After the club has agreed on a subject the committee appointed to draw up the year book should meet, bringing with them all available helps, books, maps, magazine articles and cuttings from papers.
With these before them, the committee must lay out in general the main topics for the club to study, dividing it into as many parts as there will be meetings during the year. (In some instances, as where a historical subject is chosen, the Table of Contents in some book of reference will be found helpful.)
Under each of the main divisions of the whole four or five subdivisions should then be made out, corresponding to the number of papers desired on a given day.
Last of all, either at the close of the work planned for each meeting, or at the end of the book, there should be given a list of reference books.
As an example of a year book, one is given here on the history of England, which will be found worked out in detail in Chapter XII of this book.
ENGLAND
I
THE COUNTRY AND ITS RACES
Papers,--
1. Geological and Prehistoric Britain; Relics of the Stone Age.
2. Physical Character of the Country, Scenery, Climate, Products.
3. The Druids and Their Remains; Stonehenge, etc.
4 The Celts; Divisions of the Race, folk lore, etc.
5. The Arthurian Legends.
Suggested Readings,--
Tennyson"s "Idylls of the King."
Sir Thomas Malory.
II
THE ROMAN CONQUEST AND EARLY KINGDOMS
Papers,--
1. Julius Caesar.
Invasion of England.
Roman remains in England.
Roman Roads as they are to-day.
Boadicea.
2. Early Saxon Kings.
Augustine"s Conversion of Kent.
Columba at Iona.
Aidan at Holy Island.
Caedmon at Whitby.
Venerable Bede.
3. Alfred and the Danes.
Legends.
Dunstan.
The Danelaw.
Alfred"s Reforms.
4. The Last Saxon Kings.
Edward the Confessor.
Harold.
Founding of Westminster Abbey.
(Have a paper on the Abbey if you wish.)
Suggested Readings,--
Death of Columba from Bede"s Ecclesiastical History. (Bohn Library.) Tacitus" "Agricola."
Bulwer"s "Harold."
III
THE NORMANS AND ANGEVINS
Papers,--
1. The Normans and the Conquest.
Normans on the Continent.
Domesday Book.
Bayeux Tapestry.
2. The Feudal System.
(See "Ivanhoe," opening chapter.) Castles, Chivalry, Cathedrals, Cruelties.
3. The Struggle with the Papacy.
Anselm.
Thomas a Becket.
4. England and the Crusades.
5. The Great Charter.
Suggested Readings,--