French Reader on the Cumulative Method / The story of Rodolphe and Coco the Chimpanzee

NEW YORK -o- CINCINNATI -o- CHICAGO AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY


It has become quite commonplace to accompany contributions to class-rooms by either an elaborate raison d'être or by an unqualified apology. Experience has shown that there is a lack of logic in the practice. If the book turns out to be good, it carries its own justification; if bad, no excuse will palliate its being. No doting solicitude, no powerful sponsorship ever helped a frail homunculus on its legs; it is the inherent worth and usefulness of the homo that did it. That ubiquitous, mysterious, and inscrutable entity, called the Public, is merciless in its verdicts. It scorns an ingenious exhibition of modesty as much as a bolstered-up pretense; it never falters, it never succumbs to piteous wails; for it knows no pity. But since approaching its majesty implies unavoidably an assumption, no effort shall be made to escape the implication in bringing this offering to its notice.
Now, our offering is the result of a self-imposed task, viz., the construction of a narrative in which the varied activities of childhood shall be presented in the plainest, simplest, and in the most facile language; in which casualties, events especially relished by the youthful tyro, follow each other in rapid succession, excluding purposely the fanciful and picturesque as beyond his range. But as a substitute for the needs of the latter, as also for the mises en scènes of actions in the story, the youthful imagination is assisted by numerous appropriate illustrations, pressed into service to supply objectively any absence of color and drapery.

One of the designs of the story is the bringing out of prominent grammatical features, such as different classes of verbs, force and value of prepositions, use of adjectives, presentation of lucid syntactical adjustments, and enough of idiomatic expressions to pave the way into a more natural flow of the language, and thereby wean gradually from a too English literalness.