How shall we bring it about that children of the third grade speak as spontaneously in the schoolroom as they do on the playground when the game is in full swing?

How shall we banish their schoolroom timidity and self-consciousness?

How shall we obtain from them a ready flow of thought expressed in fitting words?

How shall we interest them in the improvement of their speech?

How shall we inoculate them against common errors in English?

How shall we displace with natural, correct, and pointed written expression the lifeless school composition of the past, the laborious production of which was of exceedingly doubtful educational value and gave pleasure neither to child nor to teacher?

These are some of the questions to which this new textbook for the third grade aims to give constructive answers. Needless to say, much more is required in the way of answer than a supply of raw material for language work or a graded sequence of formal lessons in primary English.

It is the purpose of the present book to provide a series of schoolroom situations, so built up as to give pupils delightful experiences in speaking and writing good English. Since one can no more teach without the interest of the pupil than see without light, these situations have for their content the natural interests of children. They therefore include child life and the heroic aspects of mature life, fairies and fairyland, and the outer world, particularly animal life. Then, each situation is considerably extended, not only that interest may be conserved but also that it may be cumulative. Instead of the rope of sand that one finds in the textbook of unrelated assignments, there is offered here an interwoven unity of nearly a dozen inclusive groups of interrelated lessons, exercises, drills, and games. Among these groups are the fairy group, the Indian group, the fable group, the valentine group, and the circus group.

These groups or situations call for much physical activity, pantomime, dramatization. They provide for story-telling of great variety; for instruction and practice in punctuation, capitalization, and other points of form; for habit-creating drills in good English; for correct-usage games; for simple letter writing; for novel exercises in book making; and, second in importance to none of these, for the improvement by the pupils themselves of their oral and written composition,—all the work being socialized and otherwise variously motivated from beginning to end.

Careful experiments made with children of the third grade while these lessons were still in manuscript insure that the book will produce the desired results under ordinary school conditions. Very exceptional work may be expected where teachers conscientiously read the entire book at the beginning of the school year and enter into the spirit of it. That they may do this with the least expenditure of time and energy, the lessons have been provided with cross references and numerous notes.

THE AUTHOR