120.

Assignments in Division.

A. Look at the table of contents of any text-book on physical geography. On what principle are the main divisions made? On what principle are the divisions of secondary rank made?

B. Turn to the opening chapter of any text-book on civil government. Do you find a division? On what principle is it made?

C. Make a division of all the books at your home, arranging them in classes according to some obvious principle.

D. Tell a friend from a distance something about the pupils in your school. Speak of the various kinds of pupils that you have noticed.

E. How would you classify horses according to their moral characters? Try writing an essay on "The Good and Evil Influences of Horses on Men," for a meeting of an imaginary Horses' Rights Association.

F. What division of the subject is proposed in the following?

1. Among the many remarkable features of the war between the states the blockade system was perhaps the most extraordinary. For extent and effectiveness it stands without a parallel in history. Isolation on the part of one of the belligerents doubtless shaped the result in larger measure than in any preceding war of anything like the same measure. For it is to be questioned if there was ever before a great people so far from self-sustaining as was the South in 1861. Indeed, only by means of the modern facilities of transportation could it have been possible for a territory so large and so populous to have fallen into a state of such absolute dependence on the outside world. Not only was steam an indispensable auxiliary of the Federals, rendering the invasion and retention of the revolting territory practicable, but it had fostered at the South a fatal economic con

dition which made the failure of the Confederacy a foregone conclusion from the first. How this abnormal state told when isolation came, and how desperately the people strove to remedy it forms a curious and pathetic chapter of the war history. DODGE: Domestic Economy in the Confederacy, Atlantic, 58: 229.

2. Since the day when the Monitor engaged the Merrimac in Hampton Roads it has been acknowledged that in the Revolving Tower a new and powerful element has been introduced into naval warfare. We propose in this paper to give the history of the origin and progress of this invention; to show that only a small portion of its capabilities have been brought into actual use; and that, as developed in the mind of its inventor, it will not only render practically useless the ponderous iron-clad vessels which the French and English are constructing at such enormous cost, but will also make all of our great harbors absolutely impregnable to the combined navies of the world. - GUERNSEY: The Revolving Tower, Harper's Magazine, 26: 241.

3. The purpose of this article is to show the possibilities that lie in developing methods of assembling that will insure accuracy, economy, and standardization, but before giving any concrete examples, it will be well to consider briefly the elements that directly affect the cost of assembling operations. The determination of proper methods and processes of assembling are peculiarly difficult, since the elements of human judgment and skill enter so largely into this work. It is a far more puzzling proposition than that of analyzing and determining the best method for machining any particular part. For this reason the study of assembling work requires particular care and especially keen analysis. - SPANGENBERG: Elements of Assembling Operations, Machinery, September, 1909.

4. The fatality and frequency of tornadoes in the great Central West have recently invested these phenomena with an interest which must continually deepen as the regions they ravage become more thickly populated. The tornado is a local disturbance, its sweep limited, its duration at a given point but a few moments, and it is speedily exhausted, like the raving maniac, by the paroxysmal expenditure of energy. But if it lacks the vast geographical scope, the stately, ponderous tread, and the self-sustaining life of the ocean-hurricane or the regular continental cyclone, its masked, eagle-like movement and concentrated intensity make the fleeting meteor, which strikes and scars the earth as if it were hurled by a "supernal power," a more dreaded visitant and often a greater engine of destruction. There seems to be a widespread impression that, with the deforesting and settlement of the West, tornado visitations have increased, so that a prominent journal recently raised the question. whether their frequency and destructiveness will not have "a permanent effect on the settlement and prosperity of the country." We are even told that in some places the alarm created by these storms is so great that "the people are not only digging holes in the ground and building various cycloneproof retreats but in many instances persons are preparing to emigrate and abandon the country entirely." Whatever may be thought of such reports, the gravity of the subject warrants the present inquiry into the nature and causes of our interior tornadoes, as well as into the extent to which they can be foreseen and guarded against. - MAURY: Tornadoes and Their Causes, North American, 135: 230.

Types of Expository Writing.

121. In certain directions the expository process has been so persistently and systematically applied that

several types of expository writing are easily recognized, and have been given distinctive names. Each seems to have its preferred methods of exposition, methods that have been found especially suitable to its usual subject matter, and to its special purpose. Thus we easily identify the following:

The Newspaper Editorial, even when we find it reprinted and uncredited in a book, with its air of immediate contemporaneous comment.

The Book Review, whether serious and thorough, or light and shallow in its contents.

The Character Sketch, with its analysis of traits and its ready interpretation of so complex a thing as a life. The Scientific Essay, like Mill's essay on Liberty, or Spencer's essay on The Philosophy of Style, with its severity of method, its careful accuracy; its preference for definition, example, and precise division.

The Generalized Narrative or Description, which pretends to be about a particular person or thing when it is really about the general class to which the person or thing belongs.

The Historical Essay, like Macaulay's Clive or Hastings, or Froude's Caesar, which takes a limited period or an eminent personage for its subject and both describes and explains to us the period or the man.

The Familiar or Personal Essay, like some of Thackeray's Roundabout Papers, with its apparent disregard of method, and its author's whimsical philosophizing and self-confession.

Of course these more prominent types do not begin to cover the whole field of expository writing, and, like the other types which have not yet acquired distinctive

names, they depend for their effectiveness upon the use of the universal methods and principles of explanation that have been set forth in this chapter. All alike aim

to explain a general idea that is novel, or apparently in contradiction with other ideas, or too complex for a single effort of the mind, and all alike use for that purpose, as need may arise, definition partial or complete, division partial or complete, specific instances or examples, comparisons, contrasts, analogies, particulars, and cause and effect.

A Type Study in Exposition.

122. The following is from the London (England) Spectator. It illustrates some of the chief excellences of exposition. Is the idea expressed in the title new to you? Is it difficult? What other function of the poet is referred to in the word "Tyrtæus"? What contradictory ideas does Kipling reconcile by his poem "The Native-Born"? What divisions and subdivisions do you discover in this essay? Make an outline. Does the outline render the subject less complex? Find a partial definition of "True poets.” What division of the class, poets, is suggested in connection with this partial definition? Complete the definition. Can you make from this essay a definition of "interpreter"? Which of the common methods of exposition is used most often in this essay? Point out some other methods of exposition that you find in this essay. Is there a passage of generalized narration? State in your own words the main thought of this essay. Do you now see how you could easily write an original essay on "The American Poet as Interpreter to Our Nation"? What poems of Whittier, Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, Lowell, Julia Ward Howe, and others might you mention as especially in point?

The Poet's Function as Interpreter.

People are apt to talk as if the poet had no function in the modern world, or at any rate as if his only function