The Project Gutenberg EBook of Graded Poetry: Third Year, by Various

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Title: Graded Poetry: Third Year

Author: Various

Editor: Katherine D. Blake
Georgia Alexander

Release Date: April 12, 2010 [EBook #31967]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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GRADED POETRY

THIRD YEAR

EDITED BY

KATHERINE D. BLAKE

PRINCIPAL GIRLS' DEPARTMENT PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 6, NEW YORK CITY

AND

GEORGIA ALEXANDER

SUPERVISING PRINCIPAL, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

[Illustration]

NEW YORK
MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO.
1906

COPYRIGHT, 1905,
BY
MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO.

INTRODUCTION

POETRY is the chosen language of childhood and youth. The baby repeats
words again and again for the mere joy of their sound: the melody of
nursery rhymes gives a delight which is quite independent of the meaning
of the words. Not until youth approaches maturity is there an equal
pleasure in the rounded periods of elegant prose. It is in childhood
therefore that the young mind should be stored with poems whose rhythm
will be a present delight and whose beautiful thoughts will not lose
their charm in later years.

The selections for the lowest grades are addressed primarily to the
feeling for verbal beauty, the recognition of which in the mind of the
child is fundamental to the plan of this work. The editors have felt
that the inclusion of critical notes in these little books intended for
elementary school children would be not only superfluous, but, in the
degree in which critical comment drew the child's attention from the
text, subversive of the desired result. Nor are there any notes on
methods. The best way to teach children to love a poem is to read it
inspiringly to them. The French say: "The ear is the pathway to the
heart." A poem should be so read that it will sing itself in the hearts
of the listening children.

In the brief biographies appended to the later books the human element
has be