Practical English for High Schools

Front matter

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Preface

Practical English for High Schools is a working manual to develop the power of efiFective communication of ideas in such situations as appear in ordinary life. It does not aim at the appreciation of literature, nor at effectiveness in the writing of fiction or the Uterary essay. It does, on the other hand, attempt to train pupils in the art of reading to get the thought in the most economical manner possible. The book is the outgrowth of the new movement to distinguish between EngUsh for work and EngUsh for leisure. It recognizes that all pupils may be trained in clear and correct speaking and. writing, but that only the few may hope to attain excellence in the forms of expression that are peculiarly Uterary.

In carr3dng out the ideals expressed above the authors have observed the foUowing principles :

1. That a textbook should be primarily a laboratory guide and not a treatise or an encyclopedia.

2. That the most important thing for a pupU to learn . is not theory but a method of work.

3. That practice in expression has Uttle value unless it grows out of a real situation and involves genuine personal experience and creative imagination.

4. That both good speech and good writing are matters of habit and, therefore, are to be attained by the repetition of activities which enUst the interest of the pupil and call out his energies.

4 PREFACE

5. That much of the material in the books now in use in the schools is overmature, ambitious, and unrelated to the thoughts and lives of young people.

6. That, on the other hand, greater stress should be laid upon certain subject matter hitherto almost completely neglected; for example, social letters, business letters, newspapers, and magazines.

7. That the best teaching requires a real social situation in the classroom, and that earnest cooperative effort, concentrating the attention of pupils and teachers on a common problem, is more likely to produce correct habits than memory drills or the exaction of perfunctory tasks.

Acting, upon these principles the authors of Practical English for High Schools have boldly abandoned moss-grown tradition and have built a simple, concrete textbook, mainly inductive in method, emphasizing the actual things that boys and girls are interested in, stating grammatical and rhetorical theory from the point of view of function and not of classification, and yet summing up from time to time tersely the principles which have been developed. They have chosen their illustrative material not from Macaulay and Addison, but from the best work of students and of contemporary writers. They have realized that the way of art is long and have therefore included far more illustrations of important aspects of writing than is customary, in order to educate the pupil by contact. The illustrations, moreover, are drawn from various aspects of school life, as well as from community life, and thus serve to unite and organize the whole of the pupiPs schodl experience. In short, the book is built freshly, from long observation of the actual life and work of high-school boys and girls, and it will, therefore, be found to make an appeal to them which the ordinary formal, distant compilation utterly lacks. Practical English for High Schools is practical not merely in the sense

PREFACE 5

that it recognizes the need of preparing for the work of the world, but also in the sense that it presents work to be done which is attractive and profitable and which seems so to the pupils themselves.

The material of this book has grown directly out of the teaching experience of the authors, and has been subjected to the test of actual classroom work by other teachers. Several of these have given invaluable assistance by suggesting changes and additions, and even in certain cases by contributing portions of the book in its preliminary form. The authors wish to express their sincere appreciation of the assistance which they have received. Special thanks are due to Miss Elizabeth Lodor, Head of the Department of English in the William Penn High School of Philadelphia ; Miss OUve Hart, Head of the Department of EngUsh in the South Philadelphia High School for Girls; Miss Zeta B. Cundly, Miss Helen Lynch, Miss Doris Thorn Wright, Miss Mabel Holmes, and other teachers of English in the William Penn High School, Philadelphia ; Miss Jessie Sherman, teacher of English in the Francis W. Parker High School, Chicago ; Mrs. Nellie L. Hosic, formerly a teacher in the Findlay High School, Findlay, Ohio ; Mr. E. H. Kemper McComb, Head of the Department of EngUsh in the Manual Training High School, IndianapoKs, Indiana; Mr. Ernest R. Clark, Head of the Department of EngUsh in the East High School, Rochester, New York ; Miss Sarah E. Simons, Head of the Department of EngUsh, High Schools, Washington, D.C. ; and Mr. C. C. Certain, Instructor in EngUsh in the Auburn Polytechnic Institute, Auburn, Alabama.

The authors wish also to make grateful acknowledgment to the pubUshers of The Youth^s Companion, The Outlook, The Nation, The American City, and The North American, and to The Century Company, The David Gibson Company, and Houghton, Mifflin Company for their courtesy in permitting the use of copyrighted material.