THE PROGRESSIVE FOURTH READER, FOR. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS: CONTAINING THE ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION, ILLUSTRATED BY Educt 758.66.863 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY BY EXCHANGE JAN 8.1937 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by NELSON M. HOLBROOK, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts, Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. Nearly all the pieces in this book, being either revisions of the original or written expressly for it, are protected by the copyright. PREFACE. IN preparing this Fourth Book of their series of "Progressive Readers," the authors have adhered to their original plan, of making not only a progressive series, but of making each book progressive in itself, designing, thus, to lead the scholar by easy and natural steps to the knowledge and practice of a proper and graceful style of reading. In elocution, no less than in any other art or science, young learners need to be exercised often in the elementary principles and rules, so that their practical application may become easy and natural; and therefore the rudimental principles, though partially presented in the Third Book, are given more at length in Part I. of this: the topics of Emphasis, Inflection, and Modulation, especially, are treated more fully; and a few rules for the reading of poetry are also introduced. The book, in this respect, is made complete in itself, so that those pupils who have not been previously trained in the elementary principles and rules in the preceding book, or have learned them but imperfectly, will have the opportunity of studying them in this; while others, who have learned them before, by finding them still further illustrated in the new examples and reading exercises to which they are applied, will study them anew with increased pleasure and profit. The authors are aware that some persons would altogether discard from our reading-books any formal statement of the rules of elocution, and leave teachers to give the necessary instruction orally and by example. And some teachers, it may be, require no study of those rules, even when they are furnished. But would they do so with regard to textbooks on Arithmetic, or Geometry, or Grammar? We presume not. Why, then, should the art of reading, which is governed by principles and rules as fixed and as easy of application as those of any other art or science, be expected to be acquired without the knowledge of its ele mentary principles and rules? In the judgment of the authors, it is to be ascribed, mainly, to the neglect of proper instruction in these first principles of elocution, that so few good readers are to be found in our common schools, and even in higher seminaries. Lest, however, some should imagine that an undue proportion of the book is occupied with a statement of elocationary principles and rules, |