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'The most interesting books to me are the histories of individuals and
individual minds; all autobiographies and the like. This is my favorite read-
ing." HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

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HE following book on American literature has

THE

grown largely out of the author's work in the class-room. There was no hurried daily flight from author to author, leaving upon the mind of the pupil a confused impression of dates, names, and lists of books; but a careful and prolonged attention was given to the author as a man and a thinker.

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In preparing for recitation, the pupil was encouraged as much as possible to find the author in his works and to grow familiar with his thoughts and feelings. He was asked to discuss important questions suggested by his literary and biographical research, and every effort was made to make the study not a memory drill, but a stimulus to thought and a source of wider culture. For this purpose, the meagre and uninteresting information of the text-books, confined merely to external details, was found wofully deficient, and material from every available source

was collected to eke it out.

To place this material within the reach of other students and to direct them to the intelligent study of American literature are ideas which have been continually before me in the preparation of this

volume,

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Each biographical sketch is accompanied with a critical estimate of the author's works founded upon an application of the recognized canons of sound criticism. To know why a given work is good requires a maturity of judgment which is not to be found in young students, although their healthy, untrammelled instincts may often lead them to select and enjoy what is really fine. This naturally correct taste is in no danger of being vitiated if the mind really perceives the reason for the existence of such a taste. Otherwise it is in danger of being seduced by plausible rhetoric or.popular clamor into admiring what is far from admirable. Hence the necessity of teaching the young the principles of good taste in literature.

More attention has also been given to personal details in the biographical sketches than at a superficial glance may seem necessary; but it is these very details that individualize a man and help us to form a correct idea of him. There is too little of such individualizing in our text-books, and our authors do not stand out in them as men of striking character, but as mere names to which are appended a list of works. The value of biography lies in the stimulus. given by acquaintance with what is fine, strong, and lovable in character, and no study of literature is complete in which this stimulus is wanting.

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