School was built here in Dorchester at the corner of Pond and Pleasant streets.

It was for boys only, and was used for about sixty years. Girls were considered as not needing an education until one hundred years afterward. It was maintained by the rents which the town received from Thompson's Island.

Now, electric lights and well-printed and neatly bound books are substituted for candles and books which were bound with wood or paper and printed with poor type.

The First Free School in America used the New England Primer, which was first published about 1785 or 1790. In place of the present brick buildings with furnaces and steam heat were log houses with great fireplaces and roaring fires.

A BLUEBERRY PICK

One morning, the summer before last, when the sun was just rising, a friend and I went to a blueberry patch, called Brush Hill, in South Framingham. After a walk of about thirty-five minutes, we arrived at the foot of the hill. We then proceeded halfway up the hill, where we found the blueberries the thickest. After our pails were about half filled, we were aroused by a noise which scared us very much. We stopped picking and ran until we discovered that the noise was only the rustling made by a number of cows which had happened to wander our way. Then we started picking again. At the end of twenty minutes we had our pails filled, so we started homeward.

On descending the hill, we unexpectedly got into the path of a bull, which chased us down the remainder of the hill. At the foot of the hill we came to a fence and thought we were going to be trapped, but we managed to get over in time to escape. We lost about half of our berries and tore our clothes badly in our scramble over the fence. We arrived home in time for dinner, which was very welcome to us. It seems I never have luck in berrying, for something always happens. This was my first time, too, and I think that didn't give me any encouragement.

EXERCISE VI

A. Write a composition about one of the following subjects:

1. How I Won my Wager.

2. Learning to Skate.

3. The Prize Drill.

4. My First Hunting Trip.
5. Putting Out the Forest Fire.
6. My First Business Experience.

B. Read your theme to your class.

1. What did the class say about the value of your point?

2. What did they think about your choice of details to develop the point?

a. Did your composition contain any digressions?

b. Did it contain details unessential to the point?

C. Rewrite your theme, making the kind of improvements suggested by the class.

D. Examine your rewritten theme to see: (1) that you have said exactly what you meant to say; (2) that you have put a period, a question mark, or an exclamation mark at the end of each sentence; (3) that you have spelled all words correctly and that you have made no errors in grammar.

Coherence. If a composition is to be a true unit, not only must the ideas of which it consists be the ideas essential to develop the point, but these ideas must be arranged in the right order and must be expressed in the right words to make unity, or oneness of thought, evident; i.e., they must conform to the principle of coherence.

Read the following compositions, noticing the order in which the details are given :

A

The evening meal was ended in Dhunni Bhagat's Chubara and the old priests were smoking or counting their beads. A little naked child pattered in, with its mouth wide open, a handful of marigold flowers in one hand and a lump of conserved tobacco in the other. It tried to kneel and make obeisance to Gobind, but it was so fat that it fell forward on its shaven head and rolled on its side, kicking and gasping, while the marigolds tumbled one way and the tobacco the other. Gobind laughed, set it up again, and blessed the marigold flowers as he received the tobacco.

The Finances of the Gods, KIPLING.

This composition begins by giving a clear idea of the situation in which the incident took place and immediately introducing the chief actor. Then the details necessary to develop the point are given in the order in which they were seen. The composition ends with a statement of the final outcome of the occurrence.

B

In 1612 he (Nicolas de Vignau) reappeared in Paris, bringing a tale of wonders; for, says Champlain, “he was the most impudent liar that has been seen for many a day." He averred that at the sources of the Ottawa he had found a great lake; that he had crossed it and discovered a river flowing northward; that he had descended this river and reached the shores of the sea; that here he had seen the wreck of an English ship, whose crew, escaping to land, had been killed by the Indians; and that this sea was distant from Montreal only seventeen days by canoe. The clearness, consistency, and apparent simplicity of his story deceived Champlain, who had heard of a voyage of the English to the northern seas, coupled with rumors of wreck and disaster, and was thus confirmed in his belief of Vignau's honesty.

The Pioneers of France in the New World, PARKMAN.

This composition begins by stating the subject and suggesting the point to be made. The point is developed by presenting the essential details in the order in which they happened. The composition concludes with a statement of the final outcome of the telling of the story.

C

The wealth of Clive was such as enabled him to vie with the first grandees of England. There remains proof that he had remitted more than a hundred and eighty thousand pounds through the Dutch East India Company and more than forty thousand pounds through the English Company. The amount which he had sent home through private houses was also considerable. He had invested great sums in jewels, then a very common mode of remittance from India. His purchases of diamonds at Madras alone amounted to twenty-five thousand pounds. Besides a great

mass of ready money, he had his Indian estate, valued by himself at twentyseven thousand a year. His whole annual income, in the opinion of Sir John Malcolm, who is desirous to state it as low as possible, exceeded forty thousand pounds; and incomes of forty thousand pounds at the time of the accession of George the Third were at least as rare as incomes of a hundred thousand pounds now. We may safely affirm that no Englishman who started with nothing has ever, in any line of life, created such a fortune at the early age of thirty-four.- Lord Clive, MACAULAY.

This composition also opens with a statement of the subject and the point to be made. Of the details used to develop the point, those first given are details which are known to be true. These are followed by details less well known or less easy of proof. The composition concludes with a summarizing statement which emphasizes the point.

In each of the compositions the relation of the details to one another and to the point is made evident by the way in which the details are expressed.

In the first composition, attention is at first centered on the priests before whom the little child was to act. It is next centered upon the child, the marigold flowers, and the tobacco. In each sentence which develops the incident, the child is made the subject of the sentence. In each the marigold flowers and the tobacco are mentioned. In the last sentence, all these elements of the incident are disposed of by bringing priest, child, marigold flowers, and tobacco together to show the final outcome of the incident.

In the second composition, the attention is at first centered on De Vignau's "tale of wonders" and Champlain's resulting opinion of De Vignau as a "liar." The reason for this opinion is made clear in the second sentence by the use of the word averred, which at once throws doubt on the truth of what is to follow, and by the expressing in noun clauses as objects of averred the particulars of the tale of wonders in the order in which they were said to occur. The final sentence emphasizes

Champlain's reason for believing De Vignau a liar by pointing out the qualities of the story which would tend to impose upon any one and by stating why they deceived Champlain.

In the third composition, the attention is first centered on the rank of Clive's fortune. The immensity of this fortune is brought out by expressing the details in words which give exact sums of money, very large in themselves, or which state the ownership of property, very valuable in itself. The final sentence emphasizes the bigness of Clive's fortune by stating its magnitude as compared with the shortness of the time in which it had been made.

In each of these compositions, the writer has helped to make unity of thought evident by beginning with a statement that suggests the subject and limits its scope by suggesting the point to be made; by giving the details in a definite order, each additional detail being an advance toward the point; by concluding with a statement that is the logical outcome of the details given; by expressing the details in words which make clear the relation of the details to one another and to the point; briefly, by conforming to the principle of coherence.

While the principle of coherence demands that ideas be presented in definite order, no one kind of order can be used in all compositions, for the order in which ideas shall be presented depends upon the nature of the subject, the knowledge and opinions of the speaker or writer, and the kind of person to be addressed. In each different kind of composition, however, there is usually one method of arranging ideas which is commonly followed. For example, in stories, the particulars are usually arranged in the order in which the events happened. In descriptions of landscape, the details are usually arranged in the order in which they were observed. In discussions, the details are often arranged