Composition And Rhetoric For Schools

Excerpt from book: deceive me." "Then he grew rhetorical" (meaning bombastic or pompous). When people use the word in this sense, they imply that the study of rhetoric enables a writer or speaker to play tricks on his audience, to make them believe that black is white, or teaches him how to adorn mean or trivial thought and make it impressive. Thus rises the common feeling about the subject of rhetoric; viz., that it is the art of deception, against which we should be on our guard. The origin of the word (from the Greek noun meaning an orator) explains this belief. The first rhetoricians were merely teachers of speech-making to lawyers. But today the term is used in reference to all forms of prose expression, and the true rhetorician teaches the writer not how to decorate poor thought or to manufacture ideas, but to express his meaning adequately, justly. What is commonly called "rhetoric" is frequently a violation of the true principles of rhetoric. 4. The Value of Oral Composition. — Writing, as has been said before, seems to most of us a peculiarly hard task, which demands at least great skill and aptitude, if not genius. To write even a letter seems to require special ability. Thoughts fly apart when it comes to putting them in black and white. Yet each one of us engages in composition many times every day; every spoken sentence, every recitation, every conversation with friends, is an unconscious act of composition — of putting our thoughts together and expressing them in words. The constant practice which we get in oral composition should help us in the more difficult art of written composition. This point is made quite clear in the following passage: First, then, look well to your speech. It is commonly supposed that when a man seeks literary power he goes to his room chapter{Section...