He could not speak. "What is the matter?" asked Mr. Fogg. "My master!" gasped Passepartout - "marriage-impossible "Yes, yes, yes, yes!" cried Passepartout. "You have made a mistake of one day! We arrived twenty-four hours ahead of time; but there are only seven minutes left!" Passepartout had seized his master by the collar, and was dragging him along with irresistible force. Phileas Fogg, thus kidnapped, without having time to think, left his house, jumped into a cab, promised a hundred pounds to the cabman, and, having run over two dogs and overturned five carriages, reached the Reform Club. The clock indicated a quarter before nine when he appeared. Phileas Fogg had accomplished the journey round the world in eighty days! How was it that a man so exact and fastidious could have made this error of a day? How came he to think that he had arrived in London on Saturday, the twenty-first day of December, when it was really Friday, the twentieth, the seventy-ninth day only from his departure? The cause of the error is very simple. Phileas Fogg had, without suspecting it, gained one day on his journey, and this merely because he had traveled constantly eastward; he would, on the contrary, have lost a day, had he gone in the opposite direction, that is, westward. In journeying eastward he had gone toward the sun, and the days therefore diminished for him as many times four minutes as he crossed degrees in this direction. There are three hundred and sixty degrees on the circumference of the earth; and these three hundred and sixty degrees, multiplied by four minutes, give precisely twenty-four hours -- that is, the day unconsciously gained. In other words, while Phileas Fogg, going eastward, saw the sun pass the meridian eighty times his friends in London only saw it pass the meridian seventy-nine times. This is why they awaited him at the Reform Club on Saturday, and not Sunday, as Mr. Fogg thought. And Passepartout's famous family watch, which had always kept London time, would have betrayed this fact, if it had marked the days as well as the hours and minutes! Phileas Fogg, then, had won the twenty thousand pounds; but as he had spent nearly nineteen thousand on the way, the pecuniary gain was small. His object was, however, to be victorious, and not to win money. CLASS ACTIVITIES 1. What, do you imagine, was the unusual appearance of Fogg? How would you draw him, if you could draw? How represent Passepartout? How Captain Speedy? 2. What makes you think that this is a purely imaginary story? Is there any event that could not have happened actually as told? 3. What is the difference, approximately, between $60,000 and £20,000? 4. Volunteer work: a. Read Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and tell the class how the author predicted the invention of submarines. b. Find how quickly a person can travel around the world to-day. ADDITIONAL READINGS. 1. "The Dream Ship; Halfway Around the World in a Forty-seven-Foot Life-boat," R. Stock, in National Geographic Magazine, 40: 1–52. 2. "Big Steamers," R. Kipling, in The Day's Work. 3. "The Ship that Found Herself," R. Kipling, in The Day's Work. 4. "Ships," Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia, 7:3207-3220. 5. "Old-Fashioned Ship Travel," B. Franklin, in Autobiography, chap. 13. 5. THE GLORY OF SHIPS HENRY VAN DYKE The glory of ships is an old, old song, since the days when the sea-rovers ran, In their open boats through the roaring surf, and the spread of the world began; The glory of ships is a light on the sea, and a star in the story of man. When Homer sang of the galleys of Greece that conquered the Trojan shore, And Solomon lauded the barks of Tyre that brought great wealth to his door, 'Twas little they knew, those ancient men, what would come of the sail and the oar. The Greek ships rescued the West from the East, when they harried the Persians home; And the Roman ships were the wings of strength that bore up the empire, Rome; And the ships of Spain found a wide new world, far over the fields of foam. Then the tribes of courage at last saw clear that the ocean was not a bound, But a broad highway, and a challenge to seek for treasure as yet unfound; So the fearless ships fared forth to the search, in joy that the globe was round. Their hulls were heightened, their sails spread out, they grew with the growth of their quest; They opened the secret doors of the East, and the golden gates of the West; And many a city of high renown was proud of a ship on its crest. The fleets of England and Holland and France were at strife with each other and Spain; And battle and storm sent a myriad ships to sleep in the depths of the main; But the seafaring spirit could never be drowned, and it filled up the fleets again. They greatened and grew, with the aid of steam, to a wonderful, vast array, That carries the thoughts and the traffic of men into every harbor and bay; And now in the world-wide work of the ships 'tis England that leads the way. CLASS ACTIVITIES 1. Notice how much history is packed into this short poem. Explain how many centuries are included. 2. Look up in the encyclopedia one of the following and write a report to read to the class: (a) Norsemen or sea-rovers; (b) the Trojan War, especially to find pictures or references to "galleys"; (c) King Solomon or Tyre; (d) the Persian War, especially the place of ships; (e) galleys and galley-slaves; (f) the voyage of Columbus; (g) of Vasco da Gama; (h) the Spanish Armada. 3. Class program of ship poems. Find and read one to the class: a. "The Revenge," Alfred Tennyson. b. "Old Ironsides," Oliver Wendell Holmes. c. "D'Auber," Alfred Noyes. d. "Hervé Riel," Robert Browning. e. "The Fisherman," John G. Whittier. f. "The Coastwise Lights," Rudyard Kipling. CLASS-LIBRARY READINGS CROSSING GREAT WATERS 1. "The Pilot," in Careers of Danger and Daring, 150-172. 2. "The Story of the Submarine," in Wonder Book of Knowledge. 3. "Robert Fulton," in Makers of Our History, 112-122. 4. "Cyrus W. Field," ibid., 278-290. 5. "The Boat," in Stories of Useful Inventions, 190–210. 6. Columbus," J. Miller, in Stories of the Day's Work, 105-106. 7. "The Fisherman," J. G. Whittier, ibid., 226–228. 8. "How Cyrus Laid the Cable," J. G. Saxe, in A Vocational Reader, 107-110. 9. "A Fisherman of Costla," J. B. Connolly, in Joy in Work, 3–31. 10. "From the Depths of Things," L. Perry, ibid., 167-180. II. "Conquerors of the Sea," Book of Knowledge, 8: 2467-2476. 12. "The House Upon the Sea," ibid., 1: 73-76. 13. "The Wire that Runs Under the Sea," ibid., 15:4551-4555. 14. "Round the World in Eighty Days," J. Verne, ibid., 16: 4865-4875. 15. "Life of a Sailor at Sea," ibid., 20: 6233-6244. 16. "The Cables That Bind the World Together," Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia, 2: 556–561. 17. "The Conquest of the Sea," ibid., 8:3207-3220. GENERAL REVIEW READING HABITS (To be read and discussed by teacher and pupils together.) On page 256 we saw that reading is a partnership of two people, the one who writes and the one who reads. When a story is read aloud to a group of listeners, the partnership includes at least three partners, and usually a larger number. Discuss the listener's share of the partnership. Notice the four different ways in which the reader has been asked to do his share of the active partnership: a. The reader is asked to give examples and experiences of his own. P. 256 and p. 275. This is called, on p. 75, "reading between the lines." b. The reader is asked to find some definite information of importance contained in the selection. On p. 262, p. 293, p. 299, and p. 312 are examples of that practice. At other times the reader is asked to find something that is not definitely stated in the selection. For example, on p. 271 you were asked to find places which made large "pictures" and to tell what you would put in those pictures. Once you were asked to find the author's purpose in writing, p. 290. c. The reader is asked to recognize the framework of a selection; that is, to see how the parts fit together to form a whole. This problem is illustrated on p. 266. Look up these problems. Compare them with the discussion on p. 69. |