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dred words. (As lively, lifeless, livelihood &c.) Define 'bird.' How does a 'bird' differ from an 'insect?' De

fine 'trying.' Give the derivatives of try. Define 'wings. Give the derivatives of it. What do you consider to be comprehended in the term created being?" Is it limited in the text to living beings? Is the term, properly speaking, more comprehensive? What is the origin of the term being? Does it apply to unorganized or lifeless matter, as well as to living creatures? Define, and give some of the derivatives of the following words; move, think, act, contrive, possible. What kind of animals obtain their food by force? What animals by cunning? What by 'reason?' Is it common to find the word 'joy' used as a verb in prose writing? What is the meaning of 'animated?' Its origin? Its kindred words? What is the original meaning of 'scene?' Is it applied in the text literally or metaphorically? What is meant by the term, 6 sons of darkness?' What figure of rhetoric is this an example of? What figure of rhetoric is used in the expression, 'eyes that will never taste the sweet light?' &c.

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The above Specimens are deemed sufficient to show the nature and character of the proposed system. The Second-Class Reader' and Third-Class Reader' will contain similar Specimens adapted to the earlier stages of school instruction.

THE

FIRST-CLASS READER.

LESSON I.

Humility and Perseverance. An Allegory.-N. Y. MIRROR.

FROM the side of a mountain there flowed forth a little rivulet. Its voice was scarcely heard amid the rustling of the leaves and grass around, and its shallow and narrow stream might be overlooked by the traveller. This brook, although so small, was inspired with a proud spirit and murmured against the decree of Providence, which had cast its lot so lowly.

'I wish I were a cloud, to roll all day through the heavens, painted so beautifully as those lovely shapes are colored, and never descending again in showers; or, at least, I wish I was a river, performing some useful duty in the world. Shame on my weak waves and unregarded bubbling. I might as well have never been, as to be puny, insignificant and useless.' When the brook had thus complained, a beautiful tall flower, that bent over its bosom, replied,

'Thou art in error, brook. Puny and insignificant thou mayst be; useless thou art not, for I owe half of my beauty, perhaps my life, to thy refreshing waters. The plants adjacent to thee are greener and richer than the others. The Creator has given thee a duty, which though humble thou must not neglect. Besides who knows what may be thy future destiny? Flow on. I beseech thee.'

The brook heard the rebuke, and danced along its way more cheerfully. On and on it went, growing broader and broader. By and by other rivulets poured their crystal waters into it, and swelled its deepening bosom, in which already began to appear the fairy creatures of the wave, darting about joyfully and glistening in the sun. As its channel grew wider and wider, and yet other branches came gliding

into it, the stream began to assume the importance of a river, and boats were launched on it and rolled on in a meandering course through a teeming country, freshening whatever it touched, and giving the whole scene a new character and beauty.

As it moved on now in majesty and pride, the sound of its gently heaving billows formed itself into the following words:

'At the outset of life, however humble we may seem, there may be in store for us great and unexpected opportunities of doing good and of being great. In the hope of these we should ever pass on without despair or doubt, trusting that perseverance will bring in its own reward. How little I dreamed when I first sprang on my course, what purposes I was destined to fulfil. What happy beings were to owe their bliss to me! What lofty trees, what velvet meadows what golden harvests were to hail my career. Let not the meek and lowly despair-heaven will supply them with noble inducements to virtue.'

LESSON II.

Manners of the Scottish Highlanders.

THE Highlanders were composed of a number of tribes called clans, each of which bore a different name, and lived upon the lands of a different chieftain. The members of every tribe were tied one to another not only by the feudal, but by the patriarchal, bond; for while the individuals who composed it, were vassals or tenants of their own hereditary chieftain, they were also descended from his family, and could count exactly the degree of their descent.

The right of primogeniture had in the revolution of centuries converted these natural principles of connexion between the chieftain and his people, into the most sacred ties of human life. The castle of the chieftain was a kind of palace, to which every man of his tribe was made welcome; where he was entertained according to his station, in time of peace, and whither all flocked, at the sound of war. Thus the meanest of the clan, knowing himself to be as well-born as the head of it, revered in his chieftain his own honor, loved in his clan his own blood, complained not of the difference of station into which Fortune had thrown him, and respected himself.

The chieftain in return bestowed a protection, founded equally off gratitude, and the consciousness of his own interest. Hence the Highlanders, whom more savage nations called savage, carried in the outward expression of their manners the politeness of courts without their vices, and in their bosoms the high point of honor without its follies.

In countries where the surface is rugged, and the climate uncertain, there is little room for the use of the plough; and where no coal is to be found, and few provisions can be raised, there is still less for that of the anvil and shuttle. As the Highlanders were, upon these accounts, excluded from extensive agriculture and manufactures alike, every family raised just as much grain, and made as much raiment as sufficed for itself; and Nature, whom Art cannot force, destined them to the life of shepherds. Hence, they had not that excess of industry which reduces man to a machine, nor that total want of it which sinks him into a rank of animals below his own.

They lived in villages built in valleys and by the sides of rivers. At two seasons of the year, they were busy; the one in the end of spring and beginning of summer, when they put the plough into the little land they had capable of receiving it, sowed their grain, and laid in their provision of turf for the winter's fuel; the other, just before winter, when they reaped their harvest: the rest of the year was all their own for amusement or for war.

If not engaged in war, they indulged themselves in summer in the most delicious of all pleasures, to men in a cold climate and a romantic country, the enjoyment of the sun and of the summer-views of nature; never in the house during the day, even sleeping often at night in the open air among the mountains and woods.

They spent the winter in the chase while the sun was up, and, in the evening, assembled round a common fire, they entertained themselves with the song, the tale, and the dance: but they were ignorant of sitting, days and nights, at games of skill or hazard, amusements which keep the body in inaction, and the mind in a state of vicious activity!

The want of a good and even of a fine ear for music, was almost unknown amongst them; because it was kept in continual practice among the multitude from passion, but by the wiser few, because they knew that the love of music both heightened the courage, and softened the tempers, of the

people. Their vocal music was plaintive, even to the depth of melancholy; their instrumental either lively for brisk dances, or martial for the battle.

Some of their tunes even contained the great but natural idea of a history described in music: the joys of a marriage, the noise of a quarrel, the sounding to arms, the rage of a battle, the broken disorder of a flight, the whole concluding with the solemn dirge and lamentation for the slain. By the loudness and artificial jarring of their war-instrument, the bagpipe, which played continually during the action, their spirits were exalted to a frenzy of courage in battle.

They joined the pleasures of history and poetry to those of music, and the love of classical learning to both; for, in order to cherish high sentiments in the minds of all, every considerable family had a historian who recounted, and a bard who sang, the deeds of the clan and of its chieftain: and all, even the lowest in station, were sent to school in their youth; partly because they had nothing else to do at that age, and partly because literature was thought the distinction, not the want of it the mark, of good birth.

The severity of their climate, the height of their mountains, the distances of their villages from each other, their love of the chase and of war, with their desire to visit and be visited, forced them to great bodily exertions. The vastness of the objects which surrounded them, lakes, mountains, rocks, cataracts, extended and elevated their minds; for they were not in the state of men who only knew the way from one market town to another.

When strangers came amongst them, they received them not with a ceremony which forbids a second visit, not with a coldness which causes repentance of the first, not with an embarrassment which leaves both the landlord and his guest in equal misery, but with the most pleasing of all politeness, the simplicity and cordiality of affection, proud to give that hospitality which they had not received, and to humble the persons who had thought of them with contempt, by showing how little they deserved it.

Having been driven from the low countries of Scotland by invasion, they from time immemorial thought themselves entitled to make reprisals upon the property of their invaders; but they touched not that of each other: so that in the same men, there appeared, to those who did not look into the causes of things, a strange mixture of vice and of virtue; for what we call theft and rapine, they termed right and

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