FROM LITERATURE FOR HIGH SCHOOLS, ACADEMIES AND NORMAL SCHOOLS BY MARGARET S. MOONEY AUTHOR OF "FOUNDATION STUDIES IN LITERATURE " AND PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND LITERATURE, STATE NORMAL COLLEGE ALBANY, N. Y. BRANDOW PRINTING COMPANY Fort Orange Press : I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT AND INTEREST IN IT WHEN I BEGAN IT WERE MY STRONGEST INCENTIVE TO COMPLETE IT PREFACE THE subject matter of the study of composition and rhetoric has come to be recognized as something more than a mass of rules on the choice of words and the structure of sentences to be memorized, recited, and forgotten by students before they have been assimilated and used in origina) written exercises. Something different from this has become necessary in order that students may learn the true relation of composition and rhetoric to the literature which constitutes the illustrative material now in use in classes studying English. Since literature is the source and authority in all matters pertaining to language, it follows that the teaching of composition and rhetoric should be based upon literature as such. It goes without saying that students can obtain correct impressions of good literary style only by reading and re-reading pieces of literature that are recognized as masterpieces, and are therefore models of prose and poetry; that no writer can acquire a good style of his own without conscious effort to master the principles governing the form of composition which he aspires to write; that every writer who has gained distinction in the world of letters has learned his art by repeated attempts to produce a particular form of composition. Every writer of essay, story, poem or play has written for the purpose of instructing, persuading, or pleasing his readers. The purpose of future writers will be the same. The author writes because he must give expression to what has been strongly impressed upon his mind and heart. Impression, then expression, is the guiding principle in |