+-------------------------------------+-----+----------+----_The World's Best Books : A Key to the Treasures of Literature

| | [*] | of | Where found. |

+-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+

| Home, Sweet Home | e. | C. | |

| | | | |

| The Building of the Ship | e. | R. | |

| of the reading-books.) | e. | | |

| Morituri Salutamus | m. | R.D. | |

| | | | |

| commit | m. | R.D. | the |

| Breakfast-Table | e. | R.D. | |

| | | | |

| Abou Ben Adhem | e. | R.D. | Monroe. |

| | | | |

| The True Beauty | e. | R.D. | Palgrave, 87. |

| | | | |

| Elegy in a Country Churchyard | m. | R.D.C. | " 147. |

| Hymn to Adversity | m. | R.D. | " 159. |

| Progress of Poesy | m. | R.D. | " 140. |

| The Bard | m. | R.D. | " 123. |

| | | | |

| The Blind Men and the Elephant| e. | R.D. | No. 4. |

| | | | |

| The Release | m. | R.D. | H. H. Jackson.|

| | | | |

| Bridge of Sighs | m. | R.D. | Palgrave, 231.|

| Song of the Shirt | e. | R.D. | No. 2. |

| | | | |

| Doon | e. | R.D. | Palgrave, 139.|

| To a Field-mouse | e. | R.D. | " 144.|

| Mary Morrison | e. | R.D. | " 148.|

| Bonnie Lesley | e. | R.D. | " 149.|

| Jean | e. | R.D. | " 155.|

| John Anderson | e. | R.D. | " 156.|

| A Man's a Man for a' that | e. | R.D. | Burns's Poems.|

| Auld Lang Syne | e. | R.D. | |

| Army | e. | R.D. | |

| | | | |

| The Light of other Days | e. | R.D. | Palgrave, 225.|

| Come rest in this Bosom | e. | R.D. | Irish Melodies|

| At the Mid Hour of Night | e. | R.D. | Irish Melodies|

| Those Evening Bells | e. | R.D. | Monroe. |

| | | | |

| Rime of the Ancient Mariner | d. | R.D.G. | Coleridge's |

| Stream of Life | d. | R.D.G. | |

| Vale of Chamouni | e. | R. | Monroe. |

| | | | |

| the Hills | m. | R.D.C. | Whittier's |

| the Beach | m. | R.D.C. | |

| Freedom | m. | R.D.C. | |

| Barefoot Boy | e. | R.D.C. | |

| | | | |

| cold gray Stones, O Sea" | m. | R.D.C. | Poems. |

| the In Memoriam | m. | R.D.C. | |

| Bugle Song, in The Princess | m. | R.D.C. | No. 2. |

| Charge of the Light Brigade | e. | R.D.C. | No. 2. |

| The Brook | e. | R.D.C. | Monroe. |

| | | | |

| Canterbury Tales | m. | R. | Poems. |

| | | | |

| 12. KEY. | | | |

| The Star-Spangled Banner | e. | C. | No. 4. |

| | | | |

| The American Flag | e. | R. | No. 1. |

| | | | |

| "My Country, 'tis of thee" | e. | C. | |

| | | | |

| The Black Regiment | e. | R. | No. 1. |

| | | | |

| Ye Mariners of England | m. | R.D.C. | Palgrave, 206.|

| Battle of the Baltic | m. | R.C. | " 207.|

| Soldier's Dream | m. | R.C. | " 267.|

| Hohenlinden | m. | R.C. | " 215.|

| Lord Ullin's Daughter | m. | R.C. | " 181.|

| Love's Beginning | m. | R.C. | " 183.|

| Ode to Winter | m. | R.C. | " 256.|

| | | | |

| Rule Britannia | m. | R.C. | Palgrave, 122.|

| | | | |

| | | | |

| Marco Bozzaris | e. | R. | No. 1. |

| | | | |

| especially Horatius, and | e. | R.D. | No. 2. |

| Ivry | m. | R.D. | No. 5. |

| | | | |

| | | | |

| Rienzi's Address | m. | R. | No. 1. |

| | | | |

| Belshazzar | m. | R. | No. 4. |

| | | | |

| Ode to the West Wind | m. | R.D.C. | Palgrave, 275.|

| Ode to a Skylark | m. | R.D.C. | " 241.|

| To a Lady with a Guitar | m. | R.D.C. | " 252.|

| Italy | m. | R.D.C. | " 274.|

| Naples | m. | R.D.C. | " 227.|

| The Poet's Dream | d. | R.D.C. | " 277.|

| etc. | m. | R.D.C. | |

| | | | |

| All for Love | m. | R.D. | Palgrave, 169.|

| Beauty | m. | R.D. | " 171.|

| The Eve of Waterloo | m. | R.D.C. | Monroe. |

| The Field of Waterloo | m. | R.D.C. | No. 1. |

| | | | |

| Thanatopsis | m. | R.C.G. | No. 1. |

| | | | |

| The Closing Year | m. | R.C.G. | No. 1. |

| | | | |

| POE. | | | |

| The Bells; The Raven | m. | R.C.G. | No. 1. |

| Annabel Lee | m. | R. | No. 5. |

| | | | |

| The Star | m. | R. | Palgrave, 198.|

| Ode to a Nightingale | m. | R. | " 244.|

| Ode to Autumn | m. | R. | " 255.|

| Ode on the Poets | m. | R. | " 167.|

| | | | |

| A Beautiful Woman | e. | R.C. | Palgrave, 174.|

| The Reaper | m. | R. | " 250.|

| Simon Lee | m. | R. | " 219.|

| Intimations of Immortality | | | " 367.|

| | | | |

| Gifts of God | e. | R.D.C. | " 74.|

| | | | |

| Drifting | m. | R.D.C. | No. 1. |

| Sheridan's Ride | e. | R. | " |

| | | | |

| Melancholy | e. | R. | Palgrave, 104.|

| | | | |

| Rape of the Lock | m. | R. | Pope's Poems. |

| | | | |

| The Brides of Enderby | m. | R. | No. 2. |

| | | | |

| Loss of the Royal George | e. | R. | Palgrave, 129.|

| Solitude of Selkirk | m. | R. | " 160.|

| | | | |

| Alexander's Feast | d. | R. | " 116.|

| | | | |

| The Passions | d. | R. | " 141.|

| | | | |

| Hymn to Diana | m. | R. | " 78.|

| | | | |

| Cato's Soliloquy | m. | R. | No. 1. |

| | | | |

| Rosaline | m. | R. | Palgrave, 16.|

| | | | |

| Counsel to Girls | e. | R. | " 82.|

| The Poetry of Dress | e. | R. | " 92.|

| | | | |

| and free, in his Fragments | m. | R.C.G. | Shelley's |

| for their magnificent imagery | m. | R.C.G. | Fitzgerald's |

| translation | m. | R.C.G. | Campbell's |

| | | | |

| Read Shelley's Fragments | m. | R.C.G. | Shelley's |

| The Battle | m. | R. | Poems. No. 4. |

| The Song of the Bell | m. | R. | Publ. |

| Tartuffe, or The Hypocrite | e. | R.D. | Moliere's |

| Man-Hater | e. | R.D. | |

+-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+

GROUP III.--_Short Prose Selections._

+-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+

| | [*] | of | Where found. |

+-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+

| | | | |

| beauty, breadth, and power | m. | R.C. | No. 2. |

| | | | |

| Rip Van Winkle | e. | R.D.C. | Sketch Book. |

| The Spectre Bridegroom | e. | R.D.C. | " " |

| The Art of Book-Making | e. | R.D.C. | " " |

| The Legend of Sleepy Hollow | e. | R.D.C. | " " |

| | | | |

| condensation of thought | m. | R.D.C. | Bacon's |

| Carlyle's finest passage | m. | R.D.C. | |

| Await the Issue | m. | R.D.C. | Monroe. |

| Carlyle's Life of Sterling | e. | R.D.C. | |

| | | | |

| world's best | m. | R.D.C. | No. 1. |

| | | | |

| in his oration on Toussaint | m. | R.D.C. | Speeches. |

| | | | |

| Discoveries of Galileo | m. | R. | No. 1. |

| | | | |

| One Niche the Highest | e. | R. | No. 7. |

| | | | |

| scene, splendidly painted | e. | R. | No. 11. |

| Rome and Carthage | m. | R. | No. 6. |

| | | | |

| Noble Revenge | m. | R. | No. 7. |

| | | | |

| 21. POE. | | | |

| Murders in the Rue Morgue | d. | R. | Little |

| brother | m. | R. | Prose Poems. |

| | | | |

| Heart of Midlothian | m. | R. | |

| | | | |

| Nations and Humanity | m. | R. | No. 11. |

| | | | |

| Living and Dying | m. | R.D. | |

| | | | |

| most vital subject | m. | R.D. | |

+-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+

GROUP IV.--_Wit and Humor_--_Short List._

+-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+

| | [*] | of | Where found. |

+-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+

| | | | |

| Biglow Papers | e. | R.D. | Lowell's |

| Fable for Critics | d. | R.D. | Poems. |

| The Courtin' | e. | R.D. | |

| | | | |

| Breakfast-Table | m. | R.D. | |

| | | | |

| Committee, and The Rivals | e. | S. | |

| | | | |

| Laughin' in Meetin' | e. | S. | No. 11. |

| | | | |

| On New England Weather | e. | S. | No. 13. |

| Turkish Baths | e. | S. | Abroad. |

| | | | |

| Pickwick Papers | e. | S. | |

| | | | |

| A Senator Entangled | e. | S. | Choice |

| The Gridiron | e. | S. | " " |

| | | | |

| Napoleon | e. | S. | separately. |

+-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+

TABLE IV.

SUPPLEMENTARY GENERAL READING.

In addition to the short courses set forth in Tables II. and III., at

the same time, if the reader has a sufficiency of spare hours, but

always in subordination to the above courses, it is recommended that

attention be given to the following books:--

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. (e. R. D.)

Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. (e. S.)

Dickens' Christmas Carol (m. R. D.); Cricket on the Hearth. (m. R. D.)

Ruskin's Crown of Wild Olive (m. R. D.); Ethics of the Dust (m. R. D.);

Sesame and Lilies. (m. R. D.)

Emerson's Essays (d. R. D. C.); especially those on Manners, Gifts,

Love, Friendship, The Poet, and on Representative Men.

Demosthenes on the Crown. (m. R. D. C. G.)

Burke's Warren Hastings Oration. (m. R. D. C. G.)

Phillips' Speeches on Lovejoy and Garrison. (m. R. D. C. G.)

La Fontaine's Fables. (m. R. D.)

Short Biographies of the World's Hundred Greatest Men. (m. R. D.)

Marshall's Life of Washington. (m. R. D. G.)

Carlyle's Cromwell. (m. R. D. G.)

Tennyson's In Memoriam. (d. R. D. C.)

Byron's Childe Harold. (m. R. D. C.)

Burns' Cotter's Saturday Night. (m. R. D.)

Keats' Endymion. (d. R. D. C.)

Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. (d. R. D. C. G.)

Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. (m. R. D. C.)

Goldsmith's Deserted Village. (m. R. D. C.)

Pope's Essay on Man. (m. R. D. C.)

Thomson's Seasons. (m. R. D. C.)

CHILDREN.

So far we have spoken of reading for grown people. Now we must deal with

the reading of young folks,--a subject of the utmost importance. For to

give a child good habits of reading, to make him like to read and master

strong, pure books,--books filled with wisdom and beauty,--and equally

eager to shun bad books, is to do for him and the world a service of the

highest possible character; and to neglect the right care of a child in

this matter is to do him an injury far greater than to mutilate his face

or cut off his arm.

WHAT TO GIVE THE CHILDREN.

Parents, teachers, and others interested in the welfare of young people

have not only to solve the problem of selecting books for their own

nourishment, but also the more difficult problem of providing the young

folks with appropriate literary food. As literature may be made one of

the most powerful influences in the development of a child, the greatest

care should be taken to make the influence true, pure, and tender, and

give it in every respect the highest possible character, which requires

as much care to see that bad books do not come into the child's

possession and use, as to see that good books do. The ability to read

adds to life a wonderful power, but it is a power for evil as well as

good. As Lowell says, "It is the key which admits us to the whole world

of thought and fancy and imagination,--to the company of saint and sage,

of the wisest and wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moments. It

enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and

listen to the sweetest voices of all time. More than that, it

annihilates time and space for us,--reviving without a miracle the Age

of Wonder, and endowing us with the shoes of swiftness and the cap of

darkness." Yes, but it opens our minds to the thoughts of the vile as

well as to those of the virtuous; it unlocks the prisons and haunts of

vice as well as the school and the church; it drags us through the sewer

as well as gives us admission to the palace; it feeds us on filth as

well as the finest food; it pours upon our souls the deepest degradation

as well as the spirit of divinity. Parents will do well to keep from

their children such books as Richardson's "Pamela" and "Clarissa

Harlowe;" Fielding's "Joseph Andrews," "Jonathan Wild," and "Tom Jones;"

Smollett's "Humphrey Clinker," "Peregrine Pickle," and "Adventures of an

Atom;" Sterne's "Tristram Shandy;" Swift's "Gulliver," and their modern

relatives. Many of these coarse pictures of depravity and microscopic

analyses of filth I cannot read without feeling insulted by their

vulgarity, as I do when some one tells an indecent story in my presence.

Whatever the power or wit of a book, if its motive is not high and its

expression lofty, it should not come into contact with any life, at

least until its character is fixed and hardened in the mould of virtue

beyond the period of plasticity that might receive the imprint of the

badness in the book. There are plenty of splendid books that are pure

and ennobling as well as strong and humorous,--more of them than any one

person can ever read,--so that there is no necessity of contact with

imperfect literature. If a boy comes into possession of a book that he

would not like to read aloud to his mother or sister, he has something

that is not good for him to read,--something that is not altogether the

very best for anybody to read. Some liberty of choice, however, ought to

be allowed the children. It will add much to the vigor and enthusiasm of

a boy's reading if, instead of prescribing the precise volume he is to

have at each step, he is permitted to make his own selection from a list

of three or four chosen by the person who is guiding him. What these

three or four should be, is the problem. I cannot agree with Lowell,

when he says that young people ought to "confine themselves to the

supreme books in whatever literature, or, still better, choose some one

great author and make themselves thoroughly familiar with him." It is

possible to know something of people in general about me without

neglecting my best friends. It is possible to enjoy the society of

Shakspeare, Goethe, AEschylus, Dante, Homer, Plato, Spencer, Scott,

Eliot, Marcus Aurelius, and Irving, without remaining in ignorance of

the power and beauty to be found in Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Byron,

Burns, Goldsmith, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, Longfellow, Whittier,

Holmes, and Lowell, Ingersoll, Omar, Arnold, Brooks, and Robertson,

Curtis, Aldrich, Warner, Jewett, Burroughs, Bulwer, Tourgee, Hearn,

Kingsley, MacDonald, Hawthorne, Dickens, Thackeray, Carlyle, Ruskin,

Hugo, Bronte, Sienkiewicz, and a host of others. Scarcely a day passes

that I do not spend a little time with Shakspeare, Goethe, AEschylus,

Spencer, and Irving; but I should be sorry to have any one of those I

have named beyond call at any time. There are parts of Holmes, Lowell,

Brooks, Emerson, Omar, Arnold, Tourgee, and Hearn that are as dear to me

as any passages of equal size in Goethe or Irving. So it does not seem

best to me to _confine_ the attention to the supreme books; a just

_proportion_ is the true rule. Let the supreme books have the supreme

attention, absorb them, print them on the brain, carry them about in the

heart, but give a due share of time to other books. I like the

suggestion of Marietta Holley: "I would feed children with little sweet

crumbs of the best of books, and teach them that a whole rich feast

awaited them in the full pages," only taking care in each instance that

the crumb is well rounded, the picture not torn or distorted. There are

paragraphs and pages in many works of the second rank that are equal to

almost anything in the supreme books, and superior to much the latter

contain. These passages should be sought and cherished; and the work of

condensing the thought and beauty of literature--making a sort of

literary prayer-book--is an undertaking that ought not to be much longer

delayed. Until it is done, however, there is no way but to read widely,

adapting the speed and care to the value of the volume. Some things may

be best read by deputy, as Mark Twain climbed the Alps by agent;

newspapers, for example, and many of the novels that flame up like a

haystack on fire, and fade like a meteor in its fall, striking the earth

never to rise again. The time that many a young man spends upon

newspapers would be sufficient to make him familiar with a dozen

undying books every year. Newspapers are not to be despised, but they

should not be allowed to crowd out more important things. I keep track

of the progress of events by reading the "Outlook" in the "Christian

Union" every week, and glancing at the head-lines of the "Herald" or

"Journal," reading a little of anything specially important, or getting

an abstract from a friend who always reads the paper. A good way to

economize time is for a number of friends to take the same paper, the

first page being allotted to one, the second to another, and so on, each

vocally informing the others of the substance of his page. If time

cannot be found for both the newspaper and the classic, the former, not

the latter, should receive the neglect.

This matter of the use of time is one concerning which parents should

strive to give their children good habits from the first. If you teach a

child to economize time, and fill him with a love of good books, you

ensure him an education far beyond anything he can get in the

university,--an education that will cease only with his life. The

creation of a habit of industrious study of books that will improve the

character, develop the powers, and store the mind with force and

beauty,--that is the great object.

A good example is the best teacher. It is well for parents to keep close

to the child until he grows old enough to learn how to determine for

himself what he should read (which usually is not before fifteen or

twenty, and in many cases never); for children, and grown folks too for

that matter, crave intellectual as much as they do physical

companionship.

The methods of guiding the young in the paths of literature fall

naturally into two groups,--the first being adapted to childhood not yet

arrived at the power of reading alone, the second adapted to later

years. There is no sharp line of division or exclusion, but only a

general separation; for the methods peculiarly appropriate to each

period apply to some extent in the other. Some children are able to read

weighty books at three or four years of age, but most boys and girls

have to plod along till they are eight or ten before they can read much

alone. I will consider the periods of child life I have referred to,

each by itself.

=The Age of Stories=.--It is not necessary or proper to wait until a

child can read, before introducing it to the best literature. Most of

the books written for children have no permanent value, and most of the

reading books used in primary and grammar schools contain little or no

genuine literature, and what they do contain is in fragments. Portions

of good books are useful, if the story of each part is complete, but

children do not like the middle of a story without the beginning and

end; they have the sense of entirety, and it should be satisfied. And it

is not difficult to do this. Literature affords a multitude of beautiful

stories of exceeding interest to children, and of permanent

attractiveness through all the after years of their lives. Such

literature is as available, as a means of teaching the art of reading,

as is the trash in dreary droning over which the precious years of

childhood are spent in our public schools. The development of the child

mind follows the same course as the development of the mind of the race.

The little boy loves the wonderful and the strong, and nearly everything

is wonderful to him except himself. Living things especially interest

him. Every child is a born naturalist; his heart turns to birds and

beasts, flowers and stars. He is hungry for stories of animals, giants,

fairies, etc. Myths and fairy tales are his natural food. His power of

absorbing and retaining them is marvellous. One evening a few weeks ago

a little boy who is as yet scarcely able to read words of two and three

letters asked me for a story. I made an agreement with him that whatever

I told him, he should afterward repeat to me, and then gave him the

story of the elephant who squirted muddy water over the cruel tailor

that pricked his trunk with a needle. No sooner had I finished than he

threw his arms around my neck and begged for another story. I told him

eight in rapid succession, some of them occupying three or four minutes,

and then asked him to tell me about the elephants, dogs, bears, etc.,

that I had spoken of. He recited every story with astonishing accuracy

and readiness, and apparently without effort, and would have been ready

for eight more bits of Wood or Andersen, if his bedtime had not

intervened. If parents would take as much pains to satisfy the mind

hunger of their children as they do to fulfil their physical wants, and

give them the best literature as well as the best beef and potatoes, the

boys and girls would have digested the greater part of mythology,

natural science, and the best fiction by the time they are able to read.

Children should be fed with the literature that represents the childhood

of the race. Out of that literature has grown all literature. Give a

child the contents of the great books of the dawn, and you give him the

best foundation for subsequent literary growth, and in after life he

will be able to follow the intricate interweaving of the old threads

throughout all modern thought. He has an immense affinity for those old

books, for they are full of music and picturesqueness, teeming with

vigorous life, bursting with the strange and wonderful. In the following

list parents and teachers will find abundant materials for the culture

of the little ones, either by reading aloud to them, or still better by

telling them the substance of what they have gathered by their own

reading of these famous stories and ditties. Pictures are always of the

utmost value in connection with books and stories, as they impart a

vividness of conception that words alone are powerless to produce. One

plea for sincerity I must make,--truth and frankness from the cradle to

the grave. Do not delude the children. Do not persuade them that a fairy

tale is history. I have a sad memory of my disgust and loss of

confidence in human probity when I discovered the mythical character of

Kriss Kringle, and I believe many children are needlessly shocked in

this way.

_List of Materials for Story-telling and for the Instruction

and Amusement of Childhood._

"Mother Goose," "Jack and the Bean-Stalk," "Jack the

Giant-Killer," "Three Bears," "Red Riding-Hood," "The Ark,"

"Hop o' my Thumb," "Puss in Boots," "Samson," "Ugly Duckling,"

"The Horse of Troy" (Virgil), "Daniel in the Lion's Den," etc.

Andersen's "Fairy Tales." Delightful to all children.

Grimm's "Fairy Tales."

De Garmo's "Fairy Tales."

Craik's "Adventures of a Brownie."

"Parents' Assistant," by Maria Edgeworth, recommended by George

William Curtis, Mary Mapes Dodge, Charles Dudley Warner, etc.

"Zigzag Journeys," a series of twelve books, written by

Hezekiah Butterworth, one of the editors of the "Youth's

Companion." As might be supposed, they are among the very best

and most enduringly popular books ever written for young

people.

Wood's books of Anecdotes about Animals, and many other works

of similar character, that may be obtained from the American

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 19 Milk

Street, Boston. The literature distributed by this Society is

filled with the spirit of love and tenderness for all living

things, and is one of the best influences that can come into a

child's life.

Mary Treat's "Home Book of Nature." One of the best books of

science for young people.

Bulfinch's "Age of Fable." A book that is exhaustive of Greek

and Roman mythology, but meant for grown folks.

Bulfinch's "Age of Chivalry."

Fiske's "Myths and Myth Makers." Brief, deep, and suggestive.

Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" and "Tanglewood Tales." Books that no

house containing children should lack.

Cox's "Tales of Ancient Greece."

Baldwin's "Stories of the Golden Age."

Forestier's "Echoes from Mist Land." An interesting study of

the Nibelungenlied.

Lucian's "Dialogues of the Gods." Written to ridicule ancient

superstitions.

Curtin's "Folk Lore of Ireland."

Stories of Greek Heroes, Kingsley.

Stories from Bryant's Odyssey.

Stories from Church's "Story of the Iliad."

Stories from Church's "Story of the AEneid."

Stories from Herodotus, Church.

Stories from the Greek Tragedians, Church.

Stories of Charlemagne, Hanson.

Stories from "Arabian Nights," Bulfinch.

Stories from "Munchausen," and Maundeville.

Stories from Chaucer, especially "Griselda." (From Chaucer, or

from Mrs. Haweis' book.)

Stories told to a Child, by Jean Ingelow.

Stories from the "Morte D'Arthur," Malory or Lanier.

Stories from Lanier's "Froissart."

Stories from Shakspeare.