In connection with unity we must have coherence, - an orderly arrangement of our material, - and in order to secure it we can well afford to take great pains in making a definite plan.

Sometimes the subject determines the order of the main divisions of an outline. One step leads inevitably to the next; you are not free, as you are in narration and description, to gain emphasis through position. You may, however, give most space to matters which need most explanation, and in this way secure emphasis through proportion. When you are free to choose the order, do not try to give the most difficult part of your explanation at once, but begin with something which is comparatively easy, - if possible, with something about which the reader is not entirely ignorant, - and lead from that to the parts which are harder to understand. In other words, begin with the simple and work toward the complex. If, for instance, you were to explain the game of tennis, you surely would not call attention at once to the meaning of deuce set.

If you can be clear and at the same time secure climax, by all means do so; but remember that no matter how interesting you make your explanation, it is a failure if it is not clear.

Exercises

576. Make a plan of a two-minute talk on Baseball. Let it show that you are to discuss (1) the equipment, (2) the positions of the players, (3) the way in which the game is played.

577. Make a plan of the following paragraph:

When we ask for more time for schools, we are always met by this objection: The children can hardly stand the stress to which they are now subjected. Are we to overtax them still more? I believe there are three good answers to this objection. The first is ventilation. If you will take the excess of carbonic acid out of the schoolroom, you can keep the children in it longer, without hurting them as much as you do now. The same may be said of the teachers. The strain upon teachers is greatly increased by the badness of the air in which they habitually work. Secondly, the stress upon the children can be greatly diminished by the systematic use of gymnastic movements during school hours and in the schoolrooms. I submit that the American people ought to learn from the experience of European nations in this respect. It has been conclusively demonstrated that brief intervals for gymnastic exercises throughout the public schools of Scandinavia and Germany do keep the children in good condition, and do enable them to sustain without injury a greater amount of mental work than I have just suggested for American children. Thirdly, the stress or strain upon children can be much diminished by making the work interesting to them, instead of dull, as much of it now is. It is extraordinary how fatigue is prevented or diminished by mental interest. As I have lately read the readers used in my sample grammar school, worked its sums, and read its geography and its book on manners, it has seemed to me that the main characteristic of the instruction, as developed through those books, - unless lightened by the personality of the teacher, - is dullness, a complete lack of human interest, and a consequent lack in the child of the sense of increasing power. Nothing is so fatiguing as dull, hopeless effort, with the feeling that, do one's best, one cannot succeed. That is the condition of too many children in American schools - not the condition for half an hour, but the chronic condition day after day and month after month. Make the work interesting, and give the children the sense of success, and the stress which is now felt by them will be greatly diminished. - Charles William Eliot, "An Average Massachusetts Grammar School," in "Educational Reform," pages 183-185.

578. (1) Profiting by whatever suggestions you can get from the preceding paragraph and plan, write on a subject of your own choosing. (2) After your writing is done, put at the end of it what you consider the main thought.

579. Make an outline of the character of (1) a book hero of yours; (2) an acquaintance.

580. Does the following plan seem clear, orderly, and likely to serve its purpose?

Making A Fly Rod

I. Principal requirements.

1. Lightness.

2. Strength and pliability. II. Main construction.

1. Kind of wood.

2. Number of pieces to a section.

3. Shape and method of fastening together. HI. Mounting.

IV. Winding.

1. Uses of winding.

a. Strength.

b. Ornamentation.

2. Method of fastening. V. Finishing.

581. (1) Write out the main divisions of a plan of one of the following subjects: croquet, diabolb, tennis, checkers, hockey, basketball, chess, or some other game, (2) Insert subdivisions in your plan. (3) Write the theme. (4) See that theme and plan agree.