HARRINGTON'S GRADED SPELLING-BOOK-PART I. 'A GRADED SPELLING-BOOK BEING A COMPLETE COURSE IN SPELLING FOR IN TWO PARTS BY H. F. HARRINGTON SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS, NEW BEDFORD, MASS. NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. All rights reserved. PREFACE. THE old-style spelling-books have fallen into merited disrepute. It is felt to be irrational and wasteful of time to drill children on words of whose meaning they have no idea, and a large number of which they will never have occasion to use. The substitutes thus far provided are not satisfactory; for they merely reproduce, in modified forms, the artificial framework of the old-time books, or else are so unmethodical that the instruction they afford is irregular and incomplete. Our pupils must have a spelling-book; but it must be made on right principles. It must be clearly illustrative of the natural laws of intellectual progress, and its pages, therefore, be attractive to the learner. This "Graded Spelling-Book" claims attention because constructed on this rational basis. It possesses the following distinguishing characteristics: I. It is grounded on the laws which govern the growth of a child's intelligence and his acquisition of an available vocabulary. This basis demands, first, that the words prescribed for study shall be selected, not according to the number of their syllables, or to any other artificial arrangement, but according to the order in which, as the child advances in knowledge, they may be apprehended and used; |