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ENGLISH:
COMPOSITION AND LITERATURE
BY
W. F. WEBSTER
PRINCIPAL OF THE EAST HIGH SCHOOL
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 85 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1900 AND 1902, BY W. F. WEBSTER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PREFACE
In July, 1898, I presented at the National EducationalAssociation, convened in Washington, a Courseof Study in English. At Los Angeles, in 1899, theAssociation indorsed the principles1 of this course, andmade it the basis of the Course in English for HighSchools. At the request of friends, I have preparedthis short text-book, outlining the method of carryingforward the course, and emphasizing the principlesnecessary for the intelligent communication of ideas.
It has not been the purpose to write a rhetoric. Themany fine distinctions and divisions, the rarefied examplesof very beautiful forms of language which a youngpupil cannot possibly reproduce, or even appreciate,have been omitted. To teach the methods of simple,direct, and accurate expression has been the purpose;and this is all that can be expected of a high schoolcourse in English.
The teaching of composition differs from the teachingof Latin or mathematics in this point: whereaspupils can be compelled to solve a definite number ofproblems or to read a given number of lines, it is notpossible to compel expression of the full thought. Thefull thought is made of an intellectual and an emotionalelement. Whatever is intellectual may be compelledivby dint of sheer purpose; whatever is emotional mustspring undriven by outside authority, and uncompelledby inside determination. A boy saws a cord of woodbecause he has been commanded by his father; but hecannot laugh or cry because directed to do so by thesame authority. There must be the conditions whichcall forth smiles or tears. So there must be the conditionswhich call forth the full expression of thought,both what is intellectual and what is emotional. Thismeans that the subject shall be one of which the writerknows something, and in which he is interested; thatthe demands in the composition shall not be made adiscouragement; and that the teacher shall be competentand enthusiastic, inspiring in each pupil a desireto say truly and adequately the best he thinks andfeels.
These conditions cannot be realized while workingwith dead fragments of language; but they are realizedwhile constructing living wholes of composition.It is not two decades ago when the pupil in drawingwas compelled to make straight lines until he madethem all crooked. The pupil in manual training beganby drawing intersecting lines on two sides of a board;then he drove nails into the intersections on one side,hoping that they would hit the corresponding points onthe other. Now no single line or exercise is an end initself; it contributes to some whole. Under the oldmethod the pupil did not care or try to draw a straightline, or to drive a nail straight; but now, in order thathe may realize the idea that lies in his mind, he doescare and he does try: so lines are drawn better and nailsvare driven stra