Exercises in rhetorical reading : with a series of introductory lessons, particularly designed to familiarize readers with the pauses and other marks in general use, and lead them to the practice of modulation and inflection of the voice

Front matter

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PARKER'S RHETORICAL READER. ^ \ \

Preface

The principal difficulty, in teachings the art of Reading, lies in conveying to the pupil a clear idea of tone, modulation, and inflection of the voice. If the teacher can induce the pupil to inflect his voice at all, he will find little difficulty in teaching him to modulate it rightly. Nature directs every one in this, in common conversation, with unerring precision. It is only, therefore, by " holding the mirror up to Nature,^' that the teacher can expect to see her as she is. Few teachers have not noticed the animation and correctness with which even young children will modulate the colloquial parts of their story-books. But the same children almost invariably fall into a lifeless, monotonous manner, when performing their portioned tasks in their reading-books at school. This arises from no want of excellent selections for exercises in Reading. But a wide distinction is to be drawn between a lesson and an exercise. We have many selections abounding in all the beauties of taste, learning, and judgment ; which may, with great advantage, be put into the hands of the pupil, after he has been taught the art of reading; but I have met with none, designed for the general classes of learners, which have combined instruction with practice. It has been thought that directions for the management of the voice in reading would be lost upon young learners, and that they are suitable for them only whose riper powers and more matured intellect better fit them for their reception. But it seems to have been forgotten, how easily children are taught to imitate. If, in connexion with some colloquial sentence, another of less obvious import be given, requiring the same modulations and infections of the voice, the child naturally catches the trne manner of modulating the latter, from the former. It is upon this principle of imitation and analogy combined, that many of the lessons in this volume are founded. The author has been convinced, by experience, in the institution under his charge, that the principle is a good one ; and experience, he thinks, does not often deceive. Whether the details of the plan are judiciously executed, is for others to decide.

Such being the plan of the work, the author has thought it inexpedient to encumber its pages with rules, definitions, or explanatory details ; because it has been fully proved that how simple soever a rule may be, the pupil will not readily apply it, unless particularly directed by the teacher ; and if nature and analogy vvill direct him to a correct and rhetorical modulation, rules and definitions become superfluous.

A great deficiency in all our reading-books remains to be supplied. The 1#

VI PREFACE.

Spelling-book and the Grammar furnish copious explanations of the pauses and other marks used in written language. But there is no elementary work, designed for common schools, which affords particular exercises for the management of those important marks. The author has endeavored, in the first part of this volume, to supply this remarkable defect ; and he believes, that, how much soever others may differ from him in the analogies which he has traced, in the subsequent lessons, between ^^ the models" and the exercises under the models, he is justly entitled to the credit of having originated the two important principles above mentioned, upon which the plan of the work is founded ; and he is encouraged, not only by experience, but by the confident opinion of many judicious friends, to whom the plan has been unfolded, to believe that this volume, assisted by the familiar explanations of the teacher, will serve as a better introduction to the art of Reading than a more labored treatise formed on rhetorical rule. A lesson is fir^t devoted to each of the respective pauses and other marks, and the pupil is then led by progressive steps, in the subsequent lessons, from the simplest sentences, requiring little attention to pause, emphasis, or inflection of the voice, to those which involve the highest exertions of taste and intellect. Lilac Lodge, Dedham, Mass., June^ 1849.

As a large portion of this volume is devoted to a consideration of the pauses and other marks usually employed in written language, and the notice which should be taken of them in the correct and judicious enunciation of the sentences in which they are respectively used, a few introductory remarks respecting their nature and the origin of their names may not, perhaps, be deemed superfluous by those who use the book.

Punctuation is peculiar to the modern languages of Europe. It was wholly unknown to the Greeks and Romans ; and the languages of the East, although they have certain marks or signs to indicate tones, have no regular system of punctuation. The Romans and the Greeks also, it is true, had certain points, which, like those of the languages of the East, were confined to the delivery and pronunciation of words ; but the pauses were indicated by breaking up the matter into lines or paragraphs, not by marks resembling those in the modern system of punctuation. Hence, in the responses of the ancient oracles, which were generally written down by the priests and delivered to the inquirers, the ambiguity — intentional, doubtless — which the want of punctuation caused, saved the credit of the oracle, whether the expected event was favorable or unfavorable. As an instance of this kind, may be cited that remarkable response which was given on a well known occasion when the oracle was consulted with regard to the success of a certain military expedition.

'^Ibis et redibis nunquam peribis in bello." Written, as it was, without being pointed, it might be translated either " Thou shalt go, and shalt never return, thou shalt perish in battle," or '' Thou shalt go and shalt return, thou shalt never perish in battle." The correct translation depends on the placing of a comma after the word nunquam, or after redibis.

The invention of the modern system of punctuation has been attributed to the Alexandrian grammarian Aristophanes, after whom it was improved by succeeding grammarians ; but it was so entirely lost in the time of Charlemagne that he found it necessary to have it restored by Warnefried and Alcuin. It consisted at first of only one point, used in three ways, and sometimes of a stroke, both being formed in several ways. But as no particular rules were followed in the use of these signs, punctuation was exceedingly uncertain, until the end of the fifteenth b INTRODUCTION.

century, when the learned Venetian printers, the Manutii, increased the number of the signs, and established some fixed rules for their application. These were so generally adopted, that we may consider them as the inventors of the present method of punctuation ; and although modern grammarians have introduced some improvements, nothing but some particular rules have been added since that time.

The design of the system of Manutius was purely grammatical, and had no further reference to enunciation, than to remove ambiguity in the meaning and to give precision to the sentence. This, therefore, is the object of punctuation, and although the marks employed in written language may sometimes denote the different pauses and tones of voice which the sense and an accurate pronunciation require, yet they are more generally designed to mark the grammatical divisions of a sentence, and to show the dependence and relation of words and members which are separated by the intervening clauses. The teacher, therefore, who directs his pupils to "mind their pauses in reading,'' gives but an unintelligible direction to those who are unversed in the rules of analysis. A better direction would be to disregard the pauses, and endeavor to read the sentence with just such pauses and tones as they would employ if the sentence were their own, and they were uttering it in common conversation. The truth of this remark will abundantly appear by a reference to the ninth lesson of this volume, and the directions given in relation to the comma. Indeed it is often the case that correct and tasteful reading requires pauses, and those too of a considerable length, to be made, where such pauses are indicated in written language by no mark what<!ver. [See Lesson X.]

In like manner it will appear, from an inspection of the latter part of the ninth lesson, that it is not unfrequently the case that the sense will allow no pause whatever to be made in cases where, if the marks alone were observed, it would seem that a pause of considerable length is required. The pupil, therefore, who has been taught to mind his pauses, must first be taught to unlearn this direction, and endeavor to understand the sentence which he is to read before he attempts to enunciate it.

The characters employed in written language are the following :

The Comma,

The Hyphen,

The Semicolon,

The Breve,

-

The Colon,

The Apostrophe,

The Period,

The Dash,

__

The Brace,

The Exclamation,

The Acute Accent,

The Interrogation,

The Grave Accent,

The Quotation Marks, a "

The Circumflex Accent,

The Diaeresis,

The Caret,

A

The Crotchets,

The Cedilla,

The Brackets,

The Asterisk,