_As a country-bred boy, a student at Brown University, assistant professor and since 1908 professor of English at Boston University, for many years also farmer and naturalist at his home in the hills of Hingham, father, teacher and comrade of four boys of his own, his career has developed consistently and happily, work and recreation following the same path. In his literary labors and teaching he has never lost the enthusiasm of the amateur. He is a keen observer of nature and human nature and a lifelong student, teacher and lover of literature._ THE SPIRIT OF THE HIVE _is the latest of his volumes of essays which include also_ THE HILLS OF HINGHAM, WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON, EDUCATION IN A DEMOCRACY, THE MAGICAL CHANCE _and others. Mr. Sharp’s name is especially familiar to readers of the_ ATLANTIC MONTHLY _where many of his essays have first appeared. He has been well described as “a man who sees the world as eternally new, who sees life as eternally young and to whom living is a great adventure.”_ SOME GREAT AMERICAN BOOKS Out of a hundred great American books, which every American ought to know, what ten or twelve shall I suggest for this course? A difficult question. No two persons would make the same selection. Yet no one, I venture, will say that those I am taking are not eminently worth while. But, first, may I make a few suggestions on how to read, before I offer advice on what to read? “Not how many but how good books” is the secret of being well read, according to an ancient saying. But very much depends on how well you read those good books. Put no premium on speed. Don’t dawdle; but take your time. Read the great book sympathetically and in a leisurely way. Be positive about it. Be aggressive, even pugnacious, rather than listless and languishing. Read the stirring sections over and over. Store them in your memory. Cite them in talk and letters—anything to make them yours. Get your friends to reading the same things at the same time. Associate, if you can, with those who do read. Don’t be a literary “soak,” a mere absorber of print. The real reader is critical, which means appreciative of the good and the poor in a book. He stops to enjoy a fine passage in the text as a traveler stops to enjoy a lovely scene in the landscape. He is just as ready to debate a point with his author also—to hold out against him here; to approve and yield the point there; and often to forget the book altogether in his attempt to follow a gleam which, starting out of some illuminating line of the page, goes wavering through the twilight of the reader’s dawning thought, “And, ere it vanishes Over the margin, After it, follow it, Follow the gleam.”