Lesson 1
The Nightingale

  The nightingale is unknown in America, but in England and throughout Europe it is regarded as the prince of singers.  In the evening, after most of nature's sounds are hushed, the nightingale begins its song, and sings with little rest, all the night.  The nightingale rarely sings by day, and those kept in cages are often covered with a cloth to make them sing.  It is very shy; even naturalists know but little of its habits.  Mudie says: "I watched them carefully for more than five years in a place where they were very abundant, and at the end of that time I was about as wise as at the beginning.
  The nightingale begins to sing England in April.  Its music is loudest and most constant when it first comes, for then the males are singing in earnest competition to attract their mates.  When the female has once made her choice, her male becomes very much attached to her, and, if she should be captured, pines away and dies.  As the season advances, his song grows less, and, after the eggs are hatched, ceases altogether.  The bird catchers try to secure the singers during the first week, foe then by proper care they may be made to sing a long time.
  The listener is astonished to hear a volume of sound so rich and full proceed from the throat of so rich and full proceed from the throat of so small a bird.  Besides its strength, the delightful variety and exquisite harmony make the music most admirable.  Sometimes it dwells on a few mournful notes, which begin softly, swell to their full power, and then fade away.  Sometimes it gives in quick succession a series of sharp, ringing tones, which end with the ascending notes of a rising chord.  Birds which are free do not sing after midsummer, while those which are confined in cages sing until November, or even well into winter.  The young birds need to be under the training of an older one, and will often surpass their teacher.
  The nest of the nightingale is not built in the branches, or in a hole, or hanging in the air, or quite on the ground, although it is very near it.  It is not easily found unless the movements of the bird betray it.  The materials are straw, grass, little sticks, dried leaves, all mixed together with so little art that one can hardly see the nest when it is right before him.  If the same materials were seen anywhere else, they would seem to have been blown together by the wind, and stopped just there by a fork in the branches.  There are four or five smooth, olive-brown eggs.  The bird is about six inches long and wings three quarters of an ounce.  Its colors are dark-brown above and grayish-white below.
  Izaak Walton says: "But the nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet, loud music out of the little throat, that it might make mankind think that miracles are not ceased.  He that at midnight, when the very laborer sleeps sound hear, as I have very often, the clear airs, the sweet melodies, the natural rising and falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted above earth, and say, "Lord, what music hast Thou provided for thy sins in heaven, when thou affordest such music on earth!"


Lesson 2
The King's Jewel

  There was an outcry at the door of the king's great hall, and suddenly a confusion arose.  The guards ran thither swiftly, and the people were crowded together, pushing and thrusting as if to withhold some intruder.  Out of the tumult came a strong vice shouting, "I will come it! I must see the false king!"  But other vises cried, "Not so -- you are mad -- you shall not come in thus!"
  Then the king said, "Let him come in as he will!"
  So the confusion fell apart, and the hall was very still, and a man in battered armor stumbled through the silence and stood in front of the throne.  He was breathing hard, for he was weary and angry and afraid and, the sobbing of his breath shook him from head to foot.  But his anger was stronger than his weariness and his fear, so he lifted his eyes hardily and looked the king in the face.
  It was like the face of a mountain, very calm and very high, but no unkind.  When the man saw it clearly he knew that he was looking at the true king; but his anger was not quenched, and he stood stiff, with drawn brows, until the king said, "Speak!"
  For answer the man drew from his breast a golden chain, at the end of which was jewel set with a great blue stone.  He looks at it for a moment with scorn.  Then hi threw it down on the steps of the throne, and turned on his heels to go.
  "Stay," said the king.  "Whose is this jewel?"
  "I thought it to be yours," said the man.
  "Where did you get it?" asked the king.
  "From an old servant of yours," answered the man.  "He gave it to me when I was but a lad, and told me it came from the king -- it was the blue stone of Truth, perfect and priceless.  Therefore I must keep it as the apple of my eye, and bring it back to the king, perfect and unbroken."
  "And you have done have done this?" said the king.
  "Yes and no," answered the man.
  "Divide your answer," said the king.  "First, the yes."
  The man delayed a moment before he spoke.  Then his words came slow and firm as if they were measured and weighed in his mid.
  "All that man could so, O king, have I done to keep this jewel of Truth.  Against open foes and secret robbers I have defended it, with faithful watching and hard fighting.  Through storm and peril. Through darkness and sorrow, through the temptation of pleasure and the bewilderment of riches, I have never parted from it.  Gold could not buy it; passion could not force it; nor man nor woman could win it away.  Glad or sorry, well or wounded, at home or in exile, I have given my life to keep the jewel.  This is the meaning of the yes."
  "It is right," said the king.  "And now the no."
  The man answered quickly and with heat.
  "The no also is right, O king!  But not by my fault.  The jewel is not bright, not perfect.  It never was.  There is a flaw in the stone.  I saw it first when I entered the light of your palace gate.  Look, it is marred and imperfect, a thing of little value.  It is not the crystal of truth.  I have been deceived, a thing of naught; no jewel, but a bauble.  Take it.  It is yours."
  The king looked not at the gold chain and the blue stone, but at the face of the man.  He looked quietly and kindly steadily into the eyes full of pain and wounded loyalty, until they fell before his look.  Then he spoke gently,
  "Will you give me my jewel?"
  The man lifted his eyes in wonder.
  "It is there," he cried, "at your feet!" 
  "I spoke not of that," said the king, "but of your life, yourself."
  "My life," said the man faltering, "what is that?  It is not ended?"
  "It is begun," said the king.  "Your life -- yourself, what of that?"
  "I had not thought of that," said the man, "only of the jewel, not of my life."
  "Think of it now," said the king, "and think clearly.  Have you not learned courage and hardiness?  Have not your labors brought you strength; your wounds, patience?  Has not your task broken chains for you, and lifted you out of sloth and above fear?  Do you say that the stone that has done this for you is false, a thing of naught?"
  "Is this true?" said the man, trembling and sinking on his knees.
  "It is true," answered the king, "as God lives, it is true.  Come, stand at my right hand.  My jewels that I seek are not dead, but alive.  But the stone which led you here -- look! has it a flaw?"
  He stopped and lifted the jewel.  The light of his face fell upon it.  And in the blue depths of the sapphire man saw star.


Lesson 3
Niagara Falls

  Of all the sights on this earth of ours which tourists travel to see -- at least of all those which I have seen -- I am inclined to give the palm to the Falls of Niagara.  I know no other one thing so beautiful, so glorious, so powerful.
  I came across an artist at Niagara who was attempting to draw the spray of the waters.
  "You have a difficult subject," said I.
  "All subjects are difficult," he replied, "to a man who desires to do well."
  "But yours, I fear, is impossible," I said.
  "You have no right to say so till I have finished my picture," he replied.  I acknowledged the justice of his rebuke and regretted that I could not remain till the work was completed.  As I passed on I began reflect whether I did not intend to try a task as difficult in describing the falls.
  The habitual tourist visits many a waterfall at which the waters fail him.  At Niagara the waters never fail.  They thunder over the ledge in a volume that never ceases and is never diminished -- as it has done for ages, and as it will do till time shall cease.
  The falls are made by an abrupt breach in the level of the river.  All cataracts are caused by such breached, I presume, but usually the waters do not fall so suddenly as they do at Niagara.
  For more than a mile above the falls the waters leap and burst over the rapids as though conscious of the destiny that awaits them.  Here the river sis very broad and comparatively shallow, but from shore to shore it frets itself into little torrents and begins to assume to assume the majesty of its power.
  The waters, though so broken in their descent, are deliciously green.  This color, seen in the early morning or just as the sun has set, gives to the place on of its peculiar charms.
  Goat Island divides the river immediately above the falls.  Indeed, the island is a part of that steep ledge over which the river tumbles.  The bridge by which island is reached is a hundred years or more above the lesser fall.
  Go down to the end of the little wooden bridge, seat yourself on the rail, and there sit till all the outer world is lost to you. There is no grander spot about Niagara than this.  The waters are absolutely around you.  If you have that power of eye-control which is so necessary to the full enjoyment of scenery, you see nothing but the water.
  You will certainly nothing else; the sound is not a deafening crash and clang of noises, but is melodious and soft withal, though loud as thunder.  It fills your ears, and, as it were, envelops them; but at the same time you can speak to your neighbor without effort.
  There is no grander spot than this.  Here, seated on the rail of the bridge, you will not see the whole depth of the fall.  In looking at the grandest works of nature and of art too, I fancy it is never to see all.  There should be something left to the imagination, and much should be half concealed in mystery.
  It is glorious to waters in their first curve over the rocks.  They come green as a bank of emeralds, but with a fitful, flying color, as though conscious that moment they would be dashed into spray rise into air, pale as driven snow.
  The vapor rises high into the air and is gathered there, visible always as a permanent veil of white cloud over the waterfall.
  But your eyes will rest full upon the curve of waters.  The shape at which you will be looking is that of a horseshoe, but of a horseshoe miraculously deep from toe to heel and this depth becomes greater as you sit there.  That which at first was only great and beautiful becomes gigantic and sublime, until the mind is at a loss to find an expression to describe what is witnesses.
  To realize Niagara you must sit there till you see nothing else but that which you have come to see.  you will hear nothing else and think of nothing else.  At length you will be one with the tumbling river before you.


Lesson 4
Under the Greenwood Tree

Under the greenwood tree, 
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither!
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

Who doth ambition shun,
And loves to live i' the sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleased with what he gets, 
Come hither, come hither, come hither!
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

--- William Shakespeare.


Lesson 5
The Destruction of Treasure Valley

Scene I
Place: Black Brother's Kitchen
Characters
Gluck
Old Gentleman (Southwest Wind)
Schwartz
Hans

  Gluck (sitting close to the fire and turning the meat on the split.)  What a pity my brothers never ask anybody to dinner!  I'm sure when they've got such a nice piece of mutton as this, and nobody else has got so much as a piece of dry bread, it would do their hearts good to have somebody to eat it with them.
  (Heavy knocking at the door.)
  Gluck.  It must be the wind; nobody else would venture to knock double knocks at our door.
  (Gluck looks out of the window and sees a little old gentleman with long hair, merry eyes, and a moustache twisted like a corkscrew.  He is dressed in an enormous black cloak.)
  Old gentleman.  Hello!  That's not the way to answer the door.  I'm wet, - let me in.
  Gluck.  I beg your pardon, sir, I'm very sorry, but I really can't.
  Old Gentleman.  Can't what?
  Gluck.  I can't let you in, sir, - I can't, indeed.  My brother would beat me to death, sir, if thought of such a thing.  What do you want, sir?
  Old Gentleman (crossly.)  Want!  I want fire and shelter; and there is your great fire there, cracking, blazing, and dancing on the walls, with nobody to feel it.  Let me in, I say; I only want to warm myself.
  Gluck.  He does look very wet; I'll just let him in for a quarter of an hour.  Come in sir.
  Old Gentleman.  That's a good boy.  Never mind your brothers.  I7ll take to them.
  Gluck.  Pray, sir, don't do any such thing.  I can't let you stay till they come; they'd be the death of me.
  Old Gentleman.  Dear me, I'm very sorry to hear that.  How long may I stay?
  Gluck.  Only till the mutton's done, sir, and it's very brown now.  Sit down by the fire, sir.  You'll soon dry there, sir.  I beg your pardon, sir, mayn't I take your cloak; it seems to be dripping wet.
  Old Gentleman.  No, thank you.
  Gluck.  Your cap, sir?
  Old Gentleman (gruffly.)  I am all right, thank you.
  Gluck (hesitatingly.)  But -- sir -- I'm -- very sorry; but -- really, sir -- putting the fire out, your so very wet.
  Old Gentleman.  I'll take longer to do the mutton, then.  That mutton looks very nice.  Can't you give me a little bit?
  Gluck.  Impossible, sir.
  Old Gentleman. I'm very hungry.  I've had nothing to eat yesterday nor to-day.  They surely couldn't miss a bit from the knuckle!
  Gluck.  They promised me one slice to-day, sir.  I can give you that, but not bit more.
  Old Gentleman.  That's a good boy.
  Gluck (aside, cutting a piece of the meat.)  I don't care if I do get beaten for it.  Oh! some one's knocking.
  (He runs to open the door, and Schwartz and Hans enter.)
  Schwartz.  What did you keep us waiting in the rain for?
  Hans.  Aye, what for, indeed, you little vagabond?
  Schwartz.  Bless me soul!
  Old Gentleman (bowing very fast.)  Amen!
  Schwartz (catching up a rolling pin.)  Who's that.
  Gluck. I don't know, indeed, brother.
  Schwartz.  How did he get in?
  Gluck. My dear brother, he was so very wet.
  Schwartz.  Who are you, sir?
  Hans.  What's your business?
  Old Gentleman.  I'm a poor old man, sir and I saw your fire through the window and begged shelter for a quarter of an hour.
  Schwartz.  Have the goodness to walk out again, then.  We've quite enough water in our kitchen, without making it a drying house.
  Old Gentleman.  It is a cold day to turn an old man out in, sir; look at my gray hairs.
  Hans.  Aye!  There are enough of them to keep you warm.  Walk!
  Old Gentleman.  I'm very, very hungry, sir; couldn't you spare me bit of bread before I go?
  Schwartz.  Bread, indeed!  Do you suppose we've nothing to do with our bread but to give it to such red-nosed fellows as you?
  Hans.  Why don't you sell the feather in your hat?  Out with you!
  Old Gentleman.  A little bit.
  Schwartz.  Be off!
  Old Gentleman.  Pray, gentlemen!
  Hans.  Off, and be hanged!
  (As soon as Hans touches the Old Gentleman's cloak, the queer old fellow begins to spin round and round, faster and faster, hitting Hans and Schwartz and sending them flying into the corners of the room.  At last, slapping his cap on his head, he whirls out of the room.)
  Old Gentleman.  Gentlemen, I wish you a very good morning.  At twelve o'clock to-night I'll call again.  After such a refusal of hospitality as I have just had, you will not be surprised if that visit is the last I ever pay you.
  Schwartz (muttering.)  If I ever catch you here again!  A very pretty business, indeed, Mr. Gluck.  Dish the mutton, sir.  If ever I catch you at such a trick again -- bless me, why the mutton's been cut.
  Gluck.  You promised me one slice, brother, you know.
  Schwartz.  Oh! and you were cutting it hot, I suppose, and going to catch all the gravy.  It'll be long before I promise you such a thing again.  Leave the room, sir, and have the kindness to wait in the coal cellar till I call you!

Scene II
Time: Midnight

  Schwartz (starting up in bed.)  what's that noise?
  Old Gentleman.  Only I.
  Schwartz.  Hans, the room's full of water.
  Hans.  The roof's gone.
  Old Gentleman.  Sorry to trouble you.  I'm afraid your beds are wet.  Perhaps you had better go to your brother's room; I've left the ceiling on there.  You'll find my card on the kitchen table!  Remember, this is the last visit!
  Schwartz.  Pray Heaven it may!

  At down the brothers found the Treasure Valley one mass of ruin.  The water had swept everything away.  On their kitchen table was a small white card, on which, in large, breezy, long-legged letters were the words: -- 

     SOUTHWEST WIND


Lesson 6
How I Learned to Write Prose

  From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was laid out in books.  Pleased with the "Pilgrim's Progress," my first collection was of John Bunyan's works, in separate little volumes.  I afterwards disposed of them to enable me to acquire Burton's "Historical Collections"; they were small books, and cheap, forty or fifty in all.  "Plutarch's Lives" I read many times, and I still think tome spent to great advantage.
  This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a printer, though he had already one son (James) of that profession.  In 1717 my brother James returned from England with a press and letters, to set up his business in Boston.  I liked it much better than that of my father, but still had a passion for the sea.  To prevent the apprehended effect of such an inclination, my father was impatient to have me bound to my brother.
  I stood out some time, but at last was persuaded and signed the contract when I was yet but twelve years old.  In a little time I made great improvement in the business, and became a useful hand to my brother.  I now had access to better books.
  An acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small book, which I was careful to return soon and clean.  Often I sat up in my room poring over a book the greater part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the morning.
  After some time a clever tradesman, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and who frequented our printing house, took notice of me, invited me to his library, and very kindly loaned me such books as I chose to read.  I know took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces.  My brother, thinking it might turn to account, encourage me, and put me on composing occasional ballads.
  One was called the "Lighthouse Tragedy," and contained an account of the drowning of Captain Worthilake, with his two daughters; the other was a sailor's song.  They were poor stuff, and, when they were printed, he sent me about town to sell them.  The first publication sold like hot cakes, the event, being recent, having created a great sensation.
  This flattered my vanity; but my father discouraged my by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse makers were generally beggars.  So I escaped being a poet -- most probably a very bad one; but as prose writing has been of great use to me in the course of my life, and was the principal means of my advancement, I shall tell you haw, in such a situation, I acquired what little ability I have that way.
  About this time I met with an old volume of the Spectator.  I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it.  I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it.  With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the books, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any appropriate words that should come to hand.  Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them.  I also sometimes threw my collection of hints into confusion, and after the lapse of some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and complete the paper.  This was to instruct me of a proper method in the arrangement of my thoughts.  By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults, and amended them; but I some times had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve method or the language.  This discovery encouraged me to think I might possibly, in time, come to be a tolerable English writer -- of which I was extremely ambitious.
  My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a newspaper which was the second that ever appeared in America.  He had some clever men among his friends, who amused themselves by contributing little pieces to this paper, which gained it credit and made it more in demand.  Those gentlemen often visit us at our printing house.
  Hearing their conversation, and their accounts of the approbation their papers were received wit, I was exited to try hand among them.  But, being still a boy, and suspecting that my brother would object to printing anything of mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine, I contrived to disguise my hand, and, writing an article under a wrong name, I put it at night under the door of the printing house.
  It was found in the morning, and communicated to his writing friends when they called in as usual.  They read it in my hearing, and I had the exquisite pleasure of finding it met with their approbation, and that, in their different guesses at the author none were named but personages of some character among us for learning and cleverness.  I suppose, now, that I was rather lucky in my judges, and that, perhaps, they were not really such very good ones as I then esteemed them.


Lesson 7
The First Printers, and Their Homes

  In the 1420 there was living in the city of Haarlem an old gentleman who kept the keys of the cathedral, and who used, after dinner, to walk in the famous wood that even up to this time is growing just the city walls.
  One day, while walking there, he found a very smooth bit of beech bark, on which -- as he was a handy man with his knife -- he cut several letters so plainly and neatly, that, after his return home, he stamped them u paper, and gave the paper to his boy as a "copy".
  After this, seeing that the thing had been neatly done, the old gentleman, whose name was Lawrence Coster, fell thinking of what might be done with such letters cut in wood.  By blacking them with ink, he impressed black stamps upon paper; and by dint of much thinking and much working, he came, in time, to the stamping of letters composed and arranged much in the way as they are to-day.
  John Gutenberg, at the very time when this old Dutchman was experimenting with his blocks in Holland, was also working, in his way, very secretly, in a house that was standing not many years ago in the city of Strasburg.
  But Gutenberg got on so poorly, and lost so much money in his experiments, that he went away to Mentz, which is a German city lower down on the Rhine.  He there entered into an agreement with a rich silversmith named John Faust, who took an oath of secrecy, and supplied him with money, on condition that after a certain time it should be repaid to him.
  Then Gutenberg set to work in earnest.  One of the men who assist him was a clerk, or designer, named Peter Schoffer.  This Schoffer was a shrewd fellow, and watched Gutenberg very closely.  He used to talk over what he saw, and what he thought, with Faust.  He told Faust he could contrive better types than Gutenberg was using; and, acting on his hints, Faust, who was a skilful worker in metals, ran types in a mould; and these were probably the first cast types ever made.  These promised so well that Faust determined to get ride of Gutenberg, and to carry on the business with Schoffer, to whom he gave his only daughter Christine for a wife.
  Faust called on Gutenberg for his loan shortly after, which Gutenberg could not pay; and in consequence he had to give up to Faust all his tools, his presses, and his unfinished work, among which was a Bible nearly two-thirds completed.  This Faust and Schoffer hurried through, and sold as manuscript.
  There are two copies of this Bible in the Normal Library at Paris, one copy at the Royal Library at Munich, and one at Vienna.  It is certainly the first Bible printed from movable types, but poor Gutenberg received no compensation for it from his former friends, though he had done the bulk of the work upon it.  But he did not lose heart.  He toiled on, this time independency of the help of Schoffer and of Faust, and in a few years afterwards turned out books as good as those of his rivals.
  But who printed the first English book?  And did that follow quickly afterwards?  Not many years, -- perhaps twenty.  And the man who did this was William Caxton, -- a name which has been held in very great honor ever since.
  He was in early life apprenticed to a seller of dry goods London, who left him a fair fortune.  His zeal and industry made him a prominent figure in the country, so that he was sent by the government over to Flanders, to the city of Bruges.
  A great war which raged along the Rhine at that day broke up the printing-office of Faust and Schoffer.  Caxton secured some of the workmen, and, talking them over to England, set up a printing-office at Westminster, about 1474, and there printed his History of Troy, and many other books.
  After his death, the men who had worked with him -- of whom Wynkin de Worde was the chief -- carried on the labor in the same spirit of honesty and zeal, and looked forwards to "the happy day when a Bible should be chained in every church, for every Christian man to look upon."
  Chaining books to desks was not uncommon, but it was not in every church they were chained.  They were in great religious houses, called monasteries and abbeys; or they were carefully guarded in the cabinets of kings.  What would good old Wynkin de Worde have thought of Bibles printed and sold for only a few pence each?


Lesson 8
How to Look Up a Word in the Dictionary

  You must own a dictionary, have it by you, consult it carefully and often.  Do not select one for purchasing upon the basis of either mere bigness or cheapness.  What to choose depends partly upon personal preference, partly upon personal need.  If you are a scholar, Murray's many-volumed New English Dictionary may be the publication for you; but if you are an ordinary person, you will probably content yourself with something less expensive and exhaustive.  You will find The New Standard Dictionary, or Webster's New International Dictionary an admirable dictionary.  All in all, if you can afford it, you should provide yourself with one or the other of these two large works.  Of the smaller dictionaries Winston's Simplified Dictionary, The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Webster's School Dictionary, the Practical Standard Dictionary answer most purposes well.
  It will be the best plan, first, to commit to memory the pronunciation of the word whose meaning you want to know.  Without correct pronunciation, be it noted, you cannot get at the true meaning of the word, even in prose literature.  From the habit, and it will cease to trouble you before long.
  One secret of consulting a dictionary properly lies in finding the original meaning of the word.  You must go to the source.  If the word is of recent formation and is native rather than naturalized English, you have only to look through the definitions given.  Such a word will not cause you much trouble.  And having discovered this original meaning, you must get it in mind; it is one of the really significant things about the word.  Your next step is to find the present import of the word.  Look, therefore, through the modern definitions.  Of these there may be too many for you to keep all clearly in mind.  In fact you need not try.  Consider them, of course, but out of them seek mainly the central meaning.
  You now know the original sense of the word and its central meaning.  The two may be the same; they may be widely different; but through reflection or study of the entire definition you will establish some sort of connection between them.  When you have done this, you have mastered the word.
  One warning will not be amiss.  You must not suppose that terms used in defining a word may be substituted for it on all occasions.  You must develop a feeling for the limits of the word, so that you may perceive where its likeness to the other terms leaves off and its unlikeness begins.  Thus, if one of the terms employed in defining command is control, you must not assume that the two words are the same; you must not say, for instance, that the captain controlled his men to present arms.


Lesson 9
The Lone Eagle

  "I am Charles Lindbergh."  As if Paris did not know who he was! Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly from New York to Paris, thus modestly introduced himself on that memorable day of May 21, 1927.  Paris was wild with delight.  The cables between France and America, and between France and every other civilized country in the world, were crowded with messages telling of the brave youth's safety.  Yet Lindbergh, ignorant of the fame into which he had flown, and without knowing that millions of persons during the preceding thirty-four hours had been praying for his safety, was reaching for his pocketbook to present his letters of introduction.
  Young Lindbergh, shy and tired, had captured the imagination of the globe.  He was American's hero and the idol of every nation in the world.  He had accomplished a feat which had brought to others suffering and death, and he had done it alone.
  Charles Lindbergh was destined to be a farmer.  His father had been a member of the House of Representatives from Minnesota; but his father was a farmer, too, and after his death, young Lindbergh endeavored to carry on the work.  As he guided the plough, his thoughts, however, were elsewhere.  The youth's ambitions to become an airman would not down.  He completed his course in the Little Falls High School and for a time was student in the University of Wisconsin, where he ended a course in chemistry.  At heart an engineer, his soul should not rest until he had helped to build an airplane and had learned to fly.
  Too young to take part in the world war, soon after the armistice Lindbergh determined to enter the Army Air Corps.  In his eighteenth year, he journeyed by motorcycle to Kelly Fried, in San Antonio, Texas, and enrolled as a cadet for the air service.  There he made swift progress, found out that he was naturally a flyer -- that he possessed the "bird instinct" -- and received his discharge a year as first Lieutenant of the Army Reserve Corps.
  After receiving his discharge from Kelly Field, he rode his motorcycle to St. Louis and obtained employment with an aircraft company.  The same year he received a commission as Captain in the Missouri National Guard, and was appointed Flight Commander of the Corps of the State.  Later, in the Air Mail Service he learned that he was an aviator.  He learned  what a plane could do, and what he himself could force the plane to accomplish.  The confidence which he gained in himself made him a capable flyer.
  While carrying the mails between St. Louis and Chicago, night after night, Captain Lindbergh dreamed of conquering the Atlantic.  He knew it would require money to make the effort. He knew that he would need a specially built plane, but he knew that if he conquered the Atlantic he would have the $ 25,000 prize to pay back the debts he had made in the enterprise.  That illustrated the confidence this youthful aviator had in himself.
  He did not speak of his ambitions to many, but went upon his way, quietly trying to interest a few other men.  While riding above the storms during the dark night with the mails, he thought out the best way to accomplish his aims he determined to go to the officers of the Robertson Aircraft Company, by whom he had been given his position as Air Mail Flyer.  A former army man, Major William B Robertson, president of the firm, was convinced by Lindbergh's belief that he could make the flight; Robertson was so confident of his employee's ability that he told several wealthy residents of St. Louis that it was their duty to provide Captain Lindbergh with the plane required for his trip; he presented Lindbergh's claims so well that he won his point.
  On May 9, 1927, Lindbergh mounted his machine, which he had named The Spirit Of St. Louis, and set off from San Diego, California, where the plane was made, to New York.  After fourteen hours and five minutes in the air, he made his first stop at St. Louis to let his backers see the ship.
  Until that time no one outside of the Army and the postal Service knew much about Lindbergh.  As a matter of fact, he was not taken very seriously.  Every on e asked hoe such an obscure person could attempt to compete with notable like Byrd or Chamberlin.
  On this flight his compass had been so faulty that he had not been able to place any faith in it.  He had carried no instrument to indicate the drift of his machine, another important factor in both ships of the sea and ships of the air.  Indeed, this wonderful accomplishment under difficulties made the youthful flyer respected by experienced flyers.  While they did not believe he could cross the ocean as a "lone eagle," they conceded that he was a natural flyer.  He rested overnight at St. Louis after his feat, and the next day, May 11, 1926, he sped away for Curtiss Field, New York, where he arrived after having been in the air but seven hours and eleven minutes.
  Then New York and all of the contenders for the prize could see him, and seeing, realized that this youth they heard about did actually exist.  This boy, who could fly by day or night, in all sorts of weather even with faulty compassed, could instinctively reach his goal.
  When Friday, May 20, 1927, arrived, Lindbergh was ready to go; rain and chill weather did not change his determination; neither did the fact that he had no sleep during the previous night.  He clambered into the blind cockpit of his plane, where all of his seeing must be done by means of instruments, sat down in the seat, poked his head out and said, "So long."
  Lindbergh had barely left Newfoundland when a terrific sleet-storm broke.  The pilot was beset on all sides by the elements.  Howling, wide-driven particle of ice were above him and below him.  They meant peril, for all he knew, death, for nothing is more dangerous to aircraft than sleet.  This is an element that is not shed readily, like rain; it sticks fast wherever it lands. The weight of sleet upon the wings of a plane causes them to curl downwards, thus taking the craft out of the aviator's control.  The weight of the sleet on Lindbergh's plane was tremendous.  He has confessed that he really had a strong desire at this point to turn back.  But he decided that to turn back would not necessarily mean safety because he would still be in the storm; he reasoned that perhaps to go on would be just as safe.  He continued on his way.
  First, he climbed to an altitude of more than ten thousand feet, but still he could not rise above the storm.  Then he almost skimmed the surface of the water, but still could find no escape from the peril.  As night began to fall he approached fields of icebergs, which he could see plainly.  Their nearness made him rise to a good height again, because he did not wise to end his flight by a collision.  He climbed to about twelve thousand feet, and, to his relief, found that he had risen above the sleet.  If he had been another hour in the storm, he might never have heard of again.
  His plane, not equipped with radio, could not signal to the ships at sea.  People could do nothing but wait for the hour when he should be sighted.  If he was seen, all would be well; if not, the world would have to wait for tidings or remain forever baffled by mystery.  Every ship at sea was under orders to watch for the plane, but as Lindbergh was flying out of the regular transatlantic lane, not much news was expected from that source.
  Nevertheless, Captain Lindbergh was on the correct route and flying in the true direction.  He was flying over Ireland.  He was so joyous at seeing land again that he flew low to see all of the scenery his limited field of vision would permit.  He knew where he was -- he had the map of Ireland spread out before him -- and from that point forwards he had to need to worry about direction.  The landmarks indicated in his charts were appearing beneath him regularly, and he had daylight for the rest of his trip.
  Over Ireland and England he flew rather low in order that he might be sighted, crossed the English Channel, and arrived over French territory for the first time near Cherbourg.  Then he gave himself a great thrill by finding the Seine River, recognizing it, and following it all the way to Paris.
  When about sixty miles away from the great city, he saw rockets and other signal lights, and realized that they were meant as guide for him.  Finally, he found the Eiffel Tower, near Paris, and from that point looked around for a landing field.
  Two minutes later Lindbergh and The Spirit of St. Louis had descended into fame.


Lesson 10 
Marco Polo

  In the days of Marco Polo, Venice was one of the richest and most influential cities in Europe, and nowhere else, perhaps, could one see so many magnificent places and splendid churches.  Venice had shrewd merchants, daring sailors, and numerous ships, and it was chiefly through the enormous trade which she had built up with the East that she had grown so wealthy.
  Among the most enterprising of the Venetian merchants were the father and under of Marco Polo, whose name is familiar to Japanese readers.  Indeed, when Marco was a little boy , he used to hear stories of his father and his uncle that must have seemed to him almost like fairy tales.  "They went away from Venice to make a voyage to Constantinople, where they bought a great quantity pf precious jewelry.  We think they must have gone into the unknown countries of Asia to trade, perhaps even to China, where the great Khan lives."
  When the boy was about fourteen his father and uncle came back to Italy with a message from the Khan to the Pope.  He showed the boy the Khan's golden tables, which he had given to the brother.  The royal symbol was engraved upon them, and a command that wherever in the Khan's domain the brothers might go, his subjects should receive them with honor and should provide with them whatever they need.  The brothers were going back to China, and now they boy was happy, for his father promised that he might go with them.
  Then they made the long, tedious journey from Venice to Constantinople, and across Asia to China.  They traveled through fertile valleys and sandy deserts, over stony mountains and through gloomy passes.  At length they came within forty miles of the home of the great Kublai Khan, ruler of china, who sent a formidable fleet of warships upon a reckless expedition to the Japanese Islands.  Here they were met by a large guard, sent out by the Khan, and were brought into the city with every mark of honor that could be shown them.
  The Khan took a strong liking to young Marco, and gave him a position in the royal household.  Marco's father and uncle were also given positions in the Khan's service, and by his generosity they soon accumulated a great fortune.
  China was not their home, however, even after such a long residence in that country, and they longed to see their own Venice.  They begged the Khan's permission to return.  "But why?" he asked.  "It is a dangerous journey; you might lose your lives.  Do you want money or jewels?  I will give you twice as much as you now have; but I care for you too much to let you go away from me."  Without the Khan's tables, the journey would be impossible; and the Polos began to apprehend that they would never see their homeland again.
  Some months prior to this the ruler of Persia had sent and embassy to beg that a granddaughter of the Great Khan might become his wife. The princess and her suite set off for Persia; but the way lay through a country that was at war, and they were compelled to return.  The idea occurred to the ambassadors that they might take ship and go by water to the Persian Gulf at else expense and with greater safety than by the overland way.  They talked with the Polos, and found that they would be only too glad to go with them.  The Khan was not pleased, but he finally complied with their request.  He gave the Polos his golden tables, loaded them down with presents of games, and the party, composed of the Polos and the ambassadors and the fair young princess, sailed away with a fleet of fourteen vessels furnished with stores and provisions for two years.  It was twenty- one months before they came to Persia.  The Polos made a year's sojourn in the Leisurely fashion of those days, then returned, not to China, but to Venice, having been absent twenty-four years.
  At Venice there had been rumors long before that the famous travelers were dead.  They were of course, greatly changed, and their manner of speaking Italian was rather stiff and queer.  It was hard to believe that these foreign-looking men in their long rough Tartar coat could be members of the wealthy family of Polo.  They had some trouble in getting position of their own spacious house, and even after they had succeeded, many were still suspicious of their identity.  To clear their suspicion, they invited these doubting friends to a magnificent banquet.  After the feast, the coarse, worn-out coats were brought in and promptly ripped open.  There rolled out such a store of rubies and emeralds and diamonds and sapphires as the bewildered guests had never seen.  The whole room blazed and sparkles with them.  For the safety on the perilous journey, the Polos had brought their immense wealth in this form.  Then the guests could identify the three men as the long-missing Polos, and they were treated with the utmost respect.
  War broken out between Venice and Genoa, and Marco Polo was put in command of a warship.  He was taken prisoner by Genoese, and it was while he was in jail that dictated to a gentleman of Genoa the stories of his of his Eastern travels.  All Genoa became interested, and their famous prisoner was soon set free.  Copies of his book in manuscript went everywhere.  Some were reluctant to take the story at its face value, and when the author was on his death-bed, they begged him to omit the parts of it that they thought must be exaggerated.  "There is no exaggeration in the book, " he declared solemnly.  "On the contrary, I have not told half the amazing thins that I saw with my eyes."


Lesson 11
Rules of Fair Play in Games

  We all know haw unpleasant a game becomes when it is not played according to the rules.  If we cannot trust our opponents to play fair, the spirit of the whole game is lowered.  We are forced to pay less attention to our play because we feel obliged to watch our opponents and the umpire at every point.  A game like this, filled with suspicion of foul play, either on one or both sides, ceases to play, and has comparatively little enjoyment in it.  If we have no confidence in the honor of our opponents, we can have no respect and no friend ship for them.  Foul play suspected on one side offers a temptation to the other side to behave in the same way, and a lack of self-respect takes the place of the sure trust and loyal confidence that increases the enjoyment of a game between friends.
  The fact is that rules are the foundation of a game.  When the rules are not kept, a game ceases to be play, and becomes a scramble or a swindling match.  For this reason, men of our race have loved fair play because it makes a contest so much more enjoyable.  True sportsmanship rests upon this foundation: that a man would rather lose a point, and indeed lose the game itself, than break the rules, just as a soldier prefers to be killed rather than to be a coward and neglect his duty.
  The presence of an umpire, of course, does not mean that players are not to be trusted.  The umpire's duty is not to be a policeman, nor to prevent foul play.  The umpire's duty is not to be a policeman, nor to prevent foul play.  The umpire's business in the game is to decide questions according to the rules when the judgment of one player may honesty differ from that of another, and so to save time and settle all question as promptly as possible.
  The rules of game really form a solemn agreement according to which the players have decided beforehand to play.  Therefore, a deliberate breach of the rules is just as much a violation of honor as the breaking of a business agreement or as the violating of a treaty between nations would be.
  In a game of ball, a man may at some time be tempted to claim a run, without having touched second base; but even in the excitement of such a moment, we must compel ourselves to stand up for the truth exact honorable conduct at all costs.  Abraham Lincoln as their standard bearer, and strict observance of honor is just what he meant when he said: "I may fail, but I am bound to be true."


Lesson 12
A Green Cornfield

The earth was green, the sky was blue;
I saw and heard one sunny morn
A skylark hand between the two,
A singing speck above the corn;

A stage below, in gay accord,
White butterfly danced on the wing,
And still the singing skylark soared
And silent sank, and soared to sing.

The cornfield stretch a tender green 
To right and left beside my walks;
I knew he had a nest unseen
Somewhere among the million stalks:

And as I paused to hear his song  
While swift the sunny moments slid,
Perhaps his mate sat listening long,
And listened longer than I did.

--- Christina Rossetti.


Lesson 13
An Old Game

  Three men were talking a walk together, as they said, just to while away the time.
  The first man intended to go Somewhere, to look at a piece of property which he was considering.
  The second man was ready to go Anywhere, since he expected to be happy by the way.  The third man through he was going Nowhere, because he was a philosopher and held that time and space are only mental forms.
  Therefore the third man walked in silence, reflecting upon the vanity of whiling away an hour which did not exist, and upon the folly of going when staying was the same thing.  But the other men, being more simple, were playing the oldest game in the world and giving manes to the things that they saw as they traveled.
  "Mutton," said the Somewhere Man, as he looked over a stone wall.
  "A flock of sheep," said the Anywhere Man, gazing upon the pasture, where the fleecy ewes were nipping grass between the rocks and the eager lambs rubbed their noses against their mothers.
  But the Nowhere Man meditated on the foolish habit of eating, and said nothing.
  "An ant-hill," said the Anywhere Man, looking at a mound beside the path; "see how busy the citizens!"
  "Ants," said the Somewhere Man, kicking the mound; "they sting like the devil."
  But the Nowhere Man, being certain that the devil is a myth, said nothing.
  "Briars," said the Somewhere Man, as they passed through a thicket.
  "Blackberries," said the Anywhere Man; "they will blossom next month and ripen in August."
  "But the Nowhere Man, to whom they referred the settlement of the first round of the game, decided that both had lost because they spoke only of accidental phenomena.
  With the next round they came into a little forest on a sandy hill.  The oak-trees were still bare, and the fir-trees were rusty green, and the maple-trees were in rosy bud.  On these things the travelers were agreed.
  But the among the withered foliage on the ground a vine trailed far and wide with green leaves, thick and heavy, and under the laves were clusters of rosy stares, breathing a wonderful sweetness, so that the travelers could not but smell it."
  "Rough-leaf," said the Somewhere Man; "gravel weed we call it in our country, because it marks the poorest soil."
  "May-flowers we call them in our country," said the Anywhere Man.
  "But why?" asked the Nowhere Man.  "May has not yet com."
  "She is coming, answered the other; "she will be here before these are gone."
  They saw a little thatched house beside the brook.  "Beastly hovel," said the first man.  "Pretty cottage," said the second.
  A women was tossing and fondling her child, with kiss-words.  "Sickly sentiment," said the first man.  "Mother love," said the second.
  They passed a youth sleeping on the grass under a tree.  "Lazy hound!" said the first man.  "Happy dog!" said the second.
  Now the third man, remembering that he was a philosopher, concluded that he was washing his imaginary time in hearing this endless old game.
  "I must bid you good-day, gentlemen," said he, "for it seems to me that you are disputing only about appearances, and are not likely to arrive Somewhere or Anywhere."
  So he left them, and went on his way Nowhere.


Lesson 14
Industry

  To do something, however small, to make others happier and better, is the highest ambition, the most elevating hope, which can inspire a human being.
  Pietro de Medici, the Florentine patron of art, is said to have once employed Michael Angelo to make a statue out of snow.  That was stupid waste of precious time.  But if Michael Angelo's time was precious to the world, our time is just as precious to ourselves, and yet we too often waste it in making statue of snow, and, even worse, in making nothing.
  "We all complain," said the great Roman philosopher and statesman, Seneca, "of the shortness of time, and yet we have more than we know what to do with.  Our lives are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do.  We are always complying that our days are few, and acting as if there would be no end them."
  One great, I might almost say the greatest, element of success and happiness in life is the capacity for honest, solid work.  Cicero said that what was required was first audacity, second audacity, and third audacity.  Self-confidence is no doubt useful, but it would be more correct to say that was wanted was first perseverance, second perseverance, third perseverance.  Work is not, of course, any more than play, the object of life; both are means to the same end.
  Work is as necessary for peace of mind as for health of body.  A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work.  Worry upsets our whole system, work keeps it in health and order.  Exercise of the muscles keeps the body in health, and exercise of the brain brings peace of mind.  By work of mind one secures the repose of the heart.
  "Words," said Dr. Johnson, "are the daughters of earth, and Deeds are the sons of heavens."  Whatever you do, do thoroughly.  Put your heart into it.  Cultivate all your faculties: you must either use them or lose them.  We are told of Hazekiah that "in every work that he began,- he did it with all his heart, and prospered."
  The story of genius even, so far as it can be told at all, is the story of persistent industry in the face of obstacles, and some of the standard geniuses give us their word for it that genius is little more than industry.  "Genius," President Dwight used to tell the boys at Yale, "is the power of making efforts."
  Corbett, speaking of his celebrated English grammar, tells us: "I learned grammar when I was a private solider on the pay of sixpence a day."  The edge of my berth, or that of the guard bed, was my seat to study on; my knapsack was my bookcase; a bit of board lying on my lap was my writing table; and the task did not demand anything like a year of my life.  I had no money to purchase candle or oil; in winter time it was rarely that I could get any evening light but that of the fire, and only my turn even of that.
  "Think not lightly of the farthing that I had to give, now and then, for ink, pen, paper.  That farthing was, alas! A great sum to me: I was as tall as I am now; I had great health and great exercise.  The whole of the money, not expended for us at market, was two pence a week for each man.  I remember, and well I may, that upon one occasion I, after all absolutely necessary expenses, but, on a Friday, made shift to have a halfpenny in reserve, which I had destined for the purchase of a fish in the morning; but when I pulled off my clothed at night, so hungry then as to be hardly able to sustain life, I found that I had lost my halfpenny.  I buried my head under the miserable sheet and rug, and cried like a child."
  "And again I say, if I under circumstances like these, could encounter and overcome this task, is there, can there be, in the whole world a youth to find an excuse for the non-performance?"


Lesson 15
An Address at Gettysburg

  Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.  Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.  We are net on a great battlefield of that war.  We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who have given their lives that nation might live.  It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this; but in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate -- we cannot consecrate -- we cannot hallow -- this ground.  The brave men, living and dead, who struggle here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power toad or detract.  The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.  It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far nobly advanced.  It is rather for us to here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ?that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."


Lesson 16
Account of a Spider

  I perceived, about four years ago, a large spider in one corner of my room, making it's web; and, though the maid frequently leveled her fatal broom against the elaborate net of the little anima, I had the good fortune then to prevent its destruction; and, I may say, it more than paid me by the entertainment it afforded.
  In three days the web was astonishing diligence, completed; nor could I avoid thinking that the insect seemed to exult in its new abode.  It frequently traversed its web, examined the strength of every part of it, retired into its hole, and came out very frequently.  The first enemy, however, it had to encounter, was another and much larger spider, which having no web of its own, and having probably exhausted all its stock in former labors of this kind, came to invade the property of its neighbor.  Soon, then, a terrible engagement followed, in which the invader seemed to have subdued the former resident and the laborious spider was obliged to take refuge in its hole
  Upon this I perceived the victor using every art to draw the enemy from his stronghold.  He pretended to go of, only to return quickly; and when he found all arts futile, began to destroy the new web without mercy.  This brought on another battle and contrary to my expectations, the laborious spider became the conqueror, and fairly killed his antagonist.
  Now, then, in peaceful possession of what was justly its own, it waited three days, with the utmost patience repairing the breached of its web, and taking no morsel of food that I could perceive.  At last, however, a large blue-fly fell into the snare, and struggled hard to get loose.  The spider gave it leave to entangle itself as much as possible, but it seemed to be too strong for the web.  I must confess I was greatly surprised when I saw the spider immediately sally out, and in less than a minute weave a new net round its captive, by which the motion of its wings stopped.
  In this manner it managed to keep its body and soul together; and nature seemed to have fitted it for such a life, for upon a single fly it subsisted for more than a week.  I once put a wasp into the net; but when the spider came out in order to seize it as usual, upon perceiving what kind of enemy it had to deal with, it instantly broke all the bands that held it fast, and contributed all that lay in its power to release so formidable an antagonist.  When the wasp was at liberty, I expected the spider would set about repairing the breaches that were made in its net, but those it seems were beyond repair; wherefore the web was now entirely forsaken, and a new one begun, which was completed the usual time.
  I had now a mind to try how many webs a single spider could finish; therefore I destroyed this, and the insect set about another.  When I destroyed the other also, its whole stock seemed entirely exhausted, and it could spin no more.  The arts it made use of to support itself, now deprived of its great means of livelihood, were indeed surprising.  I have seen it roll up its legs like a ball, and lie motionless for hours together, but keeping a sharp lookout all the time; when a fly happened to approach sufficiently near, it would dart out all at once, and often seize its prey.
  When smaller flies happen to fall into the snare, the spider does not sally out at once, but very patiently waits till it is sure of them; for upon his immediate approach, the terror of his appearance might give the desperate captive strength sufficient to get loose.  The manner then is to wait patiently, till, by ineffective and fruitless struggles, the captive has wasted all its strength, and becomes a certain and easy conquest.
  The insect I am now describing lived three years: every year it changed its skin, and got a new set of legs.  I have sometimes plucked off a leg, which grew again in two or three days.  At first it dreaded my approach to its web, but at last it became so familiar to take a fly out of my hand and upon my touching any part of the web would immediately leave its hole, prepared either for a defense or an attack.


Lesson 17
The Coming of "the Black Ships"

  The policy Iyemitsu, forbidding any Japanese to live the country under pain of death, had left the nation for two hundred years ignorant of the outer world.  About the colossal forces gathering beyond seas nothing was known.  The long existence of the Dutch settlement at Nagasaki had in no wise enlightened Japan as to her true position.  The coming of the American fleet, "the Black Ship," as they were then called, first awakened the government to some knowledge of its own weakness, and of danger from afar.
  National excitement at the news of the second coming of the Black Ships was flowed by consternation at the discovery that the Shogunate confessed its inability to cope with the foreign powers.  This could mean only a peril greater than that of the Tartar invasion in the days of Hojo Tokimune, when the people had prayed to the gods for help, and the Emperor himself, at Ise, had besought the spirits of his fathers.  Those prayers had been answered by sudden darkness, a sea of thunder, and the coming of that mighty wind still called Kami-kaze, -- "the Wind of the Gods," by which the fleets of Kublai Khan were given to the abyss.  Why should not prayers now also be made?  They were, in countless homes and at thousands of shrines.  But the Superior Ones gave this time no answer; the Kami-kaze did not come.  And the samurai boy praying vainly before the little shrine of Hachiman in his father's garden, wondered if the gods had lost their power, or if the people of the Black Ships were under the protection of stronger gods.
  It soon became evident that the foreign "barbarians" were not to be driven away.  Hundreds had come, from the East as well as from the West; and all possible measures for their protection had been taken; and they had built queer cities of their own upon Japanese soil.
  The young samurai of the town soon had the experience of seeing a real Western foreigner, a teacher hired for them by the prince.  He was an Englishman.  He came under the protection of an armed escort; and orders were given to treat him as a person of distinction.  He did not seem quite so ugly as the foreigners in the Japanese prints; his hair was red, indeed, and his eyes of a strange color; but his face was not disagreeable.  He at once became, and long remained, the subject of tireless observation.

  Nevertheless, from his students he experienced only courtesy; they treated him by that Chinese code which ordains that "even the shadow of a teacher must not be trodden on."  In any event it would have mattered little to samurai students whether their teacher were perfectly human or not, so long as he could teach.  But behind the never lifted mask of delicate courtesy, the stranger's habits were minutely noted; and the ultimate judgment, based upon the comparison of such observation, was not altogether flattering.  The teacher himself could never have imaged the comments made upon him by his two-sworded pupils; nor would it have increased his peace of mind, while overlooking compositions in the class-room, to have understood their conversation: -- 
  "See the color of his flesh, how soft it is!  To take off his head with a single blow would be very easy."
  Once he was induced to try their mode of wresting, just fun, he supposed.  But they really wanted to take his physical measure.  He was not very highly estimates as an athlete.
  "Strong arms he certainly has," one said.  "But he does not know how to use his body while using his arms; and his loins are very week.  To break his back would not be difficult."
  "I think," said another, "that it would be easy to fight with foreigners."
  "With swords it would be very easy," responded a third; "but they are more skilful than we in the use of guns and cannon."
  "We can learn all that," said the first speaker; "when we have learned Western military matters, we need not care for Western soldiers."
  "Foreigners," observed another, "are not hardy like we are.  They soon tire, and they fear cold.  All winter our teacher must have a great fire in his room.  To stay there five minutes gives me the headache."
  But for all that, the lades were kind to their teacher, and made him love them.


Lesson 18
Division of Labor

I. How Division of Labor Arises
  When a number of workmen are engaged on any work, we find that each man usually takes one part of the work, and leaves other parts of the work to his mates.  People by degrees arrange themselves into different trades, so that the whole work done in any place is divided into many employments or crafts.  This division of labor is found in all civilized countries, and more or less in all states of society which are not merely barbarous.  In every village there is the butcher and the baker, and the blacksmith and the carpenter.  Even in a single family there is division of labor: the husband ploughs, or cuts timber; the wife cooks, manages the house, and spins or weaves; the sons hunt or tend sheep; the daughters employ themselves as milkmaids.
  In modern times the division of labor is greatly complicated: not only has every town and village its different trades, and mechanic and men in different posts and employments, but each district has its peculiar manufactures.  In one place cotton goods are produced; in another woolen goods; in other parts of the country flax, silk, are manufactured.  In every separate factory, again, there is division of labor; there is the manager, the chief clerk, the assistant clerks, the foremen of different departments, the timekeeper, the engine-tender, and stokers, the common laborers, errand boys, porters, etc., all in addition to the actual mechanics of different kinds and ranks who do the principal work.  Thus the division of labor spreads itself throughout the whole of society, from the prime minister, down to the office boy, or the street sweeper.
  Advance of civilization necessitates further adoption of the system among the nations in the world, each nation contributing to the world's good in its particular field where it excels the rest of the nations.  International cooperation in this economical way will inevitably result in the advancement not only of the interests of the nations but the whole world.

II. Advantages of Division of Labor
  There are many ways in which we gain by the division of labor, but Adam Smith, the celebrated English economist, has treated the subject so excellently that we had better, in the first place, consider his view of the matter.  There are, as he thought, three ways in which advantage arises from the division of labor, namely -- 
  (1) Increase of skill and efficiency in every particular workman.
  (2) Saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one kind of work to another.
  (3) The invention of a great number of machines, which facilitate labor considerably, and enable one man to do the work of many.
  There can be no doubt as to the increase of skill and efficiency which arises from practice.  Adam Smith states that if a blacksmith had to make nails without having been accustomed to the work, he would not make above 200 or 300 bad nails in a day.  With practice he might learn to make 800 or 1000 nails, in a day; but boys who are brought up to this trade can turn out 2300 nails of the same kind in the same time.  But there is no need of many examples:  everything that we see well or quickly made has been made by men who have undergone a great deal of hardship in learning and practicing the work.
  Secondly, there is a great of time lost when a man changes one kind of work to another many times in the day.  Before you make a thing you must get all the right tools and materials around you; when you have finished one box, for instance, you are all ready to make another with less trouble than the first; but if you have to go off and do something quite different, such as to mend a pair of shoes or write a letter, a different set of implements has to be got ready.  It takes a man, as Adam Smith thought, a little time in turning his hand from one kind of employment to another, and if this happens frequently, he is likely to become lazy.
  In the third place, Smith asserted the division of labor leads to the invention of machines which facilitate labor, because men, he thought, are much more likely to discover easy methods of attaining an object when their whole attention is directed to that object.  But it seems doubtful how far this is correct.  Workmen do occasionally invent some mode of lessening their labor, and a few important inventions have been made in this way.  But, as a general rule, the division of labor leads to invention, because it enables ingenious men to make invention their profession.  No doubt the invention of labor greatly promotes invention, because it enables each factory to adopt particular kinds of machinery.  In England, the Division of labor is continually becoming more and more minute, and it is not uncommon to find the whole supply of some commodity is furnished from a single factory, which and then afford to have a set of machines invented on purpose to produce this one commodity.  Such is even more case in the large factories of the United States, where the system of mass production is widely assumed to rationalize the economic structure of the country.


Lesson 19
Old Scrooge

  Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.
  Scrooge knew he was dead?  Of course he did.  How could it be otherwise?  Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years.
  Scrooge never painted out old Marley's name, however.  There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door, - Scrooge and Marley.  Sometimes people knew to the business called Scrooge Scrooge and sometimes Marley.  He answered to both names.  It was all the same to him.
  Oh, but he was an awful miser, was Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!  External heat and could had little influence on him.  No warmth could warm, no cold could chill him.  No wind that blew was bitter than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty.
  Nobody ever stooped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you?  When will you come to see me?"  no beggars implored him to bestow a trifle; no children asked him what it was o'clock; no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge.  Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would draw their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said,  "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"
  But what did Scrooge care!  It was the very thing he liked.
  Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year, upon a Christmas eve -- old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house.  It was cold, bleak, biting, foggy weather; and the city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already -- it had not been light all day -- and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighboring offices, like ruddy smears upon the thick brown air.  The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without that without the court was of the narrowest the houses opposite were mere phantoms.
  The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open, that he might keep his eyes upon his clerk, who, in a dismal little cell beyond, a short of tank, was copying letters.  Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal.  But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal box in with the shovel the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part.  Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter and tried to warm himself at the candle, in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.
  "A merry Christmas, uncle!  God save you!" cried a cheerful voice.  It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew.
  "Bah! said Scrooge; "humbug!"
  "Christmas a humbug, uncle?  You don't mean that, I am sure."
  "I do," said Scrooge.  "Merry Christmas!  What right have you to be merry?  What reason have you to be merry?  You're poor enough."
  "Come, then," returned the nephew gaily.  "What right have you to be dismal?  You're rich enough."
  Scrooge having no better answer ready, said "Bah!" again and followed it up with "Humbug!"
  "Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew.
  "What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I live in such a world of fools as this?  Out upon merry Christmas!  What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older and not an hour richer?  If I had my will, every idiot who goes about with eMerry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.  He should!"
  "Uncle!"
  "Nephew, keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."
  "Keep it!  But you don't keep it."
  "Let me leave it alone, then.  Much good may it do you!  Much good it has ever done you!"
  "There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest.  But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-travelers to the grave, and not another race creatures bound on other journeys.  And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"
  The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded.
  "Let me hear another sound from you," said Scrooge, "and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation!"


Lesson 20
The Fountain

Into the sunshine,
Full of the light,
Leaping and flashing
From morn till night;

Into the moonlight, 
Whiter than snow,
Waving so flower-like
When the winds blow;

Into the starlight,
Rushing in spray,
Happy at midnight,
Happy by day;

Ever in motion,
Blithesome and cherry,
Still climbing heavenward,
Never aweary;

Glad of all weathers,
Still seeming best,
Upward or downward
Motion thy rest;

Full of the nature
Nothing can tame,
Changed every moment,
Ever the same;

Ceaseless aspiring,
Ceaseless content,
Darkness or sunshine
Thy element;

Glorious fountain!
Let me heart be
Fresh, changeful, constant,
Upward, like tree!

--- James R. Lowell.


Lesson 21
The Bean and Manchuria

  The soy bean is a little thing, but potent.  Historians of the future may refer to recent struggle in Manchuria as a war for beans, and to the state which has just been formed there as a state founded on beans.
  To the Westerner, to whom beans are an occasional dish, the importance attached to the soy bean in East Asia may seem surprising.  Everywhere in that part of the world the soy bean ranks second in importance as a food product.
  To the toiling Japanese -- as well as to the Chinese, the Koreans and the people of Asia's islands -- the soy bean brings the proteins, the fats, the calories and the vitamins they cannot afford to get in any other way; it enriches the soil on which they grow their crops; it serves them in many other ways.  Although the bean is of increasing importance in the United States, Canada and Europe and has shown promise as crop in South Africa, Australia, India and Argentina, two-thirds of the word's output, or about 5,000,000 metric tons, still comes from Manchuria's farms.
  It would be no exaggeration to say that Japan's economic expansion in Manchuria has for one of its major objects the securing from possible interference by an enemy of this wondrous bean.  She has invested about $ 12,000,000 in Manchuria's bean milling industry alone.  All the Manchurian railways have special facilities for handling bean products.  At Dairen, the Japanese port in the Kwantung Leased Territory, special arrangements have been made, connecting the South Manchuria Railway with steamers.  Huge bags of beans and great stacks of bean cakes are piled high on the wharves at Dairen and at every railway station in South Manchuria.
  More than 500 bean mills exist in Manchuria, ranging from steam mills of the Chinese and hydraulic presses of the Japanese down to simple stone mills worked by hardy ponies.
  At the mills the oil is extracted from the bean, and the rest pressed into bean cakes.  In these forms, and simply as beans, the soy crop travels around the world.  Soy bean oil, by expert treatment, becomes a substitute for salad and frying oils, butter, and so on.  it is used also in the making of glycerin, paints, soaps, linoleum, rubber substitute, prinking inks and other products.  The bean cake, turned out in the form of round slabs, can be used as fertilizer, fed to cattle -- and even to men in emergencies -- or burned as fuel when runs low.
  If you travel in the interior of China you may find it advantageous sometimes to put up at a Buddhist temple instead of an inn.  When the priest offers his hospitality you may offer the money to provide a feast.  And a feast it will be.
  Soon from the temple kitchen comes the sweet smell of rich, spicy dishes.  Before you, presently, is placed what you think is a fish with a sweet and sour sauce.  And there is the likeness of a whole chicken, swimming in a golden chicken soup.
  Then you taste the food.  It proves to be beans -- all beans.  The cook's menu includes beans of a thousand tastes, bean curd molded to look like anything under the sun, to have any color, to taste nearly, yet not quite, like the thing it appears to be.  A meal of beans, and beans also, can be had, with every dish different and none of them tiresome.  What other vegetable can accomplish so much?  Where else but in China and Japan could such magic really occur day by day?


Lesson 22
Character and Reputation

  There are few who do not know the difference between character and reputation though there are few who have analyzed and defined their own ideas.  A man's real inward habits and mental disposition form his character.  This will work out to the surface in some degree, and in some persons much more than others.
  But the appearance which a man presents to the word, the outward exhibition, gives him his reputation.  A man's character is his reality.  It is the acting and moving force of his being.  Reputation is the impression which he has made upon other men; it is their thought of him.  Our character is always in ourselves, but our reputation is in others.
  It is true that, ordinarily, among honest men, the two go together.  A man who lives out of doors among men, and who gives his fellows a fair chance to see his conduct, will fins that he is accurately measured and correctly judges. 
  But it sometimes happens that the men are much better than they have credit for being, and as often men are much worse than they appear to be; that is, men may have a reputation either better or worse than their character.  Thus, there are many men who are reputed to be hard, severe, stern, who at heart are full of all kindness and sympathy, and would go farther and fare harder to serve a friend in adversity or to relive a real case of trouble than anybody else around them.  On the other hand, some people are thought to be very gentle, very sweet in manners, all smiles, promises, and politeness; but at heart they are cold and selfish.  This is a notable case of men wining reputation far excess of what their character warrants.
  It is quite easy for a man to get himself a reputation.  He has only to practice upon the imagination and credulousness of the public.  If he takes pleasure in being thought better than he is, if he chooses to indulge in worldly vanity, if he wears a mask and his life is occupied in covering up his real feelings by feigned and false ones, he may have a measure of success.
  Indeed, it is easier to build a character than to be laid, and solidly laid, in truth, honor, and virtue, and the more the man is tried the more he profits by it.  Such men are revealed to the world by misfortunes.  The troubles which threaten them only end in letting people know how strong and real and good they are.
  But when a man has learned to live upon a mere show, practicing upon others with decent appearances, he will find that his reputation, good in fair weather, will be good for nothing in storms and trials.  And then, when he needs most sympathy and respect, he will have the least.  If it is a little harder to build up character than reputation, it is so only in the beginning.  For reputation, like a poorly built house, will cost as much for patching and repairs as would have made it thorough at first.
  Besides, an honorable soul ought to be ashamed of credit which he does not deserve.  One hardly knows how to interpret a nature that can deliberately take praise for things which he knows do not properly belong to him.  This is particularly true of young men.  What shall we think of a man who begins life on a lie? Who deliberately sets out to build up a reputation without caring for his character?


Lesson 23
What the Motor Car is Doing

  Inventions which are most serviceable are often looked upon at first as nothing but toys.  The telegraph and typewriter were greeted merely as interesting novelties; and when the automobile first made its appearance, it was regarded by most people as a device that would entertain folk who had plenty of money to spend, until something else was invented to take its place.  It was only a decade ago that people used turn and gaze after an automobile in the streets, but the machine has already become a necessity.  New uses for it are discovered every day, and the average business man questions, not whether he can afford to buy one, but whether he can afford to do without it.
  An especially valuable service rendered by the motor car is to haul a fire engine more swiftly than horses can at the time when every moment counts.  The suburbs of a city which is served by fire automobiles are much safer for homes.  Of course the cost of the machine is more in the first place, but the expense for care and cost of operation is less then the maintenance of horses.
  But if the motor car is a valuable friend to the city man, it has done even more fir the farmer, and has been especially appreciated in the smaller towns and country districts of the United States.  In that part of the country it is not at all unusual to fix or seven hundred cars in a towns of less than a thousand people.  The farmer was quick to see the advantages of rapid transportation, which brought the benefits of the city at his own door.  A family living ten miles from town can be carried to the shop, lecture, theatre, church, in less time than the majority of those living in the city can reach the same places on foot or by electric car.  Two or three feeble country schools can profitably be united into one good school, now that a few miles of distance do not count.  The business man who lives in the country and goes to his city office by motor car can combine the pleasures and advantages of the country with those of city.
  The motor car on the farm is much less expensive the in the city, where a suitable garage can be found in one corner of a well-built barn.  In some places a "visiting chauffeur" whizzes from farm to farm, giving each machine a daily examination and making small repairs.  The farmer, however, by his use of agricultural machines, becomes much more at home with the motor car than the city man and can do a good share of his own repairing.  In addition to the touring motor car, the farmer has a tractor which will pull six ploughs as easy a team pulls one plough.  Tests made in the wide field of the West of the United Stats have shown that, with seventy-five gallons of gasoline and the work of two men, twenty-five acres of land can be ploughed in a day.  On a farm, however, the planting and harvesting last for only a short time; but the countless pieces of work that must be done every day are a continual burden.  The tractor saves the farmer and his family from many of these.
  The motor car has almost as many uses in war as in peace.  Thousand of soldiers have been carried to the front in motor vehicles.  Ammunition, fuel, tools, airplanes and heavy guns are carried on motor cars great searchlights also travel by motor.  They are mounted on stands and can be easily wheeled to the desired position and connected by wires to the wagon which provides them with electricity.  In one carefully arranged test, guns hitched to powerful touring car were dragged ninety-nine miles in nine and one half hours by the use of eight gallons of gasoline.  With horses, that would have taken three or four days.  In moving an army and providing it with supplies, the motor has shown itself so efficient that we may hope for the release of the horse from the terror and agony of the battlefield.
  Motor cars sheathed in armor have become common.  Even revived in the form of motor wagons weighting five or six tons, with broad, heavy rollers in front and long, stout knives projecting from the wheels.  The object of these is to crush and tear a way through thickets and even through the most intricate of the barbed-wire entanglements.
  There is one application of the automobile in war in which everybody may rejoice, and that is its use as a field hospital.  Some of the motor field hospitals have glass roots and are fitted up as operating-rooms.  Terrible as is the pain endured in those motor cars, it would be far worse without them; and to thousands of suffering soldiers, who would otherwise die on the field, the lift into the motor car will be the first step a journey towards home and recovery.


Lesson 24
William Shakespeare

  On the banks of the winding Avon, in the midst of the flowering meadows of Warwickshire in England, is the little town of Stratford.  It is a handsome little place, with rows of quaint old houses in the street.  The stone church, with the tall spire that thrusts its pointed church, with the tall spire that thrusts its pointed shallow down into the Avon, the town hall, the guild hall, and the grammar school stand just as they stood in the ancient days of good Queen Elizabeth and long before.  It is a place of pilgrimage, this little Stratford -- the eyes of the world have singled it out.  And why?  Well, to begin with, in the year 1597 a prosperous English gentleman went down from London, bought new Place, the largest house in Stratford, repaired it, and shortly after there for the rest of his life.  The gentleman was none other than the poet William Shakespeare.
  Stratford was not new to Shakespeare.  It had been his native place where he spent his boyhood days.  Had there been reporters in Shakespeare's day, or had Shakespeare given time to letter-writing, we might know something more about the greatest dramatist in the world.  But, happily or unhappily, reporters had not been invented; nor did any one immediately after his death undertake to write his biography.  The records of the parish church at Stratford tell us that he was baptized April 26, 1564.  his father was John Shakespeare, a dealer in agricultural produce and, in Shakespeare's boyhood, an official of the town.  His mother was Mary Arden, the daughter of a well-to-do farmer and land-owner of the neighborhood.  Doubtless Shakespeare grew up just as most boys do -- attended the grammar school in Stratford and went eagerly to every "show " that came along.  There were religious plays on festival days, though these were dying out and pageants of the crafts and guilds it is probable that when he was eleven years old he went to see the magnificent outdoor pageant in honor of the virgin Queen, at Kenilworth Castle not far away.
  He was about nineteen when he married Anne Hathaway, who was several years his senior.  After a short duration of peaceful life in the country, the young couple determined to move to London in an effort to carve out the destiny in short for them.  Stratford was too small a place for the type of man like Shakespeare to display his genius to his heart's content.
  Within seven years at most after his reaching London, Shakespeare had achieved great reputation as an actor and had begun to write.  He acted principal parts in the plays of his famous friend Ben Johnson, and took minor parts, it is said in some of his own.  When Shakespeare went to London, there were but two playhouses; when he retired from the stage, the Globe, he was a shareholder.  During his lifetime Shakespeare wrote thirty odd plays in blank verse.  The poet died in Stratford, April 23, 1616, just five after the Holy Bible was issued by the King's order.
  The Shakespeare plays, according to a reliable authority, are a best seller, second only to the Holy Scripture.  The illustrious name of Shakespeare will abide long in the annals of the English ?speaking countries of the world.


Lesson 25
Readers and Reading

I. The Readers
  Books do not exist for their own sake, but for he sake of people.  A man compose poems or construct stories for his own amusement; he may record events or describe facts for his own discipline; but when he puts these records, these verses, these inventions into a book, and sends it out into the world, his mind's eye is fixed on readers, real or imaginary.
  There are readers, and readers.  For purpose of convenience they may be divided into three classes.
  First, there is the "simple reader," ?the ordinary book consumer of commerce.  He reads without any particular purpose or intention, chiefly to occupy his spare time.  He has formed the habit, and it pleases him.  He is not versed in literature, but he says he knows what he likes.  All is fish that comes to his net.  Curiosity and fashion play a large part in directing his reading.  He is and easy prey for the loud advertising bookseller.  He seldom reads a book the second time, except when he forgets that he has read it before.  For a reader in this stage of evolution the most valuable advice (if, indeed, any counsel may be serviceable) is chiefly of a negative character.  Do not read vulgar books, silly books, morbid books.  Do not read books that are written in bad English.  Do not read books simply because other people are reading them.  Do not read more than fie new books to one old one.
  Next comes the "intelligent reader" -- the person who wants to know, and to whom books are valuable chiefly for the accuracy of the information which they convey.  He reads with the definite purpose of increasing his knowledge about facts.  Memory is his most valuable faculty.  He is ardent in the following of certain lines of investigation; he is apt to have a specialty, and to think highly of is importance.  He is inclined to take notes and to make analyses.  This particular reader is the one to whom lists of books and courses of reading are most useful.
  Last comes the "gentle reader," -- the person who wants to grow, and who turns to books as a means of purifying his tastes, deepening his feelings, broadening his sympathies, and enhancing his joy in life.  Literature he loves because it is the most human of the arts.  Its forms and processes interest him as expressions of the human striving towards clearness of thought, purity of emotion, and harmony of action with the ideal.  The culture of a finer, fuller manhood is what this reader seeks.  He is looking for the books in which the inner meaning of nature and life are translated into language of distinction and charm, touched with the human personality of the author, and embodied in forms of permanent interest and power.  This is literature.

II. The Reading
  Read the preface first.  It was probably written last.  But the author put it at the beginning because he wanted to say something particular to you before you entered the book.  Go in through the front door.
  Read plenty of books about people and things, but not too many books about books.  The only way to know a great author is to read his works for yourself.  That will give you knowledge at first-hand.
  Read the classics, -- those that have stood the test of time.  Read them slowly, carefully, thoroughly.  They will help you to discriminate among the new ones.
  Read no book with which the author has not taken pains enough to write it in a clean, sound, intelligible style.  Life is short.  If he though so little of his work that he left it in the rough, it is not likely to be worth your pains in reading it.
  Read over again the ten best books that you have already read.  The result of this experiment will test your taste, measure your advance, and fit you for progress in the art of reading.


Lesson 26
Henry W. Longfellow to His Father

     December 5, 1824.
My dear Father,
  I take this early opportunity to write to you, because I wish to know fully your inclination with regard to the profession I am to pursue when I leave college.
  For my part, I have already hinted to you what would best please me.  I want to spend one year at Cambridge for the purpose of reading history, and of becoming familiar with the best authors in polite literature; whilst at the same time I can be acquiring a knowledge of the Italian language, without an acquaintance with which I shall be shut from one of the most beautiful departments of letters.  French I mean to understand pretty thoroughly before I leave college.  After leaving Cambridge, I would attach myself to some literary periodical publication, by which I could maintain myself and still enjoy the advantages of reading.
  Now, I do not think that there is anything visionary in my plan thus far.  The fact is -- and I will not disguise it in the least, for I think I ought not -- the fact is, I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature; my whole soul burns most ardently for it, and every earthly thought centers in it.  There may be something visionary in this, but I flatter myself that I have prudence enough to keep my enthusiasm from defeating its own object by too great haste.  Surely, there never was a better opportunity offered for the exertion of literary talent in our own country than now.  To be sure, most of our literary men thus far have not been professedly so, until they have studied and entered the practice of Law or Medicine.  
  But this is evidently lost time.  I do believe that we ought to pay more attention to the opinion of philosophers, that "nothing but Nature can qualify a man for Knowledge."
  Whether Nature has given me any capacity for knowledge or not, she has any rate given me a very strong linking for literary pursuits, and I am almost confident in believing, if I can ever rise in the world, it must be by the exercise of my talent in the wind field of literature.  With such a belief, I must say that I am unwilling to engage in the study of the law.
  Here, then, seems to be the starting point; and I think it best for me to float out into the world upon that tide and in that channel which will the soonest bring me to my destined port, and not to struggle against both wind and tide, and by attempting what is impossible lose everything.
     Your affectionate son, 
     Henry.


Lesson 27
I Remember, I Remember

I remember, I remember
The house where I was born -- 
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day;
But now I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember
The roses, red, and white,
The violets and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday, -
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember
Where I was use to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then, 
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!

I remember, I remember
The fir tree, dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops 
Were close against the sky;
I was a childish ignorance,
But now etis little joy
To know I'm farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.

--- Thomas Hood.


Lesson 28
Iron, the Everyday Metal

  If you were making a world and wanted to give the people the most useful metal possible, the gift would have to e  iron; and the wisest thing you could do whole be to put it everywhere, but in such forms that the people would have to use their brains to make it of service.
  This is just the was with the iron in our world.  Wherever you see a bank of red sand or red clay or a little brook which leaves a red mark on the ground as it flows, there is iron.  Iron is in most solids, in red bricks, in ripening apples, and even in your own blood.  It forms one twentieth part of the crust of the earth.  Iron dissolves in water if you give it time enough.  If you leave a steel tool out of doors on a wet, it will rust; that is, some of the iron will unite with the oxygen of the water.  This is rather inconvenient, and yet in another way this dissolving is a great benefit.  Through the billions of years that are past, the oxygen of the rain has dissolved the iron in the hills and has worked it down, so that now it is in great beds of ore or in rich "pockets" that are often of generous size.
  One kind of iron is of special interest because it comes directly from the sky, and falls in the shape of stones called "meteorites," some of which weigh many tones.  Fortunately for the people and their homes, meteorites are not common, but every large museum has specimens of them.
  The man who makes iron in these days must have an immense "blast furnace," perhaps one hundred feet high, a real "pillar of fire."  Into this furnace are dropped masses of one, and with it coke to make it hotter and limestone to carry off the worthless part.  To increase the heat, blasts of hot air are blown into the bottom of the furnace.  This air is heated as the furnace.  The fuel used is nothing more than the gases which come out at the top of the furnace.
  The worthless part is so much lighter than iron that when the ore is melted it floats on top just as oil floats on water, and can be drained out of the furnace through a higher opening than that through which the iron flowers.  It is an impressive sight when a furnace is "tapped" and the stream of iron drawn off.
  Imagine a great shed, dark and gloomy, with many workmen hurrying about to make ready for what is to come.  The floor is of sand slopes down from the furnace.  Through the center of this floor runs a long ditch straight from the furnace to the end of the shed.  Opening from it on both sides are many smaller ditches: and connecting with these are little gravelike depressions two or three feet long ad as close together as can be.  These are called "pig beds."
  When the time has come, the workmen gather about the furnace, and with a long bar they drill into the hard-baked clay of the tapping holes.  Suddenly it breaks, and with a rush tapping hole.  Suddenly it breaks, and with a roar the crimson flood of molten iron gushes out.  It flows down the trench into the ditches, then into the beds, till their whole pattern is marked out in glowing iron. The crimson pigs become rose-red, darken, and turn gray.  The men play streams of water over them and the building is filled with vapor.  As soon as the pigs cool enough, they are carted away and piled up outside the building.
  Most of the iron made in blast furnace is turned into steel.  Steel has been made for centuries, but the process was slow and costly until the invention of the so-called Bessemer process in the last century.  One great difficulty in the manufacture of steel was to leave just the right amount of carbon in the iron.  Bessemer simply took it all out, and then put back exactly what was needed.  Molten iron, tons and tons of it, is run into an immense pear-shaped vessel called a "converter."  Fierce blasts of air are forced in from below.  These unite with the carbon and destroy it.  There is a roar, clatter, and a change.  Terrific flames of glowing red shoot up.  Suddenly they change from red to yellow, then to white; and this is the signal that the carbon has been burned out.  The workmen now drop in whatever carbon is needed.  The molten steel is poured into square molds, and is carried away.  If all the iron that is in use should suddenly disappear, did you ever think what would happen?  Houses, churches, skyscrapers, and bridges would fall to the ground.  Railway trains, automobiles, and carriages would become heaps of rubbish.  Ships would fall apart and become only scattered planks floating on the surface of the water.  Clicks and watches would become empty cases.  There would be no machines for manufacturing or agriculture, not even a spade to dig a garden.  Everybody would be out of work.


Lesson 29
An Apple Thief

  Jack discovered, one fine morning, on the other side of a hedge, a summer apple-tree bearing tempting fruit, and he immediately broke through the hedge.  Climbing the tree, he pulled the fairest, and began to eat it.
  "I say, you sir, what are you doing there?" cried a rough voice.
  Jack looked down and perceived a short, stout personage in grey coat and red waistcoat, standing underneath him.
  "Don't you see what I'm about?" replied Jack; "I'm eating apples; shall I throw you down a few?"
  "Thank you, kindly; the fewer that are pulled the better.  Perhaps as you are so free to give them to others as well as to help yourself, you may think that they are your own property?"
  "Not a bit more my property than they are yours, my good man."
  "I guess that's something like the truth; but you are not quite at the truth yet, my lad.  Those apples are mine, and I'll trouble you to come down as fast as you please."
  Jack did not much like the appearance of things.
  "My good man," said he, "it is quite a prejudice on your part to imagine that apples were not given., as well as other fruit, for the benefit of all us all.  They are common property, believe me."
  "That's a matter of opinion, my lad, and I may be allowed to have my own."
  "You'll find it in the Bible," said Jack.
  "I never did yet, and I've read it through and through."
  "Then," said Jack, "go home and fetch the Bible, and I'll prove it of you."
  "I suspect you'll not wait till I come back again.  No, no; I have lost plenty of apples, and have long waited to find the robbers out; now I've caught one I'll take care that he doesn't escape without punishment -- so come down, you young thief, come down directly, or it will be all the worse for you."
  "Thank you," said Jack, "but I am very well here.  I will, if you please, argue the point from where I am."  
  "I've no time to argue the point, my lad.  I've plenty to do, but do not think I'll let you off.  If you don't choose down, why, then you may stay there, and I'll answer for it, as soon as work is done, I shall find you safe enough."
  "What can be done," through Jack, "with a man who will not listen to argument?  What a world is this!  However, he'll not find me here when he comes back, I've a notion."
  But in this Jack was mistaken.  The farmer walked to the hedge, and called to a boy, who took his orders to his master.
  "Mark him, Caesar," said the farmer to the dog; "mark him."
  The dog crouched down on the grass, with his head up and eyes glaring at jack, showing a range of teeth that drove all our hero's philosophy out of his head.
  "I can't wait here, but Cesar can, and I will tell you, as a friend, that if he gets hold of you, he'll not leave a limb of you together -- when work's done, I'll come back;" so saying, the farmer walked off, leaving Jack and the dog to argue the point, if so inclined.
  After a while, the dog laid his head down and closed his eyes, as if asleep, but like a prudent boy, Jack resolved to remain where he was.  He picked a few more apples, for it was dinner-time.
  A few minutes had passed, when he was interrupted by another personage no less than a bull, who had been turned out with full possession of the orchard, and now advanced, bellowing occasionally, and tossing his head at the sight of Cesar.
  Caesar started on his legs and faced the bull, who advanced pawing, with his tail up in the air.  When within a few years, the bull made a rush at the dog, who evaded him and attacked him in return; and thus did the warfare continue until the opponents were at last at some distance from the apple-tree.
  Jack prepared for immediate flight, but unfortunately the combat was carried on by the side of the hedge at which Jack had gained admission.
  "Never mind," said Jack to himself, "there are two sides to every field;" and although the other hedge joined on the garden near the farmhouse, he had no choice.  "At all events," said Jack, "I'll try it."
  He was slipping down the trunk when he heard a trembling roar: the bull-dog had been tossed by the bull; he was then high in the air, and Jack saw him fall on the other side of hedge; and the bull was celebrating his victory with a flourish of trumpets.  Upon this, Jack, perceiving that he was relieved from his sentry, slipped down the rest of the tree and took to his heels.


Lesson 30
Eating, and What Comes of It

  Every motion that we make, and every thought that we think, destroys some of the minute cells, or particles, of which the various parts of the body are composed.  If this waste goes on without repair, the body soon wears out, and the life is destroyed.  The process of repair is called nutrition, and the materials for nourishing the body are found in food.
  Before the food can nourish the body, it must undergo many changes.  It must be broken up; the useful parts of must be dissolved; different parts must be mixed with each other; and the useful parts must be separated from those which are worthless.  The first step in this process is eating.  We eat, that we may live.  We eat that every part of our bodies may be strengthened, and that we may be able to do our daily work.
  Upon our tables, for breakfast or dinner, we have meat, bread, potatoes, fish, fruit, and many other articles of food to eat; and water, milk, and other liquids to drink.  We must take this food and drink at regular times, to satisfy the feeling of hunger and the needs of system.
  As the body is composed of some sixteen different kinds of simple substances, our food and drink must contain as much of each kind of substance as our bodies need.  If we take no food, we starve; if we take food that lacks some needed substance, after a time we starve just as certainly.
  The various articles of food are richer in certain substances than they are in others.  As no one article contains all the needed substances in sufficient quantity, we are obliged to take a variety of foods to keep the body in health.
  One of the most valuable of all the foods is the gluten, or sticky part of flour.  It contains all the substances which the body needs, but not all of them in sufficient quantity.  Nearly the same substances are found in the white of eggs; in the principal part of lean meat; in the curds of which cheese is made; and in the material which forms the clot, or thick part, of blood when it is exposed to the air.  These foods contain a substance which is necessary for building up the tissues of the body, and because they resemble albumen, or the substance of which the white of egg is composed, they are called albuminoids.
  Another substance of great value as food is the starch that forms a large part of the grains and other vegetable products.  Starch does not, however, contain so many of the needed substances as gluten, and is therefore less valuable as food.  The same substances in differing proportions are found in sugar and in some other articles of foods.
  The third class of foods includes all oily substances, both animal and vegetable, and are known as fats.  They are composed of the same substances as starch and sugar, but they so differ in form that they need a different treatment before they can nourish the body.  The sugars, starches, and fats may be called heat-making foods.
  Minerals form the fourth class of substances that may be ranked as foods.  They include lime, soda, potash, iron, salt, ad water.  These are all in some form found in the body, and must be contained in the different articles of food.  These substances, with the exception of water and salt, are not used separately, but are found in sufficient quantities in meat, in fruit, and in vegetables.


Lesson 31
Don'ts

  Don't cleanse your ears, or your nose, or trim and clean your finger-nails, in public.  Personal cleanliness and neatness are indispensable, but toilet offices are proper in the privacy of one's apartment only.
  Don't have the habit of smiling or "grinning" at nothing.  Smile or laugh when there is occasion to do either, but at other time keep your mouth shut and your manner composed.  People who laugh at everything are commonly capable of nothing.
  Don't gape, or hiccough, or sneeze in company.  When there is an inclination to hiccough or sneeze hold your breath for a moment and resist the desire, and you will find that it will pass off.
  Don't blow your nose loudly.  Make as little noise as possible in the act.
  Don't dash, without notice, into any one's private apartment.  Always knock at the door and wait an answer before entering.  Respect always the privacy of your friends, however, intimate you may be with them.
  Don't pick up letters, accounts, or anything of a private character that is lying on another's desk.  Don't look over a person's shoulder when he is reading or writing.  Don't drum with your fingers on chair, table, or window-pane in company or anywhere, to the annoyance of others.  Don't hum a tune.
  Don't be afraid to say "No," when invited to take a glass.  No person whose friendship is worth having will be offended at the refusal.
  Don't whisper in company.  If what you wish to say cannot be spoken aloud, reserve it for a suitable occasion.
  Don't talk about yourself or your affairs.  If you wish to be popular, talk to people about what interests them, not about what interests you.
  Don't fail to exercise tact.  If you have not and instinct of tact, you at least can think first about others and next about yourself, and this will go a good way towards it.
  Don't interrupt.  To cut one short in the middle of one's remarks, anecdotes or story, is unpardonable.
  Don't stand before the fire, to the exclusion of the warmth from others. Don't forget that selfishness is the worst of ill-manners.
  Don't keep looking at your watch, as if you were impatient for the time to pass.
  Don't in company open a book and begin reading to your self.  If you are tired of the company, with dray; if not, honor it with your attention.
  Don't scold your children or your servants before others.
  Don't borrow books unless you return them promptly.  If you borrow books, don't damage them in any way; don't bend or break the backs, don't fold down the leaves; don't write on the margins; don't stain them with grease-spots.
  Don't forget every morning to salute all the members of the family with Good-morning, and at night, upon retiring, with Good-night.  When you enter the school-room say Good-morning to the teacher, and Good-afternoon when you leave at the end of school hours.
  Don't fail, above all things, to be kind attentive to elderly people.  The kind-hearted boy who picks up a hat an old gentleman has dropped has done a polite things as well as a kind-hearted thing; and a boy who takes the trouble to show a lady the right way to has also done a polite as well as a kind-hearted thing.


Lesson 32
The Sea

The sea! the sea! The open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without the mark, without the bound,
It runneth the earth's wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea!   I'm on the sea!
I am where I would ever be;
With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go;
If a storm should come, and awake the deep,
What matter?  I shall ride and sleep.

I love, oh, how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When ever mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the southwest blasts do blow!

I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast.
Like a bird that seeketh his mother's nest;
And a mother she was and is to me;
For I was born on the open sea!

--- Bryan W. Proctor.

---
Some one commending Philip of Macedon for drinking freely, "That," said Demosthenes, "is a good quality in a sponge, but not in a king."
--- Johnson.


Lesson 33
Livingstone's Encounter with a Lion

  It is well known that if one in a troop of lions is killed, the remainder leave that part of the country.  The next time, therefore, the herds were attacked, I went with the people to encourage them to rid themselves of the annoyance by destroying one of the lions.  We found the animals on a small hill covered with trees.  The men formed round it in a circle, and gradually closed up as they advanced.
  Being below on the plain with a native schoolmaster named Mabalwe, I saw one of the lions sitting on a piece of rock within the ring.  Mabalwe fired at him, and the ball hit rock on which the animal was sitting.  He bit at the spot struck, as a dog does at a stick or stone thrown at him; and then leaping away, broke through the circle and escaped unhurt.  If the Bakatla had acted according to the custom of the country, they would have speared him in his attempt to get out, but they were afraid to attack him.
  When the circle was re-formed, we saw two other lions in it, but dared not fire lest we should shoot some of the people.  The beasts burst through the line, and, as it was evident the men could not be prevailed on to face their foes, we bent our footsteps towards the village.  In going round the end of the hill I saw a lion sitting on a piece of rock about thirty yard off, with a little bush in front of him.  I took a good aim at him through the bush, and fired both barrels into it.
  The men called out, "he is shot, he is shot!"  Others cried, "He has been shot by another man too; let us go to him!"  I saw the lion's tail erected in anger, and, turning to the people, said, "Stop a little till I load again."  When in the act of loading the gun I heard a shout,, and, looking half round, I saw the lion in the act of springing upon me.  He caught me by the shoulder, and we both came to the ground together.  Growling horribly, he shook me as a terrier dog does a rat.
  The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first grip of the cat.  It caused a short of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain nor feeling of terror, though I was quite conscious of all that was happening.  It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe -- they see the operation, but do not feel the knife.  This state is probably produced in all animals killed by the flesh-eating beasts; and if so, it is a merciful provision of the Creator for lessening the pain of death.
  As he had one paw on the back of my head, I turned round to relive myself of the weight, and saw his eyes directed to Mabalwe, who was aiming at him from a distance of ten of fifteen years.  His gun missed fire in both barrels.  The animals immediately left me to attack him, and bit his thigh.  Another man, whose life I had saved after he had been tossed by a buffalo, attempted spear the lion, upon which he turned from Mabalwe and seized this fresh foe by the shoulder.
  At that moment the bullets the best had received took effect, and he fell down dead.  The whole was the work of a few moments.  On order to take out the charm from him, the Bakatla on the following day made a huge bonfire over the carcass, which was declared to be the largest ever seen.
  The bite of a lion resembles a gunshot wound.  It is generally followed by a great deal of sloughing and discharge, and ever afterwards pains are felt periodically in the part.  I had on a jacket, which I believe wiped off the poison from the teeth that pierced the flesh, for my two companions in the fighting have both suffered from the usual pains, while I have escaped with only the inconvenience of a false joint in my limb.  The wound of the man who was bitten in the shoulder actually burst forth afresh on the same month of the following year.  This curious point deserves the attention of inquirers.


Lesson 34
The Earth

  In the very early days of human history, people thought that earth was flat.  There was a notion that the lands were surrounded by a circular ocean, and if one went too far away from the lands on that ocean, he would fall off.  Many years before the time of Aristotle, however, students of the heavenly bodies and of the earth, such as Pythagoras (born about 582 B.C.) and his followers, had been making observations which caused them to decide that the earth was a sphere.  Aristotle accepted these ideas and expressed them in his writings.  Another reason for accepting this theory of a round earth was the fact that the mast of an incoming ship was seen before the hull of the same ship become visible.  In addition, the positions of the star and planets changed as one traveled to the north or south.  After a long time men succeeded in sailing around the earth, and that helped to prove that the earth had a curved surface and certainly proved that the earth was not flat.
  It was not until several years after Aristotle's time that Eratosthenes (about 276-195 B.C.) of Alexandria, a Greek city in Egypt, attempted to measure the circumference of the earth.  His figures showed that it was about 29,000 miles.  We know to-day that the diameter of the earth is about 8,000 miles and that the circumference, or distance around the earth, at the equator is about 25,000 miles.  We know also that the earth is not a perfect sphere, due to the fact that as the earth rotates it bulges some what at the equator and flattens at the poles.  For this reason the distance through the earth from pole to pole is 27 miles less than that through the earth at the equator.
  In early days people believed that the earth stood still and that the sun passed round it each day.  We know now that the sun does not move round the earth, but that the earth rotates on its axis from west to east.  It takes 24 hours to complete a ration.
  The rotation of the earth gives us day and night.  One half of the earth is always lighted by the sun while the other half is in darkness.
  In addition to turning once on its axis each day, the earth revolves about the sun once each year.  This yearly journey is about 560,000,000 miles long.  if we figure that it takes about 365 days of 24 hours each for the sun, we find that it is moving through space at the rate of about 65,000 miles an hour.  We know also that the path followed by the earth in its annual journey about the sun is not a perfect circle, but one that is somewhat flatter into an oval shape.
  Since it takes 365 1/4 days for the earth to make one complete revolution about the sun, it is not exactly correct to say that a year contains 365 days.  We may agree upon that for convenience in making our calendars and in the transaction of business.  In 365 days we do not quite complete one revolution around the sun.  in four years we are so far behind that it takes one full day to complete the journey around the sun and be at the same place from which we started four years earlier.  That makes it necessary once in four years to put another day into our calendar.  We add the extra day to the shortest month, February, giving that month 29 days each leap year.


Lesson 35
The Charge of the Light Bridge

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the little Light Bridge!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the little Light Bridge!
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldiers know
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well, 
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabers bare,
Flash'd as they turned in air,
Sabering the gunners there,
Changing an army, while 
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery smoke,
Right thro' the line they broke:
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the saber-stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not -- 
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd:
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Bridge,
Noble six hundred!

--- Alfred Tennyson.

---
One effort to resist temptation strengthens the will for the next encounter.
--- Walter M. Gallichan.


Lesson 36
Golden Moments with Henry Ford

  It is easier to denounce a wrong than to tackle the job of curing it.  We can not evade our job by blaming the past.  The past took care of itself, and it depends on us to take care of the present.  Many things that were thought in the past to be right we have found to be wrong.  But -- and remember this -- none of the things believed to be thoroughly wrong have we found to be right.  Even wrong things have to pass through a period of being thought right before they can be known as wrong.  When we find out their nature, our responsibility begins.  It is this generation's our responsibility begins.  It is this generation's duty to the next to start at once to make room for the right things.

  Youth has one great element in its favor -- it can live in the future.  The world of to-morrow belongs to the young man of to-day; he can begin shaping the world now.  No age has ever presented the tremendous opportunities of the present, but along with these opportunities are proportionate responsibilities.  With the changing wheel of ambition, boys no longer regard the talkative profession as more important than the manual.  They realize that there are gigantic tasks to be done and that these will be accomplished by doers rather than talkers.  The man who does things is vastly more important to the world than the clerk who merely makes the record of others' achievements.
  Youths have a tremendous advantage over their elders in possessing the power of vision.  They bring fresh eyes and fresh minds to old task.  They are not tied down by the traditions of the past; they are not slaves to the failures of others.  Their concern is not so much with what could have been in the past as with what can be done in the future.  What make of it will depend on what they make of themselves and the opportunities or tasks which are now before them. 

  Mistakes, whether they occur in the social ream or in the building of a new machine, are often the result of active research.  The mind knows the end which it wishes to reach, it sees an opening, enters it, and explores far enough to discover that the opening does not lead where the mind wishes to go.  Another opening is explored in a alike manner and withdrawn from, so that experience is gained at every step.  This is not waste, it is not evil, it is not blameworthy; it is a part of material of knowledge.  This negative knowledge may be in the back of your mind unused, but it is a part of knowledge just the same.  Within our range of knowledge and necessity we have made certain things work and we have found certain principles.  On the other hand, we know that certain things will not work.  This positive and negative knowledge is all useful.  There should be no worrying over mistakes, because mistakes are part of the material of experience.


Lesson 37
The Valley of the Nile

  The sources of the Nile are in the Ethiopian Highlands and in a serried of lakes in east-central Africa where the rainfall is heavy.  Several streams from this mountainous country unite to form the Nile River, which then flows northwards through the great desert region to the Mediterranean Sea.  This is one of the very few examples in the world of a large river which reaches the sea after flowing through a desert.  It is the only large river in the world that for over 1.500 miles has no tributary.  This shows the extreme dryness of the land through which it passes.
  The valley of the Nile is the most densely settled part of Africa.  Is may be called a long oasis, which stretches completely across the great desert of North Africa.  In it countless people for thousands of yours have been able to support themselves by irrigating the lands with the life-living water of the river in an otherwise barren country.  The Nile has aided the people crowded together along its banks, because each year it has overflowed, owing to the heavy rains which occur on the Ethiopian Highlands, and has deposited a thin layer of new rich soil on all lands reached by the flood waters.  In this way the soils have been renewed over and over again.  Thus from the river has come water for irrigation and an annual supply of new soil, two of the chief requirements for successful farming.  The Nail is also the great natural avenue of transportation for the country, and much of the produce of the farms is moved upon its waters.
  At the margin of the Mediterranean Sea the Nile has formed a great delta.  This low, flat, marshy land is composed of the gravels, sands, and clays brought down by the river and deposited where the stream enters the quiet of the Mediterranean Sea.  When the main stream reaches the delta, it drives and follows several courses to the sea.  These courses are called distributaries, because the water of the main stream is thus distributed over the uneven surface of the delta.  Similar branching of a main stream occurs at the mouths of the Po, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Ganges, as well as at the mouth of the Mississippi.
  There are bands of green fields on each side of the Nile, stretching its course for about 1,000 miles.  These irrigated fields from the long, narrow oasis of the Nile.  The water from the Nile flows through a complicated system of dams, canals, and basins protected from unregulated overflow by artificial banks.  At many places the water is pumped from the river and spread out over the fields.
  Just beyond the irrigated lands there is a sudden change in the landscape.  A sharp line separates the vast areas of yellow parched sands.  If the water could be made to reach farther into the desert, however, the land would immediately spring into life, because the necessary plant food is stored away in nearly all desert soils except those that are too salty, and awaits only the application of water to make it usable for crops.  Furthermore, the climate of Egypt is always mild, so that killing forests never occur.
  On the rich soils of the delta and of the flood plain of the Nail there are extensive cotton plantations.


Lesson 38
Education and Colleges

  A man came into our office the other day.  He had an idea that he believed would be useful to us.  He stated his proposition clearly and with a grasp of detail that was amazing.  Nothing had been overlooked.  There was no sign of loose and foggy reasoning.
  "Of course," he wound up in an apologetic tone, "I've never been to college and so perhaps I haven't worked this things out as well as it could be done."
  This man revealed a state of mind that is, unfortunately, altogether too prevalent.  Many men go through life with the feeling that they can never be quite up to the mark because they did not have a college education.
  Psychologists call this attitude of mind an inferiority complex.  The idea that a man without a college education must necessarily be inferior to a college man in absurd.
  There is no magic about a college education.
  A college is, after all, only a place where a young man may go to learn things under competent instructors.  There are no secrets about what is taught in college.  Any of the textbooks used can be purchased through any bookshop.
  It is entirely possible to acquire all the knowledge obtainable in college by studying the same books under your own lamp.
  The purpose of study, whether it is done in the college class-room or at home, is to store your mind with facts.  But that does not mean turning yourself into a walking encyclopedia.  You want facts not for their own sake but to use in helping you develop your ability to reason from cause to effect or vice versa.
  Blindly accepting a college degree as a guarantee of education also applies the other way around.  College men are often inclined to look down on the fellow who got his education without sitting behind a classroom desk or listening to professors' lectures.  A friend of ours, a man past middle age, who never saw the inside of a high school or college as a student, has by dint of his own efforts become one of the best educated men we know.  Although successful in business, he has not become absorbed in his work to the exclusion of everything else.  This man, whose education makes that of the average college graduate seem trifling by comparison, was talking to his son who is a junior in high school.  The father mentioned that he was reading Darwin's Origin of Species.
  Son, from the prideful height of his sixteen years, came back with: "Why, father, you can't understand that book.  You haven't the educational background!"
  The quality of a man's education should be estimated on the basis of what he knows and what he can do.  Where or how he acquired the education is not of the slightest importance to anybody.  If you can go to the college, do so, of course, and be grateful for the opportunity.  It is undoubtedly the quickest and most efficient way to acquire the beginning of and education.  But remember that you have only begun you education when you have finished college.
  If you stop learning at that point there is no hope that you will ever become a really educated man.  Your brain must receive the stimulation of the constant search after new ideas and new developments.  The time to stop studying is when you also stop breathing!


Lesson 39
The Northwest Passage

  Near the town of Oslo, in Norway, a fifteen-year-old boy was so thrilled by the book he was reading that he did not hear his mother calling him to supper.  The book was Sir John Franklin's account of his Polar journey.
  "For four hundred years the bravest English explorers have tried to go through the Northwest Passage and failed," the boy said to himself.  "The bravest of all was Sir John Franklin and he, too, died in the attempt.  But that Northwest Passage must be conquered.  For whatever remains a mystery is a burden to all men.  It is a sign of man's weakness.  But by solving the mystery, humankind becomes strong.  I shall solve the mystery of the Northwest Passage."
  From then on, Roald Amundsen began to prepare himself to become an Arctic Explorer.  This meant that he must train himself to endure every hardship.
  Meanwhile he was devouring all the books on the Arctic regions he could lay his hands on.  he went to see von Neumayer, a great German scientist, about his studies.
  The scientist greeted Amundsen and asked him his business. Amundsen explained that he wanted to be an explorer, that he had two years' experience with an Antarctic expedition, and that he must learn more about making magnetic observations.
  "Young man," replied the aged scientist, "you have something else on your mind!  Tell me what it is."
  "I want to be the first to conquer the Northwest Passage."
  "Ah, a fine ambition.  There is still more."
  "Well," said Amundsen, "I have to locate exactly the North Magnetic Pole."
  The scientist rose, came over to Amundsen, and threw his arms around him in a warm embrace.  "Young man," he said, "if you do that, you will be the benefactor of mankind for ages to come.  That is the great adventure."
  The great adventure was on.
  Amundsen began to lay plans for a heroic risk -- the discovery of the North Pole!   Hundreds of brave men had died attempt, and Amundsen realized that he might add to the list of the dead.
  But just as the hero was ready to begin the struggle, news reached the world that the North Pole had been discovered.
  Amundsen was not disappointed.  "There still is work for me," he said.  "I shall be the first to reach the South Pole."
  In August, 1910, he was ready.  By the winter, which is summer in Antarctic, he arrived in the Bay of Whales, in the South Polar regions.  There he faces the problem of choosing a place for his camp.  "If we camp on this glacier," said Amundsen, "its high walls of ice will protect us from the terrific gales."
  But the scientists had said that camping on a glacier was certain death, because any moment the ice might split and float away.
  "Yet," thought Amundsen, "here is a part of the glacier which, as I have read, has not moved for sixty-eight years.  It seems safe enough."
  He was right.  And a cozy little home the glacier made.  The scene was beautiful in its vast whiteness.  A clear sky and a glorious moon revealed the glistening landscape.  Here and there a polar bear wandered about on the ice.  The aurora shone brilliantly.
  The time came for the great march to the South Pole.  But Amundsen did not undertake to so it all at once.  That would be too dangerous, for hundreds of miles of miles separated him from the Pole, and, like other explorers, he might starve to death on the way.  No, he had a cunning plan.  All along the way he set up small camps with provisions and marked with flags and sign-posts with provisions and marked with flags and sign-posts so that they could be found later even in dense fog.  Then he returned to the main camp, rested, harnessed up his dogs, and set out.
  The plan worked perfectly.  He reached the South Pole in December 1911, and returned with perfect ease and safety, his camps along the way supplying him constantly.  The world owes another debt to Amundsen.  He and his crew were the first to fly to the North Pole in an airship, the Norge, and to bring back the information scientists wanted.
  In 1928, a member of the crew of the Norge, Nobile by name, thought he might serve humanity as an explorer, if he went on his own responsibility in an airship to the North Pole.  On May 24, Nobile and his crew set forth in the Italia.  For a time all seemed to go well.  Every day radio messages from the Italia assured the world of its safety.  One day the messages suddenly ceased.
  "The Italia is down!" thought the world.
  Who would risk his life to find them?  Several search parties went out immediately.  Days passed, and the search parties reported that they could not locate the unfortunate Nobile.
  "If only Amundsen would go!" everybody prayed.  "Only he can save the wrecked men."
  But Amundsen did not need to be asked.  Although he was fifty-five years old and the doctors had forbidden him to face the hardships of exploration any more, he felt that he could not allow a human being to perish if he could help to save him.
  The world watched Amundsen mount his airplane and soar northwards into the sky.  As he disappeared from view, every one felt the greatness of the hero.  For a while there was no news.  Then suddenly one of the many search parties sent triumphant message, "Nobile saved"
  The world rejoiced.  The search was ended.  But where was Amundsen?  Why did not he, too, come home?  Why did he not send a message?  Every question was met with the frozen silence of the North.


Lesson 40
Dust of Shooting Stars

  Many of the tiny particles of dust that float in the air come from no factory chimney or industrial city.  They fall from shooting stars.  Thousands of these heavenly visitors, though they fail to reach the earth, sprinkle it none the less with their fragments every day.
  Unique among astronomical pursuits is that of Lucien Rudaux, a noted French shore of the English Channel.  For years he has been collecting this "star dust,"  and he recently declares that its origin outside the earth is now proved.
  At Donville, this scientist collects the star dust as it settles from the air in a box resembling a weather observer's rain gauge.  It is recovered even more easily from mountain snow in the Pyrenees, in the south of France, where observers collect the particles for him.
  When the pure snow begins to melt, a grayish coating -- the dust of meteors -- becomes visible on its surface.  An observer collects this dust by running a quantity of the melted snow through a filter paper, the dust remaining on ht paper.
  Examined under a microscope, the particles seldom exceed a hundredth of an inch in size.  Most are much smaller.  Among the interesting shapes they assume are globes and tear-shaped drops, suggesting the terrific heat that must have melted them as the parent body fell.  This identifies them as fragments that a shooting star threw off.  Tested with a magnet, many of the particles adhere to it.
  Especially plentiful recoveries of this odd "star dust" have followed the periodic meteor showers that astronomers expect each year.
  Once an enormous meteorite whizzed close to the observatory at Donville.  Two days later a shower of star dust settled upon the collecting box of the observatory, so thickly that it could be seen with the naked eye.  It had been left floating in the air by the meteorite.
  This astronomer's observations leave no doubt that shooting stars, or meteors, are of exactly the same nature as meteorites, are of exactly the same nature as meteorites.  The only difference is that meteorites reach the earth, while meteors are consumed in the upper air by the heat produced by atmospheric friction and only their dust descends to the earth.


Lesson 41
Do Sharks Really Bite?

  Some years ago, I heard a celebrated naturalist state that sharks would not attack men.  As proof of his statement, he cited his own experience in shark-infested waters.  Clad only in a bathing suit and a diving himself, he had decended to the sea bottom, staying there for considerable periods while sharks and other fish negligently about, merely displaying a mild curiosity in his presence.
  Not being a naturalist, I do not propose to set up my own opinion to contradict an expert.  Nevertheless, I have gleaned a few items of information that do not agree with the theory that the shark is as harmless as a dove.
  Not long ago, several young men were swimming in an inlet on the east of Florida, diving into the water from a bridge.  Suddenly, at the cry of "shark," they scrambled to land.  From the bridge, the intruder, a good sized fish, was plainly visible.  It had cruised in from the ocean, as sharks often do, in the search of food.
  Among the swimmers was one who was not afraid of sharks.  "They don't attack men," he declared.  To prove his theory, he waited until the fish floated close to the bridge and then jumped on to its back.
  The shark promptly bit off the rash young man's arm at the shoulder.  And had not his companions succeeded in diving the brute off, there would have been nothing left of him.
  On the Inlet at Palm Beach, five minutes' walk from where I live, is a municipal dock.  Last summer, the dock-master went down to the ocean to take a dip before breakfast.  He had waded out and was standing still in waist-high water, when something suddenly seized his foot.
  Shouting for help, he got out of the water as fast as he could -- with most his heel ripped off.  He did not see what had bitten him, but the doctor who treated his wound, and several professional fishermen who examined it, say that beyond question only a shark could have inflicted the injury.
  There was once an enthusiast who used daily to swim about a mile out from shore.  Having done this for some time without mishap, he disregarded the suggestion that it was a dangerous pastime.  One day, he left something take a piece out of his thigh.
  Swimming desperately, he made the beach, conscious of subsequent bites en route.  In the surf, he fainted from loss of blood, but was pulled to land.  Those who rescued him insist that he encountered a school of small sharks, that literally fed on him as he swam.  At the hospital, to which he was rushed, they despaired of saving his life; but after a year's confinement, he recovered.


Lesson 42
Thomas Alva Edison

  A thousand years from now, when the names of the greatest soldiers, statesmen, financiers, and others now before the public eye will have sunk into oblivion, the name of Thomas Alva Edison probably will be nearly as well known as it is to-day.
  Yet when you come to analyze the inventions bearing Edison's name, it is impossible to pick out even one that would warrant blazing his name down through the centuries as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, inventor the world has ever seen.
  The invention of the electric light, usually considered Edison's greatest achievement, and the peg on which most of his fame has been hung, was really of trifling importance compared with his marvelous work in bringing about the general use of electric lighting.  If Edison had never lived, the electric light in physically practical form probably would have been produced within a few years of the same period on the world's history.  Other men, notably Swan of England, were within hailing distance of the goal when Edison reached it.
  However, without Edison's extraordinary ability first to imagine and then to carry to realization the practical application of an invention, it is safe to say that electric lighting would, to-day, be in its infancy.
  He not only took other people's theories and carried them through to a practical electric light, but he also took the known facts about electricity ad developed them into a complete system of electric lighting.
  Michael Faraday, for example, worked out the theories of the electric generator before Edison was born, yet it remained for Edison to take these theories, mix them with liberal portions of mechanical vision and hard common sense, and produce the Edison dynamo.
  Thomas A. Edison was not, in the strict manner of speaking, a true scientist.  He was never concerned with scientific problems as such.  He was interested only in practical applications, the things you can see and touch and watch while they are working.
  He was not a mathematician.  It is quite probable that Edison's theories were nearly as incomprehensible to him as they are to almost everybody else, since he received little schooling and virtually no formal scientific training.
  There have been greater electrical geniuses than Edison, greater mechanical experts, greater chemists, perhaps more lovable characters, but a combination of all of these qualities in one man, the world has for half a century given the palm to Thomas A. Edison.