QUALITIES OF STYLE. INVENTION. TABLE OF CONTENTS. I. Construction of Simple and Compound Sentences, and of 3. Arrangement of Words, Phrases, and Clauses. 1. The Comparison, or Simile. 2. The Meta- 1. Specific Words. 2. Transposed Order of 2. Sarcasm. 3. Ridicule. 4. Irony. VI. Elegance 1. Beauty of the Thought. 2. Euphony. 3. Allit THREE years' use of this text-book in the class-room warrants us, perhaps, in making a suggestion or two. 1. If your pupils have been thoroughly exercised in the analysis and the construction of sentences, as taught in Reed & Kellogg's "Graded Lessons in English" and "Higher Lessons," or have done equivalent work in other grammars, pp. 21-57 of this book may be omitted. But if your pupils have not fairly mastered the English sentence, we counsel holding them to these pages. 2. The thorough understanding of the paragraph, the ability to form good, logical frameworks, and the habit of making these frameworks before the labor of composition is begun seem to us invaluable. The work on pp. 57-73, then, should not be slighted. But in Lessons 25 and 26 allow your pupils great freedom. It is not easy to tell which of the many possible groupings of the items and wordings of the general topic and of the sub-topics is the best. But see to it that each pupil can give a good reason for the particular grouping and wording he adopts. 3. See to it, also, that in the department called Qualities of Style, your pupils (1) understand the reason, or philosophy, of things, given in the long primer type; that (2) they recite the definitions exactly as laid down in the text or that they invent and give better ones; that (3) they learn the Roman and Arabic notation under which what is said is arranged; and that (4) they perform a large fraction, if not all, of the work enjoined in the Directions. The importance of doing what they have learned is good to do and have learned how to do can. not be overestimated. Pass by those pairs of synonyms in Lessons 33-36, between the words of which sufficiently broad distinctions have not yet obtained-if in your judgment any such pairs are there to be found. Letters suggesting that the allusions in Lesson 49 are difficult have been received, but these allusions are taken from writings everywhere read. Make much, and in the way pointed out, of the extracts in Lessons 74 and 75. Such work will open the eyes of the pupils to the merits of different authors. 4. Ground your pupils thoroughly in rhythm, in the substitution of poetical feet, and in scansion, as taught in Lessons 79 and 80. POLYTECHNIC Institute, BrookLYN, Dec. 10, 1883. B. K. RHETORIC. LESSON 1. INTRODUCTORY. WHAT RHETORIC IS.-We talk and we write to make known our thoughts, and we do it in sentences, the sentence being the universal and necessary form of oral and of written communication. In every sentence there are the words arranged in a certain order and addressed to the ear or to the eye; and there is that which these words express and impart, itself unheard and unseen, but reaching the mind of the hearer or reader through the words which he hears or sees. That which these words express we call a thought, and hence A sentence is the verbal expression of a thought. Now, rhetoric deals with the thought of the sentence and with the words which express it, and so its function is twofold. It teaches us how to find the thought, and how best to express it in words. In this, its twofold function, rhetoric works near neighbor to grammar and to logic. Grammar, as well as rhetoric, deals with the words of a sentence; and logic, as well as rhetoric, deals with thought; but the fields of the three, though lying side by side, are distinct. The better to see the field which rhetoric tills, it is |