PREFACE

This book presents material for a college course in English which seeks to combine with elocution the results of a course in written composition. Neither course alone is sufficient to remedy what is at present the gravest defect of college education -its failure to give the average student the ability to make chief use of English as an instrument.

Many teachers of Oral English are doubtless employing the same methods and contemplate the same objects as the compiler of this volume. But, so far as he is aware, there is no book of adequate material for this purpose. The principle of selection here is different from that employed in books intended for classes in elocution, and in literary anthologies. The material is selected equally for its emotional and its intellectual content. The former makes it of sufficient interest to be read aloud, the latter of sufficient substance for intensive study. The reading will secure all the results contemplated by elocution; the analysis will secure a study of structure and style-that is, of the items the author has assembled to support the claim made in the passage, and of the manner in which he has handled them and put them together. The two-fold work should result in a habit of accurate apprehension of the printed page-the lack of which seems at present well-nigh universal; of co-operation with it which, scarcely less deplorably, is also lacking; of appreciation of literary instruments; and, finally, of a first-hand appraisal of literary values.

Such a course can be adequately given by a teacher who has had no special preparation in vocal expression. The teacher of English can use this book with no other training than that employed in a class in written or oral composition.

It is the purpose of the Introduction to show that such a course is urgently needed; to make it clear that written and oral composition are not sufficient; and, lastly, to explain to such teachers as are not already employing them the methods of handling this book of material.