March's A-B-C Book.
Boston: Ginn & Heath, 1881, J. S. Cushing Printer, Boston; grey boards with brown spine, little girl instucting her baby brother surrounded by toys; the odd pages following page 38 are miscellaneous adverts for Ginn & Heath books; advert for "The Fitz globe" on back cover, 5 x 7.25; 38 pp plus 8 pp catalogue including collage of sales rep cards. Reference education,, hardback.
A phonics beginning reader, using a simplified phonetic alphbet, the first nine lessons using blackboard, slate, sand table, or letter blocks but without illustrations to prevent guessing. The following lessons have charming little illustrations and follow a wonderful St. Bernard like dog called Carlo off and on. At the back is a chart with the letter name of the orthographic symbol used for teacher and scholar use; the types are those used by Leigh for his pronouncing orthography.. (Under C we have c sounding as ke, ç as se and c´h as ch) and the sounds are spelled that way throughout the book, "whisper" vocalization is optional.) "Dr. Edwin Leigh has helped make this book, kindly lending his types and his advice" A simple method which might transfer easily to conventional spelling/reading.
"Dr. Francis Andrew March (1825 - 1911) was an American polymath, academic, philologist, and lexicographer, author in 1881 of The Spelling Reform.. He is considered the principal founder of modern comparative linguistics in Old English." His son also called Francis Andrew March (1863–1928) worked with him on his Thesaurus, but probably not on this book.
CONDITION: Good; pencil name, paper on boards darkening, all edges and corners very rubbed, front hinge paper separated but holding firm, pages very flat and clean, 1" margin tear p.17. Item #22573
$55