Eclectic Series

Eclectic Series - published by American Book Company. Copyright 1886 by Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. Authors: W. H. Weick & C. Grebner.

This series of school readers comes from the same company that produced the famous McGuffey's Reader series in English. Both series use the eclectic method to teach reading.

• Eclectic German Primer / Deutsche Fibel: Für amerikanische Schulen.
• This primer begins with teaching single letters and short words, and progresses to poems and short stories. It teaches cursive handwriting in the 'Schrift' or 'Sutterlin' style from the very first lesson. The German words are printed in the Gothic typestyle, and in the Erster Teil (first part, which covers half the book) under each German word is the English equivalent. Apparently some of the German-American children at the German schools didn't know their German all that well. In the Erster Teil the left hand side of the page gives a handwritten version of the lesson (in 'Schrift'), while the right side provides it in printed form--Gothic for the German and Roman type for the English. In the Zweiter Teil (second part), the lessons no longer have the interlinear English translations, but at the end of each of its 32 lessons a vocabulary list of new words is given, with its English equivalent.
• Sample from the Erster Teil, page 13:
• Hol mein Heu nun heim! (Fetch my hay (now) home!) Mein Hut ist neu. (My hat is new) Ein Ei ist im Nest. (An egg is in-the nest.)

• Sample from the Zweiter Teil, page 63:
• Im Winter, wenn es frieret,
• Im Winter, wenn es schneit,
• Dann ist der Weg zur Schule,
• Für wahr noch mal so weit.





• (Eclectic German First Reader)
• (Eclectic German Second Reader)
• Eclectic German Third Reader / Deutsches Drittes Lesebuch: Für amerikanischen Schulen.
• This book is meant for the fourth year of school and finishes the reading & grammar instruction for the elementary classes. It has 124 lessons, and perhaps was intended to be used for two schoolyears. Six or so of the lessons are printed inRoman type, the rest in the usual Gothic. Each lesson has a vocabulary section in which the new words are translated into English. The back of the book contains 13 grammar lessons with exercises and 24 English-to-German translation exercises.
• Sample lesson from page 53:
• Der Kolibri. Der Kolibri, von dem es ungefähr dreihundert verschiedene Arten gibt, findet sich nur in America, besonders auf der südliche Hälfte des Kontinents. Zwei oder drei Arten kommen aber auch in Nordamerika häufig vor.

Help!

Do you have copies of the missing books of this series? Perhaps you could write me with a short description of the books. (If you have a spare copy you might be willing to sell at a reasonable price, that's good too.) Write to: Nissa, PO Box 151, Daggett, MI 49821 USA