Educational Review (Volume 35) (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1908. Excerpt: ... II TEACHING THE MOTHER TONGUE IN FRANCE1 In so far as ideals can be transported from one literature to another, we may say that the ideal of prose-structure in modern European languages is directly derived from Greek models; the teaching of rhetoric or composition transmitted to us thru medieval times is, at any rate, derived historically from the teaching of Greek rhetoric; and we must trace it, in the briefest outline, from its origin. It is to be remembered that Greek rhetoric had primarily in view a technical object; it was the object of the orator to win a case in the law courts or to convince an assembly; he was addressing a particular audience with a definite aim. He had his facts to start with; he had (I) to consider arguments in support of his case; (2) to arrange those arguments; and (3) to clothe them in suitable language. What was true of forensic oratory was also tme of other forms of oratory-- the orator speaks with a definite object in view. In accordance with the classification of Aristotle there were thus three main elements in rhetoric: (1) invention, or the discovery of arguments; (2) arrangement, or disposition of the facts and arguments in possession of the orator; (3) diction, or the choice of words. But the name rhetoric was soon extended to the teaching not only of oratory but of composition in various kinds, and in Rome it became the chief subject of the school curriculum. The most elaborate classical treatise on the subject, Quintilian's Institutes of oratory, is essentially a book for the schoolmaster; the author is as much preoccupied with problems of teaching as with problems of criticism. The methods of the Greeks, transmitted thru Roman writers, Cicero and Quintilian, and especially Hermogenes 1 A chapter from The writing of English, by P. J. Hartog. O...