CHAPTER I ACQUIRING CONFIDENCE BEFORE AN AUDIENCE There is a strange sensation often experienced in the presence of an audience. It may proceed from the gaze of the many eyes that turn upon the speaker, especially if he permits himself to steadily return that gaze. Most speakers have been conscious of this in a nameless thrill, a real something, pervading the atmosphere, tangible, evanescent, indescribable. All writers have borne testimony to... more...

LATIN FOR BEGINNERS TO THE STUDENT—BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION What is Latin? If you will look at the map of Italy on the opposite page, you will find near the middle of the peninsula and facing the west coast a district called Latium,1 and Rome its capital. The Latin language, meaning the language of Latium, was spoken by the ancient Romans and other inhabitants of Latium, and Latin was the name applied to it after the armies of Rome had... more...

INTRODUCTION.   The argument brought against the ‘Roman pronunciation’ of Latin is twofold: the impossibility of perfect theoretical knowledge, and the difficulty of practical attainment. If to know the main features of the classic pronunciation of Latin were impossible, then our obvious course would be to refuse the attempt; to regard the language as in reality dead, and to make no pretence of reading it. This is in fact what... more...

Fragments Wrongly Used as Sentences 1. Do not write a subordinate part of a sentence as if it were a complete sentence. Wrong: He stopped short. Hearing some one approach. Right: He stopped short, hearing some one approach. [Or] Hearing some one approach, he stopped short. Wrong: The winters are cold. Although the summers are pleasant. Right: Although the summers are pleasant, the winters are cold. Wrong: The hunter tried to move the... more...

PART I. SOUNDS, ACCENT, QUANTITY. THE ALPHABET. 1. The Latin Alphabet is the same as the English, except that the Latin has no w. 1. K occurs only in Kalendae and a few other words; y and z were introduced from the Greek about 50 B.C., and occur only in foreign words—chiefly Greek. 2. With the Romans, who regularly employed only capitals, I served both as vowel and consonant; so also V. For us, however, it is more... more...

CHAPTER I THE FIELD FOR SPECIAL ARTICLES Origin of Special Articles. The rise of popular magazines and of magazine sections of daily newspapers during the last thirty years has resulted in a type of writing known as the "special feature article." Such articles, presenting interesting and timely subjects in popular form, are designed to attract a class of readers that were not reached by the older literary periodicals. Editors of newspapers and... more...

INTRODUCTION The most powerful and the most perfect expression of thought and feeling through the medium of oral language must be traced to the mastery of words. Nothing is better suited to lead speakers and readers of English into an easy control of this language than the command of the phrase that perfectly expresses the thought. Every speaker's aim is to be heard and understood. A clear, crisp articulation holds an audience as by the spell of... more...

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 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... more...

INTRODUCTION. So many slighting remarks have been made of late on the use of teaching grammar as compared with teaching science, that it is plain the fact has been lost sight of that grammar is itself a science. The object we have, or should have, in teaching science, is not to fill a child's mind with a vast number of facts that may or may not prove useful to him hereafter, but to draw out and exercise his powers of observation, and to show him... more...

Usage and Custom are the Rules and Measures of every Language, and the Rules of Grammar have nothing more to do, than to teach it. The Grammar is to be fashioned from the particular Language, it treats of, and not the Language from the Grammar. For want of following this regular Plan, our Modern GRAMMARIANS have introduced the Grammar Rules of other Languages into their own; as if all Language was founded on Grammar, and the Rules in one Language... more...