A RHETORIC FOR COLLEGES BY FRED NEWTON SCOTT PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AND JOSEPH VILLIERS DENNEY PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY New Edition REWRITTEN AND MUCH ENLARGED ALLYN AND BACON Boston and Chicago PREFACE. THE idea which underlies this work and which has given to it its distinctive place and character was thus set forth in the preface to the first edition : : Learning to write well in one's own language means in large part learning to give unity and coherence to one's ideas. It means learning to construct units of discourse which have order and symmetry and coherence of parts. It means learning theoretically how such units are made, and practically how to put them together; and further, if they turn out badly the first time, how to take them apart and put them together again in another and better order. The making and re-making of such units is in general terms the task of all who produce written discourse. The task of the teacher of those who produce written discourse, it follows, is in great part setting students to construct such units, explaining the principles upon which the units are made, arousing a sense that they are units and not mere heaps or nebulous masses, and (hoc opus, hic labor est) correcting departures from unity, order, and coherence when such departures occur. Work of this kind on the part of writer or of teacher presupposes a unit of discourse. Of these units there are three, the sentence, the paragraph, and the essay or whole composition. Which of these three is best adapted, psychologically and pedagogically, to the end proposed? The sentence may be rejected at the outset as at once too simple and too fragmentary. Moreover, as Professor Barrett Wendell has pointed out (English Composition, p. 117), the sentence is properly a subject of revision, not of prevision, good sentences are produced by criticising them after they are written rather than by planning them beforehand. Putting the sentence aside, then, what shall be said of the paragraph and the essay? Of the two the essay is theoretically the more proper unit of discourse. But is it always so in practice? Is it not true that for students at a certain stage of their progress the essay is too complex and too cumbersome to be appreciated as a whole? Aristotle long ago laid down the psychological principle which should govern the selection of a structural unit: "As for the limit fixt by the nature of the case, the greatest consistent with simultaneous comprehension is always the best." If students who have written essays for years have with all their labor developed but a feeble sense for structural unity, may the reason not lie in the fact that the unit of discourse employed has been so large and so complex that it could not be grasped with a single effort of the mind? If there is a measure of truth in what has here been urged, it would appear that for certain periods in the student's development the paragraph, as an example of structural unity, offers peculiar advantages. The nature of these advantages has already been suggested. They are, in brief, as follows: The paragraph, being in its method practically identical with the essay, exemplifies identical principles of structure. It exemplifies these principles in small and convenient compass so that they are easily appreciable by the beginner. Further, while the writing of the paragraph exercises the student in the same elements of structure which would be brought to his attention were he drilled in the writing of essays, he can write more paragraphs than he can write essays in the same length of time; hence the character of the work may be made for him more varied, progressive, and interesting. If the paragraph thus suits. the needs of the student, it has even greater advantages from the point of view of the teacher. The bugbear of the teacher of Rhetoric is the correcting of essays. When the compositions are long and crude and errors abound, the burden sometimes becomes almost intolerable. In many cases it is a necessary burden and must be borne with patience, but this is not always so. Since the student within the limits of the paragraph makes the same errors which he commits in the writing of longer compositions, in the greater part of the course the written work may profitably be shortened from essays to paragraphs. Paragraph-writing has the further advantage that, if necessary, the composition may be re-written from beginning to end, and, most important of all, when completed is not too long for the teacher to read and criticise in the presence of the class. Finally, the paragraph furnishes a natural introduction to work of a more difficult character. When the time comes for the writing of essays, the transition from the smaller unit to its larger analogue is made with facility. To this fundamental idea the authors in the work of revision and enlargement have chosen to adhere, being convinced both of its theoretical soundness and its practical utility. In adapting the work, however, to the present needs of college and university classes, they have made so many modifications in general plan and in detail that the result is virtually a new book. Among the changes and additions. which will be of special interest to teachers may be mentioned the following: 1. The scope of the theoretical part has been extended to embrace all pure types of compositions. In accordance with this plan, the book opens with a discussion of the Art of Composition and the Organic Structure of Discourse, after which the two leading structural forms, the Para |