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derivation, and formation.

This, of course, will necessitate the use of an etymological dictionary, and a knowledge of the common prefixes and suffixes.

The pupils will then be able to understand what is meant by purity of style, and to apply their knowledge in examining this and other selections. The habit, too, which the pupils have formed of seeing the exact meaning of words, and the force of particular constructions, will aid them in writing clearly.

Then may follow an exercise involving all that has been done; viz., an exercise in criticism, or an estimate of the merits and faults of the selection.

If it is a narrative or a description, does it give us a distinct and consistent conception of the story told, or the object described, as a whole? Or is there something wanting, or but vaguely hinted at, which is necessary to a perfect understanding of the author? A careful examination in these regards will determine its quality with regard to completeness. Is there more than is necessary to give such a conception, thing not so intimately connected with the subject as to render the conception more vivid and well defined, but rather to confuse? On the answer to this will depend its unity.

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Then may follow an examination of the style. Are the words such as are sanctioned by "good use"?

Are the words well chosen to express the exact ideas of the author? Is the constructiom of the sentences in accordance with the idiom and syntax of the language? This, of course, will involve some knowledge of barbarism, impropriety, and solecism.

How much of the preceding should be done in the several classes will depend on the pupils' power of appreciation, and the time devoted to the study.

Probably the Junior class will be glad to take another selection after having obtained such a knowledge of it as to be able to write a good abstract, to analyze some of the most difficult sentences, and give the grammatical inflexions and relation of some of the principal words, with some, but not a wearisome, attention to allusions, historical suggestions, etc.

The Middle class will be able, in addition to this, to subject the selection to such an examination as will involve some knowledge of rhetoric. The Senior class may give some attention to each of the parts enumerated, with special attention to criticism.

But such study will not give pupils facility and accuracy in composition without much practice in writing.

We learn to skate by skating, and to write by writing. There is no - Boston School Document No. 29, 1877.

other way.

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(See page 119.)

THE SKETCH-BOOK.

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THE VOYAGE.

'Ships, ships, I will deserie you

Amidst the main,

I will come and try you,

What you are protecting,

And projecting,

What's your end and aim.

One goes abroad for merchandise and trading,

Another stays to keep his country from invading,

A third is coming home with rich and wealthy lading.
Halloo my fancie, whither wilt thou go?"

Old Poem.

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To an American visiting Europe, the long voyage he has to make is an excellent preparative. The temporary absence of worldly scenes and employments produces a state of mind. peculiarly fitted to receive new and vivid impressions. The vast space of waters that separates the hemispheres is like a blank page in existence. There is no gradual transition by which, as in Europe, the features and population of one country blend almost imperceptibly with those of another. From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacancy until you step on the opposite shore, and are 10 launched at once into the bustle and novelties of another world.

In travelling by land there is a continuity of scene, and a connected succession of persons and incidents that carry on

Line 1. Voyage (Fr. voyager, to travel; voyage, a journey; Lat. via, a way), formerly a passage, journey, or travel by sea or by land; hence Irving says a wide sea voyage. It is now limited to travel by sea.

2. Preparative, that which prepares; a preparation.

5. Hemispheres. What meridian is the boundary line between the eastern and western hemispheres? See the atlases.

the story of life, and lessen the effect of absence and separa- 15 tion. We drag, it is true, "a lengthening chain" at each remove of our pilgrimage; but the chain is unbroken: we can trace it back link by link; and we feel that the last still grapples us to home. But a wide sea voyage severs us at once. It makes us conscious of being cast loose from the 20 secure anchorage of settled life, and sent adrift upon a doubtful world. It interposes a gulf, not merely imaginary, but real, between us and our homes, a gulf subject to tempest and fear and uncertainty, rendering distance palpable and return precarious.

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Such, at least, was the case with myself. As I saw the last blue line of my native land fade away like a cloud in the horizon, it seemed as if I had closed one volume of the world and its concerns, and had time for meditation before I opened another. That land, too, now vanishing from my 30 view, which contained all most dear to me in life, what vicissitudes might occur in it, what changes might take place in me, before I should visit it again! Who can tell, when he sets forth to wander, whither he may be driven by the uncertain currents of existence, or when he may return, 35 or whether it may ever be his lot to revisit the scenes of his childhood?

I said that at sea all is vacancy; I should correct the expression. To one given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing

16. A lengthening chain. “And drags at each remove a lengthening chain." Goldsmith's Traveller, line 10. This expression is explained in the following passage from Goldsmith's Citizen of the World: "The farther I travel, I feel the pain of separation with stronger force; those ties that bind me to my native country and you, are still unbroken. By every move I only drag a greater length of chain."

28. Horizon (Gr. öpos, horos, a boundary), the circular line which bounds the view of the sky and earth, or of the sky and water, caused by the apparent meeting of the two.

32. Vicissitudes (Lat. vicis, a turn, a change; vicissitudo, a succeeding in turns), revolutions, mutations.

34. Driven by the uncertain currents. Do currents drive one? Is 'drive' the best word?

himself in reveries, a sea voyage is full of subjects for medi- 40 tation; but then they are the wonders of the deep and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly themes. I delighted to loll over the quarter-railing, or climb to the main-top, of a calm day, and muse for hours together on the tranquil bosom of a summer's sea; to gaze upon the 45 piles of golden clouds just peering above the horizon, fancy them some fairy realms, and people them with a creation of my own; to watch the gentle undulating billows, rolling their silver volumes as if to die away on those happy shores.

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There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and awe with which I looked down, from my giddy height, on the monsters of the deep at their uncouth gambols, — shoals of porpoises tumbling about the bow of the ship; the grampus slowly heaving his huge form above the surface; or the ravenous shark, darting, like a spectre, through the blue waters. 55 My imagination would conjure up all that I had heard or read of the watery world beneath me, of the finny herds that roam its fathomless valleys, of the shapeless monsters that lurk among the very foundations of the earth, and of those wild phantasms that swell the tales of fishermen and 60 sailors.

40. Reveries. "When ideas float in our minds without any reflection or regard of the understanding, it is that which the French call resverie (rêverie); our language has scarce a name for it." Locke. (Fr. rêver, to dream.)

43. Quarter-railing. The railing reaching from the taffrail to the gangway, and serving as a fence to the quarter-deck (the quarter-deck being that portion of the uppermost deck between the mainmast and mizzenmast, or between the mainmast and the stern).

44. Main-top. The top of the mainmast of a ship.

52. Gambols. "The radical image is that of a sudden and rapid movement to and fro, jumping, springing," for sport. Wedgwood. Shoals. The radical meaning seems to be a clump or mass. Wedgwood. (Dutch school,

a shoal of fishes.)

53. Porpoises (Lat. porcus, hog; piscis, fish), hog-fishes. Grampus (Lat. grandis, large, and piscis, fish; or perhaps, crassus, fat, big, and piscis, fish). The grampus is sometimes 25 feet in length.

56. Conjure (kŭn'jur), to summon by enchantment.

swear together, to conspire by oath.

Conjure' means to

60. Phantasms (Gr. phantasma, appearance), apparitions.

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