The Everyday Classics are a series of school readers based upon a valid principle and a vital need. The principle is that there is a considerable body of good literature, known to all people who know books, and simple enough to be understood and enjoyed by children. Much of it, indeed, is of most value if read in childhood, and retained through life as a permanent influence upon one's attitude towards life. The need for such a series is seen in the fact that many children are put in touch with so little of this common heritage of the race. In the desire to find something new and different, many of the old and approved things have been pushed aside.
A classic is something more easily known than defined. It is not necessarily abstruse, difficult, or remote from common life. It is a piece of literature that has received the approval of good judges for a long enough time to make that approval settled. Like good music, it cannot grow old; it is last year's rag-time that becomes unpleasant, not the good old songs. A classic may be as old as Homer, or as new as Hawthorne; it may be as difficult as Dante, or as simple as Mother Goose.
