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disintegration once begun soon became general. Brigades dissolved into regiments, regiments into companies, and companies became small groups until all cohesion disappeared and the demoralization became complete. By handfuls the remnants of the army have found their way back to Chortu, the Bulgarian artillery cruelly harassing them, mowing them down in thousands. For a like disaster one is compelled to turn to Napoleon's memorable retreat from Moscow.

In addition to the swift current of this newspaper story, the student will note the writer's discriminating and effective use of a fine working vocabulary. He uses words nearly synonymous in such a way as to bring out a cumulative emphasis.

EXERCISES IN EFFECTIVE STORY-TELLING 1

(a) The Elements of Effectiveness. To get at the secret of Donahoe's effectiveness in “The Turkish Defeat,” try these four exercises. 1. Count the words used by this correspondent to denote rout, disaster, and defeat.

2. Without repeating himself, in how many ways does this writer say that the Turkish army was defeated?

3. Make a special study, in your own way, of the methods employed to bring out the story of this great disaster.

4. Note how short his sentences are. Study his paragraphs, noting how brief and pointed they are. He was, he states, caught in the wild stampede of the fleeing army, for two days without food or drink, and yet he had not lost sight for a moment of his work as a war correspondent. He was seeing for all Europe and for the whole world, what was going on about him. He had been in other wars; so while he fled for his life, the sentences and paragraphs were forming in his

1 Do not require or allow any one pupil to take all of these Exercises. They are given for the sake of variety, and to suit varying tastes. What one pupil will reject, another may delight in. The teacher may feel free to omit any exercise, or to postpone it until later in the course.

brain. He does not use an unnecessary word. This report was written off with lightning-like rapidity at the telegraph office, though composed, as we have said, with the shot and shell of the pursuing army falling everywhere about him, in his two days of wild retreat.

(b) Swift-flowing Story.—Try two or more of the following, being careful to make your story flow swiftly.

1. Read Kipling's The Drums of the Fore and Aft and tell orally how the two little drummer-boys shamed a regiment into bravery.

2. Get into the spirit of Victor Hugo's account of the charge of the Cuirassiers across the hollow road of Ohain, at Waterloo, as given in Les Miserables. Tell it orally in your own words.

3. Count the number of words in Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade," at Balaklava. Get the story well in mind, and write an account of that charge.

4. If you have seen a great fire down town in a large city, think it over until you see it again, and describe a great conflagration.

5. Write or give orally an account of how they crossed the line in an exciting boat race; or describe an exciting finish in a half-mile run.

6. Refer to the Odyssey, book vii, lines 285-357, where Ulysses relates the story of his sufferings. This is sometimes said to be the one best piece of narrative in all the world of literature. It is an example of the best condensed, terse style of story-telling.

You will do well to note the qualities that distinguish it. First of all, in dealing with anything that is worth telling, you must have the story thoroughly in mind before telling it. Mark the characteristic words that Ulysses uses, and see if you can use them to advantage.

It would be worth while to count the number of words in Ulysses' account, and seek to keep within that number, in your telling of the story. More than anything else, in this

narrative, study how swiftly the story goes. In telling the story, catch something of this eagerness of recital, if you can. 7. Refer to Earle's translation of The Deeds of Beowulf, sections xii and xix. After the combat Grendel flees, but his arm remains behind with Beowulf. It is hung up as a trophy in the Hall. In the night, the old Water-hag comes, seizes one of the sleepers and fetches away Grendel's arm.

Tell the story in your own words, and go straight to the point. As Earle has translated Beowulf, so you will have to translate Earle. Do this, rendering the story in pure, simple, and everyday English.

(c) Vigorous Action. Read the Odyssey, book xxii, entire, translation of William Cullen Bryant. Or you may use the translation of William Morris, or that of Butcher and Lang.

Get the story well in mind, and write it rapidly. Go over it as many times as may be necessary, to remove any hindering word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph. The vigorous action is here, if you can but put it into your story.

Ulysses Casts Aside His Rags. This is the story of the slaying of the shameless suitors by Ulysses. There is not a dull line from the moment that the hero throws off his disguise, and with Telemachus and a few faithful servants standing by him, turns his death-dealing arrows upon first one and then another of the suitor train. Recovering from their first surprise, the survivors turn to the wall where their weapons had hung, only to find them all removed. The arrows giving out, Ulysses sends Telemachus to the armor room for swords and spears, but he in his haste leaves the door of the armory ajar, and Melanthius, a traitor goatherd, brings down weapons for the suitors, who, fighting for their lives, make a desperate stand against Ulysses. Pallas Athene, disguised, urges on the slaughter. All but two are slain. Let the story end at line 535, Bryant's translation.

(d) A High School Project. - How to Build a Shower-bath for the Gymnasium. Given, water from the city waterworks system, piped to the gymnasium room. Problem, how to heat it; and to provide

warm and cold showers, and proper drainage. Plan must be practical, and within reach of the high school, financially. Work to be done by manual training department. Spokesman of committee in charge to have necessary plans, blue prints, etc., and is to present the project in good, straightforward, business-like English.

(e) Some Effective Stories. All the stories here suggested are strong in possibilities at the hands of an effective story-teller. They may be written or oral. If you attempt any of the stories, do it justice. Do not slight it.

1. A New-crowned Queen of the Air.- Literary Digest, Dec. 2, 1916, page 1485. Give it in five to seven hundred words. 2. The Story of the Deutschland, the first transatlantic submarine. Five hundred words or more.

3. The Death of Absalom.

2 Samuel xviii.

4. The Handwriting on the Wall. Daniel v.

5. Elijah on Mt. Carmel. 1 Kings xviii, 17 to 40.

6. The Crossing of the Red Sea. Exodus xiv.

7. Joseph Makes Himself Known.

in five hundred words or more.

8. Noah Sends Out the Dove.

Genesis xlv. Tell this

Genesis viii, 1 to 12. Tell the entire story, in from one hundred and fifty to two hundred words.

9. A Stranger in New York City. Tell the story as if you had visited this city. You may have done so, or you may live in New York, or vicinity. Tell as much or as little as you please of the city itself, or of any of the following.

(a) Grant's tomb; (b) Ellis Island; (c) Liberty Enlightening the World; (d) the Skyscraper District; (e) The Zoo; (ƒ) Cleopatra's Needle; (g) The Metropolitan Museum.

(f) Class Letter.-Let the pupils composing the English class prepare a letter from their own high school to the English class of some high school to be selected. Request a reply. In this letter, deal with the prominent points of interest in your own city. Place on the blackboard the points you desire to touch upon. Let a committee of from one to three write the letter, to be submitted to the class for correction and adoption. Mail it to the instructor in English, naming the high school, and city.

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