The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1873-04-24
From the Ohio Educational Monthly. ]
Instruction in Composition.

One of the most distin guished of Amer
lean professors and authors told us that
he never permitted a school teacher to
instruct one of his children in compost
ton, believing all methods with which
he was acquainted, pernicious in the for
nation of a natural style of writing We
believe with him that, while many teach
ers are able to improve the grammatical
construction of sentences, few succeed in
developing any power to talk naturally
and forcibly with the pen on any subject
whatsoever. Compare the rapid and racy
chat of half dozen bright school boys
and girls about anything in which they
are really interested, with series of
compositions written by the same chill
dren, according to ordinary school meth
DDS. An hour of their conversation lit
orally reported, would be the most en-
tertaining reading; their school compo-
sitions would be fearful nightmare to
the teacher doomed to correct them in
the regulation way. DeQuincy whose
own style is one of the marvels of mod
ern English, insists that the best style, at
present, is found in the private CORES
pondence of educated women.
One day last summer, we received
letter from little city girl, giving her
first impressions of her new boarding
place in the country. She says: Moth
er has written all about our journey and
the village and the people we have seen;
so I'll tell you about the garden and the
ward behind our house" So she rattles
through half dozen pages of pretty poor
hand writing and miraculous grammar
till her arm is tired and she stops in the
middle of her talk. But we see the gar
den in front, the back yard, the hen
house, the dilapidated rooster with one
tail feather askew after fight the tom
cat on the fence snarling at the butchers
dog; in short, the little girl has made a
daguerreotype of the whole scene with
her pen that, with slight grammatical
correction, would be worthy a place in
Dickens She had evidently not been
greatly interested in the journey; the
village was too big to be disposed of the
first day; she was already tired of people
in the city; but she had rushed through
the little world around her new home,
and told what she had seen in the most
natural way Nobody could believe the
same child the author of the dreary file
of compositions marked 'very we'll by a
succession of her painstaking teachers.
All valuable writing is what that child's
letter was: vital description of some
thing known and enjoyed. The Floren-
tines used to say Dante had seen hell;
and we see it when we read the Inferno.
word everywhere is this nightmare of
unreality. The professional authors, the
editors, the clergy, the teachers have
gone on from the beginning, scribbling
and talking of things they never saw
with the eyes of the SOUL which never
stirred their hearts or kept them awake
o nights. So books are in the main
WEAKNESS to the flesh and land of fog
for the spirit. 1t may not be easy to out
II i
ton that will keep our children out of
this slough of formal and unreal expires
sion. But there are certain fundamen tai
principles in this matter which should be
taken into the heart of every teacher of
youth, and, if duly pondered, may bear
1ruit
The golden rule of instruction in COM
position is, that the child should be re-
quired to write only on topic of which
he has some personal knowledge, or in
which he has some unaffected and vital
interest. You require boy or girl
dozen years old to write an abstract" of
his history lesson. The lesson was bore
to begin with, was probably given in
way that made all events and persons in
it perfectly unhuman. His abstract is
the dreary shadow of shade, a horror in
the performance and an opiate in the
reading. You set frisky little Miss of
ntCeen TO fSaQ one OF onahSpedre plays
and write out the story thereof. The
play is utterly outside any world in which
she is interested, and her story of it
would make Shakespeare groan. You
stand before class in the high school
and perform an elaborate analysis of
some topic you suppose adapted to COM
position, and request your pupils to pre-
pare an ESSAY" upon it. Judgment
comes to you, ere many days, in night
of dismal toll over those lifeless and
worthless performances. 1t is hardly
better in the new method of connecting
object lessons with composition. Too
often the information given concerning
the objects is altogether out of the
range of these infant minds. The useful
knowledge adheres to the surface as bur-
dock burrs stick to their clothes, and the
composition" is only the painful pulling
| off of the burrs stuck on by yourself
! The radical weakness of our instruction
in composition in common school, acade-
my, and college is, that children and
| youth are compelled to write words and
| sentences about matters which are utter
| ly unreal, or only vaguely apprehended
by them. 1t is extremely rare that any
writer of real ability can use the style
formed in school or college; and the early
years of professional life are too often a
dreary cropping in quest of a natural and
| forcible method of expression. The only
| hope of success in teaching children to
write, will be found in keeping them in
side the circle of their own genuine in
terest and permitting them to develop