+52.  The Topical Recitation.+—­In conducting a recitation the teacher may ask direct questions about each part of a paragraph or she may ask a pupil to discuss some topic.  Such a topical recitation should be an exercise in clear thinking rather than in word memory, and in order to prepare for it, the pupil should have made a careful analysis of the thought in each paragraph similar to that discussed on page 74.  When this analysis has been made he will have clearly in mind the topic statement and the way it has been developed, and will be able to distinguish the essential from the non-essential elements.

A topical recitation demands that the pupil know the main idea and be able to develop it in one of the following methods, or by a combination of them:  (1) by giving specific instances, (2) by giving details, (3) by giving comparisons or contrasts, (4) by giving causes or effects, and (5) by repetition.

Thoughts so mastered are our own.  We understand them and believe them; and consequently we can explain them, or describe them, or prove them to others.  We can furnish details or instances, originate comparisons, or state causes and effects. When ideas gained from language have thus become our own, we do not need to remember the language in which they were expressed, and not until then do they become proper material for composition purposes.

+53.  Outlining Paragraphs.+—­Making an outline of a paragraph that we have read brings the thought clearly before our mind.  In a similar way we may make our own thoughts clear and definite by attempting to prepare in advance an outline of a paragraph that we are about to write.  Arranging the material that we have in mind and deciding upon the order in which we shall present it, will both help us to understand the thought ourselves, and enable us to present it more effectively to others.

EXERCISES

A. Prepare for recitation the following selection from Newcomer’s introduction to Macaulay’s Milton and Addison:—­

There were two faculties of Macaulay’s mind that set his work far apart from other work in the same field,—­the faculties of organization and illustration.  He saw things in their right relation and he knew how to make others see them thus.  If he was describing, he never thrust minor details into the foreground.  If he was narrating, he never “got ahead of his story.”  The importance of this is not sufficiently recognized.  Many writers do not know what organization means.  They do not know that in all great and successful literary work it is nine tenths of the labor.  Yet consider a moment.  History is a very complex thing:  divers events may be simultaneous in their occurrence; or one crisis may be slowly evolving from many causes in many places.  It is no light task to tell these things one after another and yet leave a unified impression, to take up a dozen new threads in succession without