And when all is said, one must say again that there cannot be a strictly normalized and fixed curriculum in literature since in this subject more than in any other the personnel of the class must be considered; their typical inheritance, their tradition, their social grade, their community, their other interests, their passing preoccupation and almost their daily mood, are factors in the problem. The teacher who is sensitive to these matters in his class will soon emancipate himself from the fixed curriculum. Let him at the same time be sensitive to the emphasis and appeal of each bit of art he chooses for them, and he cannot fail. Whatever his results they will be good.
After so long a preamble follows the list of specimens:
First Year
Second Year
Third Year
Robinson Crusoe.
Sinbad the Sailor.
Toomai of the Elephants.—Kipling.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.—Kipling.
Reynard the Fox. (Selected stories.)
"Uncle Remus." (Selected stories.)
"The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England," Mrs. Hemans.
"Columbus," Joaquin Miller.
The Twenty-third Psalm. Authorized Version.
"The Idle Shepherd Boys," Wordsworth.
"Spinning Song," Wordsworth.
"The Village Blacksmith," Longfellow.
"Tubal Cain," Mackay.
"The Wreck of the Hesperus," Longfellow.
"The Discoverer of the North Cape," Longfellow.
"The Spider and the Fly," Mary Howitt.
"The Palm Tree," Whittier.
"Hiawatha Builds His Canoe," Longfellow.
Dramatization of a story of some voyager or pioneer.
Fourth Year
Robin Hood (given partly from Howard Pyle's Robin Hood, partly from the Ballads).
"Under the Greenwood Tree," Shakespeare.
"Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind," Shakespeare.
"Waken, Lords and Ladies Gay," Scott.
"Meg Merriles," Keats.
"The Chough and the Crow," Baillie.
"Song of Marion's Men," Bryant.
"My Captain," Whitman.
"Lochinvar," Scott.
"The Shepherd of King Admetus," Lowell.
"Abou Ben Ahdem," Hunt.
"Yussouf," Lowell.
"Sherwood," Alfred Noyes.
"March," Wordsworth.
"When Icicles Hang by the Wall," Shakespeare.
"The Jabberwocky," Alice in Wonderland.