a. Principal: Lucy Manette, Dr. Manette, Mr. Lorry, Madame Defarge, Darnay (Evremonde), Sidney Carton.

b. Secondary: Jacques (Defarge and three), The Marquis and Brother, Jno. Barsad, Roger Cly, Stryver, Miss Pross, Gaspard, Cruncher.

IV. Criticisms.

a. Weak points.

1. Lengthy conversations.

2. Weak characters.

3. No definite point.

4. No particular hero.

b. Strong points.

1. Plot and characters real,-except Mr. Lorry and Cruncher.

2. Strong description and decided views.

3. Interesting conversations.

4. Gradual increase of interest.

5. Excellent English.

6. French phrases omitted.

c. In general.

1. Comparison of man's emotions to nature.

2. Closes before the story is finished.

V. Impressions left on the reader.

a. Feeling of reader at close.

b. Object of writing the book.

c. Gradual increase of plot from harmless to tragic.

VI. History of book.

I. Introduction.

ECCENTRICITY. (Exposition.)

a. Value of a painting.

1. When perfect.

2. Whan marred.

b. Value of character.

II. Society's Laws.

a. Punishment for infringement.-Hermit. III. Distinction between individuality and eccentricity. a. Definition of each.

b. Simile of flower-garden, Rose and Weed.

IV. Comparison of Individuality and Eccentricity.

a. Respective rank and value. Illustration, Oscar Wilde. b. Genius ennobles and elevates.

c. Eccentricity hinders.

d. Eccentricity used as a cloak to cover vice.

V. Résumé.

HIGH LICENSE OR PROHIBITION? (Argumentation.)

I. Introduction.

a. Power of conviction.

1. Individual.

2. National.

b. Our political condition.

c. Prohibition a conviction.

II. Diverse methods among temperance workers.

a. Extreme prohibitionists.

b. Partisan slaves.

c. High-license advocates.

III. Arguments of advocates of high license.
a. Legislation does not change character.

b. Reforms should be gradual.

c. Half loaf better than nothing.

d. No compromise, to abolish part of an evil when unable to do more.

e. Successive steps to prohibition.

1. No sale to minors.

2. No sale to drunkards.

3. No sale of adulterated liquors.

4. High license.

5. Prohibition.

f. Close low groggeries.
g. Revenue.

IV. Arguments against high license.

a. Moral and legal forces should be combined.
b. Wickedness of action may be suppressed by law, not
sinfulness of disposition.

c. High license centralizes and strengthens the rum
power.

d. Gilds the traffic with respectability.

e. Increases gambling.

f. Does not succeed in closing low dram-shops.

g. High license a failure in practice-Hon. H. W. Hardy -Hon. J. B. Finch.

h. Wrong in principle.

V. Conclusion.-Quotation from Cook.

SUGGESTION OF ESSAY THEMES FOR A SCHOOL YEAR.

Note The following arrangement of general themes has been found practical and progressive:

FIRST TERM.

1. A description of some object or collection of objects which the writer has actually seen.

2. An argumentative essay.

3. A narration of some personal experience, real or imaginary.

SECOND TERM.

1. An exposition of some historical or fictitious character.

2. An argumentative essay.

3. A book-review.

THIRD TERM.

1. An imaginary argumentative conversation between two or more persons

2. A paraphrase of some selection of standard verse in elegant and accurate prose.

3. A paraphrase of some selection of standard prose in heroic

pentameter.

CHAPTER III.

DESCRIPTION.

COMPOSITION may be divided into Description, Narration, Exposition, Persuasion or Argumentation, and Versification. These different kinds of composition, respectively, may be aided by the use of certain general devices, and are equally liable to be marred by certain general blemishes. To state and illustrate these devices, and to warn against these general errors, is the object of this chapter and of those that immediately follow.

A mistaken idea of the dignity of descriptive writing is more or less prevalent. Students are apt to be satisfied with nothing less than the exposition of abstract ideas and profound generalities; a tendency that too often results in the iteration of the merest platitudes. They forget that there is no higher attainment in literature, none which has given to its possessors more lasting fame, than the ability to make pen-pictures-to so represent a scene in words that the reader becomes, for the time, an actual observer. Every community, every class in school or college, has those who can ably maintain an argument or fairly expound an abstract idea; but masters of description are rare.

The ideal, in Description, is so to represent the object or objects described that the same or similar impressions shall be made upon the mind of the reader as were produced by the actual object upon the mind of the observer. In other words, the first essential is vividness. In securing this vividness, certain methods are helpful.

1. The reader should gain a perfectly clear and permanent idea of the general shape of the object described. This impression of shape is one of the first that the mind re

ceives when confronting any object, and it is most clearly conveyed by means of some well-known type or symbol. For example, in shape, Italy is likened to a boot, or to the letter L; the earth, to an orange; a building, to the letter T; a constellation, to a dipper; a piece of land, to a wedge, and so on. The only requisite is that the symbol selected be one that is generally understood. The following passages will illustrate the force of this suggestion (the italics are ours):

"The floor was composed of earth mixed with lime, trodden into a hard substance, such as is often employed in flooring our modern barns. For about one quarter of the length of the apartment the floor was raised by a step, and this space, which was called the dais, was occupied only by the principal members of the family and visitors of distinction. For this purpose, a table richly covered with scarlet cloth was placed transversely across the platform, from the middle of which ran the longer and lower board, at which the domestics and inferior persons fed, down towards the bottom of the hall. The whole resembled the form of the letter T, or some of those ancient dinner-tables which, arranged on the same principles, may be still seen in the antique colleges of Oxford or Cambridge. Massive chairs and settles of carved oak were placed upon the dais, and over these seats and the more elevated table was fastened a canopy of cloth, which served in some degree to protect the dignitaries who occupied that distinguished station from the weather, and especially from the rain, which, in some places, found its way through the ill-constructed roof."—Description of the Hall of Cedric the Saxon in Scott's "Ivanhoe,"

"The scene was singularly romantic. On the verge of a wood, which approached to within a mile of the town of Ashby, was an extensive meadow, of the finest and most beautiful green turf, surrounded on one side by the forest, and fringed on the other by straggling oak-trees, some of which had grown to an immense size. The ground, as if fashioned on purpose for the martial display which was intended, sloped gradually down on all sides to a level bottom, which was enclosed for the lists with strong palisades, forming a space of a quarter of a mile in length, and about half as broad. The form of the enclosure was an oblong square, save that the corners were considerably rounded off in order to afford more convenience for the spectators. The openings for the entry of the combatants were at the northern and southern extremities of the lists, accessible by strong wooden gates, each wide enough to admit two horsemen riding abreast. At each of these portals were stationed two heralds, attended by six trumpets, as many