the selections. This book, of course, may be used in just the same way. But it is not intended for such use, as the program will show you.

The program is the Table of Contents. If you will look at it for a moment you will see that the book contains ballads, epics, dramas, short stories, lyrics, and prose selections of various sorts. You will find a part of one of the oldest poems in the world, the Odyssey of Homer, some ballads that belong to a very early and primitive type of English culture, and some poems that were written only the other day. You have, then, a considerable amount of literature at your disposal. We may omit, for the present, any discussion of the difference between literature and ordinary printed matter. The definition of literature given in the Introduction to Junior High School Literature, Book Two, will serve us here equally well: "The expression of the facts of life, or of the interpretation of life, or of the beauty of life, in language of such enduring charm that men treasure it and will not let it die." Facts, interpretation, beauty-the selections in the following pages are built upon this relationship between literature and life.

But this is not all. You will observe that the book is divided into four parts, and that these parts deal with adventure, legend and history, the relations of man to his fellows, and the relations of man to Nature. The Introduction prefixed to each of these parts will bring out the meaning of these divisions. Just now only one thing is necessary, and this idea you should carry with you throughout your study. The general purpose of the book is to show how, through literature, men have put on record their ideas about this great adventure of living. No one who is worth anything is satisfied with mere existence. Such a life is mere prose. Man wants adventure, because through adventure he finds a means of realizing some of his ideals of what makes life interesting. Therefore, the first part of this book is devoted to some stories about adventures of all sorts. There is nothing serious here. They are just snapshots of scenes in all sorts of lives in all sorts of times, like the snapshots that you take

with your kodak on a summer vacation trip. They are to be added to the collection you have been making ever since you read with amazement of Jack Horner's exploits with the Christmas pie. You will continue to add to your collection as long as you live.

In the second part of the book, legend and history-also forms of adventurebecome means through which we may enter into the experience of the race. In many of these we see how men have sought to realize their fullest powers through some heroic deed.

In Part III of the book, man's effort to realize his ideals finds a different definition. It is not alone through the spectacular deed that a man comes to himself. He may bring out the best within himself through sympathy, through service, through coöperation. Democracy rests on this idea of coöperation of all for the good of all. It is not necessary to be a knight of Arthur's court in order to find the fullest expression of one's powers.

And finally, in Part IV the intimate relationship between man and Nature is brought out in a series of selections that show, on the one hand, how man interprets in terms of beauty the world in which he lives, and, on the other, how he makes use of the forces of Nature to give him enjoyment and safety.

For literature is the record of the adventures of the soul of man as he struggles to understand himself and the world in which he lives. It is one of the chief sources of right enjoyment and of right thinking. In it we find not merely a subject to be studied in school as a series of lessons, but a means of satisfying our curiosity about life, of living more lives than one. It opens a world of fancy and imagination into which we go at will, just as Ali Baba or Aladdin could enter the world of magic by using a charm. It opens a world of heroic action, through which the desire to do worthy things may be born in us. It opens a world of sympathy and service because it shows how men have sought for realization of their highest ideals through service to their fellows. And it brings enrichment through knowledge of the world of Nature,

a perception of the beauty of Nature and of the way in which Nature serves man as the genius of the lamp served Aladdin. Poetry, drama, story, all writing that men have preserved because of its beauty or its enduring worth, these are means for

recreation and for growth. By reading, man is lifted far above the realm in which animals pass their lives, and is taught how to crowd into his brief years enjoyment and experience that make rich his life and multiply his powers.

1. What evidence can you find that animals possess the power of communicating with each other? Give some illustrations from your personal experience. What is language? What can you find of its origin? (Try an encyclopedia, or use some book on the history of language. There is a fascinating chapter on this subject in Words and Their Ways in English Speech, by Greenough and Kittredge, pp. 1-6). What is the difference between the language of an uncivilized man, such as an Indian when the white men first came to America, and that of an educated man? What is the difference between the language used in a conference of technical experts, such as a group of engineers, and that used by a group of men who are discussing a national baseball championship?

2. What was the origin of writing? Give a definition. Look up the article "Writing" in the Encyclopedia Britannica or in some other similar work. Define some primitive means of com.munication, such as message-sticks, marked pebbles, picture-writing, and any others that you find.

3. One of the most widely used dictionaries defines four hundred thousand words. What does this fact suggest to you? Shakespeare used about fifteen thousand words. How many words does an untrained man use, do you suppose? What is the difference between recognizing the meaning of a word when you are reading a selection in a book and using it in your own writing

and speaking? Why is the addition of words to your vocabulary an important element in your education?

4. Sum up the results of your work by making a brief statement of the differences between an intelligent animal and an intelligent man so far as language, writing, vocabulary are concerned. 5. Name several ways in which men have recorded their past history. In what way may a poem be such a record? Name several poems that seem to you to have historical value.

6. In what ways are the telephone, the ocean liner, and the electric light illustrations of man's "power to ask questions of life and to get answers to his questions"? Show that these and other forms of what we call "progress" depend in part upon some sort of "records" or previous attempts to find answers to man's questions.

7. Does "progress"—that is, the possession of greater wealth, greater command over Nature, more conveniences-necessarily mean a higher state of civilization? What is the point of comparison between Shakespeare and the office boy?

8. How does memory enter into language, written expression, the progress of invention and discovery? How does imagination enter in? Is imagination a characteristic only of the poet or the novelist, or is it characteristic also of the inventor? Is it necessary in building up a great business?

Reading is, first of all, a means of recreation, like games or music or the drama or travel or any of the other amusements by which people forget their ordinary occupations and get out of the ruts of their ordinary thought and speech. The first test of literature, therefore, is its power to take us out of ourselves. While we read, we live in a world that is attractive through its strangeness, a world of fancy and imagination. The measure of the power of what we read lies in the completeness with which we are absorbed into this unaccustomed world. If you become thoroughly interested in the Indian stories of Fenimore Cooper, you are transported to the scenes in which the action moves; you are a companion to Natty Bumppo; he is as real to you as if you could actually see him and hear him speak. You can recall stories in which you became so absorbed that you did not hear if someone called you or spoke to you. You were not willing to lay aside the book until you had devoured the whole of it. Your book. was like the magic carpet of old romance, powerful to carry you far off from your actual surroundings and into a world where all manner of strange adventures awaited you.

This test of interest-deep, absorbing interest-is a fair one. It is met by all reading that once gets full influence over you. It may even be met, on occasion, by that which is not literature. For example, you may become greatly interested in wireless telegraphy.

As a

result of this interest, a book on the subject may seem, for the time, far more absorbing than any other reading that you

can find. You eagerly devour every scrap of information you can pick up on the subject. The fascination that literature can exert is akin to the fascination that the handbook on wireless telegraphy possesses, though it springs from different

causes.

It is not, primarily, the information that you gain from poetry and story and drama that marks the difference between what is literature and what is not. An encyclopedia or a dictionary or a treatise on history or science may give you far more useful information than you can get from this book or from any other book devoted to literature. Neither is it in the moral lessons or even in the ideals of conduct suggested that you find the chief reason for reading. Literature gives information and is filled with noble ideals, but its first use for you is to bring pleasure. This book, like every book filled with what we call literature as distinct from writing that seeks only to give information, is more than a series of lessons.

Suppose we look a little more closely at this distinction between what we call a "lesson" and that which we call a recreation or a source of pleasure. Some "lesson," for example, may be distasteful to you because you don't find it interesting. If you are conscientious, you can probably force yourself to learn it, but you take no pleasure in it, and you spend as little time on it as you can.

It doesn't take you out of yourself.

Literature, rightly used, possesses the power to take you out of yourself, to widen your horizon, to increase the range of your interests. The pleasures that are brought by any departure from our