SPECIMENS OF ARGUMENTATION MODERN COMPILED BY GEORGE P. BAKER Instructor in English in Harvard University and NEW YORK PREFACE. THIS little book has been compiled to meet two needs that have arisen in the editor's experience with classes in Argumentative Composition at Harvard University and Wellesley College. The first need is for a small, inexpensive collection of specimens of argumentation, edited especially for classes in Argumentative Composition. Constantly students have asked: "Where can we find the speeches from which the illustrations in the lectures are drawn, and other arguments that illustrate the suggestions and the rules that have been given us?" The difficulty in referring such students to the existing collections of speeches and arguments has been of several kinds. To become really familiar with the necessary illustrations, with the speeches chosen, a student must own the book containing them, but the large collections are too expensive for most students. The smaller and cheaper books almost surely lack one of the speeches most desired by the instructor. To ask a student to read one illustration here, another there, is to put the speeches as a set beyond his purse, or if he is to look up all in some library, to make too great a demand on his time. Moreover, nearly all of the collections contain many specimens iii 209475 |