In an attempt to resolve questions raised by critics of high school literature anthologies, this study (1) examined the contents of 216 anthologies produced between 1917 and 1957, containing 9,034 distinct selections written by 1,947 authors, and (2) related these anthologies to the educational policies of three periods marked off by the Hosic report in 1917, the publication of "An Experience Curriculum" in 1935, the Prosser "life adjustment" resolution of 1945, and the appearance of Sputnik in 1957. One conclusion of the study was that by the mid-forties the anthologies had created a general curriculum pattern, with social and psychological values of literature developed in the ninth and 10th grade volumes, while anthologies for 11th and 12th grades developed formal, aesthetic and historical literary values. Features of the anthologies supporting recent criticisms include (1) organization of literature into units unrelated to consistently defined characteristics of literature as a school subject, and (2) editorial distortion of literary materials by direct and unacknowledged manipulation. (Author/JMC)