To the Reader. This Figure, that thou here fecft put, with Nature, to out-doo the life: B. I. LITERATURE AN INTRODUCTION AND GUIDE A HANDBOOK FOR SCHOOLS AND READERS BY EDWIN L MILLER, A.M. PRINCIPAL OF THE DETROIT, MICHIGAN, NORTHWESTERN HIGH SCHOOL Electrotyped and Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company PREFACE ALL my life I have been a lover, an owner, and a reader of books. This has not, however, been due to any desire on my part to improve my mind. Being entirely satisfied with my mind as it is, I have read in the spirit in which boys play ball, girls dress their dolls, men attend prize fights, and women gossip about their neighbors. I have read, in other words, for fun; and I have found in the collection, the ownership, and the perusal of books a source of pleasure which, unlike most pleasures, has grown deeper with time. My object in writing this book has been, if possible, to convey to my young friends, the high-school boys and girls of America, the secret of the location of the source of this perpetual fountain of refreshment. Though a teacher can sit in a classroom with this volume open on his desk, compel his pupils to close their copies, and subject himself, it, them, and me to the indignity of a quiz, I hope that pedagogues will indulge sparingly in this melancholy practice. I hope rather that these pages will be read by boys, by girls, and even perhaps by older people, not because they are instructive but because they are entertaining. Of course, like Mark Twain's "Roughing It," they do have information in them. Try as I will," he says, "information appears to stew out of me like the sweet ottar of roses out of the otter." It is so with me. I cannot help it. I hope, however, that it will do no permanent harm to the young reader, and, judging from what I know of boys and girls, I am inclined to believe that, on this score, we need not be uneasy. Seriously speaking, however, I trust that the following pages will be pleasant to read; that they will arouse curiosity about books and authors; that they will form the basis of class reports and discussions; that they will incite people, in and out of school, to read books, not because they are good but because they are interesting; and that they will inoculate a reasonable percentage of those who read them |