BERNARD BIGSBY, UNIV. OXON., SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PORT HURON; LATE LECTURER BOSTON: GINN BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. 1874. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, BY BERNARD BIGSBY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & Co., CAMBRIDGE. PREFACE. NOTWITHSTANDING the number of text-books and the professions of instructors, the science of teaching Composition is yet in its infancy. Authors are too accustomed to burden their productions with rules and illustrations, and to ignore the fact that the attainment of perfection must be sought in practical exercises rather than in elaborated theories and precepts. Composition, as its name declares, is the art of putting together. The child, prattling by its mother's knee, is unconsciously engaged in the first steps of the study. The simple word, the quality and action of the word, the phrase, the sentence, come in a natural course as the results of its powers of observation and imitation. In our teaching, we must follow the golden rules of nature. The very basis of our vocation is to search into the way of the child's taking hold by little and little of what we teach it, so that our efforts may be within its reach. We should not attempt at too early an age to introduce the Grammar into the school-room. It is better, by means of such a subsidiary as is to be found in Part I. of this textbook, to give children a knowledge of the uses of words and the power to express their ideas, than to trouble their thoughts and clog their memories with grammatical rules, which to them signify nothing but mere notions of general terms. Rules are results, and we should seek to lead the pupil step by step to the attainment of these results by practical ex |