It is the proper and laudable custom in most schools, whether of boys or girls, to give to the pupils, at least once a week, a poetic task, to be committed by them to memory.
The choice is sometimes difficult; and if it be made from the “Speaker," or any other expensive work, the injury done to those books by the learner in a few hours, is greater than would be many months' use of them for reading in only. On this account, a cheap manual of sterling poetry, to be used principally as a Poetic Task Book, has hitherto been a desideratum in our schools; which it is hoped this new school-book will supply.