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LITERARY READERS

BOOK ONE

BY

A SISTER OF ST. JOSEPH

AUTHOR OF THE "IDEAL SOUND EXEMPLIFIER,"
IDEAL CATHOLIC READERS," ETC.

THE

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1917

All rights reserved

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PREFACE

THE chief aim of this book of The Ideal Catholic Literary Series is to place before the children of our parochial schools specimens of literature best suited for the Grammar Grades.

Realizing that childhood is the formative period for the physical, intellectual, patriotic, æsthetic, and religious stature of manhood, we desire to plant in the hearts of the children the seed of fine emotions, tender feelings, nice discrimination, manly virtues, high ideals, and deep-seated religion. We wish to foster and develop in them the true, the beautiful, and the good. We desire to make them men and women of character by holding up to them noble, selfsacrificing, and patriotic models for their imitation. We wish to make them reliable, adaptable, efficient, and religious. In a word, our purpose is to form loyal and law-abiding citizens, and practical and conscientious Catholics; for such men and women are the bulwark of our country.

There is at the present time a tendency to overestimate the industrial side of education to the detriment of the cultural. In consequence of this, we find trade schools, manual training schools, prevocational schools, etc., springing up throughout the country, with the result that some of our boys and girls do not receive a well-balanced education. While we freely admit the usefulness of industrial education, we are thoroughly convinced that every child during

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