Page:Seven Great American Poets - Hart - 1901.djvu/9



is a well-founded conviction among educators that students should be acquainted not only with the best American literature but with the lives of its authors, to the end that they may realize that the great writers experienced joys and suffered hardships in common with their fellowmen; in short, that we should aim to sound a more human note in the study of literature. Unfortunately this work is postponed until the student reaches the more advanced grades, usually the High School. Since but a small proportion of pupils attend the High School, it would seem advisable to begin the work much earlier in the school course.

Biography and autobiography are being generally recognized as the form of literature that is the most interesting and stimulating in the education of youth. If "an autobiography is what a biography ought to be," then no biography is of value that is not largely autobiographical. It should not only tell the life story as others knew it, but it should tell, also, as much as may be, what the author himself thought of that life. It should be both objective and subjective. This, then, is the plan adopted in these biographical sketches: to tell briefly and simply the life story of each author, with the hope that an interest will be awakened in his works through the interest in his life. The selections chosen from those parts of his works which are autobiographical,