ence. Ead sentiments will not be more loved because well read. One of the highest aims of composition is to adapt the linguistic expression of thought and feeling to their nature. Without a close analysis of the language used by an author, it is scarcely possible to feel as he felt. The heart of an author and the heart of a reader hold communion through the medium of words. It is the teacher's duty to remove all obscurity from this medium, not only by explaining their meaning, but by exhibiting the music and the poetry of words. I have marked the pleasure expressed on the countenances of pupils when they first began to appreciate the beauty of a Metaphor, or the force of an Antithesis, and was not disappointed in judging that such appreciation would improve their reading. All education that tends to improve the taste and to give proper direction to the emotive nature, will be valuable preparation for the reading lesson. Among means of this kind, may be mentioned extensive and varied reading, intelligent travel, familiarity with the beauties of nature and art, and sympathy with the comforts and pleasures, the wants and woes, the fond aspirations and the proud successes, the blasted hopes and the fruitless enterprises, which so strangely checker human life. The Elocutionist must be a student of man's mental nature, learn to analyze the mingled emotions that agitate his bosom, and observe and imitate the most effective manner in which they express themselves in posture, in gesture, and in words. 3. METHOD OF TEACHING DELIVERY. Delivery is the manner of reading. Success in Delivery depends upon observing the relation oetween thought and feeling and their expression. The practical end for which skill in reading may be desired, is to give full force to the meaning, and full effect to the sentiment of an author. A person may possess a well-trained voice, and may have both the head and the heart to appreciate what he reads, and, still, for want of power to adapt the one to the other in practical use, fail to read well. In other words, his reading machinery can be quite perfect, and yet he may not succeed in putting its several parts in working order. What is designed to be said of Delivery can be embraced under three heads: Expression, Posture, and Gesture. Expression.-Expression is vocal Delivery. The great principle to be observed in vocal Delivery is that all the mechanical modifications of the voice should be governed by the nature of the thought and feeling to be expressed, and the construction of he sentence in which they are embodied. This principle may be applied in teaching reading in two ways: first, the teacher may read correctly and require his pupils to imitate him; and, second, the relations existing between thought and feeling and their utterance in words, may be generalized into rules which can be learned and followed in reading. With children just beginning to read, the teacher must instruct them mainly by using their powers of imitation. His voice must be their constant model. Rules can be but of little service to them. A large number of suitable sentences for practice may be prepared; and these the teacher should continue to utter, until the pupils can deliver them in the proper manner. Faults of reading should be prevented by showing what is right, and similar faults should be corrected by showing in what they consist. .All descriptions of the variations of the voice in Quantity, Compass, Movement, or Tone, will be unmeaning, unless the sound described be itself exhibited. This method of teaching Reading by imitation is not only applicable to young learners, but must be used throughout the whole course of instruction. In advanced classes, however, it is to be employed in connection with the second method above indicated. It follows from all this that the teacher should be a good reader. Reading can no more easily be taught by one who is not an Elocutionist than Vocal Music can be taught by one who is not a Musician. Books which treat of Elocution contain many rules that relate to Delivery. There are rules designed to aid the student in the use of Force, Emphasis, Slur and Stress, Pitch and Inflection, Rate and Pause, and Tone. The manner in which sentences of different forms should be delivered is pointed out; and, in order to leave no doubt in the pupil's mind concerning the application of the rules, certain reading lessons are arranged with a notation indicating the Quantity, Compass, Movement, and Quality of voice required. Of course, rules relating to Posture and Gesture, are also given. That some advantage may be gained from the study of these rules by learners who are able to understand and apply them, can hardly be questioned; but that harm may be done likewise is to be greatly feared. If pupils can be made to see that conformity to the requirements of Elocutionary rules in their reading enables them better to present the thought and feeling of an author, and adds more force and gracefulness to their Delivery, these rules may be profitably studied and applied; but if such rules are themselves arbitrary, imperfectly understood, or have been derived by a wrong method, the more effort that is made to apply them, the more stiff and formal will the Reading become. These remarks appropriately introduce the question: What constitutes good Delivery? The teacher must have some standard of excellence to which he aspires to elevate his class, and by which he criticises their Elocutionary performances - What is that standard? It is an easy matter to require pupils to commit and mechanically apply the ordinary rules for reading found in the works on Elocution; but upon what foundation do the rules themselves rest? Some say, "Nature is the Standard." It is admitted that if we read as we speak, we would read much better than we do; but it is still true that much of our reading would not then be in accordance with good taste. There are very few persons whose vocal organs do not need culture; and, even of those who have received it, scarcely any two have the same natural style of speaking. Whose style is to be taken as a standard? Others maintain that Delivery is to be measured by its effects upon an audience - if it plouse, it is good, but if it displease, it is imperfect. A reader may learn much respecting his improprieties of Delivery by watching its effect upon his hearers; but he will find such a standard very unreliable, as what some count excellences others will consider defects. The truth is that Reading is a Fine Art, and like Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and other such Arts, no rules of criticism derived empirically are as an ultimate measure of beauty applicable to it. Every man is endowed directly by his Maker with the power of judging between beauty and deformity, and he uses this power in criticising nature herself. Given suitable occasions for its exercise, and this taste is capable of improvement, and detects beauty with more certainty. Delivery in Reading, as well as style in the other Fine Arts, is wholly a matter of taste; and Elocutionary rules made by others than those who are capable of judging what is most fit and beautiful in Expression, or most graceful in Posture or Gesture, are entirely unworthy of confidence. Such rules as express the laws of taste, however, the teacher is at liberty to impress upon the minds of his pupils. He must always exemplify them by his own reading. Thus learned, they will serve as models. Properly presented, they do not destroy the learner's individuality, they do not convert him into a mere machine, but they leave room for the display of the peculiarities of his own genius, and tend only to promote the normal growth of that ncble part of his nature which directs him where to find the beautiful and how to appreciate it. Supposing that pupils have received proper vocal training and that intellectual and moral instruction which fits them to read well, the teacher's further duty consists in cultivating their taste in Delivery |