5. STUDYING Compound PREDICATES AND ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS 273 2. MAKING FURTHER DISCOVERIES ABOUt Verbs and Verb PhraseS 282 3. STUDYING THE PARTS OF VERBS AND THE TENSE PHRASES. 286 4. REVIEWINg Verbs, VerB PHRASES, ANd Sentence STRUCTURE 289 1. PRACTICING PREVISION IN LIFE AND IN COMPOSITION 2. SUMMING UP WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED OF LETTER-WRITING 293 3. REVIEWING THE FACTS OF GRAMMAR LEARNED THIS YEAR APPENDIX B. EXERCISES IN ENUNCIATION AND PRONUNCIATION 302 JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH BOOK I PROBLEM I LOOKING FORWARD Every one of you boys and girls who study this page is an American citizen. Already a part of the nation's life, some day you will help to direct the forces that govern this country. Shall you be prepared? What kind of citizen are you? What are you going to be? You are beginning another year of training, probably in a school provided by the government for your benefit. Why are you here? What are you planning to accomplish this year? In a democracy - that is, in a government not only of the people and for the people but by the people — it is very important that every citizen should learn to make the best of his own powers, and especially that he should learn to think for himself and to think straight. Clear thinking is the basis not only of good composition but also of good citizenship. A wise man has said, "Not the least important of democratic duties is the duty of intelligence." Do you know what that means? Why is it more important for every citizen to be intelligent in a country like ours than in a country where a few people decide all public questions? EXERCISE 1 STUDYING A CITIZENS' CREED Think over the questions that follow, as well as those in the preceding paragraphs, and be ready to discuss them one at a time. If you wish, you may jot down on paper notes of what you think, to help you remember all your points during the class discussion. Let each speak on only one point, but be ready to supplement what others say. If you like this paragraph on citizenship, you may decide to learn it by heart not by rote, but by heart. What is the difference? Read the creed carefully to yourself, and be ready to read it aloud. What does the government do for you? What can you do for the government even now? When you reach manhood or womanhood what can you do for your country that you cannot do now? How can you best prepare to be a good citizen when you leave school? What does all this discussion have to do with your study of the English language? What does each sentence of the creed below mean to you? (What is a creed?) Tell of two or three things that would be different if everybody believed this creed and lived up to it. A CREED FOR EVERY CITIZEN I believe that my nation is what I help to make it, for it is nothing else than the body and spirit of all citizens, past, present, and to come. The strength of its great ones belongs to me, and the weakness of its little ones is mine. In the high hope of a free and equal brotherhood of men our bravest lived and died. Any meanness of mine betrays their faith, any nobleness upholds it to the world. I believe in health and work, in fellowship and joy of heart, in beauty and the free life of thought. It is for these we seek, all of us, great or small, even those who have not understood their own desires. Power is powerless, wealth is poor, unless it buy these goods. Health and work, fellowship and joy of heart, beauty and the free life of thought: he who finds them for himself and for another doubly lives; he who profanes them or withholds them from his fellow is no true citizen. We have public schools to help make more intelligent citizens, yet in our first draft for the national army it was discovered that between thirty and forty thousand men drawn were illiterate they could neither read nor write. "They could not sign their names, or read their orders posted on bulletin boards in camp, or read their manual of arms, or read their letters, or write home; they could not understand the signals, or follow the signal corps in time of battle." Of course, people who cannot read or write may have some degree of intelligence. But nowadays reading and writing are among the tools which every intelligent person must use if he wishes not only to live but also to keep growing. Why? Can you imagine our modern life, our business, our pleasures, going on if the people were all illiterate? In the Middle Ages most people, and even some of the kings, could not read or even write enough to sign their names; they left reading and writing to a few clerks or scholars. Why did they have little need of such knowledge then? In what ways have times changed? Even in the Dark Ages, however, people could talk to each other. No civilization at all could exist unless people had some means of explaining their thoughts and of getting others to cooperate with them. Indeed, it is very doubtful whether people could have thoughts - really clear and definite thoughts without words to express them. (Do the least civilized races that you know anything about have some kind of language?) Clear thinking is almost as dependent on exact words as exact words are dependent on clear thinking. We have a language capable of expressing every shade of thought with exactness, force, and beauty. All of you who have reached the seventh year of school have learned to read, to write, and to speak it well enough to serve your present everyday needs after a fashion. You can, as you say, get along." Are you satisfied? In the three, six, or ten years of training that lie ahead of you in school are you going to do the least that you must or the most that you can to gain real skill in the use of this most valuable tool, your native language? Here are two sentences that are worth remembering in this connection : "He and he only is a cultured man who uses his language with power and beauty"; "Love your language as you love your country." If you have read "The Last Class," by Alphonse Daudet, you know something of how it feels to have your language taken away from you and another put in its place. It is the story of the last class taught in French in Alsace when the Germans, in 1871, ordered that the French language be abolished in the schools and all instruction be given in German. How should you feel if something of that sort happened in America? The French as a nation care more for their language than we have cared for ours. In the French schools a boy's skill in writing and speaking his |