printed page the very thought the author intended to convey, the pupil
was expected to read orally so as to express that thought to all
hearers. If the correct thought was thus heard, no questions were
needed. The test of reading orally is the communication of thought by
the reader to the intelligent and attentive hearer, and the words of the
author carry this message more accurately than can any other words the
pupil may select.

[Noted Selections]

The selections in the Rhetorical Guide were made, first of all, to teach
the art of reading. There was therefore great variety. Second, to
inculcate a love for literature. Therefore the selections were taken
from the great writers,--poets, orators, essayists, historians, and
preachers. The extracts are wonderfully complete in themselves,--one
does not need to read the whole of Byron's Don Juan to appreciate the
six stanzas that describe the thunder-storm on the Alps. Of the poetical
extracts all the users of this book will remember Southey's "Cataract
of Lodore" with its exacting drill on the ending,--"ing," Longfellow's
"Village Blacksmith" and the "Reaper and the Flowers;" Bryant's
"Thanatopsis" and "Song of the Stars;" Wolfe's "Burial of Sir John
Moore;" Gray's "Elegy;" Mrs. Hemans's "Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers;"
Cowper's "My Mother's Picture;" Jones's "What Constitutes a State;"
Scott's "Lochinvar;" Halleck's "Marco Bozzaris;" Drake's "American
Flag;" and Mrs. Thrale's "Three Warnings." As an introduction to the
thought, imagery and diction of Shakespeare, there were "Hamlet's
Soliloquy," "Speech of Henry Fifth to his Troops," "Othello's Apology,"
"The Fall of Cardinal Wolsey" and his death, the "Quarrel of Brutus and
Cassius" (often committed to memory and spoken) and Antony's Oration
over dead Caesar. The extracts from orations were chosen largely for