To offer another anthology on a market which may seem to many to be already more than adequately supplied with collections of literature for school use demands on the part of its editors either unusual temerity or a well-founded justification. The compilers of Readings in Literature feel that they have the latter in the conditions and circumstances which impelled them to prepare the collection. Most of the available anthologies present their material in chronological order; they are suitable for use in either high school or college classes and are not infrequently used in both. More than one student has found himself repeating in college the course in the history of literature. which he met in high school, illustrated by readings from the same anthology he used before. There is no evidence that survey courses stimulate wide reading or inspire a love of literature. Few of these collections of literature with the historical approach purport to be based upon the classroom procedures or practices.

In such a company the editors of the Readings in Literature believe that their collection possesses a unique character. In the work of reorganization of the course in English in the University High School of the University of Chicago, the objectives adopted were: the development in the pupils of a desire to read, a wide familiarity with literature of high quality, enrichment of living through reading, and the cultivation of superior tastes and standards of literary judgment. Accordingly, the first two

years of the regular high school are devoted to making contacts between the pupils and those pieces of simpler descriptive and narrative literature which touch most closely their experiences and fall within the range of their immediate powers of appreciation. When they are deemed to have reached sufficient maturity to partake of some appreciation of adult experience, they are introduced, through a course in classics, to those selections. of literature which, because of their maturity and sophistication, demand more or less interpretation and leadership on the part of an instructor in order to insure their being completely comprehended by boys and girls on the threshold of adult life. Observation and experience have led the editors to believe that certain types of literary composition, viz., Drama, Epic, Essay, and Lyric Poetry, require this kind of leadership and offer the richest sort of introduction to adult experience with life. They also believe that the process of vicarious realization of the experience of living to be gained from reading these may be carried on most advantageously in as natural a library situation as can be constructed under the limitations of classroom organization.

In creating this natural library situation, the instructors have made use of the very simple device of classroom reading tables stacked attractively with the literary materials with which they wish their pupils to become acquainted. With this situation established, and with an informal classroom atmosphere of industry and pleasant

literary recreation, the work has been carried on. Being continually conscious of the difficulty of bringing the mass of desirable and effective material within the reach of the pupils in any one of the collections available, the instructors in classics decided to compile this anthology to include those selections which experience had demonstrated to be most effective and valuable. The Readings in Literature is, therefore, the product of classroom practice with definite objectives in mind.

It is not contended by its editors that the volumes contain all the literary material of any value in attaining the objectives set for a course in classics. Rather, this anthology is designed to furnish the nucleus of a wide field of good literature which, it is hoped, will enrich the reading tables of any classroom wherein the books are used. Suggestions for equipping such tables will be found in the Manual published to accompany the anthology.

The editors do not expect that every pupil will read every selection in these volumes. It is not even necessary that every selection be read and reported by some one individual in a class. The volumes are not exercise books; they are but one of any number of sources of literary experience.

In selecting the materials in these volumes, the editors have been guided primarily by the response of pupils to the selections; some valuable materials have been omitted, however, because of their length and easy accessibility in high-school classics and high-school libraries. Among such may be named Macaulay's Essay on

Johnson, available in many excellent school editions, Homer's Odyssey, which can be procured in Bryant's translation, and any number of Shakespeare's plays, equally easy of access in every community. Macbeth, on the other hand, has been included, because of its immediacy of appeal, its superiority as a specimen of its type, and the desirability of having in the hands of each pupil a copy of the first selection to be introduced. Selections from the Idylls of the King, although it is not technically a great epic, have been included in the unit because of their many epic qualities and their strong appeal to boys and girls.

In arranging the selections in the anthology, considerations of chronology, geography, and biography have been deliberately ignored. The books are not intended to serve a course in the history of literature. However, suggestions are offered in footnotes. to the proper selections, in bibliographies, and in study questions for the creation of backgrounds of picturesque literary groups or periods such as the Elizabethan, the Eighteenth Century, Victorian England, and the New England Group in America. It is expected that any facts of historical nature that are of value in making the selections vital to boys and girls as interpretations of life will be supplied by the instructor. Experience has shown the editors that attractive oral presentation of such facts is far more effective than reading assignments covering the information. Not many footnotes are provided. Such as seem absolutely necessary for immediate comprehension of

unusual words are given; others, as noted above, seek to furnish background facts or stimulate their discovery. Study helps given in the appendices are of a general nature and are not meant to be used for assignments for recitation. Many teachers will probably prefer material of their own making. The editors wish boys and girls to get and keep the impression that good literature is meant for easy, pleasurable, and stimulating reading rather than for study.

Within each type of literary material presented, the arrangement is to some degree upon a basis of subject matter. Hence, the drama opens with three plays in which character and theme are paramount. The fourth play presents both these elements abstractly and in simplest form. For obvious reasons, content could not in this way govern the arrangement of the three epic selections included; here immediacy of appeal directed the arrangement. In the essay and lyric poetry sections (Volume Two), a coherence through subject matter will once more be discovered. Needless to say, on the side of subject matter and life interpretation, there is possible the richest sort of cross reference and comparative study throughout the books. Alert teachers and pupils will continually discover these stimulating

contacts.

To meet an insistent demand from frequent visitors in their classes in the University High School for printed syllabi or descriptions of their pro

cedures, the editors of the Readings in Literature have prepared a Manual, published simultaneously with these volumes. It is their hope that many teachers may give consideration and trial to the procedures therein described and find in them stimulation to a richer and more delightful experience of their own in teaching highschool classics.

Acknowledgment of permission to use copyrighted material is made to Mr. Barrett H. Clark and his publisher, Samuel French, for the translation of Le Medecin Malgrè Lui1; to Professor Gilbert Murray and the Oxford University Press for The Trojan Women; and to Charles Scribner's Sons for A Doll's House.

Similarly, the editors acknowledge with gratitude the continued inspiration they have received from Professor Henry Clinton Morrison, Superintendent of the Laboratory Schools of the University of Chicago, whose careful judgment and sympathetic criticism have made possible the procedures upon which these volumes and the Manual are based. They are indebted also to Professor Rollo La Verne Lyman for helpful criticism in various stages of their work, to Miss Hannah Logasa, Librarian of the University High School, for assistance with the book lists in the appendices, and to Mrs. Kellar Ewing Major for assistance in reading proof.

ERNEST HANES

MARTHA JANE MCCOY

1 Copyright, 1914, by Samuel French. All rights reserved. For permission to produce this play, application should be made to Samuel French, 25 West 45th Street, New York City.