8. Finley Peter Dunne (1867- ) was for some years a journalist in Chicago. He is famous for his humorous comments on current events under the name of Mr. Dooley.

Books

(From Mr. Dooley Says)

"Well, sir, if there's wan person in th' wurruld that I really invoy 'tis me frind th' ex-prisidint iv Harvard. What a wondherful thing is youth. Old fellows like ye'ersilf an' me make a bluff about th' avantages iv age. But we know there's nawthing in it. We have wisdom but we wud rather have hair. We have expeeryence, but we wud thrade all iv its lessons f'r hope and teeth.

"It makes me cross to see mesilf settin' here takin' a post-grajate coorse in our cillybrated univarsity iv th' Wicked Wurruld an' watching th' freshmen comin' in. How happy they are but how seeryous. How sure they are iv iverything. Us old fellows are sure iv nawthin'; we laugh but we are not cheerful; but we have no romance about th' colledge. Ye don't hear us givin' nine long cheers f'r our almy mather. We ain't even thankful f'r th' lessons it teaches us or th' wallops it hands us whin we f'rget what we've been taught. We're a sad lot iv old la-ads, hatin' th' school, but hatin' th' gradjation exercises aven more.

"But 'tis a rale pleasure to see th' bright-faced freshmen comin' in an' I welcome th' last young fellow fr'm Harvard to our vin'rable institution. I like to see these earnest, clear-eyed la-ads comin' in to waken th' echoes iv our grim walls with their young voices. I'm sure th' other undhergradjates will like him. He hasn't been spoiled be bein' th' star iv his school f'r so long. Charles seems to me to be th' normal healthy boy. He does exactly what all freshmen in our univarsity do whin they enther. He tells people what books they shud read an' he invints a new relligon. Ivry well-ordhered la-ad has to get these two things out iv his system at wanst.

"What books does he advise, says ye? I haven't got th' complete list yet, but what I seen iv it was good.

Speakin' f'r mesilf alone, I don't read books. They are too stimylatin'. I can get th' wrong idees iv life fr’m dhrink. But I shud say that if a man was a confirmed book-reader, if he was a man that cuddent go to sleep without takin' a book an' if he read befure breakfast, I shud think that Dr. Eliot's very old vatted books are comparatively harmless. They are sthrong, it is thrue. They will go to th' head. I wud advise a man who is aisily affected be books to stick to Archibald Clavering Gunter. But they will hurt no man who's used to readin'. He has sawed thim out carefully. 'Give me me tools,' says he, 'an' I will saw out a five foot shelf iv books.' An' he done it. He has th' right idee. He real-izes that the first thing to have in a libry is a shelf. Fr'm time to time this can be decorated with lithrachure. But th' shelf is th' main thing. Otherwise th' libry may get mixed up with th' readin' matther on th' table. Th' shelf shud thin be nailed to th' wall iliven feet fr'm th' flure an' hermetically sealed.

"What books does he riccomind? Iv course there's such folk-lore as Epicalaulus in Marsupia an' th' wurrks iv Hyperphrastus. But it shows how broad an' indulgent th' doctor's taste is that he has included Milton's Arryopatigica, if I have th' name right. This is what you might call summer readin'. I don't know how I cud describe it to ye, Hinnissy. Ye wuddent hardly call it a detective story an' yet it aint a problem play. Areopapigica is a Greek gur-rl who becomes th' editor iv a daily newspaper. That is th' beginning iv th' plot. I won't tell ye how it comes out. I don't want to spile ye'er injymint iv it. But ye'll niver guess who committed th' crime. It is absolutely unexpicted. A most injanyous book an' wan iv th' best sellers in its day. There are four editions iv thirty copies each an' I don't know how manny paper-covered copies at fifty cents were printed f'r th' circulation on th' mail coaches. I'm not sure if it iver was dhramatized; if it wasn't there's a chanst f'r some manager.

"Th' darin' rescue iv Areopatigica be Oliver Cromwell -but I won't tell ye. Ye must read it. There ar-re some awful comical things in it. I don't agree with Uncle Joe

Cannon, who says it is trashy. It is light, perhaps, even frivolous. But it has gr-reat merit. I can't think iv anything that wud be more agreeable thin lyin' in a hammock, with a glass iv somethin' in ye'er hand on a hot day an' readin' this little jim iv pure English an' havin' a proffissor fr'm colledge within aisy call to tell ye what it all meant. I niver go f'r a long journey without a copy iv Milton's Agropapitica in me pocket. I have lent it to brakemen an' they have invariably returned it. I have read it to men that wanted to fight me an' quited thim.

"Yet how few people iv our day have read it! I'll bet ye eight dollars that if ye wait till th' stores let out ye can go on th' sthreet an' out iv ivry ten men ye meet at laste two, an' I'll take odds on three, have niver aven heerd iv this pow'-ful thragedy. Yet while it was runnin' ye cudden't buy a copy iv th' Fireside Companyon an' f'r two cinchries it has proticted th' shelves iv more libries thin anny iv Milton's pomes, f'r Hogan tells me this author, who ye hardly iver hear mentioned in th' sthreet cars at th' prisint moment, was a pote as well as an author an' blind at that, an' what is more, held a prom'nent pollytickal job. I wondher if two hundred years fr'm now people will cease to talk iv William Jennings Bryan. He won't, but will they?"

There is a remarkably brilliant group of university men still living who have done much for education not only as instructors and directors, but through their writings. And the literary style of their work qualifies it for notice in any history of American literature which includes present-day authors. Among them are several college presidents and many university professors. The selection made here is considered representative.

9. Charles William Eliot (1834- ), president emeritus of Harvard, is probably the most eminent living educator in America. He was chosen president of Harvard in 1869 and held the position forty years. During that time he played an

important part in shaping American ideals of education. He has written many essays and books on educational subjects.

JOHN GILLEY

(From John Gilley, Maine Farmer and Fisherman)

John Gilley's first venture was the purchase of a part of a small coasting schooner called the Preference, which could carry about one hundred tons, and cost between eight and nine hundred dollars. He became responsible for one-third of her value, paying down one or two hundred dollars, which his father probably lent him. For the rest of the third he obtained credit for a short time from the seller of the vessel. The other two owners were men who belonged on Great Cranberry Island. The owners proceeded to use their purchase during all the mild weather —perhaps six months of each year-in carrying pavingstones to Boston. These stones, unlike the present rectangular granite blocks, were smooth cobblestones picked up on the outside beaches of the neighboring islands. They of course were not found on any inland or smooth-water beaches, but only where heavy waves rolled the beachstones up and down. The crew of the Preference must therefore anchor her off an exposed beach, and then, with a large dory, boat off to her the stones which they picked up by hand. This work was possible only during moderate weather. The stones must be of tolerably uniform size, neither too large nor too small; and each one had to be selected by the eye and picked up by the hand. When the dory was loaded, it had to be lifted off the beach by the men standing in the water, and rowed out to the vessel; and there every single stone had to be picked up by hand and thrown on to the vessel. A hundred tons having been thus got aboard by sheer hard work of human muscle, the old craft, which was not too seaworthy, was sailed to Boston, to be discharged at what was then called the "Stone Wharf" in Charlestown. There the crew threw the stones out of her hold on to the wharf by hand. They therefore lifted and threw these hundred tons of stone

three times at least before they were deposited on the city's wharf. The cobblestones were the main freight of the vessel; but she also carried dried fish to Boston, and fetched back goods to the island stores of the vicinity. Some of the island people bought their flour, sugar, drygoods, and other family stores in Boston through the captain of the schooner. John Gilley soon began to go as captain, being sometimes accompanied by the other owners and sometimes by men on wages. He was noted among his neighbors for the care and good judgment with which he executed their various commissions, and he knew himself to be trusted by them. This business he followed for several years, paid off his debt to the seller of the schooner, and began to lay up money. It was an immense satisfaction to him to feel himself thus established in an honest business which he understood, and in which he was making his way. There are few solider satisfactions to be won in this world by anybody, in any condition of life. The scale of the business-large or small-makes little difference in the measure of content.

In 1884 the extreme western point of Sutton's Island was sold to a "Westerner," a professor in Harvard College, and shortly after a second sale in the same neighborhood was effected; but it was not until 1886 that John Gilley made his first sale of land for summering purposes. In the next year he made another sale, and in 1894 a third. The prices he obtained, though moderate compared with the prices charged at Bar Harbor or North-East Harbor, were forty or fifty times any price which had ever been put on his farm by the acre. Being thus provided with what was for him a considerable amount of ready money, he did what all his like do when they come into possession of ready money—he first gave himself and his family the pleasure of enlarging and improving his house and other buildings, and then lent the balance on small mortgages on village real estate. Suddenly he became a prosperous man, at ease, and a leader in his world. Up to this time,