The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant   By: John Hamilton Moore (1738-1807)

MONITOR,

AND

ENGLISH TEACHER's

ASSISTANT:

BEING

A COLLECTION OF SELECT PIECES

FROM OUR BEST MODERN WRITERS;

CALCULATED TO

Eradicate vulgar Prejudices and Rusticity of Manners; Improve the Understanding; Rectify the Will; Purify the Passions; Direct the Minds of Youth to the Pursuit of proper Objects; and to facilitate their Reading, Writing, and Speaking the English language, with Elegance and Propriety.

Particularly adapted for the use of our eminent Schools and Academies, as well as private persons, who have not an opportunity of perusing the Works of those celebrated Authors, from whence this collection is made.

DIVIDED INTO SMALL PORTIONS, FOR THE EASE OF READING IN CLASSES.

THE LATEST EDITION.

BY J. HAMILTON MOORE ,

AUTHOR OF

THE PRACTICAL NAVIGATOR AND SEAMAN'S NEW DAILY ASSISTANT.

1802.

PREFACE.

As the design of Learning is to render persons agreeable companions to themselves, and useful members of society; to support solitude with pleasure, and to pass through promiscuous temptations with prudence; 'tis presumed, this compilation will not be unacceptable; being composed of pieces selected from the most celebrated moral writers in the English language, equally calculated to promote the principles of religion, and to render youth vigilant in discharging, the social and relative duties in the several stations of life; by instilling into their minds such maxims of virtue and good breeding, as tend to eradicate local prejudices and rusticity of manners; and at the same time, habituate them to an elegant manner of expressing themselves either in Writing or Speaking.

And as the first impression made on the minds of youth is the most lasting, great care should be taken to furnish them with such seeds of reason and philosophy as may rectify and sweeten every part of their future lives; by marking out a proper behaviour both with respect to themselves and others, and exhibiting every virtue to their view which claims their attention, and every vice which they ought to avoid. Instead of this, we generally see youth suffered to read romances, which impress on their minds such notions of Fairies, Goblins, &c. that exist only in the imagination, and, being strongly imbibed, take much time to eradicate, and very often baffle all the powers of philosophy. If books abounding with moral instructions, conveyed in a proper manner, were given in their stead, the frequent reading of them would implant in their mind such ideas and sentiments, as would enable them to guard against those prejudices so frequently met with amongst the ignorant.

Nor is it possible that any person can speak or write with elegance and propriety, who has not been taught to read well, and in such books where the sentiments are just and the language pure.

An insipid flatness and languor is almost the universal fault in reading; often uttering their words so faint and feeble, that they appear neither to feel nor understand what they read, nor have any desire it should be understood or felt by others. In order to acquire a forcible manner of pronouncing words, let the pupils inure themselves, while reading, to draw in as much air as their lungs can contain with ease, and to expel it with vehemence in uttering those sounds which require an emphatical pronunciation, and read aloud with all the exertion they can command; let all the consonant sounds be expressed with a full impulse of the breath, and a forcible action of the organs employed in forming them; and all the vowel sounds have a full and bold utterance.