list will not stand the test of these questions, cut it out, and put another in its place. 1. Needlework. 2. Fishing. 3. Parties. 4. Flowers. 5. Skating. 6. Collecting. 7. Painting. 8. Coasting. 9. First of April. 10. Games of ball. 11. Travelling. 12. Cycling. 13. Books. 14. Camping out. 15. Dogs. 16. War. 17. Inventions. 18. Animals. 19. Manners at table. 20. Newspapers. 21. Pictures. 22. Advertisements. Exercise 5 Draw out from each of the following sources two subjects suitable for a short theme: 1. Your own experience and observation. 2. The last book you read for pleasure. 3. Things talked about in your town. 4. Things talked about at school outside the class room. 5. Topics in to-day's newspaper. SECTION 3 How to Word a Subject After you have chosen a subject that you are really interested in and know something about, and after you have limited your subject until you think it is narrow enough to suit the space at your disposal, you will find it helpful to word it in a form that will show quite clearly just why you are writing about it and to whom. You know very well that when you talk to your schoolfellows you do not say the same things to each. You know also that when you write to Tom and to Arthur you do not write about the same things, because Tom likes games, and Arthur likes books. Now a school theme is pretty much like a talk or a letter. It is not enough merely to talk and to write about those things that you are interested in and know something about; you must talk and write about those things that other people are interested in and know something about as well, or, at the very least, you must talk and write about the things that you are interested in and know something about in a way to make them interesting to the people you talk and write to. This, in fact, is what you will always have to do out in the world, if ever you are to express your thoughts well enough to make them appeal effectively to those you wish to bend to your way of thinking. This is what the merchant, the lawyer, the preacher, every man who wins his way to success, does, has done, and will do. The unsuccessful people are those who never think what other people are interested in, who never put themselves in other people's places. The reason you will find it helpful, aside from the fact that you ought always to be thinking what other people are interested in, to word your subject in a form that will show quite clearly just why you are writing about it and to whom, is to keep you from forgetting this purpose while you are writing, and to help you to decide just what to write and what not to write. Here are a few subjects worded in this manner: Not "The foot race in the fifth book of the Eneid," but "A description of the foot race in the fifth book of the Eneid, written to interest a boy fonder of sports than of ancient classics"; not "The first football defeat of the season," but "An attempt by one of the players to explain the first football defeat of the season to a young lady who does not understand football"; not "The location of a fine trout stream I know," but "Directions for finding a fine trout stream I know, written for a boy whom I cannot accompany to the spot." Subjects worded in this fashion are to be used merely as guides to help you decide just what to write and what not to write, and by consequence to help you to think more definitely and more vigorously. They should of course never appear in any form in the theme itself. Exercise 6 From the following list of subjects select five, and word them so they will show just why you are writing about them and to whom: 1. A fight after school. 2. Aladdin's lamp - if I had it. 3. A day at the river side (the nearest stream). 5. What I know about dogs. 6. What I saw this morning on my way to school. 8. A narrow escape (real). 9. Saturday pleasures. 10. Making whistles. 11. All-Hallow eve. 12. Making scrap-books. Exercise 7 Write ten subjects that you think some member of your composition class would be interested in. Write this member's name at the head of your list of subjects; limit your subjects as required by Section 2, but do not word them in the form required by Section 3. After your list has been inspected by your teacher, hand it to the member of the class for whom it was written, and request him to return it at the beginning of the following recitation period, with the subjects he did not find of interest scratched off. Exercise 8 Write five subjects that you think would be of interest to the entire class in composition; five of special interest to the class in botany, in physics, or in history; five of special interest to the entire school. Limit your subjects as required by Section 2. Exercise 9 Write ten subjects, one of special interest to each of the following persons : 1. A child four years old. 2. A man who is shiftless. 3. A newsboy who cannot read. 4. Somebody who feeds tramps. 5. A Democrat (or a Republican). 6. An old sea captain. 7. A country boy who has never been to a large city. 8. A girl who does not like to study. 9. A merchant who is seeking a location for a book store. 10. A good old lady. SECTION 4 How to Take Notes Before you take up the matter of gathering material for themes, which is the next subject to be treated in this book, you will need to know something about note-taking. You are a person of no ordinary powers if you can depend on your memory to recall at just the right moment the thoughts intrusted to its keeping. Memory is a sort of trickster, a kind of cheat, who hides some of our thoughts in out-of-the-way places where they are difficult to find, and who dresses up others in new and strange coats, so that they are scarcely known when found. To make sure of your thoughts, therefore, you must form the habit of setting them down immediately upon the thinking of them. If you are reading, and wait for the end of the chapter; if you are walking, and wait for your return home; if you wake from your sleep, and wait for the coming of dawn,— the thought that seems to you worth preserving will either desert you entirely or lose the first fine glow of its conception. You must set it down at once, even though it be a bother. It is related of Scott that he kept pen and paper continually by his bedside, and that he often rose in the night to put down the thoughts that came to him. It is said of Jonathan Edwards, the noted New England philosopher and preacher of the eighteenth century, that when he rode or walked he kept on thinking, and that for every thought he pinned a bit of paper to his clothes. How he must have looked after a day of busy thinking, you can easily imagine. Stevenson says that all through his boyhood and youth he kept two books in his pocket, one to read, and one to write in. As he walked, his mind was busy fitting what he saw with appropriate words, and when he sat by the roadside, he either read, or noted down the features of the scene, or commemorated some halting stanzas. Thus he lived with words, having vowed that he would learn to write. "That was a proficiency that tempted me," he writes, "and I practised to acquire it, as men learn to whittle, in a wager with myself.”1 But it is not every boy and girl who has the spunk to do what the boy Stevenson did. To take good notes, however, is a most practical accomplishment, in business as well as in professional life. The way to take notes, for the matter now in hand, is to jot down your thoughts just as you think 1 Stevenson, A College Magazine. |