THE STANDARD SECOND READER CONTAINING INTRODUCTORY EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION; AN EXPLANATORY BY EPES SARGENT, AUTHOR OF THE STANDARD SPEAKER, THE STANDARD FIFTH, FOURTH, AND With Illustrations by Billings and others. THOUSAND. BOSTON: No. 13 WINTER STREET. 1857. KD 32299 HARVARD Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and fiftyfive, by EPES SARGENT, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts. A large majority of the pieces in this collection, being original, are protected by the copyright. Stereotyped by HOBART & ROBBINS, BONTON PREFACE. spell the words he uses, With a view to facilitatElementary Readers in UNDER the modern improved plan of instruction in reading, regard is had to the learner's ability to and to understand the lesson he reads. ing the spelling process, many of the present use have, over every exercise in reading, a number of words selected from it, and arranged in columns, as in a Speller. The learner's inference is, that those words, and those only, are to be studied; whereas no good reason can be given why all the words in the exercise should not be learned. Many of our most judicious teachers, perceiving the inconsistency of the system, have objected to it as superfluous and confusing. It has also been abandoned in the more recent elementary Readers from the London and Edinburgh press. A much better practice is it for the pupil to prepare himself to spell all the words in his exercise; or in a portion of it, if the whole be too hard a task. To assist him in this, a number of the more difficult words in the early exercises of the present volume have been divided into their component syllables. The principles of syllabication may be found laid down on page 25. Unquestionably the best means of attaining accuracy in spelling is by writing from dictation. "The ordinary, and perhaps the only and shortest way of learning spelling," says Mr. Smart, "is by the eye, in the same manner that we learn pronunciation by the ear. People who write much are generally correct spellers. In the early stages of instruction, the ordinary mode of spelling may be more conveniently practised; but the writing mode may be applied with advantage even in the instruction of the very young.* A plan adopted in the Edinburgh elementary schools is this: The teacher writes on the black-board the successive letters forming a word, the pupil telling the teacher what letters to put down. When the word is finished, the teacher asks the class, "Is this word correct?" All are eager to give opinions, but no one is allowed to speak except one selected. Should he fail, a second is applied to; and so on, till the word is made right. Many advantages attend this plan. "It impresses the intimate connection * See this subject illustrated in Sargent's Standard Speller. |