SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS.

THE pupil should not only be learning, but should be applying his knowledge constantly. No week should pass without some lessons learned and some exercises written.

The lessons may be studied at home or in school; but it is advised that all the written exercises, except some of those coming near the close of the course, should be written in class. Full preparation should precede composition. The amount to be written should vary; sometimes it should be such as to occupy from two to five minutes; at other times, from twenty to thirty minutes. Usually all the pupils of a class or division should write on the same subject. During the last grammar school year, the members of the class may frequently select their own subjects.

Cultivate in your pupils the habit, first, of making careful preparation by reading, conversation, and reflection; second, of making a definite outline or plan before writing; third, of writing rapidly, even hurriedly; fourth, of correcting with much painstaking and deliberation.

The writer should have a theme on which he has knowledge and in which he takes an interest. He should meditate upon his theme until it becomes familiar and attractive to him. When writing he should have a plan in his mind, perhaps a few notes upon a sheet of paper, and should have the purpose to inform and interest his readers or hearers. Freedom from interruption for a time sufficient for the writing of a considerable amount, and no anxiety except to

express fully what the writer desires to say, are the best conditions for good writing.

In any extended writing the pupil should not try to get his sentences at first just as he wants them, but should rather jot down on his paper some good thoughts that can be put into presentable form by revision.

Whether writing examination papers is a means of improvement in composition depends on how they are written. The pupil cannot attend earnestly to two things at the same time. If he is to be marked for the fullness and correctness of his answers, he cannot justly be marked for penmanship and composition; but after his first effort has been made and his percentage of credit has been recorded, then he may profitably restudy the questions and rewrite the answers, that the paper may be improved in penmanship, arrangement, and style of expression. With a similar end in view, the formation of a standard of excellence, frequently ask your pupils to select and copy for you a beautiful description, or a felicitous figure from something they have read. The selections should be but a few lines in length. It will be well to have the best of these copied on the board, and to ask the class to discuss what makes them beautiful or interesting. When the pupil has become accustomed to discerning beauties in good writing, he may assist his criticism of his own work by reading aloud his essay or composition to observe whether it is smooth and easy reading. He will often gain aid in self-criticism by hearing his essay read by a fellow pupil, for he can thus discover where his writing does not clearly express his thought.

Unity and sequence of thought are best discerned from an abstract or outline. Class criticism creates standards and develops ideals. It leads to better recognition of what is good and attainable. It trains one to listen, to think, and

to speak, in turn. It cultivates the ability to see things from the standpoint of others, an excellent thing for a writer, who should be able to foresee what his readers may understand or fail to understand, and consequently to avoid all ambiguity.

COURSE OF STUDY.

While the subdivisions of work on the following page are presented as a course of study in this book, it should be understood that they are suggestive only, and operative only until the teacher has had the opportunity to prepare a course better adapted to his class.

The order of study ought not to be very different from that here presented, but the amount of time allotted to the several parts or chapters will wisely vary from that here given. Teachers who provide for their classes other or additional themes will, of course, omit or pass rapidly over certain portions of the book to which other teachers will devote much time.

The table on page x showing a division of the work into eight half-year periods indicates one plan for study.

A course for six or seven half years can be readily arranged.

It is advised that the recitation period shall be occupied usually, or at least frequently, by lessons in two parts of the book, one in grammar and one in some other subject.

H. S. T.