Grace. I have been writing a composition, Helen, about the river Rhine, and I could not find words grand enough to describe the scenery.

Helen. Well, I am sure if you will read Bryant's poems descriptive of nature you will find many such words.

Grace. I have read many of Bryant's poems, but I do not remember his beautiful words.

Helen. Perhaps you did not read the right poems. Suppose you read his poem called "The Gladness of Nature." In this there are many beautiful descriptive words.

Grace. What do you mean by "descriptive words "?

Helen. I mean words which present a clear and attractive picture of an object, as in the phrase "the blossoming ground." In one of his poems Bryant calls the hurricane "Lord of the winds." Isn't that a fine

descriptive expression?

Grace. Do you remember other descriptive terms that Bryant uses?

Helen. Yes.

A few of them are, "rosy depths,' "crimson sky," "golden autumn," "starlit sky," "silky grass," "boundless gulfs," "juicy blossoms."

Grace. Are descriptive terms always adjectives?

Helen. No, not always. Most of those I have named are adjectives, but some are phrases; as, "The stream with waters of green."

Grace. I will read Bryant's poems more carefully, and notice his descriptive terms.

Helen. Let us read them together, and write down all phrases that we think are especially beautiful.

Exercise I.

Write in dialogue form a conversation between: —

1. A peddler at a door and a maid holding the door nearly. shut.

2. Santa Claus and a small boy.

3. Two children gathering wild flowers.

4. A lost child and a man.

5. A miser and one who asks him for a contribution to some charity.

6. Two schoolboys about their studies.

7. A disappointed business man and a successful merchant.

8. A boy seeking employment and the owner of a

store.

9. A patriot going to war and his sister.

Imagine yourself a child who lived on the outskirts of Lexington on the night of April 18, 1775, and write for your diary an account of the stirring events of that night and the next day. You were awakened by Paul Revere

as he dashed by. Your father and brother hastily joined the "Minute Men." How you felt. The fight of April 19. The British retreated past your home. Return of your father and brother. What they told. Great rejoicing among patriots. What your little Tory neighbor said.

In a similar way write "Leaves from the Diary" of:

I. One of the men who defended Fort Sumter in 1861.

2. A gunner on Commodore Perry's flagship during his great victory on Lake Erie.

3. A little girl who heard her father tell about his part in the " Boston Tea Party.'

Suppose that you are traveling in Japan. Write an account of your experiences.

CHAPTER V.

REPRODUCTIONS AND ESSAYS.

TO THE TEACHER.

There is more work in this Chapter than any class can do without neglecting other work. Select the parts best adapted to your class. It will add to your own interest to try different exercises with successive classes.

Whenever a subject in connection with other studies, or suggested by the daily happenings in the world, has a strong interest for your pupils, such a subject should be taken in preference to the work given here.

Pupils will write good compositions only when they feel interested in the subject, and feel that they have something to say about it. Talk over with the class the selections for reproductions, and assist the pupils in obtaining the material for their essays. Do not let them write until they are well acquainted with the subject.

After looking over the exercises, show the class where improvement is needed. Read sentences or paragraphs from those papers that you can commend, and show why they are good work. Try to get each pupil to be critical of his own work, and to form the habit of revising before he makes the copy which you are to see. Grammar school pupils are old enough to be told about the methods of critical revision which many of the great writers employed before they felt willing to present their work to their readers.

The preparation of an outline for the composition furnishes good training, and, if well done, helps materially in securing a well-written essay.

Such story-telling and imaginative autobiographical sketches as are here suggested stimulate the fancy of the pupil and call forth from many children a freer expression of ideas than any other kind of exercise.

I. REPRODUCTION WITH OUTLINE AND ABSTRACT.

An abstract is a writing containing in brief form the essential parts of a longer writing. The important ideas are retained, but the details are omitted.

An outline is expressed in words, phrases, or detached sentences; an abstract, in smooth and connected sentences.

Exercise I,

Compare the outline and the abstract below with this selection from James T. Fields's "If I were a boy again," found in “Underbrush ”

KEEPING A DIARY.

"If I were a boy again, I would have a blank book in which I would record, before going to bed, every day's events just as they happened to me personally. If I began by writing only two lines a day in my diary, I would start my little book, and faithfully put down what happened to interest me.

"On its pages I would note down the habits of birds and of animals as I saw them; and if the horse fell ill, down should go his malady in my book, and what cured him should go there too. If the cat or the dog showed any peculiar traits, they should all be chronicled in my diary, and nothing worth recording should escape me."

Outline :

Blank book.

a. When to use it. b. What to put into it.