SELECTED AND EDITED BY JOHN MILTON BERDAN, PH.D. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN YALE UNIVERSITY JOHN RICHIE SCHULTZ, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AT ALLEGHENY COLLEGE AND HEWETTE ELWELL JOYCE, M.A. INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH AT DARTMOUTH COLLEGE New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1921 All rights reserved HARVARD COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1915. Norwood Bress J. S. Cushing Co. - Berwick & Smith Co. PREFACE IN the difficult problem of teaching the principles of exposition, the need of a volume of illustrations to accompany the rhetoric has been increasingly felt. These illustrations, moreover, if the student is to write an essay, rather than a bundle of paragraphs, should themselves be complete essays. And if the student is to learn to write naturally, it seems logical that the essays should be chosen from the writers of his own time. For, no matter how perfect theoretically may be the "style" of the Spectator, the fact remains that, as Addison lived in the early eighteenth century, such a paper to-day would be an anachronism. This is not a statement of preference; it is a statement of fact. In the following pages, therefore, the essays selected are taken from contemporary authors, the great majority of whom are still alive. Still more, they are among the most able writers of the age. To enable both teacher and pupil to estimate the relative reputation of each, short biographical accounts are appended in the index. Each author here, then, has something worth while to tell his age. The question is not of the truth or the validity of his statements. The compilers of this volume assume no responsibility for the opinions expressed. The essays were chosen because in their opinion the author succeeded in saying forcibly what he wished to say; the emphasis is on the form, not on |