................ ...... INTRODUCTION ΤΟ THE ENGLISH READER: OR, A SELECTION OF PIECES, IN PROSE AND POETRY, CALCULATED TO IMPROVE THE YOUNGER CLASSES OF LEARNERS IN READING; AND TO IMBUE THEIR MINDS WITH THE LOVE OF VIRTUE. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, RULES AND OBSERVATIONS FOR ASSISTING CHILDREN TO READ WITH FROM THE LAST ENGLISH EDITION. BY LINDLEY MURRAY, New-York: PUBLISHED BY COLLINS AND CO. W. E. DEAN, PRINTER. 1831. 9-10-30 PREFACE. "THE English Reader” and “The Sequel" to that performance, having met with a favourable reception from the public, the compiler has been induced to prepare a small volume, on a similar plan, for the use of children who have made but little progress in reading. It has been his aim to form a compilation, which would properly conduct the young learner from the Spelling-book to the "English Reader:" and in prosecuting this design, he has been particularly careful to select such pieces as are adapted to the understanding, and pleasing to the taste, of children. A work calculated for different classes of young readers, should contain pieces suited, in point of language and matter, to their various ages and capacities. The compiler, in conformity with this idea, has endeavoured to arrange the materials of each chapter so as to form an easy gradation which may be adapted to the different progress of the learners. Judicious teachers will know how to apply this arrangement to the years and abilities of their pupils. Care has been taken to render the language of all the pieces correct and perspicuous; that the young learner may improve in style as well as in reading, and insensibly acquire a taste for accurate composition. To imbue the tender mind with the love of virtue and goodness, is an especial object of the present work: and with this view, the pieces have been scrupulously selected; and, where necessary, purified from every word and sentiment that could offend the most delicate mind. As a work tending to season the minds of children with piety and virtue, and to improve them in reading, language, and sentiment, the compiler hopes it will prove a suitable Introduction to the " English Reader," and other publica tions of that nature and also a proper book for those schools, in which, from their circumscribed plan of education, larger works of the kind cannot be admitted. Advertisement to the Second English Edition. THE Compiler has added to this edition more than twenty pages of matter, which he hopes will be found useful and interesting. He has also given to many of the pieces a new arrangement, calculated to render every part of the work more intelligible and pleasing to young minds. FOR ASSISTING CHILDREN TO READ WITH PROPRIETY. THE compiler of this work having, in the preface to his "English Reader," explained at large the principles of elocution, nothing on this head seems to be necessary, in the present publication, but to give a few plain and simple rules, adapted to the younger classes of learners; and to Inake some observations, calculated to rectify the errors which they are most apt to commit. These rules may be comprehended under the following heads. They are comprised in few words, and a little separated from the obser vations, that those teachers who wish their pupils to commit them to memory, may more readily distinguish them from the parts which require only an attentive perusal. I. All the simple sounds should be pronounced with fulness, distinctness, and energy; particularly the vowels, on the proper utterance of which, the force and beauty of pronunciation greatly depend. The simple sounds, especially those signified by the letters l, r, s, th, and sh, are often very imperfectly pronounced by young persons. B and p are apt to be confounded: so are d and t, s and z, ƒ and v. The letters v and w are often sounded the one for the other: thus, wine is pronounced vine; and vinegar, winegar. The diphthong ow, is, in some words, vulgarly sounded like er: as foller, meller, winder; instead of follow, mellow, window. When several consonants, proper to be sounded, occur in the beginning or at the end of words, it is a very common error to omit one of them in pronunciation: as in the words asps, casks, guests, preadth, fifth, twelfth, strength, hearths. Not sounding the letter h, when it is proper to sound this letter, is a great fault in pronunciation, and very difficult wholly to cor rect. When children have acquired any improper habits with respect to simple sounds the best mode of correction is to |