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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836,
BY JOHN HALL,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Connecticut.

BOSTON:
STEREOTYPED BY SHEPARD, OLIVER AND CO.

PREFACE.

THE following work is designed for those who have already learned to call their words with fluency, and are sufficiently advanced to be taught how to read with propriety and good taste. Among those who are thus far advanced are many grades of proficients, demanding different amounts of instruction. It would be idle to think of providing a separate reading-book for each of these grades; any attempt to graduate books to their respective wants, would produce complexity and confusion, rather than any real advantage. Whilst some would be too simple to benefit those of an advanced standing, others would exceed the capacity of those in their early stages. This evil I have endeavored to avoid, and have provided a series of reading lessons in progressive order, beginning with selections adapted to those who are in their first rudiments as it respects rhetorical execution, and advancing gradually to meet the wants of higher, and still higher proficients. It is not presuming too much to believe that those, who have made considerable attainments in elocution, will here find something worthy of attention;-they will certainly find much that is new, in whatever light they may consider its value.

Without much reflecting on the subject, some may think that Parts I. II. and III., are dilated beyond the proper limits for a reading-book designed for extensive use. To this sug

gestion it may be replied, that much of this seeming prolixity is a mere illusion. A large proportion of these pages, especially in Parts II. and III., is occupied only with examples for illustration, and for the exercise of the voice. After the examples are deducted, it will be found that what is, strictly and merely, preceptive, is comprised within very moderate limits. In my own opinion, I might as well have said nothing, as to have said much less. There is hardly a stranger conceit on the whole subject of education, than the one that correct reading can be taught successfully without precepts, or with such few and meager ones as to strip them of all

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