Additional Selections.
TO THE TEACHER.—We believe that you will find the preceding pages unusually full and rich in illustrative selections; but, should additional work be needed for reviews or for maturer classes, the following selections will afford profitable study. Let the pupils discuss the thought and the poetic form, as well as the logical construction of these passages. We do not advise putting them in diagram.
Speak clearly, if you speak at all;
Carve every word before you let it fall.—Holmes.
The robin and the blue-bird, piping loud,
Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee;
The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud
Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be;
And hungry crows, assembled in a crowd,
Clamored their piteous prayer incessantly,
Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said,
"Give us, O Lord, this day, our daily bread!"
—Longfellow,
Better to stem with heart and hand
The roaring tide of life than lie,
Unmindful, on its flowery strand,
Of God's occasions drifting by.
Better with naked nerve to bear
The needles of this goading air
Than, in the lap of sensual ease, forego
The godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know.
—Whittier.
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified.—Lowell.
Exercises on the Composition of the Sentence and the Paragraph.
TO THE TEACHER.—These and similar "Exercises" are entirely outside of the regular lessons. They are offered to those teachers who may not, from lack of time or of material, find it convenient to prepare extra or miscellaneous work better suited to their own needs.
The questions appended to the following sentences are made easy of answer, but in continuing such exercises the teacher will, of course, so frame the questions as more and more to throw responsibility on the pupil.
It will be evident that this work aims not only to enforce instruction given before Lesson 17, but, by an easy and familiar examination of words and groups of words, to prepare the way for what is afterwards presented more formally and scientifically. ADAPTED FROM IRVING'S "SKETCH BOOK."