+Theme XVI.+—­Report as suggested above on any one of the following groups of words:—­

1.  Allude, mention. 2.  Beside, besides. 3.  Character, reputation. 4.  Degrade, demean, debase. 5.  Last, latest, preceding. 6.  Couple, pair. 7.  Balance, rest, remainder.

(Have you made clear the correct use of the words under discussion?  Can you give examples which do not follow the dictionaries so closely as do the illustrative reports above?)

NOTE.—­Lists of words suitable for exercises similar to the above are given in the Appendix.  The teacher will assign them to such an extent and at such times as seems desirable.  One such lesson a week will be found profitable.

+36.  Sentence Relations.+—­What we read or hear usually consists of several sentences written or spoken together.  The meaning of any particular sentence may depend upon the sentence or sentences preceding.  In order to determine accurately the meaning of the whole, we must understand the relation in thought that each sentence bears to the others.  Notice the two sentences:  “Guns are dangerous.  Boys should not use them.”  Though the last sentence is independent, it gets its meaning from the first.

In the following selection consider each sentence apart from the others.  Notice that the meaning of the whole becomes intelligible only when the sentences are considered in their relations to each other.

Once upon a time, a notion was started, that if all the people in the world would shout at once, it might be heard in the moon.  So the projectors agreed it should be done in just ten years.  Some thousand shiploads of chronometers were distributed to the selectmen and other great folks of all the different nations.  For a year beforehand, nothing else was talked about but the awful noise that was to be made on the great occasion.  When the time came, everybody had his ears so wide open, to hear the universal ejaculation of Boo,—­the word agreed upon,—­that nobody spoke except a deaf man in one of the Fiji Islands, and a woman in Pekin, so that the world was never so still since the creation.—­Holmes.

Gutenberg did a great deal of his work in secret, for he thought it was much better that his neighbors should know nothing of what he was doing.  So he looked for a workshop where no one would be likely to find him.  He was now living in Strasburg, and there was in that city a ruined old building where, long before his time, a number of monks had lived.  There was one room in the building which needed only a little repairing to make it fit to be used.  So he got the right to repair the room and use it as his workshop.