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THE

DISTRICT SCHOOL READER;

OR,

EXERCISES

IN

READING AND SPEAKING;

DESIGNED

FOR THE HIGHEST CLASS

IN

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

BY WILLIAM D. SWAN,

PRINCIPAL OF THE MAYHEW GRAMMAR SCHOOL, BOSTON.

PHILADELPHIA:

THOMAS, COWPERTHWAIT & CO.

New York, Geo. F. Cooledge & Brother;-Boston, Phillips, Sampson & Co., B. B. Mussev
& Co.;-Baltimore, Cushing & Brother;-Charleston, S. C., McCarter & Allen;-
Louisville, Ky., Morton & Griswold, Beckwith & Morton; - St. Louis,
Fisher & Bennett, Wm, D. Skillman, Shultz & Eberlin; - Cincinnati,
J. F. Desilver; - Nashville, Wm. T. Berry, Chas. W. Smith; -
Memphis, C. C. Cleaves; - Lexington, C. S. Bodley & Co.;-
Macon, Geo., J. M. Boardman.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by WILLIAM D.

SWAN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

SWAN'S SERIES OF READERS.

RECOMMENDATIONS.

Extract from the Records of the School Committee of the City of Boston, "IN SCHOOL COMMITTEE, November 5, 1844.

"Ordered, That SWAN'S GRAMMAR SCHOOL READER be introduced into our Grammar Schools, as the Reading book of the Second and Third Classes. Attest, S. F. MCCLEARY, Secretary."

From the Principal of the Harvard Grammar School, Charlestown. HARVARD SCHOOL, CHARLESTOWN, December 26, 1845.

MR. SWAN: Dear Sir-I am happy to say to you, that all your series of books are now used in our Public Schools. Of the first three of the series I have al ready expressed to you my high approval. The "District School Reader" we have just introduced, and are well pleased with it. The selections which it contains are unexceptionable in their moral tone, and, we think, judicious as examples for practice in reading.

I am glad to find, in the "District School Reader," many selections from distinguished modern authors; also, that you have rejected most of those war and battle pieces of poetry, which have been so common, in times past, in our School Readers, for I believe them unsuited to the spirit of the age.

I consider your series, as a whole, better than any other with which I am acquainted, and I cannot doubt that its success will be equal to its merits. Very respectfully, yours, P. H. SWEETSER.

From the Teachers of the Salem Grammar Schools.

WILLIAM D. SWAN, ESQ.:

SALEM, December 24, 1845.

Dear Sir We have carefully examined your "District School Reader," copies of which you kindly sent us several weeks ago, and do not hesitate to express our unqualified approbation of the selections, arrangement, and execution of the work. We have for some time used the other parts of your series in our schools with much satisfaction, and, we think, success.

We regard your series as now complete, and as better adapted to meet the wants of our public schools than any other series we have ever examined. We most sincerely wish you a rich reward for your judicious labors in this important department, and earnestly commend your series of Readers to teachers and committees, believing that the adoption and proper use of your whole series will do very much for the improvement of the rising generation in the most interesting and useful exercise of reading. With much respect, yours, &c. J. B. FAIRFIELD, D. P. GALLOUP,

Brown School.
Hacker

ALBERT LACKEY, Pickering "

Jos. WILLIAMS,

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THIS Volume-the concluding one of the seriesconsists of selections for reading, in prose and verse, exercises in articulation, pauses, inflections of the voice, &c., with such rules and suggestions as are deemed useful to the learner. It is designed for the highest classes in Public and Private Schools.

The reading lessons, consisting of descriptive, narrative, dramatic, and didactic pieces, contain just moral sentiments, and present such varieties of style as are necessary to teach good reading. Some slight alterations have, in a few instances, been made, to adapt them to the design of the work.

The exercises in articulation are nearly similar to those contained in the compiler's series of Primary and Grammar School Readers. The importance of this branch of instruction is fully shown in those works. If proper attention be bestowed upon it at the earliest period of instruction, when the organs of speech are flexible and habits are easily formed, we shall hardly fail to lay the foundation of accurate and impressive reading.

The rules and exercises are selected principally from Walker's Rhetorical Grammar. But few have been inserted, and such only as will be easily understood and reduced to practice by the learner. The pauses, inflections of the voice, and the proper emphasis to be used in reading, have not been designated by marks in the reading lessons. These must be left to the taste and judgment of the teacher. The best method for teaching children to use the proper inflections in reading, is to enable them to understand what they read. If they fail in this, all the rules and exercises in the world will avail them nothing.

To the Teachers of Public Schools throughout the United States this work is respectfully dedicated, by their fellow-laborer,

BOSTON, August, 1845.

WILLIAM D. SWAN.

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