The Project Gutenberg eBook, Voices for the Speechless, Edited by Abraham
Firth

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Title: Voices for the Speechless

Editor: Abraham Firth

Release Date: July 10, 2004 [eBook #12879]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS***

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VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS

Selections for Schools and Private Reading

by

ABRAHAM FIRTH

Secretary of the American Humane Association

--which "plead the cause
Of those dumb mouths that have no speech."

LONGFELLOW

And I am recompensed, and deem the toils
Of poetry not lost, if verse of mine
May stand between an animal and woe,
And teach one tyrant pity for his drudge

COWPER

1883

PREFACE

The compiler of this little book has often heard inquiries by teachers of
schools, for selections suitable for reading and recitations by their
scholars, in which the duty of kindness to animals should be distinctly
taught.

To meet such calls, three successive pamphlets were published, and a fourth
consisting of selections from the Poems of Mr. Longfellow. All were
received with marked favor by the teachers to whom they became known.

This led to their collection afterwards in one volume for private
circulation, and now the volume is republished for public sale, with a few
omissions and additions.

All who desire our children to be awakened in their schools to the claims
of the humbler creatures are invited to see that copies are put in school
libraries, that they may be within the reach of all teachers. And this, not
for the sake of the creatures only.

As Pope has said, "Nothing stands alone; the chain holds on, and where it
ends, unknown."

Many readers may be surprised to find how many of the great poets have been
touched by the sufferings of the "innocent animals," and how loftily they
have pleaded their cause.

The poems in the collection are not all complete, because of their length
in some cases, and, in others, because a part only of each was suited to
the end in view. A very f