Teaching English was one of the finest jobs I could ever have had. There were wonderful children who are so much fun, and there was the privilege of reading great stories and books and talking about life.

When I go to a used book store, I look for school anthologies, and I do find them. In the literature anthologies, a group of two or more English teachers, now editors, look for the best stories, novels, plays, biographies, poetry, and articles they can find to include in the anthology. The editors do all the work, and we can just do all the enjoying.

There are stories you might never know about unless you found them in an anthology. Of course, the anthologies also usually have a Sherlock Holmes and an Edgar Allen Poe story and works of other famous authors as well. But most of my favorites are the stories that are new to me and not as well-known as they deserve to be.

Anthologies today often don’t say what grade they’re for. They’re called Blue Level, or Orange, Green, or Red. I suppose this is because 8th graders who might have a 6th grade reading level book would feel bad. I have to tell you that I have read what must be 4th grade anthologies with great delight. I would not be embarrassed to say that 4th grade anthologies have great stories and are just right for me!

Here are just a few highlights I would like to tell about from this McDougal, Littell LITERATURE Anthology, Blue Level, copyright 1984, and you will see why I love anthologies.

I am always overjoyed to find out something like this:

Carl Sandburg, who won a Pulitzer prize for his poetry, and also a second Pulitzer prize for his biography of Abraham Lincoln, was born in Illinois to Swedish immigrant parents. Listen to this: His father was illiterate and suspicious of books. The boy Carl had no encouragement there. Where did his writing ability come from? Who would have ever guessed that the boy Carl Sandburg would become a prize-winning author! Isn’t this simply amazing?

In this anthology, I loved an autobiographical story called Barrio Boy by Ernesto Galarza. He and his family immigrated to Sacramento, California when he was about six, probably around 1911 or so. There were many immigrants when he went to first grade at Lincoln School. Some of the immigrant languages, in addition to Spanish, were Korean, Japanese, Filipino, Yugoslavian, Portuguese, Italian, Irish, and Polish.

Ernesto had most wonderful teachers and school principal. They had character. They had values, and they stood up for what they believed in. I would love to tell you everything about how great the principal and teachers were, but I will just tell you one incident with the principal. I’ll just mention that all the teachers were single and, in those days, regarded as spinsters.

The whole school met together at the beginning of school to salute the flag. This is Ernesto’s writing now:

Miss Shand was on the balcony of the second floor of Miss Hopley’s office, conducting us in our lusty singing of “My Country tis-a thee.â€? Our principal, as always, stood there like us, at attention, her right hand over her heart, joining in the song.

Halfway through the second stanza, she stepped forward, held up her arm in a sign of command, and called loud and clear: “Stop the singing.� Miss Shand looked flabbergasted. We were frozen with shock.

Miss Hopley was now standing at the rail of the balcony, her eyes sparkling, her voice low and resonant, the words coming down to us distinctly and loaded with indignation.

“There are two gentlemen walking on the school grounds with their hats on while we are singing,� she said, sweeping our ranks with her eyes. “We will remain silent until the gentlemen come to attention and remove their hats.� A minute of awful silence ended when Miss Hopley, her gaze fixed on something behind us, signaled Miss Shand, and we began once more the familiar hymn.

That afternoon, when school was out, the word spread. The two gentlemen were the Superintendent of Schools and an important guest on an inspection.

I hope the Superintendent was proud of Miss Hopley.

I can’t imagine there’s any principal around today like Miss Hopley, do you?

Well, that’s enough for now. Maybe I’ll continue gems from this anthology another day.