The selection of collateral reading, always a difficult problem in the secondary school, is doubly difficult when so much ground must be covered in a single course. The author ventures, therefore, to call attention to his Readings in Ancient History. Its purpose, in the words of the preface, is "to provide immature pupils with a variety of extended, unified, and interesting extracts on matters which a textbook treats with necessary, though none the less deplorable, condensation." A companion volume, entitled Readings in Medieval and Modern History, will be published shortly. References to both books are inserted in footnotes.
At the end of what has been a long and engrossing task, it becomes a pleasant duty to acknowledge the help which has been received from teachers in school and college. Various chapters, either in manuscript or in the proofs, have been read by Professor James M. Leake of Bryn Mawr College; Professor J. C. Hildt of Smith College; Very Rev. Patrick J. Healy, Professor of Church History in the Catholic University of America; Professor E. F. Humphrey of Trinity College; Dr. James Sullivan, Director of the Division of Archives and History, State Dept. of Education of New York; Constantine E. McGuire, Assistant Secretary General, International High Commission, Washington; Miss Margaret E. McGill, of the Newton (Mass.) High School; and Miss Mabel Chesley, of the Erasmus Hall High School, Brooklyn. The author would also express appreciation of the labors of the cartographers, artists, and printers, to whose accuracy and skill every page of the book bears witness.
HUTTON WEBSTER
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, February, 1917
[Illustration: ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL GEMS.
1 Steatite from Crete, two lions with forefeet on a pedestal, above
a sun
2 Sardonyx from Elis, a goddess holding up a goat by the horns
3 Rock crystal a bearded Triton
4 Carnelian, a youth playing a trigonon
5 Chalcedony from Athens, a Bacchante
6 Sard, a woman reading a manuscript roll, before her a lyre
7 Carnelian, Theseus
8 Chalcedony, portrait head, Hellenistic Age
9 Aquamarine, portrait of Julia daughter of the emperor Titus
10 Chalcedony, portrait head, Hellenistic Age
11 Carnelian, bust portrait of the Roman emperor Decius
12 Beryl, portrait of Julia Domna wife of the emperor Septimius
Severus
13 Sapphire, head of the Madonna
14 Carnelian, the judgment of Paris, Renaissance work
15 Rock crystal, Madonna with Jesus and St. Joseph, probably Norman
Sicilian work]