Left in & Sem, by Prof the Saughem, &d Fissued Quarterly pl Number 56 GENERA December 1892 Single Numbers FIFTEEN CENTS { Yearly Subscription (4 Numbers) 50 Cents The Riverside Literature Series. CLASSIC ENGLISH FOR SCHOOLS. The Riverside Literature Series is the result of a wish on the part of the publishers to issue in a cheap form for school use the most interesting and instructive masterpieces of such writers as Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Lowell, Hawthorne, etc. In order that the reader may be brought into the closest possible contact with the author, each masterpiece is given as it was written, unaltered and unabridged,1 and the notes, while sufficiently helpful, are not so voluminous that the reader's mind is occupied with the edito PRESENTED TO THE ENGLISH LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN BY THE PUBLISHERS. ипирир wide-spread popurariту атон already published is a sufficient guarantee that future numbers will meet with favor. GRADING. Numbers 47, 48, 49, and 50 are suitable for pupils of the Second and Third Reader grades. The following numbers, given in the order of their simplicity, have been found well adapted to the tastes and capabilities of pupils of the Fourth Reader grade: 29, 10, 7, 8, 9, 17, 18, 22, 23, 46, 11, 21, 44, 28, 36, 24, 19, 20, 32, 37, 31, F, G, and H. The other numbers of the series are suitable for pupils of the Fifth and Sixth Reader grades and for the study of literature. 1 There are in the entire series perhaps half a dozen cases where a sentence has been very slightly changed in order to adapt it for use in the schoolroom • and in HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1893 The Introductions to the two Orations, and some of the notes, as well as the text of the Orations, are taken, by the courteous Copyright, 1893, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. DANIEL WEBSTER. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. “In the last year of the Revolutionary War, on the 18th of January, 1782, Daniel Webster was born, in the home which his father had established on the outskirts of civilization.1 If the character and situation of the place, and the circumstances under which he passed the first years of his life, might seem adverse to the early cultivation of his extraordinary talent, it still cannot be doubted that they possessed influences favorable to elevation and strength of character. The hardships of an infant settlement and border life, the traditions of a long series of Indian wars, and of two mighty national contests, in which an honored parent had borne his part, the anecdotes of Fort William Henry, of Quebec, of Bennington, of West Point, of Wolfe and Stark and Washington, the great Iliad and Odyssey of American Independence, this was the fireside entertainment of the long winter evenings of the secluded village home... "Something that was called a school was kept for two or three months in the winter, frequently by an itinerant, too often a pretender, claiming only to teach a little reading, writing, and ciphering, and wholly incompetent to give any valuable assistance to a clever youth in learning either. "Such as the village school was, Mr. Webster enjoyed its advantages, if they could be called by that name. It was, 1 Salisbury (now Franklin), N. H. |