3. The books chosen for each grade are designed to be a suitable combination of prose and poetry, of short and long selections from history, science, and letters. Variety in subject-matter and style is required in each grade, although certain strong individual characteristics are expected to appear in the literature of each year's work. Many of the shorter poems fit in well with longer masterpieces in prose and verse. Some of the epics, myths, and historical episodes are told in both prose and verse. The children may well meet and study them in both forms. If from four to six larger masterpieces could be read each year, and these could bring out the style and quality of so many authors, if a number of suitable shorter pieces could be read and related to the former, the many-sided influence of literature would prove each year effective. Literature is the broadest of all subjects, both as a basis of culture and for the unification of the varied studies. It touches every phase of experience and knowledge along its higher levels, and overlooks the whole field of life from the standpoint of the seer and poet. The classic readings should aim at the completeness, variety, and elevation of thought which literature alone can give. Every year's literature should open the gates to meadow and woodland, to park and fruitful fields, into rich and shaded valleys, and up to free and sunny hilltops and mountains. 4. The list of books for each year includes two or three books of miscellaneous collections of classics in prose and verse. Many of the selections are short and some fragmentary. Such are the three volumes of "Open Sesame," the "Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics," "Children's Treasury of English Song," and "Book of Golden Deeds." In each of the books named is found a variety of material suited perhaps to two or three grades. In most of the books just named it is not intended in our plan that all the selections should be read through in succession. It will be better for the teacher to select from those collections such choice poems, stories, etc., as will enrich and supplement the longer classics, and give that added variety so needful. Many of the finest poems in our language are short, and should not be omitted from our school course. They should be read and some of them memorized by the children. It would be well if the teacher had in each grade one or two sets of such books of choice miscellaneous materials from which to select occasional reading. The regular readers used by the children would consist of the longer masterpieces, which would be supplemented by the shorter selections. In this way greater unity and variety might be achieved within the limits of each grade.