y."

"All day the low-hung clouds have dropped
Their garnered fullness down.
All day a soft gray mist hath wrapped
Hill, valley, grove and town."

Bryant's "Death of the Flowers;" Campbell's "Lochiel's Warning;" and the
trial scene from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. All these became
favorite reading exercises in later years.

As late as 1840 the Bible was read daily in all the schools of the
West. Although sectarian or denominational teaching was not permitted,
religious instruction was desired by the great majority of school
patrons.

Even up to the opening of the Civil War, whatever the faith or the
practice of the adult inhabitants of the country, the Bible story and
the Bible diction were familiar to all. The speeches of the popular
orators of that day were filled with distinct allusions to the Bible
and these were quickly and clearly apprehended by the people. It may be
questioned whether popular speeches of the present day would have equal
force if based on the assumption that everybody knows the Biblical
stories. Indeed it is a common remark made by professors of English in
the higher institutions of learning that pupils know little of the
Bible as a distinctly formative and conservative element in English
literature. In the texts authorized for the study of English classics,
Biblical allusions are very common. These have little meaning to pupils
who have not read the Bible, unless the passage is pointed out and
hunted up.

[Dr. Swing's Opinion]

From the pages of these readers the pupils learned to master the printed
word and obtain the thought of the authors. Without conscious effort
they received moral instruction and incentives toward right living.
Without intent they treasured in their memories such extracts from the
authors of the best English Literature as gave them a desire to read
more.

[Books as Teachers]

In one of his sermons Dr. David Swing of Chicago said: "Much as you may
have studied the languages or the sciences, that which most affected you
was the moral lessons in the series of McGuffey. And yet the reading
class was filed out only once a day to read for a few moments, and
then we were all sent to our seats to spend two hours in learning
how to bound New Hampshire or Connecticut, or how long it would take a
greyhound to overtake a fox or a hare if the spring of each was so and
so, and the poor fugitive had such and such a start. That was perhaps
well, but we have