grades have been studying textbooks from which literature for children
has been excluded, regardless of its artistic worth. Consequently many
teachers have not been prepared to teach literature in the grades. Often
they have assumed that the reading lesson would develop in the pupil an
appreciation of good literature, not realizing that the reading lesson
may cause pupils to dislike literature, especially poetry, unless it is
supplemented by appropriate work in children's literature. If the
student reads thoughtfully the literary selections in the following
sections of this book, he probably will realize that children's
literature is also literature for adults, and that it is not only the
child's inheritance, but also the inheritance of humanity.

The fact that literature for children is likely to have a strong
interest for adults is strikingly suggested in a few sentences in John
Macy's _A Child's Guide to Reading_:

When "juveniles" are really good, parents read
them after children have gone to bed. I do not
know whether _Tom Brown at Rugby_ is catalogued
by the careful librarian as a book for boys,
but I am sure it is a book for men. I dare say
that a good many pairs of eyes that have passed
over the pages of Mr. John T. Trowbridge and
Elijah Kellogg and Louisa M. Alcott have been
old enough to wear spectacles. And if Mrs. Kate
Douglas Wiggin ever thought that in _Timothy's
Quest_ and _Rebecca_ she was writing books
especially for the young, adult readers have
long since claimed her for their own. I have
enjoyed Mr. A. S. Pier's tales of the boys at
St. Timothy's, though he planned them for
younger readers. We are told on good authority
that _St. Nicholas_ and _The Youth's Companion_
appear in households where there are no
children, and they give a considerable portion
of their space to serial stories written for
young people. Between good "juveniles" and good
books for grown persons there is not much
essential difference.

2. LITERATURE IN THE GRADES

_Reading and literature distinguished._ A country school-teacher once
abruptly stopped the routine of daily work and, standing beside her
desk, told the story of the maid who counted her chickens before they
were hatched. One of her pupils, who is now a man, remembers vividly