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CHARLES MAURICE STEBBINS, A.M.

Boys' High School, Brooklyn, N.Y.

UNIVERSITY OF
MINNESOTA

BOSTON

SIBLEY & COMPANY

CHICAGO

COPYRIGHT, 1906, 1911,

BY SIBLEY & COMPANY.

808 573

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Mc Clurg

ए ६६

APR 1- 1915

PREFACE

This book is intended for second year pupils. The author, in common with thousands of other teachers, has recognized the fact that a book to be of real value to pupils must be adapted to their particular needs at a particular stage in their mental development; that a book prepared for use in any or all grades of the high school course really meets the needs of none.

This book is not a text-book in rhetoric; it is a second year course in English, including literature, composition, rhetoric, and grammar. As in the first year book in this series, these are presented as interdependent and correlated subjects. Literature is made the basis of the work to as large an extent as possible. This is done in part through the study of many brief selections from the works of the best English authors, and in part through the study of several masterpieces of literature complete.

Literature. –– It has been charges, and it is repeated from time to time, that in the study of English classics in secondary schools the tendency is to make critics of pupils. If we but succeed in making critics of the right kini, no better achievement is to be desired. Books that are of sufficient worth to be placed among the requirements for admission to our

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colleges are as a rule worthy of serious consideration. Over haste in reading, no less than over haste in theme writing, leads to slovenly habits and eventual incompetence. Moreover, the average pupil of high school age does not know how to read understandingly. He will spend an hour in conscientiously reading every word in a given chapter, and then will be able to give only the barest outline of what it contains. What is the result of such reading of a novel like Silas Marner? Usually a disappointment because the story has not proved satisfactory. The reader has failed to see and appreciate the real human beings, their aims, their motives, their mistakes, their sufferings, and their compensations. He has failed to see that the solution of the problems that are presented to Silas Marner and Godfrey Cass constitutes the serious business of their lives. He has failed to see just those things in the book that are most worth seeing. He has not made the book a permanent possession. The questions for study of the English classics have been prepared for the purpose of calling the pupil's attention to the things of real importance, to lead him to see the meaning of what he reads, to interpret the book, and to apply his interpretation to life in a word, to be a critic, in the highest and best sense.

Composition.Composition work is made the outgrowth of the pupil's experience and of his study of literature. In the suggestions for themes in the various exercises as wide a range as possible has been given, in order that teachers may have an opportunity

to make use of the various tastes and natural aptitudes of pupils in direct connection with the work of the book. The writing of many compositions is suggested, but no more should be done than can be done well. Themes that are very faulty, either as a result of ignorance or carelessness, should be rewritten. The theory that pupils, instead of rewriting faulty themes, should correct their errors in writing new ones, sounds plausible and desirable, but as a matter of fact no two themes are likely to present exactly the same difficulties; and if they should, teachers know that many pupils would dodge the difficulties instead of mastering them. Moreover, many a boy who wishes to be out on the ball field will do greater justice to his theme if he knows that haste and carelessness will result in additional work.

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Rhetoric. An attempt has been made to reduce the amount of rhetorical theory actually given the pupil to a minimum. The plan of the book is to lead the learner to discover rhetorical principles for himself; to make his own rhetoric. The method, therefore, is inductive wherever that method has been found expedient. The inductive process is followed in each case by a concise statement of the principles discovered, and these principles are immediately applied through the exercises given.

Grammar. The subject of grammar has been treated in accordance with the idea that it is of no value except as it assists the pupil to read more intelligently and to use the English language more correctly in writing and in speech. Consequently

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