For 300 years the name of Shakespeare has been known to everybody in civilized countries. This is the place he was born in 1564. Queen Elizabeth was then on the throne of England. English sailors were sailing across the Atlantic and finding new lands. Wonderful tales of the wealth of the Western World were being told in all the inns of the villages Shakespeare lived in an age when the English were stirred by discovery and by victory over mighty nations. Shakespeare's father was a respected man in Stratford. His mother, Mary Arden, was a woman of character. This family was well-to-do. Young Will went to school in the Stratford Grammar School, and studied Latin, Greek, and mathematics. He got into trouble for hunting deer, and went to London, where he became a hanger-on at the theaters. Then he became an

actor and a writer. Most of Shakespeare's writings are plays. Many of them are still given in our theaters every year. Shakespeare prospered, became well-known at the court of Elizabeth, and finally ended his days with his family in Stratford near his birthplace. Strat-on-Avon is so called because it is on the little Avon river. It is a quiet little village in the Midlands of England. All about it lie the level English fields and woodlands. near Stratford is Shottery, the place where Anne Hathaway, his wife, lived when a girl. The Shakespeare Birthplace is now owned by the Shakespeare Society. It is a two-story house with a small garden back of it. In it are gathered many things connected with Shakespeare's life and work.