The purpose of this book of short stories of modern American life is
twofold.
First, these narratives give an interpretation of certain great forces
and movements in the life of this age. All the authors represented are
especially qualified to describe with force and feeling some phase of
contemporary life.
Thinking people everywhere realize that it is not enough to place before
the pupils in the schools the bare facts in regard to community and
national life. The heart must be warmed, the feelings must be stirred,
before the will can be aroused to noble action in any great movement.
President Wilson has urged school officers to increase materially the
time and attention devoted to instruction bearing directly upon the
problems of community and national life. This was not a plea for the
temporary enlargement of the school programme, appropriate merely to the
period of the war, but a plea for the realization in public education of
the new emphasis which the war has given to the ideals of democracy.
The first aim of this book, then, is to help to place clearly before
young people the ideals of America through the medium of literature that
will grip the attention and quicken the will to action.
Second, librarians have stated that there are very few compilations of
modern short stories of interest and significance with which to meet the
needs of young people who turn to the libraries for help in reading.
It is hoped that this book may be of real value in the schools, by
clothing the dry bones of civics with significant and interesting
material, and that it may also supply a need of the libraries and the
homes for a book of live and valuable short stories.