TO THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE; COMPRISING REPRESENTATIVE MASTERPIECES IN POETRY AND PIOUS NOTES ON THE SELECTIONS- GLOSSARY, AND CHRONOLOGY, LOGIC," BY HENRY N. DAY, ," "ART OF COMPOSITION," "ART OF DISCOURSE," RHETORICAL NEW YORK: Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by CHARLES SCRIBNER AND COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. 27,246 RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. PREFACE. Iz is a most gratifying sign of progress in our educational pursuits that the study of our vernacular language and literature is receiving such increasing attention and favor. Such an exclusion from our courses of instruction of the study of English as has prevailed heretofore, cannot be vindicated on any ground except that of the want of the needful helps and guides. Happily this want has been responded to by numerous and able contributors both to linguistic science generally and also to the proper knowledge of the English tongue. There is ample reason for believing not only that the chief aim and object in education- the quickening and shaping and starting in fixed habit the various faculties and capacities of the mind- may be best effected by the introduction of English into the course, but also that even the particular ends of classical studies may most fully and easily be attained by it. The light that the learner may gather from a short study of his vernacular will dissipate a great deal of obscurity, through which without such help he can but grope with much trouble, and perplexity, and hindrance. |