The robin will wear on his bosom

A vest that is bright and new,
And the loveliest wayside blossom

Will shine with the sun and the dew."

LESSON XIX

NOUNS

COMMON AND PROPER

1. A poet once lived in a city in an eastern state. 2. This poet wrote a poem about his three little girls. 3. Mr. Longfellow lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 4. Mr. Longfellow wrote about Alice, Allegra, and Edith.

Select the nouns in the first two sentences.

Which one

is used as the name of a class of writers? As the name of a large town? As the name of one of many divisions of the country? As the name of a class of children?

Select the nouns in the last two sentences. Which one is used as the name of a particular poet? What noun in the first sentence names the same person as this one does? Give the noun that is used as the name of each particular child.

In the first two sentences nouns are used that are names of classes of persons or things, but in the third and fourth sentences the nouns are names of particular persons or things.

A noun used as the name of a class of objects is called. a Common Noun.

A noun used as the name of a particular person, place, or object is called a Proper Noun.

Copy and learn:

A Noun is a word that is used as a name.

A Common Noun is a word that is used as the name of a class of objects.

A Proper Noun is a word that is used as the name of a particular person, place, or object.

Select the nouns in the following, writing the proper nouns in one column, the common nouns in another:

When Christopher Columbus was a boy, he liked to watch the ships that sailed into the harbor of Genoa, his native city. He longed to sail away in one of them and see the great world about which the sailors told such interesting stories.

When he was fourteen years old, he became a sailor, and for many years his life was spent upon the sea.

At length he came to believe that the earth was round, and that Asia could be reached by sailing west across the Atlantic Ocean. People laughed at him and said he was insane, but he was so sure he was right that he asked King Ferdinand of Spain to give him ships and men for a voyage. The king refused, but Queen Isabella believed in him, and agreed to furnish the money to fit out the ships. On August 3, 1492, he sailed away to the west over the unknown waters of the Atlantic Ocean. After a long,

tiresome voyage land was reached. This was not India, as Columbus supposed, but a new continent of which white men had never heard. When the truth finally became known, the newly discovered country was called the New World, and later the name America was given to the entire continent.

LESSON XX

EXERCISE IN WRITING QUOTATION

Copy, placing quotation marks where they are required:There were five peas in one pod. They were green, and the pod was green. Weeks passed. The pod became yellow, and the peas became yellow. The whole world is turning yellow, they said.

One day they felt a little pull at the pod. Now we shall be opened, they cried. Crack! the pod opened, and the five peas rolled out into the sunshine.

There they lay in a little boy's hand. They are just the peas for my pea-shooter, he said. He put one in and shot it far away from him.

I am flying into the world, it said; catch me if you can, and it was gone.

I am flying to the sun, said the second pea.

We shall go to sleep wherever we go, said the next two, and away they rolled. What is to be, will be, said the last, as he shot out of the pea

shooter.

FOR CONVERSATION AND COMPOSITION

125

He flew into a crack under a garret window. There he was held fast in the soft moss.

Now what do you think became of all these little peas? The one that said, Catch me if you can, was eaten by a bird.

The second one, that wished to fly to the sun, fell into the water. The two lazy ones that said, We shall go to sleep, did not roll far away. They, too, were eaten by the birds.

The one that flew into a crack under a garret window grew to be a beautiful plant, and gladdened the heart of a little sick child, that could not play out in the sunshine among the flowers.

ANDERSEN (Adapted).

NOTE. Dictation exercises should be given for practice in the use of quotation marks.

LESSON XXI

FOR CONVERSATION AND COMPOSITION

THANKSGIVING DAY

Topics for conversation :

The reason for observing a day for Thanksgiving.

When and how the custom was begun.

How the day should be kept.

Write an account either real or imaginary of the way in which you kept some particular Thanksgiving Day, and tell how you expect to keep the day this year.

NOTE. - Other special days should be made the subjects of conversation and composition exercises.

LESSON XXII

CORRECT LANGUAGE FORMS

Has AND Have

1. The child has a pet lamb.
2. The children have a pet lamb.
3. The boy has a Shetland pony.

4. The boys have a Shetland pony.

In which of these sentences is one person spoken of? In which are there more than one spoken of?

Do we use has or have when we speak of one person ? Which do we use when we speak of more than one person ?

Why do we use has in the third sentence and have in the fourth?

Which do we use, has or have, with a noun that means but one? With a noun that means more than one?

Copy the following, filling the blank spaces with has or

They

not grown

long ears lying over their backs, and they

look like two fluffy balls of fur.