17. Who is the world's greatest 19. Write a story telling how you

Who puts back into place a fallen bar,
Or flings a rock out of a traveled road,
His feet are moving toward the central star,
His name is whispered in God's abode.

Not a truth has to art or to science been given,

But brows have ached for it, and souls toil'd and striven.

(OWEN MEREDITH), ROBERT BULWER, LORD LYTTON

ALADDIN

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

All of you have probably read the story of "Aladdin's Lamp" from the "Arabian Nights."

You will remember that when Aladdin rubbed his lamp, a fairy called a "Genius" (jē'nĭ-us) came from it, and at once fulfilled any wish of Aladdin's. This fairy built a palace for Aladdin in a moment, so the story says.

Now in this poem Mr. Lowell intends to tell us that the wonderful things that boys and girls imagine are greater riches than any that manhood or womanhood can possibly possess.

When he was a boy, he tells us, he had, like Aladdin, — a lamp. He means, of course, his imagination, which, like Aladdin's lamp, at once brought him anything he wished, palaces, travel, riches and "castles in Spain," which is a saying that means our daydreams of splendid things we hope sometime to possess.

All this is what his boyhood gave him.

But when manhood came, he worked hard and secured money and power. Yet he would give it all for his boyhood again, so that he could dream dreams like Aladdin's, for manhood was too serious a problem to let him dream boyhood's dreams any

more.

If you will try hard to understand this poem, sometime, when you grow up to be serious men and women, you may think as Lowell thought, and deeply wish that you could trade all you possess for boyhood or girlhood again.

ALADDIN

When I was a beggarly boy,
And lived in a cellar damp,
I had not a friend nor a toy,

But I had Aladdin's lamp;
When I could not sleep for the cold,
I had fire enough in my brain,
And builded, with roofs of gold,

My beautiful castles in Spain !

Since then I have toiled day and night,
I have money and power good store,
But I'd give all my lamps of silver bright
For the one that is mine no more;
Take, Fortune, whatever you choose,
You gave, and may snatch again;
I have nothing 'twould pain me to lose,
For I own no more castles in Spain!

QUESTIONS, AND SUGGESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Who was Aladdin? In what 5. In the story of Aladdin how

famous book is his story

told? Tell his story of
the lamp?

2. What does Lowell mean by
this poem? First tell it
in your own words.

3. What is "fire in his brain"? 6. What did it bring the 7. beggarly boy?

4. What did manhood bring him?

were new lamps offered
for old? How does Lowell
Iwant to trade his silver
lamps? What does this
mean? What "lamp"
has he lost?

What are "castles in Spain"?
Why does he "own no more

castles in Spain "?

SPEECH BEFORE THE VIRGINIA

CONVENTION

PATRICK HENRY

You are now probably studying in your United States history the story of the American Revolution. Therefore you have had some preparation for studying this speech intelligently. But it would be best to go back to your histories and read again the story before you read this thrilling and wonderful speech. You should also study the picture on page 309.

The following facts you should surely know:

The thirteen American colonies in 1775 belonged to Great Britain. Most of the colonists had come from Great Britain. They loved her as their "mother country," just as you would still love the United States of America should you go to Africa now to be colonists there.

What was the cause of the growing enmity between the colonies and the mother country? It was this: The mother country believed then that her colonies existed solely for the benefit of herself and not for their own benefit or happiness.

There was some reason for this belief, because most of the colonists had been sent to America by certain rich companies which had grants of land here. These companies usually furnished the ships, the implements for the future work of the colonists, and the provisions to give the colonists a start. So the companies felt that the colonists should make a fair return for what had been done for them by the mother country. Indeed, the colonists had signed contracts promising to do so. Thus you

see we sometimes fail to see the viewpoint of the mother country. We must not, therefore, blame too much the mother country.

But she went too far. She forgot that the colonists were Englishmen, and as Englishmen, had the same rights as had Englishmen in England. So the mother country grew greedy, and went too far in her demands that the colonies should exist solely for her benefit.

When the colonists made ships better and cheaper than the mother country, she sent agents to mark with the king's "broad arrow" every tall tree that would make a good mast for a ship, as the king's property, so that the colonists could not use the trees for masts and compete with England in shipbuilding.

She forbade them to make nails, which, by means of small forges in their homes, the colonists could make cheaper than they could be made in England, thus taking the nail trade away from the mother country.

She forbade their making hats, which they could make cheaply because they could obtain, at a very low cost, the furs needed in their manufacture.

She taxed them by making them put a stamp, costing a penny or more, on every legal document.

She put a tax on their tea.

She forbade the colonists to go in their ships to compete in trade with her own merchants in many rich countries.

The colonists sent men to England to plead with the king to repeal these unjust laws, of which, in all, there were fourteen. But the men whom the colonists sent were refused and insulted. Patrick Henry, in his speech, says they were "spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne."

Now men who were the descendants of brave, free Englishmen did not like to be treated in that way. So the enmity grew between the colonies and the mother country, as you have read in your histories, until, in Boston, the taxed tea was emptied into Boston Harbor, the English merchants thereby losing their tea.