But the word "to read" does not always mean the same thing. The student should know that to read a narrative is one thing, to read a description is another thing, to read an exposition is yet another thing, while to read an argument is still another and much more difficult thing. Any ordinary reader can read a narrative like Uncle Tom's Cabin, but none other than a trained reader can read an argument like Burke's Speech on Conciliation; for while the former implies the simple following through of the narrative or story, the latter implies that the reader shall comprehend not only what the orator means in the rapid succession of his points, but he must comprehend also their interdependence, their interrelations, and the reason why, with respect to his particular audience, he brought forward this or that particular argument at this or that particular place. Simply to know what Burke means is to read the speech as a narrative, but not as an argument. Now, what is the value of reading the speech as an argument? The student should realize that the value of this speech to him consists in comprehending the argument of the speech for the purpose of developing his own power in the same line, and the test of this is the making of an argument on similar lines by the student himself. He can "read," he can "write," then, in an argumentative sense, when he can comprehend Burke's Speech on Conciliation as an argument, and when he can "speak" or "write" such a one in proportion to his ability. The student will realize, then, that the purpose of the study of Burke's Speech on Conciliation is to read the speech in such a manner as to develop the student's own power of argumentation. It is evident, therefore, that a student should undertake the study of this speech only when he has a developed power of reading and writing, speaking and appreciating, narrative, descriptive, and expository composition. The proper place for the study of Burke's Speech on Conciliation is in the final year of a high school whose pupils have been given the training named above. THE METHOD The purpose of the study of Burke's Speech on Conciliation-the training of the student to a certain degree of argumentative power-having been formed, we should proceed to the study of the speech in such a manner as to attain this purpose. This leads to the development of the STUDY PLAN To read this speech as an argument, the student evidently must know the circumstances which brought about the speech; or, to tabulate the matter, he must know the following things: 1. What parties was Burke attempting to conciliate? 2. What was their quarrel about? 3. Before whom did he make his speech? 4. Who and what was Edmund Burke? To develop these points: The student must understand as far as possible the details of the quarrel between England and her American colonies, or the development of the spirit of resistance in America; and he must understand the details of the attempt, on the part of the British ministries, "to make the colonies useful to the mother country." Upon examination, it will be found that the spirit of resistance did not begin in America, but that it began. in England prior to the Puritan Revolution of 1641long before the people of Massachusetts had, to any great extent, settled in America. It will also be found that there were several very different spirits of resistance in America, and that these spirits of resistance, to a point that required conciliation, were produced as a result of certain ideas that the colonists brought with them, these ideas being very different in the different colonies. A very slight knowledge of American history will call out the fact that there was one spirit of resistance in Massachusetts, another and a very different spirit in Virginia, a still different one in Maryland, another in Pennsylvania, and possibly another in New York and New Jersey. A knowledge of the causes that impelled the members of these different colonies to leave their native lands will show why the real resistance began in New England. No student can, in the true sense, read Burke's Speech on Conciliation without an accurate knowledge of the causes and the development of this spirit of resistance to British oppression that impelled Burke, in the second paragraph of his speech, to say, "Surely it is an awful subject, or there is none so on this side of the grave." The student who hurries on to the study of the speech itself without this preliminary understanding will never, in the true sense, read the speech. He must be able to realize, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, "the causes that impel us to separation." The modern reader of Burke's Speech on Conciliation may be able to realize, even more deeply than did Burke, the awfulness of this subject, on account of a better opportunity to know the tremendous destinies in store. for those colonies. The student should not, therefore, get in the usual hurry to "cover ground," but should strive patiently to lay deep and well the foundations of a clear knowledge of the quarrel between the parties whom Burke, in words of such awful significance and with the conscientious devotion of his great soul, was endeavoring to conciliate. The student should understand clearly and without prejudice both the British and American sides of the question, finding books upon the subject and reading them carefully, never forgetting that there is value in the present instance in those facts only that throw light upon the cause and development of the colonial spirit of resistance as summed up in the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson realized the necessity of this knowledge when he prefaced the counts of his terrible indictment of George the Third in these words: "To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world." The following is suggested as the steps of A PLAN FOR THE STUDY OF BURKE'S SPEECH 1. Careful formation of purpose by teacher and class. 6. The study of the Speech itself. 7. Final debates modeled on the Speech. 8. Each student's debate speech developed into a written thesis. THE NATURE OF THE QUARREL BURKE WAS TRYING TO CONCILIATE As has been said before, the subject to be traced in the history is the development of the spirit of resistance in America, and its causes through the conduct of George the Third and his ministers. It will be found necessary to trace four or five different spirits of resistance, all of which were aroused under different circumstances. New England. The people of New England brought with them an inherent disrespect for kings, and a ready willingness to resist stubbornly upon very slight provocation. The history of their spirit of resistance begins prior to the English Puritan Revolution of 1641. A very little knowledge of the previous history of the New England colonists will show why the resistance of America began in a New England colony. Virginia and the South.-The people of Virginia and of the colonies farther south were chiefly descendants or retainers of the Cavaliers, who, in the Puritan Revolution before mentioned, gave up all they possessed in defense of the king and his so-called divine right. So it was not much wonder that Patrick Henry, in his speech before the Virginia Convention, found it necessary to call attention to the tardy resistance of Virginia by saying, "Our brethren in the North are already in the field, why stand we here idle?"; or to read Washington's statement, "I abhor the idea of independence"; for the Virginia colonists had inherited not a willingness to resist the king, but a sense of duty, respect, and sacrifice for him. Besides, they were Episcopalians, who hated the Puritanism of Massachusetts, and whose ancestors had met in battle the ancestors of the New-Englanders on the bloody fields of the Puritan Revolution. So we shall find that the rise of the spirit of resistance in Virginia and the South was due to a cause very different from that in New England. Maryland.—In Maryland there was another spirit of resistance, for these people, in the early history of the colony, were mainly Roman Catholics, the ancestors of whom, in the days of Elizabeth, James the First, and the later monarchs, had been bitterly persecuted by the ancestors of both the Virginians and the New-Englanders; so they hated with a bitter hatred both the Virginian of |