Page:Six selections from Irving's Sketch-book.pdf/13

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PREFACE.

The compilers of this book, desiring to give practical help to teachers and pupils in beginning the study of English Literature, feel warranted by long experience in the school-room in offering certain suggestions.

The writer studied should become a friend, a companion; "for indeed there is something of companionship between the author and the reader." The main facts of his life should be given; but the students should collect additional ones, and by means of them and of familiar talks by their teacher, there should be presented simply, but vividly, the man and the author.

The general intent and the particular meaning of the writer in the extracts studied should be made very clear: pupils should be encouraged to make criticisms, and to ask questions; they should be made to reproduce passages in fresh words, and to write out the story or tell it orally as briefly as possible. Words ought to be defined, sentences analyzed, obscure expressions simplified, and numerous questions asked to lead pupils to use the knowledge they already possess, and to search for other items that will make interesting pieces selected for study.

Reading aloud will, of course, form a part of many exercises, and it is a most valuable test of a scholar's comperhen-

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