Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1888 [PAGE 170]

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REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF INSTRUCTION.

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classes in history have numbered from twenty-five to forty and I have found them, in the main, ready to do good, hard work, and to do it intelligently. The classes in Greek have been small and have as a consequence lacked the enthusiasm of numbers. They have read during the past year from Homer, Xenophon, Thucydides and Sophocles. The work of my classes as a whole during the year has been fairly satisfactory. I n no cases have I found anything but the best of disposition and thorough good will.

EEPORT BY JAMES H.

BROWNLEE, A. M., PROFESSOR OF EHETORIO AND ORATORY.

LL. D., Regent, University of Illtnois: DEAR S I R : I n compliance with your request, the following report for the year closing March 1, 1888, is submitted from the department of rhetoric and oratory: Whatever a man's calling, he has need both to write and to speak well. Hence the objects which this department is endeavoring to accomplish are two, namely: first, to develop in each student of the University the ability to express his thoughts correctly and effectively with the pen) second, to develop in each the ability to convey his ideas naturally and impressively with the voice. All students are required to pursue the course that has been adopted in order to obtain, if possible, these important ends. T h e work prescribed extends throughout the four years of student life, the first two years being given to practice in English composition, the last two being devoted to training in oratory. Each of the four classes is divided, for convenience in recitation, into sections of about twenty members, and each section meets the instructor one hour a week. After this general statement of the aims, requirements, and divisions of the work of this chair, a more detailed explanation of the character and methods of the work may still be appropriate. I n furnishing this, consideration shall be given first to the course in theme-writing, or composition. The number of themes, or essays, required from a majority of the freshmen, is twelve. From those who study formal rhetoric one term of the year only eight are required. The number of essays required of the sophomores is also twelve. The classes have exercise in abstract, or precis, writing as well as practice in the various forms of composition, narration, description, exposition, argumentation, and persuasion. For some of the papers, the student chooses the subject; some times the topic is assigned him; and occasionally, its outline, or skeleton, also. The essays, after correction, are handed back to the students to be carefully rePEABODY,

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