abject portions of society are visited by some dreams of a better condition for which they were designed. The grand doctrine, that every human being should have the means of self-culture, of progress in knowledge and virtue, of health, comfort, and happiness, of exercising the powers and affections of a man this is slowly taking its place as the highest social truth. That the world was made for all, and not for a few; that society is to care for all; that no human being shall perish but through his own fault; that the great end of government is to spread a shield over the rights of all these propositions are growing into axioms, and the spirit of them is coming forth in all the departments of life.

How beautifully Dr. Channing holds on to his theme through the entire passage. He starts by telling us what the grand idea of humanity is, and then he proceeds to expound it. The first laying down of the proposition is, that "the importance of man as man" (this is the grand idea of humanity) is becoming universal. He then amplifies the idea by stating that even the lowest specimens of humanity are awakening to a realization of it. He then develops what this idea consists of the right of all men to education, proper housing, and sufficient food, in short, the right to live as human beings-and asserts that it has become the most important of the social truths. He then enumerates what at one time were considered debatable opinions but are now recognized as undeniable facts. Notice how, while he brings in many statements, they all radiate from the one proposition that "the importance of man as man is spreading silently, but surely," and never once does he permit you to lose sight of the

theme, because he continuously has it before his mental eye. No matter what he says, "the importance of man as man" is uppermost, just as was the picture of the angel and the man, and if the student in paraphrasing this passage will keep that one point in mind, he should have no serious difficulty in presenting it in a new garb clearly to the minds of others. A carrying out of this principle will enable an extempore speaker to form his matter with perfect ease, and this is one reason why paraphrasing is beneficial to the student of public speaking. It is a valuable stepping stone that should be used by all in attempting to attain proficiency in the art of expressing thought by means of the spoken word.

Any material that comes to hand may be used for the purpose of paraphrasing provided it be properly constructed and expressed in good language. These are two important points to remember in choosing selections for paraphrasing, as students are sure to be influenced by the construction and diction of the matter they employ for this purpose.

The following extracts furnish splendid matter for paraphrasing.

EDUCATION

HORACE MANN

From her earliest history, the policy of this country has been to develop the minds of all her people, and to imbue them with the principles of duty. To do this work most effectually, she has begun with the young. If she would continue to mount higher and higher toward the summit of

prosperity, she must continue the means by which her present elevation has been gained. In doing this, she will not only exercise the noblest prerogative of government, but will coöperate with the Almighty in one of His sublimest works.

The Greek rhetorician, Longinus, quotes from the Mosaic account of the creation what he calls the sublimest passage ever uttered: "God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light!" From the centre of black immensity effulgence burst forth. Above, beneath, on every side, its radiance streamed out, silent, yet making each spot in the vast concave brighter than the line which the lightning pencils upon the midnight cloud. Darkness fled as the swift beams spread onward and outward, in an unending circumfusion of splendor. Onward and outward still they move to this day, glorifying, through wider and wider regions of space, the infinite Author from whose power and beneficence they sprang. But not only in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, did he say, "Let there be light!" Whenever a human soul is born into the world, its Creator stands over it, and again pronounces the same sublime words, "Let there be light."

Magnificent, indeed, was the material creation, when, suddenly blazing forth in mid-space, the new-born sun dispelled the darkness of the ancient night. But infinitely more magnificent is it when the human soul rays forth its subtler and swifter beams; when the light of the senses irradiates all outward things, revealing the beauty of their colors and the exquisite symmetry of their proportions and forms; when the light of reason penetrates to their invisible properties and laws, and displays all those hidden relations that make up all the sciences; when the light of conscience illuminates the moral world, separating truth from error, and virtue from vice. The light of the newly kindled sun, indeed, was glorious. It struck upon all the planets, and

waked into existence their myriad capacities of life and joy. As it rebounded from them, and showed their vast orbs all wheeling, circle beyond circle in their stupendous courses, the sons of God shouted for joy. The light sped onward, beyond Sirius, beyond the pole-star, beyond Orion and the Pleiades, and is still spreading onward into the abysses of space. But the light of the human soul flies swifter than the light of the sun, and outshines its meridian blaze. It can embrace not only the sun of our system, but all suns and galaxies of suns; ay! the soul is capable of knowing and enjoying Him who created the suns themselves; and when these starry lusters that now glorify the firmament shall wax dim, and fade away like a wasted taper, the light of the soul shall still remain, nor time, nor cloud, nor any power but its own perversity, shall ever quench its brightness. Again I would say, that whenever a human soul is born into the world, God stands over it and pronounces the same sublime fiat, "Let there be light!" and may the time soon come, when all human governments shall coöperate with the Divine government in carrying this benediction and baptism into fulfilment!

DIGGING FOR THE THOUGHT
JOHN RUSKIN

When you come to a good book, you must ask yourself, "Am I inclined to work as an Australian miner would? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order, and am I in good trim myself—and my sleeves well up to the elbows, and my breath good, and my temper?" And, keeping the figure a little longer, even at the cost of tiresomeness, for it is a thoroughly useful one, the metal you are in search of being the author's mind or meaning, his words are as the rock which you have to crush and smelt in order to get at

it. And your pickaxes are your own care, wit, and learning; your smelting-furnace is your own thoughtful soul. Do not hope to get at any good author's meaning without those tools and that fire. Often you will need sharpest, finest chiselling, and patientest fusing before you can gather one grain of the metal.

And, therefore, first of all, I tell you earnestly and authoritatively (I know I am right in this), you must get into the habit of looking intensely at words, and assuring yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable-nay, letter by letter. For, though it is only by reason of the opposition of letters in the function of signs to sounds that the study of books is called "literature", that a man versed in it is called, by the consent of nations, a man of letters, instead of a man of books or of words, you may yet connect with that accidental nomenclature this real fact that you might read all the books in the British Museum (if you could live long enough) and remain an utterly illiterate, uneducated person; but that if you read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter, that is to say, with real accuracy, you are forevermore in some measure an educated person. The entire difference between education and non-education (as regards the merely intellectual part of it) consists in this accuracy. A welleducated gentleman may not know many languages, may not be able to speak any but his own, may have read very few books; but whatever language he knows, he knows precisely; whatever word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly. Above all, he is learned in the peerage of words, knows the words of true descent and ancient blood, at a glance, from words of modern canaille; remembers all their ancestry, their intermarriages, distant relationship, and the extent to which they were admitted, and offices they held among the national noblesse of words at any time and in any country. But an uneducated person may know, by memory, many languages,