Harvey's Spellers and Readers. White's Graded-School Arithmetics. Norton's Philosophy. Norton's Chemistry. Brown's Physiology. Hepburn's Rhetoric. And one hundred other new and standard text-books, adapted PRICE LIST AND DESCRIPTIVE CIRCULARS ON APPLICATION. 596988 COPYRIGHT 1878 BY VAN ANTWERP, BRAGG & Co. ECLECTIC PRESS To point out defects in existing Spellers, which have led the Author and the Publishers to undertake a new work in Orthography and Etymology, would be an ungracious and disagreeable task. It is easier to state in few words what ends have been sought in the book now submitted to Teachers and Boards of Education, with reference to existing demands. 1. The anomalies of English Spelling need to be met by a system of Diacritical Marks, which shall determine at a glance the true pronunciation of every word. The marks in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary have been chosen as, on the whole, best adapted to this purpose,-if for no other reason, because it is well to introduce the scholar as early as possible to an intelligent use of that invaluable work. The main object, however, is to have the marks thoroughly understood and constantly associated with the sounds which they indicate, thus realizing essentially the phonetic ideal-one character to each sound, and only one sound to each character. The consonants, representing less variety of sounds than the vowels, have required fewer marks; but these are found in many syllables unaccented, as well as accented, throughout the book, where their respective sounds occur in oral lessons. For example, ġ, so marked, has always the sound of j in jet, while g has invariably the sound of g in get. When these and the other marks are once familiar, the scholar will proceed without that perplexing uncertainty which often embarrasses effort. |