The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book Part 1

The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book.

by Various.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Minister of Education is indebted to Goldwin Smith, Rudyard Kipling, Henry Newbolt, The Earl of Dunraven, Sir W. F. Butler, Frank T. Bullen, Charles G. D. Roberts, W. Wilfred Campbell, Frederick George Scott, Agnes Maule Machar, Agnes C. Laut, Marjorie L. C. Pickthall, and S. T.

Wood, for special permission to reproduce, in this Reader, selections from their writings.

He is indebted to Lord Tennyson for special permission to reproduce the poems from the works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson; to Lloyd Osbourne for permission to reproduce the extract from Robert Louis Stevenson's "Kidnapped"; and to C. Egerton Ryerson for permission to reproduce the extract from Egerton Ryerson's "The Loyalists of America and their Times."

He is also indebted to Macmillan & Co., Limited, for special permission to reproduce selected poems from the works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Rudyard Kipling, Sir F. H. Doyle, Cecil Frances Alexander; to Longmans, Green & Co., for the selections from Froude's "Short Studies on Great Subjects" and from his "History of England"; to Smith, Elder & Co., for the extract from F. T. Bullen's "The Cruise of the Cachalot"; to Elkin Mathews for Henry Newbolt's poem from "The Island Race"; to Thomas Nelson & Sons for the extract from W. F. Collier's "History of the British Empire"; to The Copp Clark Co., Limited, for selected poems from the works of Charles G. D. Roberts, and of Agnes Maule Machar; to the Hunter-Rose Company for the extract from Canniff Haight's "Country Life in Canada"; to Morang & Company for selected poems from the works of Archibald Lampman, and for the extract from Roberts' "History of Canada"; and to Houghton Mifflin Company for the article from "_The Atlantic Monthly_" on "British Colonial and Naval Power."

The Minister is grateful to these authors and publishers and to others, not mentioned here, through whose courtesy he has been able to include in this Reader so many copyright selections.

Toronto, May, 1909.

The Good Land

For the Lord thy G.o.d bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, springing forth in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of oil olives and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig bra.s.s.

And thou shalt eat and be full, and thou shalt bless the Lord thy G.o.d for the good land which He hath given thee.

Deuteronomy. VIII.

FOURTH READER

THE CHILDREN'S SONG

Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee Our love and toil in the years to be, When we are grown and take our place, As men and women with our race.

Father in Heaven who lovest all, Oh help Thy children when they call; That they may build from age to age, An undefiled heritage.

Teach us to bear the yoke in youth With steadfastness and careful truth; That, in our time, Thy Grace may give The Truth whereby the Nations live.

Teach us to rule ourselves alway, Controlled and cleanly night and day, That we may bring, if need arise, No maimed or worthless sacrifice.

Teach us to look in all our ends, On Thee for judge, and not our friends; That we, with Thee, may walk uncowed By fear or favour of the crowd.

Teach us the Strength that cannot seek, By deed or thought, to hurt the weak; That, under Thee, we may possess Man's strength to comfort man's distress.

Teach us Delight in simple things, And Mirth that has no bitter springs, Forgiveness free of evil done, And Love to all men 'neath the sun!

Land of our Birth, our faith, our pride, For whose dear sake our fathers died, Oh Motherland, we pledge to thee, Head, heart, and hand through years to be!

Kipling

OUR COUNTRY

Love thou thy land, with love far-brought From out the storied Past, and used Within the Present, but transfused Thro' future time by power of thought.

Tennyson

TOM TULLIVER AT SCHOOL

It was Mr. Tulliver's first visit to see Tom, for the lad must learn not to think too much about home.

"Well, my lad," he said to Tom, when Mr. Stelling had left the room to announce the arrival to his wife, and Maggie had begun to kiss Tom freely, "you look rarely. School agrees with you."

Tom wished he had looked rather ill.

"I don't think I _am_ well, father," said Tom; "I wish you'd ask Mr.

Stelling not to let me do Euclid--it brings on the toothache, I think."

(The toothache was the only malady to which Tom had ever been subject.)

"Euclid, my lad; why, what's that?" said Mr. Tulliver.

"Oh, I don't know. It's definitions, and axioms, and triangles, and things. It's a book I've got to learn in; there's no sense in it."

"Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver, reprovingly, "you mustn't say so. You must learn what your master tells you. He knows what it's right for you to learn."

"_I'll_ help you now, Tom," said Maggie, with a little air of patronizing consolation. "I'm come to stay ever so long, if Mrs.

Stelling asks me. I've brought my box and my pinafores, haven't I, father?"

"_You_ help me, you silly little thing!" said Tom, in such high spirits at this announcement that he quite enjoyed the idea of confounding Maggie by showing her a page of Euclid. "I should like to see you doing one of _my_ lessons! Why, I learn Latin too! Girls never learn such things. They're too silly."

"I know what Latin is very well," said Maggie, confidently. "Latin's a language. There are Latin words in the Dictionary. There's 'bonus, a gift.'"

"Now, you're just wrong there, Miss Maggie!" said Tom, secretly astonished. "You think you're very wise. But 'bonus' means 'good,' as it happens--'bonus, bona, bonum.'"

"Well, that's no reason why it shouldn't mean 'gift,'" said Maggie, stoutly. "It may mean several things--almost every word does.