time you must make your thinking logical and your expression adequate distinguished if possible. Either of these tasks is sufficient to demand all your powers; together, they offer a really overwhelming problem. Stevenson, to whom style was of the greatest importance, as bone of the bone and blood of the blood of the writing, wrote to a friend, “Problems of style are (as yet) dirt under my feet; my problem is architectural, creative to get this stuff joined and moving." It was only after he had fitted his material together that he felt able to devote himself to making the beautiful prose that is so much admired. A noted Frenchman is quoted as exclaiming, when first he beheld the famous Brooklyn Bridge, "How beautiful it is!", then, "How well made it is!" and finally, after a moment's reflection, “How well planned it is!" A good piece of writing should have the same comments made; but they cannot be made, usually, without the carefully planned outline.

You face the problem, without an outline, of answering the two questions about every detail that presents itself for treatment: first, shall I include or exclude this detail; and secondly, how shall I make this detail help the general flow of my writing, and how shall I express it so that it shall contribute to the proper tone of the work? And while thus judge each small detail, you must also keep your critical faculties active to estimate your total course, whether you are cleaving your way clearly, steadily, and with sufficient directness to your goal, whether the work as a whole is answering your desires.

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Now to ask the unaided brain, unless it has had long years of training, to perform all this critical work during the actual process of expression, is nothing short of cruel- and almost sure of failure. For in any writing which enlists from you even a spark of interest the fervor of creative work, the stimulating effect of seeing the work grow under your pen, tends often to unseat the critical powers, to destroy per

spective, to make a detail seem more valuable or less valuable than it should, on the whim of the momentary interest or repulsion. Thus the logic of the writing is impaired, for details are included which should not enter, and others are excluded which ought to be welcomed, and proportions are bad. And the expression is so liable to unevenness as to be less worthy than it should be. Bad logic and uneven expression beget failure.

The outline helps to overcome these difficulties. In the first place, it is not final, can be changed at will, and makes no extraordinary demands on the powers of expression. In the second place, as regards logic, the outline shows the relation of ideas to each other and to the whole subject; you can estimate rather easily whether a detail is of sufficient value to warrant inclusion, and, if so, how much space it deserves. For in the outline you have the bare fact, succinctly expressed, which enables you to focus your attention upon the thought. But since logic is more than mere inclusion and order and spacing, and deals also with the logic of attitude, the outline is again of service. For it shows what should be the tone of the complete piece of writing, and how this tone should be modified by the individual section of the writing. Suppose that you are to write of the attitude of a politician toward party principles. If a heading in your outline reads, “He never feared to modify principles to meet inevitable conditions," the attitude which you take in writing will be radically different from that which you would assume if the heading read, "He never hesitated to warp principles to outwit unfavorable conditions." Both the logic of structure and that of attitude, then, are aided by the use of an outline. And, at any point in the actual completed writing, you can easily determine by referring to the outline, whether you are gaining the effect that you desire and what progress you have made. And in the third place, as regards expression, the outline relieves you of the

necessity of doing the constructive thinking of the subject, and enables you to apply all your powers to the actual saying of your message. Shakespeare might have written, instead of "the multitudinous seas incarnadine," "make all the ocean, that's full of fishes,1 look red" but he did not. Had he done so, where would now have been the power and the charm? Expression is of utmost value, and you can ill afford to slight it. For this reason, and especially since distinguished expression is so difficult to form, to be released from the attendant worry of constructive thinking is of the greatest help to the writer. Both logic and expression, then, are dependent on the outline: with it they are more

sure.

Instead, then, of feeling that dim dread of failure, which ever dogs the writer's steps, with a well-constructed outline you can feel comparative safety in the possession of a safe guide in case of perplexity. You will be initiated, will know the secrets of your subject, will have a "grip" with your facts and ideas, and can apply your powers to putting the intangible thoughts into tangible words.

As for being of value to the instructor, often he too can estimate more surely and easily the worth of the writing if he has the skeleton to examine. For there the structural defects are more apparent, are not concealed by the pleasant flow of words, just as the structure of a skyscraper is more apparent before the wall-tiles or bricks are laid on to conceal the girders. The instructor can therefore often point out insufficiencies in the thought, or wrong relations, which might otherwise stand as defects in the finished work.

The Form of the Outline

Shall an outline be written in words and phrases or in complete sentences? In the first place, so far as any reader except the author is concerned, complete sentences are neces

1 If this be the meaning of "multitudinous."

sary for understanding. Often they are necessary for the writer himself. In an outline of a theme explaining gas engines the isolated heading Speed means nothing definite to any one but the author, if indeed to him. A reader cannot tell from such a word whether speed is important or insignificant, or whether the author intends to give to gas engines credit for comparative excellence in this property. If, however, the heading reads, "In the important property of Speed gas engines are the equal of steam engines," the reader knows at once what is meant, whether he may agree with the statement or not. He can definitely tell from an outline of complete sentences what the course of thought is to be and what will be the tone of the theme. The reader, then, needs complete sentences. The writer, on the other hand, might seem to be sufficiently helped by mere words or phrases, since he naturally knows what he means. But does he know? The chances are that when an author puts down such a heading as Speed he has only a large general notion of what he means, without being sure of the immediate connection and application, and with perhaps no idea at all of the tone which he intends to catch. If the author will write the sentence quoted above, he will complete his thought, make it really definite, and be pretty sure to know what he is talking about, what he intends to do. Furthermore, even though he know, when he sets down a phrase, what he means by it, the chance is strong that when he arrives at the expansion of the phrase he will have forgotten some of the implications and may give the heading a cast that he did not intend. Whether he knows definitely what he means or not, the writer is more safe if he uses complete sentences, and for any other reader of the outline complete sentences are quite necessary.

Outlines are of three kinds: those that show the topic relations by division into indented headings; those that show the sequence of paragraphs by statement of the topic sen

tence; and those that combine these two forms. The primary object of the first form, which is illustrated by the first outline of "An Idyl of the Honey-Bee" which follows, is to aid in the thinking, to plot out the ground and to group the material. In this first outline a glance at the five main headings makes the plan of the essay at once apparentfirst a statement of the effect of bees upon us; then an account of a hunt; then some specific examples to drive things home; then some special directions that might be overlooked, and finally a tribute to the joy of the hunting. The benefit of this kind of outline is that the general relationships among topics are made clear, the large divisions of thought appear, and the writer can with comparative ease tell whether he has covered the subject, and whether he has chosen the best order of thought. It avoids the invertebrate flow of thought that is unaware of structure. In other words, it is of value chiefly to the thinking. It does not show which topics shall be grouped into paragraphs together, and it does not, of course, phrase the topic sentences, usually. In such an outline care should be taken to make each heading a complete sentence, and to make headings that are of the same rank fairly parallel in structure of expression unless this interferes with the tone of the heading. For example, A, B, and C under III are made similar in structure since they bear the same general relation to III.

The second type of outline, that in which a list of the topic sentences is given, and which is illustrated by the second outline of "An Idyl of the Honey-Bee" which follows, is of value, especially if used with an outline of the first type, in that it shows just how much of the thought should go into the various paragraphs, and thereby establishes the divisions of expression. Comparison of the two outlines of "An Idyl of the Honey-Bee" will show that paragraph 5 in the second outline includes all the material in the four headings, 2, a, 1', and b, under II in the first outline. Now