membered by those who read it.

These selections were the most noteworthy ones in the first editions of
these readers.

The First and Second Readers of the McGuffey Series were substantially
made new at each revision. A comparison of the original Third Reader
with an edition copyrighted in 1847, shows that the latter book was
increased about one-third in size. Of the sixty-six selections in the
early edition only forty-seven were retained, while thirty new ones were
inserted. Among the latter were "Harry and his Dog Frisk" that brought
to him, punished by being sent to bed, a Windsor pear; "Perseverance," a
tale of kite-flying followed by the poem, "Try, try again;" the "Little
Philosopher," named Peter Hurdle, who caught Mr. Lenox's runaway horse
and on examination seemed to lack nothing but an Eclectic spelling book,
a reader and a Testament--which were promised him; "The Colonists," in
which men of various callings offered their services, and while even the
dancing master was accepted as of some possible use, the gentleman was
scornfully rejected; "Things by Their Right Names," in which a battle
was described as wholesale murder; "Little Victories," in which Hugh's
mother consoled him for the loss of a leg by telling him of the lives of
men who became celebrated under even greater adversities; "The Wonderful
Instrument," which turned out to be the eye; "Metaphysics," a ludicrous
description of a colonial salt-box in affected terms of exactness
designed to ridicule some forms of reasoning. Those who used this
edition of the third reader will surely remember some of these
selections.

[The Bible]

In the Fourth Reader printed in 1844 there were thirty new
selections--less than one-third of the book; but some of these were
such as will be remembered by those who read them in school. There was
"Respect for the Sabbath Rewarded," in which a barber of Bath had become
so poor because he would not shave his customers on Sunday, that he
borrowed a half-penny to buy a candle Saturday night to give light for
a late customer, and was thus discovered to be the long-lost William
Reed of Taunton, heir to many thousand pounds; "The Just Judge," who
disguised himself as a miller and, obtaining a place on the jury,
received only five guineas as a bribe when the others got ten, and who
revealed himself as Lord Chief Justice Hale and tried the case over in
his miller's clothing; Hawthorne's "The Town Pump;" Mrs. Southey's
"April Da