PRACTICAL RHETORIC BY JOHN DUNCAN QUACKENBOS, A.M., M.D. EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY NEW YORK.:. CINCINNATI .:. CHICAGO AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY BOOK 1896 9278,64 HARVARD COLLEGE OCT 12 1897 LIBRARY Subscrifition for d COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY. QUACK. Rhet. W. P. 3 PREFACE. Herbert SpenCER, in his " Essay on the Philosophy of Style," observes that the maxims contained in works on composition and rhetoric are presented in an unorganized form, and proceeds to systemize the scattered precepts under one leading principle, economy. But economy, while accounting for a large number of rhetorical phenomena, fails to explain many procedures. This treatise attempts an answer to the question, Is further generalization possible? by deriving all rhetorical law from that principle of beauty known as harmony, or adaptation, a principle which includes economy, as well as order, unity in variety, and proportion. It is believed that, if the learner at the outset can be made to comprehend this principle in its multitudinous lines of control, the explanation, through it, of the laws of literary diction and style, will acquire a novel and delightful simplicity. During his twenty years' experience as a teacher of English Composition in the Rhetorical Department at Columbia College, the author has always found that an understanding of reasons, of the wherefore of the rule, inspires the pupil with interest, and sharpens the receptive and the retentive faculties. What is memorized as a desultory precept is generally left in the class room for exclusive application there; but what is apprehended as the expression of a universal and necessary law is made a part of the student's daily thought and practice. When the learner comes to realize that the primal principle of harmony satisfactorily accounts for the rhetorical laws that are unfolded in the successive lessons, he is on the watch, with the opening of each new topic, for a new application of his governing principle; and thus is kept on tension his interest in the philosophical development of the subject to the very last page. Throughout the instruction that follows, it is sought to treat the pupil as an intelligent creator of literature: hence, while the subject is introduced by a discussion of the great æsthetic truths that |