1887 printing of 1886 copyrighted text. The author is credited with an M.A. and as Professor of Rhetoric in the College of Liberal Arts, Syracuse University. Texts strives to give rhetorical a more practical character, as training has been "impractical and fruitless." Prefaces discusses the perceived failure of education in composition and textbooks' focus on a labyrinth of abstractions, such as invention, taste, deduction, simplicity, partial exposition, feeling, perfection, the sublime, the picturesque, etc. Instead, the author emphasizes imitation and observation as the natural teachers, and that rhetorical training must be largely negative (focusing on detecting errors and revision). The text includes examples of undergraduate essays for criticism and correction. The parts: the form, the style, the thought, and versification. Chapters still use common abstractions and modes of discourse. Schultz Archive copy contains preface, suggestions to teachers, TOC, and pages 240 – 299, covering chapters from part III (the thought) on selection of a subject, the outline, description, narration, exposition, and persuasion.