the easy-word transliteralist has much to answer for in his alterations of classic story into one and two syllabled absurdities for the tender digestion of the child. Stories that have reached a classic version had better be left alone. Occasionally a teacher with a touch of genius manages simplification well enough, but the usual result is deplorable. If a book - Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" is a case in point—is difficult reading for the child of the Third or even the Fourth Grade, let it wait, or let it be wisely used by the teacher to read to her class. It is the work as a whole, subject-matter and form together, the total impression, that counts; and only careful experiment can fully settle the question as to what piece makes a sufficiently deep impression to warrant one's using it in a given grade. Experience, then, must guide, — the experience of the wise teacher who aims to hit the golden mean, neither undertaxing the child's growing powers, nor yet straining a-tiptoe to overtrain them, which is by no means impossible. It remains to be added that for Primary children the interesting thing cannot be the long thing. The long story or poem, peddled out in small instalments, is an artistic and pedagogical absurdity.

Surveying available material, it is not likely that any of the many existing Primary Readers will be entirely satisfactory to the teacher who is trying to live up to a high standard. Sometimes the spread is too

thin; sometimes the good and bad are hopelessly jumbled; sometimes the pieces are not properly graded; sometimes there is a bat-like blindness to the long-accepted classics of child-literature, or, more frequently still, to the recent prolific contributions made to the child's book-shelf by writers whose genius lies in a new power of interpreting and enlisting the sympathies of childhood. We shall not get the satisfactory Reader until it is compiled by persons who combine two qualifications, — pedagogical insight to control the grading of the selections, and broad and fine literary culture. It is the last that is so conspicuously lacking in our Readers. The good teacher has still to glean for herself in the rich fields whose liberties are opened by collections such as those of Patmore, Palgrave, Lucas, the Lambs, Lang, Henley, Repplier, Whittier, and Scudder; and in the works of Stevenson, Riley, Field, Sherman, Christina Rossetti (whose poetry often soars unexpectedly into the high heaven of childhood), Celia Thaxter (whose instinct sometimes fails her), Edith Thomas, Kipling. As for prose, - the story, myth, legend and fable, there has been such a recent harvesting of the lore of the ages and peoples as to embarrass us, Lang's Fairy Books (Blue, White, and otherwise); Jacob's series of Fairy Stories (English, Celtic, Scandinavian, etc.); Scudder's selections in the excellent Riverside series; the Children's Library of Irish, Scotch, Finnish legend; numerous volumes

!

of Slavic, Celtic, Indian, and Negro lore (with Uncle Remus as master-narrator); Norse mythology in volumes like the "Heroes of Asgard" and adaptations by Mabie, Guerber, and others; Frost's adaptations of Scandinavian, Wagnerian, and Arthurian legend, etc. Then Kipling has added a new classic in the "Jungle Books"; while Stockton, Howells, Thompson-Seton (for children above ten), Macdonald, and others have made contributions of high quality; and the supply of humor and fun in Carroll, Lear, Herford, etc., runneth over. To these should be added some good collections of animal stories (Lang's for example), and short lives of famous men. The supply is more than ample.

Finally, it is under the heading of reading material that we must include the stories that are to be told and retold in the class. Story-telling should, as we have already urged, be an important part of the literary work in the Primary Grades. It is especially valuable (and our librarians are rapidly realizing this)1 as a means of introducing children to good books, arousing interests and awakening curiosities. The teacher may tell a story from the "Arabian Nights," and lead the children to read others in some volume of well-selected stories. It is an art to be cultivated both for its own sake, and because it opens an enticing path into the El Dorado of Letters.

1 The admirable work being done under Mr. Anderson at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburg may be especially referred to. The results here are very encouraging, we are told.

CHAPTER VII

READING IN THE PRIMARY GRADES (continued)

II. HOW TO READ

In making our selections for reading material for the several grades, we find certain difficult questions arising at the outset of our undertaking. For example, shall "Hiawatha," or parts of it, be read in the Second Grade, or the Fourth, or even later? The Second Grade child will relish parts of the poem, and do a certain amount of justice to them; but the Fourth Grade will get a much firmer grip on the whole of it, and will enjoy it even more. Or it may be a moot point as to where "Sir Launfal" should be taken, in the Fifth Grade or the Seventh? or shall it be left for the High School, where it may have to be studied in any case to meet the college entrance requirements?

The general answer to such questions is: The choice depends partly upon the treatment proposed. The question of selection cannot be considered apart from the question of treatment. Let us make this clear.

Many of the great classics are meant for readers of all ages. They have, like a great picture (Raphael's Madonna, e.g.), a word for every one, because they ap

peal primarily to the emotions; and the emotions, as Professor Stanley Hall has remarked, "are far more independent of age or culture than the intelligence." Certain brief strains of lyric rapture- such as Shakespeare's "Where the bee sucks," Tennyson's "Owl” — exercise their spell upon the child of seven as upon the child of threescore and ten. The truth of Wordsworth's "We are Seven," or of Emerson's "Fable" ("The Mountain and the Squirrel"), holds and spreads with ever widening circles of meaning from the morning to the eve of life. Why? Because, we repeat, they are primarily emotional in their appeal, and deal suggestively with very simple themes. Truth is " embodied in a tale," to use Tennyson's expression, which may then "enter in at lowly doors." It is because the poet speaks to the heart, wise with unlearned wisdom, because all beauty so speaks ("speaks all languages the rose") that the child-heart of all ages and climes understands him.

Hence, the first secret of a successful treatment of any great-little thing in art is to know how to present it so that it will make the right kind of emotional appeal within the range of the child's understanding of the subject-matter. "The little flower in the crannied wall" has one single word of cheer for the child's eye; but for the philosopher-poet it holds in its simple life the meaning of the mystery of things, knowing which-flower and root and all he would