Practical English Composition: Book II | Page 2

at the head of each chapter and the poem at the end are designed to furnish that stimulus to the will and the imagination without which great practical achievement is impossible. On the other hand, the exercises are all designed on the theory that the sort of idealism which has no practical results is a snare. Indeed, the books might be characterized as an effort to find a useful compromise between those warring types of educational theory which are usually characterized by the words "academic" and "vocational."
The specific subject of this volume is newspaper writing. The author has himself had enough experience in practical newspaper work to appreciate the difficulties and to respect the achievements of the journalist. He knows that editors must print what people will buy. It seems probable, therefore, that instruction in the elementary principles of newspaper writing, in addition to producing good academic results, may lead pupils to read the papers critically, to discriminate between the good and the bad, and to demand a better quality of journalism than it is now possible for editors to offer. If this happens, the papers will improve. The aim of this book is therefore social as well as academic. It is also vocational. Some of the boys and girls who study it will learn from its pages the elements of the arts of proof-reading and reporting well enough to begin, by virtue of the skill thus acquired, to earn their bread and butter.
For the chapters on advertising I am indebted to Mr. Karl Murchey, of the Cass Technical High School of Detroit, Michigan. Mr. John V. Brennan, Miss Grace Albert, and Miss Eva Kinney, of the Detroit Northwestern High School, have rendered me invaluable help by suggestions, by proof-reading, and by trying out the exercises in their classes. Mr. C.?C. Certain, of Birmingham, Alabama, and Mr. E.?H. Kemper McComb, of the Technical High School, Indianapolis, by hints based on their own wide experience and ripe scholarship, have enabled me to avoid numerous pitfalls. My thanks are due also to Mr. Francis W. Daire, of the Newark News, and Mr. C.?B. Nicolson, of the Detroit Free Press, who have given me the benefit of their experience as practical newspaper men. Above all, I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Henry P. Hetherington, of the Detroit Journal, whose untimely death in June, 1914, deprived me of a never-failing source of wisdom and a critic to whose ripe judgment I owe more than I know how to describe.
E.?L.?M.

CONTENTS
I. THE NEWSPAPER 1 II. NEWS ITEMS 9 III. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES 15 IV. REPORTING ACCIDENTS 19 V. CONSTRUCTIVE NEWSPAPER WRITING 23 VI. HUMOROUS ITEMS 29 VII. THE USE OF CONTRAST 33 VIII. THRILLERS 38 IX. BOOK REVIEWS 45 X. REPORTING GAMES 52 XI. REPORTING SPEECHES 63 XII. DRAMATIC NOTICES 71 XIII. INTERVIEWS 77 XIV. THE EXPOSITION OF MECHANICS 84 XV. THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 90 XVI. EDITORIALS--CONSTRUCTIVE 97 XVII. EDITORIALS--DESTRUCTIVE 102 XVIII. ADVERTISEMENTS 108 XIX. ADVERTISEMENTS (continued) 114 XX. ADVERTISEMENTS (concluded) 118

"Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison." SAMUEL JOHNSON. Life of Addison.
"Children learn to speak by watching the lips and catching the words of those who know how already; and poets learn in the same way from their elders." JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Essay on Chaucer.
"Grammars of rhetoric and grammars of logic are among the most useless furniture of a shelf. Give a boy Robinson Crusoe. That is worth all the grammars of rhetoric and logic in the world.... Who ever reasoned better for having been taught the difference between a syllogism and an enthymeme? Who ever composed with greater spirit and elegance because he could define an oxymoron or an aposiopesis?" THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. Trevelyan's Life of Lord Macaulay. Chapter?VI.

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION BOOK?II

CHAPTER?I
THE NEWSPAPER
"Truth is the highest thing that man may keep." CHAUCER.
I.?Introduction
The object of this book is to teach high-school boys and girls how to write plain newspaper English. Next to letter-writing, this is at once the simplest and the most practical form of composition. The pupil who does pre?minently well the work outlined in this volume may become a proof-reader, a reporter, an editor, or even a journalist. In other words, the student of this book is working on a practical bread-and-butter proposition. He must remember, however, that the lessons it contains are elementary. They are only a beginning. And even this beginning can be made only by the most strenuous and persistent exertions. English is not an easy subject. It is the hardest subject in the curriculum. To succeed in English three things are required: (1) Work; (2) Work; (3) WORK.
II.?The Newspaper
The modern city newspaper is a complicated machine. At its head is usually a general manager, who may be one