The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-01-04

NN HEN The Times Dispatch began
 N the publication of Poems You
 w Ought to Know on October publication a temple of fame or an un- alterabIe criterion of the greatest mas terpeces written. It was rather intended, to use a quotation from Professor Nor ton, ITO give our readers every day chance for a little inner refreshment" That we have succeeded in carrying out by the spontaneous thanks we have re- ceived for this feature from our readers in every walk of life. Now however. comes our friend, The Daily Progress, of Charlottesville, basking in the reflected literary radiance of the University of Virginia and says:
 But we must protest against our Richmond contemporary shovelling out such rubbish to it's reader as poetry It vitiates the taste of the younger genera ton who are for the most part the per sons who read and devour newspaper poetry It is a good habit, an admirable habit for every young boy or girl to read daily a passage from some really good poet-an ode or lyric, or few stanzas or selections from some standard ton that ought to be gotten by heart the Comus, Lycidas, L'Allegro, Pen seroso. and Ode to the Nations. Some of the short poems of Byron, such as the Prisoner of Chiffon and the Hebrew Mel odies; some of the minor poems of Tenny- son. such as Locksley Hall, Come Into the Garden. Maud the Miller's Daughter, and the Songs From the Princess; some of Longfellows short poems such as Ex- celsior, the Psalm of Life and the Bridge some of Bryant's, such as Thanatopsis and The Evening Wind; some of Camp bells such as Hohenlinden and Battle of the Baltic. And there are twenty or thirty others that will occur to the in telligent and cultured reader but only twenty or thirty
 Since the Progress has undertaken to pass upon the important question of what is. and what is not, poetry that ought to be known we will respectfully sug- gest that, in this narrow and limited sphere of immortality. it has included such sentimental balderdash us Longfel lows Excelsior, and has made no men, ton of any poem by Poe. According to fxrra1a fu af. thirty other poems, but no more,' that may be added to its narrow list. In this twenty or thirty we must find room for extracts from Shakespeare, Spenser, Wadsworth, Pope. Dryden. Fitzgerald, the Brownings. Coleridge, Moore, Keats, Scott Shelley. Stevenson. swinburne, Thackeray, Kipling. Rosetti, and, to use the Progresss own language. "others that will occur to the cultured and intelligent reader
 To come nearer home, it will be close fit to find place for Poe. Lowell. Whitman Timrod and Hayne, if the Progress Is really serious in limiting it's number to twenty or thirty others, and no more" Though. of course, the num- Der of poems man ought to know Is not easily determined without knowning the capacity of his mind. This. however, gives n practical turn to an academic discus sion.
 Certainly. the Progress has said noth- ing that would lead us to change our custom of printing daily poem while there remain so many good ones still unused. Further, we will say for the in formation of the Progress. that these poems are not furnished by syndicate or bureau. but are chosen and prepared by member. of The Tinies-D Dispatch staff; and. if the Progress so desires it can set forth its own ideas of what poems