Learning to spell the Englis language correctly is the most difficult task of school life. Hence correct spelling is rightly regarded as a sign of culture and bad spelling as indicating a lack of it. Orthography cannot be taught in twelve easy lessons : it can be acquired only by hard study. The Word-Book is neither a 'primary speller' nor a dictionary. It omits the alphabet and the "ab ab's" on the one hand, and on the other, quite a number of sesquipedalian words common to all old-time 'spelling books.' Spelling is the leading idea ; but at the same time a foundation is laid for the subsequent study of words and of language.

This book is an attempt to bring the subject of language home to children at the age when knowledge is acquired in an objective way, by practice and habit, rather than by the study of rules and definitions. In pursuance of this plan, the traditional presentation of grammar in a bristling array of classifications, nomenclatures, and paradigms has been wholly discarded. The pupil is brought in contact with the living language itself : he is made to deal with speech, to turn it over in a variety of ways, to handle sentences ; so that he is not kept back from the exercise-so profitable and interesting-of using language till he has mastered the anatomy of the grammarian. Whatever of technical grammar is here given is evolved from work previously done by the scholar. - William Swinton.

Learning to spell the Englis language correctly is the most difficult task of school life. Hence correct spelling is rightly regarded as a sign of culture and bad spelling as indicating a lack of it. Orthography cannot be taught in twelve easy lessons : it can be acquired only by hard study. The Word-Book is neither a 'primary speller' nor a dictionary. It omits the alphabet and the "ab ab's" on the one hand, and on the other, quite a number of sesquipedalian words common to all old-time 'spelling books.' Spelling is the leading idea ; but at the same time a foundation is laid for the subsequent study of words and of language.