COMMON SCHOOL READINGS; CONTAINING NEW SELECTIONS IN PROSE AND POETRY FOR DECLAMATION, RECITATION, AND ELOCUTIONARY By JOHN SWETT, SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, STATE OF CALIFORNIA, NEW YORK: W. H. P. HOPKINS. NORTHEND'S SERIES. Northend's Child's Speaker. New in 1870. A fresh selection for the smallest order of little folks. Contents are varied between prose, poetry, and dialogue. Also exercises for recitation in concert. Post-paid, 60 cents. Northend's Little Orator. Similar in plan to the "Child's Speaker," and for the same class. Good moral lessons, suggestive thoughts, and entertaining narrative go hand in hand with the cultivation of memory and expression. 60 cents. Northend's National Orator. A compilation for intermediate classes in schools and academies, containing the standard gems of the language that are adapted to elocutionary purposes, many of which are to be found in no other School Speaker. $1.25. Northend's Entertaining Dialogues. A very excellent variety of dialogues, humorous, moral, and classical, in prose and verse, nearly one hundred in all. For exhibitions, parlor entertainments, etc., the work has special value. $1.25. Swett's Common School Speaker. Contains pieces adapted to By the late State Superintendent of California. the tastes and understanding of school children; of modern character, and excluding much of the waste matter which in similar books is never used. $1.25. Raymond's Patriotic Speaker. A splendid compilation of the choice literature of the last decade-emphatically a book of the times, carefully collated from the best rhetorical models at the Bar, in the Legislature, on the Platform, and in the Pulpit. The poetical selections breathe the spirit of recent events. Of course the topics of the war are prominent, but both sides are impartially represented. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the s's c. s. s. PREFACE. THIS Compilation of prose and poetical selections for declamations, recitations, and elocutionary readings, is designed for use in Grammar Schools and ungraded country schools. The large size and high price of most of the "School Speakers" practically exclude them from schools below the grade of High Schools. A book of medium size, and reasonable price, seems to be needed for our Common Schools. It has been the aim of the compiler to select pieces adapted to the tastes and understanding of school children, to make modern selections not found in other works of a similar character, and to exclude the waste matter, never used by either teachers or pupils, which fills so large a space in many works on elocution. The prose declamations, selected from American orators, are patriotic and national in their character; and the poetical selections, mostly from American poets, are full of that fervid devotion to freedom which constitutes the life of the 402 .894 (RECAP) 70406 |