Chapter IV: Part 1: 1. Expression of Ideas Arising From Experience (2)

+23. Improbability.+--Up to this point we have been concerned with relating events that _could_ exist, though we knew that they _did_ not. We may, however, imagine a series of events that are manifestly impossible. There is a pleasure in inventing improbable stories, and if we know from the beginning that they are to be so, we enjoy listening to them. Such tales are more satisfactory to young persons than to older ones, as is shown by our declining interest in fairy stories as we grow older.

By limiting the improbability to a part of the story, it is possible to give an air of reality to the whole. Though the conditions described in a story about a trip to the moon might be wholly impossible, yet the reader for the time being might feel that the events were actually happening if the characters in the story were acting as real men would act under similar circumstances. In stories such as those of Thompson-Seton, where the animals are personified, the impossibilities are forgotten, because the actions and situations are so real. In fairy stories and similar tales neither characters nor actions are in any way limited by probability.

+Theme X.+--_Write a short story suggested by one of the subjects below. Make either the characters or their surroundings seem real._

1. A week in Mars.
2. Exploring the lake bottom.
3. The cat's defense of her kittens.
(_a_) As told by the cat.
(_b_) As told by the dog.
4. How the fox fooled the hound.
5. Diary of a donkey.
6. A biography of Jack Frost.

(Correct with reference to meaning and clearness and two other points to be assigned by the teacher.)

+24. How to Increase One's Vocabulary.+--In your daily work do what you can to add words to your reading vocabulary, and especially to increase your writing vocabulary. In the conversation of others and in reading you will meet with many new words, and you should attempt to make them your own. To do this, four things must be attended to:--

1. _Spelling._ Definite attention should be given to each new word until its form both as written and as printed is indelibly stamped upon the mind. In your general reading and in each of the subjects that you will study in the high school you will meet unfamiliar words. It is only by mastering the spelling of each new word _when you first meet it_ that you can insure yourself against future chagrin from bad spelling. A part of the time in each high school subject may well be devoted to the mastering of the words peculiar to that subject.

2. _Pronunciation._ The complete acquisition of a word includes its pronunciation. In reading aloud and in speaking, we have need to know it, and faulty pronunciation is considered an indication of lack of culture.

3. _Meaning._ This includes more than the ability to give the definition as found in the dictionary. It is possible to recite such definitions glibly without in reality knowing the meaning of the word defined. It is necessary to connect the word definitely and permanently in our mind with the idea for which it is the symbol and to be able to distinguish the idea clearly from others closely related to it.

4. _Use._ The actual use of a word is very important. If a word is to come into our speaking and writing vocabulary, we must use it. It is important that the spelling, pronunciation, and meaning be determined when you _first_ meet the word, and it is equally important that the word be _used_ soon and often.

+Theme XI.+--_Write a short story suggested by one of the following subjects. It may be wholly improbable, if you choose._

1. The good fairy.
2. Mary's luck.
3. The man in the moon.
4. The golden apple.
5. A wonderful fountain pen.
6. The goobergoo and the kantan.

(Correct with reference to meaning and clearness and two other points to be assigned by the teacher.)

SUMMARY

1. The clear expression of the ideas connected with our daily experiences
is of greater importance to most of us than is the production of
literature.

2. Ideas furnished by imagination may be advantageously used for
composition purposes, because--
_a._ They are your own.
_b._ They offer free choice of language.
They are less desirable than those gained from experience, because--
_a._ They generally lack clearness and permanency.
_b._ They are less likely to be worth recording.
_c._ It is more difficult to give them that unity and directness of
statement that will keep the interest of the reader.

3. An imaginative series of events may seem probable or improbable. He who
most closely observes real life and states his imaginary events so
that they seem real will succeed best in imaginative writing.

4. Euphony is a desirable quality in a composition.

5. Variety aids euphony. It is gained by--
_a._ Avoiding the repetition of the same words and phrases.
_b._ Beginning our sentences in various ways.
_c._ Using sentences of different lengths.

6. Conversation is usually composed of short sentences.

7. Pictures may suggest ideas suitable for use in compositions.

8. Our reading, writing, and speaking vocabularies differ.
Each should be increased. With each new word
attention should be given to--
_a._ Spelling.
_b._ Pronunciation.
_c._ Meaning.
_d._ Use.

III. EXPRESSION OF IDEAS ACQUIRED THROUGH LANGUAGE

+25. Language as a Medium through Which Ideas are Acquired.+--We have been considering language as a means of expression, an instrument by which we can convey to others the ideas which come to us from experience and imagination. We shall now consider it from a different point of view. Language is not merely a means of expressing ideas, but it is also a medium through which ideas are acquired. It has a double use: the writer must put thought into language; the reader must get it out. A large part of your schooling has been devoted to acquiring ideas from language, and these ideas may be used for purposes of composition. _Since it is absolutely necessary to have ideas before you can express them_, it will be worth while to consider for a time how to get them from language.

+26. Image Making.+--Read the following selection from Hawthorne and form a clear mental image of each scene:--

At first, my fancy saw only the stern hills, lonely lakes, and venerable woods. Not a tree, since their seeds were first scattered over the infant soil, had felt the ax, but had grown up and flourished through its long generation, had fallen beneath the weight of years, been buried in green moss, and nourished the roots of others as gigantic. Hark! A light paddle dips into the lake, a birch canoe glides around the point, and an Indian chief has passed, painted and feather-crested, armed with a bow of hickory, a stone tomahawk, and flint-headed arrows. But the ripple had hardly vanished from the water, when a white flag caught the breeze, over a castle in the wilderness, with frowning ramparts and a hundred cannon.... A war party of French and Indians were issuing from the gate to lay waste some village of New England. Near the fortress there was a group of dancers. The merry soldiers footing it with the swart savage maids; deeper in the wood, some red men were growing frantic around a keg of the fire-water; and elsewhere a Jesuit preached the faith of high cathedrals beneath a canopy of forest boughs.

Did you form clear mental images? Can you picture them all at the same time, or must you turn your attention from one image to another? The formation of the proper mental images will be aided by making a persistent effort to create them.

Many words do not cause us to form images; for example, _goodness, innocence, position, insurance_; but when the purpose of a word is to set forth an image, we should take care to get the correct one. In this the dictionary will not always help us. We must distinguish between the ability to repeat a definition and the power to form an accurate image of the thing defined. The difficulty of forming correct images by the use of dictionary definitions is so great that the definitions are frequently accompanied by pictures.

EXERCISES

Notice the different mental images that come to you as you read each of the following selections. Distinguish words that cause images to arise from those that do not.

1. Before these fields were shorn and tilled,
Full to the brim our rivers flowed;
The melody of waters filled
The fresh and boundless wood;
And torrents dashed, and rivulets played,
And fountains spouted in the shade.

--Bryant: _An Indian at the Burial Place of his Fathers_.

2. At that moment the woods were filled with another burst of cries, and at the signal four savages sprang from the cover of the driftwood. Heyward felt a burning desire to rush forward to meet them, so intense was the delirious anxiety of the moment; but he was restrained by the deliberate examples of the scout and Uncas. When their foes, who leaped over the black rocks that divided them, with long bounds, uttering the wildest yells, were within a few rods, the rifle of Hawkeye slowly rose among the shrubs and poured out its fatal contents. The foremost Indian bounded like a stricken deer and fell headlong among the clefts of the island.

--Cooper: _Last of the Mohicans_.

3. The towering flames had now surmounted every obstruction, and rose to the evening skies, one huge and burning beacon, seen far and wide through the adjacent country. Tower after tower crashed down, with blazing roof and rafter; and the combatants were driven from the courtyard. The vanquished of whom very few remained, scattered and escaped into the neighboring wood. The victors, assembling in large bands, gazed with wonder, not unmixed with fear, upon the flames, in which their own ranks and arms glanced dusky red. The maniac figure of the Saxon Ulrica was for a long time visible on the lofty stand she had chosen, tossing her arms abroad with wild exaltation as if she reigned empress of the conflagration which she had raised. At length, with a terrific crash, the whole turret gave way and she perished in the flames which had consumed her tyrant.

--Scott: _Ivanhoe_.

4. Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

--Longfellow: _The Village Blacksmith_.

5. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door;
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--
Only this, and nothing more."

--Edgar A. Poe: _The Raven_.

6. Where with black cliffs the torrents toil,
He watch'd the wheeling eddies boil,
Till, from their foam, his dazzled eyes
Beheld the River Demon rise;
The mountain mist took form and limb
Of noontide hag or goblin grim.

--Scott: _Lady of the Lake_.

7. On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the singularity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short, square-built old fellow, with thick, bushy hair and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion--a cloth jerkin strapped around the waist--several pairs of breeches, the outer ones of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the sides and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoulder a stout keg that seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach and assist him with his load.

--Washington Irving: _Rip Van Winkle_.

+27. Complete and Incomplete Images.+--Some sentences have for their purpose the presentation of an image, but in order to form that image correctly and completely, we must be familiar with the words used. If an unfamiliar word is introduced, the mind may omit entirely the image represented, or may substitute some other for it. Notice the image presented by this sentence from Henry James: "Her dress was dark and rich; she had pearls around her neck and an old rococo fan in her hand." If the meaning of _rococo_ is unknown to you, the image which you form will not be exactly the one that Mr. James had in mind. The pearls and the dress may stand out clearly in your image, but the fan will be lacking or indistinct. The whole may be compared to a photograph of which a part is blurred. If your attention is directed to the fan, you may recall the word _rococo_, but not the image represented by it. If your attention is not called to the fan, the mind is satisfied with the indistinct image, or substitutes for it an image of some other fan. Such an image is therefore either incomplete or inaccurate.

An oath in court provides that we shall "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," but, in forming images, it is not always possible to hold our minds to such exactness. We are prone to picture more or less than the words convey. In fact, in some forms of prose, and often in poetry, the author purposely takes advantage of this habit of the mind and wishes us to enlarge with creations of our own imagination the bare image that his words convey. Such writing, however, aims to give pleasure or to arouse our emotions. It calls out something in the reader even more strongly than it sets forth something in the writer. This suggestiveness in writing will be considered later, but for the present it will be well for you to bear in mind that most language has for its purpose the exact expression of a definite idea. Much of the failure in school work arises from the careless substitution of one image for another, and from the formation of incomplete and inaccurate images.

EXERCISES

_A._ Make a list of the words in the following selections whose meanings you need to look up in order to make the images exact and complete. Do not attempt to memorize the language of the definition, but to form a correct image.

1. The sun stared brazenly down on a gray farmhouse, on ranges of whitewashed outbuildings, and on a goodly array of dark-thatched ricks.

2. In his shabby frieze jacket and mud-laden brogans, he was scarcely an attractive object.

3. In a sunlit corner of an old coquina fort they came suddenly face to face with a familiar figure.

4. Somewhat back from the village street
Stands the old-fashioned country seat.
Across its antique portico
Tall poplar trees their shadows throw,
And from its station in the hall
An ancient timepiece says to all:
"Forever--never!
Never--forever!"

--Longfellow: _The Old Clock on the Stairs_.

5. There was a room which bore the appearance of a vault. Four spandrels from the corners ran up to join a sharp cup-shaped roof. The architecture was rough, but very strong. It was evidently part of a great building.

6. The officer proceeded, without affecting to hear the words which escaped the sentinel in his surprise; nor did he again pause, until he had reached the low strand, and in a somewhat dangerous vicinity to the western water bastion of the fort.

7. She stood on the top step under the _porte-cochère_, on the extreme edge, so that the toes of her small slippers extended a little over it. She bent forward, and then tipped back on the high, exiguous heels again.

8. Before the caryatides of the fireplace, under the ancestral portraits, a valet moves noiselessly about, arranging the glistening silver service on the long table and putting in order the fruits, sweets, and ices.

9. No sooner is the heavy gate of the portal passed than one sees from afar among the leafage the court of honor, to which one comes along an alley decorated uniformly with upright square shafts like classic termae in stone and bronze. The impression of the antique lines is striking: it springs at once to the eyes, at first in this portico with columns and a heavy entablature, but lacking a pediment.

_B._ Read again the selections beginning on page 46. Do you form complete images in every case?

_C._ Notice in each of your lessons for to-day what images are incomplete. Bring to class a list of the words you would need to look up in order to form complete images. Do not include all the words whose meanings are not clear, but only those that assist in forming images.

+Theme XII.+--_Form a clear mental image of some incident, person, or place. Write about it, using such words as will give your classmates complete and accurate images. The following may suggest a subject:_--

1. A party dress I should like.
2. My room.
3. A cozy glen.
4. In the apple orchard.
5. Going to the fire.
6. The hand-organ man.
7. A hornets' nest.
8. The last inning.
9. An exciting race.

(Consider what you have written with reference to the images which the _reader_ will form. Do you think that when the members of the class hear your theme, each will form the same images that you had in mind when writing? Notice how many of your sentences begin in the same way. Can you rewrite them so as to give variety?)

+28. Reproduction of Images.+--If we were asked to tell about an accident which we had seen, we could recall the various incidents in the order of their occurrence. If the accident had occurred recently, or had made a vivid impression upon us, we could easily form mental images of each scene. If we had only read a description of the accident, it would be more difficult to recall the image; because that which we gain through language is less vitally a part of ourselves than is that which comes to us through experience.

When called upon to reproduce the images suggested to us by language, our memory is apt to concern itself with the words that suggested the image, and our expression is hampered rather than aided by this remembrance. The author has made, or should have made, the best possible selection of words and phrases. If we repeat his language, we have but memory drill or copy work; and if we do not, we are limited to such second-class language as we may be able to find.

Word memory has its uses, but it is less valuable than image memory. It is necessary to distinguish carefully between the images that a writer presents and the words that he uses. If a botany lesson should consist of a description of fifteen different leaves, a pupil deficient in image memory will attempt to memorize the language of the book. A better-trained pupil, on meeting such a term as _serrated_, will ask himself: "Have I ever seen such a leaf? Can I form an image of it?" If so, his only task will be to give the new name, _serrated_, to the idea that he already has. In a similar way he will form images for each of the fifteen leaves described in the lesson. The language of the book may help him form these images, but he will make no attempt to commit the language to memory. With him, "getting the lesson" means forming images and naming them, and reciting the lesson will be but talking about an image that he has clearly in mind. Try this in your own lessons.

If we are called upon to reproduce the incidents and scenes of some story that has been read to us, our success will depend upon the clearness of the images that we have formed. Our efforts should be directed to making the images as definite and vivid as possible, and our memory will be concerned with the recalling of these images in their proper order, and not with the language that first caused them to appear.

EXERCISES

1. Report orally some interesting incident taken from a book which you have recently read. Do not reread the story. Use such language as will cause the class to form clear mental images.

2. Report orally upon some chapter selected from Cooper's _Last of the Mohicans_ or Scott's _Ivanhoe_.

3. Read a portion of Scott's _Lady of the Lake_, and report orally what happened.

4. Report orally some incident that you have read about in a magazine. Select one that caused you to form images, and tell it so that the hearers will form like images.

+Theme XIII.+--_Reproduce a story read to you by the teacher._

(Before writing, picture to yourself the scenes and recall the order of their occurrence. If it is necessary to condense, omit events of the least importance.)

+29. Comparison.+--Writing which contains unfamiliar words fails to call up complete and definite images. It is often difficult to form the correct mental picture, even though the words in themselves are familiar. Definitions, explanations, and descriptions may cause us to understand correctly, but our understanding usually can be improved by means of a comparison. We can form an image of an object as soon as we know what it is like.

If I wished you to form an image of an okapi, a lengthy description would give you a less vivid picture than the statement that it was a horselike animal, having stripes similar to those of a zebra. If an okapi were as well known to you as is a horse, the name alone would call up the proper image, and no comparison would be necessary. By means of it we are enabled to picture the unfamiliar. In this case the comparison is literal.

If the comparison is imaginative rather than literal, our language becomes figurative, and usually takes the form of a simile or metaphor. Similes and metaphors are of great value in rendering thought clear. They make language forceful and effective, and they may add much to the beauty of expression.

We may speak of an object as being like another, or as acting like another. If the comparison is imaginative rather than literal, and is directly stated, the expression is a simile. Similes are introduced by _like, as_, etc.

He fought like a lion.
The river wound like a serpent around the mountains.

If two things are essentially different, but yet have a common quality, their _implied comparison_ is a metaphor. A metaphor takes the form of a statement that one is the other.

"He was a lion in the fight."
"The river wound its serpent course."

Sometimes inanimate objects, abstract ideas, or the lower animals are given the attributes of human beings. Such a figure is called personification, and is in fact a modified metaphor, since it is based upon some resemblance of the lower to the higher.

This music crept by me upon the waters.

Time is a very bankrupt, and owes more than he is worth to
season.
Nay, he's a thief, too; have you not heard men say,
That time comes stealing on by night and day?

--Shakespeare.

+30. Use of Figures of Speech.+--The three figures of speech, simile, metaphor, and personification, are more frequently used than are the others. Figures of speech are treated in a later chapter, but some suggestions as to their use will be of value to beginners.

1. Never write for the purpose of using figures of speech. Nearly everything that we need to say can be well expressed in plain, bare English, and the ability to express our thoughts in this way is the essential thing. If a figure that adds to the force and clearness of your expression occurs to you, use it without hesitation. A figure may also add to the beauty of our expression. The examples to be found in literature are largely of this character. If well used, they are effective, but the beginner should beware of a figure that is introduced for decorative purposes only. An attempt to find figures of speech in ordinary prose writing will show how rarely they are used.

2. The figures should fit the subject in hand. Some comparisons are appropriate and some are not. If the writer is familiar with his subject and deeply in earnest, the appropriate figures will rise spontaneously in his mind. If they do not, little is gained by seeking for them.

3. The effectiveness of a comparison, whether literal or figurative, depends upon the familiarity of the reader with one of the two things compared. To say that a petrel resembled a kite would be of no value to one who knew nothing of either bird. Similarly a figure is defective if neither element of the comparison is familiar to the readers.

4. Suitable figures give picturesqueness and vivacity to language, but hackneyed figures are worse than none.

5. Elaborate and long-drawn-out figures, or an overabundance of short ones, should be avoided.

6. A figure must be consistent throughout. A comparison once begun must be carried through without change; mixing figures often produces results which are ridiculous. The "mixed metaphor" is a common blunder of beginners. This fault may arise either from confusing different metaphors in the same sentence, or from blending literal language with metaphorical. The following will serve to illustrate:--

1. [Confused metaphor.] Let us pin our faith to the rock of perseverance and honest toil, where it may sail on to success on the wings of hope.

2. [Literal and figurative blended.] Washington was the father of his country and a surveyor of ability.

3. When the last awful moment came, the star of liberty went down with all on board.

4. The glorious work will never be accomplished until the good ship "Temperance" shall sail from one end of the land to the other, and with a cry of "Victory!" at each step she takes, shall plant her banner in every city, town, and village in the United States.

5. All along the untrodden paths of the future we see the hidden footprints of an unseen hand.

6. The British lion, whether it is roaming the deserts of India, or climbing the forests of Canada, will never draw in its horns nor retire into its shell.

7. Young man, if you have the spark of genius in you, water it.

EXERCISES

Are the images which you form made more vivid by the use of the figures in the following selections?

1. She began to screech as wild as ocean birds.

2. And when its force expended,
The harmless storm was ended;
And as the sunrise splendid
Came blushing o'er the sea--

3. As a demon is hurled by an angel's spear,
Heels over head, to his proper sphere--
Heels over head and head over heels,--
Dizzily down the abyss he wheels,--
So fell Darius.

--J.T. Trowbridge.

4. In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life, somebody is always at the drowning point.

--Hawthorne.

5. Poverty, treading close at her heels for a lifetime, has come up with her at last.

--Hawthorne.

6. Friendships begin with liking or gratitude--roots that can be pulled up.

--George Eliot.

7. Nearing the end of the narrative, Ben paced up and down the narrow limits of the tent in great excitement, running his fingers through his hair, and barking out a question now and then.

8. A sky above,
Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.

--Lowell.

9. In days of public commotion every faction, like an Oriental army, is attended by a crowd of camp followers, a useless and heartless rabble, who prowl round its line of march in the hope of picking up something under its protection, but desert it in the day of battle, and often join to exterminate it after a defeat.

--Macaulay.

10. It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. As compositions, they deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become acquainted with the full power of the English language. They abound with passages compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is stiff with gorgeous embroidery.

--Macaulay.

11. And close behind her stood
Eight daughters of the plow, stronger than men,
Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and rain,
And labor. Each was like a Druid rock,
Or like a spire of land that stands apart
Cleft from the main and wall'd about with mews.

--Tennyson.

12. But bland the smile that, like a wrinkling wind
On glassy water, drove his cheek in lines.

--Tennyson.

13. The rush of affairs drifts words from their original meanings, as ships drag their anchors in a gale, but terms sheltered from common use hold to their moorings forever.

--Mill.

+Theme XIV.+--_Write a story suggested by the picture on page 59 or by one of the following subjects:_--

1. A modern fable.
2. The willow whistle.
3. How I baked a cake.
4. The delayed picnic.
5. The missing slipper.
6. A misdirected letter.
7. A ride on a raft.
8. The rescue of Ezekiel.
9. A railway experience.
10. A soldier's soldier.

(Do you think the reader will form the images you wish him to form? Consider what you have written with reference to climax. (See Section 7.) Have you needed to use figures? If so, have you used them in accordance with the suggestions on page 55? If you have used the word _only_, is it placed so as to give the correct meaning?)

+31. Determination of Meaning Requires More than Image Making.+--The emphasis laid upon image making should not lead to the belief that this is all that is necessary in order to determine what is meant by the language we hear or read. Image making is important, but much of our language is concerned with presenting ideas of which no mental pictures can be formed.

This very paragraph will serve as an illustration of such language. Our understanding of language of this kind depends upon our knowledge of the meanings of words, upon our understanding of the relations between word groups, or parts of sentences, and especially upon our appreciation of the relations in thought that sentences bear to one another. Each of these will be discussed in the following pages. Later it will be necessary to consider the relations in thought existing among paragraphs.

+32. Word Relations.+--In order to get the thought of a sentence, we must understand the relations that exist between the words and word groups (phrases and clauses) that compose it. If the thought is simple, and expressed in straightforward terms, we grasp it readily and without any conscious effort to determine these relations. If the thought is complex, the relations become more complicated, and before we are sure that we know what the writer intends to say it may be necessary to note with care which is the main clause and which are the subordinate clauses. In either case our acquiring the thought depends upon our understanding the relations between words and word groups. We may understand them without any knowledge of the names that have been applied to them in grammar, but a knowledge of the names will assist somewhat. These relations are treated in the grammar review in the Appendix and need not be repeated here.

+33. Incomplete Thoughts.+--We have learned (Section 27) that the introduction of unfamiliar words may cause us to form incomplete images. When the language is not designed to present images, we may, in a similar way, fail to get its real meaning if we are unfamiliar with the words used. If you do not know the meaning of _fluent_ and _viscous_, you will fail to understand correctly the statement, "Fluids range from the peculiarly fluent to the peculiarly viscous." If we wish to think precisely what the writer intended us to think, we must know the meanings of the words he uses. Many of us are inclined to substitute other ideas than those properly conveyed by the words of the writer, and so get confused or incomplete or inaccurate ideas. The ability to determine exactly what images the writer suggests, and what ideas his language expresses, is the first requisite of scholarship and an important element of success in life.

EXERCISES

_A._ The first step in acquiring knowledge is to determine what it is that we do not know. Just which word or words in each of the following sentences keep you from understanding the full meaning of the sentence? Notice that a dictionary definition will not always make the meaning clear.

1. It is really more scientific to repeat a quotation from a political speech correctly, or to pass on a story undistorted, than it is to know of the rings of Saturn or the striation of diatoms.

2. The process of testing a hypothesis requires great caution in order to prevent mistakes.

3. The aërial foliage stem is the most favorable for studying stem structure.

4. Taken collectively, isotherms indicate the distribution of mean temperature over the region embraced in the map.

5. Vibrations of the membrane of the tympanum are "damped" by the ossicles of the middle ear, which also receive and pass on the auditory tremors to the membrane closing the oval window.

6. In the battle which followed, the mobile Roman legion, arranged in open order three ranks deep, proved its superiority over the massive Macedonian phalanx.

7. The narrow and dissected forms have been attributed to the scarcity of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the water.

_B._ Make a list of words in your lessons in other subjects for to-day that you need to look up in order to understand the lessons. This should be done daily, whether assigned or not.

34. +Choice of Words Adapted to the Reader.+--Words familiar to the reader should be used. Since the reader's ability to understand the thought of a paragraph depends to some extent upon his understanding of the words employed, it is necessary for the writer to choose words that will be understood by those whom he addresses. Of course we cannot tell whether a particular word will be understood by our readers, but, in case there is doubt, it is well to substitute one that is more likely to be understood. When you have written anything, it is well to ask yourself the question, Have I used words with which _the reader_ is probably familiar?

+Theme XV.+---_Write a theme about one of the following subjects, using words that you think will be understood by your readers:_--

1. How we breathe.
2. How to make a kite.
3. The causes of the seasons.
4. Why wood floats on water.
5. The use of baking powder.
6. The difference between arithmetic and algebra.

(Have you said what you meant to say? Have you used words that your reader will understand? Find your longest sentence. Is its meaning clear? Notice the short sentences. Should some of them be united into a longer one?)

+35. Word Selection.+--There are many shades of meaning which differ but little, and a careful writer will select just the word that best conveys his thought. The reader needs to be no less careful in determining the exact meaning that the writer intends to convey. Exercises in synonyms are thus of double importance (Section 21).

Another source of error, both in acquiring and expressing thought, arises from the confusion of similar words. Some similarity of spelling causes one word to be substituted for another. There are many words and expressions that are so often interchanged that some time may be spent with profit upon exercises in determining their correct usage. These usually consist of brief reports to the class that set forth the meanings of the words, show their uses, and illustrate their differences.

In preparing such reports, determine the meaning of the words from as many sources as are available. The usual meaning can be determined from the dictionary. A fuller treatment is given in some dictionaries in a chapter on faulty diction. Additional material may be found in many of the text-books on rhetoric, and in special books treating of word usage. After you are sure that you know the correct use, prepare a report for the class that shall make that use clear to others. In the simplest form this will consist of definitions and sentences in which the words are correctly used. The following examples, handed in by pupils, will serve to illustrate such reports:--

1. A _council_ is an assembly of persons convened for consultation or deliberation. _Counsel_ is used to indicate either (1) an opinion as the result of consultation or (2) a lawyer engaged to give advice or to act as advocate in court. Lewis furnishes the following example of the use of these two words: "The plaintiff's _counsel_ held a _council_ with his partners in law, and finally gave him as his best _counsel_ the advice that he should drop the suit; but, as Swift says, 'No man will take _counsel_, but every man will take money,' and the plaintiff refused to accept the advice unless the _counsel_ could persuade the defendant to settle the case out of court by paying a large sum."

2. The correct meaning of _transpire_ may perhaps be best understood by considering its derivations. It comes from _trans_, through, and _spiro_, to breathe, from which it gets its meaning, to escape gradually from secrecy. It is frequently used incorrectly in the sense of to happen, but both Webster and the Standard dictionary condemn this use of the word. The latter says that it is often so misused especially in carelessly edited newspapers, as in "Comments on the heart-rending disaster which transpired yesterday are unnecessary, but," etc. When _transpire_ is correctly used, it is not a synonym of _happen_. A thing that happened a year ago may transpire to-day, that is, it may "become known through unnoticed channels, exhale, as it were, through invisible pores like a vapor or a gas disengaging itself." Many things which happen in school, thus become known by being passed along in a semi-secret manner until nearly all know of them though few can tell just how the information was spread. _Transpire_ may properly be applied to such a diffusion of knowledge.

+Theme XVI.+--_Report as suggested above on any one of the following groups of words:_--

1. Allude, mention.
2. Beside, besides.
3. Character, reputation.
4. Degrade, demean, debase.
5. Last, latest, preceding.
6. Couple, pair.
7. Balance, rest, remainder.

(Have you made clear the correct use of the words under discussion? Can you give examples which do not follow the dictionaries so closely as do the illustrative reports above?)

NOTE.--Lists of words suitable for exercises similar to the above are given in the Appendix. The teacher will assign them to such an extent and at such times as seems desirable. One such lesson a week will be found profitable.

+36. Sentence Relations.+--What we read or hear usually consists of several sentences written or spoken together. The meaning of any particular sentence may depend upon the sentence or sentences preceding. In order to determine accurately the meaning of the whole, we must understand the relation in thought that each sentence bears to the others. Notice the two sentences: "Guns are dangerous. Boys should not use them." Though the last sentence is independent, it gets its meaning from the first.

In the following selection consider each sentence apart from the others. Notice that the meaning of the whole becomes intelligible only when the sentences are considered in their relations to each other.

Once upon a time, a notion was started, that if all the people in the world would shout at once, it might be heard in the moon. So the projectors agreed it should be done in just ten years. Some thousand shiploads of chronometers were distributed to the selectmen and other great folks of all the different nations. For a year beforehand, nothing else was talked about but the awful noise that was to be made on the great occasion. When the time came, everybody had his ears so wide open, to hear the universal ejaculation of Boo,--the word agreed upon,--that nobody spoke except a deaf man in one of the Fiji Islands, and a woman in Pekin, so that the world was never so still since the creation.--Holmes.

Gutenberg did a great deal of his work in secret, for he thought it was much better that his neighbors should know nothing of what he was doing. So he looked for a workshop where no one would be likely to find him. He was now living in Strasburg, and there was in that city a ruined old building where, long before his time, a number of monks had lived. There was one room in the building which needed only a little repairing to make it fit to be used. So he got the right to repair the room and use it as his workshop.

In all good writing we find a similar dependence in thought. Each sentence takes a meaning because of its relation to some other. The personal pronouns and pronominal adjectives, adverbial phrases indicating time or place, conjunctions, and such expressions as _certainly, however, on the other hand_, etc., are used to indicate more or less directly a relation in thought between the phrase or sentence in which they occur and some preceding one. If the reader cannot readily determine to what they refer, the meaning becomes obscure or ambiguous. The pronominal adjectives and the personal pronouns are especially likely to be used in such a way as to cause ambiguity. Care must be taken to use them so as to keep the meaning clear, and your own good sense will help you in this more than rules. Notice in your reading how frequently expressions similar to those mentioned above are used.

+Theme XVII.+--_Write a theme suggested by one of the following subjects:_--

1. The last quarter.
2. An excursion with the physical geography class.
3. What I saw while riding to town.
4. The broken bicycle.
5. An hour in the study hall.
6. Seen from my study window.

(Are your sentences so arranged that the relation in thought is clear? Are the personal pronouns and pronominal adjectives used so as to avoid ambiguity? Does your story relate real events or imaginary ones? If imaginary events are related, have you made them seem probable?)

+37. Getting the Main Thought.+--In many cases the relation in thought is not directly indicated, and we are left to determine it from the context, just as we decide upon the meaning of a word because of what precedes or follows it. In this case the meaning of a particular sentence may be made clear if we have in mind the main topic under discussion. Many pupils fail in recitations because they do not distinguish that which is more important from that which is less so. If a dozen pages of history are assigned, they cannot master the lesson because it is too long to be memorized, and they are not able to select the three or four things of importance with which it is really concerned. Thirty or forty minor details are jumbled together without any clear knowledge of the relations that they bear either to one another or to the main thoughts of the lesson.

In the following selection but three things are discussed. Determine what they are, but not what is said about them.

In all the ages the extent and value of flood plains have been increased by artificial means. Dikes or levees are built to regulate the spread and flow of the water and to protect the land from destructive floods. Dams and reservoirs are constructed for the storage of water, which is led by a system of canals and ditches to irrigate large tracts of land which would be otherwise worthless. By means of irrigation, the farmer has control of his water supply and is able to get larger returns than are possible where he depends upon the irregular and uncertain rainfall. It is estimated that in the arid regions of western United States there are 150,000 square miles of land which may be made available for agriculture by irrigation. Perhaps in the future the valley of the lower Colorado may become as productive as that of the Nile.

Streams are the easiest routes of travel and commerce. A river usually furnishes from its mouth well up toward its source a smooth, graded highway, upon which a cargo may be transported with much less effort than overland. If obstructions occur in the form of rapids or falls, boat and cargo are carried around them. It is often easy to pass by a short portage or "carry" from one stream system across the divide to another. In regions which are not very level the easiest grades in every direction are found along the streams, and the main routes of land travel follow the stream valleys. In traversing a mountainous region, a railroad follows the windings of some river up to the crest of the divide, which it crosses through a pass, or often by a tunnel, and descends the valley of some stream on the other side.

Man is largely indebted to streams for the variety and beauty of scenery. Running water itself is attractive to young and old. A landscape without water lacks its chief charm. A child instinctively finds its way to the brook, and the man seeks beside the river the pleasure and recreation which no other place affords. Streams have carved the surface of the land into an endless variety of beautiful forms, and a land where stream valleys are few or shallow is monotonous and tiresome. The most common as well as the most celebrated beauty of scenery in the world, from the tiny meanders of a meadow brook to the unequaled grandeur of the Colorado canyons, is largely due to the presence and action of streams.

--Dryer: _Lessons in Physical Geography_.

In the above selection we find that each group of sentences is related to some main topic. A more extended observation of good writing will give the same result. Men naturally think in sentence groups. A group of sentences related to each other and to the central idea is called a +paragraph.+

+38. Topic Statement.+--In the three paragraphs of the selection on page 67, notice that the first sentence in each tells what the paragraph is about. In a well-written paragraph it is possible to select the phrase or sentence that states the main thought. If such a sentence does not occur in the paragraph itself, one can be framed that will express clearly and concisely the chief idea of the paragraph. This brief, comprehensive summary of the contents of a paragraph is called the topic statement.

In order to master the thought of what we read we must be able to select or to make the successive topic statements, and in order to express our own thoughts clearly we must write our paragraphs so that our readers may easily grasp the topic statement of each.

When expressed in the paragraph, the topic statement may be a part of a sentence, a whole sentence, or it may extend through two sentences. It is usual to place the topic statement first, but it may be preceded by one or more introductory sentences, or even withheld until the end of the paragraph. For emphasis it may be repeated, though usually in a slightly different form.

EXERCISES

Determine the topic statements of the following paragraphs. If one is not expressed, make one.

1. No less valuable is the mental stimulus of play. The child is trained by it to quick perception, rapid judgment, prompt decision. His imagination cunningly suggests a thousand things to be done, and then trains the will and every power of body and mind in the effort to do them. The sports of childhood are admirably adapted to quicken the senses and sharpen the wits. Nature has effective ways in her school of securing the exercise which is needed to develop every mental and every bodily power. She fills the activity brimful of enjoyment, and then gives her children freedom, assured that they will be their own best teachers.

--Bradley

2. Our Common Law comes from England, and originated there in custom. It is often called the unwritten law, because unwritten in origin, though there are now many books describing it. Its principles originated as habits of the people, five hundred, eight hundred, years ago, perhaps some of them back in the time when the half-savage Saxons landed on the shores of England. When the time came that the government, through its courts, punished the breach of a custom, from that time the custom was a law. And so the English people acquired these laws, one after another, just as they were acquiring at the same time the habits of making roads, using forks at table, manufacturing, meeting in Parliament, using firearms, and all the other habits of civilization. When the colonists came to America, they brought the English Common Law with them, not in a book, but in their minds, a part of their life, like their religion.

--Clark: _The Government_.

3. Accuracy is always to be striven for but it can never be attained. This fact is only fully realized by scientific workers. The banker can be accurate because he only counts or weighs masses of metal which he assumes to be exactly equal. The Master of the Mint knows that two coins are never exactly equal in weight, although he strives by improving machinery and processes to make the differences as small as possible. When the utmost care is taken, the finest balances which have been constructed can weigh 1 lb. of a metal with an uncertainty less than the hundredth part of a grain. In other words, the weight is not accurate, but the inaccuracy is very small. No person is so stupid as not to feel sure that the height of a man he sees is between 3 ft. and 9 ft.; some are able by the eye to estimate the height as between 5 ft. 6 in. and 5 ft. 8 in.; measurement may show it to be between 5 ft. 6 in. and 5 ft. 7 in., but to go closer than that requires many precautions. Training in observation and the use of delicate instruments thus narrow the limits of approximation. Similarly with regard to space and time, there are instruments with which one millionth of an inch, or of a second, can be measured, but even this approximation, although far closer than is ever practically necessary, is not accuracy. In the statement of measurements there is no meaning in more than six significant figures, and only the most careful observations can be trusted so far. The height of Mount Everest is given as 29,002 feet; but here the fifth figure is meaningless, the height of that mountain not being known so accurately that two feet more or less would be detected. Similarly, the radius of the earth is sometimes given as 3963.295833 miles, whereas no observation can get nearer the truth than 3963.30 miles.

--Mill: _The Realm of Nature_. (Copyright, 1892, by Charles Scribner's Sons.)

4. The chief cause which made the fusion of the different elements of society so imperfect was the extreme difficulty which our ancestors found in passing from place to place. Of all the inventions, the alphabet and the printing press alone excepted, those inventions which abridge distance have done most for the civilization of our species. Every improvement of the means of locomotion benefits mankind morally and intellectually as well as materially, and not only facilitates the interchange of the various productions of nature and art, but tends to remove national and provincial prejudices, and to bind together all the branches of the great human family. In the seventeenth century the inhabitants of London were for almost every practical purpose farther from Reading than they are now from Edinburgh, and farther from Edinburgh than they are now from Vienna.

--Macaulay: _History of England_.

5. He touched New England at every point. He was born a frontiersman. He was bred a farmer. He was a fisherman in the mountain brooks and off the shore. He never forgot his origin, and he never was ashamed of it. Amid all the care and honor of his great place here he was homesick for the company of his old neighbors and friends. Whether he stood in Washington, the unchallenged prince and chief in the Senate, or in foreign lands, the kingliest man of his time in the presence of kings, his heart was in New England. When the spring came, he heard far off the fife bird and the bobolink calling him to his New Hampshire mountains, or of the waves on the shore at Marshfield alluring him with a sweeter than siren's voice to his home by the summer sea.

--George F. Hoar: _Daniel Webster_.