The authors add a volume to the many texts on English composition, in the hope of meeting fairly the first great need of the high school student who is beginning to learn to compose. That need is to think in terms of good com position, — to regard the spoken or written theme as a whole, and not as a collection of separate sentences. The high school student is not yet mature, but still less is he a child, and he learns to write well and to speak well mainly by learning to think. This book seeks constantly to appeal to his intelligence; first, by giving him subjects within his grasp, and second, by having faith that his grasp means brains as well as memory. An old mistake was to give the student tasks beyond his power; a new mistake is to hold him too closely to the commonplace. The present authors try a middle course, but they have never felt themselves obliged to reach that middle course by exactly bisecting the difference between the two ex tremes. Much more stress than usual is laid upon oral composition, for the plain reason that much defective writing is due to defective speaking.