sense, and this only, can rhetoric teach one invention, or thinking, and the expression of thought. A FRAMEWORK.-In preparing a framework there are several steps to be taken. We note these in their order. I. SELECTION OF A SUBJECT.-The first step is, of course, the selection of a subject. If the choice is left to you, find one which you can handle, one which has been festering, so to speak, in your mind, one that is attractive to you, and will start you off on many lines of thought. A general subject, like War or Tea, will be less suggestive than some branch or phase of it, as, for example, The Weapons used in War, or The Preparation of Tea for Market. II. ACCUMULATION OF MATERIAL.-The next step is the accumulation of material. In this, a blank-book, upon which to note whatever facts or thoughts occur to you after the choice of a subject and before you begin to write, will be found useful, if not indispensable. If the subject is one upon which you must read or converse, do so; but use what the reading or the conversation suggests rather than what you have read or heard. Think, think, and always put the thought into your own language. Remember that the more completely the composition is yours in thought and in word, the greater is the good its construction does you and the higher the value you yourself will place upon it. III. CONSTRUCTION.-The third step is the construction, out of your material, of the framework, or skeleton, of your theme. By this we mean the finding and arranging of the leading thoughts, or points, or heads, which you have been writing as the special topics of the paragraphs. Upon no part of your work more than upon this will the merit of your composition or its lack of merit depend. Take time, and take thought for it. 1. Search your material for the leading thoughts, or points. If nothing noted down seems to you, as it stands, sufficiently inclusive, study to see what these or those jottings point to as broad enough to bracket them. Be certain, before you cease this work, that you have found all the general thoughts into which, as it seems to you, the subject should be resolved. 2. Study these points with care.—Let no point disguised in different words appear twice, let no two points cover the same ground in part. Raise nothing to the rank of a topic which may properly stand under one already found. Cast out any point that on further thought seems irrelevant. Avoid a tedious multiplication of points. Study to see what ones may be spared with good effect. This matter of co-ordination and subordination requires the nicest discrimination. It is the point in which essays, sermons, speeches-the efforts of adults are open to criticism. 3. Concentrate attention upon the arrangement of these points.-There are many illogical orders in which they might be arranged, there is always at least one proper order in which they should stand. Find it. It would, for instance, presuming, as we did, that the question at issue was understood, have been illogical not to have begun the theme of Lesson 26 with the account of the forces engaged and their disposition on that memorable occasion. Nor could you properly have delayed till after the battle what took place before it. If the fight began on the left, that must be spoken of before you described the struggle in the centre or that on the right. The losses on either side had to follow the battle, and the storm both. Don John's clemency fitly closed the whole. Perhaps no one of these points need be exhausted in a single paragraph, but the order in which they should be taken up is fixed. In every kind of discourse, the question of order is vital. No point to the clear understanding of which, to feeling the full force of which, a knowledge of some other point would have to be presumed should precede that other. And this simple rule one must regard whether as a pupil he is writing a composition, as a lawyer he is making out a brief, as a preacher he is planning a sermon, or as a statesman he is preparing a speech. So necessary is a fitting framework for the structure of a theme-a skeleton sustaining and giving shape to the body—that we shall require further work upon it here. Direction.—Prepare according to this model, but without slavish imitation of it, the framework of a theme upon each of these subjects, marking the leading co-ordinate points with Roman characters, coordinate subdivisions of these with Arabic, and subdivisions of these with small letters: Model. The Good a Debating Society does its Members. I. The good it does them in preparing for the debate. 1. It exacts vigorous thinking a. In analyzing the subject. b. In selecting the strongest points. c. In coining thoughts to establish these points. 2. It adds to their knowledge by the wide reading it com pels. 3. It teaches them to defend the truth they have espoused. 4. It teaches toleration by showing them that there are unanswerable arguments on either side. II. The good it does them during the progress of the debate. I. It is an intense stimulant a. In that it furnishes op position. b. In exciting hope of victory. c. In sharpening wits to detect error. d. In compelling a vigorous defense. 2. It gives them self-command while under fire. 3. It teaches them a modest estimate of their abilities. 4. It teaches them courtesy to opponents. 5. It corrects their opinions, and widens their view. 6. It gives them command of their vocabulary. 7. It is a rhetorical and logical exercise in composition. 1. What the Winds do. 2. October Woods. son. The teacher should exact the most careful attention of his pupils to the co-ordination and subordination of points, requiring them to use the Roman, the Arabic, and the literal notations, as above. Their whole work should be criticised rigidly by the teaching of this LesThe teacher should allow for individuality; should not insist that their analyses must conform each to the others and all to his. Out of all the points presented let him prepare one framework each day that shall be as nearly exhaustive and perfect as possible. Let him talk with his pupils, asking and giving reasons for every step. Let him insist that they shall carry this kind of work over into the preparation of ordinary compositions, or themes. If the pupils need more drill than these Lessons furnish, the teacher can easily supply subjects and continue the exercise. If three subjects are too many for a lesson, let him assign fewer. LESSON 28. ANALYSIS OF SUBJECTS. The wisdom of treading the steps taken in leading up to the analysis of subjects and the preparation of frameworks—the finding of the subject-matter of discoursewe hope is by this time apparent. The resolution of the subject could not be taught without thoroughly acquainting the pupil with the nature and office of a paragraph; the paragraph could not be explained without familiarizing the pupil with the sentence; and the sentence could not be understood by him without his seeing that it was the embodiment of thought. And so we have attempted to teach what thought is and how it is formed; how the sentence expressing it may grow up from two or three words to forms most complex and intricate, with words, phrases, and clauses in myriad combinations, and how by contraction, expansion, and substitution almost any sentence may be transformed; how sentences may combine into paragraphs, and why they must; and how the making of paragraphs compels the pupil to brood over his subject and bring to light the great thoughts, which, fitly joined, form the frame of the structure he is to build. In addition to what was said in the Lesson upon the Preparation of a Framework, it may be serviceable to add that in forming frameworks upon Narrative or Descriptive Subjects, real or fictitious, the pupil should be careful to select only the salient, the representative, points. These, arranged in their natural |