THE ALDINE READERS
A SECOND READER
By
Frank E. Spaulding
Superintendent of Schools, Newton, Mass.
and
Catherine T. Bryce
Supervisor of Primary Schools, Newton, Mass.
With Illustrations by
Margaret Ely Webb
NEW YORK
NEWSON & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1907, by
Newson and Company
All rights reserved
The authors and publishers desire to acknowledgetheir obligation to Mr. Nathaniel L. Berry,Supervisor of Drawing in the Public Schools ofNewton, Massachusetts, for valuable assistance inplanning and arranging the illustrations in this book.
This Second Reader, like the two preceding books ofthe Aldine Series, combines material and method in sucha way that the former does not suffer, while the lattergains by the combination. That is, the subject-matterof the book, both the text and the illustrations, is justas suitable and just as interesting as it could be made werethere no such thing as method; indeed, the sole sign ofmethod, as one reads the book, is the parenthesis aboutcertain words preceding the stories. At the same time,this subject-matter, both the text and the illustrations,embodies in systematic arrangement the most effectiveprinciples of mastering the mechanics of reading.
Children who have read thoroughly the preceding booksof this Series have acquired independence, the habit ofself-reliance, and the power of self-help to such a degreethat they will be able to master this book with little orno direct aid from the teacher. And when they havethus mastered this book, they will be good readers. Thatis, so far as the mechanics of reading is concerned, theywill be able to read unaided anything which they can[vi]understand; so far as the subject-matter is concerned,they will be able to understand from the printed pageanything which they can understand through the spokenword. More than this, if the teacher has contributed herpart, most such children will have realized the utility andtasted the real delights of reading to such an extent thatthey will continue to read of their own accord; most ofthem will also be good oral readers, reading with appropriateexpression and genuine enthusiasm.
These statements are not mere predictions of the hoped-forresults of untried theories; they are simple, unexaggeratedexpressions of facts which have been observed inthe work of thousands of children of a score of nationalities.
To secure such results a complete mastery and intelligentobservation is necessary of the principles and plansdescribed in the authors’ Manual for Teachers, entitled“Learning to Read.”
The authors gratefully acknowledge their indebtednessto Miss Marie Van Vorst for the use of “Three of usKnow” and “The Sandman”; to Mrs. Emily HuntingtonMill