Fifthly, always adapt your style to the subject, and likewise to the capacity of your hearers or readers. When we are to write or to speak, we should previously fix in our minds a clear idea of the end aimed at ; keep this steadily in view, and adapt our style to it.

Lastly, let not attention to style engross us so much, as to prevent a nigher degree of attention to the thoughts. He is a contemptible writer, who looks not beyond the dress of language; who lays not the chief stress upon his matter, and employs not such ornaments of style as are manly not foppish.

LXXXI.

DIRECTIONS TO STUDENTS IN REVISING AND COMRECTING THEIR COMPOSITIONS, BEFORE THEY ARE PRESENTED TO THE TEACHER.

Read over your exercise to ascertain, 1. whether the words are correctly spelled; 2. the pauses and capital letters are properly used; 3. that the possessive case is correctly written with the apostrophe and the letter s; 4. the hyphen placed between the parts of a compound word, and also used at the end of the line when part of the word is in one line and another part in the succeeding line (recollecting, in this case, that the letters of the same syllable must all be written in the same line); 5. that the marks of quotation are inserted when you have borrowed a sentence or an expression from any one else; 6. whether the pronouns are all of the same number with their antecedents, and the verbs of the same number with their nominatives; 7. whether you can get rid of some of the "ands" in your exercise, by means of the rules laid down in Lesson XX., and whether some other words may not be omitted without weakening the expression, and also

* The change of persons in these rules, if not absolutely faulty, is certainly inelegant. The language is literally taken from the abridgment of Dr. Blair's Rhetorick. + Two of the greatest faults that can be committed in writing consist in degrading a subject naturally elevated, by low expressions; and the expressing a mean or trivial idea by high sounding epithets. The former is called Bathos; and the latter Bombast.

The student who wishes for specimens of the various kinds of style men tioned above, will find quite a collection of them arranged under their appropriate neads, for examples in rhetoric, in a volume recently prepared by Mrs. L. Č. Tuthill and printed and published by S. Babcock, of New Haven, called "The Young Ladies Reader." It was the author's design to insert such specimens in this volume, but he finds it necessary to reserve the space which they would occupy for other matter which he deems more important to the completion of his plan. For the same reason he has omitted the specimens which he intended to present in the respective depart ments of Narrative, Descriptive, Didactic, Pathetic, and Argumentative writing.

whether you have introduced all the words necessary for the full expression of your ideas; 8. whether you have repeated the same word in the same senience, or in any sentence near it, and have thus been betrayed into a tautology (See Lesson XXII.); 9. whether you cannot divide some of your long sentences into shorter ones, and thereby better preserve the unity of the sentence (See Lesson XXXI.); and lastly, whether part or parts of your exercise may not be divided into separate paragraphs.

The following rules must also be observed.

1. No abbreviations are allowable in prose, and numbers (except in dates) must be expressed in words, not in figures.

2. In all cases, excepting where despatch is absolutely necessary, the character &, and others of a similar nature, must not be used, but the whole word must be written out.

3. The letters of the same syllable must always be written in the same line. When there is not room in a line for all the letters of a syllable, they must all be carried into the next line; and when a word is divided by placing one or more of the syllables in one line, and the remainder in the following line, the hyphen must always be placed at the end of the former line.

4. The title of the piece must always be in a line by itself, and should be written in larger letters than the exercise itself.

5. The exercise should be commenced not at the extreme left hand of the line, but a little towards the right. Every separate paragraph should also commence in the same way.

6. The crotchets or brackets which enclose a parenthesis should be used as sparingly as possible. Their place may often be supplied by

commas.

Suggestions to Teachers with regard to the written exercises of Students.

1. Examine the exercise in reference to all those points laid down in the directions for students in reviewing and cor recting their compositions. (See page 303.)

2. Merits for composition should be predicated on their neatness, correctness, (in the particulars stated in the direc tions to pupils, page 303), length, style, &c.; but the highest merits should be given for the strongest evidence of intellect in the production of ideas, and original sentiments and forms of expression.

3. Words that are misspelt, should be spelled by the whole class, and those words which are frequently misspelt should

be recorded in a book kept for that purpose, and occasionally spelt on the slate by the class.

4. Keep a book in which the student may have the privilege to record such compositions as are of superior merit. This book should be kept in the hands of the teacher, and remain the permanent property of the institution. This will have an excellent effect, especially if additional merits are given for the recording of a composition.

5. A short lecture on the subject of the composition as signed to a class, showing its bearings, its divisions, and the manner in which it should be treated, will greatly facilitate their progress, and interest them in the exercise.

6. Have a set of arbitrary marks, which should be explained and understood by the class, by which the exercise should be corrected. This is, in fact, nothing less than a method of short hand, and will save the trouble of much writing.

7. Insist upon the point, that the exercise should be written in the student's best hand, with care, and without haste. For this purpose, ample time should always be allowed for the production of the exercise. A week at least, if not a fortnight, should intervene between the assigning and the requiring of the exercise. Negligence in the mechanical execution, will induce the neglect of the more important qualities.

8. Require the compositions to be written on alternate pages, leaving one page blank, for such remarks as may be suggested by the exercise, or for supplying such words or sentences as may have accidentally been omitted.

9. In correcting the exercises, care should be taken to preserve as much as possible the ideas which the pupil in tended to express, making such alterations only as are necessary to give them clearness, unity, strength, and harmony, and a proper connexion with the subject, for it is the student's own idea which ought to be "taught how to shoot." An idea thus humored will thrive better than one which is not a native of the soil.

10. It is recommended that a uniformity be required in the size and quality of the paper of the exercises of the class that the name (real or fictitious) of the writer, together with the date and number of the composition, be placed conspicuously on the back of the exercise. The writing should

be plain and without ornament, so that, no room being left for flourish or display, the principal attention of each student may be devoted to the language and the sentiments of his performances. It is also recommended, that the paper on which the exercise is written be a letter sheet folded once, or in quarto form, making four leaves or eight pages. This form is of use, especially in the earlier stages of his progress, because it enables him more easily to fill a page, and encourages him with the idea that he is making progress in his exercise. In the writing of compositions, a task to which all students address themselves with reluctance, nothing should be omitted by the teacher, however trivial it may at first appear, by which he may stimulate the student to exertion.

11. Accommodate the corrections to the style of the student's own production. An aim at too great correctness may possibly cramp the genius too much, by rendering the student timid and diffident; or perhaps discourage him altogether, by producing absolute despair of arriving at any degree of perfection. For this reason, the teacher should show the student where he has erred, either in the thought, the structure of the sentence, the syntax, or the choice of words. Every alteration, as has already been observed, should differ as little as possible from what the student has written; as giving an entire new cast to the thought and expression will lead him into an unknown path not easy to follow, and divert his mind from that original line of thinking which is natural to him.

12. In large institutions, where a class in composition is numerous, the teacher may avail himself of the assistance of the more advanced students, by requiring them to inspect the exercises of the younger. This must be managed with great delicacy; and no allusion be allowed to be made out of the recitation room, by the inspector, to the errors or mistakes which he has discovered. He should be required to note in pencil, his corrections and remarks, and sign his own name (also in pencil) to the exercise under that of the writer, to show that he is responsible for the corrections. *

* Instead of a written exercise, the teacher may, with advantage, occa sionally present to the student a piece selected from some good writer; requiring him to present a rhetorical analysis of the same. This analysis hould comprehend the following operations:

Parsing.

Panctuation.

The preceding exercise is presented merely to show the mode in which, m conformity with the suggestions just made, the student's compositions may be corrected. The exercise is one of a class of very young students By this example, the teacher will become acquainted with a set of arbi trary marks for the correction of errors, which may easily be explained to a class, and when understood will save the teacher much writing.

Thus, when a word is misspelt or incorrectly written, it will be sufficient to draw a horizontal line under it, as in the following exercise. If a capital is incorrectly used, or is wanted instead of a small letter, a short perpendicular mark is used. When entire words or expressions are to be altered, they are surrounded with black lines, and the correct expression is written on the blank page on the left. When merely the order of the words is to be altered, figures are written over the words designating the order in which they are to be read.

Transposition.

Synonymes, collected, applied, defined, distinguished, and illustrated. Variety of expression, phrases generalized, particularized, translated from Latin to Saxon derivatives, and the reverse, expanded, compressed. Figures of speech analyzed.

Students of higher g de may also be exercised in the Logical Analysis of the same subject, n ticing the subject with its scope, topics, method and lastly in a Critical Analysis, relating to the choice of words.

Structure of the sentences.

Style.

Eloquence.

Ideas.

Of these he will give the general charac ter, with a particular analysis.

Errors.

Boanties.