220CT05.

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London,

AND

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by

J. B. LIPPINCOTT,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

PREFACE.

ADDRESSED TO TEACHERS AND PARENTS.

No principle has been more thoroughly established by recent experience, or is more generally insisted upon by intelligent Teachers and School Inspectors, than that good reading is more readilyacquired by practice than by precept. Without under-rating the importance of the watchful care and supervision of a judicious Teacher, it may safely be affirmed that in this as in other things it is practice that makes perfect. The more children read, they will read the more fluently, the more intelligently, the more gracefully. How, then, are children to be induced to read much? Obviously by giving them subjects to read about in which they will naturally feel interested, and by so treating these subjects as to render them attractive.

It is with special reference to this principle, both as regards matter and style, that this Reading-Book has been prepared. It is a common error to suppose that it is easy to write for children. Nothing, really, is more difficult. Indeed it is nearly as hard for mature minds to write for young people, as it would be for children to write for the edification and instruction of their seniors. The ideal child's book would be a book written by a child; and the nearest approach to that ideal is a book written in whole or in part by those few men and women who have the special gift and knack of writing for children. It will not be denied that A. L. O. E. is one of those writers who possess this peculiar gift; in proof of which it is only necessary to refer to the lessons* in this volume which bear that favourite signature. It is the chief aim of the volume to train young people, not only in the art of

* It may be necessary to call the attention of the compilers of school-books to the fact that these lessons, as well as many of the selected passages, are the exclusive property of the Publishers.