children, strong and sturdy, trooping down the lane with the lowing herd, or weary of simple sport, seeking, as truant birds do, the quiet of the old home nest. And I saw the night descend on that home. And the stars swarmed in the bending skies, and the father, a simple s man of God, gathered the family about him, and read from the Bible the old, old story of love and faith, and then closed the record of that simple day by calling down the benediction of God on the family and the home! And as I gazed, the memory of the great Capitol faded 10 from my brain. Forgotten its treasure and its splendor. And I said, "Surely here -- here in the homes of the people - is lodged the ark of the covenant of my country. Here is its majesty and strength. Here the beginning of its power and the end of its responsibility." 15 The home is the source of our national life. Back of the national Capitol and above it stands the home. Back of the President, and above him, stands the citizen. What the home is, this and nothing else will the Capitol be. What the citizen wills, this and nothing else will the 20 President be. 1. Read this selection silently and try to picture the two scenes as the author saw them. What is the first picture? The second? 2. Describe the master of the country home as you see him. What is meant in line 24, page 395, by "the knighthood of the Fourth Commandment "? 3. Tell what the mother was like. 4. What is the conclusion of the author? Explain what is meant by the citizen's being above the President. TH QUALITIES OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT HE man who counts is the man who is decent and who makes himself felt as a force for decency, for clean liness, for civic righteousness. He must have several qualities. First and foremost, of course, he must be honest, s he must have the root of right thinking in him. That is not enough. In the next place he must have courage. The timid good man counts but little in the rough business of trying to do well the world's work. And finally, in addition to being honest and brave he must have common sense. Io If he does not have it, no matter what other qualities he may have, he will find himself at the mercy of those who, without possessing his desire to do right, know only too well how to make the wrong effective. 1. This is a very meaty, compact statement of what good citizenship is. What qualities did Roosevelt mention? What reason does he give for selecting each? 2. Memorize these thirteen lines. They are not only expressive of a great man but they will also help you to become a better citizen. All private virtue is the public fund: As that abounds the state decays or thrives; GOOD BOOKS YOU SHOULD KNOW HERE are the titles of a few good books whose acquaint ance you will enjoy. If you come to know only a few of them your journey through this book will not have been made in vain. Alcott's Little Women Alden's Adventures of Jimmy Brown Bachman's Great Inventors and Their Inventions Baker's Children's Books of Poetry Baldwin's American Book of Golden Deeds Baldwin's Fifty Famous Rides and Riders Baldwin's Conquest of the Old Northwest Baldwin's Story of Roland Baldwin's Story of Siegfried Baldwin's Thirty More Famous Stories Retold Baldwin and Livengood's Sailing the Seas Brooks's Boy Emigrants Burton's Lafayette, The Friend of American Liberty Carpenter's Geographical Readers Carpenter's Readers on Commerce and Industry Cody's Life and Adventures of Buffalo Bill Cooper's Deerslayer Cooper's Pilot Defoe's Robinson Crusoe Dickens's Cricket on the Hearth Dodge's Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates Doyle's Refugees Du Chaillu's Wild Life Under the Equator Dutton's Little Stories of France Eggleston's Hoosier Schoolboy Fabre's Insect Adventures Foote and Skinner's Makers and Defenders of America Guerber's Story of the English Guerber's Story of the Greeks Guerber's Story of Modern France Munroe's Dorymates Munroe's Flamingo Feather Otis's Toby Tyler Page's A Captured Santa Claus Pitré's Swallow Book (Camehl) Pyle's Modern Aladdin Pyle's Stolen Treasure Scott's Ivanhoe Scott's Tales and Verse (Webster and Coe) Stevenson's Treasure Island Stoddard's Red Mustang Swift's Gulliver's Travels Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer Van Dyke's First Christmas Tree Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Wyss' Swiss Family Robinson |