Second examination on the foregoing extract.

What is the meaning of the word 'author?' What is the equivalent word applied to a female? What is the meaning of 'highest?' Of 'purest?' What is the effect of adding the syllable est, to a word expressing a quality? Give some examples. What is expressed by the word 'physical?' To what class of words do most of those which end in al belong? When the termination al is added to a noun, into what is it changed? Define Creator.' From what verb is it derived? What is the meaning of the word 'wandering?' From what is it derived? What is the effect of adding the termination ing to a verb? Give examples. What does the termination ing generally express? Ans. -Continued action. What is the meaning of 'finished?' From what is it derived? What are some of the other derivatives of the same word. What does the termination ed generally express? Give examples. What is meant by the word nations?' What adjective is formed from nation? How? Define eastern.' From what is it derived? What other adjectives are derived from the same word? What is the meaning of the word' heavens' in this connection? What other meaning has it? What adjective is derived from the word mountain? What is meant by the mountains painted with light? Is this a literal or a figurative expression? What other instances occur immediately afterwards of the same figure? What is the 'floating splendor of the sea?' What is meant by 'the earth waking from her deep slumber?' Point out the words, in this part of the piece, used metaphorically. Why is the day represented as 'flowing down the sides of the hills?' What is 'painted' derived from? Name other derivatives of the same word. From what is the word 'waking' derived? What other words have the same derivation? Give some of the derivations of the word 'deep!' Of slumber,' of ' day.' How do 'hills' differ from mountains? What is the diminutive for hill?' What are 'valleys?' is the term 'secret' applied to them? ing of 'recalled?' What does the first part of the word ' recalled' signify? Can you give any other examples of that syllable having the same signification (as remit, revert &c.) What does the latter part of 'recalled' signify? Give examples; (as miscalled uncalled.) What is the meaning of life?' What are some of the derivatives and kin

Why

What is the mean

dred words. (As lively, lifeless, livelihood &c.) Define 'bird.' How does a 'bird' differ from an insect?' Define 'trying.' Give the derivatives of try. Define 'wings.' Give the derivatives of it. What do you consider to be comprehended in the term created being?' Is it limited in the text to living beings? Is the term, properly speaking, more comprehensive? What is the origin of the term being? Does it apply to unorganized or lifeless matter, as well as to living creatures? Define, and give some of the derivatives of the following words; move, think, act, contrive, possible. What kind of animals obtain their food by force? What animals by cunning?' What by 'reason?' Is it common to find the word 'joy' used as a verb in prose writing? What is the meaning of 'animated?' Its origin? Its kindred words? What is the original meaning of scene?' Is it applied in the text literally or metaphorically? What is meant by the term, 'sons of darkness?' What figure of rhetoric is this an example of? What figure of rhetoric is used in the expression, 'eyes that will never taste the sweet light?' &c.

The above Specimens are deemed sufficient to show the nature and character of the proposed system. The Second-Class Reader' and Third-Class Reader' will contain similar Specimens adapted to the earlier stages of school instruction.

FIRST-CLASS READER.

LESSON I.

Humility and Perseverance. An Allegory.-N. Y. MIRROR.

FROM the side of a mountain there flowed forth a little rivulet. Its voice was scarcely heard amid the rustling of the leaves and grass around, and its shallow and narrow stream might be overlooked by the traveller. This brook, although so small, was inspired with a proud spirit and murmured against the decree of Providence, which had cast its lot so lowly.

'I wish I were a cloud, to roll all day through the heavens, painted so beautifully as those lovely shapes are colored, and never descending again in showers; or, at least, I wish I was a river, performing some useful duty in the world. Shame on my weak waves and unregarded bubbling. I might as well have never been, as to be puny, insignificant and useless.' When the brook had thus complained, a beautiful tall flower, that bent over its bosom, replied,

'Thou art in error, brook. Puny and insignificant thou mayst be; useless thou art not, for I owe half of my beauty, perhaps my life, to thy refreshing waters. The plants adjacent to thee are greener and richer than the others. The Creator has given thee a duty, which though humble thou must not neglect. Besides who knows what may be thy future destiny? 'Flow on. I beseech thee.'

The brook heard the rebuke, and danced along its way more cheerfully. On and on it went, growing broader and broader. By and by other rivulets poured their crystal waters into it, and swelled its deepening bosom, in which already began to appear the fairy creatures of the wave, darting about joyfully and glistening in the sun. As its channel grew wider and wider, and yet other branches came gliding

into it, the stream began to assume the importance of a river, and boats were launched on it and rolled on in a meandering course through a teeming country, freshening whatever it touched, and giving the whole scene a new character and beauty.

As it moved on now in majesty and pride, the sound of its gently heaving billows formed itself into the following words:

'At the outset of life, however humble we may seem, there may be in store for us great and unexpected opportunities of doing good and of being great. In the hope of these we should ever pass on without despair or doubt, trusting that perseverance will bring in its own reward. How little I dreamed when I first sprang on my course, what purposes I was destined to fulfil. What happy beings were to owe their bliss to me! What lofty trees, what velvet meadows, what golden harvests were to hail my career. Let not the meek and lowly despair-heaven will supply them with noble inducements to virtue.'

LESSON II.

Manners of the Scottish Highlanders.

THE Highlanders were composed of a number of tribes called clans, each of which bore a different name, and lived upon the lands of a different chieftain. The members of every tribe were tied one to another not only by the feudal, but by the patriarchal, bond; for while the individuals who composed it, were vassals or tenants of their own hereditary chieftain, they were also descended from his family, and could count exactly the degree of their descent.

The right of primogeniture had, in the revolution of centuries,converted these natural principles of connexion between the chieftain and his people, into the most sacred ties of human life. The castle of the chieftain was a kind of palace, to which every man of his tribe was made welcome; where he was entertained according to his station, in time of peace, and whither all flocked, at the sound of war. Thus the meanest of the clan, knowing himself to be as well-born as the head of it, revered in his chieftain his own honor, loved in his clan his own blood, complained not of the difference of station into which Fortune had thrown him, and respected himself.

The chieftain in return bestowed a protection, founded equally on gratitude, and the consciousness of his own interest. Hence the Highlanders, whom more savage nations called savage, carried in the outward expression of their manners the politeness of courts without their vices, and in their bosoms the high point of honor without its follies.

In countries where the surface is rugged, and the climate uncertain, there is little room for the use of the plough; and where no coal is to be found, and few provisions can be raised, there is still less for that of the anvil and shuttle. As the Highlanders were, upon these accounts, excluded from extensive agriculture and manufactures alike, every family raised just as much grain, and made as much raiment as sufficed for itself; and Nature, whom Art cannot force, destined them to the life of shepherds. Hence, they had not that excess of industry which reduces man to a machine, nor that total want of it which sinks him into a rank of animals below his own.

They lived in villages built in valleys and by the sides of rivers. At two seasons of the year, they were busy; the one, in the end of spring and beginning of summer, when they put the plough into the little land they had capable of receiving it, sowed their grain, and laid in their provision of turf for the winter's fuel; the other, just before winter, when they reaped their harvest: the rest of the year was all their own for amusement or for war.

If not engaged in war, they indulged themselves in summer in the most delicious of all pleasures, to men in a cold climate and a romantic country, the enjoyment of the sun and of the summer-views of nature; never in the house during the day, even sleeping often at night in the open air among the mountains and woods.

They spent the winter in the chase while the sun was up, and, in the evening, assembled round a common fire, they entertained themselves with the song, the tale, and the dance: but they were ignorant of sitting, days and nights, at games of skill or hazard, amusements which keep the body in inaction, and the mind in a state of vicious activity!

The want of a good and even of a fine ear for music, was almost unknown amongst them; because it was kept in continual practice among the multitude from passion, but by the wiser few, because they knew that the love of music both heightened the courage, and softened the tempers, of the