Compare this sentence with Franklin's and point out the faults you see in the substitute. Can you find anything in the meaning of provided that makes previously unnecessary? Do you now understand what Lowell meant when, in praise of Dryden, he said, "His phrase is always a short cut to his sense"?
TO THE TEACHER.—What is here taught of the paragraph and of style will probably not be mastered at one reading. It will be found necessary to return to it occasionally, and to refer pupils to it for aid in their composition work.
SUGGESTIONS FOR COMPOSITION WORK.
TO THE TEACHER.—We suggest that the pupils reproduce from memory the extract above, and that other selections of narrative be found in the Readers or elsewhere and studied as above.
The pupils may be able to note to what extent the narrative follows the order of time and to what extent it is topical. They may also note the amount of description it contains. They should, so far as possible, find the topic for each paragraph, thus making an outline for a composition to be completed from reproduction.
It will now require little effort to write simple original narratives of real or imagined experiences.
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Exercises on the Composition of the Sentence and the Paragraph.
FROM C. D. WARNER'S "MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN."
1. In the driest days, my fountain became disabled; the pipe was stopped up. 2. A couple of plumbers, with the implements of their craft, came out to view the situation. 3. There was a good deal of difference of opinion about where the stoppage was. 4. I found the plumbers perfectly willing to sit down and talk about it—talk by the hour. 5. Some of their guesses and remarks were exceedingly ingenious; and their general observations on other subjects were excellent in their way, and could hardly have been better if they had been made by the job. 6. The work dragged a little—as it is apt to do by the hour.