prominent American poet. His poem, O Mother of a Mighty Race, is prophetic of the greatness of our people and our country.

105. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Born in Massachusetts, 1803. Died 1882. One of the most representative American essayists. (Read Essays and Representative Men.)

106. Nathaniel Hawthorne. Born in Massachusetts, 1804. Died 1864. A novelist who wrote largely about the Puritan colonists in America. (Read Twice-Told Tales, The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, and The Marble Faun, the last a romance of Italy.)

107. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Born in Maine, 1807. Died 1882. "The household poet" of America. He is the poet of the whole people, the most widely known and best beloved of all American authors. Not only did Longfellow write many poems of our own country, but he translated many from the literature of a dozen or more European countries. (Read Hiawatha, Evangeline, The Courtship of Miles Standish, The Builders, The Warden of the Cinque Ports, The Bells of San Blas, The White Czar, Tales of a Wayside Inn.) A famous stanza of Longfellow's is this:

"The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight.

But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.”

108. John Greenleaf Whittier. Born in Massachusetts, 1807. Died 1892. Most of his poems deal with the plain men and women and the home life of New England. Among Americans he is regarded much as the Scotchmen regard Burns. His work is full of the rugged spirit of American manhood. (Read Snow-Bound, Among the Hills, Voices of Freedom, The Tent on the Beach.)

109. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Born in Massachusetts, 1809. Died 1894. His work presents the true type of Amer

ican humor, that is a humor filled with understanding, kindness, and sympathy. (Read The Deacon's Masterpiece, and The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.)

110. James Russell Lowell. Born in Massachusetts, 1819. Died 1891. At home Lowell strove diligently to shape the destiny of his country by his writings; and in Europe he endeavored to explain American ideals in Spain and England, to which countries he was sent as United States minister. (Read Poems, Democracy, Political Essays, and Among my Books.)

III. Books by or about foreign-born Americans.

Both foreign-born and native citizens will find inspiration in reading the following biographies and other writings of foreignborn men and women, who have found in America the opportunity to make careers for themselves and who have recorded their appreciation.1

The Making of an American, How the Other Half Lives, Out of Mulberry Street, by Jacob A. Riis, a Dane who became a newspaper reporter and an important worker for social and civic betterment in New York.

A Far Journey, and My Father's House, by Rev. Abraham M. Rihbany, a Syrian who has become a well-known New England clergyman.

The Promised Land, and The Stranger within our Gates, by Mary Antin, a Russian Jewess who records her great debt to the American public school.

The Schoolmaster of a Great City, by Angelo Patri, a New York public school principal.

Reminiscences, by Carl Schurz, a German revolutionist who escaped in 1848, became a Union general in our Civil War, senator from Missouri, minister to Spain, and Secretary of the Interior. From the Bottom Up, by Alexander Irvine, an Irish laborer who became a clergyman and reformer.

Joseph Pulitzer, by Alleyne Ireland, the biography of an Austrian who became proprietor of the New York World..

1 Teaching American Ideals through Literature. (U.S. Department of the Interior.)

Michael Heilprin and His Sons, by Gustav Pollak, the life of a Polish Jew and his sons who attained distinction as scientists.

Louis Agassiz, His Life and Correspondence, by Elizabeth C. Agassiz, the life of a Swiss who became a famous teacher of science at Harvard.

Threading My Way, by Robert Dale Owen, a Welshman who came to Indiana with his father to found a coöperative commonwealth and became a Congressman and an important worker for American education.

From Alien to Citizen and Introducing the American, by Edward A. Steiner, an Austrian who became a patriotic religious teacher. The Life and Times of Stephen Girard, by John B. McMaster, the biography of a Frenchman of the eighteenth century who became a distinguished merchant and philanthropist in Philadelphia.

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VI. THE AMERICAN FLAG

112. The Stars and Stripes.

Before the War of the Revolution, the thirteen colonies, which later formed the United States, had several different flags: for example, the Massachusetts flag bore the pine tree and the flag of South Carolina a rattlesnake; New York's flag was white with a black beaver on it; Rhode Island had a white flag with a blue anchor; and so on. So many flags used in the army under the command of George Washington made much confusion. Finally, a flag was produced of thirteen stripes, alternately red and white, with the red and white crosses of the British flag on a blue ground in the upper left-hand corner. This flag was used from January, 1776, for about a year.

In May, 1777, the American Congress appointed a committee to design a new flag. This committee, of whom George Washington was one, called on Betsy Ross who kept an upholstery shop in Philadelphia, and asked her to make a flag like the design they showed her. In this new flag a circle of thirteen white stars was placed on the blue field in place of the British crosses. For the rest of the flag the thirteen red and white stripes were kept. Betsy Ross made the first flag of this design and, on June 14, 1777, it was adopted as the official flag of the United States.

The plan was to add a stripe and also a star as often as a new State was admitted to the Union; but when the flag had come to contain eighteen stripes it was seen that adding to the number of stripes would make the flag lack in dignity. Therefore, in 1818, when it would have been necessary to have twenty-one stripes, it was decided to return to the original thirteen stripes, the symbols of the thirteen colonies, but to continue to add a star for each new State. At this time also it was decided to arrange the stars in rows instead of a circle, and this new arrangement holds at the present day. From that time to this a star has been added to the flag on the 4th of July following the admission of each State that has joined the Union. Under this plan the flag which in 1776 had

thirteen stars, had fifteen in the War of 1812, thirty-five in the Civil War, forty-five in the Spanish War, and forty-eight in the Great War against Germany. (Refer to ¶ 70.)

113. How to behave toward the Flag.1

The flag should not be hoisted before sunrise nor allowed to remain up after sunset. It should be displayed from a

staff or pole whenever possible.

When the flag is hung vertically (so it can be viewed from one side only) the blue field should be at the right as one faces it. When hung horizontally the field should be at the left, in the same position as it would be if attached to a staff.

The flag should never be allowed to touch the ground when being hoisted or lowered. Its folds should float freely and should be cleared at once whenever caught.

The flag should be saluted by all present while being hoisted or lowered, and when it is passing on parade or in review the spectator should rise if sitting, halt if walking, and standing at "attention," salute with the right hand in all cases, except that a man in civilian dress and wearing his hat, should remove his hat and hold it opposite his left shoulder with his right hand.

In placing the flag at half-mast it should first be hoisted to the top of the staff and then lowered to position; and preliminary to lowering from half-mast, it should be raised again to the top. On Memorial Day the flag should fly at halfmast from sunrise to noon, and at full mast from noon till sunset.

When the flag is carried in parade with any other flags the American flag should have the place of honor, at the right. If a number of flags are carried, the American flag should either precede the others or be carried in the center above the others on a higher staff.

1 Based in part upon paragraphs in School Patriotism, published by the Minnesota Department of Education.