Weale's Series. Reading Books. Edited by Rev. A. B. Grant.
Standards 1-6. (Lockwood.)—Of the mystery of teaching to read we must confess our ignorance, though we feel quite sere that mankind is not sufficiently grateful to those who undertake this enormous labour, far greater surely than that of any subsequent teaching, however recondite the subject. When, therefore, the author of the Reading Books before us, dispenses with the alphabet, we feel sure that ho is
right. Personally the present writer would feel lost without it, were he
doomed to teach the elements. When a child cannot read a word, the matural impulse is to say, "Spell it," though why see, aye, tea, should
make up "cat" is more than can be understood. Here, however, we fool sure that the author has taken the best and most efficient method. But of that more advanced part of these reading books on which we feel capable of judging we cannot be too hearty in our praise. A skilful graduation of lessons as regards both the mechanical difficulty of reading and the nature of the subject-matter, and a judi- cious choice of extracts, aro the two cardinal virtues of a "Reading Book," and both of them we find here in perfection. The graduation is evidently the work of a long experience ; the selection shows a kindly and sympathetic knowledge of the tastes and intelligence of children and, where this quality comes into play, a thoroughly cultivated literary judgment. Wo like especially the easy and amusing dialogues, which children will read with the utmost delight, and in the colloquial English of which a good teacher will find excellent material for a lesson in elementary criticism. Still more excellent is that part of the series
which aims to cultivate in the scholar the knowledge which he or she ought to have as a citizen, knowledge about government, about colonies and dependencies, and the vast variety of things from which English boys and girls may learn that they are citizens of no mean country,' and be all the better and braver for it.
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