How to Write Clearly Part 15

AND

J. R. SEELEY, M.A.,

PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.

"It is not so much a merit to know English as it is a shame not to know it; and I look upon this knowledge as essential for an Englishman, and not merely for a fine speaker."--ADAPTED FROM CICERO.

BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS.

1883.

[Ill.u.s.tration: QUI LEGIT REGIT]

UNIVERSITY PRESS: JOHN WILSON & SON, CAMBRIDGE.

TO THE

REV. G. F. W. MORTIMER, D.D.,

_Prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral, late Head Master of the City of London School_.

DEAR DOCTOR MORTIMER,

We have other motives, beside the respect and grat.i.tude which must be felt for you by all those of your old pupils who are capable of appreciating the work you did at the City of London School, for asking you to let us dedicate to you a little book which we have ent.i.tled "English Lessons for English People."

Looking back upon our school life, we both feel that among the many educational advantages which we enjoyed under your care, there was none more important than the study of the works of Shakspeare, to which we and our school-fellows were stimulated by the special prizes of the Beaufoy Endowment.

We owe you a debt of grat.i.tude not always owed by pupils to their teachers. Many who have pa.s.sed into a life of engrossing activity without having been taught at school to use rightly, or to appreciate the right use of, their native tongue, feeling themselves foreigners amid the language of their country, may turn with some point against their teachers the reproach of banished Bolingbroke:--

My tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cased up, Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony; Within my mouth you have engaoled my tongue, Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips, And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance Is made my gaoler to attend on me.

I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, Too far in years to be a pupil now.

It is our pleasant duty, on the contrary, to thank you for encouraging us to study the "cunning instrument" of our native tongue.

Our sense of the benefits which we derived from this study, and our recollection that the study was at that time optional, and did not affect more than a small number of the pupils, lead us to antic.i.p.ate that when once the English language and literature become recognized, not as an optional but as a regular part of our educational course, the advantages will be so great as to const.i.tute nothing short of a national benefit.

The present seems to be a critical moment for English instruction. The subject has excited much attention of late years; many schools have already taken it up; others are on the point of doing so; it forms an important part of most Government and other examinations. But there is a complaint from many teachers that they cannot teach English for want of text-books and manuals; and, as the study of English becomes year by year more general, this complaint makes itself more and more distinctly heard. To meet this want we have written the following pages. If we had had more time, we might perhaps have been tempted to aim at producing a more learned and exhaustive book on the subject; but, setting aside want of leisure, we feel that a practical text-book, and not a learned or exhaustive treatise, is what is wanted at the present crisis.

We feel sure that you will give a kindly welcome to our little book, as an attempt, however imperfect, to hand on the torch which you have handed to us; we beg you also to accept it as a token of our sincere grat.i.tude for more than ordinary kindnesses, and to believe us

Your affectionate pupils,

J. R. SEELEY.

EDWIN A. ABBOTT.

_Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications._

ENGLISH LESSONS FOR ENGLISH PEOPLE. By Rev. E. A. ABBOTT, M.A., and Prof. J. R. SEELEY, M.A. Part I.--Vocabulary. Part II--Diction. Part III.--Metre. Part IV.--Hints on Selection and Arrangement. Appendix.

16mo. Price $1.50.

_From the London Athenaeum._

The object of this book is evidently a practical one. It is intended for ordinary use by a large circle of readers; and though designed princ.i.p.ally for boys, may be read with advantage by many of more advanced years. One of the lessons which it professes to teach, "to use the right word in the right place,"

is one which no one should despise. The accomplishment is a rare one, and many of the hints here given are truly admirable.

_From the Southern Review._

The study of Language can never be exhausted. Every time it is looked at by a man of real ability and culture, some new phase starts into view. The origin of Language; its relations to the mind; its history; its laws; its development; its struggles; its triumphs; its devices; its puzzles; its ethics,--every thing about it is full of interest.

Here is a delightful book, by two men of recognized authority,--the head Master of London School, and the Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge, the notable author of "Ecce h.o.m.o." The book is so comprehensive in its scope that it seems almost miscellaneous. It treats of the vocabulary of the English Language; Diction as appropriate to this or that sort of composition; selection and arguments of topics; Metre, and an Appendix on Logic. All this in less than three hundred pages. Within this s.p.a.ce so many subjects cannot be treated exhaustively; and no one is, unless we may except Metre, to which about eighty pages are devoted, and about which all seems to be said that is worth saying,--possibly more. But on each topic some of the best things are said in a very stimulating way. The student will desire to study more thoroughly the subject into which such pleasant openings are here given; and the best prepared teacher will be thankful for the number of striking ill.u.s.trations gathered up to his hand.

The abundance and freshness of the quotations makes the volume very attractive reading, without reference to its didactic value.

_Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, by the Publishers_,

ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.

PREFACE.

This book is not intended to supply the place of an English Grammar.

It presupposes a knowledge of Grammar and of English idiom in its readers, and does not address itself to foreigners, but to those who, having already a familiar knowledge of English, need help to write it with taste and exactness. Some degree of knowledge is presumed in the reader; nevertheless we do not presume that he possesses so much as to render him incapable of profiting from _lessons_. Our object is, if possible, not merely to interest, but to _teach_; to write lessons, not essays,--lessons that may perhaps prove interesting to some who have pa.s.sed beyond the routine of school life, but still lessons, in the strictest sense, adapted for school cla.s.ses.

Aiming at practical utility, the book deals only with those difficulties which, in the course of teaching, we have found to be most common and most serious. For there are many difficulties, even when grammatical accuracy has been attained, in the way of English persons attempting to write and speak correctly. First, there is the cramping restriction of an insufficient vocabulary; not merely a loose and inexact apprehension of many words that are commonly used, and a consequent difficulty in using them accurately, but also a total ignorance of many other words, and an inability to use them at all; and these last are, as a rule, the very words which are absolutely necessary for the comprehension and expression of any thought that deals with something more than the most ordinary concrete notions.

There is also a very common inability to appreciate the differences between words that are at all similar. Lastly, where the pupil has studied Latin, and trusts too much for his knowledge of English words to his knowledge of their Latin roots, there is the possibility of misderiving and misunderstanding a word, owing to ignorance of the changes of letters introduced in the process of derivation; and, on the other hand, there is the danger of misunderstanding and pedantically misusing words correctly derived, from an ignorance of the changes of meaning which a word almost always experiences in pa.s.sing from one language to another. The result of all this non-understanding or slovenly half-understanding of words is a habit of slovenly reading and slovenly writing, which when once acquired is very hard to shake off.

Then, following on the difficulties attending the use of words, there are others attending the choice and arrangement of words. There is the danger of falling into "poetic prose," of thinking it necessary to write "steed" or "charger" instead of "horse," "ire" instead of "anger," and the like; and every teacher, who has had much experience in looking over examination papers, will admit that this is a danger to which beginners are very liable. Again, there is the temptation to shrink with a senseless fear from using a plain word twice in the same page, and often from using a plain word at all. This unmanly dread of simplicity, and of what is called "tautology," gives rise to a patchwork made up of sc.r.a.ps of poetic quotations, unmeaning periphrases, and would-be humorous circ.u.mlocutions,--a style of all styles perhaps the most objectionable and offensive, which may be known and avoided by the name of _Fine Writing_. Lastly, there is the danger of _obscurity_, a fault which cannot be avoided without extreme care, owing to the uninflected nature of our language.

All these difficulties and dangers are quite as real, and require as much attention, and are fit subjects for practical teaching in our schools, quite as much as many points which, at present, receive perhaps an excessive attention in some of our text-books. To use the right word in the right place is an accomplishment not less valuable than the knowledge of the truth (carefully recorded in most English Grammars, and often inflicted as a task upon younger pupils) that the plural of _cherub_ is _cherubim_, and the feminine of _bull_ is _cow_.

To smooth the reader's way through these difficulties is the object of the first three Parts of this book. Difficulties connected with Vocabulary are considered first. The student is introduced, almost at once, to _Synonyms_. He is taught how to _define_ a word, with and without the aid of its synonyms. He is shown how to _eliminate_ from a word whatever is not essential to its meaning. The processes of _Definition_ and _Elimination_ are carefully explained: a system or scheme is laid down which he can exactly follow; and examples are subjoined, worked out to ill.u.s.trate the method which he is to pursue.

A system is also given by which the reader may enlarge his vocabulary, and furnish himself easily and naturally with those general or abstract terms which are often misunderstood and misused, and still more often not understood and not used at all. Some information is also given to help the reader to connect words with their roots, and at the same time to caution him against supposing that, because he knows the roots of a word, he necessarily knows the meaning of the word itself. Exercises are interspersed throughout this Part which can be worked out with, or without, an English Etymological Dictionary,[44] as the nature of the case may require. The exercises have not been selected at random; many of them have been subjected to the practical test of experience, and have been used in cla.s.s teaching.

The Second Part deals with Diction. It attempts to ill.u.s.trate with some detail the distinction--often ignored by those who are beginning to write English, and sometimes by others also--between the Diction of Prose, and that of Poetry. It endeavors to dissipate that excessive and vulgar dread of tautology which, together with a fondness for misplaced pleasantry, gives rise to the vicious style described above.

It gives some practical rules for writing a long sentence clearly and impressively; and it also examines the difference between slang, conversation, and written prose. Both for translating from foreign languages into English, and for writing original English composition, these rules have been used in teaching, and, we venture to think, with encouraging results.

A Chapter on Simile and Metaphor concludes the subject of Diction. We have found, in the course of teaching, that a great deal of confusion in speaking and writing, and still more in reading and attempting to understand the works of our cla.s.sical English authors, arises from the inability to express the literal meaning conveyed in a Metaphor. The application of the principle of Proportion to the explanation of Metaphor has been found to dissipate much of this confusion. The youngest pupils readily learn how to "expand a Metaphor into its Simile;" and it is really astonis.h.i.+ng to see how many difficulties that perplex young heads, and sometimes old ones too, vanish at once when the key of "expansion" is applied. More important still, perhaps, is the exactness of thought introduced by this method. The pupil knows that, if he cannot expand a metaphor, he does not understand it. All teachers will admit that to force a pupil to see that he does not understand any thing is a great stride of progress. It is difficult to exaggerate the value of a process which makes it impossible for a pupil to delude himself into the belief that he understands when he does not understand.