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ON

ELOCUTION

AND

GOOD READING FOR GIRLS

Based on Grammatical Analysis.

With a Choice Selection of Extracts for Reading and Repetition, classified for
Practice in various styles of Reading, and annotated for Expression,
Emphasis, Pauses, and the Analysis of Sentences:

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'MANY persons speak well who read badly, and good reading is not necessarily allied with good speaking; but I confidently assert that the two arts are so nearly connected, that the easiest way to learn to speak, is to learn to read. But it is not alone as a pathway to speaking that I earnestly exhort you to the study of reading: it is an accomplishment to be sought for its own sake. It has incalculable uses and advantages apart from its introduction to oratory. Tolerable readers are few good readers are extremely rare. Not one educated man in ten can read a paragraph in a newspaper with so much propriety, that to listen to him is a pleasure, and not a pain. Why should this be? Why should correct reading be rare, pleasant reading be rarer still, and good reading found only in one man in ten thousand?'-EDWARD W. Cox, Letters to a Law Student.

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'LEARN to read well and you have the power of entertaining everybody in every situation-more persons for a longer time, in a more delightful manner, than if you were to play ever so well on a musical instrument, or sing ever so well. Out of a large company there will be found hardly one who loves music, and out of a multitude who love music, there will be hardly one real judge of it. Not so with fine reading: it is understood and relished by everybody.'-J. NEALE.

PREFACE.

THE present little work takes up a middle ground between the numerous' Speakers' aiming more specifically to teach Declamation or Oratory, and the still more numerous class of 'Readers,' or 'Collections' where the object is mainly, if not entirely, by means of extracts selected from various authors, to convey information or entertainment to the reader. It aims primarily to teach the art of easy, correct, and tasteful reading, as an accomplishment and a necessary part of a good education, and in connection with this, and as an essential preliminary to excellence in it, to impart the habit of a close study of what is read, with a view to a thorough understanding of its meaning. With these objects, the pupil is conducted, first, through a series of Exercises in 'Articulation,' showing the powers of the letters, the mechanism by which the various sounds are produced, the effect of accent, syllabication, &c., illustrated by numerous examples, which, while they will afford ample practice in mastering the most difficult combinations, are well calculated to awaken the attention and excite the interest even of very young children. From Articulation, the learner is led by easy gradations to 'Expression,' where the effects of emphasis, inflection, and pauses, in modifying the force and application of words, are illustrated by appropriate Exercises. To promote the habit of a close study of the meaning, an analysis is given of an extract from the 'Deserted Village' of Goldsmith, setting out in detail the principal and subordinate sentences of which it consists, from which it will be seen how much all real grace and propriety of utterance depends on a perception of the logical relations of the successive sentences and their several parts. Extracts are also given, with marginal references

and annotations intended to draw the attention of the pupil to the alternations of thought and feeling in the passages selected, so as to serve as a guide to their proper expression in reading and delivery. The habit of a critical analysis of what is read being once formed, such aids may, as the pupil advances, be dispensed with, and they are accordingly by degrees discontinued. When this end has been attained, nature and habit will suggest the proper delivery, and rules and directions for the purpose become unnecessary. *

An additional reason which has influenced the compiler in the publication of this little volume has been the desire to furnish a Selection of Extracts, which, while they supply some of the most exquisite specimens of the literature of our native land, in almost every variety of style, are suitable for repetition by pupils of both sexes in schools. The good old practice of 'learning by heart' is, under the pressure of the numerous subjects which now demand attention in education, in some danger of losing its hold on schools. There can be no better means, however, for developing the taste and storing the memory with a choice vocabulary, than the practice of recitation, which, while it softens and refines the feelings, raises, by the study of the masterpieces of our literature, the general tone of the mind and of our thoughts, makes us familiar with the beauties of our language, and brings us into direct converse with some of the best and greatest men of all times. The teacher who has not given this important subject the attention it deserves, will do well to read the following extract from a lecture by Mr. Vernon Lushington, which will be found well deserving of perusal.

On Learning by Heart.

Till he has fairly tried it, I suspect a reader does not know how much he would gain from committing to memory passages of real excellence; precisely because he does not know how much he overlooks in merely reading. Learn one true poem by heart, and see if you do not find it so. Beauty after beauty will reveal itself, in chosen phrase, or happy music, or noble suggestion, otherwise undreamed of. It is like looking at one of Nature's wonders through

*The subject of Gesture, which forms one of the divisions of Elocution in its larger sense of ORATORY, is taken up in the more advanced work, The Illustrated Public School Speaker.

a microscope. Again: how much in such a poem that you really did feel admirable and lovely on a first reading, passes away, if you do not give it a further and much better reading!-passes away utterly, like a sweet sound, or an image on the lake, which the first breath of wind dispels. If you could only fix that image, as the photographers do theirs, so beautifully, so perfectly! And you can do so! Learn it by heart, and it is yours for ever!

I have said, a true poem; for naturally men will choose to learn poetry-from the beginning of time they have done so. To immortal verse the memory gives a willing, a joyous, and a lasting home. However, some prose is poetical, is poetry, and altogether worthy to be learned by heart; and the learning is not so very difficult. It is not difficult or toilsome to learn that which pleases us; and the labour, once given, is forgotten, while the result remains.

Poems and noble extracts, whether of verse or prose, once so reduced into possession and rendered truly our own, may be to us a daily pleasure;-better far than a whole library unused. They may come to us in our dull moments, to refresh us as with spring flowers; in our selfish musings, to win us by pure delight from the tyranny of foolish castle-building, self-congratulations, and mean anxieties. They may be with us in the work-shop, in the crowded streets, by the fireside; sometimes, perhaps, on pleasant hill-sides, or by sounding shores;-noble friends and companions-our own! never intrusive, ever at hand, coming at our call!

Shakspeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson,-the words of such men do not stale upon us, they do not grow old or cold. . . . Further: though you are young now, some day you will be old. Some day you may reach that time when a man lives in greater part for memory and by memory. I can imagine a chance renewal, chance visitation of the words long remembered, long garnered in the heart, and I think I see a gleam of rare joy in the eyes of the old man.

For those, in particular, whose leisure time is short, and precious as scant rations to beleaguered men, I believe there could not be a better expenditure of time than deliberately giving an occasional hour-it requires no more-to committing to memory chosen passages from great authors. If the mind were thus daily nourished with a few choice words of the best English poets and writers; if the habit of learning by heart were to become so general, that, as a matter of course, any person presuming to be educated amongst us might be expected to be equipped with a few good pieces,-I believe it would lead, far more than the mere sound of it suggests, to the diffusion of the best kind of literature, and the right appreciation of it, and men would not long rest satisfied with knowing a few stock pieces.

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