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PREFACE.

THAT a great, and even the primary object of a reading book for schools, is to enable children to call their words correctly, and without hesitation, that is, to read with fluency, is a truth which will not be denied. But nature itself may teach us that this is, by no means, the only object at which such a book should aim. A correct modulation of the voice, so as to express sentiment, feeling, emotion, ought to be considered as constituting an essential part of good reading. No combination of mere words, however volubly, or audibly uttered, can ever express the full force and extent of an author's meaning. "Read so as to be understood," says the teacher; and this is very well so far as it goes. But what is the actual purport of this often repeated injunction? No other than that the reader himself shall be understood, by calling his words so distinctly and audibly that a listener shall have no difficulty in hearing all he says.Read so that the author shall be understood, is an injunction which, in most cases, would throw both teacher and scholar into quite a dilemma.

Bad reading, after all, is not more the fault of teachers than of the books which they are compelled to use in that department of instruction. Among the many reading books which are used in common schools throughout the United States, where do we find one which affords the teacher any such assistance as he needs for the purpose of conveying instruction to his pupils, and of duly exercising them in the various modulations of the voice? Two or three have been prepared to assist maturer scholars to read with rhetorical propriety; and even these have been adapted to the purposes of declamation, and public speaking at large, rather than to reading taken by itself. But the author of the present work is not aware that a single reading book, with appropriate instructions, has ever been published for the special use of that grade of scholars which is embraced by the middle and upper classes of our common schools. Every teacher of this grade of scholars is left to his own unassisted faculties in this matter; and we need not wonder that, without previous instruction on his own part, and without any assistance from books, he should fail to convert his pupils into accomplished readers. We might as well wonder that a teacher, without previous instruction in arithmetic, and without books to help him, should fail in his attempts to make good arithmeticians.

Some compilers seem to have supposed that nothing more is necessary for constituting a reading book, than a collection of pieces taken at random from such authors as may happen to be at hand, provided the selections have a good moral, and religious tendency.-Sometimes an author prepares a book-perhaps a geography, or historical compend, some treatise of a moral kind, a biography, or something else that is very well and very

proper in its place, or that is neither-and then, to promote its sale, himself and publisher recommend it to the world, and induce others to recommend it, as a reading book to be used in schools.—Or, again, a person has been the author of detached essays, sentimental fragments, and other fugitive productions both in prose and poetry, turned out in haste, and scattered through most of the periodicals in the land; and then, to turn them to more proffitable account, the author collects them into a volume and sends it forth to the public as a reading book of superior merits. In these days, indeed, almost every thing that is published for the instruction or entertainment of the young, is recommended by the author, or publisher, or both, as an admirable school book. The press is continually teeming with productions of this character; and were all the books, which are thus recommended, to be actually introduced into schools, and studied, the term of childhood, and of going to school, would need to be lengthened out to antediluvian dimensions. Yet, as though all this were not a sufficient source of multiplying school books, we are occasionally furnished with one set for girls, and another for boys. Parents, who have both sons and daughters, are in this manner compelled, so far as the principle goes, to provide a different set of books for each sex, even in the same studies. But what is there so peculiar to the female sex, either as it regards their mental faculties, or their sentiments, feelings, and emotions, as to require a distinct reading book for their special advantage? Are not the great principles of vocal modulation the same in both sexes? Is it necessary, or is it proper, that a female should read a given passage with one set of vocal inflections, and that a male should read it with another? We may as well believe that the two sexes require different books for learning the rudiments of music, or that they need differently constructed organs for laughing and crying.

A reading book, for the use of scholars who can already read with tolerable fluency, ought to contain some appropriate instructions, and to have some kind of notation* for the different inflections and modulations of the voice. Without such a notation, the teacher must find it impossible to convey intelligible instruction to his pupils in relation to these particulars. The lessons for practice ought to contain a great variety of style and matter. They should exhibit specimens of what is colloquial, sprightly, humorous, didactic, grave, gentle, pathetic, winning, repulsive, in order that the voice may be practiced so as to give expression to these several characteristics. Yet where shall we find a reading book, for the use of common schools, at all answering to this description ?—The truth is, to prepare such a reading book as the exigency of the case demands, requires more time, labor, and experience, than are usually employed by that class of authors by whom our schools are principally furnished with books of instruction. It has been quite a common opinion that almost any book will answer well enough to read from; and that a scholar reads sufficiently well when he can read without boggling. But there is such a thing as PROPRIETY in reading; and to obtain a knowledge of it, and to teach it, there is need of much patient inquiry, and a careful investigation of those principles on which it is founded. A reading book ought to be the result of such an investigation, though the process by which it is obtained should not be exhibited.

*A mode of expressing modulations of voice by the use of artificial marks or characters.

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