WHAT PROMINENT EDUCATORS SAY
W. T. Harris, Commissioner of Education, Washington, D. C.: “I have examined very carefully one of the abridgments from Walter Scott, and I would not have believed the essentials of the story could have been retained with so severe an abridgment. But the story thus abridged has kept its interest and all of the chief threads of the plot. I am very glad that the great novels of Walter Scott are in course of publication by your house in such a form that school children, and older persons as yet unfamiliar with Walter Scott, may find an easy introduction. To read Walter Scott’s novels is a large part of a liberal education, but his discourses on the history of the times and his disquisitions on motives render his stories too hard for the person of merely elementary education. But if one can interest himself in the plot, and skip these learned passages, he may, on a second reading, be able to grasp the whole novel. Hence I look to such abridgments as you have made for a great extension of Walter Scott’s usefulness.”
William H. Maxwell, Superintendent of Public Instruction, New York City: “I take great pleasure in commending to those who are seeking for good reading in the schools, the Standard Literature Series. The editors of the series have struck out a new line in the preparation of literature for schools. They have taken great works of fiction and poetry, and so edited them as to omit what is beyond the comprehension, or what would weary the attention, of children in the higher grades of elementary schools.”
Walter B. Gunnison, Principal Erasmus Hall High School, Brooklyn, N. Y. “I have watched with much interest the issues of the new Standard Literature Series, and have examined them all with care. I regard them as a distinct addition to the school literature of our country. The selections are admirable—the annotations clear and comprehensive, and the form convenient and artistic.”
A. E. Winship, Editor “Journal of Education,” Boston, Mass. “I desire to acknowledge, after many days, the volumes ‘Kenilworth’ and ‘Harold,’ in the Standard Literature Series. I am much pleased with these books. It is a great service which you are rendering the schools. Our children must read all the British-American classics which have any bearing upon history, and, with all that is absolutely required of them in this day, they cannot do what they must do. There is a conflict of ‘oughts.’ You make it possible, here, for the child to get all he needs of each of all the books he must read. It is a great service. I admire the appreciation of the editors of their text.”
C. B. Gilbert, Superintendent of Schools, Newark, N. J. “The Standard Literature Series bids fair to prove a most valuable addition to literature available for use in schools. The books are well selected, carefully edited, and supplied with valuable notes and maps. ‘Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings,’ may serve as a type. For classes in English history it will prove invaluable, giving, as it does in the language of a master, a most vivid picture of early England; its struggles and its people. The Introduction paves the way for what is to follow. The portions omitted can be spared, and the notes are just enough to clear up difficult passages, but not enough to be burdensome.”
R. E. Denfeld, Superintendent of Schools, Duluth, Minn. “I have carefully read many of the numbers of the Standard Literature Series and do not hesitate to say that they are exceptionally well edited. One in particular I have in mind which was so carefully condensed as to make it of convenient size for a school reading book, and yet no part of the essentially connected matter was omitted.”
Henry R. Sanford, Institute Conductor for New York State, Penn Yan, N. Y. “You are doing a good thing in thus giving to the public cheap editions of standard literature.”