refuse to flow. As you grow older and have more experience in writing, you will improve in this respect. Doubtless it will help you to read a composition written by a girl who has treated her subject rather fully.

One day when I was about four years old I remember one day I was naughty from about eight o'clock in the morning till I was put to bed. I got up very early and ran out in the sand pile. It was very uninteresting, so I thought I would take a walk as my father often did before breakfast. I walked about a block till I passed the little store we traded at. I remembered that when I walked with papa he always went in and got a newspaper, so I attempted to do the same. I asked Mr. Storeman for a paper. It happened that papa had got one before this, so the man said, "Did your ma send you?" I said, "No, I was just out walking and thought I would drop in." When I was out walking I saw Maggie hurrying down the street calling me. I tried to run from her, but she caught me. When we reached home they were eating breakfast, and nothing was said about my little walk. I played quite a while in the sand pile and was just starting for a walk when mamma called to come and get dressed to go away with her. She dressed me and put my little blue coat on, and told me to sit on the porch. I, however, saw the gardener cutting the grass, and thought I would see him, as he was a great friend of mine. He had a little can of something which he squirted out of a little hole at the top, and while he was out in the other side of the yard I experimented with it, thus spilling it all over my clothes. When mamma came out, such a sight as she saw. My hair ribbon was hanging over my ear and oil all over my clothes. She said, "Shame on

you. Maggie will have to dress you over because Miss Ludlow wishes to see you." This time Maggie dressed me without mishap, and went down stairs to get my silk coat. I went to get my doll, and saw the cake of soap floating around on the water in the bathtub. I made a dive to get it, and fell headlong into the tub. When Maggie came back I was standing dripping in the middle of the floor, with the cake of soap in one hand. That was the last straw, and you may be sure I got what I deserved. EXERCISE IN CRITICISM

80. As usual after reading a composition written by a pupil, we must consider it very carefully. Discuss it with the following points as guides:

a. Contrast it with the composition about the swimming race in section 29, and note how much more interesting it is than that. Why?

b. This composition has the quality called humor. Do you know what humor is?

c. The writer told something about her own life. Do you think she was able to treat her subject so fully because she chose to write about herself rather than about some one else?

d. Can you make a title for the composition?

e. Just as a sentence must be a complete thing, so also must a composition be a complete thing. The writer of this one has succeeded very well in this respect. The first sentence tells you at once what she is going to write about, and the last sentence lets you know that she has finished. Between the first and the last sentence she has told you all, or nearly all, that you would like to know about that one day in her life. Are your own compositions always so well finished?

f. The whole story is written in one paragraph. Can you find any places where new paragraphs might have been begun? Could the writer, by changing the wording of a sentence here and there, have made two or three distinct paragraphs of the story? g. Reread the first sentence carefully. Do you notice that one little group of words is used twice? The effect is certainly bad. Can you take out one of the repeated groups of words and thereby improve the sound of the sentence without changing the meaning?

h. There are two sentences in the story that should have been ended with exclamation points, but the writer used periods instead. Which sentences are they?

EXERCISE IN GRAMMAR

81. Now let us study this story in another way. Many of the sentences have objects, some of them being group objects. Go through the composition, sentence by sentence, and pick out the objects. Watch carefully for the following errors:

a. In one sentence the writer omitted the object. b. In another sentence she omitted the predicate verb. These mistakes were made by accident, of course. Perhaps you will be less liable to such accidents if you find where this writer blundered.

A SPELLING LESSON

82. One of your difficulties in spelling is probably in adding s to words that end in y. There are two kinds of these words. One kind has a consonant before the y, as cry; and in this case you should

change the y to i and add es, making cries. The other kind has a vowel before the y; and in this case the s is added without any other change, as in the case of monkey and monkeys.

Another difficulty is in adding ness to words, as in the case of stubbornness. This word simply is stubborn +ness; nothing could be simpler; there is no change either in stubborn or in ness when the two are put together. The same is true when ly is added to such words as beautiful, making beautifully. Add s to the following words, following the rule carefully:

83. Sometimes when you have failed to bring a sentence to an end by the use of the proper punctuation mark, or when you have misspelled a word, your teacher tells you that you knew better, and asks you why you did it. You probably reply that you forgot, or that you don't know. The truth is that you are sometimes careless; you think so

intently about what you are writing that you fail to be attentive to how you are writing it. Now, it is as necessary to write accurately as it is to have something worth saying; and the pupil who is careless about his sentence structure, his punctuation, and his spelling cannot write an acceptable letter or composition. Some of your work in school should therefore be planned to make you careful, so that when you leave school you will have formed the habit of writing precisely what you mean and of taking great care in all the details of composition.

In order to form such a habit you will frequently work in groups. A liberal space at the blackboard will be assigned to each of several pupils, and a subject given to each, probably one of those that follow in section 85. For each pupil who writes, there will be two or three others who are to be critics. The critics will sit near the writers, and give them all the help needed. If a writer misspells a word, the critics should call his attention to it and have him correct it at once. If he does not end a sentence and begin a new one when he should, they should request him to do so. If he writes a sentence that does not sound well, they should show him why, and ask him to rewrite it. If the critics think the writer is not writing just what he intends to write, they should ask him to explain what he means, and then ask him to make his writing more clear, if that is possible.

84. You will observe that this exercise will compel the writer to be very careful. He will probably not