood Press
          J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
          Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.




PREFACE


THIS book is about books of literature. Its excuse for being at all is
in the over-reading of books that are not literature. Confusion and
hurry confront both child and teacher in the land of books. The hope is
held that something can be done to lead the child out of this confusion.

There is no greater possibility existing in the child's educational life
than the possibility of self-cultivation in the reading of great books.
Nor has there ever been a greater need for the quiet reading of such
books than in a time of wonderful mechanical invention. Shall a boy fly
or shall he read? It seems both fair and possible to say that he may fly
but he must read. Whatever be the line of work he chooses to follow, he
will have spare hours. His contribution to the life of his community and
the rounding out of his individual life are dependent very largely on
the wise use of these spare hours. Some spare hours may be given to
music or the theatre, some to social entertainment, some to outdoor
sports, some to church aid work; but some must surely be given to the
reading of great books.

The following pages attempt to set the boy on the right trail, so that
when he reaches man's estate he will of his own accord devote a just
portion of his spare hours to books of literature. To do this, attention
needs to be given to these practices: the learning of a little choice
poetry by heart, the learning of a few fairy stories and myths through
the ear, the reading and rereading of a few great books, the saving of
money to build up a small but well-selected private bookshelf, the
practice of reading aloud by the fireside or in the schoolroom. The
chances are that a boy so directed will find reading a pleasure and will
turn to what is really worth while. The attempt by parents and teachers
to bring about an abiding love for books of power is a most commendable
attempt; and, if successful, the best contribution to a refined private
life. To all such attempts these pages aim to contribute.

The preparation of these pages has been made easier and surer by the
generous aid of Mr. Fred L. Homer, of the Central High School of
Pittsburgh, and Mr. Homer L. Clark, a business man of Cleveland, in
reading a greater portion of the manuscript; by Miss Emily Beal, of the
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, in information on illustrated editions
of children's books; and by Mr. Ernest C. Noyes, of the Peabody High
School of Pittsburgh, in reading the proof.

For kind permission to use copyright material the author thanks Mr.
Rudyard Kipling and Messrs. Doubleday, Page and Company for
"Recessional"; Professor Richard G. Moulton for the arrangement of the
selections of Hebrew poetry; Houghton, Mifflin and Company for the
selections from Longfellow, Holmes, Emerson, and Whittier; and The
Macmillan Company for the selections from Tennyson, Browning, Arnold,
Clough, and Rossetti.

          ORTON LOWE.

          PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA,
          May, 1914.




CONTENTS


                                                              PAGE
  PREFACE                                                        v

  PART I. INTRODUCTION
  CHAPTER
    I. THE VALUE OF GOOD BOOKS                                   3
   II. BOOKS AND LITERATURE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS               11
  III. THE LEARNING OF LYRIC POETRY BY HEART                    18

  PART II. SELECTIONS FOR MEMORIZING
       FIRST YEAR                                               33
       SECOND YEAR                                              44
       THIRD YEAR                                               56
       FOURTH YEAR                                              67
       FIFTH YEAR                                               81
       SIXTH YEAR                                               96
       SEVENTH YEAR                                            115
       EIGHTH YEAR                                             134

  PART III. SOURCES OF STANDARD PROSE FOR CHILDREN
    I. FAIRY TALES, HOUSEHOLD TALES, AND OTHER FANCIFUL TALES  159
   II. CLASSIC MYTHS IN LITERATURE                             176
  III. BOOKS TO BE OWNED, TO BE READ AND REREAD                188
   IV. ON THE PURCHASE AND CARE OF BOOKS                       219
    V. EDITIONS OF STANDARD BOOKS                              232

  BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                 239




PART I


INTRODUCTION




LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN




CHAPTER I

THE VALUE OF GOOD BOOKS

          "The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when
          thou comest bring with thee, and the books, but
          especially the parchments."


THE man who believes that education and books are designed for the
imparting only of useful information had better read no farther than
this sentence; for if he does, he will be irritated many a time by what
he regards as ideal and foolish and unworthy of a practical age. But if
he believes life to be something more than meat and the body something
more than raiment, and that he needs his books as well as his cloak
brought into Macedonia, he may with patience and sympathy follow the
guesses herein at the ways and means by which good books may be brought
into the life of a boy. For in the living out of the great story of
securing shelter and food and raiment, the boy who has never felt the
charm of a great book in chimney-corner days, or the man who has never
pored over a "midnight darling" by candlelight, has missed one of the
most refined and harmless pleasures of life. The very books themselves
are refining because they make up the art of literature, an art that is
in its highest sense an expression and interpretation of life. This art
deals with the beautiful. Its appeal is primarily to the feelings. Its
basis is truth whether actual or hoped for. It is this very nature of
literature itself that at the start brings up the question whether the
investment put into it is really worth while. How far has education a
right to develop a sense of the beautiful? What abiding pleasures and
tastes, if any, should the boy of school age seek and cultivate? Just
what equipment for life does a boy need, anyhow?

These are big questions; they are knotty questions. They have never been
settled because they cannot be answered in a way satisfactory to all.
They are rather questions of temperament than of logic. To attempt an
investigation into the claims of literature in a scheme of education,
and to draw from such claims a logical conclusion, is beyond the
ability, knowledge, or inclination of the writer; only personal
impressions will be attempted in the chapters that follow. And besides,
such an investigation, if it could be made, would be so out of fashion
among schoolmasters at the present time that it might bring nothing but
reproach on the one attempting it. The very convenient plan is to assume
a certain educational specific as true and from that assumption to go
straight to a favourable conclusion. In accordance with this fashion it
seems the easiest way to take the privilege of the day and without more
ado assume that books of literature are necessary in the education of a
boy, and conclude therefrom that a principal business of the teacher is
to train the boy to read books intelligently and to form a substantial
taste for them. And why should not a schoolmaster who dotes on a few old
favourites have an unshaken faith in his assumption and go merrily on to
the business of the literature itself and what may be done toward
developing among school children a taste for it?

The late Professor Norton pointed out that a taste for literature is a
result of cultivation more often than a gift of nature. The years of the
elementary school seem to be the time in which cultivation is easiest
and the one in which the taste takes deepest root. Vigorous and tactful
effort will go far to develop pure taste and abiding taste for books.

The present age is more concerned about pure food than about pure
books--maybe an exemplification of John Bright's wish that the
working-men of England eat bacon rather than read Bacon. The bulky,
coarse food of the last century has been displaced by the sealed package
of condensed food done according to a formula, and a mystery to the man
who eats it. So is it in our books. We do not have the frankness and
vulgarity of the eighteenth century; but instead, we have the most
studied forms of insinuation, the harm of which was not approached by
the coarseness of former times. Many a present-day story makes the
ordinary course of life seem uninteresting, a dangerous thing for a book
to do, according to Ruskin. The conduct portrayed has in it too much of
personal freedom arising out of caprice, breaking too much with
traditional right through what a critic once designated as "debauching
innuendo and ill favoured love." The book is often spectacular or sullen
in tone. It may be melodramatic, leaving the reader rebellious or with a
weakened sense of responsibility. Or again, it may be given to
boisterous laughter over situations based on personal misfortune or bad
manners--the way of the comic supplement. And worst of all, it may
become the fashion; that is, a best seller. Its name and some of its
motives will probably get to the children through the talk of the
parents. Then to persuade the reading public that the pure taste for the
healthful story is much more worth while will try the resources of the
teacher. Yet that is exactly what should be expected of him--a Herculean
task and a most thankless one.

To secure a stable as well as a pure taste for things worth while in
books should be an aim of the teacher. He must do this in an age when
the vaudeville idea is deep-rooted. Variety takes the place of sustained
attention. This begets the mood for profligacy. Something new and good
is expected to turn up in the shape of a book. In this mood there is
nothing to inspire to steady purpose. And it seems that the best thing
left for the teacher to do is to "come out strong" on a few good books.
Through fortune and misfortune such books will be permanent possessions
to their reader.

The responsibility for securing this pure and abiding taste rests
primarily with the teacher. He needs to know and to appreciate the good
books which he desires the boy to read. He needs to know the poem or
story at first hand, not criticism about it. If the teacher has real
appreciation for a piece of literature, the boy will discern it in his
face. Then the boy can be put on the right scent and left to trail it
out for himself, as Scott long ago suggested. Time must be taken to do
this: a few good things must be done without fuss or hurry. It is
foolish to have a taste surfeited as soon as cultivated. Here is truly a
place to be temperate as well as enthusiastic.

A teacher should be able to read aloud from a book with good effect. The
voice can bring out the finer touches that are likely to be missed by
the eye.