LITERATURE***


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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