The first aim of this book, then, is to help to place clearly before young people the ideals of America through the medium of literature that will grip the attention and quicken the will to action.

Second, librarians have stated that there are very few compilations of modern short stories of interest and significance with which to meet the needs of young people who turn to the libraries for help in reading.

It is hoped that this book may be of real value in the schools, by clothing the dry bones of civics with significant and interesting material, and that it may also supply a need of the libraries and the homes for a book of live and valuable short stories.

CONTENTS

CHAPTERPAGE
I.A Little Kansas Leaven.—Canfield[1]
II.The Survivors.—Singmaster[43]
III.The Wildcat.—Terhune[55]
IV.The Citizen.—Dwyer[85]
V.The Indian of the Reservation.—Coolidge[109]
VI.The Night Attack.—Pier[119]
VII.The Path of Glory.—Pulver[133]
VIII.Sergt. Warren Comes Back from France.—Ames[171]
IX.The Coward.—Empey[181]
X.Château-Thierry.—Bartlett[199]

SOMETHING ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND THE STORIES

Dorothy Canfield (Dorothea Frances Canfield Fisher), the author of Home Fires in France from which “A Little Kansas Leaven” was taken, is one of the most convincing and brilliant writers of the times. She always writes with a purpose, but as all of her work is characterized by originality, clearness, and the vital quality of human sympathy, there is not a dull line in any of her fiction or her educational writings.

Home Fires in France is a truthful record of Mrs. Fisher’s impressions of life in tragic, devastated France during the Great War. During much of this period the author was working for the relief of those made blind by war. The tremendous appeal to America made by this book testifies to the sincerity and the genius of the author.