=Eleven and Twelve Years of Age.= The next step consists in awakening the sense of understanding, rousing the mind to grasp actual scenes and situations. For this purpose the "Pilgrim's Progress," "Two Years Before the Mast," "The Village Blacksmith," or "Horatius" are especially suitable. For while the fairy tale element is continued in "Cupid and Psyche," the "Odyssey," and "Undine," it is to these more realistic selections that we must look for the stimulus to imaginative growth that the children need. For this reason, "Robinson Crusoe" is of paramount value at this time simply because it trains the young mind to picture the scenes or events with the utmost care for details; probably no other work of fiction in English Literature can equal it for realistic vividness and precision. APULEIUS Cupid and Psyche BROWN, J. Rab BUNYAN Pilgrim's Progress CARROLL Alice in Wonderland, etc. COOPER Pathfinder DANA Two Years Before the Mast DEFOE Robinson Crusoe FOUQUÉ Undine GESTA ROMANORUM HAWTHORNE Snow Image HEMANS Casabianca Pilgrim Fathers HERODOTUS Legends HOMER Iliad Odyssey HOWE Battle Hymn HUGHES Tom Brown JAPANESE LIT. The Ronins LIVY Legends LONGFELLOW Village Blacksmith Hiawatha Evangeline MACAULAY Horatius MELVILLE Typee MEREDITH Shagpat RASPE Baron Münchausen READ Sheridan's Ride WHITTIER Barbara Frietchie =Thirteen and Fourteen Years of Age.= This period should mark the beginning of true reading power--the faculty of perceiving and absorbing the pictures, the facts, the ideas that lie within the printed page. The true joys of reading first-class fiction, for example, "Don Quixote" or "The Cloister and the Hearth," are usually first experienced in these years. And in the same manner young readers delight in the more vivid pages of history, such as "The Relief of Leyden," or "The Conquest of Peru," or--best of all--Raleigh's telling account of the fight of the 'Revenge' together with Tennyson's magnificent poem, built up from the prose of Raleigh. For it is in such passages as these that the natural tendency to hero-worship is roused and fostered. Jim Bludso, Sir Launfal, Alexander the Great, John Halifax, Lorna Doone, and Constantia, together with the splendid characters in the works already mentioned, all establish in the minds of the average boy and girl examples of courage, courtesy, and nobility that are never forgotten. ADDISON Mirza Arabian Nights BLACKMORE Lorna Doone BOCCACCIO Constantia Federigo BORROW Lavengro BROWNE, C. F. The Showman's Courtship CELLINI Life CERVANTES Don Quixote COLLINS, W. W. A Terribly Strange Bed CRAIK John Halifax DICKENS David Copperfield Pickwick FRENCH LITERATURE Aucassin HALE Man Without a Country HARTE Truthful James