The aim of this book is not to produce critical readers of literature, nor to prepare the pupil to answer questions about rhetorical theory, but to enable every pupil to express in writing, freely, clearly, and forcibly, whatever he may find within him worthy of expression.

Three considerations of fundamental importance underlie the plan of the book:—

First, improvement in the performance of an act comes from the repetition of that act accompanied by a conscious effort to omit the imperfections of the former attempt. Therefore, the writing of a new theme in which, the pupil attempts to avoid the error which occurred in his former theme is of much greater educational value than is the copying of the old theme for the purpose of correcting the errors in it. To copy the old theme is to correct a result, to write a new theme correctly is to improve a process; and it is this improvement of process that is the real aim of composition teaching.

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