The Fifth Reader of the School and Family Series

should be familiar, but none of which would be presented in a miscellaneous reading-book that should omit all notice of the subjects themselves. But, to meet all possible demands for suitable variety, we have given “ Miscellaneous Divisions” also, and in these have endeavored to make good whatever may be wanting in the more scientific portions. In Part I. we have given a pretty full elucidation of some of the higher principles of elocution, with abundant examples for illustration; and in Part XI. we have made such a selection of reading-lessons, in great part poetical, as will present, in chronological order, the outlines of Ancient History.

Of the amount of useful knowledge which the plan adopted in these reading-books is calculated to impart, we need only remark that we have aimed to present the leading truths of science in a form as attractive as possible, and have therefore avoided the dry details and technicalities which would have been required in a complete scientific text-book. Our object has been to present a pleasing introduction to science rather than to give any thing like a full exposition of any one department. The great mass of pupils in our schools know nothing whatever of many of the subjects here treated, nor is there any possibility of their becoming acquainted with them by any other method than by the one here adopted. It is thought, if all the pupils in our schools should acquire some knowledge of these sub jects while attending to their ordinary reading-lessons, and become interested in the wonderful truths with which they abound, they will, in most instances, be stimulated to seek a farther acquaintance with them, and that the foundations may thus be laid for a wider dissemination of scientific knowledge, and a higher degree of popular education than has hitherto been thought attainable.

We might refer to the Natural History illustrations in the present volume as surpassing any thing of the kind ever before published in this country; but while their beauty—for which we are indebted to the pencil of a Parsons—will be acknowledged by all, it is their utility, as objects of interest and instruction to pupils, to which we would more particularly call attention; for not only does an accurate and striking illustration of an object often give a more correct idea of it than pages of description, but so maps it upon the memory that, by the most interesting of all associations, the very description itself is indelibly pictured there. The admirable system of “object teaching,” whose principles should be carried throughout the entire educational course of every individual, could scarcely receive better aids than those furnished in the illustrations here given.

For valuable aid in several of the scientific divisions of the present work, it affords me pleasure here, as in the preceding volume, to acknowledge my indebtedness to Prof. N. B. Webster, of Virginia; and while doing this I would take occasion to express the hope that, however much the citizens of different states and sections may differ in their political views, in the sacred cause of science and popular education they may ever be united.

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