earing upon this subject. You may read in a newspaper of a brilliant
speech made before the Chamber of Commerce by a leading business man,
which will serve as an illustration to support your affirmative
position; or you may attend a banquet where a prominent business man
disappoints his audience with a wretched speech. Such experiences, and
many others, bearing more or less directly upon the subject, will come
to you, and will call up the theme-subject, with which they will unite
themselves. Write down these ideas as they occur, and you will find
that when you start to compose the theme formally, it almost writes
itself, requiring for the most part only expansion and arrangement of
ideas. While thus organizing the theme you will reap even more benefits
from your early start, for, as you are composing it, you will find new
ideas crowding in upon you which you did not know you possessed, but
which had been associating themselves in your mind with this topic even
when you were unaware of the fact.

In writing themes, the principle of distribution of time may also be
profitably employed. After you have once written a theme, lay it aside
for a while--perhaps a week. Then when you take it up, read it in a
detached manner and you will note many places where it may be improved.
These benefits are to be enjoyed only when a theme is planned a long
time ahead. Hence the rule to start as early as possible.

Before leaving the subject of theme-writing, which was called up by the
discussion of unconscious memory, another suggestion will be given that
may be of service to you. When correcting a theme, employ more than one
sense avenue. Do not simply glance over it with your eye. Read it
aloud, either to yourself or, better still, to someone else. When you
do this you will be amazed to discover how different it sounds and what
a new view you secure of it. When you thus change your method of
composition, you will find a new group of ideas thronging into your
mind. In the auditory rendition of a theme you will discover faults of
syntax which escaped you in silent reading. You will note duplication
of words, split infinitives, mixed tenses, poorly balanced sentences.
Moreover, if your mind has certain peculiarities, you may find even
more advantages accruing from such a practice. The author, for example,
has a slightly different set of ideas at his disposal according to the
medium of expression employed. When writing with a pencil, one se