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Instructive   /ɪnstrˈəktɪv/   Listen
Instructive

adjective
1.
Serving to instruct or enlighten or inform.  Synonym: informative.






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"Instructive" Quotes from Famous Books



... this, and said he did not see why they should not make it a pleasure-trip, too. They put themselves in a position to be patronized by their deference, and in the pauses of his talk with the gentleman at the head of the table, March heard his wife abusing their inexperience to be unsparingly instructive about European travel. He wondered whether she would be afraid to own that it was nearly thirty years since she had crossed the ocean; though that might seem recent to people who had ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... and Drusilla Fane, on which Henry Guion commented, Davenant felt himself to be looking at a vivid but fitfully working cinematograph, of which the scenes were snatched at random from life as lived anywhere between Washington and Simla, or Inverness and Rome. The effect was both instructive and entertaining. It was also in its way enlightening, since it showed him the true standing in the world of this woman whom he had once, for a few wild minutes, ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... usual opening exercises, the Rev. Mr. Upshaw gave an instructive and stirring talk on the evils of the use of narcotics. A good letter from the Junior Christian Endeavor band of Ionia, Iowa, was read to the students, who returned a hearty vote of thanks for the draft for five dollars therein contained ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 48, No. 7, July, 1894 • Various

... autumn rise in October or November. There are, however, certain fallacies in dealing with institutions like Normal schools, where the conditions are not perfectly regular throughout the year, owing to vacations, etc. It is, therefore, instructive to find that under the monotonous conditions of prison-life precisely the same spring and autumn rises are found. Binet takes the consumption of bread in the women's prison at Clermont, where some four hundred prisoners, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... to mention her diary, and say it was a present comfort to her, and instructive to review. Julia, catching at every straw of consolation, said she would keep one too, and asked a sight of Jane's for a model. "No, dear friend," said Jane: "a diary should be ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... through Psammite. I observed quartzite in several localities, and a hard pudding-stone extending for a considerable distance. We were, no doubt, on the transition from the depository to the primitive rocks; and a detailed examination of this interesting part of the country would be very instructive to the geologist, as to the relative age and position ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... proportion to her income. And Iris had never grudged the expenditure, for in Dyce Lashmar she found, not merely a tutor for her son, but a director of her own mind and conscience. Under Dyce's influence she had read or tried to read—many instructive books; he had fostered, guided, elevated her native enthusiasm; he had emancipated her soul. These, at all events, were the terms in which Iris herself was wont to describe the results of their friendship, and she was eminently a sincere woman, ever striving to rise ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... if it was, that the alleged offender had not committed a crime against the State, and was entitled to be discharged. Their arguments were marked by great ability and learning, and their perusal would be interesting and instructive, but space will not allow me to give even ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham

... least," said Tallyho, "very communicative and instructive—I should feel less embarrassment at a future visit to one of those places, though, I can assure you, I should carefully avoid the chance of becoming a pigeon; but to know these things ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... are of surpassing interest, including, as they do, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, the formation of the League, the Peace of Sens, and an account of the religious struggles which agitated that period. They, besides, afford an instructive insight into royal life at the close of the sixteenth century, the modes of travelling then in vogue, the manners and customs of the time, and a picturesque account of the city of Liege ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... on the skull of a dead bull to be an inch thick and covered with a mat of gnarled hair in itself almost a shield against bullets. Joel Rae, with the divine right of youth, drew for them from this circumstance an instructive parallel. ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... the Spanish writers have recorded an immense number of valuable facts, without which Mr. Bandelier's work would have been impossible. It is not so much the facts as the interpretations of the Spanish historians that are "nearly worthless," and even their misinterpretations are interesting and instructive when once we rightly understand them. Sometimes they really ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... not desire to be familiar with the early history of his own country. The writer, with great labor, has collected from widely-spread materials, and condensed into this narrative of the career of King Philip, those incidents in our early history which he has supposed would be most interesting and instructive to the general reader. He has spared no pains in the endeavor to be accurate. In the rude annals of those early days there is often obscurity, and sometimes contradiction, in the dates. Such dates have been adopted as have appeared, after careful ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... It would be instructive if we could give a parallel account of what the French do when they adopt an English word into their language. Le Dictionnaire des Anglicismes, lately published by Delagrave, has two hundred pages, and is much ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English

... adventures of barbarous nations, even if they were recorded, could afford little or no entertainment to men born in a more cultivated age. The convulsions of a civilized state usually compose the most instructive and most interesting part of its history; but the sudden, violent, and unprepared revolutions incident to barbarians are so much guided by caprice, and terminate so often in cruelty, that they disgust us by the uniformity of their appearance; and it is rather fortunate for letters that they ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... Then it was instructive to these sturdy, active white boys to come in contact with young Indians in their sports and hunting, and to observe the points in which each excelled and to ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young

... the postmaster, who dissented ex officio. I observe that you sometimes devote a portion of your paper to a religious summary. I should be well pleased to furnish a copy of my discourse for insertion in this department of your instructive journal. By omitting the advertisements, it might easily be got within the limits of a single number, and I venture to insure you the sale of some scores of copies in this town. I will cheerfully render ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... equivocal act; and leaves all the rest to be effected by the action and reaction of the characters which he began by bringing out in bold relief. His plots are thus the plots of nature; and it is impossible that they should not be both interesting and instructive. That his comedies, thus composed, are besides amusing, results from the shrewdness with which he has selected and combined his characters, and the art with which he ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere

... but with difficulty, than what we had brought from England; yet, under all their privations, the contented and happy disposition of these people, added to their independent bearing and dauntless bravery, was a lesson as instructive to luxurious selfishness, as it must be gratifying to the man who believes in the innate nobility of his race, and ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... we include among them the art of the apothecary, which all through life he studied diligently and practised courageously. But he recommended Botany, with some confidence, as "certain to delight little girls"; and his friendship with the amiable and instructive Mrs. Marcet[170] gave him a smattering of scientific terms. In a discussion on the Inferno he invented a new torment especially ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... the expense of wifehood and maternity, but our Christian Protestantism denies to her the mission of minister, even with that penalty. It is true the Catholic Church does recognize women among its divinities, and it might be a curious and instructive inquiry, how far that Church owes its perpetuity, despite its gigantic crimes and crushing despotism, to the recognition of "Mary the mother of God." In its effort to perpetuate the servitude of woman, as in other attempts to defend oppression ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... was quite a swell on. They reached the nets safely, and while the meshes were hauled up, bringing a good catch of fish, the moving picture boys took many views. It was interesting as well as instructive. ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton

... Lucian. In Latin, Lucretius, Pliny's "Letters", the "Annals" and "Germany" of Tacitus. In French, the "History of the French Revolution" by Lacretelle. He read for the first time, this year, Montaigne's "Essays", and regarded them ever after as one of the most delightful and instructive books in the world. The list is scanty in English works: Locke's "Essay", "Political Justice", and Coleridge's "Lay Sermon", form nearly the whole. It was his frequent habit to read aloud to me in the evening; in this ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... bands of despairing men or women who have thrown away all means of self-defence and join together at some holy place in one passionate prayer for pity. The highest of all gods, Zeus, was the special patron of the suppliant; and it is strange and instructive to find that Zeus the all-powerful is actually identified with this Aphiktor: Zeus men 'Aphiktor epidoi prophronos.[28:1] The assembled prayer, the united cry that rises from the oppressed of the world, is itself grown to be a god, ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... sympathy. And how readily and pleasantly may this be done! I will take upon myself, for instance, to write an eulogium upon So-and-So's last novel, which shall be every word of it true; and which work, though to some discontented spirits it might appear dull, may be shown to be really amusing and instructive,—nay, IS amusing and instructive,—to those who have the art of discovering where ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... This case is extremely instructive. A great love for flowers, leading to the act of kissing, occurs in many children without any subsequent association, when these children have grown up, of sexual sentiments with flowers. Such persons will lay little stress on their memories of such occurrences in childhood—indeed, ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... instance (merely to illustrate my thesis of unreality) from the paper that I know best. Here is a simple story, a little episode in the life of a journalist, which may be amusing and instructive: the tale of how I made a great mistake in quotation. There are really two stories: the story as seen from the outside, by a man reading the paper; and the story seen from the inside, by the journalists shouting and telephoning ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... (from the desire of the Irish peasant to make the most of his miseries) that the rent may have been in many instances exaggerated, we may rest perfectly assured that in no instance was it underrated. Founded on the results of this enquiry, a very useful and instructive sheet (entitled Ireland at a Glance) has been compiled and published, in which, amongst other statistical information, the average rent of land in each county is given, and on the correctness of which we may safely rely. Had the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... the good Baron Edelsheim." Without waiting for an answer, he continued: "As the Baron is a much older and more experienced traveller than myself, I asked him which, of all the countries he had visited, could boast the prettiest and kindest women. His reply was really very instructive, and it would be a great pity if justice were not done to his merit by ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... equipped with every facility for executing work from architects' special designs and within a reasonable cost. The prizes have been offered in the most liberal spirit, and while a large number of the designs submitted were unsatisfactory, they have been instructive and their shortcomings will be borne in mind in preparing the program of another competition, with larger prizes, which will shortly be announced in ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration - Vol 1, No. 9 1895 • Various

... and his speech is instructive as well as amusing, for it is a curious proof of the facility with which the world may be deceived, and of the prodigious effect which may be produced by the smallest means, if they are aided by some fortuitous ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... previous occasions communicated to you some instructive and illuminating examples of the extraordinary intelligence of my dog Boanerges, but so far (doubtless owing to extreme pressure on your space) you have not been ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various

... A most attractive and instructive exhibition of reproductions of the portraits of Shakespeare, or supposedly of him, was shown at the rooms of the Grolier Club, April 6-29, 1916. The catalogue[28] embraces 436 numbers, illustrating all the principal types. The exhibition also comprised the principal editions ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz

... was rather polyglot in her flirtations, and received visitors from all parts of the world, the parrot spoke all languages, and would sometimes let out a lingua Franca of oaths enough to shock the sailors to whom "Vert-Vert" owed his profitable education. The company of this bird, which might be instructive and amusing for ten minutes, became a positive torture when prolonged. The neighbors had often complained; the actress insolently disregarded their complaints. Two or three other tenants of the house, respectable fathers of families, indignant at the scandalous state of morals ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... political guide, an entertaining and instructive family journal, entirely free from objectionable features, in either letterpress or illustrations, should subscribe to ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... excursions; he gets out of patience with himself and with his Pensioner, and often damns the latter in good set terms; but he will not give up the struggle; his resolve to conquer is adamantine, and the conflict is always renewed. And there it all stands in black and white; one of the most instructive chapters in literary criticism in the world—the battle of a great writer with himself. The final issue, after all, was hardly decisive, for although a tolerable modus vivendi was reached and a truce declared, it is evident that Hawthorne regarded the entire scheme of the story as a mistake, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... have cut a vertical section through Audrey's soul, you would have found it built up in successive layers of soul. When you had dug through Wyndham, you came to Ted; when you had got through Ted, you came upon Hardy, the oldest formation of all. The room was instructive as a museum filled with the records of these changes. But the specimens were badly arranged, recent deposits lying side by side with relics of an earlier period: thus the floor was covered with the bearskin given by Hardy and the Persian rugs laid down during the Art ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... to get a glimpse of the apotheosis of the Philistine— that is to say, the Philistine whose stains have been removed and wiped away, and who is now an absolutely pure sample of his type. In truth, the opportunity we have here may prove instructive: let no one who happens to have fallen a victim to the confession-book lay it aside before having read the two appendices, "Of our Great Poets" and "Of our Great Musicians." Here the rainbow of the new brotherhood is set, and he who can find no pleasure in it "for such an one there ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... impotent rage which sought to purchase life and safety for the Romish Church by the murder of Huss and of Jerome of Prague is instructive, if it is not pleasing. The truth was too true to be spoken. Never has the Church of Rome, in its inquisitorial madness, been so blinded with fury and passion as then. Weakened by internal feuds, with two Popes struggling and hurling anathemas at each ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... D.D., Bishop of Detroit: "I congratulate you upon producing a work so useful to those having charge of souls in such clear, concise, and instructive a style. I shall gladly commend it to the ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead

... Consequently Mr. Willson was offered, for the first time in his life, a chance of expressing his views on matter and spirit in as many articles and in as extensive a shape as he chose. The way he received this tardy recognition of the fact that he had something to say was highly instructive. He did not put on airs of unrecognized greatness, though, I own, the occasion was propitious; he did not say, "I told you so;" he simply and frankly was glad, in, ...
— Ancient and Modern Physics • Thomas E. Willson

... of gentlemen who met once a fortnight for the purpose of amicable discussion. Our members—alas! how few remain—were of all parties and persuasions, and some of them of very distinguished attainments. A society thus constituted was in those days as pleasant as it was instructive. The most eager disputation was never found to endanger the most perfect goodwill, nor did any bitter feuds arise from this entire freedom of opinion till the prolific period of the French Revolution. On this subject ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie

... Ross writes a quiet, methodical, business-like, instructive style, and is manifestly ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes

... soever I turn I see only vain puerilities, useless labor, doubtful hypotheses, presumption and falsehood. I admit that you may count amid the multitude of books lumbering the shelves of your libraries many innocent and instructive works. Those books, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... enter into all the arguments that have been urged on either side relative to Cecrops would occupy about two hundred pages of this work, and still leave the question in dispute. Perhaps two hundred pages might be devoted to subjects more generally instructive. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a quiet, entertaining and instructive game. One member of the family is given the privilege of thinking of some specific object anywhere in the universe. The others endeavor to guess what that object is and are only allowed to ask twenty questions in doing so. The ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper

... the accompanying plate will be very instructive, as the fragment of pottery is given on the left, with its rather obscure intaglio impressions, and the clay cast on the right with the cords of the fabric in high relief. The great body of illustrations have been made ...
— Prehistoric Textile Fabrics Of The United States, Derived From Impressions On Pottery • William Henry Holmes

... again: "The New Science of Harmony at Variance with the Old." The "Album Leaves for the Emancipation of Fifths" as a supplement are stirring; and the "Anthology of Classical Following Fifths," with quotations from Hiller and Hauptmann,. is especially instructive. In Harmony, as in other things, it is no longer a question of reforming what has been laid aside, but rather of the fulfilling of ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... Le Geographe when she made her appearance outside Port Jackson, on June 20th, 1802, was in striking and instructive contrast with that of the Investigator on her entry forty-two days before. Flinders had not a sick man on board. His crew finished the voyage a company of bronzed, jolly, hearty sailors, fit for any ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... thought first," Mrs. Upjohn proceeded, "of a series of games as instructive as delightful, games of history and geography, and one particularly of astronomy, which I am persuaded would be very helpful. It brought out the nature of the spectroscope in a remarkably clear and intelligent light, and after a few rounds ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield

... tells a fearful but instructive tale; inasmuch as it shows how wantonly men can sport with the lives of their fellow-men, if it suit the purpose of a great political party. The patriots, to enlist in their favour the religious prejudices of ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... could not be extinguished without general sorrow. Although he was unduly modest, and never aspired to the role of a beacon-light in literature, always seeking to remain in obscurity, the works of Emile Souvestre must be placed in the first rank by their morality and by their instructive character. They will always command the entire respect and applause of mankind. And thus it happens that, like many others, he was only fully appreciated ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... part of your leisure to a critical study of the house you would like, draw plans, make sketches in color, study color effects, learn about fabrics, collect them for the future. You will find an amusing and instructive occupation. ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards

... can consequently be more definitely disentangled than they can be during the years when the Constitution was being wrought. The Constitution was in many respects a compromise, whereas the ensuing constructive legislation was a tolerably pure example of Hamiltonian Federalism. It will be instructive, consequently, to examine the trend of this Hamiltonian policy, and seek to discover wherein it started the country on the right path, and wherein it sought to commit the national government to a more dubious ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... know, then," said Mr. Larkyns, "that Miss Mary was giving one of those delightful object-lessons, wherein she blends so much instructive-" ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... be able to resist the delights of this book, full to the brim of instructive and ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... backward, a river may present a barrier. An instructive instance is afforded by the River Yo, which flows eastward through northern Bornu into Lake Chad, and serves at once as boundary and protection to the agricultural tribes of the Kanuri against the ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... interested in party tactics will find it instructive to read Mr. Randall's account of the opposition to Adams's administration. His correspondence shows that Adams was the victim of those in whom he confided. He made the mistake of retaining the Cabinet which Washington had during the last year or two of his term, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... instructive and pleasant, but after all there is nothing so enjoyable as the independence and the luxury of one's own home. Travel is pleasant, but home ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... arrangement of Providence, man is so constituted that he may think, talk, and eat, all at one and the same time. Hence, the table is often the scene of animated and very interesting conversations, provided love is there. Many of our Saviour's most interesting and instructive discourses were delivered while 'sitting at meat,' and the 'table-talk' of some authors is decidedly the most ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... as to the natural effects of architecture, optical science, and house decoration; one short, decisive, terrible word, of history made on the spot. The work which contains this instructive page is sold at number 76 Rue de Richelieu, where above an elegant shop, all white and gold and crimson velvet, there is an entresol into which the light pours straight from the Rue de Menars, as into a ...
— Gaudissart II • Honore de Balzac

... was the talk of highly accomplished and travelled men of the world, who had seen much and been actors in many moving events; men who were not overtrammelled by prejudices, religious or other, and who were above all things desirous of making themselves agreeable and instructive to the stranger within their gates. The Heer Brant also, who had but just arrived in Leyden, showed himself an able and polished man, one that had been educated more thoroughly than was usual among his class, and who, at the table of his father, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... outside and inside covers seventy acres, and every inch on 'em beautiful and instructive. The twenty acres covered by Agricultural Hall contains everything relating to the soil and its cultivation, everything that Mother Earth gives to man, all the tools, implements of every kind used in agriculture, ploughs, reapers, mowers, ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley

... constant reader of your invaluable paper, many subjects of deep interest come under my observation, and doubtless no journal throughout the land contains more instructive reading—that which tends to accelerate the progress of scientific investigation, and promote the general interest of the people—than the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. The series of articles under the head of "Aerial Navigation," commenced on page 309, ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... protection of a Christian emperor enabled the Christians to express themselves without fear, the doctrines of the church and the stories of the life of Christ and the histories of the saints, as well as many other instructive religious subjects, were made in mosaics, and placed in prominent places in churches and basilicas. Mosaics are very durable, and many belonging to the early Christian era ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement

... of the Philadelphia magazines is to tell the story of Philadelphia literature. The story is not a stately nor a splendid one, but it is exceedingly instructive. It helps to exhibit the process of American literature as an evolution, and it illustrates perilous and important chapters in American history. For a hundred years Pennsylvania was the seat of the ripest culture in America. The best libraries were ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth

... not a mere mechanician, but has great knowledge of men and of affairs, and an ample fund of information on all subjects. His conversation is engaging and instructive; and when he seeks to enlist coperation in his mechanical enterprises, few men can withstand the force of his arguments and the power of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... surface—a sea of green, and with islands large and small scattered over the surface, covered with live oaks and dense vegetation; where alligators, or gators as they are called in Florida parlance, possess undoubted aboriginal rights of citizenship, and mosquitoes pay constant visits and are instructive and even penetrating in their ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous

... of, or imagined possible, in the history of the world. No wonder that its shimmer dazzled the eyes not only of contemporaries, but of posterity. According to Macaulay, {433} Philip's power was equal to that of Napoleon, and its ruin is the most instructive lesson in history of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... undertook a separate study of Potomac questions, both in general and with specific focus on the metropolis. Their independent report, The Potomac, was lately published. It makes a detailed, wise, and instructive plea for considering the river and its landscape as a whole and meaningful thing, for proceeding with their development and protection according to high esthetic and ecological principles, and for a distinctive ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior

... volume of stories for young readers, the writer has had in view their instruction, by presenting to them their station in a familiar and instructive story. Each story contains a moral, and teaches principles by which the youth should be governed in their private, social and public relations in life. In the perusal of these stories, we hope to accomplish our ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"

... a favourite study with the scholar to trace the remains of Grecian or Roman workmanship; he turns over his Montfaucon with learned satisfaction; and he gazes with rapture on the noble collection of Sir William Hamilton. The amusement is rational and instructive. But will not his curiosity be more awakened, will he not find even more real matter for important reflection, by passing an hour in surveying the numerous specimens of the ingenuity of our newly-discovered friends, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... clearness of arrangement, rigor of development, simplicity of style—these may to a certain extent be learned: and these may, I am convinced, be learned best from the ancients, who, although infinitely less suggestive than Shakespeare, are thus, to the artist, more instructive. ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... advise you for your own sake, as a valuable memorial, and wish it for my own, that that part of my life might be faithfully reported by the person who knows it best...." "You have enough to tell which is harmless, as well as interesting, and not harmless only, but instructive, and that ought to be told, and which only you ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... uphold, against his own officials, the custom which every prince before him had sanctioned, in exactly the same way we find Henry V. affirming that the Privilege of St. Romain was of right to be exercised by the canons of the Cathedral according to their ancient precedents. And it is instructive that though his verdict was first pronounced in a case by which a native prisoner benefited, it was only in the next year, and again on some other occasions, that an Englishman was chosen to bear the holy ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... written after the extinction of recent prejudices, this term of its administration will appear not the least conducive to the interests of the Company, nor the least reflective of the honor of the British name: and allow me to suggest the instructive reflection of what good might have been done, and what evil prevented, had due support been given to that administration which has performed such eminent and substantial services ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... think of myself and all these glowing secrecies and hidden fancies within, walking along beside old Siddons, and half listening to his instructive discourse, I see myself as though I was an image of all humanity under ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... uninitiated and to intending emigrants to that sub-continent. As the reader proceeds with the examination of this book it will suggest comparisons and even analogies which may commend themselves as singularly apposite and instructive in relation with the study of the ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... OXIA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER NU}. Here, again, the believer is said to have eternal life, even now; for he has passed from death into life. Ingens saltus, remarks Bengel, with his customary brevity and graphic power. We translate a part of Luecke's ample and instructive note ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... retaining his sensations and their motor reactions, was by special circumstances rendered entirely spontaneous like a sensitive automaton, whose movements were neither intentionally produced nor intentionally repressed. In this way, melodic intervals in a hypnotized subject might be very instructive." ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... in his "Alcohol and the State," an exceedingly valuable discussion of the "Problem of Law as Applied to the Liquor Traffic," gives an instructive history of the license laws of Massachusetts from early colonial times down to the year 1877. The experience of Massachusetts is that of every other community, State or nation, which has sought ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... to trace the origin and progress of accidental depravations of the text: and the study is as instructive as it is interesting. Let me invite attention to what is found in St. John x. 29; where,—instead of, 'My Father, who hath given them [viz. My sheep] to Me, is greater than all,'—Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, are for reading, 'That thing which My (or ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon

... "mind" so many things on account of her age, that she was a most amusing and instructive person to visit. She had worked for the Solaces as child, girl, and woman, and now she was pensioned off, and allowed to live in her cottage rent-free with her one remaining unmarried daughter, Anne, of whom she always spoke as her "good child." Anne was over seventy years ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton

... correctly defined as the enemy, while the excise claimed by the birds is head-money for his extirpation. An adaptation of this instructive couplet to gardening for the guidance of those of us who do not farm, but garden in a small way, would naturally enlarge the allowance of the cut-worm. From the more limited demesne the crow and the grakle are generally excluded. What ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... chapter was left by Luke; but some of the German scholar's criticisms show that he has not a right idea of the simplicity of life and equipment that evidently characterized the jailer's house and the prison. The details which he blames as inexact and inconsistent are sometimes most instructive about the circumstances of this provincial ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... historians. Their design, especially that of Herodotus, was not to lay before us an exact series of the kings of Egypt, but only to point out those princes whose history appeared to them most important and instructive. I shall follow the same plan, and hope to be forgiven, for not having involved either myself or my readers in a labyrinth of almost inextricable difficulties, from which the most able can scarce disengage themselves, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... H.E.I.C.S., and—which he was still longer coming to—the wisdom of being a communicative creature; though possibly, by a natural reaction, at present he carries anti-secresy a little too far, and verges on the gossiping extreme. But, at the time to which we must look back to commence this right-instructive story, General Tracy was still drinking "Hodgson's Pale" in India, was so taciturn as to be considered almost dumb, and had not yet lifted up his yellow visage upon Albion's white cliffs, nor taken up head-quarters in ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... 'Oh nature, how art thou glorious, sublime, instructive!'—we mean that her laws emanate from a power of infinite intelligence and perfection; and when we say 'Oh nature, how art thou frail, vain and insufficient!' we mean that she is, after all, but a secondary quality, inferior to that which brought ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... The instructive and practical elements in Dr. Gladden's writings, the wide influence he exerts in the cause of aggressive righteousness, and his interesting personality, do not, however, measure the full extent of his gifts. One has only to ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... generations, mater. Austin's wife is NOT a lady, Austin is absolutely different from what he was, the people out there are actually COMMON, and yet, just because they like to have you, and think you are intelligent and instructive, you want to go. Go if you want to, but I will think you are mad if you do! A girl who confused 'La Boheme' with 'The Bohemian Girl,' and wants an enlarged crayon portrait of Austin in her drawing-room! Really, it's—well, it's remarkable to me. I don't know ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... Her conversation how instructive! how sought after! The delight of persons of all ages, of both sexes, of all ranks! Yet how humble, how condescending! Never were dignity and ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... us a grawnd discoorse this mornin', sir, baith instructive and edifyin'; we were juist sayin' comin' up the gairden that ye were never heard ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren

... this interesting and instructive article with a rather more difficult illusion. For the tricks I have already explained it was sufficient that the amateur prestidigitator (I shall only say this once more) should know how it was done; for my last trick he will also require a certain aptitude for legerdemain ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne

... has been removed by operation it should as a routine measure be subjected to microscopical examination; the results are often instructive and sometimes other than what ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... which "Higher Lessons" has been in existence, we have ourselves had an instructive experience with it in the classroom. We have considered hundreds of suggestive letters written us by intelligent teachers using the book. We have examined the best works on grammar that have been published ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... began a book; then Moody and Sankey appeared, and I wanted to hear them, and was needed to work in co-operation with them. I don't know how you feel about Moody, but I am in full sympathy with him, and last Friday the testimony of four of the cured "gin-pigs" (their own language) was the most instructive, interesting language I ever heard from human lips. In talking to those he has drawn into the inquiry rooms, I find the most bitterly wretched ones are back-sliders; they are not without hope, and expect to be saved at last; but they have been trying what ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... in my moments of self-complacency that this extensive biographical Work, however inferior in its nature, may in one respect be assimilated to the 'Odyssey.' Amidst a thousand entertaining and instructive episodes the Hero is never long out of sight; for they are all in some degree connected with him; and He, in the whole course of the History, is exhibited by the author for the best advantage of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... now? And he asked himself whether he loved anyone, whether he loved Sofya Ivanovna, or Father Seraphim, whether he had any feeling of love for all who had come to him that day—for that learned young man with whom he had had that instructive discussion in which he was concerned only to show off his own intelligence and that he had not lagged behind the times in knowledge. He wanted and needed their love, but felt none towards them. He now had neither love nor ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy

... they'll find him, her, and the paymaster's outfit snowed under somewhere down toward Nebraska, safe, but possibly starving. Schuchardt has gone with the command, so has Ennis, and I'm all alone with nothing to read. If you have anything moral, instructive, and guaranteed to soften the unrepentant sinner's heart—something I could read with profit as well as pleasure—don't send it, but tell me how you all stood the storm and how you are. It is so hard to get anything ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King

... to fail in every one of them; if, before we approach an appreciation of Shakespeare, we have applied to other great creators the same analysis which we are about to apply to him; if we have learned from the most instructive examples what is meant by creation, by imagination, by insight, by wisdom, by wit, by humour, by eloquence, and by verbal music; then we cannot fail to acknowledge that here is the all-round, the all-comprehensive genius, superlatively dowered with each and all of them; that ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... Jameson. She is just returned to town, and came immediately, thinking you were here, to engage us for the next evening; and as you did not come I went, and spent three hours very pleasantly with her. She knows so much, and I am so very ignorant, that her conversation is delightfully instructive as well as amusing, full of interest and information. Poor woman! she left Tedsley and a very agreeable party to come up to town upon a false alarm of "Francis I.'s" coming out. I think I have told you of the work upon Shakespeare she is engaged with; she has been teaching herself to etch, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... instructive to look back and see hour Destiny gave us a kick here, and Fate a shove there, that sent us in the right direction at the proper time. And when Stephen Brice looks backward now, he laughs to think that he did ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... in your hospitality. It is always instructive, and sometimes pleasant, to extend our knowledge of our friends, and now let me say that a more blackguardly lot of thieves I have never met, and if this gentleman who has dropped in so opportunely will ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... to explain that it had been decided to employ other means in search of the inventor. It was possible after all that he had perished with his machine in some dangerous maneuver. If so, the ruined vehicle might prove almost as valuable and instructive to the mechanical world as the man himself. But since the accident to the schooner "Markel" on Lake Kirdall, no news of him ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne

... [unnecessary teaching] preach to the wise, teach one's grandmother to suck eggs, teach granny to suck eggs; preach to the converted. Adj. teaching &c.v; taught &c.v.; educational; scholastic, academic, doctrinal; disciplinal[obs3]; instructive, instructional, didactic; propaedeutic[obs3], propaedeutical[obs3]. Phr. the schoolmaster abroad; a bovi majori disscit arare minor[Lat]; adeo in teneris consuecere multum est [Lat][Vergil]; docendo ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... bid you a most cordial welcome; and hope, the testimonials of approbation you are receiving from every heart and every tongue, will forever retain an instructive lesson to mankind, that patriots who endure. faithfully to the end, shall not ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... taking up your quarters with him," said Mr. Petulengro; "and I was only about to say a better fellow-lodger you cannot have, or a more instructive, especially if you have a desire to be inoculated with tongues, as he calls them. I wonder whether you and he have had ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... of the "Boy's Own Paper" contains 848 large pages of Tales of Schoolboy Life, and of Adventure on Land and Sea; Outdoor and Indoor Games for every Season; Perilous Adventures at Home and Abroad; Amusements for Summer and Winter; and Instructive Papers written so as to be read by boys and youths. With many Coloured and Wood Engravings. Price 8s. handsome cloth; 9s. 6d. ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... and instructive Guide to the Carlyle Country, and will appeal to old Carlylean Readers by its careful grouping of biographical events around the places with ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... as is the nature of their food, the character of their dwellings, and their social and religious traditions. Therefore, he felt that collections of drugs and medical, surgical and pharmaceutical instruments and appliances should not be thought of or designed as instructive to the specialist only, but should also possess a general interest for the public. Because of these objectives, Dr. Flint added, this section was conceived as a departmental division for the collecting and exhibiting of objects related to medicine, ...
— History of the Division of Medical Sciences • Sami Khalaf Hamarneh

... ill-informed persons. Nor is it because under our modern democratic arrangements we so subdivide power and balance parts in government that no one man can tell for much or turn affairs to his will. One of the most instructive studies a politician could undertake would be a study of the infinite limitations laid upon the power of the Russian Czar, notwithstanding the despotic theory of the Russian constitution—limitations of social habit, of official prejudice, of race jealousies, of religious predilections, ...
— When a Man Comes to Himself • Woodrow Wilson

... of men; the lines of his face were regular, well marked, and beautifully symmetrical, which gave him an expression of countenance at once dignified and commanding. His address was graceful and easy; in manners he was truly exemplary, and in conversation affable and instructive. Polite to all ranks and classes of people, he was universally respected; fond of discipline, and always alive to the just claims and feelings of others, he was beloved in the army, and generally appealed to as the common arbitrator ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various

... in the open air and a good steed, will want to peruse these books. Captain Carson knows his subject thoroughly, and his stories are as pleasing as they are healthful and instructive. ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... vividness and individuality Charlotte Bronte's characters have a way of shading off into each other. Jane has much in common with Frances and with Lucy, and Lucy with Pauline. Her men incline rather to one type, that of the masterful, arbitrary, instructive male; that is the type she likes best to draw. Yorke Hunsden in The Professor splits up into Rochester and Robert Moore and Mr. Yorke; and there is a certain amount of Paul Emanuel in all of them. But life gives us our types very much that way, and there is a bit of somebody ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... a lesson to you, my young friend, an instructive example. God knows, what rot it is? Every man hangs on a thread, the abyss may open under his feet any minute, and yet he must go and invent all sorts of discomforts for ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... one, whose manner of education and training-up would be so great a reproach to them, if they were grossly faulty: so thus, I conceive, a mutual benefit will flow to the manners of each; and his good behaviour will render him, in some measure, an instructive monitor to the ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... him his dismissal. Affable in his manners and simple in his habits, with a mind well stored with human lore, and a heart full of kindness for his fellow-creatures, he was at once an agreeable and an instructive companion. Born and educated in the United States, when they were British dependencies, and possessed of a thorough knowledge of the causes which led to the rebellion, and the means used to hasten the crisis, ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... son; the son modernises the one, and carefully tills the other; marries the daughter of a friend and neighbour: this is the common prospect; but though it is rich and pleasant, yet it is far from being so entertaining and instructive as the one now ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... of settlement. The interest of Winthrop's Journal lies in the events that it records rather than in any charm in the historian's manner of recording them. His style is pragmatic, and some of the incidents which he gravely notes are trivial to the modern mind, though instructive as to our forefathers' way of thinking. For instance, of the year 1632: "At Watertown there was (in the view of divers witnesses) a great combat between a mouse and a snake, and after a long fight the mouse prevailed and killed the snake. The pastor of Boston, Mr. Wilson, a very sincere, holy man, ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... on the three-million bill, an interesting and instructive incident occurred. The venerable John Quincy Adams appeared in the House for the first time during the session, on the 13th of February (1847), having been detained by a very severe illness. As he passed inside the door the entire House voluntarily rose, business was suspended, and Mr. Andrew Johnson ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... persons died towards the latter part of this year. The first was Lamoignon, Chief President; the second, Ninon, known by the name of Mademoiselle de l'Enclos. Of Lamoignon I will relate a single anecdote, curious and instructive, which will show the corruption ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... Fifth Month John Yeardley attended for the first time the Yearly Meeting in London. He describes the business as very various and instructive, but bewails his own condition as that of "one starving in the midst of every ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley

... somewhere to be discovered a foundation of reason and common sense. It was one of Fitzjames's favourite topics that the law was capable of being thus exhibited; and that fifty years hence it would be a commonplace that it would be treated in a corresponding spirit, and made a beautiful and instructive branch ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... very instructive, from this point of view, to observe the dilemma into which Hamilton found himself driven by this identification of genuine fact with spurious theory. He believed that the fact of man possessing an ethical faculty could only be explained by the theory that ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes

... wild flowers that fell in their way, till the harvest-field was reached too late to be carefully gleaned. For a work, however, of this description, attention enough has perhaps been paid to the subject of Sarde antiquities; it being intended to be amusing as well as instructive, to convey information on the character of the people on whom it treats, as well as on their institutions ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... things will not do you any good. Kiowa will beat us just the same. Therefore I propose that if we have to be beaten we make it so emphatic that no one will ever forget it. Let's make it picturesque and instructive. Let's show the Faculty that we can obey orders. Let's play a game of football the way Sillcocks and his tools would like to see it. You let me pick the team now, and give me to-night and to-morrow morning to drill them, and I'll ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... the examination of which will be found very instructive, shows that there are already in use: For locomotives with single drivers, diameters of 9 ft., 8 ft. 1 in., and 8 ft.; (2) for locomotives with four coupled wheels, diameters 6 ft. to 7 ft. There is therefore an ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various



Words linked to "Instructive" :   didactical, expositive, informatory, interpretive, demonstrative, doctrinaire, uninstructive, expository, ostensive, elucidative, educational, illustrative, clarifying, preachy, interpretative, explanatory, educative, informative, didactic, instruct



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