

E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)



GRADED MEMORY SELECTIONS

Arranged by

S. D. WATERMAN,
Superintendent of Schools, Berkeley, Cal.

J. W. McCLYMONDS,
Superintendent of Schools, Oakland, Cal.

C. C. HUGHES,
Superintendent of Schools, Alameda, Cal.







Educational Publishing Company
Boston
New York Chicago San Francisco

Copyrighted
by Educational Publishing Company
1903.




PREFACE.


It is unfortunately true that the terms education and culture are not
synonymous. Too often we find that the children in our public schools,
while possessed of the one, are signally lacking in the other. This is
a state of things that cannot be remedied by teaching mere facts. The
Greeks, many years ago, found the true method of imparting the latter
grace and we shall probably not be able to discover a better one
to-day. Their youths learned Homer and the other great poets as a part
of their daily tasks, and by thus constantly dwelling upon and storing
in their minds the noblest and most beautifully expressed thought in
their literature, their own mental life became at once refined and
strong.

The basis of all culture lies in a pure and elevated moral nature, and
so noted an authority as President Eliot, of Harvard University, has
said that the short memory gems which he learned as a boy in school,
have done him more good in the hour of temptation than all the sermons
he ever heard preached. A fine thought or beautiful image, once stored
in the mind, even if at first it is received indifferently and with
little understanding, is bound to recur again and again, and its
companionship will have a sure, if