McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson XLIII · Part 5: Courage, kindness and the village smithy

49. The Generous Russian Peasant, by Nikolai Karamzin

Goal: Your child retells the story of Flor Silin and explains what made him truly generous.

⏱ About 30 minutes · 6 steps

Open it at the Internet Archive ↗

You'll need

  • The book, open to this lesson
  • A notebook and pencil

What's in the book

A story of Flor Silin, a peasant who, in a year of famine, gives away his grain to his hungry neighbors and refuses to be paid back. Definitions and notes follow.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Words and meanings

    Read some definitions:

    Annals, history of events.

    Drought, want of rain or water.

    Granary, a storehouse for grain.

    Superfluities, greater quantities than are wanted.

    Succor, aid, help.

  2. Read aloud

    Take turns by paragraph.

    The short and simple annals of the poor engross my pen;

    Whole families left their homes to become beggars on the highway.

    In a village adjoining lived Flor Silin, a poor, laboring peasant:

  3. Talk about it

    SayWhat was the famine year like?

    SayWhy did Flor Silin have grain when others did not? What did he do with it?

    SayWhen his neighbors tried to repay him, what did he say, and what happened to the corn they brought?

    Say"An angel might have envied him his feelings." What does that mean?

  4. Tell it back

    Your child narrates the story from the famine to the end.

  5. Copywork

    Copy Flor Silin's words:

    I have been but an humble instrument.

  6. Write (optional)

    Write about what it means to give without wanting anything back.

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