_SCHOOL TEXTS_. [Footnote: The chief works of English and American literature are now widely published in inexpensive editions prepared especially for classroom use. Descriptive catalogues of these handy little editions are issued by the various educational publishers.] Standard English Classics and Athenæum Press Series (Ginn and Company); Riverside Literature (Houghton); Pocket Classics, Golden Treasury Series (Macmillan); Lake Classics (Scott); Silver Classics (Silver); Longmans' English Classics (Longmans); English Readings (Holt); Maynard's English Classics (Merrill); Caxton Classics (Scribner); Belles Lettres Series (Heath); King's Classics (Luce); Canterbury Classics (Rand); Academy Classics (Allyn); Cambridge Literature (Sanborn); Student's Series (Sibley); Camelot Series (Simmons); Carisbrooke Library (Routledge); World's Classics (Clarendon Press); Lakeside Classics (Ainsworth); Standard Literature (University Publishing Company); Eclectic English Classics (American Book Co.); Cassell's National Library (Cassell); Everyman's Library (Button); Morley's Universal Library (Routledge); Bohn Library (Macmillan); Little Masterpieces (Doubleday); Handy Volume Classics (Crowell); Arthurian Romances (Nutt); New Mediæval Library (Duffield); Arber's English Reprints (Macmillan); Mermaid Dramatists (Scribner); Temple Dramatists (Macmillan); Home and School Library, a series of texts prepared for young readers (Ginn and Company). * * * * * OUTLINES OF AMERICAN LITERATURE CHAPTER I THE PIONEERS AND NATION-BUILDERS 'Twas glory once to be a Roman: She makes it glory now to be a man. Bayard Taylor, "America" We have this double interest in early American literature, that it is our own and unlike any other. The literatures of Europe began with wonder tales of a golden age, with stories of fairy ships, of kings akin to gods, of heroes who ventured into enchanted regions and there waged battle with dragons or the powers of darkness. American literature began with historical records, with letters of love and friendship, with diaries or journals of exploration, with elegiac poems lamenting the death of beloved leaders or hearth companions,--in a word, with the chronicles of human experience. In this respect, of recording the facts and the truth of life as men and women fronted life bravely in the New World, our early literature differs radically from that of any other great nation: it brings us face to face not with myths or shadows but with our ancestors. TWO VIEWS OF THE PIONEERS. It has become almost a habit among historians to disparage early American literature, and nearly all our textbooks apologize for it on the ground that the forefathers had no artistic feeling, their souls being oppressed by the gloom and rigor of Puritanism.