NEW CENTURY SERIES NEW CENTURY READERS NATURE, MYTH AND STORY THIRD YEAR BY JOHN G. THOMPSON PRINCIPAL OF THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, FITCHBURG, MASS. AND THOMAS E. THOMPSON SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, LEOMINSTER, MASS. SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO PREFACE. In collecting material for this book, the following guiding principles have been constantly in mind: 1. The selections should appeal to the various phases of interest that manifest themselves in the child in the third year of school-to the mythical, imaginative and poetical, to the love of truth as illustrated in nature and in history, to the natural delight in wit and humor, to the striking interest in the individual, whether brute or human. 2. Every selection should have a meaning, but no selection should have a moral tagged to it. 3. The difficulty of the selections in form, content and meaning should not be too great, and these selections should be carefully graded from the least to the most difficult, step by step, making sure that each step is an easy one. 4. The book should be attractive in appearance, clear and pleasing in typography and artistic in illustration and arrangement. The compilers and the publishers have spared neither time nor labor nor expense in striving to realize these ideals. Acknowledgment and thanks are due to "The Independent" and to Alice May Douglas for permission to use the selection entitled, "Who Loves the Trees Best?" Also to L. C. Page & Co. for use of selections and illustrations from "A Child's Garden of Verses." |