II. The Aim of the Lessons.

The Lessons aim at the expression of ideas, such expression to be gained by means of oral and written exercises and compositions. The pupils are to learn by doing, and yet the doing is to be wisely guided by the teacher. To further this manifest aim, each Lesson is divided into two parts, as follows:

I. The Expression of Ideas by means of some principle of rhetoric or grammar, which needs elucidation and practice in order to break the pupil of his bad habits and to keep him from falling into

new error.

II. The Expression of Ideas by means of written and oral composition, in order to gain the spontaneity and ease which comes from much writing and speaking.

The rules in the first part of each Lesson are made to suit certain deductions drawn from the pupils' own work. Natural as self-expression may be, and necessary as it is to encourage it, correct usages cannot be expected from pupils who are constantly brought into contact with incorrect usages, in playground, street, or home. The rules, therefore, are not new and abstract, put there for the sake of covering so much ground in grammar or rhetoric; they are often-violated rules, put there for the sake of overcoming actual faults and strengthening the mind for further endeavor. Many a fault of the first year may be ignored, for the reason that it will disappear, not necessarily because of the teaching, but because of the added maturity of the pupil and his wider contact with books and people. The labor of the teacher

then is the very definite one of laying the foundation, and the book aims to aid her to do this vital and substantial work.

III. The Idea of the Lessons.

The practice followed in certain first-year Latin books, where the work proceeds definitely and logically from day to day, suggested the dividing of the book into Lessons. As far as has been possible by use of blackboard and type-written papers and without textbooks, this plan has been followed out with some first-year classes, and the results have been eminently gratifying. With the exercises gathered into a book of this kind, infinitely better results ought to be gained.

At a cursory view, some of the Lessons may seem long. It is not designed, however, that everything in a Lesson shall be taught. It should be remembered on the contrary, that most of the rules used have been taught in the elementary schools, that what the pupils need is the practice which makes perfect, and that accordingly little time will need to be spent on the rule itself. Plenty of exercises are included for the sake of variety, or for maturer or better prepared classes, or to supply home-work if desired. Moreover, the teacher herself grows weary of the same old exercise. If she has had time this term for Exercise 1 only, she may like the next term to use Exercise 2 for a change. Or, one exercise may make a better appeal to her now than at another time. It will be noted furthermore that the Lessons increase in length as the term goes on,-and this for the very reason that one cannot be so definitely sure as to the amount of work a well-grounded class

will be able to do later on. At first it was intended to mark the exercises in such a way that there could be no mistake on this point, but it was finally decided to omit all such foot-notes as being confusing, and to leave the matter of choice to the teacher's own judgment.

IV. The Purpose and Content of Each of the Parts.

PART I. THE SHORT THEME.

The real though disguised aim of Part I is to teach the pupils to express their ideas spontaneously, though at the same time clearly and correctly, in the theme of one paragraph. The teacher should bear this purpose in mind, therefore, when she is assigning a subject, and should guide the pupils to gather their ideas on that subject into one paragraph, though she need do nothing further about paragraph form until she reaches Part III. In Part I, also, some attempt is made to get clear sentences; practice is given in punctuation and capitalization; the vocabulary is enlarged; and violations of grammatical rules are corrected.

PART II. FORMAL CORRESPONDENCE.

The teaching of business correspondence cannot be made very simple. The letters must be business-like, an exercise of soul that does not usually belong inherently to the pupils in first-year classes. But the form of the business letter, the habit of neatness, the elements of courtesy, the addressing of the envelope, may well receive attention this first year. Not too much should be expected of the body of the letter, however. Maturity, the stress of real business needs, utility, will all help

the boy, as he grows into manhood, to express himself in terms that will be to his best advantage. Acknowledged standards in forms he must know, and can easily be taught to follow. Aside from these, the teaching of the business letter will require patience and not too much time.

PART III. THE LONG THEME.

In Part III, the more formal work of paragraph form and content is taken up, both as a unit, and as a part of the longer theme. The first few Lessons of this part are designed to develop synthetically the transition from the "short" theme, or the theme of one paragraph, to the "long" theme, or the theme of more than one paragraph. For example, the teacher herself may have in mind the subject, "A Rainy Day at the Old Farm House". Instead of assigning this subject to her class, however, she gives a topic which represents only one phase of the subject, "The jolly party that rainy day at the old farm-house". The pupils write a paragraphtheme on the subject, it is corrected and passed back. At the next lesson she gives them the topic, "Nooks and corners explored in the old farm-house that rainy day". Again a paragraph is written and corrected. Then, perhaps, a third time, she gives a topic, "A frolic in the garret that rainy day in the old farm-house".

By this time the pupil will have perceived that he has written three paragraphs about a rainy day at the old farm-house. He will need now, in combining these paragraphs into one theme, to be shown only how to make his transitional phrase or sentence. Having seen this point clearly he may be taught the more analytic

work of separating a subject into its various parts or topics, these topics to be arranged to form a simple outline for his theme. Such an outline in this first year should carefully avoid any such division as, "introduction, discussion, conclusion".

In Part III also is continued the practice in shorttheme writing, for necessarily the longer themes will be written out of class and at less frequent intervals. The familiar letter is also placed in this part, because it has much the nature of the long theme, that is, the theme of several paragraphs.

APPENDIX A.-A BRIEF REVIEW OF GRAMMAR.

Some teachers, especially since the instalment of the College Board of Examiners, like to include formal grammar in the course for the first year. For such teachers, as also for reference, a grammatical appendix has been included in the book. There are some strong objections to formal grammar study in the first year except as it comes in written practice:

1. Grammar has already been carefully taught by experienced teachers in the grammar schools. Why should it be reviewed now any more than arithmetic?

2. If certain rules and definitions have been welltaught in the grammar schools, it is tiresome and unnecessary to undertake a new phraseology, until at least the old has been forgotten,-if indeed such a thing can be.

3. It is not only discouraging and disappointing to the pupils to find that in their new school they must go over the same old dreary routine of parsing and analyzing, but it also takes up time that could be