OLD-TIME SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL-BOOKS - online book

An Illustrated history & description Of Schools in the 18th & 19th Centurys.

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	300 Old-time Schools and School-books
	The most interesting feature of Lovell's The Young Speaker^ New Haven, 1844, was the numerous pic­tures. The book, as a whole, was planned for a school reader, but it was the purpose of the pictures to " inculcate the art of graceful and eloquent gesture/' The first of the two engravings reproduced presents the side view of a boy making his bow before an audience. With a gentle but assured step, he approaches to near the front of the platform, a little on the right of the centre, then pausing for a moment, he casts his eyes with a diffi­dent respect, over the audience; slides out his left foot on the toe, in a straight line; then supporting the body on that foot, he draws in the right foot until its heel comes into the middle or hollow of the left foot; he then presses his legs to­gether, and dropping his eyes modestly to the floor, brings his body into a slight and graceful curve, the arms hanging perfectly free. In this posture the body is kept for an instant; he then rises slowly to an erect attitude, and is ready to commence speaking. The second cut indicates how to express " painful ob­servation, surprise, alarmed compassion, and the like."