Irish, Frank V. American and British Authors: A Text-Book on Literature for High Schools, Academies, Seminaries, Normal Schools, and Colleges. Also a guide and help in the private study of the best authors and their writings. Chicago: Frank V. Irish, 1896.
PREFACE
The leaders of thought and the champions of great causes have ever been the men and women who, in their early and susceptible years, through great living teacher or great books, were touched by the life-giving power of genius, heard unforgettable voices in the air, and by the companionship of some master spirit were lifted to a “larger view” and “broader range” of thought and life. But this soul-awakening literature is the product of the imagination, or has been touched into life and beauty by this creative, most spiritual and Godlike of all our faculties. The low, heavy atmosphere of Fact suffocates Poetry, but Truth is the delightful mountain air she loves to breathe; she rises and soars on the winds of the imagination, and in the pure upper air sees only the truly great and beautiful things of earth. Literature is a culture study, and must be treated generously as a great liberalizing and spiritualizing force in education. Its supreme mission in the school and the home is to enrich, refine, and beautify life. We must approach it in the same generous spirit with which we go out to enjoy a delightful spring morning or a lovely landscape. Its highest forms elude us if we approach it as a task or for material gain. Literature, like Nature, reveals her choicest treasures and rarest beauties only to her lovers.
A study of the classics is called a liberal education as the daily companionship of generously endowed natures and vigorous souls emancipates one from the bondage of the local and trivial, makes him a citizen of the world, an “heir of all the ages.” All truly great literature has this element of largeness and universality. It is founded on the primal ideas and feelings, and is true to Nature in her deepest and most pleasing manifestations. Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton belong to all times and countries. Most that the ancients wrote has perished. Much of what has been written more recently will be forgotten, but such poems as The Deserted Village, The Cotter’s Saturday Night, Snow-Bound, Evangeline, and The Vision of Sir Launfal contain the gems of immortality, and will continue to delight generous natures and to fortify and exalt the religious sentiments and the domestic virtues, the deepest and sweetest elements of human life.
The purpose of this work as a text-book in schools and colleges and for use in the home is to lead the young into a love of the noblest literature of our own beloved America and that of our mother country, and to bring the youth of our nation into a generous and sympathetic companionship with the master spirits who have taught us the dignity, power, and beauty of our mother-tongue, the richest of all languages, and have given us nobler pleasures, richer and deeper joys, and higher and holier aspirations. As a love of the pure and beautiful in literature leads to a love of the pure and beautiful in thought and word, and this love is a winning invitation to the pure and beautiful in conduct and life, the choicest thoughts of the noblest writers have been generously scattered through the pages of this book with the confident hope that they will surprise, delight, and bless like rare wild-flowers discovered in meadow or woodland.
With a noble pride in the rich treasures of American literature and the lofty character of American authors, with a firm belief that the truest manhood and womanhood and the loftiest patriotism are developed and fostered most effectively by teaching our youth to honor and love the great writers, orators, statesmen, and educators of our own country, and with a further belief that our schools and homes greatly need and are ready to welcome heartily a text-book on literature that, without disparaging the illustrious writers of other countries and other times, places our great American authors first and foremost, this book has been written and is now entrusted to the generous consideration of all lovers of noble literature.
After years of earnest toil in which he has kept constantly in mind the highest needs of the teachers and pupils in our schools and the parents and children in our homes, confidently believing that the book into which he has wrought this deepest convictions, noblest thoughts, and most generous emotions, cannot fail to carry help and inspiration to other lives, the author trustfully sends it forth on its mission.
FRANK V. IRISH
Columbus, Ohio, August, 1896.