Excerpt from The Fourth Reader of the Popular Series IN calling the attention of educators to whatever, in this Fourth number, may be found peculiar in the character of a Reading Book for schools, we would refer, in addition to what is said here, to the explanatory preface of the Third Reader. It willobe seen that the plan of localizing events around a home centre of attraction, and carrying onward the same leading characters through the varying scenes incident to childhood and youth, and thence, still onward, into the sterner realities of life, continues to be a leading feature of the series, - a feature that is designed to give' continuity and increased interest to the entire work; and we are quite confident that it will be found to serve this purpose without diminishing the variety of matter required in a Reading Book, or in any degree impairing its educational value. Indeed, we think We may justly claim that our plan admits the possibility of the very greatest variety. We refer to the table of contents for some idea of our acknowledged selections from others, and of our still more numerous adaptations of such pieces as we have found suited to our purposes. Nor is this all; for while the slender web of fiction that runs throughout is of our own weaving, we have borrowed, from a great variety of sources, whatever hues and colors we have found best adapted to give interest and variety to the pattern. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.