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THE NEW CENTURY

FOURTH READER

SELECTED AND ADAPTED

FROM

THE WORLD'S STANDARD LITERATURE.

CHICAGO AND NEW YORK:

RAND, MCNALLY & COMPANY.

588192
C

COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY RAND, MCNALLY & Co.

We gratefully acknowledge the kindness shown by several eminent educators
in giving us, in the preparation of the text, the benefit of their long professional
experience.

The selections from Lowell, Warner, Howells, Whittier, Hayes, Lucy Larcom, and
Celia Thaxter are used by permission of, and special arrangement with, Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., publishers of the works of the authors named.

For the use of other valuable copyrighted matter, thanks are extended to
Roberts Bros., The American Publishing Company, G. P. Putnam's Sons, Little,
Brown & Co., Harper & Bros., and the American Publishers' Corporation.

We are also under obligations to Theodore Roosevelt, S. L. Clemens, W. D.
Howells, J. T. Trowbridge, Mrs. R. D. C. Robbins, Bishop J. L. Spalding, and
Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller, for allowing us to use extracts from their works.

PREFACE.

In placing this book in the hands of pupil and teacher, it will not be amiss to offer a few suggestions on the art of reading. Few understand this simple art; yet to have mastered it means that we are to get, through life, twice, often thrice and four times, as much from what we read. With the Fourth Reader we begin to study something more than the pronunciation of words. From this point on, reading should be a training in the gathering up of thought from the words or symbols with which we have already become more or less familiar.

It is a matter of surprise how much thought a printed page contains. The greater the writer, the more there is in a page of his writing. To extract all that the classic author has stored away for us is by no means easy. The truth is, we must re-create his thought, his dreams, his noble conceptions, after him; in short, we have to share in his genius and his skill. In our case, fortunately, he is our guide, and leads us if we are only willing to be led.

1. The first practical suggestion in the art of reading is: Do not try to get everything out of a piece the first time you read it. First, read the words and be sure that they are all familiar. The systematic use of the dictionary is absolutely necessary. Besides this, the teacher should go rapidly over the lesson before the pupil begins to study it at all, to put the student in touch with the spirit of the piece and call attention to difficulties.

2. We have said that the reader must create after the author. No more practical way of doing this properly can be found than writing the piece over again, chiefly for the exercise of trying to express the author's thoughts as well as the author has done. A good teacher will require an exercise of this kind upon many reading lessons, both as a lesson in composition from the masters and as the only really thorough preparation for the reading lesson itself. Poetry, of course, must be cast in prose; but the value of the rewriting is not less than in the case of an essay or story first written in prose.

3. The third step is the reading of the piece aloud with proper expression. Only when the thought or sentiment is mastered fully, is correct expression possible. When the thought or sentiment is mastered, and has taken a firm hold upon the interest of the student, then correct vocal expression will come naturally.

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