Three kinds of Précis: (1) the Register, Docket, and Index; (2) General Précis ; (3) Special Précis, with il- Instructions for writing Précis of series of letters- III. PRÉCIS OF A MORE ADVANCED CHARACTER. Distinction between foregoing and following exer- cises-The latter require more thought, power of arrangement, and skill in expression-Importance of PART III. PRECIS-WRITING AS AN INTELLECTUAL EXERCISE. Distinction between practical and intellectual Précis Importance of being sure of main facts of events— Difficulties of understanding books-Bad habits of reading-Précis-writing a test of understanding- Deceptions of style-Bad styles-Involved style- Verbose style-Clear style-Poetry-Importance of correcting first impressions by reason-Committal to memory not such a safeguard as Précis-writing- THE word précis has no exact equivalent in the English language. Abstract and digest come, perhaps, nearest to it, but there is nothing that expresses that combination of catalogue and abstract of correspondence known in Government Offices as a précis except the word itself. The following is a very simple example of a précis. We will suppose that Sir Walter Ellicot has privately asked the Secretary of the Board of Sealing Wax why he has had no answer to his letter recommending his butler as Extra Messenger to the Department, and the Secretary, who is absent from the office, asks for a précis of the correspondence to be sent to him in the country. His private secretary would possibly send him something like this :Recommends John Thompson, his butler, very strongly for the appointment as Board of Sealing Extra Messenger, which he hears is about Feb. 4, 1872. to be made, and encloses three testi Sir Walter Ellicot to Wax. monials. B Treasury to Board of Sealing Do not think that the Board have shown that necessity exists for an Extra Mesand decline to sanction the ap senger, This précis would enable the Secretary to reply to Sir Walter Ellicot without referring to the papers themselves. In the office of this imaginary Board there would probably exist a still shorter précis of the same letters; for in a Government Office there is no letter, however trivial, to which it may not be necessary to make reference at some time or other, and therefore a Register is kept of every letter which is received, with a very short abstract, or précis, of the contents. These letters would probably be entered in the Office Register in some such way as this : It will be seen that the record, or précis, in the Register is even shorter than the précis supposed to be sent to the Secretary, and the reason of this is that the former is required only as a means of reference to the original papers, and not to supply the place of them, as is the case with the latter. We will now suppose that, in consequence of further representations from the Board of Sealing Wax, the Treasury at length consent to the appointment of the |