Books published by publisher Didactic Press

If no other knowledge deserves to be called useful but that which helps to enlarge our possessions or to raise our station in society, then Mythology has no claim to the appellation. But if that which tends to make us happier and better can be called useful, then we claim that epithet for our subject. For Mythology is the handmaid of literature; and literature is one of the best allies of virtue and promoters of happiness.Without a knowledge of mythology much of the elegant literature of our own language cannot be understood and appreciated. When Byron calls Rome "the Niobe of nations," or says of Venice, "She looks a Sea-Cybele fresh from ocean," he calls up to the mind of one familiar with our subject, illustrations more vivid and striking than the pencil could furnish, but which are lost to the reader ignorant of mythology. Milton abounds in similar allusions. The short poem "Comus" contains more than thirty such, and the ode "On the Morning of the Nativity" half as many. Through "Paradise Lost" they are scattered profusely. This is one reason why we often hear persons by no means illiterate say that they cannot enjoy Milton. But were these persons to add to their more solid acquirements the easy learning of this little volume, much of the poetry of Milton which has appeared to them "harsh and crabbed" would be found "musical as is Apollo's lute." Our citations, taken from more than twenty-five poets, from Spenser to Longfellow, will show how general has been the practice of borrowing illustrations from mythology.The prose writers also avail themselves of the same source of elegant and suggestive illustration. One can hardly take up a number of the "Edinburgh" or "Quarterly Review" without meeting with instances. In Macaulay's article on Milton there are twenty such.But how is mythology to be taught to one who does not learn it through the medium of the languages of Greece and Rome? To devote study to a species of learning which relates wholly to false marvels and obsolete faiths is not to be expected of the general reader in a practical age like this. The time even of the young is claimed by so many sciences of facts and things that little can be spared for set treatises on a science of mere fancy...

An excellent, massive history of Europe during the fateful time of the Thirty Years' War and the resultant peace. Book II of II contents include:THE LATER YEARS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. (1635-48.)THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA.THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE PROTECTORATE. (1649-59.)THE NAVY OF THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE FIRST DUTCH WAR.SCOTLAND FROM THE ACCESSION OF CHARLES I TO THE RESTORATION.IRELAND. FROM THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER TO THE CROMWELLIAN SETTLEMENT. (1611-59.)ANARCHY AND THE RESTORATION. (1659-60.)THE SCANDINAVIAN NORTH. (1559-1660.)MAZARIN.SPAIN AND SPANISH ITALY UNDER PHILIP III AND IV.PAPAL POLICY, 1590-1648.FREDERICK HENRY, PRINCE OF ORANGE.THE FANTASTIC SCHOOL OF ENGLISH POETRY.DESCARTES AND CARTESIANISM.

Naturally, there are chapters of my autobiography which cannot now be written.It seems to me that, for the nation as for the individual, what is most important is to insist on the vital need of combining certain sets of qualities, which separately are common enough, and, alas, useless enough. Practical efficiency is common, and lofty idealism not uncommon; it is the combination which is necessary, and the combination is rare. Love of peace is common among weak, short-sighted, timid, and lazy persons; and on the other hand courage is found among many men of evil temper and bad character. Neither quality shall by itself avail. Justice among the nations of mankind, and the uplifting of humanity, can be brought about only by those strong and daring men who with wisdom love peace, but who love righteousness more than peace. Facing the immense complexity of modern social and industrial conditions, there is need to use freely and unhesitatingly the collective power of all of us; and yet no exercise of collective power will ever avail if the average individual does not keep his or her sense of personal duty, initiative, and responsibility. There is need to develop all the virtues that have the state for their sphere of action; but these virtues are as dust in a windy street unless back of them lie the strong and tender virtues of a family life based on the love of the one man for the one woman and on their joyous and fearless acceptance of their common obligation to the children that are theirs. There must be the keenest sense of duty, and with it must go the joy of living; there must be shame at the thought of shirking the hard work of the world, and at the same time delight in the many-sided beauty of life. With soul of flame and temper of steel we must act as our coolest judgment bids us. We must exercise the largest charity towards the wrong-doer that is compatible with relentless war against the wrong-doing. We must be just to others, generous to others, and yet we must realize that it is a shameful and a wicked thing not to withstand oppression with high heart and ready hand. With gentleness and tenderness there must go dauntless bravery and grim acceptance of labor and hardship and peril. All for each, and each for all, is a good motto; but only on condition that each works with might and main to so maintain himself as not to be a burden to others.We of the great modern democracies must strive unceasingly to make our several countries lands in which a poor man who works hard can live comfortably and honestly, and in which a rich man cannot live dishonestly nor in slothful avoidance of duty; and yet we must judge rich man and poor man alike by a standard which rests on conduct and not on caste, and we must frown with the same stern severity on the mean and vicious envy which hates and would plunder a man because he is well off and on the brutal and selfish arrogance which looks down on and exploits the man with whom life has gone hard.

To strive for liberty and for a democratic way of life has always been a noble tradition of our country. Susan B. Anthony followed this tradition. Convinced that the principle of equal rights for all, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, must be expressed in the laws of a true republic, she devoted her life to the establishment of this ideal.Because she recognized in Negro slavery and in the legal bondage of women flagrant violations of this principle, she became an active, courageous, effective antislavery crusader and a champion of civil and political rights for women. She saw women's struggle for freedom from legal restrictions as an important phase in the development of American democracy. To her this struggle was never a battle of the sexes, but a battle such as any freedom-loving people would wage for civil and political rights.While her goals for women were only partially realized in her lifetime, she prepared the soil for the acceptance not only of her long-hoped-for federal woman suffrage amendment but for a worldwide recognition of human rights, now expressed in the United Nations Charter and the Declaration of Human Rights. She looked forward to the time when throughout the world there would be no discrimination because of race, color, religion, or sex.

"It is now more than a year since you read my "Fifty Famous Stories." Those stories, as you will remember, are quite short and easy. Before you had finished your second year at school you could read every one of them without stopping to study the meaning of the words. Many thousands of children have read those fifty stories, and then they have asked for more; and this is my excuse for the present volume.You are older now, and you have learned many things which you did not know when we first became acquainted. You are able to read almost everything. And so, in telling you "Thirty More Famous Stories," I have chosen more difficult subjects and have not been so careful to select the shortest and easiest words. Still, you will not find this book hard to read, neither do I think it will prove to be less interesting than the earlier volume.Nearly all the stories are true, and there are not more than three or four that might not have happened. In every one there is something worth learning and remembering." - James BaldwinRichly illustrated throughout to enhance the reading experience. Formatted for Kindle devices and the Kindle for iOS apps.

"IT was in 1863 that The Water-Babies was written, showing the naturalist in the fulness of his strength, fearlessly, yet tenderly, playing with the tremendous results of advanced science in the nineteenth century. . . ."The writing of the book was the outcome of a gentle reminder, at breakfast one spring morning, of an old promise, to the effect that as the three elder children had their book—The Heroes—the baby, my youngest brother, then four years old, 'must have his.' My father made no answer, 'but got up at once and went to his study, locking the door,' and in an hour came back with the first chapter of The Water-Babies in his hand. At this pace and with the same ease the whole book was composed. . . ."A visit in 1858 to Mr. W. E. Forster in Wharfedale, and to Mr. Morrison at Malham, gave him the local setting of the beautiful opening chapters. For the grandeur of the scenery of Godale Scar and Malham Cove had made a profound impression on his mind, as did the beauty of the Wharfe below Denton Park."Places he had seen, and many more he had read and dreamed of in his father's fine library of voyages and travels, fairies and men of science, fads and foibles, education true and false, Pandora's box and sanitary science—a matter always dear to his heart—the ways of beasts and birds, fishes and insects, of plant and tree and rock, of river and tide, are all interwoven here with the deepest truths of life and living, of morals and religion. So that while the book enchants the child, it gives the wise man food for thought. . . ."Happy are the children who get their first ideas of the marvels of nature all around them from such a lesson-book as this. . . ."And perchance, when they are grown men and women, and like Tom have won their spurs in the great battle, they may look back with thankful hearts to certain pages in The Water-Babies; pages which taught them, while as little children they read a fairy tale, what a fine thing it is to love truth, mercy, justice, courage, and all things noble and of good report."Thus Rose G. Kingsley, in a preface to her father's fairy tale, describes the impromptu manner in which The Water-Babies was written. Dashed off for the pleasure of his own little son, this book has charmed and entertained thousands of children for more than fifty years, and has undoubtedly in many cases taught "what a fine thing it is to love truth, mercy, justice, courage, and all things noble and of good report."