Pushing to the Front

by Orison Swett Marden

Not long ago President Eliot of Harvard College aroused widespread controversy over his selection of a library of books, which might be contained on a five-foot shelf. We append his selections as indicative of the choice of a great scholar and educator.

The following sixteen titles may be had in Everyman's Library, cloth 350. net per volume; leather 70 c. net per volume:

President Eliot's Five-Foot Shelf

Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography.
Sir Thomas Browne's "Religio Medici."
"Confessions of St. Augustine."
Shelley's "The Cenci" (contained in volume two of the complete works).
Emerson's "English Traits," and "Representative Men."
Emerson's Essays.
Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales."
Bacon's Essays.
Walton's "Complete Angler."
Milton's Poems.
Goethe's "Faust."
Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus."
Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations."
Browning's "Blot on the Scutcheon" (contained in volume one of the poems).
Dante's "Divine Comedy."
Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress."
Thomas Á. Kempis' "Imitation of Christ."
Burns's "Tam O'Shanter."
Dryden's "Translation of the Aeneid."
Walton's Lives of Donne, and Herbert.
Ben Johnson's "Volpone."
Smith's "Wealth of Nations."
Plutarch's "Lives."
Letters of Pliny.
Cicero's Select Letters.
Plato's "Phaedrus."
Epictetus' Discourses.
Socrates' "Apology and Crito."
Beaumont and Fletcher's "Maid's Tragedy."
Milton's Tractate on Education.
Bacon's "New Atlantis."
Darwin's "Origin of Species."
Webster's "Duchess of Malfi."
Dryden's "All for Love."
Thomas Middleton's "The Changeling."
John Woolman's Journal.
"Arabian Nights."
Tennyson's "Becket."
Penn's "Fruits of Solitude."
Milton's "Areopagitica."

The following list of books is offered as suggestive of profitable lines of reading for all classes and tastes:

Books on Nature

Thoreau's, "Cape Cod," "Maine Woods," "Excursions."
Burroughs' "Ways of Nature," "Wake Robin," "Signs and Seasons," "Pepacton."
Jefferies' "Life of the Fields," "Wild Life in a Southern Country," and "Idylls of Field and Hedgerow."
Lubbock's "Beauties of Nature."
Maeterlinck's "Life of the Bee."
Thompson's "My Winter Garden."
Warner's "My Summer in a Garden."
Van Dyke's "Little Rivers," "Fisherman's Luck."
White's "The Forest."
Mrs. Wright's "Garden of a Commuter's Wife."
Wordsworth's and Bryant's Poems.

Novels Descriptive of American Life

Simms' "The Partisan."
Cooper's "The Spy."
Hawthorne's "The House of the Seven Gables."
Cable's "Old Creole Days," "The Grandissimes."
Howells' "The Rise of Silas Lapham."
Howells' "A Hazard of New Fortunes."
Eggleston's "A Hoosier Schoolmaster."
Bret Harte's "Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Stories."
Mary Hallock Foote's "The Led-Horse Claim."
Octave Thanet's "Heart of Toil," "Stories of a Western Town."
Wister's "The Virginian," "Lady Baltimore."
E. Hopkinson Smith's "The Fortune of Oliver Horn."
Thomas Nelson Page's "Short Stories," and "Red Rock."
Mrs. Delands' "Old Chester Tales."
J. L. Allen's "Flute and Violin," "The Choir Invisible."
Frank Norris' "The Octopus," "The Pit"
Garland's "Main Traveled Roads."
Miss Jewett's "Country of the Pointed Firs," "The Tory Lover."
Miss Wilkins' "New England Nun," "Pembroke."
Churchill's "The Crisis," "Coniston," "Mr. Crewe's Career."
Brander Matthews' "His Father's Son."
S. Weir Mitchell's "Hugh Wynne."
Fox's "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come."
Mrs. Wharton's "The House of Mirth."
Robert Grant's "Unleavened Bread."
Robert Herrick's "The Common Lot," "The Memoirs of an American Citizen."
Grace E. King's "Balcony Stories."

Books Which Interpret American Ideals