THE

SPELLING-BOOK:

CONSISTING OF

WORDS IN COLUMNS AND SENTENCES

FOR

ORAL AND WRITTEN EXERCISES;

TOGETHER WITH

PREFIXES, AFFIXES, AND IMPORTANT ROOTS

FROM THE

Greek and Latin Languages.

rape

Br WILLIAM D. SWAN,

PRINCIPAL OF THE MAYHEW SCHOOL, BOSTON.

PHILADELPHIA:

COWPERTHWAIT, DESILVER, & BUTLER.

P

Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1848, by

WILLIAM D. SWAN,

the Clerk Eiche District Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts.

PUBLIC LIBRARY

786962 A

ASTOR, LENOX CITY OF ROXBURY.

ΝΙ

TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

1936

R Ordered, That

L

IN SCHOOL COMMITTEE, Nov. 1, 1843.

Swan's Spelling-Book" be introduced into the Schools of

this city, from and after this day.

Copy from records. Attest,

JOSHUA SEAVER, Secretary.

JOSHUA SEAVER, Secretary.

Extract from the Records of the School Committee of the City of Boston. IN SCHOOL COMMITTEE, Mar. 7, 1849.

Ordered, That the "Spelling-Book" of WILLIAM D. SWAN take the place of B. D. Emerson's, subject to the conditions prescribed by the regulations. A true copy from the records.-Attest,

S. F. MCCLEARY, Secretary.

CITY OF CINCINNATI.

COUNCIL CHAMBER,

SCHOOL DEPARTMENT, March 9, 1850.}

At a meeting of the Board of Trustees and Visitors of Common Schools, the following resolution was adopted:

Resolved, That Swan's Spelling-Book be adopted as a text-book for the Common Schools of Cincinnati.

Signed,

Per WM. LEUTHSTROM.

CHAS. SATTERLY, City Clerk

Proceedings of the Board of Directors of the Public Schools of the City of

Rochester.

Resolved, That Swan's Spelling-Book be adopted as the text-book in ortho-graphy in our Public Schools, in the room of Cobb's, or others now in use. R. D. JONES, Superintendent.

Signed,

SCHENECTADY, N. Y., June 21, 1850.

I certify, that at a regular meeting of the Trustees of the Public Schools of the city of Schenectady, held June 20th, 1850, at the recommendation of tho committee on text-books, Swan's Spelling-Book was unanimously adopted as the text-book for spelling in the schools under charge of the Trustees.

D. M. CHADSEY, Secretary.

WOR 20JUN 84

PREFACE.

THIS work has been compiled to furnish teachers wi a complete and systematic series of exercises in English orthography.

Experience has convinced the author that the old method of requiring children to study words in columns, arranged according to their accent and number of syllables, and to spell them orally, without reducing the exercise to practice by writing the words, is a useless task, and will never accomplish its design. Children may be able to spell words correctly when pronounced by the teacher; but, without frequent practice in writing, they will misspell them in composition. The recent reports of school committees upon this subject, bear testimony to the truth of this conclusion.

There are great and paramount difficulties in learning to spell correctly the English language These difficulties arise principally from the anomalous and peculiar structure of the language, from the variety of sounds given to the

several vowels, - from silent consonants in certain classes of words, and from the similarity of sounds in syllables formed by different combinations of letters. To obviate +hese difficulties, to classify and arrange them under distinct heads, that they may be more readily and easily learned and remembered, has been the principal design of the author.

Easy words, illustrating the simple sounds of vowels and consonants; words containing one or more silent consonants; words pronounced alike, but differing in orthography and signification, — have been arranged into distinct classes. But the great and distinguishing feature of the work is the arrangement of Exercises for Writing, in connection with the several classes. It has often been urged, and with good reason, against the spelling-books in common use, that children are required to learn to spell words, of the meaning and use of which they have no idea. These Exercises for Writing provide a remedy for this defect. Most of the words in the columns occur in the sentences, and the learner is thus shown their meaning and application.

The Rules for Spelling and the Exceptions should be thoroughly committed to memory by the learner, and fre quent allusion should be made to them by the teacher, by questions like the following:

/ (RULE I.) Why is the word muff spelled with two ƒ's? What are the exceptions to Rule I.?

b's?

(RULE III.) Why is the word robber spelled with two