From the Book Shelf
“In Oldest England,” by G. P. Krapp. Price, 75 cents. Longmans, Green & Co., New York.
Dr. Krapp, a professor of literature in Columbia University, has given us an interesting and valuable book, for both youth and adult. He relates in an interesting way the story of England’s history, from the beginning up to the Norman conquest, using facts, ancient manuscripts, pictures and early literature to tell the story. He makes an appeal to the imagination, to re-create those far-off days, that we may fully realize how our ancestors lived a thousand years ago.
The measure of a people’s civilization, he says, is not in the amount of machinery they possess, but in the thoughts and affections which go to make up character. We cannot give a better idea of the book than the story of England’s first poet, which we give on another page of the Magazine.
“Tales of the Enchanted Isles of the Atlantic.” By Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Price, $1.50. The Macmillan Company, New York.
“Bancroft, the historian, made it a matter of pride that the beginning of American annals was bare and literal,” says the author, and he goes on to prove, through two hundred and fifty-nine interesting pages, that Bancroft was mistaken. To Europeans, undiscovered America lay beyond the great unknown sea of awe, danger and vanishing isles. The islands within sight of European shores, Irish, Breton, Welsh and Spanish, had the glamour of enchantment cast about them. They were the gateways to a sea of mystery. The Canary Isles were discovered before the Christian era and then lost sight of for thirteen centuries. A continent called Atlantis, thought to have been submerged in the Atlantic, had long haunted the imagination of people in Europe and Africa. Solon, the law-giver and poet, wrote a letter in which he said that when a student in Egypt, he was told that the island of Atlantis, was sunk thousands of years ago. This letter was read and studied by both Socrates and Plato. From these traditions, taught by Greek and Egyptian, and believed by the inhabitants of Western Europe, who ever looked out upon the Atlantic, grew the interesting tales which the author gives, such as “Island of Youth,” “Swan Children of Lir,” “Castle of Active Door,” and “Island of Seven Cities.” King Arthur visited one of the Islands, and wrestled with Half-Man, which meant Habit, and when he fought his last battle in the West, and sailed away, it was to Avalon, one of the enchanted isles.
These traditions were great psychic forces, that lured men on until they discovered a new world, more marvelous than Atlantis. A fine book for the story tellers and one bearing directly on American history.
“Indian Sketches, Père Marquette and the Last of the Pottawatomie Chiefs.” By Cornelia Steketee Hulst. Price, 60 cents. Longmans, Green & Co., New York.
Mrs. Hulst combines historical data and literary art in such proportion as to make a most readable book, an Indian epic, beginning where the Song of Hiawatha left off, and bringing the Indian down to modern times. The story of the white man’s injustice and greed toward the Indian should be told our children. Our histories have omitted the accounts of the exile and banishment of tribes to the Far West. “To frankly confess a fault indicates a higher plane of honor and sincerity,” says the author. We have wronged our brothers, the Redmen, the first Americans. Let us as far as we can right the wrong. The book is a voice from the present speaking to the future. No one can read the book without feeling its appeal to fair play and eternal justice and right.
The Indian’s religion of the Great Spirit, his folk-games and folk-stories,—a true folk-culture that came out of the countless ages of American geography and history may yet be made over into the culture of modern America for our good. The author has set us thinking.
“Willie Wyld,” three volumes, Natural History Stories: “Voyage to the Island of Zanzibar,” “Hunting Big Game in Africa,“ ”Lost in the Jungles of Africa.” By William James Morrison, with an introduction by Dr. P. P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education. Price, 60 cents a vol. Publishing House M. E. Church South, Nashville, Tenn.
The wide circulation these books have had prove the author’s position that a story need not be a fairy story to hold a child’s attention, but that Natural History has a marvelous story of its own to tell. While the books are instructive, yet the narrative holds the attention to the end. The plot is original and so is the method. Dr. Claxton says in his Introduction, “All people like stories of adventure, boys and girls most of all. Our ancestors told them about their camp fires, at night, in the long winter and on the meadows and in the openings of the great forests in the long twilights of the summer.
“Dr. Morrison has become known among modern story tellers for his realistic stories of adventure in which are interwoven valuable information of strange lands, peoples and animals. The stories in ‘Willie Wyld’ were first told by Dr. Morrison to the children of Nashville, in the Children’s Reading Room of the Public Library of that city, and have been written down as told, hence their freshness, simplicity and realism. I have just read them at a sitting without skipping a sentence, and I am sure many another child will want to do the same.” A helpful set of books for boys and girls.
The Aldine Series of Readers: The Primer, 32 cents; 1st Reader, 36 cents; 2d Reader, 42 cents; 3d Reader, 48 cents; 4th Reader, 65 cents; 5th Reader, 75 cents; 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Grade Readers, 48 cents each.
Learning to Read. A Teachers’ Manual, 60 cents. By Frank E. Spaulding, Superintendent of Schools, Newton, Mass., and Catherine T. Bryce, Supervisor of Primary Schools, Newton, Mass. Newson & Company, New York.
These Readers are based on the Aldine Method of Teaching Reading, as explained in “Learning to Read,”—A Manual for Teachers. Attractive as they undoubtedly are, with Miss Webb’s delightful illustrations and the excellent general arrangement of the material, they are far more important in the means employed to attract and hold the child’s attention; in the way in which they arouse the child’s interest and stimulate and direct the child’s thought. The Aldine Method in reading is in reality the Story Telling method of teaching the child to read.
Thus, learning to read by the Aldine Method, or the story-telling method, appeals to the child as real pleasure; he enters upon the undertaking with the enthusiasm of his play and his recreation. It is an enthusiasm which does not easily tire.
Any teacher who is interested in the art of story telling as a means of instruction for young children will surely be interested in the Aldine Readers.