In discussing the value and fruitfulness of this field of study to children, it is impossible to forbear the suggestion of its scope and significance for teachers. If the masters of song and expression are able to work so strongly upon the immature minds of children, how much deeper the influence upon the mature and thoughtful minds of teachable teachers! They above all others should have dispositions receptive of the best educational influences. The duties and experiences of their daily work predispose them toward an earnest and teachable spirit. In very many cases, therefore, their minds are wide open to the reception of the best. And how deep and wide and many-sided is this enfranchisement of the soul through literature! It is a gateway to history; not, however, that castaway shell which our text-books, in the form of a dull recital of facts, call history; but its heart and soul, the living, breathing men and women, the source and incentive of great movements and struggles toward the light. Literature does not make the study of history superfluous, but it puts a purpose into history which lies deeper than the facts, it sifts out the wheat from the chaff, casts aside the superficial and accidental, and gets down into the deep current of events where living causes are at work. The "Courtship of Miles Standish," for example, is deeper and stronger than history because it idealizes the stern and rigid qualities of the Puritan, while John Alden and Priscilla touch a deeper universal sympathy, and body forth in forms of beauty that pulsing human love which antedates the Puritan and underlies all forms of religion and society. Illustrative cases have been given in sufficient abundance to show that literature, among other things, has a strong political side. It grasps with a master hand those questions which involve true patriotism. It exalts them into ideals, and fires the hearts of the people to devotion and sacrifice for their fulfilment. Burke's "Oration on the American War" is, to one who has studied American history, an astonishing confirmation of how righteous and far-sighted were the principles for which Samuel Adams and the other patriots struggled at the opening of the Revolution. Webster's speech at Bunker Hill is a graphic and fervent retrospect on the past of a great struggle, and a prophetic view of the swelling tide of individual, social, and national well-being. If the teacher is to interpret history to school children, he must learn to grasp what is essential and vital; he must be able to discriminate between those events which are trivial and those of lasting concern. The study of our best American literature will reveal to him this distinction, and make him a keen and comprehensive critic of political affairs. Barnett, in his "Common Sense in Education and Teaching" (p. 170), says:--