Saturday, May 28, 2011

Plants and Their Children/Google Books


Title Plants and Their Children
Author Frances Theodora Parsons
Publisher American Book Company, 1896
Length 272 pages
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Thursday, May 19, 2011

The Little Gleaner(Christian Character Education)/Goolge Books

This was a British children's magazine with a heavy emphasis on Christian character education . Strongly Protestant in flavor and many lovely engravings.

Excerpt from The Seasons:
The four seasons of the year in their turn change the face of nature, affording varied work for the husbandman, and giving the manufacturer and tradesman diversified opportunities of buying and selling goods; and every shrewd merchant and tradesman watches for and embraces the season most favourable for business, just as the mariner does the wind and tides.

No doubt many of you are so favoured and indulged that the varying seasons bring to you suitable recreation and employment; to boys, hoops, peg-tops, and marbles; and girls, hoops, shuttlecock, and skipping-rope, with out-door and in-door employment of a far more intellectual and useful character; so that each change in the year has for you its charm.

But the dream of riper age flits before your eyes at times with such radiance, causing you to think some childish trials very hard to bear. But, remember, dear young ones, you will never have less cares than now. You imagine increased years will give you advanced pleasures, not considering that these things will bring their share of trouble. Ah! far more than you now have, when, with choking sobs and brimful eyes, you hang over a difficult sum, or sigh over a broken toy. Don't forget that behind the blushing rose you may find a pricking thorn, and a bitter sediment may be at the bottom of a sweet cup.

But we would not needlessly cloud your cheerful brows with the hardships of future years. Do your best to improve your home and schooldays, that they may bring you a good return, for we get but the theory of learning at school—the practice of it is acquired later on. This is now the springtime of your life, when the seed is sown that will afterwards spring up of whatever kind it may be. But some of you may be passing the primrose of your days: your character is being fully developed; you may long have been beneath a parent's roof, and have hung on to props and dependencies, just as the ivy clings to and climbs around the oak ; now you are left to your own resources, you may no longer have a father's counsel or a mother's care, but are thrown into the wide world among companions vain and vile. You have to shoulder your way amidst designing men and deceitful women. Oh, may the God of Jacob bless you and keep you, so that, as you ripen into the summer season of your life, it may/be with the prospect of securing a harvest of spiritual as well as of temporal profit! And that you may prosper, abhor an and beware of sloth; both will do you harm, although you may shake off me latter and increase the former. In all things look to the Lord for help; He /can cause you to steer clear where others strike upon the rock and suffer shipwreck. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your pathway. Many flowery and mossy paths may open invitingly to you, like the various rows Bunyan speaks of in Vanity Fair, where honours, profits, pleasures, and pastimes may be presented to your view in their best garb, to attract your mind and ensnare your feet—offered too at so cheap a rate that you may say, "Why should I deny myself this which costs me so little?" But oh, remember the reckoning day is to come; "for the end of all these things is death" (Rom.vi. 21).



Title The Little Gleaner
Publisher Houlston, 1879, London
Click here.

Monday, May 9, 2011

How to be a Lady for Girls/Google Books

Title How to be a Lady for Girls
Author Harvey Newcomb
Published 1850
Original from the University of Michigan
Click here.

Chapter 18, Indolence:

The indolent dread all exertion. When requested to do any thing, they have something else to do first, which their indolence has left unfinished; or they have some other reason to give why they should not attempt it. But if nothing else will do, the sluggard's excuse, " I can't" is always at hand. Were it not for the injury to them, it would be far more agreeable to do, one's self, what is desired of them, than to encounter the painful scowls that clothe the brow, when they think of making an effort. Solomon has described this disposition to the life : —" The slothful man putteth his hand in his bosom: it grieveth him to take it out again"

Friday, May 6, 2011

The Giant Crab and Other Tales from Old India/Project Gutenberg


THE GIANT CRAB And Other Tales from Old India Retold by W. H. D. ROUSE Illustrated by W. Robinson, London, 1897.
See here.

Elementary Spanish-American Reader/Google Books

Title Elementary Spanish-American reader
Macmillan Spanish series
Editor Frederick Bliss Luquiens
Publisher The Macmillan company, 1917
Length 224 pages
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Preface:

It is the purpose of this book to furnish material for translation for students who wish to begin reading at a very early stage of their study of Spanish. With this purpose in view, the notes are both elementary and exhaustive, and the vocabulary contains all verb forms whose stems differ from the stem of the infinitive, and all other words which might give trouble to the beginner, such as combinations of verbs and pronouns, and irregular plurals.

It is hoped that teachers will like the literal translations in the notes. In no case have free translations of difficult passages been given which do not show, at the same time, what the individual words mean. If teachers will require students to learn the literal, as well as the free translation of such passages, accuracy in translation will soon be attained.

The notes of a beginning book should not only help the student in translation, but also afford him an opportunity of reviewing the rules he has learned in his grammar or composition book. This has been kept in mind in the preparation of the present notes. Grammatical rules are stated in full at their first occurrence in the text, and thereafter attention is repeatedly recalled to those rules by cross-references. If teachers who use this book will insist on the use of the cross-references, their students will not forget the fundamental rules of grammar. For convenience of reference, a statement of the uses of the subjunctive and a table of numerals have been added to the notes.

To each selection have been added exercises for oral and written work. The Spanish questions are to be used orally. If students prepare their answers in advance, teachers will find it easy to make them the basis of general conversation on the lesson which will be both interesting and valuable. The composition exercises contain no words, phrases, or constructions which the student will not be able to find in the Spanish pages immediately preceding. He will be able, therefore, to write a little Spanish based on models rather than on rules, thus supplementing the necessary, but rather artificial, exercises of composition books. Such work, moreover, being based on the very passages which have perhaps been difficult to translate, will give him a clearer insight into the correct method of translating Spanish into English.

Finally, this Reader is intended to fill a very great need in the teaching of Spanish in this country. There are many readers which introduce students to Spain, but none which gives him a real introduction to Spanish America. One of the objects of this book is to teach some Spanish American geography and history. Such information will not only be valuable to the student, but will, as experience has shown, arouse his interest, and this cannot but quicken his progress in the mastery of the language itself. The selections of this Reader all deal with Latin-American subjects, and are supplemented by footnotes containing fundamental information about Latin America. These footnotes have been put into very easy Spanish and included in the vocabulary, notes, and exercises. They should be included in the assignments for translation.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

How to Know the Ferns/Google Books


Title How to Know the Ferns: a guide to the names, haunts, and habits of our common ferns
Author Frances Theodora Parsons
Publisher C. Scribner's sons, 1902
Length 215 pages
Click here

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

How to Study Birds/Google Books

Title How to Study Birds: a practical guide for amateur bird-lovers and camera-hunters
Author Herbert Keightley Job
Publisher A.L. Burt, 1910
Length 272 pages
Click here

The purpose of this book is to give, simply, clearly, and thoroughly, every possible suggestion and bit of practical information which may be useful to those who are beginning the fascinating study of birds in their native haunts.

Very many are undertaking it in these days — men who crave the excitement of the chase and yet dislike to kill, or who seek relaxation from the strain of business; women who are tired of being hothouse plants, or whose nerves are at the breaking-point from an unnatural sedentary life; boys and girls in the schools who are finding that delight in the animal creation does not cease when they are no longer little children; teachers who realize the importance and interest of the subject for the young, and desire to fit themselves to interest their pupils in the birds. But it is all new and perplexing, and there are a multitude of things they want to ask about, all sorts of inquiries as how to go to work to study the birds afield. It is hoped that this book placed in their hands may prove a ready friend to answer these questions to their satisfaction and to start them upon a happy career of outdoor delights among the wild birds.