SILAS MARNER

PREFACE

HE main aim of teachers of English during the last decade Thas been to enable students in the secondary schools to secure a wider and closer familiarity with the great English classics. Until that aim be attained, indeed, we can scarcely hope to reap much benefit from the teaching of rhetoric, of composition, or of the history of English literature, for each of these studies, however separated from the others by the specific objects it has in view, must depend to a greater or less degree on a knowledge of, and a familiarity with, at least a few of the large body of English classics, and with literary English-the more dignified forms, usages, and idioms of the language, that have taken their place in our literature, and, by this very means, have become standard.

In favour of more reading in the schools, accordingly, as affording a basis for information, a source of pleasure, and an incentive to, and even a means for, growth in power of expression, the National Committee of Ten has recently offered a strong recommendation. The Conference on English assigned three “periods” a week for each of the four years of the high- school course to the study of English literature, and advised that it be “taught incidentally, in connection with the pupils’ study of particular authors and works;” that “the mechanical use of ‘manuals of literature’ be avoided;” and that “the committing to memory of names and dates be not mistaken for culture.” The position taken by the National Committee of Ten was fur. ther strengthened by the action of the Conference on Uniform Entrance Requirements in English, whose recommendations, since adopted by almost all the prominent colleges and universities throughout the country, prescribed “Reading” as the first of the two requirements in English for admission to American colleges. A second recommendation of the Conference on Uniform Entrance Requirements in English was, that certain English classics should be studied thoroughly, word by word and letter by letter, if need be, until the student should have as detailed and as intelligent an idea as his age and his opportunities permit, of their subject-matter, their form, and their structure.

In strict conformity with the courses of reading and study mentioned above, and certain to be adopted widely and uniformly throughout the United States, the publishers have arranged for the editing of a series of English classics, especially designed for use in secondary schools, either in accordance with the system of English study recommended and outlined by the National Committee of Ten, or in direct preparation for the uniform entrance requirements in English now adopted by the principal American colleges and universities. The Editors have been chosen for their scholarship, their literary or critical ability, or their experience in teaching, according as each qualification seemed most necessary for the treatment of the work in question. On their part, the publishers aim to provide a series of volumes moderate in price, attractive and serviceable in point of mechanical execution, and fit in every way for permanent use and possession.

The specific aims of the series are:

I. To interest young students in certain books (those prescribed for reading in the uniform entrance requirements) as literature, and to draw attention to the main subjects of importance in them. No stress is laid on merely linguistic study ; but every effort is made, by critical and biographical introductions, by pertinent explanatory notes, by bibliographies, chronological tables, and, in some instances, by portraits, maps, and plans, to make these books not only pleasant and useful reading in themselves, but incentives to further reading and study.

II. To provide, in each case, for the books prescribed for study a thorough and satisfactory method of treatment. Teachers in secondary schools will remember that the recommendations of the Committee of Ten and the uniform requirements suggested jointly by various associations of colleges and preparatory schools are general, rather than particular, and that definite methods of study still remain to be laid down by scholars and experienced teachers. Precisely this is done by the part of the present series devoted to the books prescribed for study. The position and the reputation of the editors are a sufficient guarantee that these volumes do all that can be done, at the present time and under the present circumstances, toward defining and typifying the best modern methods of studying literature in secondary schools.

III. To provide for students in secondary schools who are not preparing for college, a uniform series of properly edited English classics for reading and study. The series which we here present has the great advantages of uniformity and of authority, and, it is believed, will be widely adopted throughout the country by schools that refuse to give students who do not pursue their studies beyond the high school a less wide and thorough training in their mother tongue than those who go to college.

George Eliot’s charming story of “Silas Marner” is reprinted, by the kind permission of Messrs. William Blackwood and Sons, from the authorized English edition of that work.