not consider sufficiently, not merely what is suited to the generality, but what is suited to themselves individually. They have different gifts and therefore their studies should take a different course. One man is capable of continuous thought and reading, while another has not the full use of his faculties for more than an hour or two at a time. It is clear that persons so differently constituted should proceed on a different plan. Again, one man is gifted with powers of memory and acquisition, another with thought and reflection; it is equally clear that there ought to be a corresponding difference in the branches of study to which they devote themselves. Things are done in half the time and with half the toil when they are done upon a well-considered system; when there is no waste and nothing has to be unlearned. As mechanical forces pressed into the service of man increase a hundredfold more and more his bodily strength, so does the use of method,-of all methods which science has already invented (for as actions are constantly passing into habits so is science always being converted into method)-of all the methods which an individual can devise for himself, enlarge and extend the mind. And yet how rarely does any one ever make a plan of study for himself-or a plan of his own life.1

(3) Development by citing instances of the truth of a principle:

Historians and philosophers have not infrequently remarked that the stress of war results in the advancement of science and learning. Napoleon's invasion of Egypt carried in its train the unlocking of the mysteries of the hieroglyphs and the production of the great work "Description de l'Égypte." More recently the foundation of the Uni

1 From Benjamin Jowett's College Sermons.

versity of Strassburg signalized the close of the FrancoPrussian War, while the establishment of the Johns Hopkins University was a direct resultant of the war between the States, and was intended, at least in the mind of the founder, to assist in healing the breaches this had created.1

(4) Development by giving reasons for accepting a proposition:

Biology needs no apologist when she demands a placeand a prominent place in any scheme of education worthy of the name. Leave out the physiological sciences from your curriculum, and you launch the student into the world, undisciplined in that science whose subject-matter would best develop his powers of observation; ignorant of facts of the deepest importance for his own and others' welfare; blind to the richest sources of beauty in God's creation; and unprovided with that belief in a living law, and an order manifesting itself in and through endless change and variety, which might serve to check and moderate that phase of despair which, if he take an earnest interest in social problems, he will assuredly sooner or later pass.2

As the paragraph is, in a way, a miniature composition in itself, the laws of unity and coherence must be observed in its structure just as carefully as in that of the larger whole. A paragraph, therefore, should have but one topic, and everything in it should relate to that topic and to nothing else. The paragraph exists, in fact, as we have seen, solely for the purpose of dealing in an orderly fashion with the

1 From Scribner's Magazine, January, 1904.

2 From Huxley's Essays.

various topics which spring out of the general subject; and that it may be effective, it should deal with only one of them at a time.

Observe, in the following paragraph, for example, how carefully the writer keeps to his topic:

The perfect historian is he in whose work the character and spirit of an age is exhibited in miniature. He relates no fact, he attributes no expression to his characters, which is not authenticated by sufficient testimony. But by judicious selection, rejection, and arrangement, he gives to the truth those attractions which have been usurped by fiction. In his narrative a due subordination is observed: some transactions are prominent; others retire. But the scale on which he represents them is increased or diminished, not according to the dignity of the persons concerned in them, but according to the degree in which they elucidate the condition of society and the nature of man. He shows us the court, the camp, and the senate. But he shows us also the nation. He considers no anecdote, no peculiarity of manner, no familiar saying, as too insignificant for his notice which is not too insignificant to illustrate the operation of laws, of religion, and of education, and to mark the progress of the human mind. Men will not merely be described, but will be made intimately known to us. The changes of manners will be indicated, not merely by a few general phrases or a few extracts from statistical documents, but by appropriate images presented in every line.1

No irrelevant matter is brought in here, no digressions are made, but everything made to bear upon the particular point under discussion. Hence the effectiveness of the paragraph.

1 From Macaulay's Essay on History.

Not only must the paragraph be properly unified; it must also be made coherent. There must be some principle of sequence observed in passing from point to point in the development. This means that the same point of view must be maintained throughout the paragraph, and that all minor details be kept strictly subordinated to the main details.

Special attention should be given to the beginning and the ending, for upon the management of these depends, in no small measure, the effectiveness of the paragraph as a whole. What particular detail should be placed at the beginning and what at the end, will depend upon the circumstances of the case. Other things being equal, however, the end will give more emphasis to a point than the beginning. Effective devices for making the conclusion emphatic are the employment of a short, summarizing sentence at the end; restatement of the topic, either in the same or in other words; and inversion, or arranging the sentences of the paragraph in such a way as to bring the topic sentence last. Examples of these devices are given below:

(1) Ending a short summarizing sentence:

So talks the sender with noise and deliberation. It is the Morse code working—ordinary dots and dashes which can be made into letters and words, as everybody knows. With each movement of the key bluish sparks jump an inch between the two brass knobs of the induction coil, the same kind of coil and the same kind of sparks that are familiar in experiments with the Roentgen rays. For one dot, a single spark jumps; for one dash there comes a stream of sparks. One knob of the induction coil is connected with the earth,

the other with the wire hanging from the masthead. Each spark indicates a certain oscillating impulse from the electrical battery that actuates the coil; each one of these impulses shoots through the aërial space by oscillations of the ether, traveling at the speed of light, or seven times around the earth in a second. That is all there is in the sending of these Marconi messages.1

(2) Ending a restatement of the topic:

Life is not long enough for a religion of inferences; we shall never have done beginning, if we determine to begin with proof. We shall ever be laying our foundations; we shall turn theology into evidences, and divines into textuaries. We shall never get at our first principles. Resolve to believe nothing, and you must prove your proofs and analyze your elements, sinking further and further, and finding "in the lowest depth a lower deep," till you come to the broad bosom of scepticism. I would rather be bound to defend the reasonableness of assuming that Christianity is true, than to demonstrate a moral governance from the physical world. Life is for action. If we insist on proofs for everything, we shall never come to action: to act you must assume, and that assumption is faith.2

(3) Ending a placing of the topic sentence last:

The tact of the Greeks in matters of this kind 3 was infallible. We may rely upon it that we shall not improve

1 From an article by Cleveland Moffatt in McClure's Magazine. 2 From Newman's Discussions and Arguments.

3 Matthew Arnold, from whose essay on Wordsworth this example is taken, had remarked in the preceding paragraph that Wordsworth's classification of his poems is ingenious but farfetched.