A MANUAL OF CORRESPONDENCE, SHOWING THE CORRECT STRUCTURE, COMPOSITION, PUNC OF THE VARIOUS KINDS 10:2 OF 1982 LETTERS, NOTES, AND CARDS. BY J. WILLIS WESTLAKE, A. M., PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE STATE NORMAL PHILADELPHIA: CHRISTOPHER SOWER COMPANY, No. 614 ARCH STREET. PREFACE. N EARLY all the writing of most persons is in the form of letters; and yet in many of our schools this kind of composition is almost entirely neglected. This neglect is probably due in some measure to the fact that heretofore there has been no complete and systematic treatise on the subject of letter-writing. When it is considered, that in the art of correspondence there is much that is conventional, requiring a knowledge of social customs, which, if not early taught, is obtained only after many years of observation and experience; and that the possession or want of this knowledge does much to determine a person's standing in cultured society,—the value of this art, and of a thorough text-book by which it may be taught, will be duly appreciated. For many years the author, in common with many other teachers, has felt the need of such a work, in the instruction of his own classes, and it is to this want that the present treatise cwes its origin. In plan the work is broad and comprehensive, embracing as it does the whole field of letters-their classification, structure, rhetoric, and literature-as well as the forms and uses of the various kinds of notes and cards. It is designed, both in matter and in method, to meet the wants, not only of |