The Historical Development of School Readers and Method in Teaching Reading (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV SCHOOL READERS OF THE PRESENT CENTURY Webster's Elementary Speller was not the first spelling book published in America, but his " American Selection of Lessons in Reading and Speaking," seems to have had no predecessors in that field compiled and published in this country. The oldest American speller that I have found is "The Youth's Instructor in the English Tongue or the Art of Spelling improved." "In three parts, with a greater variety of very useful collections than any other book of this kind and bigness extant."1 Besides spelling, it contains Rules in Arithmetic, forms of bills, bonds, releases, etc. Prose and verse selections are interspersed throughout. It was published at Boston, in 1757.2 "The Pennsylvania Spelling-Book or Youth's Friendly Instructor and Monitor, by Anthony Benezet," third edition having the date 1782, is in the same collection. Webster's reader was not so successful in driving competitors from the field as its companion, the Speller. The American Preceptor,1 published as early as 1794 by Caleb Bingham, and The Columbian Orator,1 in 1797, by the same author, together with the readers of the English author Lindley Murray, which largely circulated in American schools, were formidable competitors. "Bingham and Webster took advantage of the need of 1 Mr. George A. Plimpton's Collection. 'Welsh, New England Magazine, 1899, Vol. 26, p. 151. HO suitable school-books and divided the field between them, Webster's Spelling-book outstripped Bingham's Child's Companion, but Bingham's readers such as the American Preceptor and the Columbian Orator held their ground against Webster's.'" At a time when literature and speech making were almost identical in the minds of the people, it was easy for textbook makers to appeal to the pat...