897 pa COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY FRED N. SCOTT AND JOSEPH V. DENNEY. Norwood Press : J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith. PREFACE. THE principles embodied in this work were developed and put in practice by its authors at the University of Michigan several years ago. When the nature of the classroom work and its results became known, there were many inquiries from teachers in preparatory schools and colleges in regard to the methods employed. In response to these inquiries a small pamphlet (now out of print) was published and circulated. The present work, while in a limited sense a revision of that pamphlet, is virtually another book. In the earlier work the aim was to suggest a useful exercise in writing English. This book goes farther. Its aim is to make the paragraph the basis of a method of composition, to present all the important facts of rhetoric in their application to the paragraph. Since the point of view which is assumed is in some respects novel, a few words of explanation will not be out of place. Learning to write well in one's own language means in large part learning to give unity and coherence to one's ideas. It means learning to construct units of discourse which have order and symmetry and coherence of parts. It means learning theoretically how such units are made, and practically how to put them together; and further, if they turn out badly the first time, how to take them apart and put them together again in another and better order. The making and re-making of such units is in general terms the task of all who produce written discourse. iii 101805 |