kind can fully perform the office which it assumes. The labor expended
in this direction, though all unseen by the casual observer, has been
neither light nor brief. It can be duly appreciated by none but the
experienced teacher.

All words in the exercises, requiring explanation, have been arranged,
as regular lessons in spelling and definition. In these definitions,
however, it must be kept in mind, that no attempt has been made to give
_all the meanings of which a word is susceptible, but that only which it
bears in the particular place in the exercise where it is found._ There
is a special educational advantage in thus leading the mind of the pupil
definitely to fix upon the _precise import_ of a word, in some
particular use or application of it.

All proper names occurring in the text, and at all likely to embarrass
the learner, have been explained in brief, comprehensive notes. These
notes involve many matters, Geographical, Biographical, and Historical,
which are not a little interesting in themselves, aside from the special
purpose subserved by them in the present connection.

All this has been done, and more, in order to secure that kind of
interest in the exercises which comes of reading what is clearly
understood; and because no perfect reading is possible, where the reader
himself fails to perceive the meaning of what he reads.

In the selection and adaptation of the pieces, the highest aim has been
to make and to leave the best moral impression; and this, not by dull
and formal teachings, but by the pleasanter, and, therefore, more
powerful, means of incidental and unexpected suggestion. Admonition is
then most likely to be heeded, when it comes through the channel of