make them a child's
fit companions. Again, in form and in matter old Norse literature is
well worth our reading. I should deem it a great thing accomplished if
the children who read these stories should so be tempted after a while
to read those fine old books, to enjoy the tales, to appreciate
straightforwardness and simplicity of style. The historical value of the
story of Leif Ericsson and the others seems to me to be not to learn the
fact that Norsemen discovered America before Columbus did, but to gain a
conception of the conditions of early navigation, of the length of the
voyage, of the dangers of the sea, and a consequent realization of the
reason for the fact that America was unknown to mediaeval Europe, of why
the Norsemen did not travel, of what was necessary to be done before men
should strike out across the ocean. Norse story is only one chapter in
that tale of American discovery. I give below an outline of a year's
work on the subject that was once followed by the fourth grade of the
Chicago Normal School. The idea in it is to give importance, sequence,
reasonableness, broad connections, to the discovery of America.

The head of the history department who planned this course says it is
"in a sense a dramatization of the development of geographical
knowledge."

Following is a bare topical outline of the work:

Evolution of the forms of boats.
Viking tales.
A crusade as a tale of travel and discovery.
Monasteries as centers of work.
Printing.
Story of Marco Polo.
Columbus' discovery.
Story of Vasco da Gama.
Story of Magellan.

[Decoration]

A Reading List

GEOGRAPHY

NORWAY: "The Earth and Its Inhabitants," Reclus. _D. Appleton & Co., New
York._

ICELAND: "The Earth and Its Inhabitants," "Iceland," Baring-Gould.
_Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1863._

"Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroes." _Harper Bros., New York._

"An American in Iceland," Kneeland. _Lockwood, Brooke & Co., Boston,
1876._

GREENLAND: "The Earth and Its Inhabitants," Reclus. _D. Appleton & Co.,
New York._

"Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroes." _Harper Bros., New York._

CUSTOMS

"Viking Age," Du Chaillu. _Charles Scribner's Sons, 1889._

"Private Life of the Old Northmen," Keyser; translated by Barnard.
_Chapman & Hall, London, 1868._

"Saga Time," Vicary. _Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner & Co., London._

"Story of Burnt Njal" (Introduction), Dasent. _Edmonst