In the reading lessons of the same grade we may well afford to discover and feel what our best patriots and men of letters have said and felt in view of the struggle for freedom. The noblest expressions of sentiment upon great men and their achievements are contagious with the young. Patriotism can find no better soil in which to strike its deepest roots than the noble outbursts of our orators and poets and patriotic statesmen. The cumulative effect of these varied but kindred materials is greater than when scattered and disconnected. They mutually support each other, and when they are brought into close dependence upon parallel historical studies, we may well say that the children are drinking from the deep and pure sources of true Americanism. Parallel to whatever history we attempt to teach in the eighth grade should run a selection of the best literary products that our American authors can furnish, and here again we are rich in resources. The thought and life of our people find their high-water mark in the poet's clarion note and the statesman's impassioned appeal. No others have perceived the destiny of our young republic as our cherished poets, Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, Holmes, and Emerson. They have stood upon the mountain tops, looking far and wide through the clear atmosphere, while the great army of the people has been tenting in the valleys below. These wakeful priests and prophets have caught the bright tints of the morning while the people were still asleep, and have witnessed the suffused glory of the sunset clouds when the weary masses below had already forgotten the day's toil. One thing at least, and that the greatest, can be done for our children before they finish the common school course. They may rise into this pure atmosphere of poet, patriot, sage, and prophet. They may hear these deathless strains and feel the thrill of these clarion notes. Let their ears be once attuned to the strength and harmony of this music, and it will not cease to echo in their deeper life. The future patriots will be at hand, and the coming years will see them rising to the great duties that inevitably await them. We have a body of noble, patriotic material which is capable of producing this effect if handled by skilful teachers: the Ordinance of 1787, _The Federalist_, Numbers 1 and 2, Washington's "Inaugurals" and the "Farewell Address," Everett's "Oration on Washington," "O Mother of Mighty Race" (Bryant); "Our Country's Call" (Bryant); "Abraham Lincoln" (Bryant); Lincoln's "Inaugurals" and "Gettysburg Speech," "Army Hymn" and "The Flower of Liberty" (Holmes), Webster's "Second Speech on Foot's Resolution," The Emancipation Proclamation, "The Fortune of the Republic" (Emerson), etc., "Antiquity of Freedom" (Bryant); "Centennial Hymn" (Whittier); "The Building of the Ship" (Longfellow); "The Poor Voter on Election Day" (Whittier).