QUESTIONS AND HELPS

1. Who was the king of England at the time of Defoe's birth, and what was going on in the country? 2. Write or tell what you can of Defoe's life; (a) his birth and family; (b) schooling; (c) business life; (d) change of name; (e) arrest and punishment; (f) release and later life.

3. Write or tell briefly in your own words some of the principal events in the story of Robinson Crusoe. 4. What were the facts out of which Defoe made the story? 5. Draw a plan of Crusoe's fortress and cave, and describe it. Why did he build against the side of a steep hill? Why was a cave better than a tent ?

6. How did Crusoe keep his reckoning of time? 7. How did he make a board for a shelf, and what does that show you of the value of tools and machinery? 8. What shows Crusoe's tidiness and love of order? 9. How did he make a lamp? 10. What did he have for food, and how did he get it? Tell particularly about his corn, and what is meant here by corn (see word list).

11. Tell how Crusoe got his raisins. 12. Describe his "country house." 13. Describe the seasons on Crusoe's island. Name one or more countries that you have read about in your geography having seasons like these (Crusoe's island was supposed to be near the mouth of the Orinoco River, off the coast of South America). 14. Tell how Crusoe made baskets. What is wicker ware? 15. Describe Crusoe's first journey to the side of the island opposite that where he had his cave. What Idid he find ?

16. What different things did Crusoe have to do before he could make a loaf of bread? 17. Tell how he made pottery.

What was there in Defoe's own life that made it easy for him to describe Crusoe's experiments in pottery? What is meant by abate of the red color"? Explain how one of the pots was perfectly glazed by the running of the sand." 18. Describe Crusoe's oven. 19. What story is Defoe thinking of when he makes Crusoe say that he wanted to build his barns bigger (see the Bible, Luke xii, 18)?

20. Tell how Crusoe made clothing for himself. 21. Tell how he made a boat and launched it. 22. Tell how he came to have a dairy. 23. Have you ever tried to make any of the things that Crusoe made? If so, tell what success you had. 24. Do you think Crusoe enjoyed using his rough homemade things as well as he would have enjoyed more perfect ones that had been made in a factory? Give reasons for your answer.

25. Name the good qualities that Crusoe showed. One was love of order; another was patience. What were others? 26. The story shows how many different kinds of work must be done by some one to make the little things that we use every day. In this selection find how many kinds of workmen Crusoe did the work of, as carpenter, potter, baker, etc.

You will want to read the whole story of Robinson Crusoe. Some may be interested in making a model of Crusoe's cave, or of the clothes that he wore, or of his boat, or of some other things that he made.

Defoe (Dè fōe'): author of Robinson

Crusoe, lived 1661-1731.
Dryden (Dry'den): an English poet,

lived 1631-1700.

dissenters (dis sen'tẽrs) : a name given to the Puritans and others who left the Church of England.

Anne (Anne): queen of England

from 1702 to 1714. semi-diameter (semi-di ăm ́é těr): half the diameter.

piles large stakes or pointed logs

driven into the earth.

spur: here, a short wooden brace.

SOME ADVENTURES OF GULLIVER

FROM "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS"

JONATHAN SWIFT

[I am going to tell you to-day the story of a man who became very unhappy by thinking too much about himself. He was one of the most brilliant writers of the eighteenth century, and his name was Jonathan Swift. 5 In 1667, while Milton was still writing, and Defoe was a small boy in London, Jonathan Swift was born in the city of Dublin. His parents were English, and his father had gone to Ireland in the hope of getting a political office, but failed and died there, leaving his 10 wife and two young children very poor.

Some of the wealthy relatives of the Swifts helped them in their poverty. A nurse was employed for Jonathan, and this nurse thought so much of the child that when he was a year old she ran away with him and 15 took him to England. He seems to have lived with her for about three years. Then his uncle took him back to Ireland and cared for him, sending him to school when he was six, and to Trinity College, Dublin, when he was fourteen. His mother soon went back to live with 20 relatives in England, and Jonathan saw little more of her.

At school and college young Swift began to show that unhappy spirit which went with him through life. He

was proud, and his uncle, though giving him a good education, made him feel his poverty and dependence. This soured the young man's disposition; he wasted his time, quarreled with his teachers, and was able to pass his final examinations only through the favor of one of 5 the examiners.

Then he went to England to live with another relative, Sir William Temple, who gave him a position as private secretary. Sir William treated him very much as his uncle had done, and Swift was often thrown into a 10 furious rage. At last he had an open quarrel with Sir William and left him.

He then became a clergyman of the Church of England. Why a young man of his disposition should wish to be a clergyman may perhaps make you wonder, and it has 15 made others do the same. But he was sent to Ireland, and was given a little parish by the seashore; and there, with no one to look down upon him, he went to work with a will, and forgot himself for a time in caring for others.

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But it grew very dull in that quiet seashore parish, and he received barely enough to live upon, so that when Sir William wrote to him asking him to come back to England, he went back and took up the position of private secretary again, and kept it several years longer, 25 until Sir William died. Then he returned to Ireland and took another country parish, smaller than the former one.