Having read a book, are you prepared to declare that you have made it really your own? Can you discuss it or write about it in a thoroughly intelligent and comprehensive way, as if you had really sized it up completely? There are many text-books on rhetoric, many histories of literature, some annotated editions containing directions for the study of particular books. But so far no work has appeared which provides systematic instruction in the study of literature itself, applicable to every classic, let us say, or to any classic. Such a book we now have ready. It is entitled How to Study Literature. It is a guide to the study of literary productions. Taking up Narrative Poetry first, an outline is given, in the form of questions, which will lead the student to comprehend the subject matter, to analyze the structure, to study the characters, the descriptions, the style, and the metreof such a work for example as Tennyson's "Princess" or Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." Next follows Lyric Poetry, with questions for the study of the thought, the mood, the style, the metre; and suggestions for comparative study and collateral reading. In a similar way the drama, the essay, the oration and the novel are taken up, and questions given which will lead to a full comprehension of the work studied. The author is a successful teacher in one of the great normal schools. The book grew up in the class room, and so is practical in every detail, not only adapted for class use in schools, but also the very thing for literary societies, reading circles, and fireside study. The list of terms it contains to designate any literary quality or characteristic one may wish to describe, is alone worth having. How to Study Literature HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers of 31-33-35 West 15th Street Schoolbooks of all publishers at one store CLOTH-Price 50 cents Postpaid-TWELVEMO. To how many of the following questions can you give off-hand, a clear, straightforward, and reasonably complete answer? If you are a parent, how about your children? If a teacher, how about your pupils? Every citizen should be able to answer these questions. What is Barter? How did Paper come to be used in Place of Coin? What are Greenbacks? What is Irredeemable Paper Money? and What are Bluebacks? What is a Tax? High and Low Taxes? What is a Corporation- What is a Strike? What are Savings Banks ? What are United States Bonds? Endowment Orders, 1895 ? Will the ability to name the vegetable and mineral products of Uruguay and Turkey be as useful to a boy throughout life as a knowledge of such subjects as those named above? The elementary education of our children is designed to include those subjects which will best fit the majority for practical life as citizens. With most children practical life begins when they leave the grammar school. The question as to course of study is chic fly one of selection; and should we not consider whether, in our public schools, certain of the more practical studies are not sometimes crowded out for the less useful ones? It is universally conceded that a great body of our voters lack knowledge of even the simple laws underlying the questions of the day. Many possess but a vague idea as to the source of Government revenues; and, resulting from this, there exists that widespread semiimpression that the Government has unlimited supplies of money, and that no harm can befall from a lavish expenditure of this public money. Now by treating a few of the more practical questions in a way simple enough for a child to comprehend, may not our school children be given right ideas at the outset? Accomplish this and, when they are called upon in after years to vote on social or practical subjects, they will not be so wholly unprepared as now. In this book the authors in a style at once lucid and simple have presented the topics above enumerated in a manner to enable children of grammar school age to grasp them. Following the discussion of each topic there are interesting questions designed to test the student's knowledge, and these questions are so arranged that the teacher in the schools may use the subject matter in any or every shape as material for composition work which, we can assure the teacher public, will prove far more interesting while quite as profitable both to pupils and teachers as the work in composition generally done in schools along other lines. Hinds & Noble, Publishers 31-33-35 West 15th Street New York City Schoolbooks of all publishers at one store A Book for Teachers, Parents BY C. S. COLER, M.S. What we wish to appear in character, we must put Copyright 1897, by C. S. Coler HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers, 31-33-35 West Fifteenth Street, New York City Schoolbooks of all publishers at one store |