ed to solve a
definite number of problems or to read a given number of lines, it is
not possible to compel expression of the full thought. The full
thought is made of an intellectual and an emotional element. Whatever
is intellectual may be compelled by dint of sheer purpose; whatever is
emotional must spring undriven by outside authority, and uncompelled
by inside determination. A boy saws a cord of wood because he has been
commanded by his father; but he cannot laugh or cry because directed
to do so by the same authority. There must be the conditions which
call forth smiles or tears. So there must be the conditions which call
forth the full expression of thought, both what is intellectual and
what is emotional. This means that the subject shall be one of which
the writer knows something, and in which he is interested; that the
demands in the composition shall not be made a discouragement; and
that the teacher shall be competent and enthusiastic, inspiring in
each pupil a desire to say truly and adequately the best he thinks and
feels.

These conditions cannot be realized while working with dead fragments
of language; but they are realized while constructing living wholes of
composition. It is not two decades ago when the pupil in drawing was
compelled to make straight lines until he made them all crooked. The
pupil in manual training began by drawing intersecting lines on two
sides of a board; then he drove nails into the intersections on one
side, hoping that they would hit the corresponding points on the
other. Now no single line or exercise is an end in itself; it
contributes to some whole. Under the old method the pupil did not care
or try to draw a straight line, or to drive a nail straight; but now,
in order that he may realize the idea that lies in his mind, he does
care and he does try: so lines are drawn better and nails are driven
straighter than before. In all training that combines intellect and
hand, the principle has been recognized that the best work is done
when the pupil's interest has been enlisted by making each exercise
contribute directly to the construction of some whole. Only in the
range of the spiritual are we twenty years behind time, trying to get
the best construction by compulsion. It is quite time that we
recognized that the best work in composition can be done, not while
the pupil is correcting errors in the use of language which he never
dreamed of, nor while he is writing ten similes