Grant. Having the mind open to
other times and to the significance of great men in history, how much
more clearly they comprehend Franklin and Grant and Lincoln! Nor is this
all. The young mind is open to noble thoughts, to high conceptions; it
follows by association easily along the historic and literary line; and
not only do great names and fine pieces of literature become familiar,
but the meaning of the continual life in the world begins to be
apprehended. This is not at all a fancy sketch. The writer has seen the
whole assembly of pupils in a school of six hundred, of all the eight
grades, intelligently interested in a talk which contained classical and
literary allusions that would have been incomprehensible to an ordinary
school brought up on the ordinary readers and text-books.

But the reading need not be confined to the classics nor to the
master-pieces of literature. Natural history--generally the most
fascinating of subjects--can be taught; interest in flowers and trees and
birds and the habits of animals can be awakened by reading the essays of
literary men on these topics as they never can be by the dry text-books.
The point I wish to make is that real literature for the young,
literature which is almost absolutely neglected in the public schools,
except in a scrappy way as a reading exercise, is the best open door to
the development of the mind and to knowledge of all sorts. The unfolding
of a Greek myth leads directly to art, to love of beauty, to knowledge of
history, to an understanding of ourselves. But whatever the beginning is,
whether a classic myth, a Homeric epic, a play of Sophocles, the story of
the life and death of Socrates, a mediaeval legend, or any genuine piece
of literature from the time of Virgil down to our own, it may not so much
matter (except that it is better to begin with the ancients in order to
gain a proper perspective) whatever the beginning is, it should be the
best literature. The best is not too good for the youngest child.
Simplicity, which commonly characterizes greatness, is of course
essential. But never was a greater mistake made than in thinking that a
youthful mind needs watering with the slops ordinarily fed to it. Even
children in the kindergarten are eager for Whittier's "Barefoot Boy" and
Longfellow's "Hiawatha." It requires, I repeat, little more pains to
create a good taste in reading than a bad taste.

It would seem that in the complete organization of the pu