ABSTRACT
After the Civil War, however, this requirement quickly lapsed from four years to one. The new freshman composition courses deemphasized persuasive rhetoric and thus reflected a different perspective on how skilled at writing and speaking students should become. The change from classical rhetoric to a system often labeled the current/ traditional paradigm (although Robert J.Connors rightly noted in Composition Rhetoric that it is no longer current and was not based on traditional rhetorical texts) signaled a reduced public role for citizens, even the elite few with college degrees. Within a larger, industrialized nation, fewer Americans would participate in the arena of power, and, not coincidentally, the rhetoric curriculum no longer offered them the means for such participation. Although many critics have decried the lack of social relevance in the new composition courses, the course work may have been very relevant to the role business and government envisioned for college graduates: In new middle management jobs, they would contribute to the smooth workings of large organizations without causing any trouble. The necessary precursor, then, to the Progressive era and to writing’s role in it was the constriction of rhetorical power to a few as colleges trained workers to not talk back.
