Chapter IV: Part 4

"It is like the fire from the stars," I said. "Of course nobody ever saw an angel to know how he would look, but to show how strong and powerful an angel might be, a good many men that make pictures have painted them like knights."

"But men that had spears wouldn't cry; I shouldn't think angels would."

"Even the strongest men cry sometimes, my boy; only it has to be something tremendous to make them. A thing that would make the angels 'water heaven with their tears' must be something so terrible that you couldn't tell how sad it was."

"Well, anyway, I'd rather be a tiger than a lamb," he proclaimed rather unexpectedly.

"Very likely," I assented, "but I think you'd rather have a lamb come after Baby Lou than a tiger."

"Oh, I wouldn't want a tiger to get Baby Lou!" he cried with a tremor.

"I suppose that is the way the angels might feel at the idea of the tiger's killing anybody," I rejoined.

With a lad somewhat older one would have gone on to develop the thought that to the watching angels the tiger, leaping out fierce and bloodthirsty from the hand of the Creator, would be like the incarnation of evil, and that in their weeping was represented all the sorrowful problem of the existence of evil in the Universe; but this on the present occasion I did not touch upon.

"So the angels," I went on, "couldn't keep back their tears; but what did God do?"

"Why, He smiled!" the boy answered, evidently with astonishment at the thought which now for the first time came home to him. "I shouldn't think He'd have smiled."

"When you were so disappointed the other day because the carriage was broken and you couldn't go over to the lake in it, do you remember that Uncle Jo laughed?"

"Oh, he knew we could go in his automobile."

"He knew."

"Yes, he knew," began the boy, "and so—" He stopped, and looked at me with a sudden soberness. "What did God know?" he asked seriously.

"He must have known that somehow everything was right, don't you think? He knew why He had made the tiger, just as He knew why He had made the lamb, and so He could see that everything would be as it should be in the end."

"But—but—"

The boy was speechless in face of the eternal problem, as so many greater and wiser have been before him. It seemed to me that we had done quite enough for once, so I broke off the talk with a suggestion that we try the boy's favorite game. That was the end of the matter for the time, but in the library of the lad's father the copy of Blake is so befingered at the page on which "The Tiger" is printed that it is evident that the boy, with the soiled fingers of his age, has turned it often. How much he made out of the talk I cannot pretend to say, but at least he came to love the poem.

I said at the start that I do not give the conversation, which is actual, as a sample, but as an illustration. The poem called for more leading on of the pupil than would many, for as Blake is one of the most imaginative of English writers, his conceptions are the more subtle and profound. A class, moreover, cannot be treated always with the same deliberation as that which is natural in the case of a single child; but the essential principle, I believe, is the same everywhere.

IX

EDUCATIONAL

Educational in the broadest sense must anything be which is inspirational; for to interest the child in literature, to make him enter into it as into a charming heritage, is more truly to educate him than would be any pedantic or formal instruction whatever. I have used the term specifically, however, as a convenient word by which to designate that form of instruction which is more deliberately and formally an effort to make clear what literature may be held to teach. To regard any work of art as directly and didactically teaching anything is perhaps to fail in so far to treat it as art; but the point which such a consideration raises is too deep for our present inquiry, and may be disregarded except in the case of unintelligent attempts to make every tale or poem embody and convey a set moral. To endeavor to aid pupils to perceive fully the relation of what they read to themselves and to the society in which they live is part of the legitimate work of the teacher of literature. In a word, while the term is perhaps not the best, I have used the word educational to designate such study as is directed to helping the student to gain from books a wider knowledge of life and human nature.

It is not my idea that in actual practice a formal division is to be made, and still less that what I have called inspirational consideration of literature is ever to be discontinued. In the growth of a child's mind comes naturally a simple and unreflecting pleasure in literature, beginning, as has been said, with unsophisticated delight in the marked rhythms of Mother Goose or in the wholesome joy of the fairy-story. To this is gradually added an equally unreflecting absorption of certain ideas concerning life, which by slow degrees gives place to reflection conscious and deliberate. The delight and the unconscious yielding to the influence of the work of art remain, and to the end they are more effective than any deliberate and conscious ideas can be. Nothing that we teach our pupils about a poem can compare in influence with what they absorb without realizing what they are doing. One of the great dangers of this whole matter is that we shall hurry them from an instinctive to a cultivated attitude toward literature; that we shall replace natural and healthful pleasure by laborious and conscientious study. In dealing with any piece of real literature the wise method, it seems to me, is to take it up first for the absolute, straightforward emotional enjoyment.[110:1] It is of very little use to study any work which the children have not first come to care for. After they see why a piece is worth while from the point of view of pleasure, then study may go further and consider what is the core of the work intellectually and emotionally.

In speaking of treating literature educationally I do not refer to that sort of instruction which so generally and unfortunately takes the place of the true study of masterpieces. The history of a poem or a drama, the biography of authors, and all work of this sort should in any case be kept subordinate and should generally, I believe, come after the student has at least a tolerable idea and a fair appreciation of the writings themselves. What is important and what I mean by the educational treatment of literature is the development of those general truths concerning human nature and human feeling which form the tangible thought of a play or poem. The line of distinction between this and the less tangible ideas which are conveyed by form, by melody, by suggestion,—the ideas, in short, which are the secret of the inspirational effect of a work,—cannot be sharply drawn. Many of the tangible ideas will have been obvious in the reading of which the recognized purpose has been mere delight and inspiration; and on the other hand the two classes of ideas are so closely interwoven that it is not possible, even were it advisable, to separate them entirely. It is possible, however, after the pupil has come to take pleasure in a work,—though it should never be attempted sooner,—to go on to the deliberate study of the intellectual content, and to take up broad and general truths.

One way of preparing a class for the work which is now to be done is to speak to them of literature as a sort of high kind of algebra; to let them see, that is, how the distinction between the great mass of reading-matter and what is fairly to be called literature is not unlike the difference with which they are familiar in mathematics between arithmetic and the higher grade of work which comes after. The newspaper, the text-book, the history, the scientific treatise all deal with the concrete, just as arithmetic has to do with absolute quantities. In the mental development of the pupil the time comes when he is considered sufficiently advanced to go on from the handling of concrete things to the dealing with the abstract. When he is able to understand the relation between the sum paid for one bushel of wheat and the amount needed to purchase fifty, he may be advanced to the lore of general formulæ, and be made to understand how _x_ may represent any price and _y_ any number of bushels. In the same way from reading in a newspaper the story of the assassination of the late King of Servia, the concrete case, he may go on to read "Macbeth," wherein Duncan represents any monarch of given character, and Macbeth not a particular, actual, concrete assassin, but a murderer of a sort, a type, the general or abstract character. The student has gone on from the particular to the general; from the concrete to the abstract; from the arithmetic of human nature to its algebra.

A similar comparison between history and poetry is on the same grounds easily to be made between the history lesson and the chronicle plays of Shakespeare. The student who in his nursery days started out with the instinctive question in regard to the fairy-tale: "Is it true?" begins to perceive the difference between literal and essential truth. He perceives that verity in literature is not simple and obvious fidelity to the specific fact or event; he learns to appreciate that the truth of art, like the truth of algebra, lies in its accuracy in representing truth in the abstract: he comes to appreciate the narrowness of the nursery question, which asked only for the literal fact, and he begins to comprehend something of the symbolic.

An excellent illustration for practical use is a poem like "How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix." Any live, wholesome boy is sure to tingle with the swing and fervor of the verse, the sense of the open air, the excitement, the doubt, the hope, the joyful climax. It is easy to lead the class on to consider how exhilarating such an experience would be, and to go on from this to point out that the poem does not describe a literal, actual occurrence; but that it is a generalized expression of the zest and exhilaration of a superb, all but impossible ride, with the added excitement of being responsible for the freedom or even the lives of the folk of a whole city.

The first feeling of the class on learning that such a ride was not taken is sure to be one of disappointment. It is better to meet this frankly, and to compensate for it by arousing interest in the embodiment of abstract feeling. One great source of the lack of interest in literature at the present time is that the material, practical character of the age makes it difficult for the general reader to respect anything but the concrete fact. Literature is apt to present itself to the hard-headed young fellow of the public school as a lot of make-believe stuff, and therefore at best a matter of rather frivolous amusement. The surest way of correcting this common attitude of mind is to nourish the appreciation of what fact in art really means; to cultivate a clear perception of how a poem or a tale may be the truest thing in the world, although dealing with imaginary personages and with incidents which never happened.[114:1]

As an illustration of the sense in which literature is a sort of algebra of human feeling somewhat more remote from the ordinary life of a child may be taken another poem of Browning's, "The Lost Leader." My experience is that most youth of the school age start out by being able to make little or nothing of this. By a little talk, however, beginning perhaps as simply as with the way in which a lad feels when a school-fellow he had faith in has failed in a crisis, has for some personal advantage gone over to the other party in a school election, or of how the class would feel if some teacher who had been with the students in some effort to obtain an extension of privilege to which the scholars felt themselves to be honestly entitled had for his own purposes swung over to the opposite side, the whole thing may be brought home. The boys may be led on to imagine what are the feelings of a youth eager for the cause of freedom and the uplifting of man, when one whom he has looked to as a leader, one in whom he has had absolute faith, deserts the rank for honors or for money. Once the young minds are on the right track it is by no means impossible to bring them to see pretty clearly that in the poem is not the question of a particular man or a particular cause; but that Browning is dealing with a universal expression of the pain that would come to any man, to any one of them, in believing that the leader who had been most trusted and revered had in reality been unworthy, and had betrayed the cause his followers believed he would gladly die to defend.

These two examples from Browning I have taken almost at random, and not because they are unusual in this respect, for this quality is the universal property of all real literature, and indeed is one of the tests by which real literature is to be identified. Any selection which it is worth while to give students at all must have this relation which I have called "algebraic," but of which the true name is imaginative; and it is certainly one of the important parts of anything which in a high sense is properly to be called "teaching" literature to make the scholars realize and appreciate this.

The next step is more difficult because far more subtle; and I confess frankly that it is all but impossible to propose methods by which formal instruction may deal with it. The aim of literature is largely the attempt to produce a mood. The prime aim of the poet is to induce in the reader a state of feeling which will lead inevitably to the reception of whatever he offers in the same mood in which he offers it. In the simplest cases no instruction is needed, for even with school-boys a ringing metre, to take a simple and obvious example, has somewhat the same effect as the dashing swing of martial music; whoever comes under its influence falls insensibly into the frame of mind in which the ideas of the verse should be received. The thoughts are accepted in the exhilarated spirit in which they were written, and the effects of the metre are as great or greater than the influence of the literal meaning. It is a commonplace to call attention to the part which the melody of poetry or the rhythm of prose plays in the effect, but how to aid pupils to a responsiveness to this language of form is not the least of the problems of the teacher.

The means by which an author establishes or communicates his mood do not always appeal to the young. Indeed, beyond a certain limited extent they appeal to most adults only after careful cultivation in the understanding of art-language. It is as idle to suppose that literature appeals to everybody and without æsthetic education as it is to suppose that sculpture or music will surely meet with a response everywhere. Nobody expects Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony" or Bach's "Passion Music" to arouse enthusiasm in accidentally assorted school-children, yet to all the pupils in a mixed public school are offered the parallel works of Shakespeare and Milton. Unless a class is made up of boys or girls with unusual aptitude or wisely and carefully trained to responsiveness to metrical effect, it seems hardly less idle to offer them "Comus" or "Lycidas" than it would be to expect them to enjoy a classic concert. The language of form in the higher range of literature is to them an unknown tongue.

Children are likely to be susceptible to marked metrical effects, as witness their love of "Mother Goose;" but to the more delicate music of verse they are often largely or completely insensitive. A musical ear is not, it is probable, to be created, but it is certainly possible to develop the metrical sense. Children who are born with good native responsiveness to rhythm often are so badly trained or so neglected as to seem to have none, and it is part of the office of instruction to call out whatever powers lie in them latent. This is largely accomplished by the sort of use of literature which I have called "inspirational." In the ideal home-training children are so taken on from the rhymes of the nursery to more advanced literature that development of the rhythmical sense is continuous and inevitable; but one of the things which every school-teacher knows best is that this sort of home-training is rare and the work must be done in the class. The substitute is a poor one, but it has at least some degree of the universal human responsiveness to rhythm to appeal to.

Another difficulty is that children have to learn the verbal language of literature. Much of the atmosphere of a poem, for instance, is likely to be produced by suggestion, by the mention of legend or tale or hero, when the reader must find in previous knowledge and association a key to what is intended. All this is likely to be largely or entirely lost on children; and yet this is often the very quintessence of what the author tries to convey. Children are constantly at the same disadvantage in understanding literature that they are in comprehending life. They have not gathered the associations or experienced the emotions which make so large a part of the language of great writers. All this renders it difficult for the instructor to be sure that his class has any inkling even of the mood in which a piece is intended; yet he must first of all be sure that as far as is possible he has put them, each pupil according to his character and acquirements, in touch with the spirit of the work to be studied.

This cannot be done entirely. We cannot hope that a lad of a dozen years will enter into all the emotions, all the passions of the great poets. He may, however, be absorbingly interested and thrilled by "Macbeth," or the "Tempest," or the "Merchant of Venice." He does not get from these plays all that his elders might get, any more than he would perceive the full meaning and passion of a tremendous situation in real life; but he does get some portion of the message, some perception of the deeps and heights of human nature. Even if he find no more than simple, unreasoning enjoyment, he is gaining unconsciously, and he is obviously nourishing a love for good literature.

The question of what is thoroughness in school study of literature is of much importance, and it is of no less difficulty. Certainly it is not merely the mastery of technical obscurities of language, the solving of philological puzzles, or the careful examination of historical facts. Thoroughness in these things, as has already been said, may be exactness in learning about literature, but not in the study of literature itself. Consideration of the average acquirements of pupils in secondary schools makes it fairly evident, it seems to me, that the study of technique in any of its phases cannot in these classes be carried very far without the danger of its degenerating into the most lifeless formalism; and perhaps in nothing else is the tact and judgment of the teacher so well shown as in the decision how far it is wise to carry study along particular lines. I have never encountered a class even in my college work which I could have set to the subjects recommended in a book for teachers of literature which advises drilling the students of the high school on the relations in the plays of Shakespeare "of metre to character," whatever that may mean. Neither should I set them to distinguish, as is advised by another text-book, between "the kinds of imagination employed: (_a_) Modifying; (_b_) Reconstructive; (_c_) Poetical: creative, imperative, or associative." I could not, indeed, do much with such subjects, from the simple fact that I do not myself know what such questions mean, and still less could I answer them. Each instructor, however, must decide for himself, and with every class decide anew. No fixed standard can be established, but each case must be settled on its own merits.

FOOTNOTES:

[110:1] The vocabulary, of course, being known before the text is attempted.

[114:1] See page 221.

X

EXAMINATIONAL

Examinations are at present held to be an essential part of the machinery of education, and whether we do or do not believe this to be true, we are as teachers forced to accept them. Especially is it incumbent on teachers in the secondary schools to pay much attention to accustoming pupils to these ordeals and to preparing them to go through them unscathed. Many instructors, as has been said already, become so completely the slaves to this process that they confine their efforts to it entirely, and few are able to prevent its taking undue importance in their work and in the minds of their pupils.

The general principle should be kept in mind that no examination is of real value for itself in the training of youth, and that to study for it directly and explicitly is fatal to all the higher uses of the study of literature or of anything else. Tests of proficiency and advancement are necessary, but they should be regarded as tests, and no pains should be spared to impress upon every student the fact that beyond this office of measuring attainment they are of no value whatever.

Examinations exist, however, and nothing which can be done directly is likely to remove from the minds of sub-freshmen the notion that they study literature largely if not solely for the sake of being able to struggle successfully with the difficulties of entrance papers. The only means of combating this idea is the indirect method of making the study interesting in and for itself; of nourishing a love for great writings and fostering appreciation of masterpieces. It may be added, moreover, that this is also the surest way of securing ease and proficiency on just those lines in which it is the ambition of pedantic teachers to have their pupils excel. Classes are more effectively trained for college tests by teaching them to think, to examine for themselves, to have real responsiveness and feeling for literature, than they can possibly be by any drill along formal lines. Here as pretty generally in life the indirect is the surest.

More is done in the way of preparation for any rational examination, I believe, by training youth to recognize good literature and to realize what makes it good, than by any amount of deliberate drill of especially prescribed works or laborious following out of the lines indicated by old examination-papers. Much of this is effected by what has been spoken of as inspirational teaching, the simple training of children to have real enjoyment of the best. In the lower grades of school this is all that can be profitably attempted. Before the student leaves the secondary school, however, he should be able for himself to make in a general way an application of the principles which underlie literary distinctions. He should be able broadly to recognize the qualities which belong to the best work. He should be able from personal experience to appreciate the force of the remarks of De Quincey:

What is it that we mean by literature? Popularly, and amongst
the thoughtless, it is held to include everything that is
printed in a book. Little logic is required to disturb this
definition. The most thoughtless person is easily made aware
that in the idea of literature one essential element is some
relation to a general and common interest of man, so that what
applies only to a local or professional or merely personal
interest, even though presenting itself in the shape of a book,
will not belong to literature. . . . Men have so little
reflected on the higher functions of literature as to
find it a paradox if one should describe it as a mean or
subordinate purpose of books to give information. But this is
a paradox only in the sense which makes it honorable to be
paradoxical. . . . What do you learn from "Paradise Lost"?
Nothing at all. What do you learn from a cookery-book?
Something new, something you did not know before, in
every paragraph. But would you therefore put the wretched
cookery-book on a higher level of estimation than the divine
poem? What you owe to Milton is not any knowledge, of which a
million separate items are still but a million of advancing
steps on the same earthly level; what you owe is power, that
is, exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity of
sympathy with the infinite, where each pulse and each separate
influx is a step upward, a step ascending as upon a Jacob's
ladder from earth to mysterious altitudes above the earth.
All the steps of knowledge, from first to last, carry you
further on the same plane, but could never raise you one foot
above your ancient level of earth; whereas the very first step
in power is a flight, is an ascending movement into another
element where earth is forgotten.—"The Poetry of Pope."

If a boy or girl has any vital and personal perception of the truth which is here so eloquently set forth, this perception affords a certain criterion by which to judge whatever work comes to hand. It will also give both the inclination and the power to judge rightly, so that anything which an examination-paper may legitimately ask is in so far within the scope of ordinary thought.

I have ventured, in another chapter, to give some idea of the way in which I think such a work as "Macbeth" might be treated in the secondary school. I wish to emphasize the fact that it is an illustration and not a model. It is the way in which I should do it; but the teaching of literature, I repeat, is naught if it is not marked by the personality of the teacher. Of the results to be aimed at one need not be in doubt; concerning the methods there are and there should be as many opinions as there are sound and individual instructors. This illustration I have included because it may serve as a sort of diagram to make plain things which can only clumsily be presented otherwise, and because I hope that it may be suggestive even to teachers who differ widely from this exact method.

What is aimed at in this manner of treating the play is primarily the enjoyment of the pupil, secondarily the broadening of his mind, and thirdly the training of his powers for the examinations inevitably lying in wait for him. It may seem contradictory that I put pleasure first and yet would begin with straightforward drill on the vocabulary. Such training, however, is preparatory to the taking up of literature, I believe it necessary to the best results, and I have already said that to my mind no need exists for making this dull. Even if it be looked upon as simple drudgery, however, I should not shirk it. Children should be taught that they are to meet hard work pluckily. They cannot evade the multiplication-table without subsequent inconvenience, and the sooner they realize that this is true in principle all through life, the better for them. Their enjoyment, moreover, will be tenfold greater if they earn it by sturdy work.

It would be well, I believe, if all teachers in the secondary schools who are in the habit of concerning themselves largely with examinations and of allowing the minds of those under them to become fixed on these could realize that readers of blue-books are sure to be favorably impressed by two things: by the expression of thoughts obviously individual, and by the evidence of clear thinking. If these two qualities characterize an examination-book, the chances of its passing muster are so large that exact formal knowledge counts for little in comparison. All teachers who are intelligently in earnest try to put as little stress on examinations as is possible under existing conditions, but not all keep clearly in mind the fact that the best remedy for possible harm is the cultivation of the student's individuality.

The question of written work in preparation for entrance tests is a difficult one, and it is one which has been largely answered by the papers set by the colleges. It is natural that teachers who are entirely aware that their own reputations will largely depend upon the success of the candidates they send up should endeavor to train their classes in the especial line of writing which seems best to suit the ideas of examiners. The principle of selection is not, it seems to me, a sound one, but it is inevitable. The one thing which may be done is to make the topics selected as human and as personal as possible: to insist that the boy or girl who is writing of Lady Macbeth or Hamlet shall make the strongest effort possible to realize the character as a real being; shall as far as possible take the attitude of writing concerning some actual person about whom are known the facts set down in the play. This is less difficult than it sounds, and while it is never entirely possible for a child to realize Lady Macbeth as if she were a neighbor, most children can go much farther in this direction than is generally appreciated.

Themes retelling the plot of novel or play are seldom satisfactory. Satisfactorily to summarize the story of a work of any length requires more literary grasp than can possibly be expected in a secondary school. It is far better to set the wits of children to work to fill up gaps of time in the stories as they are originally written; to imagine what Macbeth and his wife had said to each other before he goes to the chamber of Duncan in the second act, for instance, or the talk between Silas Marner and Eppie after the visit in which Godfrey Cass disclosed himself as the girl's father. These are not easy subjects, and it is not to be expected that the grade of work produced will be high, but it is at least likely to be original and genuine.

Description is a snare into which it is easy for teacher or pupil to fall. It generally means the more or less conscious imitation of passages from the reading, or a sort of crazy-quilt of scraps in which sentences of the author are clumsily pieced together. In the highest grades good work may sometimes be obtained by asking pupils to describe the setting of a scene in a play, but this is far too difficult for most classes.

Examination of character, of situations, or of motives affords the best opportunity for written work in connection with literary study. To make literary study subordinate to the practice of composition is manifestly wrong, yet in many schools this is done in practice even if it is not justified in theory. Children should be taught to write by other means than by themes in connection with the masterpieces of literature. The old cry against using "Paradise Lost," and the soliloquies of Hamlet as exercises in parsing might well be repeated with added emphasis of the modern fashion of making Shakespeare and Milton mere adjuncts to a course in composition. The written work is, of course, to be corrected where it is faulty, but its chief purpose should never be anything outside of the better understanding and appreciation of the authors read.

In a brief, sensible pamphlet on "Methods of Teaching of Novels" May Estelle Cook remarks:

There is another point which I should like to make for the
study of character, though with some hesitation, since there
is room for great difference of opinion about it. It is this:
that the study of character leads directly to the exercise of
the moral instinct. Whether we like it or not, it is true that
the school-boy—even the boy, and much more the girl—will
raise the question, "Is it right?" and "Is it wrong?" and
that we must either answer or ignore these questions. My own
feeling about it is that this irrepressible moral instinct
was included by Providence partly for the purpose of making a
special diversion in favor of the English teacher. . . . A boy
will read scenes in "Macbeth" through a dozen times for the
sake of deciding whether Macbeth or Lady Macbeth was chiefly
responsible for the murder of Duncan, when he will read them
only once for the story; and this extra zeal is not so much
because he wants to satisfy a craving for facts, as because he
enjoys fixing praise or blame. . . . My experience with the Sir
Roger de Coverley papers has been that the class failed to get
any imaginative grasp of them until I frankly appealed to the
moral instinct by asking, "What did Addison mean to teach in
this paper?" "Did the Eighteenth Century need that lesson?" and
"Do we still need it?" By that process the class have finally
reached a grasp of Sir Roger which has given them fortitude to
write a theme on "Sir Roger at an Afternoon Tea."

My own definition of imagination is evidently not that of the writer, and I am not able to agree that this appeal to the moral instinct develops anything other than an intellectual understanding; but that point is unimportant here. The thing which is to be noted is that on the moral side children may be able to think intelligently and individually in regard to the characters and the situations of the plays and the novels read. The teacher, in choosing such subjects for written work, must, of course, be careful to avoid topics which have already been considered in the book itself. In a novel by George Eliot, for instance, all possible moral issues are likely to be so discussed and rediscussed by the novelist as to leave little room for the thought of the reader to exercise itself independently; but in all the plays of Shakespeare, and in the fiction of most of the masters, the opportunities are ample.

The supreme test of any subject which is to be given to students in their written work is whether it is one upon which it is reasonable to suppose they can and will have thought which is individual and therefore original. If it were necessary to make nice distinctions between that which is and that which is not legitimately part of the study of literature as an art, one must go much further than this. The writing of themes, however, is part of the examinational side of the work; the main thing is to be sure that it is not dwelt upon more than is necessary, and that it is within the range of the personal experience of the student. If teachers feel compelled to set their classes to write formal and lifeless themes on pedantic topics such as too often appear in examination-papers, they will do well to keep in mind that this is not the study of literature, but a stultifying process which lessens the power of appreciation and replaces intelligent comprehension by mechanical imitation.

* * * * *

In connection with the subject of this chapter I may mention a device which may not be without practical value in secondary-school examinations. It affords a means of discovering how well the student is succeeding in grasping general principles and in making actual application of them; while at the same time it should impress upon him the fact that he is not studying merely a series of required readings, but the nature and qualities of literature.

On an examination-paper in second-year English at the Institute of Technology was put this test:

It is assumed that the student has never read the following
extract. State what seem its excellent points (_a_) of
workmanship; (_b_) of thought; (_c_) of imagination.

To this was added a brief extract from some standard author.

The opening statement was made in order that the class should understand the selection to be not from any required reading, but from some work presumably entirely unfamiliar. The points of excellence only were asked for in order to fix attention on merits; and indirectly to strengthen, so far as might be, the perception of the importance of looking in literature for merits rather than for defects. It is undoubtedly proper that scholars should be able to perceive defects, but this power is best trained by educating them to be sensitive and responsive to excellencies.[131:1]

The necessities of time made it impossible to put upon the papers of which I am speaking extracts of much length, and the class were told that not much was expected in comment upon the thought expressed. The purpose of the question, that of seeing how intelligently they were able to apply such principles as they had learned, was also frankly put. They were warned against generalities and statements unsupported. Then they were left to their own devices. The results were all suggestive, and of course were of widely varying degrees of merit. A few samples may be given, chosen, I confess, from those more interesting. On one paper were the opening lines of the second book of "Paradise Lost."

High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous east with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat.

Among the comments were these:

Of the workmanship of this selection we may say that it is
good. The selection of words is especially forcible. "Gorgeous
east" and "richest hand" are extremely so. But what I consider
a fine use of a word is the word "barbaric." Here we can see
the early inhabitants of the uncivilized rich countries of the
east; the inhabitants ignorant of the value of their wealth,
throwing it around as we would the pebbles on a beach. The
thought and the imagination are good. We can see before us the
vividly portrayed picture. There sits Satan high above his
surrounding in such rich and dazzling magnificence that it
outshines even the richest kings of the richest part of the
world.

* * * * *

The best point of the workmanship consists in placing the
description first and not completing the thought until the last
line; thus keeping the reader in suspense, and causing careful
attention to be put on all the sentence. The words "high,"
"throne," "royal," and "exalted" combine to bring out the
thought of Satan's majesty. The thought of unbounded wealth is
brought out by the use of the word "showers" in the third line.
The author is able to give us a much more vivid idea of the
magnificence of the throne by letting us construct the throne
to suit ourselves than by giving a detailed description and
leaving nothing to the imagination. Even the materials are only
suggested, the whole idea being one of unbounded wealth and
splendor.

* * * * *

The choice of words is one of the best points in the
workmanship of the quotation. The arrangement also adds
emphasis. All the descriptions of the throne are so vivid that
the mind is deeply impressed by the splendor and richness of
the throne. The "gorgeous east" is very expressive of wealth
and beauty. With this arrangement of words the piece becomes
very striking and the choice of the strongest words is shown
too in touch with the whole sentence. Whereas on the other hand
if any other arrangement had been used much of the force of
these words would have been lost. The thought of the extract
is to describe the great wealth and beauty with which Satan is
surrounded. The writer must have a very vivid imagination to
describe such a scene of wealth and beauty. The first word,
"High," appeals directly to the imagination and immediately
gives the impression of power.

These answers were written by boys who had not been called upon to do anything of the sort before, and while their inadequacy is evident enough, they are genuine, and are sound as far as they go. Of course, after such a test, the first business of the teacher is to go over the selection and to show how he would himself have answered the question. The class is then ready to appreciate qualities which might be recited to them in vain before they have set their minds to the problem. In the examples I have given no one has touched, for instance, upon the suggestiveness of the words "Ormus" and "Ind," but very little is needed to make them see this after they have had the passage in an examination-paper.

A couple of examples dealing with the first two stanzas of Byron's "Destruction of Sennacherib" may be given by way of showing how a different selection was treated.

The first thing I noticed in reading the extract was the
perfect rhythm. You cannot read the extract without wanting
to say it aloud. Then the choice of words struck me: "The
_sheen_ of their spears;" "when summer is _green_." It is hard
for me to distinguish workmanship, thought, and imagination.
I cannot tell whether the words and metaphors used in the
extract were the result of deliberate choice and of long
thought; but I strongly suspect that he saw the whole thing in
his imagination, and the words just came to him. It is hard
to understand how anything that reads so smoothly could have
been written with labor. The strongest point of the extract
seems to be its richness in illustration: "The Assyrian came
down like the wolf on the fold." No long, detailed description
could explain better the wildness of such an attack, the sudden
swoop of some half-barbaric horde, striking suddenly, and then
disappearing into the night. "The sheen of the spears was like
stars on the sea." The flash from a spear would be just such a
gleam as the reflected star from the crest of a wave, visible
for a moment and then gone.

* * * * *

Some of its excellent points of workmanship are melody and
selection of words. The melody is excellent. It has a soothing
effect when read aloud, and there is not a place where
one would hesitate in regard to the accenting of words. I
believe the melody is so good that a person only knowing the
pronunciation of the first line could almost read the rest
of it correctly because the sound of each line is so closely
connected with that of all other lines. The selection of words
is very good. There is not a place where a substitution could
be made which would improve the meaning, sense, or melody. The
extract shows great thought. In the last paragraph especially
where the Assyrians are compared to the leaves of summer and
in autumn. No better thought could bring out more clearly how
badly the host was defeated. In the first paragraph it also
compares the Assyrians to a wolf coming down upon a fold.
This again gives a definite idea, and seems to point out how
confident they were of victory. The imagination is very vivid.
You can almost think you were on the field and that all the
events were taking place before you.

I have copied these partly to emphasize the point that it is idle to expect too much, and partly to illustrate the form in which genuine perception is likely to work out upon a school examination-paper. These have not been chosen as the best papers written, but each is good because each shows sincere opinion.

This sort of question is of course in the line of what is constantly done in class, but it is after all a different thing when it is made to emphasize the idea that an examination is a test of the power to appreciate literature instead of an exercise of memory.

FOOTNOTES:

[131:1] See page 205.

XI

THE STUDY OF PROSE

Method in teaching is properly the adaptation of the personality of a given teacher to the personality of a given class. It cannot be defined by hard and fast rules, and the only value in presenting such illustrations as the following is that they may afford hints which teachers will be able with advantage to develop in terms of their own individuality. The way that is wise in one is never to be set down as the way best for another; and here as elsewhere I offer not a model but simply an illustration. If it suggest, it has fulfilled a better purpose than if it were taken blindly as a rigid guide.

My own feeling would be that classes in literature should be provided with nothing but the bare text, without notes of any kind unless with a glossary of terms not to be found in available books of reference. In the matter of looking up difficulties the books of reference in the school library should be used; and if the school has no library beyond the dictionary, I should still hold to my opinion. The vocabulary may be very largely worked out with any fairly comprehensive dictionary, and what cannot be discovered in this way is better taken _viva voce_ in recitation than swallowed from notes without even the trouble of asking. Much will be done, moreover, by the not unhealthy spirit of emulation which is sure to exist where the pupils are set to use their wits and to report the result in class. They will remember much better; and, what in general education is of the very first importance, they will have admirable practice in the use of books of reference. Many difficulties must be explained by the teacher; but this, I insist, is better than the following of notes, a habit which is sure to degenerate into lifeless memorizing. The model text for school use would be cut in those few passages not suited for the school-room, would be clearly printed, and would be as free as possible from any outside matter whatever. In the case of poetry the ideal method would be to keep the text out of the hands of the student altogether until all work necessary to the mastering of the vocabulary had been done: but in practice such voluntary reading as a pupil chose to do beforehand would do no harm other than possibly to distract his attention from the learning of the meaning of words and phrases. In prose he will generally be in a key which allows the interruption of a pause for looking up words without much injury to the effect of the work.

The study of prose is of course directed by the same principles as that of poetry, but the application is in school-work somewhat modified in details. In the first place the vocabulary of any prose used in the schools is not likely to contain obsolete words such as are found in Shakespeare, and in the second place the length of a novel forbids its being read aloud in class in its entirety. I have taken my illustrations chiefly from books included in the College Requirements, because these books are the ones with which the majority of teachers are obliged to work. The Sir Roger de Coverley papers are sure to be taken up in any school-room where literature is studied to-day, and Burke "On Conciliation" is one of the inevitable obstacles in the way of every boy who wishes to enter college. Whatever the work, however, the important thing is that each pupil shall understand, shall appreciate, and shall connect what he reads with his own life.

The order in which different works are taken up in class is a matter of much moment. No rules can be given arbitrarily to govern the arrangement of the readings, since much depends upon the individual class to be dealt with. On general principles, for instance, it might seem that Burke's "Speech," as being the least imaginative of the prescribed work, might well come first; but on the other hand, the argument demands intellectual capacity and maturity which will often require that it be not put before a given group of scholars until they have had all the training they can gain from the other requirements. A teacher can hardly afford to have any rule in the whole treatment of literature which is not so flexible that it may be modified or disregarded entirely when circumstances require. The ideal method, perhaps, would be to give a class first a few short pieces as tests, and then to arrange their longer work upon the basis of the result.

If the "Speech" is to be taken up first or last, it must be preceded by a clear understanding of the history of the conditions with which Burke dealt. This knowledge should have been obtained in the history class, and the use of facts obtained in another branch affords one of the opportunities for doing that useful thing which should be kept always in sight, the enforcing of the fact that all education is one, although for convenience of handling necessarily divided into various branches. If the class has not had the requisite instruction in history, the teacher of English is forced to pause and supply the deficiency, as it is hopeless to try to go on without it. The argument of Burke is pretty tough work for any class of high-school students, and without familiarity with the circumstances which called it forth is utterly unintelligible.

The vocabulary of Burke contains few words which need to be studied beforehand, and indeed it is perhaps better to treat the speech as so far a logical rather than an imaginative work that without other preparation than a thorough mastery of the circumstances under which it was delivered and of the political issues with which it dealt the class may be given the text directly. In the first reading the thing to be insured is the intelligent comprehension of the language and of the argument. In the first half-dozen paragraphs, for instance, such passages as these must be made perfectly clear:

I hope, Sir, that notwithstanding the austerity of the Chair,
your good nature will incline you to some degree of indulgence
toward human frailty.

The grand penal bill.

Returned to us from the other House.

We are not at all embarrassed (unless we please to make
ourselves so) by any incongruous mixture of coercion and
restraint.

From being blown about by every wind of fashionable doctrine.

This is clear enough in meaning, but the class should notice the suggestion of the biblical phrase which insinuates that a good deal of the political fluctuation which has complicated the question of the treatment of the colonies has been like the hysterical instability of those who run after every fresh eccentricity offered in the name of religion.

I really did not think it safe or manly to have fresh
principles to seek upon every fresh mail that should arrive
from America.

It is in your equity to judge.

Parliament, having an enlarged view of objects.

A situation which I will not miscall, which I dare not name.

That the public tribunal (never too indulgent to a long and
unsuccessful opposition) would now scrutinize our conduct with
unusual severity.

We must produce our hand.

Somewhat disreputably.

The whole oration is studded with passages such as these, and it is the habit of too many instructors to expect the student to depend upon notes for the solution of such difficulties. I have already indicated that I believe this to be an unwise and weakening process; and in a political document of this sort a drill for elucidating difficulties may well be undertaken when in an imaginative work more latitude may be allowed in the way of sliding over them.

The reading of the speech as a whole could hardly be attempted with any profit until the class has mastered its technicalities and its logic. The oration differs in this from more imaginative literature. Here it is not only proper but necessary to make analysis part of the first reading.