Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Chats With the Little Ones
I have kept the idea of the school-room, where the children are supposed to meet day after day to recite and converse with their teacher, who leads them on by a series of conversations from one ideato another, thus forming an unbroken chain from the first chapter to the last. If in some instances I should seem more explicit than would apparently be necessary to American readers it has been from the fear of breaking the perfect chain, which is the charm of the book. I have also in many oases been abrupt in introducing subjects widely apart from the topic of the hour. This in the original is done to explain some French word that the children do not yet understand, and it could not be wholly omitted without destroying the harmony of the chapter.
While I have endeavored to express, as nearly as possible, the same ideas in English as in the French of Dr. Sauveur, I have carefully avoided a literal trans lation. Many of the anecdotes and several complete chapters are taken from the Petites Causeries, some of the former replacing conversations in the Causeries aveo les Enfants, which are useful only to explain French words, and have no interest for an American reader. This mingling of the two books makes it impossible to use the English one as a key to either of the F reneh originals; a possibility I have dili gently studied to avoid, as it would be utterly contrary to Dr. Sauveur's system of teaching.
This book, therefore, is independent in itself. It is hoped that it will be useful in two ways: as a pleasant story-book for mothers to read to their children, or for children who are old enough to read by themselves and as a reading-bbok in schools for our little ones. The books employed in such schoolshave, too often, little interest, containing words rather than ideas. The conversations in the following chap ters, while extremely simple in themselves, open the way to more advanced thought, enabling the teacher to expand the ideas, according to his or her judgment.
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