Mr. Eliot Selects "Harvard Classics"

Mr. Eliot has made the final selection of the greater portion of books which will make up the "Harvard Classics," about which he says:

"I have undertaken to select from the best literature of the world a five-foot shelf of books to be published by P. F. Collier & Son under the title of "The Harvard Classics." The selection is intended exclusively for English-speaking people.

"In making choice among the different works of a great author the aim will be to take the author's most characteristic work or that one which will be most inteligible to the people of today, or that which has proved to be the most influential.

"Each separate work will be preceded by a concise introduction; and notes and glossaries will be provided whenever they seem likely to increase the reader's enjoyment and profit.

"It is my belief that the faithful and considerate reading of these books, with such re-readings and memorizings as individual taste may prescribe, will give any man the essentials of a liberal education, even if he can devote to them but fifteen minutes a day."

The selections as far as have been made are given below:

First volume--"Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin"; "Journal of John Woodman"; "Fruits of Solitude," by William Penn.

Second volume--Bacon's "Essays" and "New Atlantis"; Milton's "Areopagitica" and "Tractate on Education"; Sir Thomas Browne's "Religio Medici."

Third volume--Plato's "Apology", "Phaedo" and "Crito"; "Golden Sayings" of Epictetus; "Meditations of Marcus Aurelius."

Fourth volume--Emerson's "Essays" and "English Traits."

Fifth volume--The complete poems in English of John Milton.

The remaining volumes, though not yet arranged, will include the following works: Jonson's "Volpone"; Beaumont and Fletcher's "The Maid's Tragedy"; Webster's "Duchess of Malfe"; Middleton's "The Changeling"; Dryden's "All for Love"; Shelley's "Cenci"; Browning's "Blot on the Scutcheon"; Tennyson's "Becket"; Goethe's "Faust"; Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus"; Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," specially edited by Professor C. W. Bullock; "Letters" of Cicero and Pliny; Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress"; Burn's "Tam O'Shanter"; Walton's "Complete Angler" and "Lives" of Donne and Herbert. "Autobiography of St. Augustine"; "Plutarch's "Lives"; Dryden's "Aeneid"; "Canterbury Tales"; "Imitation of Christ," Thomas a Kempis; Dante's "Divine Comedy"; Darwin's "Origin of Species"; "Arabian Nights."