The first published edition of a previously circulated via microfilm and Xerox) campus classic, Kitzhaber's (English emeritus, U. of Oregon) 1953 dissertation, which identifies the murky origins of the freshman English course back in the 19th century, and traces the development of a distinctly American body of rhetorical theory--its sources, its rise, and its decline into a barren set of injunctions for linguistic etiquette (correct usage). Paper edition (unseen), $10.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This volume is the first published edition of Albert R. Kitzhaber's 1953 dissertation, a work that has become something of an underground classic through wide circulation of microfilm and multigeneration Xerox copies. Thirty-seven years after its completion, this landmark study remains the definitive work on the subject. [...] Rhetoric in American Colleges, 1850-1900 is an essential work for any student of contemporary composition who wishes to understand the history of the discipline as it now exists. --From book jacket.

Johnson argues that nineteenth-century rhetoric was primarily synthetic, derived from the combination of classical elements and eighteenth-century belletristic and epistemological approaches to theory and practice. She reveals that nineteenth-century rhetoric supported several rhetorical arts, each conceived systematically from a similar theoretical foundation.