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ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE

PRESENT EDITION.

It was the original design of this work, as prepared by Dr. Knox, to furnish a manual of English composition for the use of the higher schools in England. It was not the intention of the compiler to give the cream of all the best English authors, for the use and gratification of the literary. He had an humbler but not less useful object in view, namely, to communicate valuable instruction and rational entertainment to the youth of his country, at the same time that he supplied them with the best models of English composition. We have not ventured to change the original plan. We have conceived that the work would be more useful, and on the whole more interesting to the American Public, if we suffered it to retain its original character. We have only removed such articles as were more immediately suited to the meridian of England,

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and have endeavoured to supply their place by others better adapted to the circumstances of our own country. It has been our object in preparing this work, to supply families with a set of volumes particularly calculated for the improvement of their younger members; and although it has been our aim to retain or insert such articles only, as we thought to be written in good taste, yet we have sought rather to provide the public in general with a useful and entertaining manual, than to administer to the peculiar gratification of the literary.

BOSTON, JUNE 1, 1825.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE

TENTH ENGLISH EDITION.

THIS BOOK owes its origin to a wish, expressed by persons of experience in the conduct of schools, that such a compilation might be published for their use, as, by means of a full page, and a small, but very legible type, might contain in one Volume a little introductory Library. A common Pocket Volume is soon perused, and laid aside for want of novelty; but to supply a large school with a constant succession, or with voluminous SETS of English Books, is too expensive and inconvenient to be generally practicable. A quantity of matter is therefore collected in this one Volume, great enough to fill up a considerable time and furnish an abundance of knowledge, before it can be read to satiety or entirely exhausted; and it may properly be said to constitute, what it was intended to be, a portable library for learners from the age of nine or ten, to the age at which they leave their school. At the same time, it is evident upon inspection, that it abounds with such Extracts, as may be read with pleasure and improvement, in the more advanced periods of life. Though it professes to be a schoolbook, and is chiefly and primarily adapted to young scholars; yet it is certain, that all readers may find it an agreeable companion, and particularly qualified to enliven short intervals of leisure.

The compilation is calculated not only for classical schools, but for those also which are limited to the language of our own country. It is certain young persons cannot read a book containing so much matter, without great improvement in the English language, together with correct ideas on many pleasing subjects of taste and general literature; and, which is of much higher importance, they cannot fail to imbibe from it, together with an increase of elegant knowledge, the purest principles of virtue and religion. It may be employed in various methods for the improvement of learners according to the judgment of various instructers. The pupils may not only read it in private, or in the classes in the presence of their

teachers, at stated times; but write out select paragraphs in their copy-books, commit favourite passages to memory, and endeavour to recite them with the proper gesture and pronunciation for the improvement of their powers of utterance. With respect indeed to the Art of Speaking, so much talked of and pretended to, in the present age; it depends more on practice under the superintendence of a master, than on written precepts; and this Book professes to offer matter for practice, rather than systematic instruction, which may be more advantageously given Vivá Voce, by him who is able to enforce and illustrate his rules by his example. To learn the practice of speaking in public, or the art of managing the voice, and adorning the Delivery, by written rules alone, is like learning to play on a musical instrument by the bare assistance of a Book of Directions, without a master; a mode usually found no less inefficacious than tedious and operose.

Upon the whole there cannot be a doubt but that a Book, like this, purposely compiled for the use of young persons of both sexes, copious beyond former examples, singularly various in its contents, selected from writers whose characters are established without controversy, abounding with entertainment and useful information, inculcating the purest principles of morality and religion, and displaying excellent models of style and language, must effectually contribute to the improvement of the RISING GENERATION in knowledge, taste, and virtue. The Public have, indeed, already felt, and acknowledged its utility, by the least fallible proof, their general reception of it. It has been adopted in all the most respectable places of education, and has scattered, far and wide, the seeds of excellence, which may one day arrive at maturity and add to the happiness both of the community and of human nature.

What ENGLISH book similar to this volume, calculated entirely for the use of young students at schools, and under private tuition, was to be found in the days of our fathers? None, certainly. The consequence was, that the ENGLISH PART of education (to many the most important part) was defective even in places most celebrated for classic discipline; and boys were often enabled to read Latin perfectly, and write it tolerably, who, from the disuse or the want of models for practice, were wretchedly qualified to do either in their native language.-From this unhappy circumstance, classical education was brought into some degree of disgrace; and preposterous it certainly was, to study, during many of the best years of life, foreign and dead languages, with the most scrupulous accuracy, and at the same time entirely to neglect that mother tongue, which is in daily and hourly requisition; to be well read in TULLY, and a total stranger to

ADDISON; to have HOMER and HORACE by heart, and to know little more than the names of MILTON and POPE.

Classical learning, thus defective in a point so obvious to detection, incurred the imputation of pedantry. It was observed to assume an important air of superiority, without displaying, to the common observer, any just pretensions to it. It even appeared with marks of inferiority, when brought into occasional collision with well-informed understandings, cultivated by English literature alone, but greatly proficient in the school of experience. Persons who had never extended their views to ancient and classic lore, but had been confined in their education to English, triumphed in the common intercourse of society, over the academical scholar; and learning often hid her head in confusion, when pointed at, as pedantry, by the finger of a loquacious DUNCE.

It became highly expedient therefore to introduce more of English reading into our classical schools; that those who went out into the world with their coffers richly stored with the golden medals of antiquity, might at the same time be furnished with a sufficiency of current coin from the modern mint, for the commerce of ordinary life: but there was no schoolbook, copious and various enough, entirely calculated for this purpose. The Grecian and Roman History, the Spectators, and Plutarch's Lives, were indeed sometimes introduced, and certainly with great advantage. But still, an uniformity of English books, in schools, was a desideratum. It was desirable that all the students of the same class, provided with copies of the same book, containing the proper variety, might be enabled to read it together; and thus benefit each other by an emulous study of the same subject or composition, at the same time, and under the eye of their common

master.

For this important purpose, the large collections, entitled "ELEGANT EXTRACTS," both in Prose and Verse, were projected. Their reception is the fullest testimony in favour both of the design and its execution.

The labour indeed of a Compiler of a book like this is humble; but its beneficial influence is extensive; and in this instance, he feels a pride and pleasure in the reflection, that he has been serving his country effectually, without sacrificing either to avarice or to vanity. It is a disinterested effort. It gratifies neither the love of money nor of fame; for the Editor claims no property in the work, and is conscious that it is of too humble a nature to contribute any thing to celebrity.

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