Elementary Composition · Part 11

3. Write a note to a friend of your father's, asking him in your father's name to join a fishing party; a whist club; a hunting expedition; to be one of a theater party.

4. Write a note to a friend, boy or girl, asking him or her to go to the theater with you, to come and spend the day with you, to come to a party you are giving, to attend some athletic contest with you, to go for a day's tramp with a party of friends, to play at a concert, to take part in a debate or entertainment, to lend you a book, to give you the address of a friend, to join with you in forming a club among your friends.

5. Write a note to a friend, thanking him for having helped you in an entertainment, for having lent you a book, for having done a service to a friend, for any favor shown you.

6. Write a note to your teacher, explaining your absence from school, asking her to send word to you about the lessons done in your absence; asking her to excuse you early from school, giving some specific reason; asking her for the date of the first day of school following a vacation; asking if you may be a few days late in returning to school; asking her to be present at a meeting of one of your societies; inviting her to your house for dinner.

7. Write a note to the principal of your school, asking him to be present at an entertainment given by your grade, at a spelling match, at a debate, or any special event in your class room; asking him to excuse you from drawing, on account of weak eyes, or from any other study, giving reasons; asking him to give you a letter of introduction to the principal of the new school to which you are about to go; asking him to be a judge in some contest in your class room; thanking him for having acted as judge.

48. Formal Invitations.--These are written and answered according to certain fixed forms and in the third person.

Mr. and Mrs. Henry Miller request the pleasure of Mr. Albert Knight's company at dinner on Wednesday evening, the tenth of March, at half past seven o'clock.

221 West Long Street, Friday morning.

Mr. Albert Knight accepts with pleasure Mr. and Mrs. Miller's kind invitation to dinner on Wednesday evening at half past seven o'clock.

44 Park Place, Saturday morning.

Mrs. William Morris Miss Morris At Home On Wednesday, March tenth, from four until six o'clock. 23 Grant Avenue.

Extremely formal invitations, especially to public and semi-public functions, are often impersonal in form, as in the following:--

The Annual Concert of the Elementary Schools of St. Joseph, Michigan, will be held in the Assembly Room of the High School, Tuesday evening, May twentieth, at eight o'clock. You are cordially invited to be present.

The President and Members of the School Board request the honor of your company at the formal dedication of the New High School, on Wednesday, November third, at half past three o'clock.

Exercise 80.--I. Study these forms and copy them accurately on note paper. Write a formal invitation from Captain and Mrs. Arthur Elliott to Mrs. Alice Johnson for dinner; from Mrs. Henry White to Mr. and Miss Kellogg for an evening at home. Write acceptance and regret for each.

II. 1. Prepare a card for a semi-public reception given by your school, by your church, by a club or society.

2. Prepare a card for a school concert, exhibition of school work, exhibition of work in Physical Culture; for a play given by the school Dramatic Society; for a May Festival given by the Eighth Grade; for the laying of a corner stone of a new schoolhouse, of a church, of a public building of any kind.

49. Telegrams.--In a telegram clearness is the first quality to be sought. Because of the cost of sending, the telegram is usually limited to ten words, excluding the address and signature, and this brevity renders it difficult to state all that you wish clearly, and makes it an exercise in ingenuity to condense the information you wish to give without making it hard to understand.

For instance, you wish your brother, who is visiting in another town, to meet you at a certain train on Monday and spend the day hunting with you, if the weather is good. You would word your telegram in some such way as this:--

September 9, 1906.

MR. PETER WHITING, DANFIELD, MD.

Meet me eight thirty, ready for hunting, if weather favorable.

JOHN WHITING.

Although you have used incomplete sentences, you have said enough so that your brother will understand what you mean.

Exercise 81.--Condense as much as possible and write as telegrams, thinking before you write what are the essential parts of the message, and leaving out all else:--

1. Mother has gone to spend the day with Aunt Mary, and wishes you to call there for her in the evening and bring her home.

2. Before you come home, be sure to call on the lady who is to be teacher of the seventh grade here next year. She lives on Horning Street.

3. We are all to be away from home on a picnic the day you speak of coming to see us. We should like to have you join us.

4. There is to be a very interesting entertainment here the day I was to go home. May I stay over another day to see it?

5. The river is too swollen for the canoe trip we planned for Saturday. Bring your tools along when you come, and we will try to make a raft.

6. Henry has just passed his examinations for Dartmouth College. He will stop in Farmington to see you, on his way home, Tuesday.

7. Can your basket-ball team put off the match we were to play on Monday until Wednesday? The field we hoped to have is engaged for Monday.

8. Will your debating society be willing to meet ours, on the 27th of this month, in our class room?

9. We have just heard of the burning of your schoolhouse and wish to extend our sympathy. Will you telegraph us if there is anything we can do to help you?

10. The hour of the train on which we were to leave has been changed, and we shall not reach home until six o'clock.

11. On unpacking my trunk I cannot find my volume of Tennyson's poems. Did you put it in the trunk or was it left behind?

12. I have spilled ink on my best dress. May Aunt Jane buy a new one for me to wear at my cousin's party?

13. We cannot find the key to the back door. If you took it with you by mistake, please return it to father's business address.

14. Will the seventh grade of your school join ours in a nature-study excursion to the river next Saturday?

15. Your mother is away from home on her birthday. Send her an appropriate telegram of congratulation and greeting.

16. You are to pass through the town where a friend lives and will have a half hour wait at the station. Telegraph him, asking him to come there to see you.

50. Business Letters.--In a business letter the five main parts are very full and complete. The heading contains, as in other letters, the post office address of the writer and the date. Above the salutation is written the full name and address of the person to whom the letter is sent. There are slightly varied forms for the salutation:--

Dear Sir; My dear Sir; Dear Sirs; Dear Madam; Dear Mesdames; Sir; Gentlemen; Madam; Mesdames.

The complimentary ending is usually one of the following:--

Truly yours; Very truly yours; Faithfully yours; Respectfully yours.

Sometimes, in letters slightly more formal, these endings are written thus:--

I am, Very truly yours, ANDREW D. JORDAN.

I remain, Respectfully yours, ANDREW D. JORDAN.

Under the signature of the writer is frequently put his title; and if a clerk has written the signature, per followed by his initials is placed below.

Very truly yours, ANDREW D. JORDAN, Secretary.

Truly yours, MATTHEW BENNETT, per D. C.

The following is a correct and usual form for a business letter:--

501 SOUTH LINCOLN STREET, CLEVELAND, O. September 20, 1906.

MESSRS. CHARLES WRIGHT AND SONS, 42 HILTON STREET, NORWOOD, PA.

DEAR SIRS,--

Please send me the latest catalogue of your goods, and state whether you pay cost of transportation for large orders.

Very truly yours, HENRY L. PERKINS.

Exercise 82.--Study the forms given above, and write the beginning and end of each of the following letters:--

1. Mr. Henry Smith, 44 Bolton Place, Brooklyn, N. Y., writes on November 10, 1906, to Messrs. John Murray Brothers, 32 Canal Street, New York.

2. Miss Helen Reed, Principal of the Woodlawn School, Saylesville, N. J., writes on October 10, 1906, to Mr. Percy Painter, 607 West 14th Street, Trenton, N. J.

3. The Landsdowne Manufacturing Company, 241 Greenwich Place, San Francisco, writes on May 7, 1906, to the San Francisco agent of the Northern Pacific R. R., 22 Newton Street, San Francisco.

The writing of business letters should be taken up after the exercise in writing telegrams, for brevity is almost as essential in the one as in the other. There is, of course, no need to write incomplete sentences as in the telegram, but the same general process should be followed; that is, to see what are the really important points you wish to state, to express these with unmistakable clearness, and to say no more.

It is proper to add that a person of education and cultivation is recognized at once as such by the letters he writes. Even in a matter-of-fact letter, too, you may often reveal, without realizing it, your courtesy and kindliness as well as your intelligence. We constantly judge people by their letters.

Note.--A good exercise is to have the pupils assume characters in the business world and answer each other's letters. An incomplete letter can often be detected thus, by being put to a practical test.

Do not begin to write your letter until you have made a brief outline of what you wish to say, in the order in which it should be said. For instance, you wish to apply for the position of errand boy. To write a complete letter, you need some such outline as the following, even though it be only in your head and not written down:--

Give the reason for applying for the position by stating how you have heard of the need for errand boys (through advertisement, personally, etc.); state your own qualifications for the work as simply and plainly as possible, mentioning your age, education, health, experience, recommendations, and any other facts that may bear on your capacity to give satisfaction; and when you have given these essential points, close your letter.

A letter written on such lines follows:--

55 HENLY STREET, BALTIMORE, MD. January 17, 1906.

MESSRS. JOHN HAMPTON AND SONS, 225 FULTON ST., NEW YORK.

DEAR SIRS,--

I have heard through your agent here that you are looking for boys as messengers and errand boys. My family is about to move to New York and I wish to make application for one of those positions with your firm.

I am fifteen years old, in good health, and have just graduated from the public schools in this city. For the last three summers I have acted as errand boy for the firm of Clancy Brothers here, which work I am told by your agent is similar to what you wish. I inclose letters of recommendation from the head of that firm and from the principal of my school.

Hoping to hear from you favorably, Very truly yours, PETER MILLER.

Exercise 83.--I. Write the answer to the above.

II. Write, in the same manner, letter and answer, making a short outline first in each case:--

1. A letter to a bicycle firm, asking to be given the agency for your town or locality. State why you think their bicycles would sell well, and what your qualifications for the position are.

2. Letter to a large grocery store, offering to sell them homemade preserves, nuts, maple sugar, candy, popcorn-balls, or anything you can make or gather in the country.

3. Letter to a florist, offering to supply him with autumn leaves, ferns, country flowers of any kind, moss, birchbark, etc.

4. Letter to a country newspaper, offering to write a weekly news letter.

5. Letter to a country church, offering to repeat for them an entertainment which has been successful in your own church or school

Note.--Make the letters above complete in all details, as to distance from the city or country, cost of transportation, etc.; and in the answer give full terms and conditions.

6. Letter to a livery stable, asking their price for a sleigh ride for a party of twelve.

7. Letter to the owner of an athletic field, asking his price for the use of the field every Tuesday afternoon during April and May.

8. Letter to a firm of dealers in athletic goods, asking for a reduced rate for an outfit for basket-ball, baseball, etc., and giving reasons why you think you should have a reduction.

9. To a piano manufacturer, asking lowest prices for a piano for the school and easiest methods of payment, installments, etc. Explain that the pupils are attempting to raise the money by entertainments.

10. To a bank, inclosing check and asking them to deposit it to your brother's credit, and to send acknowledgment to his address.

Exercise 84.--Write the following: 1. To a carpenter, asking price of shelf for your class room. Give all necessary information about length, width, etc.

2. To a dressmaker, asking price for making a dress. Give all particulars.

3. To a department store, asking to open an account. Give references.

4. To the Gas Company, saying that you are about to leave town for a month and wish the gas turned off the house during that time.

5. To a theater, asking what reduction will be made if a number of pupils from your school buy tickets together.

6. To a railroad, asking what reduction in price will be made for a school excursion.

7. To a grocer, milkman, butcher, making arrangements for daily delivery of goods at your house.

8. To a caterer, asking prices for a large reception.

9. To the leader of a musical organization, asking his prices for playing at a school entertainment.

10. To a person who is to speak at your school, stating exactly what the occasion is, who will form his audience, how long he is expected to speak, etc.

51. Notices.--In olden times, when any one wished to announce a meeting or give some information of common interest, he hired the town crier. This was a man who went about the town with a horn or bell, attracting as many people as possible to him, and then crying out in a loud voice the news he had to tell. The notice you put up on the blackboard in your class room, the slip of paper you post on the walls of your schoolhouse, to announce an entertainment, an examination, or a meeting of one of your clubs, is the modern town crier. The notices which you see in the newspapers, telling people the time and date of a public meeting, or announcing church services, also take the place of a town crier. There is this difference. If the crier forgot to tell the people listening to him any important detail of his news, they could at once call out and ask him; but if a notice is incomplete, there is no way for the people interested to get the information needed.

If you will study notices of various kinds, you will see that good ones, that is, notices which are brief, clear, complete, and not clumsy, are not common; and, when you try to write them, you will probably find it more difficult than you thought to be a good town crier.

A meeting for the purpose of forming a club for the study of birds will be held on Thursday afternoon at half past three, in the Seventh Grade room. Any pupils in grades higher than the Fourth, who are interested in bird study, are eligible for membership, and are cordially invited to attend the meeting.

If a sufficient number appear before four o'clock, an expedition to the Wright Woods will be made, under the leadership of the teachers of the Seventh Grade.

In studying this notice you will see that a great deal is contained in it. Place, date, hour, and purpose of the meeting are contained in the first sentence. In the next is definitely stated the condition for membership in the club, and in the last is placed an inducement to make the meeting a large one.

Another example follows:--

A Christmas entertainment will be given by the pupils of the Eighth Grade on Friday afternoon at three o'clock, in the Seventh Grade room. A short play will be presented, and the Glee Club of the school will sing twice. Admission, ten cents. It is hoped that there will be a large number present, as the proceeds go to the piano fund.

Exercise 85.--1. The Bird Club is formed, and you wish to announce a field expedition, on a Saturday, when every one is to bring his lunch. State place and time and date of meeting; probable length of the expedition; cost, if any; special equipment, such as rubbers; and what will be done in case of bad weather.

2. Write a notice for a regular meeting of the Bird Club, giving topic to be discussed.

3. You wish to announce a competition for a prize for the best story about a bird, for the best drawing of a bird, for the best plan of work for the club, for the best description of one of its excursions. State conditions of contest, time when contributions must be handed in, maximum and minimum length of article or size of drawing, what the prize is, etc.

4. Similar notice for prize competition for best Christmas story, Fourth of July article, Thanksgiving poem, etc.; for the best amateur photograph of the school, for the best drawing.

5. Write notice for the formation of a Kodak Club; of a football team; of a walking club; of a dramatic society; of a literary society; of a glee club; of a general athletic association; of a school library; of a chess club.

6. Write notices for a regular meeting of these societies.

In writing notices for an address or entertainment it is often desirable to give a little space to a brief description or characterization of the speaker, as in the following:--

Dr. William T. Harris, the former National Commissioner of Education at Washington, will speak on Education and Philosophy at the morning session on Tuesday, at half-past nine o'clock, in the large Assembly Hall. Dr. Harris is one of the most distinguished of living educators. A general discussion will follow the address.

Exercise 86.--Write a notice for an address by the President of the United States, by a senator, by one of the clergymen of your town, by the superintendent of city schools, by the mayor of your town, by any public person whom you would like to hear.