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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

914.8

648074

C

The Athenæum Press

GINN AND COMPANY PRO-
PRIETORS BOSTON. U.S.A.

PREFACE

This book provides an abundance of material for the first and the second year of any high school. Part One gives a good many subjects on which young pupils have successfully talked and written, and presents the first essentials of composition work, with emphasis on unity and coherence, —-whether of theme, paragraph, or sentence, — spelling, word formation, the use of the dictionary, and letter writing. Work on these essentials may be supplemented by such selections from Part Three as the teacher chooses to make, for example, from the chapter on Narration. The long chapter on Grammar, at the end of Part One, is so arranged and so placed that the more difficult portions may readily be postponed till the second year.

Part Two offers more ambitious practice in the construction of the paragraph and the sentence, and requires the use of precise and forcible words.

Part Three calls special attention to longer compositions and the four forms of prose. In each chapter the treatment is designed to meet the needs of the younger students.

From the outset the book undertakes to emphasize the value of the study of composition by setting tasks that are obviously worth doing and by making requirements in sympathetic recognition of the pupil's immediate interests and the attitude of the normal youth toward equipping himself for the future.

The large number of exercises allows the teacher unusual opportunity to give a class, a small group of pupils, or a single pupil the precise training needed, whether it be in choosing subjects, in constructing and correcting themes and

paragraphs, in studying words, or in managing sentences. It will be noticed that the sentence work offers as a part of the thorough drill (1) correct sentences for examination or dictation, or both; and (2) correct and incorrect sentences on which the pupil is to pronounce judgment.

The specific directions for training pupils to criticize the work of others may, of course, be neglected if the teacher prefers; but the strong appeal they make to boys and girls, and the satisfaction with which teachers have used them in the author's "English Composition," encourage the hope that they will be widely and successfully employed as a means of showing the student how to correct his own work.

No small share of the pleasure of writing this book has been due to the readiness with which efficient teachers have offered helpful suggestions; to the cordial and skillful cooperation of Mr. Roy Davis of the Mechanic Arts High School, Boston, in preparing many of the exercises; and to the thoughtfulness and care with which the proof has been read by Miss Elizabeth M. Richardson of the Girls' High School, Boston, and Mr. Warren W. Read of the Flushing High School, New York City.

The author acknowledges his indebtedness to the following publishers for the use of copyrighted material: to the Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers of Aldrich, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Warner, Mr. John Burroughs, Dr. George Harris, and Professor Bliss Perry; to The Century Company for selections from Lincoln, Dr. Charles W. Eliot, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, and Mr. Jacob A. Riis; to the Outlook; to The Macmillan Company for passages from F. Marion Crawford; and to Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons for extracts from Stevenson and Mr. Thomas Nelson Page.

MECHANIC ARTS HIGH SCHOOL, BOSTON

C. L. H.

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