TO THE CHILDREN As you are all sitting quietly at work in your schoolroom this morning, suppose a gentle tap should come at your door and you should see standing there a pleasant looking visitor who might be a stranger to you but whom your teacher might know very well. She would probably invite him to come in, and she might, perhaps, ask him to speak a few words to the children. Then, if he should tell you an interesting and instructive story or sing for you a charming song, showing you in every way that he wished to please you and to be your friend, I am sure you would be delighted and would listen attentively to all he should say. Now this little book has been invited by your teacher to come in and to tell you many things which she thinks you will be glad to know. I hope very much that it will please you and will prove to be a true friend. You will find here stories of many kinds: tales of adventure and of fairyland, true stories about countries far away and about the people in those foreign lands, about places in your own country which, perhaps, you have never seen, about boys and girls like you, and about famous men and women, who have lived noble lives for God and for their fellow-men and whose memory will always be loved and honored because of the good which they have done. You will find, too, many beautiful poems, which are like the songs the stranger would sing for you. These poems will not be hard to understand. You can readily catch the swing of the rhythm, and you will enjoy them as you enjoy music. I hope you will like all the stories in your book not only for the stories themselves, but also for the meaning in them, for the thoughts they will bring to your mind. 5 Books are not all alike, as you know, any more than people are alike, but there are two things which are almost always true of any really good, interesting book: the story is made very real, so real that we can easily imagine the scenes and places described and almost seem to hear the people talking, and also there is a deeper meaning than simply the story itself. Sometimes all of this deeper, richer meaning does not come to us at first, but as we read the story again and think more about it, we understand better what it really means and we enjoy it more and more. The beautiful thoughts in such stories and poems find their way into our very hearts and make us wish to perform some noble deed, to be more honest, more true, more gentle, more courageous than we have ever been. These are the books which are really our friends, for they help us to do our best. "When we pray, we speak to God; When we read good books, God speaks to us." You wish to learn how to read well, so well that it will be a delight to yourself and to all who listen. Shall I tell you the secret of doing this? You must first read a lesson over very carefully, looking up all the difficult words in the vocabulary at the back of your book. Study the lesson in this way until you understand it thoroughly and can read it smoothly. Then when you read your part in class, read slowly and distinctly and try to read as if you were the only one who ever heard of the story and as if you were telling it now to your teacher and classmates. If the exact words of any character are given, try to read these just as that person would speak. And finally, sometime in the day, after the class recitation, think again about the story and see how much you can remember to tell in your own way. If the lesson is a poem, perhaps you will copy it neatly and later learn |