This textbook is part of a series of school readers to help children acquire the art and the habit of reading well enough to give pleasure not only to themselves, but also to those who listen to them. The selections have been chosen and arranged with strict reference to the capabilities and tastes of the pupils who are to read them, thus making every exercise in oral reading both easy and enjoyable as well as instructive. Writings by authors such as George Eliot, Robert Browning, Arabella B. Buckley, Washington Irving, Eliza Cook, Douglas William Jerrold, Percy B. Shelley, and Fiona Macleod are presented.