SILVER-BURDETT READERS Fourth Book BY ELLA M. POWERS AND THOMAS M. BALLIET DEAN OF THE SCHOOL OF PEDAGOGY, NEW YORK SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF GINN & CO, THE SILVER-BURDETT READERS FIRST BOOK. 144 pages. Simple, carefully graded, and of intrinsic interest to children. SECOND BOOK. 175 pages. A text-book in reading, well graded as to vocabulary and subject matter. THIRD BOOK. 240 pages. Made up of selections from the best literature suitable for children. FOURTH BOOK. 288 pages. Distinctive for literary quality, and representative of our diversified national literature. FIFTH BOOK. 384 pages. A real introduction to literature, English and American, through selections within the interest and comprehension of the pupils. COPYRIGHT, 1902, 1906, BY ELLA M. POWERS AND THOMAS M. BALLIET. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PREFACE. A TEXT-BOOK in reading should be based distinctively on literature. The choice of selections for this Fourth Book has been governed by their literary quality and their appeal to the interests of young people. Lessons merely for the purpose of imparting information have no proper place in a reading text-book; they must necessarily be too brief and too disconnected to be of value. The extracts have been transcribed directly from the writings of the respective authors without any verbal changes. In the few cases where omissions have seemed necessary, these have been indicated in the usual way. In the making of a series of readers for American children, the propriety of giving much space to American writers cannot be questioned; in every highly civilized nation the schools now emphasize the teaching of the native literature. Our young people should appreciate also the great treasures of that literature. which is the common possession of England and America, and for this reason English literature is duly represented. Moreover, a series of reading books designed 3 for general use in our schools should be broadly national in scope and in spirit, in order that the children may come in touch with the characteristic life, thought, and ideals of distant parts of their country. For this reason selections have been taken from representative writers of the North, South, East, and West; it is hoped that this will contribute, in no small measure, to the development of a broadly national character and spirit. The selections from the works of Lowell, Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier, Hawthorne, Holmes, Cary, and Thaxter are published by permission of and by special arrangement with Houghton, Mifflin and Company, the authorized publishers of their works. "The Story of Elizabeth Zane" is from John Esten Cooke's "Stories of the Old Dominion," published by the American Book Company. "Through the Crevasse" is an extract from "The Last of the Flat Boats" by George Cary Eggleston, and is used by courtesy of the author and of the publishers, the Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Company. Permission for the use of the selections from their publications has been kindly granted by Little, Brown and Company, G. P. Putnam's Sons, Rand, McNally and Company, Harper and Brothers, and Charles Scribner's Sons; also by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward and the late Abby Morton Diaz. |