BARNARD COLLEGE

one's own expression is a historical acquaintance with the language and the literature. The manuals of rhetoric fill the youth's mind with prohibitions of objectionable words and constructions; but the fund of diction on which the youth must learn to draw is our standard prose. The main thing is to become free of the English vocabulary, and to acquire the habit of elegant choice and construction by contact with interesting writing." 1

It is certainly not to be doubted that the reading of good authors has much to do with the acquiring of a good style, but our present effort is to see whether by dint of a modicum of theory and a maximum of practice, we cannot arrive at the very result which the author quoted above hints at as impossiblethe acquiring of a clear and sound style less by imitation than by repeated and well-directed efforts to write down on paper precisely the thoughts that are in our minds. For it is not expression that should govern thought, but thought expression, and it is by constantly comparing our ideas with our expression of them and shifting the form of our expression until it fits the very body of our thought that we shall grow most surely, even if not most rapidly, in the art which we are studying.

3. Standards and Authorities.

What, we must now ask, are the constant principles by which we shall be guided in the practice of our art?

1 "The Three Parts of English Study," by Samuel Thurber. Boston: 1892.

The common idea of a text-book on Rhetoric is

that it contains two sets of rules, - rules for what

you must do and rules for what you must not do, and that the latter are more numerous and more important than the former. The fact of the matter,

however, is very different.

The rules of Rhetoric

are not mainly prohibitory, and they are binding only as scientific laws, not as ethical rules. So far as Rhetoric goes we are free men, we can say what we please; but there is this drawback: if we use words or expressions which are not identical with those that other people use with the meaning we have in mind, we thereby fail in expressing ourselves,

in saying or writing what we mean; and that is our only purpose in talking or writing. In order to make ourselves understood, then, it is obviously necessary that our medium of communication should be constantly subject to what we may call the principle of good use; that is, the principle that commends the use of words which reputable speakers and writers of our own nation and our own time as a body understand and approve. Throughout a part of our study we shall find "good use" an important standard of discrimination.1 We shall have to ask ourselves

1 Words sanctioned by good use, it should not be forgotten, is merely a convenient conventional term for that large but rapidly shifting body of words, phrases, and idioms which educated people are sure to understand and make use of in approximately the same sense. If you make use of other words than these in addressing the educated public, you are liable not to be understood at all, to be misunderstood, or to have the impression you wished to make marred by such strange or uncouth associations as the unfamiliar word may arouse. "I ain't,"

constantly whether a word or a phrase is really sanctioned by good use, whether reputable people of our nation and time give to it the same meaning and the same associations that we give it. Within its limits, moreover, good use is almost absolute. If we employ unknown, uncouth, or vulgar words or expressions, our readers will not understand us, or will misunderstand us, or will associate us, in so far as we use vulgar words, with vulgar or ignorant people. If, however, we use words and expressions which are understood and sanctioned by reputable people of our own nation and our own time, we are thus far furthering our object, that of telling some one else by words what we mean. Good use, as codified in reputable dictionaries or as exemplified by reputable writers or speakers, is, then, our first standard in the study of Rhetoric, our first clew to the problem which every writer finds before him, - how he can best make the one to whom he is speaking or writing understand what he means.

EXERCISE I.

A. 1. What is Rhetoric? Does it concern merely writing, or merely speaking, or both? How does it get its name? What words of similar formation for instance, is a common and perfectly intelligible expression. No one who read or heard it could avoid understanding that you meant what is also meant by "I am not," but, although the reader or hearer would be perfectly aware of the idea you meant to convey, he would also receive a certain impression of vulgarity or illiteracy, which, unless you spoke in jest, you did not intend to convey.

(i.e. ending in ic) have we in English? Are they all singular nouns? What have music, painting, sculpture, and architecture in common? Wherein do they necessarily differ from Rhetoric? Can we reproduce by words the effect of sculpture or painting, and vice versa? Distinguish, by definition and by examples, between an art and a science. Are geography, mathematics, geology, and medicine arts or sciences? What are the fine arts, and what have they in common? Is Rhetoric a fine art? Suggest conditions in which two or more of the fine arts may supplement each other. Must a good writer have mastered the rules of Rhetoric? Are the laws

of Rhetoric based on experience or deduced from abstract principles ?

2. How can you explain the fact that Aristotle's Rhetoric has stood the test of time so well? Can you see any reason why Aristotle should have included only prose compositions in his Rhetoric? What is the difference between Logic and Rhetoric? Which is the more valuable to the student, a philosophic or a "practical" treatise? Examine your habitual reading to see whether it is likely to help your style or to harm it. Decide whether these lines from Hudibras are a just criticism or not:

"For all a rhetorician's rules

Teach nothing but to name his tools."

Is it true that when one has something to say there is then time enough to think how to say it, and that the study of Rhetoric is therefore useless?

3. Does Rhetoric tell you mainly what to do or what not to do? What happens if you break, a rhetorical rule that of good use, for instance? Give an illustration. Define good use and give examples of instances in which good use might determine you in choosing or rejecting certain words. Is good use more like fashion or like custom? Is good use instinctive? What is the relation of good use to the dictionaries; i.e. does good use depend upon the dictionaries or the dictionaries upon good use? What or who, then, are our best authorities in such matters?

B. The principle of good use that we usually communicate with others most effectively when we make use of the means well known and in good repute among them—is most clearly illustrated by the current and sometimes conventional forms used in letter-writing. As letter-writing is the kind of composition which we are most often brought into contact with, the student is advised to pay especial attention to it. The necessary requisites of a good letter are:

1. That it should be legible.

2. That it should state definitely and conspicuously (a) where it was written, (b) when it was written, (c) by whom it was written, and (d) to whom it was written.

3. That it should begin courteously and appropriately.