thus the value even of its suggestiveness is minimized. The more formal, didactic essay imposes a severer task on the writer. He must endeavor thoroughly to familiarize himself with his subject, to get a comprehensive view of it in all its bearings, so that he can treat it from the standpoint of one having authority to speak. We say this kind of essay is one of the demands of the times. The entire field of legitimate knowledge has been so immeasurably broadened that each man must limit his own investigations to a very small portion of it. But he naturally desires to know the results of others' investigations, and therefore he expects from them, in a readily accessible form, such definite information as they alone can give. The didactic essay is one of the mediums of this interchange. In most cases perhaps it aims to be exhaustive, though within its ordinary limits it can be so only broadly, not minutely. For example, this result may be reached by setting forth the most apparent divisions of a subject without entering into the subdivisions. The method of treatment presupposes a definite plan in the writer's mind. Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon this plan. It is no exaggeration to say that every such essay will be the gainer if one half of the time allotted for its preparation is devoted to the construction of the plan. This involves the gathering of materials and then the fitting them together and the building them up into a framework of thought; what remains thereafter is but a minor task for one who has any skill in composition. The plan should follow some fixed principle. This principle may be logical, historical, chronological, little matter what; only it should be rigorously adhered to. Let the plan be fully made out before there is any attempt toward writing the essay the work of composition then will consist merely in an amplification of the plan and will be found comparatively easy. The essays of Macaulay and De Quincey fall under this class. Numerous examples may be found too in the current numbers of such magazines as the North American Review, Atlantic Monthly, Popular Science Monthly, Forum, Arena. Instead of appending here any model of this kind of composition, the following plans are presented for study. The first is abstracted from an essay by Charles F. Thwing in the Educational Review for April, 1892. The first main division is of the nature of an introduction and propounds a question. The body of the essay is devoted to answering this question. In the conclusion a lesson is drawn --a way is suggested of applying to advantage the knowledge which has been arrived at. This plan may never have been written out by the writer, but it must have been pretty clearly defined in his mind. THE COLLEGE PRESIDENT. Unusual amount of notice recently attracted to this office. The college president represents at least four distinct relations : Relation to the faculty, Relation to the students, Relation to the general public. These manifold and diverse relations demand rare versatility of talent. As a help toward lightening his difficulties, let the college president's work be made as definite as possible. The following is an outline of a portion of an article by Henrietta L. Synnot in the Contemporary Review for November, 1874: LITTLE PAUPERS. Discussion limited to those children who are adopted by the State through no fault of their own; particularly to girls of the "Metropolitan District." Three classes: Orphans, Deserted, Casuals. Classes defined. Three methods of dealing with them (the methods not coincident with the classes): Boarding out, Separate schools, District schools. Results of training. Conclusions drawn from official reports. Working system of schools. Later career of girls. Appearance and health. Indifference to praise or blame. We shall have to recognize here this class of literature, though it is difficult to select from it suitable subjects for elementary exercise in composition. The scientific treatise depends for its value so almost entirely on laborious research and severe thought that it seems scarcely worth considering at all from the standpoint of composition. It must be of a length, too, even in monographs on the narrowest subjects, that makes it inconvenient as a form of writing for mere practice. And yet a little reflection will show that we have already trenched upon this field. In the section devoted to Description, Exercises XVII. and XX.-XXVII., there were included among the subjects many general terms which called more properly for scientific exposition than for description. But the intention was rather that some individual of the class should be selected, in which case the description would not meet the requisites of an exposition. For exposition demands that we shall first observe large numbers of individuals until we shall have formed a general conception from which we can be reasonably sure all particular qualities or temporary conditions have been excluded. One must have seen a great many violets, stemmed and stemless, white and yellow and blue, heart- and arrow- and palmate-leaved, before he can treat scientifically the violet family. We have treated of exposition thus far as if it had to deal only with logical definition, that is, with the discovery of all the common qualities which the general term implies. But there is another side to it. It deals also with what is called logical division, that is, the enumeration of all the individuals to which the general term may be applied. The general term is said to connote the former and to denote the latter. Thus the word man connotes two eyes, ten fingers, an upright body, a reasoning faculty, etc. It denotes, according to geographical divisions, Americans, Europeans, Africans, etc.; or, according to one ethnological division, Caucasians, Mongolians, and Ethiopians. Again, men might be divided into Christians, Jews, Mahometans, etc. Let us give a scientific exposition of the term triangle: Triangle connotes a circumscribed space, three lines, three angles. It denotes plane triangles, spherical triangles, Plane triangle connotes a circumscribed space, three straight lines, three angles. It denotes, according to one division, triangles having no two sides equal — scalene, all sides equal equilateral, two sides equal not all sides equal· isosceles. According to another division, based on the difference in angles instead of the differences in sides, it denotes triangles having one right angle-right-angled, no right angle (one obtuse angle obtuse-angled, oblique-angledno obtuse angle-acute-angled. And likewise with the denotation of spherical and curvilinear triangles. Make a similar exposition of the term quadrangle. It is evident that logical division may often be made on a number of different principles; on so great a |