Effective English

flowing, straightforward, and luminous style for his model in simple narrative.

Of the Iliad and the Odyssey be it said, borrowing a figure from the placer miners of early California, that the student who washes over and sifts out these golden sands will surely have some gold for his own. And concerning the Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied, and the other legends of the first gray dawning of our race, let us quote William Morris, who says that "we have here the very heart of the North bloomed into song."

Vocational Guidance and Social Motives. The value of exercises based upon what is termed vocational guidance, is acknowledged by teachers of English. Some students of the high school are already self-supporting, at least in part, while practically all of them look forward to employment of some kind as both desirable and necessary. Get the students interested in lines of work that look to them like avenues leading to success, and they will talk about them. Out of the abundance of the heart the

mouth speaketh.

Closely allied to work of this kind is the employment of the social motives of the school for composition. The many exercises here given of themes relating to social motives and to vocational guidance, and of kindred themes such as pageantry and dramatization, have been found profitable and interesting.

Exercises Based on Pictures. The exercises based on pictures afford variety and promote interest. They are scattered through the book with the idea of relieving the pupil from the routine of his regular work. In them pupils may apply unconsciously the principles previously learned, but the idea back of most of them is merely to furnish attractive material for the free play of the pupil's

fancy, without imposing the task of illustrating some specific rule.

Acknowledgment. -The National Council of Teachers of English is at the forefront of progressive work in English, and its work is well represented in The English Journal. Acknowledgment is made of the value to Effective English of both these excellent sources of suggestive material.

This book has also drawn freely upon the Report of the National Joint Committee on the Reorganization of High School English; on The Teaching of High School English, State Board of New Jersey; on Requirements in Form, Illinois Association of Teachers of English; and on the English Syllabus, Board of Regents, New York.

Basis of the Course. This Report of the National Joint Committee1 states in a brief paragraph the attitude of all these authorities. It says, "The course in composition must be laid out primarily with reference to the expressional activities of the pupils of the school, not with reference to the logic of rhetorical theory. The gauge is the pupil's own range of observation, power of abstraction, and capacity for practical application. A careful study of Effective English will indicate that this theory has dominated every page of the book.

1 Bulletin, 1917, No. 2, Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C., Reorganization of English in Secondary Schools, is of great importance to the teacher of English in the high school. This is a report compiled by James Fleming Hosic, chairman of the National Joint Committee representing the Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, of the National Educational Association, and the National Council of Teachers of English.