McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson LXXVIII · Part 8: Webster, Evangeline and the poets of death and toil

84. The English Character (William Hickling Prescott)

Goal: Your student can name what Prescott admired in the English and find the sentences that say so.

⏱ About 30 minutes · 6 steps

Open it at the Internet Archive ↗

You'll need

  • The book, open to this lesson
  • A notebook and pen
  • A dictionary

What's in the book

A short piece by the American historian Prescott, describing the English after a visit, especially the upper classes and the English country home. The heading is near the foot of the page, after the notes to Julius Caesar.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Words and meanings

    Look over the notes and definitions printed at the end of the lesson before you start, so names and hard words don't trip up the reading.

    Your student picks three unfamiliar words, guesses each meaning from the sentence, then checks a dictionary.

  2. About the author

    The book says Prescott (1796–1859) was born in Salem, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard in 1814, and died in Boston. A fellow student's careless sport injured his eye, leaving his sight damaged, so he chose history over law because it let him set his own hours and use a secretary.

  3. Read aloud

    Read it aloud together, a paragraph each.

    Listen for these lines:

    On the whole, what I have seen raises my preconceived estimate of the English character.

    The Englishman is seen to most advantage in his country home.

  4. Talk about it

    SayWhat does 'preconceived estimate' mean? What did Prescott think before he went, and after?

    SayWhat good things does he say about English landowners?

    SayHe says the Englishman is reserved with strangers but warm at home. Do you know anyone like that?

    SayPrescott was half blind. How might that have shaped the way he worked and wrote?

  5. Narration

    Your student lists, from memory, three things Prescott admired in the English.

  6. Writing (optional)

    Describe the character of your own town or country to a visitor in one paragraph, with one good thing and one fault.

Tip

Prescott's story of working around poor eyesight is worth lingering on with a student who finds reading or writing hard.

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