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THE

STANDARD

FIFTH READER

(FIRST-CLASS STANDARD READER)

For Public and Private Schools.

CONTAINING

A SUMMARY OF RULES FOR PRONUNCIATION AND ELOCUTION;
NUMEROUS EXERCISES FOR READING AND RECITATION;

A NEW SYSTEM OF REFERENCES TO RULES
AND DEFINITIONS,

AND

A COPIOUS EXPLANATORY INDEX.

BY

EPES SARGENT,

AUTHOR "THE STANDARD SPEAKER." "THE STANDARD FOURTH READE," EX

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The Standard Fifth, or FIRST CLASS READER.
The Standard Fourth Reader.

The Standard Third Reader.

The Standard Second Reader. (Illustrated)
The Standard First Reader. (Illustrated).

Also Ready:

Sargent's Six Primary School Charts.

These Charts are twenty-two inches by thirty in size; got up in a new and attractive style, with large type, for beginners in reading, &c.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-four by EPES SARGENT, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the District of Massachusetts

Many of the single pieces in this collection are protected by the copyright

EDUCATION DEPT.

ОТИВВОТYPED BY
HOBART & RORBINS,

New England Type and Stereotype Foundery
BOSTON.

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"THE evils of book-making," says Lord Bacon, "are only to be cured by making more books; that is, such as shall cause the bad ones to be forgotten." An objection to many of the reading exercises selected for schools is, that they either fall below the requirements of a sound literary taste, or are not of a character to be understood by those for whom they are intended. It is a narrow experience, I am aware, that would have a pupil read nothing that is not level to his comprehension-that would leave nothing for his mind to grow up to; but it is none the less true that he will best deliver what he best understands and feels.

To satisfy at once the mature taste of the teacher, and to interest the pupil, is the desirable object in the compilation of a "Reader;" and let it not be supposed that this is any easy or irresponsible task, to be taken up lightly, and despatched hastily and superficially. I know of few literary undertakings that ought to be assumed with more ample preparation, or pursued with a more scrupulous regard to the purposes in view. The pieces that are read or declaimed at school probably exercise a more enduring influence upon the character, so far as it can be affected by the thoughts and forms of expression that literature embodies, than all that is read in after life. How important, then, that an active and accurate discrimination should be exer542432

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