McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson LII · Part 6: Lessons XLIX-LX: Sieges, patriots and pilgrims

58. North American Indians (Charles Sprague)

Goal: Your student reads a Fourth of July address on the Native peoples of New England and discusses its view of their fate.

⏱ About 35 minutes · 7 steps

Open it at the Internet Archive ↗

You'll need

  • The book, or the scan beside this guide
  • A notebook and pen
  • A dictionary

What's in the book

An extract from an address given in Boston on July 4th, 1825, picturing the Indian peoples who once lived where the audience sat, and how they vanished. An author note comes first.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Words and meanings

    Before reading, find these words in the selection and look up any your student does not know: embellishes, encircled, withered, tribute.

  2. About the author

    The book says Charles Sprague (1791-1875) was born in Boston, was in business for sixteen years, and for about forty years was cashier of the Globe Bank. His best-known poem, "Curiosity," was given before the Phi Beta Kappa society at Cambridge in 1829. He wrote little, but it is graceful and excellent in quality.

  3. Read it aloud

    Read together:

    Here lived and loved another race of beings.

    Beneath the same sun that rolls over your head, the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer;

    Your student reads the whole extract, slowly and with dignity.

  4. Talk about it

    SayWhat does Sprague want his Boston audience to imagine?

    SayRead: "He had not written his laws for them on tables of stone, but he had traced them on the tables of their hearts." What is he saying about their religion?

    SayWhat happened to these peoples, as he tells it? Whom does he seem to blame?

    SayHis last sentence asks his hearers to do something. What? Is it enough?

  5. Tell it back

    Your student summarizes the address in two parts: then, and now.

  6. Copywork and memory

    Copy:

    He had not written his laws for them on tables of stone, but he had traced them on the tables of their hearts.

  7. Write (optional)

    Find out which Native nations lived where you live now. Write a paragraph about them.

Tip

Sprague speaks as a man of 1825. Talk about which of his views you share and which you would change.

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