Modern American Prose Selections

Modern American Prose Selections, by Various

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Title: Modern American Prose Selections
Author: Various
Editor: Byron Johnson Rees
Release Date: November 8, 2006 [EBook #19739]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Produced by Matt Whittaker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*************** Transcriber's Notes: In the Woodrow Wilson selection, the word 'altrusion' was changed to 'altruism' based on consultation with the original text from which the passage was taken for this book.
In the Jacob Riis selection, the phrase "It it none too fine yet" was replaced with "It is none too fine yet" after consultation with the original text from which the passage was taken for this book.
Other minor typos were also corrected. Hyphenation was left consistent with how it appears in the book. ***************

MODERN AMERICAN PROSE SELECTIONS
EDITED BY
BYRON JOHNSON REES PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AT WILLIAMS COLLEGE
NEW YORK HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE 1920

THE PLIMPTON PRESS NORWOOD MASS U. S. A.

CONTENTS
PAGE PREFACE vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
Abraham Lincoln Theodore Roosevelt 3
American Tradition Franklin K. Lane 8
America's Heritage Franklin K. Lane 17
Address at the College of the Holy Cross Calvin Coolidge 25
Our Future Immigration Policy Frederic C. Howe 31
A New Relationship between Capital and Labor John D. Rockefeller, Jr. 42
My Uncle Alvin Johnson 48
When a Man Comes to Himself Woodrow Wilson 53
Education through Occupations William Lowe Bryan 68
The Fallow John Agricola 81
Writing and Reading John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert 87
James Russell Lowell Bliss Perry 94
The Education of Henry Adams Carl Becker 109
The Struggle for an Education Booker T. Washington 119
Entering Journalism Jacob A. Riis 128
Bound Coastwise Ralph D. Paine 135
The Democratization of the Automobile Burton J. Hendrick 145
Traveling Afoot John Finley 157
Old Boats Walter Prichard Eaton 165
Zeppelinitis Philip Littell 177

TO E., C., AND H. STUDENTS AND FRIENDS

PREFACE
As the reader, if he wishes, may discover without undue delay, the little volume of modern prose selections that he has before him is the result of no ambitious or pretentious design. It is not a collection of the best things that have lately been known and thought in the American world; it is not an anthology in which "all our best authors" are represented by striking or celebrated passages. The editor planned nothing either so precious or so eclectic. His purpose rather was to bring together some twenty examples of typical contemporary prose, in which writers who know whereof they write discuss certain present-day themes in readable fashion. In choosing material he has sought to include nothing merely because of the name of the author, and he has demanded of each selection that it should be of such a character, both in subject and style, as to impress normal and wholesome Americans as well worth reading.
The earlier selections--President Roosevelt's noble eulogy upon Lincoln, Secretary Lane's two addresses on American tradition and heritage, and Governor Coolidge's address at Holy Cross--remind the reader of the high significance of our national past and indicate the promise of a rightly apprehended future. There follow two articles--"Our Future Immigration Policy," by Commissioner Frederic C. Howe, and "A New Relationship between Capital and Labor," by Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.--on subjects that press for earnest consideration on the part of all who are intent upon the solution of our problems. Mr. Alvin Johnson's playful yet serious essay on "the biggest, kindliest, most honest and honorable tribal head that ever lived" completes the group of what may be termed "Americanization" Papers.
Perhaps the best of the many magazine articles that President Wilson has written is that which serves as a link--for those to whom links, even in a miscellany, are a satisfaction--between the earlier selections and those that follow. "When a Man Comes to Himself," expressing as it does in English of distinction the best thought of the best Americans concerning the individual's relation to society and to the state, will probably be widely read, with attention and gratitude, for many years to come. Associated with Mr. Wilson's article are three selections presenting various aspects of self-realization in education. One of them, "The Fallow," deals in signally happy manner with the insistent and vital question of the study of the Classics.
That scholarly and competent literary criticism need not be dull or deficient in charm is obvious from an examination of Mr. Bliss Perry's masterly study of James Russell Lowell and Mr. Carl Becker's subtle and discriminating analysis of The Education of Henry Adams. Both writers attack subjects of considerable complexity and difficulty, and