LITER 



345S 



LITERATURE 



Protestant churches use the litany. The three 

 litanies most commonly said in the Roman 

 Catholic Church are the "Litany of Saints," the 

 "Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus" and the 

 "Litany of The Blessed Virgin." The first- 

 named is used more frequently in consecrations 

 and other solemn services. G.W.M. 



LITER, le' ter, a measure of capacity in the 

 metric system of weights and measures. It con- 

 tains 61.026 cubic inches, and is equivalent to 

 1.0567 liquid quarts. A vessel three inches 

 square and 6.8 inches high will contain approxi- 



mately a liter of water. The liter is equal 

 volume to a kilo- 

 gram of water at 

 its maximum den- 

 sity, 32. See 

 METRIC SYSTEM. 



The liter is the One 

 official measure of 

 capacity of liquids 



in all of Western continental Europe and 

 Spanish-America, including all the South 

 American republics. 



liter 



One quart 



COMPARATIVE 

 MEASURES 



1ITERATURE. This word, which 

 is from the Latin, and means letter, is well 

 known to every child, but like many other 

 common terms, it is rather difficult to define. 

 The simplest definition makes it include every- 

 thing written or printed, on whatever subject; 

 but that is making the true meaning far too 

 broad. Perhaps it can best be described as 

 "the best utterances of the human mind, as 

 handed down in writing." In this form it would 

 include nothing that is merely temporary in its 

 appeal, as a "topical" song or jingle; nothing 

 that is harmful, as the Deadwood Dick tales 

 which the small boy hides when he hears his 

 mother's footsteps; nothing technical, as the 

 very latest treatise on mathematical astronomy. 

 But beyond these, all that learning, imagina- 

 tion and inspiration have given to the world, all 

 that writing has preserved and time has tested, 

 is literature. 



There are many kinds of literary productions, 

 each with its own special appeal; there are 

 poems, novels, short stories, essays, dramas, 

 histories, letters, biographies, orations; but in 

 order to make good its claim to be considered 

 literature, each of these has to prove that it has 

 in it something which can inspire and ennoble 

 human character. The jorm counts for a great 

 deal a choice of words which are musical or 

 forceful or particularly expressive; but the 

 spirit is more. 



Two Great Divisions. The most natural 

 division of all literary works is into the two 

 great groups of prose and poetry. If anyone 

 who has not given the subject careful study 

 were asked which is the simpler and which 

 would naturally come first in the development 

 of a literature, he could undoubtedly say prose. 

 Moliere in one of his charming comedies shows 

 the amazement of a man of middle age when 

 he suddenly awakens to the fact that all his 

 life he has been talking prose. Most people 

 can feel no such fresh, joyous surprise over so 

 commonplace a matter they have always 

 known that they talked prose, the simpler form 

 of literature, as it seems to them. 



But a little study shows that prose literature 

 does not. naturally come first. Almost every 

 old nation had its poetry long before it ever 

 developed a prose style, and the reasons for 

 this are plain. First of all, poetry stands for 

 the emotion as prose stands for the reason ; and 

 the more primitive, the closer to nature men 

 are, the more completely does their emotional 

 life control their intellectual forces. They feel 

 before they reason, and their feeling, whether 

 it be religious or warlike, tends to express itself 

 in poetry. Then, too, just because prose is 

 such a commonplace, everyday affair, the idea 

 of preserving it is slow in awakening. A pa- 

 triot by his impassioned utterances stirs a peo- 

 ple to successful protest against tyranny; they 



