Your title is Out of Luck; the conclusion tells of good fortune. Your synopsis of the story is excellent. Your criticisms are not quite so good.

Discriminate among errors.-Always be lenient towards the error which results from a good attempt; be increasingly severe towards the repeated error which results from carelessness. The pupil who writes Grigg for the music composer's name deserves credit; the name should be corrected and nothing taken from the grade. The pupil who always misspells separate should be shown no quarter. An examination was returned to a senior with this at the top, 85-30-55. She asked for an explanation, as the instructor foresaw she would. He said, "Not a single paragraph shows indentation, therefore your grade is below passing." From then on, the first lines of her paragraphs were indented an inch. Leniency becomes a fault in some aspects of teaching.

Return compositions with helpful comments.-Salutary lessons may be taught as well as time saved by refusing to read through papers which patently are below standard or which do not follow assignments or otherwise do not fill requirements. If the theme assigned is the pleasure of reading novels, and the second paragraph plunges into a discussion of poetry, the instructor should add a note, "You have departed from the theme; I read no further." Another provocative comment is, "This paper is below the level of this grade. I did not read further than this." A set of papers should be read not as soon as possible after being written, but as late as possible before being returned to the pupils. This late reading makes the comments by the teacher much more pertinent because they are based on a vivid recollection of details. If the day of return is a day for writing again, immediate help will accrue from both com

ments and marks. Pupils should be led to ask explanations of the marks rather than of the grade. The correct answer to the usual question, "Why did I get a six on my paper?" is, "That is what the composition is worth." The pupil who inquires, "If I had made these two paragraphs one, wouldn't it have been too long?" invites constructive criticism.

James G. Blaine was right, "Accuracy and elegance can only be had at the end of a pen." But every teacher of English knows that this truth was uttered a long time ago by a greater man, for Francis Bacon declared that "writing maketh an exact man."

Exercises. See page 354.

CHAPTER X

ABILITY TO SPEAK

Increasing importance of speech.-The implications and direct asserations made in several of the statements at the beginning of the preceding chapter on ability to write may be carried over to this consideration of the ability to speak. The world at large has developed a new consciousness of the power of the spoken word in both detailed business relationships and broad social movements. Short telephone messages, quiet tense discussions across tables in boards of directors' meetings, and speeches before tens of thousands are being increasingly judged by standards of worth of information and meaning of the message. There are still outmoded specimens and backwoods eruptions of empty oratorical bombast and deceiving spread-eagleism of which really educated persons should take no notice or of which they should feel ashamed. The halls of the highest legislative assemblies are not free from reprehensible exhibitions, but educators who in the phrase of George Meredith are "plowing to make a better world" should treat them with silence or the unobtrusive condemnation which they deserve. Life changes rapidly; educational subjects and methods must change with it; thus schools must provide for developing ability to speak.

Teachers should speak well.-The teacher who must adjust himself to this portion of his work should first scrutinize his own speech. Do teachers speak easily and convincingly before audiences, their own classes, for instance? Why is it that at conventions of teachers, contributions dealing

with instruction in speaking are likely to be papers read? Why are after-dinner addresses such bores that a highly diverting comedy is able to produce its most hilarious effect by depicting a banquet? Is the charge that children's voices are rendered loud and harsh by demands of inattentive teachers to "Speak louder" founded on facts? Many a teacher should modulate his voice into something more pleasant than the schoolroom tone. If a great deal of education depends on imitation, we can only hope that where voices are concerned, pupils will be immune from some of their mentors. Neither sex has a monopoly of the raucousness of the so-called American voice.

Specimens of careless errors.-As every teacher should scrutinize his speech to improve its tone and pitch, so should he examine it for personal errors and inaccuracies. Teachers who drill on agreement of antecedent and pronoun, who would never make the error in writing, ask, "Did anyone copy this in their notebook?" Teachers who insist that pupils avoid like between two verbs insert it in their own remarks. The a is almost as usual in what kind of person from the lips of teachers as from those of pupils. It don't seems to disturb very few school administrators and teachers, when they say it themselves. Yet these persons are not likely to reproduce these expressions when they write. Faults of pronunciation are legion among teachers of English supposed to be models to learners; not uncertainties regarding new or unusual words such as apotheosis, cantonment, psychiatrist, psychiatric, xylophone, but mispronunciations of such words as joust, livelong, bade, satyr, archipelago. A study of teachers' phraseology and vocabulary would offer intensely interesting material for a basis of a study of the style of oral composition in classrooms. Self-improvement is the first duty of the teacher of speech.

It is perfectly possible, however, that a person develop a

beautiful voice, stabilize his pronunciation, increase his vocabulary, and in spite of all remain a poor speaker with resultant hesitation and even fear because of lack of practice. Even when this has been provided the end is not reached, for to be a good speaker, the person must have something to say worth hearing. It were better for both adult and pupil to realize that silence is better than meaningless speech. Special teacher.-Whether the school shall engage a special teacher for training in speech depends upon too many factors to be discussed here. More systems which cannot consider such an arrangement should remember that the school aim of speech training is not to develop specialists in oratory or elocution, but ordinary citizens who should possess some facility and power in using their native or acquired tongue. We do not expect them by the time they are graduated to surpass in ability their teachers, or to express it conversely, we expect every high school teacher to remain the superior of his pupils in power and attainment.

Every teacher of English should be a teacher of speech.— While a certain term or year may in high school be utilized for particular emphasis upon speech and practice in speaking, every English class should provide for instruction and exercise. These dual aspects should be offered from the time pupils enter school until they leave. At first, emphasis should be placed upon practice rather than instruction, later the definite but never too rigidly formal instruction may be increased in amount. The first and repeated approach through all exercises should be natural. As was suggested in the exercise of composition, the natural thing to do in inducing pupils to speak is to arouse in them the desire to tell something to others. The desire, while it should be aroused, is not enough to enable either pupil or adult to speak well, not even clearly. Ask a cook how she makes a particular dessert. Will she not say, "I can't tell you