Our Living Language; How to Teach It and How to Use It (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ...to follow these devices is that they are too complicated. This complexity arises from three main causes: i. Closeness of the steps of the scale; 2. Indefiniteness in the qualities that give each specimen its place therein; 3. Variety of subjects represented in the various compositions. Attempts have been made towards overcoming these difficulties, but as yet no scale has been evolved that is at once simply graded, well-focused, and made up of a standard type of compositions such as might be readily produced in grade or high school classes working under normal conditions. Until some such device is developed, the composition measuring scale will not be entirely satisfactory. The first step necessary to simplify the scale is a reduction of the number of gradations. Why should not this step be taken? What practical purpose is served by a scale of ten or even six steps that could not be as well or better served by one of five at most? The second step towards simplifying the scale should be to focus the instrument more clearly. A certain haziness akin to that which marks a photograph taken by an unfocused camera, marks the scales already evolved. The composite judgment which determined the choice of the specimens that make the scales lacked, it would seem, a clear common aim. A better general understanding among the scale-makers as to the essential qualities of a good composition and the relative values thereof would do much to give sharper definition to the result. Regarding the third point: The multiplicity of subjects represented in some of the scales is most disconcerting to those who attempt to apply the instrument. It is so unlike the ordinary classroom product as to baffle most teachers. Why should not the scale be made up of compositions on one...