Excerpt from Reading Critically in the Fields of Literature and History This book has two aims: to supply much needed material in the field of critical reading; and to present this reading material in ac cordance with the newer methods evolving in our schools. These methods lay great stress on that important concomitant of all teaching, the development of democratic procedures. As an indi vidual, the student must be stimulated to comprehensive and critical judgment; as a member of the group he must be initiated into democratic procedures in analysis and discussion. In the classes where this material was first used experimentally, the method was employed as follows: the class first read the ex cerpt, with vocabulary helps from the teacher; then, as a group, they chose the facts they wished to consider as pertinent and set aside those they considered irrelevant. On contested issues a major ity vote was decisive. Additional material on the development of this method can be found in: Spencer Brown's They See for Them selves (harper and Brothers, New York); Witty and Kopel's Reading and the Educative Process (ginn and Co., Boston) Salt's Thinking Together (national Council of Teachers of English). About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.