FOR PARENTS. 11 



nomena, with other matters which a strict classification might 

 have placed in the preceding section, but which were inten- 

 tionally reserved till the last, as being least easy to compre- 

 hend. But experience may show that, on the whole, this is 

 far from being the least interesting of the four. 



From what has been said, it will be perceived that, if the 

 attempted gradation has been successful, this book recom- 

 mends itself to every member of a household, from the 

 youngest to the oldest. A child may safely be left to read 

 as far as he is interested, or as far as he can understand with 

 facility, in the certainty that each year afterward he will 

 push his explorations a little further, till the end has been 

 reached and the whole is within his grasp. Meantime, par- 

 ents can read aloud selected passages even in advance of 

 the child's progress. Nor does the compiler seem to him- 

 self to overrate his collection of excerpts w r hen he suggests 

 its use as a graded reader in schools. Its capacity for rhe- 

 torical exercise will be found greater than might have been 

 expected, and those who have been led to believe Mr. Darwin 

 a materialist will discover here eloquent expression of human 

 sympathies as broad as those immortalized by the old Eo- 

 man comedian " Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto." 



Some liberties have been taken with the original text. 

 Notices of the same animal, or place, or nationality, or phe- 

 nomenon, in different parts of the narrative, have been gath- 

 ered together and pieced where necessary; and (always after 

 much hesitation) a more simple word or phrase has occasion- 



