



Produced by Larry B. Harrison and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









  SCHOOL READING BY GRADES

  _SIXTH YEAR_

  BY
  JAMES BALDWIN

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK      CINCINNATI      CHICAGO
  AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY




  COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY
  AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY.

  SCH. READ. SIXTH YEAR.
  W. P. 12




PREFACE.


The pupil who is in his sixth year at school should be able to read
quite well. He should be able to pronounce at sight and without
hesitation all new or unusual words; and when reading aloud, his tones
should be so clear, his enunciation so faultless, and his manner so
agreeable that his hearers shall listen with pleasure and shall have a
ready understanding of whatever is being read. He is now prepared to
devote more and more attention to literary criticism--that is, to the
study of the peculiarities of style which distinguish any selection,
the passages which are remarkable for their beauty, their truth, or
their adaptation to the particular purpose for which they were
written. The habit should be cultivated of looking for and enjoying
the admirable qualities of any literary production, and particularly
of such productions as are generally recognized as the classics of our
language. While learning to distinguish between good literature and
that sort of writing which, properly speaking, is not literature at
all, the pupil's acquaintance with books is enlarged and extended. He
learns to know what are the best books and why they are so considered;
and he acquires some knowledge of the lives of the best authors and of
the circumstances under which certain of their works were produced.

The present volume is designed to aid the learner in the acquisition
of all these ends. The selections are of a highly interesting
character, and illustrate almost every variety of English composition.
To assist in their comprehension, many of the selections are
introduced or followed by brief historical or bibliographical notes.
Hints also are given as to collateral, or supplementary readings on a
variety of subjects. To assist the pupil still further to enlarge his
acquaintance with books and authors, additional notes, literary and
biographical, are given in the appendix; here also may be found
several pages of brief notes explanatory of difficult passages,
unusual expressions, and historical references, such as might
otherwise be stumbling stones in the way of the learner. The numerous
portraits of authors is another important feature designed to add to
the interest and beauty of the book, and to assist the pupil to a more
intimate acquaintance with the makers of our literature. Most of the
full-page pictures are reproductions of famous paintings, and these,
while serving as illustrations of the text which they accompany, are
designed to introduce the learner to some of the masters of art also,
and perform the more important office of cultivating and enlarging his
aesthetic tastes and sympathies.




CONTENTS.


                                                                    PAGE

  Two Ways of Telling a Story        _Jean Ingelow_                    7

  The Death of the Flowers           _William Cullen Bryant_          18

  The Great Volcanic Eruption        _J. T. Van Gestel_               20

  The Return of Columbus             _Washington Irving_              25

  What the Sunbeams do               _Arabella B. Buckley_            29

  Horatius at the Bridge             _Thomas Babington Macaulay_      32

  How Sir Francis Drake sailed
      round the World                _James A. Froude_                44

  A Brave Rescue and a Rough Ride    _Richard D. Blackmore_           51

  The Glory of God                   _From the Psalms of David_       65

  The Battle of Bannockburn          _Sir Walter Scott_               66

  The Soldier's Dream                _Thomas Campbell_                75

  Lord Ullin's Daughter              _Thomas Campbell_                76

  Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata                                        78

  The Story of Tempe Wick            _Frank R. Stockton_              83

  Life in Norman England             _W. F. Collier_                  89

  The Romance of the Swan's Nest     _Elizabeth Barrett Browning_     98

  A Patriarch of the Olden Time      _From the "Book of Job"_        102

  How Cortes entered the City of
      Mexico                         _William H. Prescott_           104

  The Skylark                        _James Hogg_                    112

  The Mystery of the Tadpole         _George Henry Lewes_            113

  The Glove and the Lions            _Leigh Hunt_                    119

  True Growth                        _Ben Jonson_                    120

  The Shipwreck                      _Charles Dickens_               121

  The Happy Valley                   _Dr. Samuel Johnson_            135

  The Pass of Killiecrankie          _W. E. Aytoun_                  138

  Summer Rain                        _Henry Ward Beecher_            143

  Life in the Backwoods              _William Dean Howells_          146

  How they besieged the Town         _Charles Reade_                 153

  Lochinvar                          _Sir Walter Scott_              163

  On a Tropical River                _Charles Kingsley_              165

  The Flag of Our Country            _Robert C. Winthrop_            173

  The High Tide on the Coast of
      Lincolnshire, 1571             _Jean Ingelow_                  175

  The Story of Thomas Becket

       I. His Life                   _Anonymous_                     181

      II. His Death                  _Arthur Penrhyn Stanley_        185

  The Pilgrims (1620)                _Edward Everett_                192

  The Landing of the Pilgrims        _Felicia Hemans_                195

  Patriotism                         _William Cowper_                196

  The Robin                          _Charles Conrad Abbott_         