SUMMARY I

A. Composition in language is the expression in words of one's thoughts or feelings about a subject.

B. To make an effective composition:

1. Choose a subject in which you are interested and about which
you know enough to talk or to write.

2. Choose a subject which will interest the person addressed.
3. Choose a subject suitable to the occasion.

The Selection of the Point to be Made. son has chosen a suitable subject, he often fails to make an effective composition because he makes no point about his subject; that is, he does not make any one idea stand out as the idea which leads him to discuss the subject. For example, each of the following compositions was written on the subject, "Coming to School."

COMING TO SCHOOL

This morning I started from my home about quarter of eight to walk to school. When I got to my friend's house, she was already outside waiting for me, so we started right off. In front of us were a few girls whom we knew. They were all talking about the wedding they had been to the night before. As my friend and I had the same home lesson in French, we were trying to pronounce the words which seemed queer to us. As we walked fast, we reached school at twenty minutes past eight.

COMING TO SCHOOL

It was fifteen minutes after eight o'clock when I started for school with an armful of heavy books and a feeling that I had left something important behind in my desperate hurry. As I hastened along Washington Street, something dropped on the sidewalk at my feet. It was my notebook. I impatiently picked it up and hurried on toward school. A little farther along, I met my chum, who joined me in my haste, for neither of us cared to spoil our records by tardiness, especially so near the beginning of the school term.

We seemed to make very good time, and were within sight of the school building, when I suddenly remembered that I had been told to leave an order at the creamery on my way to school. Much dismayed and discouraged, I left my friend, retraced my steps a short distance, and entered the store, entirely out of breath. As nobody appeared to wait on me, I made as many unnecessary noises as I could conveniently, and soon a young man came out from the rear of the store, deliberately donning his white coat. It seemed to me that I stood there half an hour while he adjusted that coat and wrote down my order, but, in reality, it was only two minutes. At the end of that time I rushed from the store and ran the remaining short distance to the school in breathless haste. Luckily, I didn't have to climb any stairs, but reached my home room and sank into my chair exhausted, just as the last bell rang. Right there and then, as soon as I recovered my breath, I resolved to start for school earlier thereafter and avoid a repetition of such a rush.

The first composition is ineffective because it recounts a mere string of happenings which bring out no point whatever. The second composition, on the other hand, is effective.

because the happenings recounted bring out the one point of interest to the writer about her coming to school on a particular morning, namely, the escape from tardiness.

The Nature of the Point. The ideas in a composition, then, should bring out a point. In order that a composition may be really worth while, the point made must be either entertaining or instructive to the person addressed. The two compositions which follow illustrate each kind of point.

A MIDNIGHT EXPERIENCE

It was midnight. The clock on the far-away church tower had just struck and I lay in my bed unable to sleep. Suddenly I felt that there was another presence in the room. I turned my eyes toward the window and felt my heart almost stop its beating as I saw a dark form moving toward the bed. Nearer and nearer it crept, until it seemed that I must scream if it moved a step nearer. I could not scream, however, but only lay there shaking, my eyes fixed on the spot. Could I get out of the other side of the bed and escape by the door? No, the door seemed miles away. I gasped as the object moved again. In a moment it would be upon me. I could almost see a dreadful weapon ready to strike me. Again it moved and still I could not stir. Another step, and it was strike. With a mighty effort I stretched out my arm blow. My hand touched something. It was not the cold metal of a revolver, as I had expected it would be, but, instead, the soft, warm fur of my friendly dog that had been creeping to his accustomed bed on the floor beside me.

BARREL SHOOK MAKING

near enough to to ward off the

The staves which constitute barrels, hogsheads, etc., are called shook. The particular kind of shook which I am going to tell about is that which is to be used for sugar barrels.

First, the staves come to the shop finished off in the right length. Then the men set the staves up inside a hoop which is the right size for the finished end of the barrel. After the staves are fitted tightly in this hoop, a larger hoop is put on and pushed as near to the opposite end of the staves as possible. Then the shook, in this shape, is set on its large end over a fire in a grate to heat the staves on the inside. As the staves

are heating, the men keep pushing the large hoop toward the large end of the shook, thus bending the staves into the shape of a barrel. After the shook has been heated for some time, it is taken away from the fire, and is ready to be pulled in at the large end to a circumference equal to that of the end already the right size. It is then drawn in by means of a cable made into a slipnoose and drawn over an iron wheel which the men turn with a crowbar. When the shook is pulled so tight that a hoop, equal in size to the one on the first end may be put around it, it is placed over the fire again to be bent into the proper shape. This done, the shook, in the form of a barrel, is put into a rack, called a cradle. In this cradle the men level the ends of the staves on the inside. This leveling is where the head and the bottom of the barrel fit.

In this way the barrel is made. Then the hoops are knocked off and the staves are piled up in a compact bundle and bound together on each end with steel bands. The shook is then ready for shipping.

EXERCISE III

1. From the list of subjects begun on page 2, select five that at once suggest points that are entertaining rather than instructive; select five that at once suggest points that are instructive rather than entertaining; select five that suggest points that are equally entertaining and instructive. 2. Write a composition on one subject from each of your three lists. 3. Read your themes to the class.

a. Did the class get the point of each of your themes?

b. What did they think about it?

Choice of Point Limited by Time or Space at Writer's Disposal. A point about a subject may be worth making, and yet not be well chosen for the time or the space at the command of the speaker or the writer.

A boy may be eager to tell his friends how he has spent his summer vacation. Out of the many things he has done a dozen or so at once occur to him as well worth telling about. Of his experiences at camp, the water sports, his camp duties, initiating the newcomer, going after supplies, and tramps across country are topics that offer interesting possibilities. At home, taking care of the lawn, weeding the garden, driv

ing the grocer's wagon, doing chores for the neighbors, stand out as important because of the time they took or the profit they gave. The airship, the model of a railroad, the little steam sawmill, the telegraph apparatus, the bookcase, the table, or the what-not completed in his workshop in leisure moments, are sources of such pride as to merit discussion; while getting ready for the fair, private theatricals, and collecting birds' eggs are other interesting vacation items.

All of these topics are interesting, and some of them are valuable for information; but to develop each properly would require the giving of a lecture or the writing of a small book. Just to enumerate them would give a mere outline of the varied interests of the vacation, while to say a little on each would probably result in hodge-podge. Which of them, then, shall he select to talk or write about at any one time? His choice must be governed not only by the interests of the person whom he is addressing and by the occasion of speaking or writing, but also by the time or the space at his disposal. If he has but ten minutes and is talking to a person particularly interested in athletics, he can speak of the water sports at camp, while to a person about to go camping he may speak of the initiation of the newcomer, of camp duties, or of some such topic as what should make up a camper's kit. If he has a whole afternoon for his talk to people interested in camp life, he may take as his point My Life at Camp, and tell about all these topics and more, too.

Just as the point of a talk depends largely upon the time at the disposal of the speaker, the point of a written article depends upon the space at the disposal of the writer. If a person must get what he has to say into five hundred words, he is unwise to attempt to develop a point that requires fifteen hundred words. A boy is asked to write for his school paper an article of six hundred words on what he has done in his