SECTION XI. COÖRDINATION

"And Which"

"And" and "but" are coördinating conjunctions, and should be used only between sentence elements of equal rank.

I. Turn to Section V., page 30, and point out all cases where "and" or "but" are used. What sentence elements do they connect, words, phrases, or clauses? Are they of equal importance?

2.

Correct the mistakes in the following sentences:

I. I have a good photograph of the camp taken with my new kodak and which, if you want, I will send to you. 2. I have written a description which I think rather vivid and which I will send you.

3. The best way is to keep them in a dry place, and turning them when they need it.

4. The valleys were covered with huge trees, thick and tall, and which no boy could climb.

5. One branch of the road leads to Millersville, and the other turning west toward the lake.

6. I have told you of our memorable adventure, and which indeed I should be sorry to forget.

3. Summarize all the points you have so far learned. about the sentence.

SECTION XII. PROPORTION AND CLEARNESS The Story of a Scientist

I. Write in your own words the story given below.

Audubon was the youngest of four children who lived with an indulgent stepmother on the Loire, nine miles from Nantes, while their father, a commodore in Napoleon's

navy, sailed the high seas. Madame Audubon allowed the little boy to spend all the time he wanted in collecting old birds'-nests, curious stones, mosses, and other objects pertaining to natural history. But after some delightful years, his father, home for a visit, made up his mind that the boy was neglecting his real education to follow the vagaries of inclination. He sent him away to school, intending him to do some solid studying, in the hope that he would discover that his vocation was to be a soldier under Napoleon. The boy worked faithfully at mathematics, but he took more pleasure in studying music,-the violin, the flageolet, the flute, the guitar, and in working at drawing under the great painter David. In one year he sketched more than two hundred varieties of birds from life. Once he spent practically three weeks lying on his back under a tree, watching with a telescope the habits of some little gray birds, the color of the bark. His father decided that such a person would hardly care for the din and smoke of battle, and so he decided that the boy should be sent to America to look after the Audubon property.

The life in America began inauspiciously. In New York he fell ill of yellow fever, and would have died but for the ministrations of two good Quaker ladies, who took him to their home at Morristown and nursed him back to health. Then he went to his father's farm at Mill Grove near the Schuylkill Falls, Pennsylvania,—a place which he called a blessed spot. Here he was free to study natural history; he was given no more mathematics to study; he heard no urging to become a soldier. All day long, if he liked, he could listen to the murmur of the mill or the song of the peewees. "Hunting, fishing and drawing," he wrote later, "occupied my every moment, and cares I knew not, and cared nothing for them." Here it was that he conceived his great dream, the dream that took him all his life to realize, and that made him at last famous and beloved: the writing of his book, "Birds of America." "Life of Audubon."

2. ORAL. Quite as wonderful as works of magic, are the accomplishments of science and of learning. What are the most wonderful discoveries and inventions of modern

times? If you could make an invention or discovery, what would you wish to invent, or to discover?

3. Suppose your wish to be granted, and then write a theme in the first person explaining your discovery or invention, how you made it, and its results and advantages to the race. In writing this decide what points will be hardest for your reader to understand, and explain them with especial care.

4. ORAL. Tell the story of the early life of a great inventor, Bell, Morse, Edison, Fulton, Marconi, Goodyear, Watts, or any other. Decide what are the most interesting points in their lives their early tastes, or the difficulties they overcame-and make those points clear by giving details about them.

SECTION XIII. CLEARNESS IN THE SENTENCE

It is hardly necessary to say that the parts of a sentence should correspond grammatically, and yet we often find sentences where the verb does not agree with its subject, or the pronoun with its antecedent. Such mistakes are the height of carelessness. See to it always, when you have written a theme, that every verb agrees with its subject, and every pronoun with its antecedent. This elementary precaution is necessary if what you write is to be either clear or grammatical.

Equally important for clearness is the proper placing of modifiers. English is a language almost bare of inflection. The principal means of showing that a word modifies another is the placing of it beside that other. See to it, then, that all modifiers-words, phrases, and clauses-are so placed as to make perfectly clear which words they modify.

Exercises

I.

Turn to Section XII., pages 49-50.

Point out the sub

Do they agree in

ject and the predicate in each sentence. person and number? cedents. Do they agree? Point out all modifying words, phrases, and clauses. Are the modifiers placed near the words they modify?

Point out pronouns and their ante

I. If everyone were convinced of their error they would still have the task of reform.

2.

No one in the company knew their own minds. 3. If anyone approves this plan, let them say so.

4.

There are none here to gainsay us.

5. You may rely on every singer to do their best.

6. Said John, looking up, "Here is the cows at last." 7. We then bought our tickets. This was a little piece of paper, printed in red and green, and was good for a ride all around Rome.

8. We watched the big engine plowing through the snow, its wheels covered with snow, and puffing up clouds of smoke from her smokestack.

9. It was an odd phenomena to see the earth's crust so split open.

10. He often played at naval maneuvers with his brother on the pond who has since gone to the naval academy at Annapolis in a leaky old punt.

II. I should like to see Miss Smith. I have her advertisement here which reads, "Wanted a lamp by a young lady with a green shade."

12. I am going to call from a sense of duty on Mrs. Marden, stopping to get a book on my way back, who is a very complaining woman,

Every modifier should, of course, have something to modify; and yet in the haste of talk, and even of writing, modifiers are often left with nothing to modify. This occurs most often in the case of participial phrases and relative clauses.

3. Turn to Section VI., page 32.

Point out all relative clauses and state what they modify; all participial phrases. 4. Correct the following sentences:

1. Walking up and down the main street, many interesting sights were seen.

2. Wishing and hoping for relief, no one discovered our sorry plight that day.

3. We were busy that day, putting up a sort of shack, which was a hard job as we had no hammer.

4. Most people have some superstition or other which is curious in these enlightened times.

5. Going cautiously up the bay, shoals were found barring further advance.

6. There was not a footstep to be found, which made us all the more afraid.

7. The dangers of mountain climbing are by no means slight, which is perhaps one cause of its popularity.

REVIEW OF RULES FOR THE SENTENCE

I. Use modifying words, phrases, and clauses where necessary to express your thought clearly.

2. Do not write loose-knit sentences.

3. Use coördinate conjunctions only between sentence elements of equal rank.

4. Every verb should agree with its subject in person and number.

5. Every pronoun should have an antecedent.