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INTRODUCTION.

To those who are already acquainted with the Emerson system of teaching reading, the plan of this volume will seem natural and familiar; but the greater number of teachers likely to use the book have probably not studied any particular way of teaching the subject above the primary grades, and to them is due some explanation of the method to be followed in using the book.

Though the teaching of primary reading has improved in recent years, in the more advanced grades there seems to be very little improvement in the reading itself so far as expression is concerned. Some of the trouble arises from a mistaken notion concerning the object of teaching oral reading. While, of course, one end of learning to read is the acquirement of knowledge through the printed page, the reading-book should not be the medium for teaching mere facts about zoology, botany, or history, or anything else. Το read aloud well the mind must be full of the subject, and roused by its vital interest. Only a few philosophers are quickened by the rattle of the dry bones of facts.

INTRODUCTION.

To those who are already acquainted with the Emerson system of teaching reading, the plan of this volume will seem natural and familiar; but the greater number of teachers likely to use the book have probably not studied any particular way of teaching the subject above the primary grades, and to them is due some explanation of the method to be followed in using the book.

Though the teaching of primary reading has improved in recent years, in the more advanced grades there seems to be very little improvement in the reading itself so far as expression is concerned. Some of the trouble arises from a mistaken notion concerning the object of teaching oral reading. While, of course, one end of learning to read is the acquirement of knowledge through the printed page, the reading-book should not be the medium for teaching mere facts about zoology, botany, or history, or anything else. To read aloud well the mind must be full of the subject, and roused by its vital interest. Only a few philosophers are quickened by the rattle of the dry bones of facts.

The reading-book should directly or indirectly give the learner power to grasp and use words, the ability to reproduce fine thoughts through the voice, and to bring the pupil so in touch with great literary minds that their thoughts become his and are reproduced to a third person or a thousand other persons, so that all who hear are made to feel the truths presented.

The object of the present volume is to put in necessary order a collection of selections which will develop the child's expressive power in natural lines, and lead him up to the point where he may use with advantage the "Evolution of Expression" prepared by Dr. Emerson, which this volume is intended to precede, although it may be used independently or in connection with any preferred series of reading-books. But the selections in this book are arranged to follow the general plan of those volumes, they being based on the exact laws of mental development, which must necessarily be If the teacher would quicken the pupil's mind so that it acts freely in any particular line, he must not only know those laws, but their special application to the subject under consideration.

Growth implies law; it also implies time; it implies a beginning, but, with the human mind, no necessary end. To know where and how to begin are the important things in starting a pupil's growth in any particular direction. The baby grows from simple life, or the manifestation of ani

mation, to the manifestation of attraction, or affection, toward and for objects and persons. The will must develop and show itself in the baby's power of making a choice, till by and by the little one begins to think. This is the natural order of development, and so far no parent or teacher can hinder the child; but they may prevent his developing further in the same way as he advances to a higher plane of his existence, when these laws will prevail again in varied adaptations to his natural growth and should lead in the studies he may pursue.

The steps by which the younger student reaches the point where he may use with advantage the literary selections prepared for the older reader are similar to those by which he goes up higher in the later period, only now we will have the general rather than the particular, a foreshadowing of still more distinctly definite attitudes of mind, a suggestion in whole of parts which will naturally grow out of these steps if the pupil is once really started and no external causes interfere with his progress.

STEP I.-LIFE.

In this first and all-important step the aim must be to awaken an animated interest in the subject of each lesson. The pupil must be so filled with the idea presented that he will be anxious-more than anxious-inspired, eager to present the idea to some one else. How is this state to be brought

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