1887 copyrighted text. Author is credited with a Master of Arts, a PhD, as Ex-President of Delaware College, and as the author of several educational texts. The preface states to be a treatise on rhetoric and composition that is practical and teachable. It identifies two objectives: teaching ease, grace, fluency and correctness; enabling discernment and appreciation of literary works. Lessons are followed by copious exercises. These exercises include criticism of faulty expressions and construction of sentences, figures, etc. The section headings are: capital letters, punctuation, letter-writing, rhetoric (broken into style, sentences, paragraphing, figurative language, variety of expression, special properties of style and varieties of style), composition (broken into invention, parts of composition, prose composition, poetry, and versification), and rhetoric and literature. The Schultz Archive copy includes the preface, TOC, and pages 54 – 93, and 258 - 285. Some pages are difficult to read due to quality of the copying.
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.