SERIES OF TEXT-BOOKS ON ENGLISH BY PROFESSOR G. R. CARPENTER COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRINCIPLES OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR. For Use in Secondary Schools. ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION. First High School Course. ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION. Second High School Course. ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION. First and Second High School Courses, in one volume. EXERCISES IN RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION. ADVANCED COURSE. For Use in Academies and Colleges. STUDIES IN STRUCTURE AND STYLE. To supplement the preceding. By W. T. BREWSTER. For Use in Academies and Colleges. With an Introduction by G. R. CARPENTER. ENGLISH LITERATURE. By STOPFORD A. BROOKE, M.A. With additional chapters on English literature (1832-1892) and on American literature, by G. R. CARPENTER. ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION SECOND HIGH SCHOOL COURSE BY G. R. CARPENTER PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1900 All rights reserved PREFACE THE recent rapid increase in the study of English in the high school has made it necessary to provide for two years of formal instruction in rhetoric and English composition. The consensus of opinion is that during the first of these courses pupils should be trained in the choice of words and in the structure of sentences and paragraphs, and given as much practice as possible in simple writing, usually in essays consisting of only a paragraph each. As time has gone by, the system of instruction in these matters has become more and more definite. The older methods, with their intricacy of classification and multiplicity of rules and exceptions, have been displaced by a comparatively simple and uniform method, the essence of which is the conception of the essay as a structure, the building up of an idea by the grouping together of words in sentences and of sentences in paragraphs. This method has the advantages of simplicity and definiteness, and by means of it the part of rhetoric that has been indicated can be taught, and taught thoroughly, in a year. There remains the second course, with regard to which there is growing up a similar consensus of opinion that in it pupils should be trained in the main principles of description, narration, exposition, and, perhaps, argument and per V |