Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. STUDY OF THE ESSAY. The characteristic function and place of the Essay in the teaching of English literature is defined by the circumstance that, of all the forms of literature, it is the most nearly related to the study of Composition. One of the most common exercises in English Composition consists in the writing of " essays "; and while these are not usually so long as the essays studied in the literature class, their composition is similar, and should be governed by the same general principles. As a form of literature, the essay is more within the creative powers of the pupil himself, more like what he himself is able to produce; and therefore, to a greater extent than the other forms of literature, it should be considered by the teacher with reference to the possibilities of its use as a model in composition. An essay should first be read with a view to the discovery of its main theme and the author's particular point of view. A distinctive characteristic of the essay is that, in the treatment of the main theme, the writer selects such ideas or facts as are appropriate to a single point of view, and states these to the exclusion of others that may be quite as essentially connected with the subject. The art of discriminative selectionis here especially operant, fundamentally important though it is in all the forms of composition; and through this form it may be most effectively studied. In this connexion, however, it is to be noted that in the more personal, intimate kind of essay-writing digressions from the main theme are permissible, and frequently occur. For example, in Charles Lamb's essay entitled " My First Play," the first paragraph introduces the main subject, pointing out to the reader the pit entrance to old Drury, where Lamb saw his first play;...