Copyright 1923 SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 635254 For permission to use copyrighted material grateful acknowledgment is made to Harcourt, Brace and Company for "Halcyon Days" from Piping and Panning by Edwin Meade Robinson, copyright 1920; to Charles Scribner's Sons for "The Vagabond" by Robert Louis Stevenson; to Methuen and Company for "Household Gods" by E. V. Lucas; to George H. Doran Company for "Holy Ireland" from Poems, Essays and Letters by Joyce Kilmer, copyright 1914, and "On Unanswering Letters" from Mince Pie by Christopher Morley, copyright 1919; to Dodd, Mead and Company for "Humor As I See It" by Stephen Leacock, and "Seeing People Off" by Max Beerbohm; to Doubleday, Page and Company for the letter to Frank N. Doubleday by Walter Hines Page (from The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, by Burton J. Hendrick, copyright 1922), and "The Prophecy of a New Era" by Walt Whitman; to Frederick A. Stokes Company for "American Tradition" from The American Spirit by Franklin K. Lane, copyright 1918; to Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and to the author for "A Farmer Remembers Lincoln" from Grenstone Poems by Witter Bynner; to Henry Holt and Company and the author for "Mending Wall" and "The Death of the Hired Man" from North of Boston by Robert Frost, copyright 1915, “Skyscraper" from Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg, copyright 1916, "Old Susan" from The Listeners by Walter de la Mare, and "The Beau of Bath" from The Beau of Bath, and Other One-Act Plays by Constance D'Arcy Mackay, copyright 1915; to Harper and Brothers and the author for "No. 1075 Packs Chocolates" from Working with the Working Woman, by Cornelia Stratton Parker, copyright 1922 by Harper and Brothers, and the letter to Miss L. L. White by James Russell Lowell; to Miss Mary Carolyn Davies and Mr. William Stanley Braithwaite for Miss Davies's poem "Fifth Avenue and Grand Street" from Victory! Celebrated by Thirty-eight American Poets, edited by Mr. Braithwaite; to Edwin Markham for "The Man with the Hoe" from The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems; and to Miss Anzia Yezierska for "The Fat of the Land" from The Fat of the Land. The following selections are reprinted by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers: "Calvin" from My Summer in a Garden by Charles Dudley Warner; "A Kitten" from In the Dozy Hours by Agnes Repplier, by permission of the author; "The Wild Ride" by Louise Imogen Guiney, and "Civilization" and "Days" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 274.11 PREFACE The four books of Literature and Life present a complete course in literature for secondary schools. They are the result of many years of experience and study, and the entire series was planned in advance of the publication of the first book. They are not merely anthologies of standard classics arranged according to gradation or types or any other casual method of organization. Not only is each book complete in itself, but it has a definite function to perform in relation to the other books in the series. The four volumes provide a course in English and American literature that is both complete and unified. A convenient illustration of this method may be found in the treatment of literary history. The second book, for example, contains a Story of American Literature. This story differs from the conventional history in that while it presents biographies and criticism with illustrative literature, it also uses all this material to build up an understanding of American literature as an expression and interpretation of American life. It is placed in Book Two because students have already acquired, in the grammar school and the junior high school, considerable acquaintance with the major American authors, and are now mature enough to gather up the threads of the story so that their knowledge may become a permanent possession. This knowledge they use in Books Three and Four, where selections from American literature are also found, but placing the historical outline in the earlier years gives better opportunity for building up a knowledge, in the third and fourth years, of the longer and more complex study of English literary history. Governing ideas of the series as a whole are: (1) that “in books lies the soul of the whole past time," and that the avenue of approach to this spiritual heritage lies in creative reading (as explained in the Introduction on page 1); (2) that the separate masterpieces are, for the purpose of the school, so many chapters or paragraphs or songs in the great Book of Literature itself, which is the true subject of our study; and (3) that literature is not something belonging to the past alone, or to our re-creation of the past, but results from a perennial and neverdying instinct of humanity, operative today as well as in the time of Shakespeare. Thus contemporary literature is brought into constant and vital relation to the literature produced in former ages. Literary history is not like other history. Progress is not the keynote. We do not compare highly developed literary forms of today with primitive forms of the past as we compare the science of today with the alchemy and magic of the Middle Ages. Literature of whatever age is an expression of the life of that age, of course, but it is more. If it has endured, it is also the expression of fundamental instincts and emotions. Beneath external differences there is the eternal heart of man. To learn the facts of Shakespeare's life is worth while, but it is far more important to come into immediate and vital contact with that world of the imagination, transcending iv time and place, in which Shakespeare's spirit lived, and still lives. Therefore the method used in this series does not regard Shakespeare's contribution to literature as something to be appraised and memorized in the last year of the high-school course, merely a chapter in literary history. In each year some part of his achievement is studied. The study of As You Like It, for example, in Book Two was made the basis for the consideration of his work in comedy. In the present volume King Henry the Fifth is studied not only as one of that long list of dramas for which he put the generations in his debt, but as an expression of his pageant of history, a part of his interpretation of the past history of his nation for his own time, and also as a means for stimulating the historical imagination of pupils living in the present time who are shortly to go forth to make history for the future. In Book Four we shall come into contact with Shakespeare's profounder studies of life and its meaning, his conception of tragedy. Thus is built up, step by step, a knowledge of Shakespeare that will be an abiding possession, all of it suited to the growing maturity of the student. The special emphasis in Book One was on literature as an expression of man's reactions to the worlds outside himself; the world of human action, including his relations to his fellows, and the world of nature. The selections were taken from concrete and objective experience, set forth in ballad, epic, historical drama, the literature of political and social relations, literature interpreting nature. Little space was given to subjective and reflective forms of literature. Studies in character and plot were simple, not complex. In Book Two literature was regarded primarily as story: Stories in Verse, Stories in Prose, A Story in Drama, and The Story of American as Certain principles introduced in the preceding books, parts of the fundamental method of the series, are to be The General found also in this book. Introduction, dealing with Creative Reading, is another chapter in the systematic course in methods of reading that is a feature of the series. Pupils are led to think about the province of literature, about elementary literary criticism, and about improving their ability to read. The principles set forth in this Introduction, as in its predecessors, are not mere preachments; they are used, in a hundred different ways, in the editorial apparatus of the book itself. For example, the series builds up, step by step, so gradually as not to prove merely formal, a study of poetic elements, versification, poetic figures, the study of poetic diction, the characteristics of literary types. What is given in this book is linked, in many ways, with what has been given in the previous books. Again, the study questions, the topics for discussion and composition, are carefully adapted to the selections and to the student's needs. He is not told to "study" a given "lesson." Guidance as to what to look for is supplied. The questions are not tests alone; they are suggestions looking toward systematic and progressive study. The pupil is not compelled to memorize; he is taught to find things for himself. Finally, the series as a whole is based on the conviction that a prime need is for abundance of material. Studying the life out of a few classics does not stimulate reading ability. Not all classics are to be studied in the same way, or at the same rate of progress. Abundant provision is made for the teacher who desires to specialize on certain selections and to pass lightly over or to omit altogether certain others. Moreover, provision is made for a minimal course, to be used as the basis, and for a compre hensive course, to be used by the better pupils. To hold back the capable reader to suit the pace of his slower brothers is not good policy. Certain parts of this book, therefore, may be reserved for special reports by capable pupils. The teacher need not fear lest such pupils will not read the book from cover to cover. Many of them will read far in advance of the assignments. With this in mind, the editors have gone even farther. They have provided a large amount of interesting reading within the cover of one book. They have also provided for abundant reading outside the book, reading that is closely related to the organization of the book. Special attention is directed to these reading-lists, scattered at strategic points throughout the book. These are not mere lists of titles. Discriminating notes are appended. The pupil may read over the bill of fare and pick the dishes that appeal to his appetite. Not all books on these lists will be available to all pupils, nor is it so intended. The reader may follow special interests. If a certain selection has whetted his appetite, guidance is supplied looking toward the satisfaction of that appetite. The following masterpieces required for admission to college are presented in unabridged form in this book: Four of the Idylls of the King; Travels with a Donkey; King Henry the Fifth; The De Coverley Papers; She Stoops to Conquer. Besides these complete masterpieces, conference recommendations are further met by the inclusion of a generous selection from Malory, a group of essays, a group of prose selections reflecting modern thought, and a liberal selection from the best contemporary poetry. None of the complete classics has suffered from its inclusion in an anthology. The neces |