No edition or printing information is included on this copy. No author is credited, although Whitney, Jocelyn, and Annin are credited as illustrators. It includes basic information on composing, including advice on penmanship, titling, margins, paragraphs, spelling, capital letters, punctuation, arranging sentences, style (purity, precision, clearness, strength, harmony, unity), and modes (debates, letters). The majority of the text is a collection of ornate illustrations for the purpose of aiding composition development. Each illustration is accompanied with advice on how to elaborate on subjects within the illustration.
1842 printing. No copyright date given. No information on the authors is provided. The authors' text begins with a brief discussion of the inefficacy of the previous method of instructing grammar and composition, which included a heavy emphasis on rule memorization and the reading--and subsequent copying of--classic texts. The authors, instead, advocate a more "natural" approach to the acquisition of grammar and composition: practice, object use and familiarity. The authors propose students should be given the chance to copy short pieces by good authors to learn neatness and exactness. They then work with writing about familiar objects, exchanging their work and correcting each other's errors, discussing their work as a class, then having their instructor provide feedback for correction. The authors suggest beginning with concrete objects that are near the students and progressing through to more complex abstract ideas and series of objects in order to assist in the acquisition of composition abilities. The Schultz Archive includes the complete text (although it is a fairly short text), and the quality of the scans is fairly good; however, there are a few places where markings on the text are somewhat distracting.
1899 printing of 1899 copyrighted text. The author is credited as the author of Beginners' Readers I, II, III and Vivid Scenes in American History. The text is a teacher's manual to accompany Letters From Queer Folk, a composition book aimed at enhancing student learning by drafting correspondence with imagined people. The text covers various genres of writing such as business, social, telegrams, advertisements, receipts. It addresses particular skills such as paragraphing, vocabulary, punctuation, and arrangement. The Schultz Archive copy is the entire text.
1864 printing of the 1864 copyrighted text. The preface states the methods of the text are the result of eight years of classroom experience and testing. The text is written as a teaching guide with advice on lessons and providing feedback to encourage composition in younger students. The text's method is to introduce composition through the presentation of various forms of writing rather than simplified rhetorical principles. These forms include letters (epistles), diary writing, news items, advertisements, and extempore writing. The Schultz Archive's copy is roughly the complete text.
1870 printing of the 1870 copyrighted text. The author is credited as the author of books on logic, discourse, composition, and literature. The book is based on Day's rhetoric that argues thought is the starting point for teaching rhetoric, composition, and grammar rather than style and form. The text is aimed at students of different levels, using various font sizes for each: the larger fonts for the young, smallest for older or more advanced. The introductory lessons cover parts of speech. These are followed by sections on concrete nouns (object lessons), attributes, distinctions of nouns, modifying elements, abnormal forms, construction, and explanation. Oral and written exercises are included throughout. The Schultz Archive's copy is roughly the complete text.
No printing year given. 1897 copyrighted text. The author is a Ph.D. and credited as President of Swarthmore College. Based on two leading ideas: progressive exercises in composition and an inductive approach to grammar. The work is divided into sentences exercises and composition exercises. The exercises are based on occupations, nature, history, and great literature. Pictorial illustrations are used to stimulate the imagination. Book I of the text is for third and fourth graders. Book II is for fifth and sixth graders. The author credits the influence of Baron, Junghann, and Schindler. The Schultz Archive's copy is roughly the complete text of Book I.
No printing date given. Copyrighted 1888. The author is credited as Principal of the George S. Meade Grammar School Philadelphia. The book purports to train young students to use their own simply vocabulary to compose properly-expressed sentences, as well as oral and written stories and descriptions, while also gradually expanding their vocabularies. Questions accompany detailed pictorial illustrations or short textual examples, some of which are abridged versions of Aesop's fables, to encourage thought and prompt elaboration or storytelling. There are 82 lessons in all. The Schultz Archive is roughly the complete text.
Revised edition, 1904 copyrighted text. The author is credited as Principal of the George G. Meade Grammar School. Preface begins by acknowledging that textbooks don't succeed in teaching grammar, providing students with examples of false syntax is unproductive, students learn language outside the classroom, so in the classroom they should be given correct forms of use. The work has 280 exercises using pictorial illustrations; questions; prompting statements, paragraphs to be summarized or paraphrased; words to be described, defined, rearranged, or used in sentences; fill in the blanks; and other prompts for writing and phrase combining. The book credits school periodicals as sources for its exercises, such as Canadian School Journal, the New England Journal of Education, and the School Journal Intelligence. A handbook that emphasizes a wide assortment of exercises for grammar practice.
1876 printing of the 1876 copyrighted text. A revised edition of the "popular" 1871 text. Preface explains it strives to teach children to use language, and is meant for nine, ten, and eleven-year-olds. The work is divided into two parts: part one for the year when students read the Third Book in a series of readers, part two for the succeeding year. Students are meant to write in response to the book's questions, the teacher is meant to correct these answers, and students are then to revise them. Illustrations are used to teach children through observation and to teach them facts of natural history. Part one is organized into chapters covering punctuation, words classed by use, errors, descriptions, comparisons, , objects, pictures, and genres (poetry, prose, letters, receipts, advertisements). Questions and sample teacher-students conversations are used throughout. The Schultz Archive's copy is roughly the complete text.
1871 printing of the 1871 copyrighted text. No information on the author is given, although the author is presumably one of the publishers. The preface explains that twelve-year-olds should be able to speak and write accurately, avoid vulgarisms, and detect errors. While most methods of teaching grammar incorrectly focus on memorization, this text is interested in teaching the practical use of language. This is done through observation (or perception) of correct models, imitation of those models, and finally construction of correct sentences. Observation of correct sentences is guided with questions. The text is organized into punctuation, objects, pictorial illustrations (pictures), brief narratives, poems to be rewritten into prose, letter writing, longer narratives, and activities of classifying words. The Schultz Archive copy is roughly the complete text.