[Illustration: They all stood round and laughed at him ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MODERN SHORT STORIES A BOOK FOR HIGH SCHOOLS EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY FREDERICK HOUK LAW, Ph.D. Lecturer in English in New York University, and Head of the Department of English in the Stuyvesant High School, New York City Publisher’s Logo NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1921 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright, 1918, by THE CENTURY CO. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PREFACE For many years high school teachers have wished for books of short stories edited for high school use. They have known that most novels, however interesting, are too long to hold attention, and that too few novels can be read to give proper appreciation of form in narration. The essay, as seen in _The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers_, and in Irving’s _Sketch Book_, has been a poor substitute for the short story. High school students have longed for action, for quickness, for life, for climax, for something new and modern. Instead, they have had hundreds of pages, long expositions, descriptions, leisurely treatment, and material drawn from the past. They have read such material because they must, and have turned, for relief, to short stories in the cheaper magazines. The short story is to-day our most common literary product. It is read by everyone. Not every boy or girl will read novels after leaving school, but every boy or girl is certain to read short stories. It is important in the high school to guide taste and appreciation in short story reading, so that the reading of days when school life is over will be healthful and upbuilding. This important duty has been recognized in all the most recent suggestions for high school reading. The short story is just beginning to take its important place in the high school course. To make use of a book of short stories in high school work is to fall in line with the most modern developments in the teaching of literature in the high school.