0 COMPOSITION AND RHETORIC FOR HIGHER SCHOOLS BY SARA E. H. LOCKWOOD AUTHOR OF "LESSONS IN ENGLISH" AND MARY ALICE EMERSON, M.A. ACTING PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, Carleton College GINN & COMPANY PREFACE CERTAIN demands may fairly be made of any textbook that purposes to serve the cause of good teaching and aims to win an honorable place in the classroom. Two of these demands take the form of the categorical imperative: the book must be practical, and it must be adequate in scope and content. To these two should be added a third — the book must be interesting; for to sentence students to the use of a dull and lifeless text-book is, often, to condemn them to a lifelong distaste for the subject of that particular book. Then, in these days of many books, the newcomer may fairly be asked to show some traits of its own such as stamp personality on a man or a woman, traits which will mark it out at once from other books in its class. Two of the important characteristics which give this book its distinct individuality are: (1) The cumulative method of treatment shown in the text, in the illustrative examples, and especially in the exercises; and (2) The constant emphasis laid on the pupil's own thinking and writing. These features are particularly well illustrated in the treatment of the paragraph. In the early part of the book the single paragraph, is made the unit of writing; then, naturally and gradually, related paragraphs are introduced; and, finally, these develop into the longer theme. The student at first gains a clear understanding of the meaning of the paragraph by observing its use in |