I don't know if I could really call this a book review because I haven't read the entire book yet. It amazed me by what I found inside after reading the title of the book. I looked at the copyright date...1952. That amazed me more that the world has changed that much in the 60 years since the book was published. If the average family read what was inside this book (as the title has you believe) our country may not be so far off course.
I decided to check Amazon for you to see if you too could get a copy and this is what I found. Now to take you inside a little bit.
The Table of Contents starts with Keynotes of American Democracy. Which starts with the Declaration of Independence. It also includes the Bill of Rights, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson.
Followed by Love of Our Country and the Flag. Which includes Patrick Henry, George Bancroft, and a few Anonymous.
Toward Peace and Freedom For All Men includes Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Moore, Walt Whitman, and Lord Alfred Tennyson.
Outstanding Moments in Memorable Lives includes Benjamin Franklin, Eve Curie, Helen Keller, and Mark Twain.
Civilization, Progress, and the Lesson of History includes Ralph Waldo Emerson, Winston Churchill, and Henry George.
The Individual and the State includes Aristotle, Pericles, and Marcus Aurelius.
Love of One's Fellow Man includes St Luke and Epictetus.
The March of Science includes H G Wells and Sigmund Freud.
Man and Machine includes Upton Sinclair and Stuart Chase.
What Makes for Happiness includes Psalms, Sir William Temple, and Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.
Skill and Contentment in Our Daily Work includes Florence Nightingale and Proverbs.
The Role of Money in Life includes Benjamin Franklin and Robert Frost.
The Value of Education includes Francis Bacon, Epictetus, and Albert Schweitzer.
The Measure of a Man includes Ecclesiasticus, Plutarch, Walt Whitman, Booker T Washington, and Emily Dickinson.
The Beauty of a Woman includes Proverbs, Lord Bryon, and Edgar Allan Poe.
Of Friends and Friendship includes Ralph Waldo Emerson, Shakespeare, and Daniel Defoe.
Thoughts Which Bring Consolation includes Psalms, Plato, Shakespeare, and Revelation.
The Joys of Nature includes William Wordsworth, Henry David Thoreau, and Robert Frost.
The Pleasures of Good Reading includes William Lyon Phelps, Emily Dickinson, and Herman Melville.
Famous Satires on Men, Women, and Humanity includes Sinclair Lewis, Jonathan Swift, and Plato
The Poet's Place in the World includes Walt Whitman, William Faulkner, and Charles Darwin.
Art and Artists includes W Somerset Maugham and Vincent Van Gogh.
Listening to Music includes Edward Bellamy, Martin Luther, and Johann Sebastian Bach.
Love and Marriage includes Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Washington Irving, and Sir Francis Bacon.
The Family Circle includes H A Overstreet, William Blake, and St John.
Children's Corner includes Lewis Carroll, L Frank Baum, and Edward Lear.
Family Pets includes Ulysses S Grant and Doris Bryant.
Good Food includes Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, and Washington Irving.
There are sections of Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Easter.
The American Scene includes Walt Whitman, Washington Irving, and John Steinbeck.
Frontier Days and the Old West includes John Greenleaf Whittier, Francis Parkman, and Bret Harte.
Fabulous Americans includes stories of Paul Bunyan, Davy Crockett, and Rip Van Winkle.
These are just a small selection of what's included in each section. If our children were read these amazing writers on a regular basis instead of watching the "stuff" that is on tv, we would have a different country than we do today. I can't wait to start reading from this book to my own children. I'm so glad that I rescued it from the second hand store. I'm a little sad that it's been living on my bookshelf for so long though.
Children have an amazing ability to learn if you give them the chance. Start reading to your children from these authors.
