write so much as if he worked alone; but if you let him write to the end and then tell him what his mistakes are, he will be likely to make the very same mistakes the next time he writes. After a few months or a year of this sort of experience, he will be able to write more and better than when he began; that is, each one of the group will gradually acquire some of the power of the whole group.

This group work should be carried on in a spirit of helpfulness. The critics should not find fault for the pleasure of finding fault, but should endeavor to give the writer just the aid he needs. You will be just as free to talk as you would if you were working in a laboratory, or a manual-training room, or a domestic-science room.

It is desirable that all the pupils work at the same time either as writers or critics. If there is not enough blackboard space for this, those who are neither critics nor writers at the blackboard should write at their desks. As the months go by, every one will have, as often as possible, this experience of writing with help from others.

Some subjects for compositions are given in the next section.

SOME SUBJECTS FOR GROUP-WORK COMPOSITIONS

85. Your own experiences are always of interest to you, and are likely to be of interest to others if you tell them well. This involves telling what you did and what you thought and what you felt; perhaps, also, what the other persons of the narrative

did and thought and felt. Keep these things in mind as you write.

In all likelihood you will not finish what you begin, but that will make little difference; the immediate purpose of this kind of work is to make you take great care in grammar, punctuation, spelling, and exact expression. If you do a little very well, that little will be acceptable.

Choose, therefore, some subject that you can treat briefly. Perhaps one of the following will suggest something to you:

My Experiences as a Runaway

How I Dug a Hole through to China

My Explorations in an Attic

My Discoveries in a Country Barn

How We Played Indian

A Great Battle in the Snow

My Earliest Ambitions

A Punishment I Deserved

My Experience with a Pot of Paint
How I Was the Victim of a Joke
Strange Things I Used to Think
Practicing on Saturday

The Pleasures of Housework
Dressing up in Mother's Clothes

Two EXERCISES IN CRITICISM

86. If it is not possible to do the group work and to criticize, as a class, on the same day, preserve until the next day at least one of the compositions that have been written on the blackboard. The person who wrote the composition, or each composition

preserved, will be asked to read aloud what he wrote, to give an account of the criticisms that were offered by his critics, and to state whether or not he accepted their judgment, and why.

If compositions were written at the seats while the group work was going on, the pupils who wrote them will now exchange papers, read them carefully, and then have conferences in which every pupil gives a criticism on some one else's work and receives criticism on his own. Particular attention should be given to the kind of errors made by the pupil or pupils who wrote at the blackboard. And always you should use all the knowledge you have to make clear to one another what is good and what is bad in the compositions.

EXERCISE IN GRAMMAR

87. If it is possible, leave one of the themes on the blackboard until it can be used as a basis for a

grammar exercise. If this is not possible, one of you will copy on the blackboard one of your own compositions—it makes no difference what one. Then take it up, sentence by sentence, and determine

a. What the complete predicates are.
b. What the predicate verbs are.

c. What the complete subjects are.
d. What the subject substantives are.
e. What the complete objects are.
f. What the object substantives are.

g. Whether the writer has run on from one sentence to another without ending the one with the proper

punctuation mark and beginning the other with à capital.

EXERCISE IN ORAL COMPOSITION

88. A few who did not finish their compositions while working in groups will speak before the class! They should say all they wrote at the blackboard and all they would have written if they had had time to finish.

SOME DIFFICULT WORDS

89. Some words are so much alike that young people, and sometimes older people, have difficulty in using them properly. For example, accept and except are much alike in sound when pronounced rapidly, and are somewhat similar in spelling. Other examples are affect and effect. But these two pairs of words are different in meaning. To accept a thing is "to receive it with a consenting mind," as Webster puts it. To except a thing is to leave it out. Thus it is correct to say I accepted all his gifts except the money. Affect has several meanings; it means to influence, as in Her daughter's death affected her seriously; and it means to put on, to assume, as in She affects the airs of a grand lady. Effect means to accomplish, to bring about a result; or it means the result itself.

These are very common words, and are often used in letters. As you will have much use for them in this kind of writing, it is necessary to know them well. Study their meanings in the following

sentences:

1. It will give me great pleasure to accept your invitation.

2. The effect of the injury he suffered last year still rémains with him.

3. After a long discussion the lawyers effected a compromise.

4. We accept all your proposals except the third one. 5. Business does not seem to be much affected by the tariff law.

6. That man's manner is not natural; he is affected. 7. We had an unusually good trade this week except on Monday.

8. What will be the effect of the short harvest on the cost of living?

9. It seems necessary to effect a definite agreement before we can transact business.

10. The agreement effected by the directors of the road with the stockholders has been observed except for about a month.

SPELLING; EI AND IE

90. One of your greatest difficulties, no doubt, is the spelling of such words as receive and believe, in which the e but not the i is pronounced. Which comes first-the e or the i? A man from India who once lectured in this country said he had learned to do as the Americans do-he made the i and the e just alike and put the dot over the middle. That is a convenient way, but it will not please your teachers, your parents, nor the business men with whom you may be associated hereafter; nor, in the end, will it please you. Besides, you can't do it on a typewriter. There is no rule for determining,