2. What is "Gossip"? Tell how it is played.

3. Be prepared to give meanings of the following words: philosopher, profit, quick, hare, gaming, kingdom, sage.

EXERCISES

1. What is the meaning of the word Confucius? Who was Confucius? 2. Why did this boy attract the attention of Confucius?

3. Explain "Play is without profit."

4. Why did not the young boy turn aside for the carriage of the great teacher?

5. What is the child's answer to the next question?

6. What was the boy's reason for refusing to walk with Confucius?

7. What was the boy's place in the family, according to this answer? 8. Are the boy's reasons for not playing with the king sound?

9. What was the king's conundrum? The boy's answer?

10. What questions did the boy now ask Confucius?

11. Why does Confucius feel that he needs no longer to go about teaching people?

12. What real bits of intelligence does the child display?

ADDITIONAL READINGS

CRANCH: A Chinese Story.

ARNOLD: Self-Dependence.

WHITTIER: The Barefoot Boy, In School Days.

SIMS: The Lights of London Town.

HANS ANDERSEN: Hans Clodhopper.

To have done whatever had to be done;

To have turned the face of your soul to the sun; To have made life better and brighter for one: This is to have lived.

Clifford Harrison.

THE QUEST

OMETIMES the good friends around us,

SOMET

our cozy homes, our kind parents, our brothers and sisters, and our playmates seem commonplace, dull, and uninteresting. We see them every day. We get so used to seeing them every day that we begin to imagine that the fardistant homes in other lands, the people and places far away, are much better than the familiar faces and places of our homes. The country boy thinks the city is more attractive than the country. Many a city boy thinks he can make a great fortune "out west." Each one thinks other places and other friends are greatest and best. At times when we are thus displeased or discontented, it helps us to read the experience of a boy who traveled far and wide and at last selected the most beautiful spot in all the world as a home for himself and mother. Such a story is told in the following poem:

THE QUEST1

There once was a restless boy

Who dwelt in a home by the sea,

1 Copyrighted by The Century Co. and used by their courteous permission.

Where the water danced for joy

And the wind was glad and free:

But he said, "Good mother, oh! let me go;
For the dullest place in the world, I know,
Is this little brown house,
This old brown house,
Under the apple tree.

"I will travel east and west;
The loveliest homes I'll see;
And when I have found the best,

Dear mother, I'll come for thee.
I'll come for thee in a year and a day,
And joyfully then we'll haste away
From this little brown house,
This old brown house,

Under the apple tree.'

So he traveled here and there,
But never content was he,
Though he saw in lands most fair
The costliest homes there be.

He something missed from the sea or sky,
Till he turned again with a wistful sigh
To the little brown house,

The old brown house,

Under the apple tree.

Then the mother saw and smiled,

While her heart grew glad and free. "Hast thou chosen a home, my child?

Ah, where shall we dwell?" quoth she.

And he said, "Sweet mother, from east to west, The loveliest home, and the dearest and best,

Is a little brown house,

An old brown house,

Under an apple tree."

-Eudora S. Bumstead.

NOTES

1. Tell of any boys you know who have longed to get away from home.

2. Quoth she. Said she.

3. Words and expressions for pronunciation, definition, and study: quest, restless, dullest place, joyfully, content, costliest, wistful sigh, chosen, dwell, quoth, loveliest home.

EXERCISES

1. Why was home the dullest place in the world to this boy?

2. What request did he make of his mother?

3. How long did he think it would take him to find a lovelier place?

4. Just what was dull in his home surroundings? What attractions

were there?

5. Where did he go?

6. Why was he "never content"?

7. Why did not the "costliest homes" make him more contented?

8. What was the "something missed from the sea or sky"?

9. Explain "wistful sigh."

10. Why did the mother smile?

11. Explain "Her heart grew glad and free."

12. What question does she now ask of her wandering boy?

13. Explain his reply.

14. Did not the mother know this would be the result of her son's

quest?

15. Then why did she let him go?

16. How can one learn what the son learned without making the quest?

ADDITIONAL READINGS

PAYNE: Home, Sweet Home.

VANDYKE: My Work.

RILEY: A Simple Recipe.

CARDINAL NEWMAN: Loss and Gain.

LOWELL: Vision of Sir Launfal.

BUNYAN: Pilgrim's Progress.

SIMS: Lights of London Town.
BLANCHARD: The Mother's Hope.
STEVENSON: The House Beautiful.

RAND: The World.

HAWTHORNE: The Lily's Quest, The Threefold Destiny
TOOKER: His Quest.

TENNYSON: Sir Galahad.

KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN: Timothy's Quest.

GOD BLESS THE COMMONPLACE

God bless the commonplace! We strain and fret
Through wearisome and unproductive days,
Striving to carve new destinies, or blaze
A trail through unaccustomed lands. We let
The feverish years possess us, and forget,
In our tense seeking for untrodden ways,
The common heritage, nor care to raise
Altars to dear familiar things - and yet
When shadows lengthen and the busy hum

Of life falls faintly on half-hearing ears,
With vision dimmed and feeble step we come
Back to the homely joys of bygone years -
Love and a hearthstone and a dear worn face,
And through our tears we bless the commonplace.