"III. QUALITY. Quality manifests emotional states. By Quality we mean that subtle element in the voice by which is expressed at one time tenderness, at another harshness, at another awe, and so on through the whole gamut of feeling. The teacher now knows that emotion affects the quality of tone. Let him then use this knowledge as he has learned to use his knowledge of the other criteria. We recognize instinctively the qualities that express sorrow, tenderness, joy, and the other states of feeling. When the proper quality does not appear it is because the child has no feeling, or the wrong feeling, generally the former. There is but one way to correct the expression, i. e., by stimulating the imagination." "IV. FORCE. Force manifests the degree of mental energy. When we speak in a loud voice, there is much energy; when softly, there is little. Do not tell the child to read louder. If you do, you will get loudness--that awful grating schoolboy loudness--without a particle of expression in it. Many a child reads well, but is bashful. When we tell him to read louder, he braces himself for the effort and kills the quality, which is the finer breath and spirit of oral expression, and gives us a purely physical thing--force. Put your weak-voiced readers on the platform; let them face the class and talk to you, seated in the middle of the room, and you will get all the force you need. On the whole, we have too much force, rather than too little. Let the teacher learn that we want quality, not quantity, and our statement of the mental action behind force will be of much benefit in creating the proper conditions." To discriminating teachers it will be apparent that this book is not the usual school reader. On the contrary it differs widely from this in the cultural value of the selections, in the classification and arrangement of material, in the variety of interest to which it appeals, and in the abundance of classic literature from American authors which it contains. It aims to furnish the best in poetry and prose to be found in the literature of the English-speaking race and to furnish it in abundance. If these familiar old selections, long accepted as among the best in literature, shall be the means of cultivating in pupils a taste for good reading, the book will have fulfilled its purpose. For permission to use valuable selections from their lists, acknowledgment is due to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Charles Scribner's Sons, and The Whitaker and Ray Company. Grateful acknowledgment is also made to those teachers who have given valuable suggestions and criticisms in the compilation of this book. THE AUTHORS. April, 1909. * * * * * "We live in deeds, not years, in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial." PHILIP JAMES BAILEY. PART I. FAMOUS RIDES, SELECTIONS FROM SHAKESPEARE AND OTHER POETS, AND STUDIES IN RHYTHM * * * * *