“ One of the greatest services we can do the young mind is to accustom it to the perception of wholes, and whether this whole be a lyric or a narrative poem like Evangeline, it is almost equally important that the young reader should learn to hold it as such in his mind. To treat a poem as a mere quarry out of which a particularly smooth stone can be chipped is to misinterpret poetry. A poem is a statue, not a quarry. ”

“ Don't cry till you are out of the wood.
Drive thy business; let not that drive thee.
Early to bed, and early to rise,
Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
East or west, home is best.
Enough is as good as a feast.
Everybody's business is nobody's business. ”

“ There's a thrush that sings loud,—it has sung for three years;
Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the bird.
'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
Bright volumes of vapor through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.
Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
Down which she so often has tripped with her pail;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's,
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.
She looks, and her heart is in heaven ”

“ The prose, as already intimated, is confined to groups of proverbs and familiar sayings. In one aspect these single lines of prose present difficulties to the young reader: they are condensed forms of expression, even though the words may be simple; but they offer the convenient small change of intellectual currency which it is well for one to be supplied with at an early stage of one's journey, and they afford to the teacher a capital opportunity for conversational and other exercises. ”

“ The selection must be its own advocate, but it may be worth while to point out that the plan of the book supposes an easy approach to the more serious poems by means of the light ditties of the nursery; that there is no more reason for depriving a child of honest fun in his verse than there is for condemning the child's elders to grave poetry exclusively; and that it is not necessary or even desirable for a poem to come at once within the reader's comprehension. ”

“ Be it remembered that he was not so much to read verse written expressly for him, as to overhear the great poets when they sang so simply, so directly, and yet with so penetrating a note that the burden of their song, full, it may be, to the child's elders, would have an awakening power for the child himself. ”

“ He that has but four and spends five has no need of a purse.
He that knows not how to hold his tongue knows not how to talk.
He that lives on hope has but a slender diet.
He that plants trees loves others besides himself. ”

“ The night was dark, no father was there;
The child was wet with dew;
The mire was deep and the child did weep,
And away the vapor flew.
THE LITTLE BOY FOUND. The little boy lost in the lonely fen,
Led by the wandering light,
Began to cry; but God, ever nigh,
Appeared like his father in white;
He kissed the child, and by the hand led,
And to his mother brought,
Who, in sorrow pale, through the lonely dale,
Her little boy weeping sought.
ON THE VOWELS. We are little airy creatures,
All of different voice and features ”

“ The editor has purposely avoided breaking up the book into lesson portions or giving it the air of a text-book. There is no reason why children should not read books as older people read them, for pleasure, and dissociate them from a too persistent notion of tasks. It is entirely possible that some teachers may find it out of the question to lead their classes straight through this book, but there is nothing to forbid them from judicious skipping, or, what is perhaps more to the point, from helping pupils over a difficult word or phrase when it is encountered ”

“ When he has mastered it he is ready to make the acquaintance of the world's literature in the English tongue." In that book, therefore, the pupil was led by easy exercises to an intelligent reading of pieces of literature, both verse and prose, so that he might become in a slight degree familiar with literature before he parted with his sole text-book. But the largest space had, of necessity, to be given to practice work, which led straight to literature, indeed, though to a small quantity only. ”

“ Who'll carry him to the grave?
"I," said the Kite,
"If 't is not in the night,
And I'll carry him to his grave."
Who'll carry the link?
"I," said the Linnet,
"I'll fetch it in a minute,
And I'll carry the link."
Who'll be the chief mourner?
"I," said the Dove,
"I mourn for my love,
And I'll be chief mourner."
Who'll bear the pall?
"We," said the Wren,
Both the cock and the hen,
"And we'll bear the pall."
Who'll sing a psalm?
"I," said the Thrush,
As she sat in a bush,
"And I'll sing a psalm."
And who'll toll the bell?
"I," said the Bull,
"Because I can pull;" ”

“ The agreeable task of the editor, therefore, was to search English and American literature for those poems which had fallen from the lips of poets with so sweet a cadence and in such simple notes that they would offer but slight difficulties to a child who had mastered the rudiments of reading. ”

“ It would be a capital use of the book also if teachers were to draw upon it for poems which their pupils should, in the suggestive phrase, learn by heart. To this purpose the contents are singularly well adapted; for, from the single line proverb to a poem by Wordsworth, there is such a wide range of choice that the teacher need not resort to the questionable device of giving children fragments and bits of verse and prose to commit to memory. ”

“ Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers;
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked;
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
* * * * *
Rid a cock-horse to Banbury-cross
To see an old lady upon a white horse,
Rings on her fingers, and bells on her toes,
And so she makes music wherever she goes. ”

“ A fool and his money are soon parted.
A fool may ask more questions in an hour than a wise man can answer in
seven years.
A fool may make money, but it needs a wise man to spend it.
A friend in need is a friend indeed. ”

“ The verse offered in that book was drawn from nursery rhymes and from a few of the great masters of poetical form; the prose was furnished by a selection of proverbs, some of the simplest folk stories, and two passages, closing the book, from the Old and New Testaments.
The pupil, upon laying down his Primer and Reader and proposing to enter the promised land of literature, could find a volume of prose consisting of Fables and Folk Stories, into the pleasures of which he had already been initiated ”

“ Cannot place Humpty Dumpty as he was before.
* * * * *
Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree-top,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,
When the bough bends, the cradle will fall,
Down will come baby, bough, cradle, and all. ”

“ POOR SUSAN William Wordsworth
VERSE AND PROSE FOR BEGINNERS IN READING. ALPHABET. A was an apple-pie;
B bit it;
C cut it;
D dealt it;
E ate it;
F fought for it;
G got it;
H had it;
J joined it;
K kept it;
L longed for it:
M mourned for it;
N nodded at it;
O opened it;
P peeped into it;
Q quartered it;
R ran for it;
S stole it;
T took it;
V viewed it;
W wanted it;
X, Y, Z, and amperse-and,
All wished for a piece in hand.
A DEWDROP. Little drop of dew,
Like a gem you are;
I believe that you
Must have been a star.
When the day is bright,
On the grass you lie ”