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ENGLISH: COMPOSITION AND LITERATURE
by
W. F. WEBSTER
Principal of the East High School
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Houghton Mifflin Company
Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 85 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue
The Riverside Press Cambridge
Copyright, 1900 and 1902, by W. F. Webster
All Rights Reserved
PREFACE
In July, 1898, I presented at the National Educational Association,
convened in Washington, a Course of Study in English. At Los Angeles,
in 1899, the Association indorsed the principles[1] of this course,
and made it the basis of the Course in English for High Schools. At
the request of friends, I have prepared this short text-book,
outlining the method of carrying forward the course, and emphasizing
the principles necessary for the intelligent communication of ideas.
It has not been the purpose to write a rhetoric. The many fine
distinctions and divisions, the rarefied examples of very beautiful
forms of language which a young pupil cannot possibly reproduce, or
even appreciate, have been omitted. To teach the methods of simple,
direct, and accurate expression has been the purpose; and this is all
that can be expected of a high school course in English.
The teaching of composition differs from the teaching of Latin or
mathematics in this point: whereas pupils can be compelled to solve a
definite number of problems or to read a given number of lines, it is
not possible to compel expression of the full thought. The full
thought is made of an intellectual and an emotional element. Whatever
is intellectual may be compelled by dint of sheer purpose; whatever is
emotional must spring undriven by outside authority, and uncompelled
by inside determination. A boy saws a cord of wood because he has been
commanded by his father; but he cannot laugh or cry because directed
to do so by the same authority. There must be the conditions which
call forth smiles or tears. So there must be the conditions which call
forth the full expression of thought, both what is intellectual and
what is emotional. This means that the subject shall be one of which
the writer knows something, and in which he is interested; that the
demands in the composition shall not be made a discouragement; and
that the teacher shall be competent and enthusiastic, inspiring in
each pupil a desire to say truly and adequately the best he thinks and
feels.
These conditions cannot be realized while working with dead fragments
of language; but they are realized while constructing living wholes of
composition. It is not two decades ago when the pupil in drawing was
compelled to make straight lines until he made them all crooked. The
pupil in manual training began by drawing intersecting lines on two
sides of a board; then he drove nails into the intersections on one
side, hoping that they would hit the corresponding points on the
other. Now no single line or exercise is an end in itself; it
contributes to some whole. Under the old method the pupil did not care
or try to draw a straight line, or to drive a nail straight; but now,
in order that he may realize the idea that lies in his mind, he does
care and he does try: so lines are drawn better and nails are driven
straighter than before. In all training that combines intellect and
hand, the principle has been recognized that the best work is done
when the pupil's interest has been enlisted by making each exercise
contribute directly to the construction of some whole. Only in the
range of the spiritual are we twenty years behind time, trying to get
the best construction by compulsion. It is quite time that we
recognized that the best work in composition can be done, not while
the pupil is correcting errors in the use of language which he never
dreamed of, nor while he is writing ten similes or ten periodic
sentences, but when both intellect and feeling combine and work
together to produce some whole. Then into the construction of this
whole the pupil will throw all his strength, using the most apt
comparisons, choosing the best words, framing adequate sentences, in
order that the outward form may worthily present to others what to
himself has appeared worthy of expression.
There are some persons who say that other languages are taught by the
word and sentence method; then why not English? These persons overlook
the fact that we are leaving that method as rapidly as possible, and
adopting a more rational method which at once uses a language to
communicate thought. And they overlook another fact of even greater
importance: the pupil entering the high school is by no means a
beginner in English. He has been using the language ten or twelve
years, and has a fluency of expression in English which he cannot
attain in German throughout a high school and college course. The
conditions under which a pupil begins the study of German in a high
school and the study of English composition are entirely dissimilar;
and a conclusion based upon a fancied analogy is worthless.
It is preferable, then, to practice the construction of wholes rather
than the making of exercises; and it is best at the beginning to study
the different kinds of wholes, one at a time, rather than all
together. No one would attempt to teach elimination by addition and
subtraction, by comparison and by substitution, all together; nor
would an instructor take up heat, light, and electricity together. In
algebra, or physics, certain great principles underlie the whole
subject; and these appear and reappear as the study progresses through
its allied parts. Still the best results are obtained by taking up
these several divisions of the whole one after another. And in English
the most certain and definite results are secured by studying the
forms of discourse separately, learning the method of applying to each
the great principles that underlie all composition.
If the forms of discourse are to be studied one after another, which
shall be taken up first? In general, all composition may be separated
into two divisions: composition which deals with things, including
narration and description; and composition which deals with ideas,
comprising exposition and argument. It needs no argument to justify
the position that an essay which deals with things seen and heard is
easier for a beginner to construct than an essay which deals with
ideas invisible and unheard. Whether narration or description should
precede appears yet to be undetermined; for many text-books treat one
first, and perhaps as many the other. I have thought it wiser to begin
with the short story, because it is easier to gain free, spontaneous
expression with narration than with description. To write a whole page
of description is a task for a master, and very few attempt it; but
for the uninitiated amateur about three sentences of description mark
the limit of his ability to see and describe. To get started, to gain
confidence in one's ability to say something, to acquire freedom and
spontaneity of expression,--this is the first step in the practice of
composition. Afterward, when the pupil has discovered that he really
has something to say,--enough indeed to cover three or four pages of
his tablet paper,--then it may be time to begin the study of
description, and to acquire more careful and accurate forms of
expression. Spontaneity should be acquired first,--crude and unformed
it may be, but spontaneity first; and this spontaneity is best gained
while studying narration.
There can be but little question about the order of the other forms.
Description, still dealing with the concrete, offers an admirable
opportunity for shaping and forming the spontaneous expression gained
in narration. Following description, in order of difficulty, come
exposition and argument.
I should be quite misunderstood, did any one gather from this that
during the time in which wholes are being studied, no attention is to
be given to parts; that is, to paragraphs, sentences, and words. All
things cannot be learned at once and thoroughly; there must be some
order of succession. In the beginning the primary object to be aimed
at is the construction of wholes; yet during their construction, parts
can also be incidentally studied. During this time many errors which
annoy and exasperate must be passed over with but a word, in order
that the weight of the criticism may be concentrated on the point then
under consideration. As a pupil advances, he is more and more
competent to appreciate and to form good paragraphs and well-turned
sentences, and to single out from the multitude of verbal signs the
word that exactly presents his thought. The appreciation and the use
of the stronger as well as the finer and more delicate forms of
language come only with much reading and writing; and to demand
everything at the very beginning is little less than sheer madness.
Moreover there never comes a time when the construction of a
paragraph, the shaping of a phrase, or the choice of a word becomes an
end in itself. Paragraphs, sentences, and words are well chosen when
they serve best the whole composition. He who becomes enamored of one
form of paragraph, who always uses periodic sentences, who chooses
only common words, has not yet recognized that the beauty of a phrase
or a word is determined by its fitness, and that it is most beautiful
because it exactly suits the place it fills. The graceful sweep of a
line by Praxiteles or the glorious radiancy of a color by Angelico is
most beautiful in the place it took from the master's hand. So
Lowell's wealth of figurative language and Stevenson's unerring choice
of delicate words are most beautiful, not when torn from their
original setting to serve as examples in rhetorics, but when
fulfilling their part in a well-planned whole. And it is only as the
beauties of literature are born of the thought that they ever succeed.
No one can say to himself, "I will now make a good simile," and
straightway fulfill his promise. If, however, the thought of a writer
takes fire, and instead of the cold, unimpassioned phraseology of the
logician, glowing images crowd up, and phrases tipped with fire, then
figurative language best suits the thought,--indeed, it is the
thought. But imagery upon compulsion,--never. So that at no time
should one attempt to mould fine phrases for the sake of the phrases
themselves, but he should spare no pains with them when they spring
from the whole, when they harmonize with the whole, and when they give
to the whole added beauty and strength.
It is quite unnecessary at this day to urge the study of literature.
It is in the course of study for every secondary school. Yet a word
may be said of the value of this study to the practice of composition.
There are two classes of artists: geniuses and men of talent. Of
geniuses in literature, one can count the names on his fingers; most
authors are simply men of talent. Talent learns to do by doing, and by
observing how others have done. When Brunelleschi left Rome for
Florence, he had closely observed and had drawn every arch of the
stupendous architecture in that ancient city; and so he was adjudged
by his fellow citizens to be the only man competent to lift the dome
of their Duomo. His observation discovered the secret of Rome's
architectural grandeur; and the slow accumulation of such secrets
marks the development of every art and science. Milton had his method
of writing prose, Macaulay his, and Arnold his,--all different and all
excellent. And just as the architect stands before the cathedrals of
Cologne, Milan, and Salisbury to learn the secret of each; as the
painter searches out the secret of Raphael, Murillo, and Rembrandt; so
the author analyzes the masterpieces of literature to discover the
secret of Irving, of Eliot, and of Burke. Not that an author is to be
a servile imitator of any man's manner; but that, having knowledge of
all the secrets of composition, he shall so be enabled to set forth
for others his own thought in all the beauty and perfection in which
he himself conceives it.
One thing further. A landscape painter would not make a primary study
of Angelo's anatomical drawings; a composer of lyric forms of music
would not study Sousa's marches; nor would a person writing a story
look for much assistance in the arguments of Burke. The most direct
benefit is derived from studying the very thing one wishes to know
about, not from studying something else. That the literature may give
the greatest possible assistance to the composition, the course has
been so arranged that narration shall be taught by Hawthorne and
Irving, description by Ruskin and Stevenson, exposition by Macaulay
and Newman, and argument by Webster and Burke. Literature, arranged in
this manner, is not only a stimulus to renewed effort, by showing what
others have done; it is also the most skillful instructor in the art
of composition, by showing how others have done.
It would be quite impossible for any one at the present time to write
a text-book in English that would not repeat what has already been
said by many others. Nor have I tried to. My purpose has been rather
to select from the whole literature of the subject just those
principles which every author of a book on composition or rhetoric has
thought essential, and to omit minor matters and all those about which
there is a difference of opinion. This limits the contents to topics
already familiar to every teacher. It also makes it necessary to
repeat what has been written before many times. Certain books,
however, have treated special divisions of the whole subject in a
thorough and exhaustive manner. There is nothing new to say of Unity,
Mass, and Coherence; Mr. Wendell said all concerning these in his book
entitled "English Composition." So in paragraph development, Scott and
Denney hold the field. Other books which I have frequently used in the
classroom are "Talks on Writing English," by Arlo Bates, and Genung's
"Practical Rhetoric." These books I have found very helpful in
teaching, and I have drawn upon them often while writing this
text-book.
If the field has been covered, then why write a book at all? The
answer is that the principles which are here treated have not been put
into one book. They may be found in several. These essentials I have
repeated many times with the hope that they will be fixed by this
frequent repetition. The purpose has been to focus the attention upon
these, to apply them in the construction of the different forms of
discourse, paragraphs, and sentences, and to repeat them until it is
impossible for a student to forget them. If the book fulfils this
purpose, it was worth writing.
Acknowledgments are due to Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons for their
kind permission to use the selections from the writings of Robert
Louis Stevenson contained in this book; also, to Messrs. D. Appleton &
Co., The Century Co., and Doubleday & McClure Co. for selections from
the writings of Rudyard Kipling.
W. F. WEBSTER.
MINNEAPOLIS, 1900.
CONTENTS
Chapter I.--Forms of Discourse
Composition 1
English Composition 1
Composition, Written and Oral 2
Conventions of Composition 2
Five Forms of Discourse 3
Definitions 4
Difficulty in distinguishing 4
Purpose of the Author 6