The work is the product of my own teaching. Circumstances led
me about eight years ago to write a course of lectures for my class,
with which to replace the text-book thon in use. Later I printed
an abstract of these lectures ; and now this abstract has grown into
an entire work. I do not wish to boast, much less to anticipate
criticism; but the course has never yet failed to yield in large
measure the fruit expected of it.
From the many works on Rhetoric, acknowledged and obscure, an-
cient and modern, I have sought both light and help. I am indebted,
therefore, to all these writers : indeed, although I have in the main
sought new examples and illustrations for the rules, yet I must adopt
Dr. Austin Phelps's words ;— " I have not scrupled to use any material
which has seemed to me adapted to my purpose. I have appropri-
ated principles of which no one knows the origin ; I have employed
illustrations, some of which belong to the common stock of rhetor-
ical discussion.'* With him, too, I can excuse myself for not always
noting the sources whence I drew my material, on the ground that
even "to name them would be in part commonplace, and in part
pedantic." To one writer, however, I must make especial acknowl-
edgments. Early in my professorship. The Art of Discourse^ by
Prof. Henry N. Day, taught me the outline of a systematic Rhetoric,
and so gave my studies a direction they have never since lost.
