CHAPTER I THE WHOLE COMPOSITION SECTION 1 How to Choose a Subject THE best sort of subject for you to write about is one that you are really interested in and know something about. If you do or can know about your subject at first hand, and, above all, if you know more about your subject than anybody else does, so much the better; for, in either case, you will be using knowledge that is peculiarly your own. The way to find such a subject is to ask yourself some such questions as these: "What do I like best?" "What do I think about most?" "What do I talk about most?" "What things do I watch with most eagerness?" "What subjects of conversation do I listen to most intently?" "What books do I read with the keenest delight?" and so on; for beyond all doubt these are the things you are most interested in, these are the things you can write of most easily and most entertainingly. If, after asking yourself such questions as these, you find you are really interested in such things as football, tailless kites, stilts, or even shinny or mumble-thepeg or meg-in-a-hole, and that you are not really interested in such things as aspiration and achievement, 1 1 Or, perhaps you call it "mumbly-peg" or "mumblety-peg." 3 the personality of George Washington, the history of the English language, or the like, you should be frank enough to say so, and sincere enough to write what you yourself really think about the things that really interest you. Then you will have something to write about, you will have material all your own to put into your theme, and you will take enough pleasure in what you are doing to carry you through the mechanical work of composition, a work that boys and girls sometimes look upon as drudgery. Then, too, you will make use of your own thought and experience, and not the thought and experience of somebody else; you will be yourself, and not a mere echo of something or somebody else, and this perhaps is most important of all. Exercise 11 Make a list of the things you have thought about during the past week that are of real interest to you. Thus, THINGS I HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT 1. The weeds in our streets. 2. How to make a box kite. 3. My neighbor at school. 1 It is not intended that each student shall work through all the ex. ercises in this book. A text-book of any sort, and especially a text-book on composition and rhetoric, is best used as a guide. The present book, therefore, will most effectively serve the ends for which it is written if its exercises are modified, by selection and substitution, to meet the special needs of each particular class. It is for this reason that the exercises are made so various and so numerous, thus lending themselves easily to whatever adjustment may be thought desirable. NOTE. At p. 347 you will find some hints on the preparation of school papers, which you will do well to observe, unless your teacher gives you other directions in their stead. Exercise 2 Make a list of the things you have talked about quite recently that are of real interest to you. Give in each case the name of the person you talked with, together with the circumstances under which your conversation took place. Thus: THINGS I HAVE TALKED ABOUT 1. How to set up a springing board. Tom Sawyer. Tom and I were over at Fisher's Pond. We had been swimming, and were making plans to set up a springing board this coming Saturday. 2. What to do with rubbish. Helen Montague. Helen and I were up in our attic. We found three cheese-box lids, and we decided to make a work-table out of them. We can use the lids for shelves, and three old broomsticks will do for legs. Exercise 3 1. Make a list of ten or fifteen things which you think you know more about than any of your schoolfellows, and which you think would be of some interest to them. Choose one subject on your list, the one you think is the most interesting, and tell what you know about it. 2. Write or talk about one subject on your list that some member of the class, after hearing your list read, or after reading it himself, thinks he would like to know something about. SECTION 2 How to Limit a Subject Most of the themes that you will be asked to write in this course will consist of a single paragraph. They will be but a page or two in length. For themes as short as this you will soon discover that many of the subjects you think of, even the subjects that really interest you, will be so broad and general that you will have to limit or narrow them in some way or other if you desire to write about them at once briefly and entertainingly. You can hardly say, in a single paragraph, anything that is worth the saying about subjects as broad as "Fishing," "Flowers," "Painting," "Outdoor sports," and the like, however much these subjects may interest you. Subjects of this sort can be treated adequately only in a long essay or an entire volume, and by a writer who has had a long and intimate acquaintance with them. Try to write a single paragraph on such a subject, and you find yourself puzzled over where to begin and what to write, and this, too, even though you know a good deal about your subject. But if you limit such a subject until it comes right home to your own knowledge and interests, you find your wits started, and kept going, in a certain direction. You then know what to write and how to write it. You even begin to enjoy the art of writing, and what you write seems bright and diverting to others. To illustrate. "Outdoor sports" is an interesting subject, but vastly too broad to be treated in a short theme. In its present form the subject includes outdoor sports of all kinds, in all times, and in all places — since the world's fun began. Select some one outdoor sport, "Rowing," "Baseball," "Golf," or "Football," and you narrow the subject somewhat, but not sufficiently for your purpose. As you are to write only about those things that you are really interested in and know something about, and briefly too, you will need to bring the subject as near to yourself as you can. The way to do this is to limit it to your own time and to your own place, and in this way to bring it within the circle of your own knowledge and experience. "How football was first played" and "Football at Rugby" are subjects limited in time and place, but the time and the place are not the time and the place that you know. You would have to use other people's thoughts to write about these subjects, and it is better to use your own. "How we won the last game of football," "What a touchdown is," "How to make a drop kick," and the like, are subjects that you yourself know something about at first hand. You do not need to borrow anybody's thoughts to write about them. You can use your own thoughts. These subjects are also sufficiently limited to admit of adequate treatment in a theme of a paragraph or two. Exercise 4 Select any five of the following general subjects, and, by limiting them in any way that may occur to you, draw out from each general subject two subjects suitable for a theme of a single paragraph. Your final list of ten subjects should contain only such subjects as you actually care to write about, subjects having enough value to justify the time you would spend in thinking and writing about them. Test the worth of your final list by asking yourself these questions about each of your ten subjects: “Am I really interested in this subject, and do I know something about it at first hand?" "Can I treat this subject well in a single paragraph?" "Is this sub ject really worth writing about?" If any subject in your |