POETRY AND PROSE: WITH A SERIES OF LESSONS ON THE ART OF READING; BEING A SUPPLEMENT ΤΟ DAILY LESSON BOOK, No. III. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO., STATIONERS' COURT; PREFACE. THIS Volume is entitled "A SUPPLEMENT TO DAILY LESSON BOOK, No. III.," because it is intended to complete the plan there laid down. The object of No. III., the first of the series in order of publication, was to promote, in connexion with school reading, a rigorous course of interrogation. With this end in view, the pieces selected, whether in prose or poetry, were very short, miscellaneous in character, and accompanied by a careful and lengthened analysis. The whole proceeded on the principle that no piece can be well read which is not thoroughly understood. The Supplement now furnished is of a somewhat different character, and may be regarded as a natural development of the original design. It has, however, one additional aim,-that of forming good readers, by impressing on the mind the leading principles which have to be regarded in order to secure a correct and agreeable Elocution. With this end, a special series of Lessons, accompanied by Exercises, have been prepared; and it is hoped that these will be found to be eminently practical in their character. The volume includes specimens of British and American Poets, from Chaucer to Longfellow, which, with the assistance afforded by the Lessons on Elocution, the scholar should be enabled to read with. taste and expression. Some of these pieces will doubtless be committed to memory for Recitation. The prose Lessons have, for the most part, a direct bearing on the formation of character; illustrating the laws that govern society, the virtues that are essential to individual excellence, and the bearing of true religion on the happiness of life. The whole will be found well adapted to the purposes of school instruction, whether regarded as supplying knowledge, cultivating taste, or affording scope for extended interrogation. |