How to live?—­that is the essential question for us.  Not how to live in the mere material sense only, but in the widest sense.  The general problem, which comprehends every special problem, is the right ruling of conduct in all directions under all circumstances.  In what way to treat the body; in what way to treat the mind; in what way to manage our affairs; in what way to bring up a family; in what way to behave as a citizen; in what way to utilize all those sources of happiness which nature supplies—­how to use all our faculties to the greatest advantage of ourselves and others—­how to live completely?  And this being the great thing needful for us to learn, is, by consequence, the great thing which education has to teach.  To prepare us for complete living is the function which education has to discharge:  and the only radical mode of judging of any educational course, is, to judge in what degree it discharges such functions.

—­Herbert Spencer:  Education.

The gray squirrel is remarkably graceful in all his movements.  It seems as though some subtle curve was always produced by the line of the back and tail at every light bound of the athletic little creature.  He never moves abruptly or jerks himself impatiently, as the red squirrel is continually doing.  On the contrary, all his movements are measured and deliberate, but swift and sure.  He never makes a bungling leap, and his course is marked by a number of sinuous curves almost equal to those of a snake.  He is here one minute, and the next he has slipped away almost beyond the ability of our eyes to follow.

—­F.  Schuyler Matthews:  American Nut Gatherers.

+Theme XCI.+—­Write a paragraph explaining one of the propositions below by means of repetition.

1.  Physical training should be made compulsory in the high school.

2.  Some people who seem to be selfish are not really so.

3.  The dangers of athletic contests are overestimated.

4.  The Monroe Doctrine is a warning to European powers to keep their hands off territory in North and South America.

5.  By the “treadmill of life” we mean the daily routine of duties.

6.  The thirst for novelty is one of the most powerful incentives that take a man to distant countries.

7.  There are unquestionably increasing opportunities for an honorable and useful career in the civil service of the United States.

(Have you used any method besides that of repetition?  Does your paragraph really explain the proposition?)

+165.  Exposition by Use of Examples.+—­Exposition treats of general subjects, and the topic statement of a paragraph is, therefore, a general statement.  In order to understand what such a general statement means, the reader may need to think of a concrete case.  The writer may develop his paragraph by furnishing concrete cases. (See Section 44.) In many cases no further explanation is necessary.