READ

Of course we must make it plural. There are more reasons, my dear Horatio, than one.

There are books which we read for information; books we read for amusement; books we read for instruction; books we read for life, as Lewisohn says; and books which Heaven only knows why anybody should read! Who is to know what to read?

Fortunately in the great list of things appearing in print and demanding our attention, there are people whose business it is to evaluate them and review them. Again, literature has been in the making so long that there are established standards and a great library of worthy examples. We need not confine our attention or interests to any one field. We may roam at will from travel to poetry; fiction to history; philosophy to romance; theology to science. In fact, it is very desirable that we should browse around and do general reading as we may make opportunity.

There is always something discouraging and appalling about a long list of books presented with the comment that "No man can be considered educated unless———", etc. You know the way they say it. Even a hint to that effect makes one resentful. Hence, in presenting below, to engineering students, a short list of titles, I need only say that they are not the books. They are merely some books, the reading of which will prove of interest and of value. No pretense is made to "cover" great literature. In fact we scarcely enter that field. I hope, at some later time to have published more formally a little leaflet presenting a wider range of subjects with classifications that may help the inquirer to direct his attention more effectively. In the meantime, there are shown titles, in the listing of which I have been assisted by a publication of the College of Engineering, University of Illinois and also by Miss Beatrice Johnson, Professor of English, Washington State Normal School, Bellingham, Washington.

• Abraham Lincoln, by Lord Charnwood.
• The Life of Christ, by Ernest Renan.
• The Outline of History, by H. G, Wells.
• Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo.
• The Iliad, by Homer, translated by W. C. Bryant.
• Hamlet; Macbeth, by Shakespeare.
• Three Musketeers, by Dumas.
• Ben Hur, by Lew Wallace.
• Quo Vadis, by Sienkiewicz.
• Creative Chemistry, by E. E. Slosson.
• The Reign of Law, by James Lane Alien. A kentucky boy's struggle for an education; and with evolution as a theory.
• Little Minister, James M. Barrie.  A romance, full of action.
• Blade Drop, by Alice Brown.  Pre-war story of world word.
• One of Ours, by Willa Cather.  Pre-war story of world war, about a Nebraska boy and his education.
• Man Who Was Thursday, by G. K. Chesterton.  About detective or secret service life, with a leaning: toward study of socialism.
• The Rover, by Joseph Conrad. Post-revolutionary story of France.
• The Typhoon, by Joseph Conrad. Powerful description.
• Somehow Good, by William DeMorgan. Social problem with interesting problem in near-electrocution.
• The Man of Property, by John Galsworthy. Social.
• Ancient Law, by Ellen Glasgow. Social, based on custom as regards penetentiary ex-convicts.
• The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy. An educated man returns to his native heath in  England to live.
• The Woodlanden, by Thomas Hardy. English customs.
• Landlord of Lion's Head, by William Dean Howells.
• The Ordeal of Richard Feveral, by George Meredith.  A son educated by a system.
• The Harbor, by Ernest Poole. New York, deals with phases of socialism—its problems.
• Henry Esmond; Pendennis; The Virginian, by Wm. M.Thackeray.
• Anna Karenina, by Tolstoy.
• The Cathedral, by Hugh Walpole.  Depicts encroachment of modernism on medievalism.
• The First Men in the Moon, by H. G. Wells.  Imaginary, based on scientific facts.
• When the Sleeper Awakes, H. G. Wells.  Anticipates world monopoly.
• The Fruit of the Tree, by Edith Wharton. An interesting moral complication with the medical world.
• A Son at the Front, by Edith Wharton.  World war viewed by American in Paris,