PROFESSOR MANDEVILLE'S SERIES OF READING BOOKS: COMPRISING I. PRIMARY READING BOOK. 1 vol. 16mo. II. SECOND READER. 1 vol. 16mo. III. THIRD READER. 1 vol. 16mo. IV. FOURTH READER. 1 vol. 12mo. V. COURSE OF READING, OR FIFTH READER. 12mo. VI. ELEMENTS OF READING AND ORATORY. 1 vol. large 12mo. THE ELEMENTS OF READING AND ORATORY. Verum illi persuasione sua fruantur, qui hominibus, ut sint oratores, satis putant nasci: BY HENRY MANDEVILLE, D. D. PROFESSOR OF MORAL SCIENCE AND BELLES-LETTRES IN HAMILTON COLLEGE. GEO. S. APPLETON, 164 CHESNUT-STREET. MDCCC XLIX. Resalt No. 6 * 623/05. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, By D. APPLETON & COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern PREFACE. Of all the departments of learning in our schools, there is none which, by general concession, is more important than that of reading and speaking; and yet, there is none in which the instruction given is at once so arbitrary, so vague, so unprofitable. In every other, there exists some recognised standard of propriety, tangible, and always at hand, by reference to which, the student can accurately prepare himself for recitation beforehand; and by reference to which, should he make a mistake, while the recitation is in progress, his teacher can intelligibly correct him: make him clearly comprehend the nature of the error into which he has fallen, and effectually guard him against a repetition of it. In writing, he must imitate his copy: in geography, he must implicitly receive the statements of his text-book, and studiously conform to the delineations of his map in arithmetic, every process has its rule, which offers itself to him as an infallible guide, through all the intricacies and mazes of numbers: in reading and speaking alone, he is left to acquire a correct and graceful delivery as he may, with such imperfect light as his teacher, whose judgment may be riper, but whose scources of information are not better than his own, can throw upon his path. In truth, the only means by which either of them can determine, that a given passage should be delivered in one way rather than in another, is a mere supposition; namely, that such is the way in which it would be delivered by an artless speaker; or, to adopt the cant phraseology of the day on this subject, such is the natural way; or the way in which one would deliver it, who conforms to nature: a supposition, which, considering the inexperience of the parties forming it, the extensive observation and comparison of the best models of delivery, the cultivated judgment, and the nice critical tact necessary to form it, and withal the prevalence of bad examples even at the Bar and in the Pulpit, to say nothing of the vicious elocution of the multitude, is as liable to be false as true; and whether false or true, it can be neither denied nor affirmed; since there is nothing beyond itself, in the shape of an authorized standard, with which it may be compared. To conform to nature, or rather to know when we conform to nature, we should previously know what that nature is: what it prescribes: what it excludes. The inadequacy, I had almost said, the absurdity, of such a method of instruction in grammar, if method it may be called, would be apparent to the most indifferent thinker in the land." Imagine a student endeavoring to acquire a knowledge of its principles without a nomenclature, designating and describing the parts of speech: without examples, illustrating them: without rules, showing their relation and government: in short, without any guide whatever to a knowledge of its facts and laws, except a vague reference to the conflicting practice of those who speak and write the English language: does not every one perceive that, with such means of study, it would be all but impossible to obtain a clear insight into the mysteries of the science? or that, if some inquirer, more ardent than usual, should persist in the pursuit until success crowned at length his diligence, the work would consume a large proportion of his life? Yet there is no difficulty here which does not meet the student in learning to read and speak by the same process; the scene is changed, but the actor and his part remain as before. He must grope his way in the dark in the same manner with uncertain footing, and at a venture. He can never be sure of his position, and he is as likely to move in a circle as to advance. Nor will it materially avail him, in the absence of a nomenclature and of rules, that he possesses in his teacher the very best model of elocution. From such a teacher he may acquire a good articulation, for this in some measure is subject to rule; but beyond this, which though important is yet subordinate, he can derive no more aid from such a teacher than from any other immeasurably his inferior. Indeed, he will derive less, if the latter, with his imperfect qualifications as a reader, should happen to possess the superior tact as a disciplinarian: greater facility in winning the regard of his pupils; in commanding their attention; in exciting their emulation. In other respects the more and the less gifted teacher occupy, in relation to him, the same level. Neither of them can do more than superintend his exercises neither of them can add any thing to the benefit he derives from the practice those exercises afford. Whatever may be his faults of modulation, no correction of theirs, however just, can, from the very nature of the case, be followed by improvement. To have ocular and auricular demonstration of this, we have only to enter one of our schools in city or country, when a class, containing perhaps a dozen pupils, is called up to read. Observe. The lesson, distributed among them, gives to each scarcely more than a single sentence for rehearsal. One of the pupils, reading his sentence, fails in the judgment of the teacher, to employ the proper delivery. He is now shown how it should be read, (that is, the teacher reads it for him, with, what he deems, the proper modulation,) and is commanded to read it again; and this time, we may presume, he will read it correctly. But what then? If this was the only sentence he ever expected to read, the correction might answer a good purpose. He would probably remember it; and at the next reading, and still more certainly at the next, he would make no mistake. But when called up again, he has the infinitesimal portion of another lesson, to which no correction of the one previously read, is applicable; or if it is, neither he nor his teacher is aware of it. His reading is again faulty, and is again corrected; and so on with every successive lesson, day after day, the year through. Each correction is an independent one. Having its root in no settled principle, illustrated by examples; falling under no general law, confirmed by reason and obvious facts; it neither borrows light from the past, nor reflects light on the future. It guards the pupil against nothing but the specific error cor-, rected its whole force is exhausted on a single sentence which may never be read again, or if read, recognised as having been read before. It is therefore manifestly of no use, then or thenceforward. In any |