This first New York edition was printed in 1867 and copyrighted in 1866. Based on lectures given by the author at the Teachers' Institutes at the invitation of the Secretary of the Board of Education of Massachusetts in 1845 and 1846. The contents include many education topics from arithmetic to geography to music to discipline. The Schultz Archive's copy includes only three chapters: the uses and abuses of memory, English grammar, and composition. The author's lecture of grammar seems to draw mostly on the work of Murrary, Crombie, Wallis, and Priestley. The composition chapter is brief and mostly covers the teaching of punctuation.
1855 printing of the 1855 copyrighted text. Part of the publisher's National School Series. No information about the author is provided. Brookfield's text seeks to create a gradual curriculum of composition that begins with the cultivation of thought as well as the expression of thought. It argues style must grow with the student, rather than be something imitated from distinguished authors. It cultivates observation, uses subjects familiar to students, and offers outlines in the form of a series of questions. Other hints and suggestions are also provided. The first lesson is on composition in general, lesson two discusses description. Following these are subjects for description, beginning with objects in division one, moving to more complex objects and scenarios in division two, and then grander scenes in division three. The Schultz Archive includes the complete text; however, there are faded areas of text that make it difficult to read.
1871 printing of 1860 copyrighted text. The author has Master of Arts and is credited as the author of other books. Boyd explains that his composition textbook is a culling together of numerous preceding texts on the topic, specifically, recent English treatises by Williams, Smart, Neil, and Harrison, and the standard works of Blair, Campbell, and Jamieson. He has also consulted the grammars of Clark, Murray, Fowler, Bullions, Goold Brown, Spencer, Greene, Butler, Tower, Bailey, Covell, and Mulligan. He also credits Welche's Analysis of the English Sentence, Tower's Grammar of Composition, Quakenbos's First Lessons And Advanced Course, and Parker's Aids. He claims that his wealth of experience as a teacher on the subject has given him a deeper understanding of what is necessary in a composition textbook. This book works its way through the most minute aspects of composition (capitalization, parts of speech, punctuation, etc.) through to larger concerns (style, hyperbole, subject matter, etc.). For each section, there are detailed lessons and examples. The Schultz Archive includes the entire text; however, there are numerous pages that are repeated or missing. Also, highlighter obscures the readability of some text.
No information on the printing or edition is given. The copyright is 1884. No information on the author is given. The book emphasizes adaptation as the fundamental law of rhetoric and the effects produced "at the time and under the circumstances." Conversation and letter writing are to be used to develop in the student rhetoric's important laws. Personal experience is seen as the basis for students learning narration and description. Illustrations are used throughout, particularly anecdotes and quotations from leading authors. The author specifically acknowledges _The Art of Extempore Speech_ by M. Bautain and _The Art of Reading_ by M. Legouve as influences. The sections are Sentence Making, Conversation, Letter-Writing, the Essay, the Oration, and Poetry. The chapter on conversation focuses on sociability, beginning with a chapter on "Good Breeding." The chapter on the essay is quite alliterative, its chapters: preparation, invention, style, purity, propriety, precision, perspictuity, power, perfection, and (most interestingly) preparation for the press. The Schultz Archive includes a large portion of the text; however, it is missing part I and pages 152-69, 256-303, and 504-end (Part V on oration and Part VI Poetry). The scans are good quality, but there is some highlighter that obscures text throughout.
1868 printing (40th edition, revised) of the 1864 copyrighted text. The author is credited as the Principal of Cortland Academy and author of three other books on grammar and the English language. Rather than begin with the usual brief section on orthography, the text's first part touches on words, phrases and sentences. Part two is etymology, part three is syntax, and part four is prosody. The author uses circular charts to aid students with learning grammar. Sentences are diagrammed to separate their elements. Examples, exercises and review questions are implemented throughout. There are many exercises in analysis. The Schultz Archive's copy only includes the first 67 pages of the text, which runs through all of part one and ends on the first page of part two.