ial. It is hard to picture distinctly the
value and relation of the different topics of an essay. Suppose the
subject is "The Evils of War." The first paragraph might contain a
general statement announcing the theme. Then these topics are to be
discussed:--

1. The effect on the _morale_ of a nation.
2. The suffering of friends and relatives.
3. The destruction of life.
4. The backward step in civilization.
5. The destruction of property.

The order could not be much worse. How shall a better be obtained?

Use Cards for Subdivisions.

The most helpful suggestion regarding a method of making the material
in some degree visible, capable of being grasped, is that each
subdivision be placed on a separate card, and that, as the material is
gathered, it be put upon the card containing the group to which it
belongs. By different arrangements of these cards the writer can find
most easily the order that is natural and effective. It is much like
anagrams, this ordering of matter in an essay. Take these letters,
s-l-y-w-a-r-e, and in your head try to put them together to make a
word; you will have some trouble, probably. If, however, these same
letters be put upon separate slips of paper, you may with some
arrangement get out the rather common word, lawyers. It is much the
same with topic cards in exposition; they can be moved and rearranged
in all possible ways, and at last an order distinctly better than any
other will be found.

Speaking of cards, it might be well to say that the habit of putting
down a fact or an idea bearing on a topic just as soon as it occurs to
one is invaluable for a writer. All men have good memories; some
persons have better ones than others. But there is no one who does not
forget; and each catches himself very often saying, "I knew that, but
I forgot it." It is a fact, not perhaps complimentary, that paper
tablets are surer than the tablets of memory.

An Outline.

In exposition, where the whole attention of the reader should be given
to the thought, where more than ever the mind should be freed from
every hindrance, and its whole energy directed to getting the meaning,
the greatest care should be given to making a plan. No person who has
attained distinction in prose has worked without a plan. Any piece of
literature, even the most discursive, has in it something of plan; but
in literature of the first rank the plan is easily discovered. How
clear it is in Mac