This work is mainly designed as a Reading-Book for Schools. In the first
part of it, the _principles_ of reading are developed and explained in a
scientific and _practical_ manner, and so familiarly illustrated in
their application to practical examples as to enable even the juvenile
mind very readily to comprehend their nature and character, their design
and use, and thus to acquire that high degree of excellence, both, in
reading and speaking, which all desire, but to which few attain.
The last part of the work, contains _Selections_ from the greatest
master-pieces of rhetorical and poetical composition, both ancient and
modern. Many of these selections are taken from the most elegant and
classical American authors--writers whose noble productions have already
shed an unfading lustre, and stamped immortality upon the literature of
our country.--In the select part of the work, _rhetorical marks_ are
also employed to point out the application of the principles laid down
in the first part.--The very favorable reception of the work by the
public, and its astonishingly rapid introduction into schools, since its
first publication in 1833, excites in the author the most sanguine hopes
in regard to its future success.