Educ T 758.73.120 HAR LEGP MAN 7 1935 Miss M. m. LIZARNY Watson Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, BY IVISON, BLAKEMAN, TAYLOR, & CO., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. PREFACE. THIS book is designed for pupils who have completed the study of the Fourth Reader of the New Graded Series. The reading lessons, which consist of pieces of great variety both as to style and subject, have been selected chiefly from the works of standard authors, and are of such a character as to interest the youthful reader, while imparting information and developing intelligence and thoughtfulness. Pieces having a general relation to the same subject have been carefully grouped together, so as to avoid the incoherent and fragmentary character so common in reading-books of this kind. The abrupt transition from one subject to another has thus, in a measure, been relieved; and a means afforded of fostering logical continuity of thought, one of the most important objects of early mental training. Definitions of the most difficult words, alphabetically arranged, are appended to each lesson, where requisite, and the etymological analysis of them shown, when sufficiently regular to be presented without extended or technical explanation. These lessons are designed to serve as an introduction to the important study of word-analysis. The analysis of the subject-matter, by topics, is given at the end of very many of the lessons, as a guide to the teacher; and an elocutionary analysis is also appended wherever it was deemed requisite, with references to the principles and notes presented and explained in the Introduction. All allusions to persons, places, and subjects deemed to be beyond the previous reading or study of such pupils as may use this book, are carefully explained in foot-notes; a proper use of these will tend to encourage the habit of inquiry and research, a very important matter in connection with the general object of this branch of instruction. In the selection of subjects for the illustrations, the guiding principle has been to attract the attention of the pupil to points of enduring interest, and to impart information through the conceptive faculty in regard to objects a true idea of which could in this way only be conveyed. These illustrations have been drawn and engraved by the best artists, and will challenge a comparison with those of any other book of the kind hitherto presented to the public. |