FOR HIGH SCHOOLS

SECOND COURSE

BY

WILLIAM DODGE LEWIS, A.M., PD.D., LITT.D.
Formerly Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction,

Development in the use of language is a condition of the student's progress in all fields of learning. As his experiences broaden, greater and ever greater demands are made upon the medium of thought and of expression. Indeed, experiences in speaking, writing, and reading may in themselves be highly significant.

For these and other reasons the study of English should be continuous throughout the high-school period. English is not a subject with definite limitations that may be finished for practical purposes in one year or two. Expanding mental and social needs demand increasing scope and command of the vernacular. Hence, a course in the theory and practice of composition must be planned to meet this situation.

Such a course this book is designed to provide. It has been prepared in accordance with the same principles that have guided the authors in their own teaching and in the writing of New Practical English for High Schools, First Course, which preceded it. These principles, in brief, are as follows:

1. The way to learn to do a thing is to do that thing and not something else.

2. The first requirement of a course in English is that it should help the student to obtain a reasonable command of language for his present scholastic, home, and community needs.

3. Speaking, reading, and writing are reciprocal processes and should therefore be practiced together.

4. Examples of good contemporary writing in contrast to examples of other writing are the most effective means of setting up proper ideals of expression.

5. A textbook in English should be mainly a guide to practice and only secondarily a discussion of theory.

The authors have had in mind two classes of teachers, those who follow the text consecutively and those who adapt it to a course of their own planning. The book is so constructed as to lend itself to both of these uses. Each chapter is divided into complete units that may be assigned in any desired order. The teacher may, if he desires, plunge at once into the project chapters and apply the materials of the other parts as they appear to be needed. He may, on the other hand, proceed in the order of the book itself, or make other adaptations or order of procedure, as he thinks best.

There is an abundance of practice exercises. These should be used as freely as the given class or individual seems to require. The analytical table of contents and the index are very full; both teachers and pupils will easily find the material needed. One of the first exercises should be a careful examination of the book as a whole and a discussion of how it will help the pupils to solve their everyday problems; such, for example, as that of gathering and organizing materials for recitations in various school subjects.

For assistance in making this book the authors are indebted to many teachers in high schools in various parts of the country. They wish especially to thank Miss Ruth E. Henderson, now of the American Junior Red Cross, and Miss Mary Eaton, of the Wadleigh High School in New York City, for their help, without which the work would have lacked some of its intimate touch with the actual lives of high-school boys and girls.

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Lippincott Company; The Charles E. Merrill Company; Thomas B. Mosher; The National Committee of Mental Hygiene; The New York Herald-Tribune; The New York Times; The Outlook; The Pathfinder; Popular Science Monthly; Radio World; Power Plant Engineering; The Review of Reviews; St. Nicholas Magazine; The Saturday Evening Post; Strength Magazine; The Walther Printing House; Otis F. Wood, Inc.; The Youth's Companion; The World's Work; The Curtis Publishing Company; The Continents; Nature Magazine; The Firestone Rubber Company; D. C. Heath and Company; The Philadelphia Public Ledger; Arthur H. Woods; The Yale University Press; The Macmillan Company; Edwin Markham; Glimpses; Dawn; and the Woman's Home Companion.