any features he chooses. What is wanted is a swift-flowing story, told in each student's best manner, and revised by himself in such a way as to leave little room for the most careful revision on the part of any one else. The story as told by the student is not to be limited at all by the incidents of Longfellow's story.

(j) Getting the Gist of an Address. - Listen to some speaker in school or outside. Aim to get the gist or substance of what he says. Then expand this in not more than five hundred words.

(k) Drill in Coherence. Refer to the Finnish epic, Kalevala, translated by Crawford, its English title being The Land of Heroes, and tell the story of Rune 2d, The Birth of the Forests. Get away from the quaint style in which it is written, and tell the story in pure and simple English, in your own way of saying things. If your story does not hang together revise it carefully with special reference to coherence.

The Birth of the Forests. - Wainamoinen, the Hiawatha of the Finns, sows the forests upon the island of his choice. He plants vines upon the hills, and bushes in the valleys; birches in wet places, and oaks upon the borders of the streams. Firtrees he plants and pine-trees, alders and lindens and willows, hawthorns, and junipers, and mountain ash. The oak-tree is slow to grow; but when it grows, it is tall and stately. Far it stretches out its branches,

Stops the white-clouds in their courses,

With its branches hides the sunlight.

Then

It overshadows the land, and the barley cannot grow. the hero asks for help from his mother to rid the land of the oak-tree, that the barley may grow. Help is sent. The forest, all but the silver birch, is cut down. And then he prays that the barley fields may rustle. Finding barley seeds and seeds of rye washed ashore, he plants them, and they grow.

(1) Drill in Emphasis. Read the story of Kriemhild's dream, in Lettsom's translation of the Nibelungenlied, 1st Adventure, or as given by William Morris; or by Wagner; or in the Norroena Romances and Epics. Write the story, emphasizing the fate of the falcon. Test your tale to see if this episode is made striking enough. If not, rewrite it.

This adventure tells how Kriemhild, sister of Gunther, ruler of Burgundy, and niece of Hagan, dreamed of the coming of her hero. In her first youth, she had no thought of marriage. She dwells with her mother, Queen Ute, at Worms, past which flows the fair Rhine. She has a dream which she relates to her mother, that she had trained a wild young falcon for many a day, until two fierce eagles tore it. Her mother interprets this to mean that a knight will soon devote himself to her, but that some of her own kinsmen will seek to do him deadly harm.

Topping the Timbers. Here are two fellows sailing over the hurdles. Any high school might be proud of either.

Describe a hurdle race, putting as much life into your writing as these youngsters do into their work. When you have finished, try to revise your work as effectively as you can.

What special qualities does the hurdler need? There are some elements of skill required. Interview some expert hurdler, and write an article for your high school paper that will be worth reading.

PART TWO

EFFECTIVE ENGLISH IN SOCIAL USE

CHAPTER XI

SOCIAL AND BUSINESS ENGLISH

What appears to be art in letters, may be habit which has become second nature. - MACAULAY.

Letter-writing. There is no art in everyday life so important as letter-writing. No one can claim to have an ordinary English education who cannot write a good letter promptly and unhesitatingly, at least so far as form is concerned.

A home letter should be neat, correct, and legible. So carelessly, oftentimes, are home letters written that it takes longer to decipher them than it took the writer to scribble them. This is manifestly unfair.

Business Correspondence. - Business, in this age of business, depends increasingly upon correspondence. The manager writes to his agents and they in turn write to their representatives or subordinates. Traveling salesmen write to the home office every night, or should do so, while letters and telegrams go to them, even where the long distance telephone has been called into requisition several times during business hours. It is important to have everything down in black and white.

Essential Elements.

There are a few essential elements

which are easy of acquirement. The writing must be neat and legible, free from shading or any peculiarities.

Poor spelling on the part of any young man or woman who writes, is not only objectionable but unpardonable. Many an application has been rejected, many a request refused, many a proposition turned down, simply because the writer was a poor speller. To send a letter full of errors in spelling is little less than an insult.

The business letter shows forth the firm. Many a valuable contract has been lost, to say nothing of the larger business that might have followed, because a stenographer was incompetent and the office stationery cheap and unattractive.

Next to advertising, the business correspondence of a firm is the largest factor in business getting, and in keeping the business when once secured.

The Typewriter. The introduction and widespread use of the typewriting machine has made much difference in modern letter-writing. Letters are simpler and more direct now than before. The better class of firms send out only typewritten letters, although of course personal letters continue to be written, and not typewritten; as do also letters out of business hours, where the stenographer is not available.

One reason for the use of the typewriter is the convenience of carbon copies of typewritten letters. In these days of filing systems, all the correspondence of a firm is filed. For convenience in finding, these copies are sometimes filed under four or five headings, in a system of cross filing, and the stenographer makes four or five carbon copies of each letter she writes.

Busy men sometimes refuse to spend their valuable time in deciphering a letter written with a pen. The stenographer makes a copy of such letters on the typewriter, and sends it to the one who is to "handle" it, that is, read it and dispose of it.

A letter of instruction, or of business, as well as of ordinary friendship, is all the more agreeable and useful if it can be read at a glance, and its meaning immediately gathered by the reader. Formal notes between friends and acquaintances, and letters or notes required by the usages of polite society, are not, however, to be written on the typewriter.