7i 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



may, there are other parts of rhetoric that have a prior claim, because 

 of more general value. De Quincey's account of ancient rhetoric is a 

 fair enough summary; hut of late years the canons of rhetoric have 

 taken a wider scope. In Prof. Bain's " Rhetoric " or English " Compo- 

 sition," written with the scientific exhaustiveness and originality char- 

 acteristic of the author, we have a great advance upon Aristotle. In 

 addition to the old material completed and methodized, we have a 

 body of rules hearing upon the order of words, the principles of the 

 construction of sentences and of paragraphs, the principles of descrip- 

 tion, narration, and exposition. Of these subjects, the first four are 

 admirably suited for the school-boy, description more than narration or 

 exposition although these also might be valuable because it is regu- 

 lated by a compact, complete, and easily-managed body of maxims. 



What is there, then, to prevent this department of English compo- 

 sition from being practised in our schools, instead of composition in a 

 dead language, where the sole ambition is to be grammatical ? A va- 

 riety of objections might be urged, which I proceed to discuss one by 

 one. They will be found to disappear on consideration : 



1. It may be said that such studies are not ample enough to keep 

 our school-boys busy, and so fail in the most fundamental requisite of 

 a school-study. How to arrange words, how to form sentences and 

 paragraphs, how to make an easily conceivable description why should 

 not that be learned in a few lessons ? If so, why are years spent in 

 teaching our boys to avoid a few stock pitfalls in Latin composition ? 

 The reason is obvious. The rules or principles you may learn in a few 

 lessons : you may not be perfect in the practice of these rules after 

 years of study. The same thing is seen in every art. The pugilist or 

 fencer soon learns the guards theoretically : it is a long time before he 

 can promptly parry the hit or thrust of an adversary. The musician 

 knows all the notes, and where he should place his fingers to bring them 

 out, long before he can play at sight. We can all of us remember 

 what we should have done : the opportunity is often past before we 

 remember what we should do. In English composition, as in every 

 thing else, theory and practice are two very different things. Take, 

 for example, two points : how to place qualifying clauses in the most 

 advantageous light for the words they qualify, and how to apportion 

 the emphatic places of a sentence. These are embodied in Prof. Bain's 

 work, and treated of in isolation, the one by Mr. Herbert Spencer, the 

 other by Mr. Matthew Arnold. The principles are within the compre- 

 hension of any boy of ordinary intelligence. And yet they may be 

 practised for years by a grown man without insuring infallibility in 

 rapid composition. Here is a wide field for educational exercises, a 

 field wide as the writings of the language, beginning with easy ex- 

 amples and reaching on to the more difficult. No expensive apparatus 

 is required; wherever you have sentences written in English, you may 

 fall to work. And the principles I have mentioned are but sanroles. 



