The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-04-08
'ON PRACTICAL COMPOSITION
How the Public Schools Can Make
Better Writers.
PREsEyr FAULTS POINTED OUT
Text Of Paper Read By Livy s. Richard
Before the City Institute At Y.
NJ. c. A. Hall Yes.
terday ForeuOo

The purpose of written language, l
take it, should be to convey and not, as
Talleyrand said, to conceal thought.
In certain kinds of composition it Is
permissible to convey thought with
fancy trimmings, as one sometimes
garnishes the food that one places on
ones table. Thus in poetry, 1t Is
proper to put the thought In such a
dress of language that it will delight
the ear and please the sensibilities as
well as appeal to the intellect. The
same is true. to varying degree, with
what newspaper workers none too rev.
erently call fine writing" for an ex-
ample of which take some of Mr. Rus
kin's elaborate prose, in which the
sharp point of thought Is often I'M
bedded inches deep in sweet-smell-
ing bouquet of words.
Not every table, however, is able to
afford garnishes with its meat and po-
tatoes: and if all were, what would be
the value of garnishes? For the most
of us, certainly for the great majority
of the pupils that come under your
tuition in the schools of Scranton, the
needed thing is to learn how to employ
written words so as to carry the
thought straight and true from the
thinker to the reader. without any loss
in transit. In these busy days. with a
million new things crowding upon us
from every direction it Is not economi-
cal and it is not fair either to waste
words or to cause readers to waste
time. The need of the day. especially
in our schools, Is for the teaching of
the most effective ordinary use of the
English language, both in speech and
in written discourse.
Speaking theoretically and without
experience whatsoever as a teacher of
the young, i should say that the bane
of most teaching of composition in the
schools consists Of this: That the
thing is gone at as If 1t We're some for
midable task requiring special qualifi-
cation and necessitating special awe.
The pupil thus lifts his pen with nerves
a-flutter, reaches for his subject mat
ter in q scared sort of way and evolves,
with natural but needless pains, an
artificial expression not unlike the pic
ture of baby when first consciously
posed before the mysterious camera.
There is rarely that happy smile as
when baby is at play all unconscious
of the "snap-shotter" nature is made
to look unnatural, stiff, primped up
and awkward. The uppermost consid-
Grafton is not the thing to be said, but
the way of it's saying. The pupil loses
sight of the subject in the manner of
it's treatment; the kernel of truth is
lost in the chaff which ought snugly
and smoothly and without conscious
effort to enclose it. These, l know, are
generalities; 1 appeal to your men,
cries as teachers for specific instances
in evidence.
If the pupil be not scared by the for
midable formalitv of the composition
exercise, he may possibly be made
vain by it. I have known meek boys
and girls who away from pen and pa
per, are fairly modest and bashful, yet
who never reach the writing desk
without being seized with great and
gorgeous ambitions. Their Quill does
not content itself with the prosy
things of earth; it wants to ride the
stars Fearlessly 1t sets forth, a regu-
lar Don Quixote of quill, charging
wildly at phantoms, and mayhap get
ting sorely worsted, now and then, by