Good English #263105

Again, Narration, Exposition, Argument, Description, these are the forms of discourse. But who sets out to write Narration or Exposition at the age of fifteen, unless commanded! It is stories we write, or letters, or essays on this or that. And in such a fashion is this book arranged. Letters come first in each chapter, because it is usually in the writing of a letter that the need for good expression is first brought home to the youth. A letter is something that needs to be done, not an exercise merely for practice under command. He feels his deficiencies more sharply then; sees most clearly what full expression may demand of him. Indeed, it is one task to teach sentence structure or para graph development for its own sake; it is another, and a far easier one, to teach them to pupils who have wrestled with business letters or explanations, and failed in clearness because these useful tools of composition were not adequately controlled. And finally, we have not been so oblivious of psychology as to forget that in every process of writing and speaking, preparation comes first and expression afterward. Some times it is not possible, or practicable, to separate them in teaching; but, whenever expedient, the lessons that follow are constructed with a View to the natural progression from a kindling mind to the written or spoken word.