Special Method in the Reading of Complete English Classics

oughts of the masters has had often a thrilling effect, and the feeling has spread among teachers that a new door has been opened into what Ruskin calls "The King's Gardens." As we stand at

athedral, or the Greek temple, to

pieces by children as to bring us face to face with a problem of prime significance in

culture to get a real foretaste of the feast prepared for the growing youth. We know that their appetites are keen and their digestive powers strong. It is incumbent upon educators to get a comprehensive survey of this land and to estimate its resources. Other fields of study, like natural science, geography, music, etc., are undergoing the same scrutiny as to their educative val

ment of appreciation and enjoyment of the study is more imperative in literature, because its appeal is not merely to the intellect and the reas

f the teachers' narrow experience with literature. In the case of many teachers, the primitive alphabet of literary appreciation is lacking, and the most enthusiastic appeals to the charm and exa

has not read Tennyson and his like, silence on the subject is golden. To those not much travelled in the fields of literature, there is danger of speaking in an unknown tongue, while they, of all others, need a plain and convincing word. To speak this plain and convincing word to those who may have acquired but little relish for literature, and that little only in the fragmentary selections of the school readers, is a high and difficult aim. But tea

o take in the enrichment it affords. There is encouragement in the fact that many teachers fully appreciate the worth of these writers, and have succeeded in making their works beautiful and educative to the children. Very many other teachers are capable of the full refreshing enjoyment of classic works, when their attention and labor are properl

ds and taste among teachers is due largely to the failure of the schools themselves, hitherto, to cultivate this sort of proficiency. Those very qualities which give to literature its supreme excellence, its poetic beauty, its artistic finish and idealism, are among the highest fruits of culture, and are far more difficult of attainment than mere kn

re, which is not capable of exact description or demonstration.

joy, the beauty, and the promise of life would all be gone if there were nothing which reaches beyond our powers of definition. The mystery of existence makes the grandeur and worth of man's nature, as it makes for him his poetry and his religion. Poetry suggests, hints, images forth, what is too wonderful, too transcendent, too near primal reality, too full of life, beauty, and joy, for explanation or comprehension. It embodies man's longing after the Eternal One, expresses his sense of the deep mystery of Bein

scientist. There is no way of getting at it with their tools and measurements. They are very apt to give it up in disgust and dismiss it

ritual life of the poets, and we may well spend some pains

"Books and Li

om Dante to the elder Dumas. The world of the imagination is not the world of abstraction and nonentity, as some conceive, but a world formed out of chaos by a sense of the beauty that

we like to call it, practical) in its leading tendencies as ours. The hunger after purely intellectual delights, the content with ideal possessions, cannot but be good for us in maintaining a wholesome balance of the character and of the faculties. I for one shall never be persuaded that Shakespeare left a less u

time and space for us; it revives for us without a miracle the Age of Wonder, endowing us with the shoes of swiftness and the cap of darkness, so that we walk invisible like fern-seed, and witness unharmed the plague at Athens or Florence or London; accompany C?sar on his marches, or look in on Catiline in council with his fellow-conspirators, or Guy Fawkes in the cellar of St. Stephen's. We often hear of people wh

calamity. They are beyond the reach of thief or moth or rust. As they cannot be inhe

hip of books finds also happy expres

ears, and passions, and powers in pursuit of little more than these; while, meantime, there is a society continually open to us, of people who will talk to us as long as we like, whatever our rank or occupation;-talk to us in the best words they can choose, and with thanks if we listen to them. And this society, because i

t Faubourg St.-Germain, there is but brief question, 'Do you deserve to enter?' 'Pass. Do you ask to be the companions of nobles? Make yourself noble, and you shall be. Do you long for the conversation of the wise? Learn to understand it, and you shall hear it. But on other terms?-no. If you will not rise to us,

worth

s, we

ial world, bot

tendrils strong

nd our happin

yle

ut the place where we are to get knowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the Books themselves! It depends on what we read

n, in the first chapter of his "Book Lover," has collected more than a score of like utterances of great writers "In Praise of Books." Such testimony

e vital elements of strength wh

artist. The fundamental value of a classic is the deep, significant truth which, like the grain in fine woods, is wrought into its very structure. The artist who moulds a masterpiece like "Enoch Arden" or "The Scarlet Letter" is not a writer of temporary fame. The truth to which he feels impelled to give expression is strong, natural, human truth, which has no beginning and no end. It is true forever. Schiller's William Tell, though idealized, is a human hero with the hearty thoughts of

d Literature," thus contrasts the

worth of its own; but if, without possessing a living germ, it is merely externally attached thereto, it will never thrive nor acquire a proper growth. Many productions which appear at first sight dazzling phenomena in the province of the fine arts, and which as a whole have been honored with the appellation of works of a golden age, resemble the mimic gardens of children: impatient to witness the work of their hands, they break off here and there branches and flowers, and plan

Willis Cooke fitly portrays the po

He must go on to the expression of something of deep and real abidingness of thought and beauty. This comes at last to be the real thing for which he works, which he se

t to satisfy the inward needs of life. A heavenly homesickness will draw him away from the material to those ?sthetic and spiritual realities which are at the source of the tr

m persuasio

into faith, a

nate int

ts more warmly and with a more universal sympathy; his thought runs deeper and with a swifter current, than is the case with other men. He is the oracle and guide, the inspirer and the friend, of those to whom he sings.

g as close to nature and truth a

before yet the reflective habit has become the predominant habit of the mind. Our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old, but of the natural. The Greeks are

ce of Poetry"

g them or in language or in form, sends them forth among mankind, bearing sweet news of kindred joy to those with whom their sisters abide-abide, because there is no

-worship," portrays the deeper a

f it, in the whole conception of it, then it will be poetical; if not, not. Musical: how much lies in that! A musical thought is one spoken by a mind that has penetrated into the inmost heart of the thing; detected the inmost mystery of it, namely the melody that lies hidden in it; the inward harmony of coherence which is its soul, whereby it exists, and

finer music than the mere accent; the speech of a man even in zealous anger becomes a chant, a song. All deep things are Song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, Song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls. The primal element of us; of us, and of all things. The Greeks fabled of Sphere-Harmonies: it was the feeling they had of the inner structure of Nature;

m such clear intense sight of the thing. And is not Shakespeare's morality, his valor, candor, tolerance, truthfulness; his whole victorious strength and greatness, which can triumph over such obstructions, visible there too? Great as the world! No twisted, poor convex-concave mirror, reflecting all objects with its own convexities and concavities; a perfectly level mirror,-that is to say withal, if we will understand it, a man justly related to all things and men, a good man. It is truly a lordly spectacle how this great soul takes in all kinds of men and objects, a Falstaff, an Othello, a Juliet, a Coriolanus; set

ng, are brief in comparison to an unfathomable heart-song like this: one feels as if it might survive, still of importance to men, when these had all sunk into new irrecognizable combinations, and had ceased individually to be. Europe has made much; great cities, great empires, encyclop?dias, creeds, bodies of opinion and practice: but it has made little of t

Poetic Interpretation o

of the outer world, any truth of reason, or event of past history, any fact of human experience, any moral or spiritual reality; whenever, in short, any fact or object which the sense, or the intellect, or the soul, or the spirit of man can apprehend, comes home to one so

hensive grasp of the realities. Shelley says, "A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth"; and Wordsworth that poetry is "the breath and finer spirit of all kn

e quick to take alarm at the propensity of the schoolmaster and the moralist to make literature the vehicle of moral training. To saddle the poets with a moral purpose would be like changing Pegasus into a plough-horse. But the moral quality in the best literature is not something saddled on, it is rather like the frame and muscle which give strength to the body, or, to use

ould-be artist, though a very saint, has mistaken his form of expression. On the other hand, extreme beauty and power in a poem or picture always carry a moral, they are inseparable from a certain ethical standard; while vice suggests a de

ss discussion of morals. Their actions speak, and the moral qualities appear, not in didactic formali

ore us with all the realism and fidelity to human instincts peculiar to the poet's art. These men and women, who are set in action before us, stir up all our dormant thought-energy. We observe and judge their motives and approve or condemn their actions. We are stirred to sympathy or pity or anger. Such an intense study of motives and conduct, as offered in literature, is like a fresh spring fro

background of passing events that an unerring judgment falls upon the doer. A single act, seen in its relations, always calls forth such a sentence of good or ill. Whether it be a gentle deed of mer

a character ripens steadily toward its reward. We become conscious that certain deeper principles control thought and action, whether good or bad. There is a rule of law, a sort of fatalism, in human life. "The mills of the gods grind slow, but they grind exceeding small." It is the function of the dramatist or novelist to reveal these working principles in conduct. When the principle adopted by the actor is a good one, it works out well-being in spite of misfortunes; when evil, the furies are on the track of the evil-doer. Men do not gather grapes of thorns or

se companionship with a living friend as with some master of the art of character-delineation. Children are susceptible to this strong influence. Many of them take easily to books, and many others need but wise direction to bring them under the touch of their formative influence. A book sometimes produces a more lasting effect upon the character and conduct of a child than a close companion. Nor is this true only in the case of book-lovers. It is probable that the great majority of children may feel the wholesome effect of such books if wisely used at the right time. To select a few of the best books as companions to a child, and teach him to love their companionship, is one of the most hopeful things in education. The boy or girl who reads some of our choice epics, stories, novels, dramas, a

mple expression to the ethical force i

through the higher purpose he arouses, by the stimulus he gives, and by the purer motive he awakens. He gives no precept to recite, no homilies to con over, no rules for formal repeti

trongly energized by feeling and even by passion. It is doubtful if moral

e and Lilies," sp

ot afraid of the word; still less of the thing. You have heard many outcries against sensation lately; but, I can tell you, it is not less sensation we want, but more. The ennobling difference between one man and another-between one animal and another-is precisely in this, that one feels more than another. If we were sponges, perh

in true inbred vulgarity, there is a deathful callousness, which, in extremity, becomes capable of every sort of bestial habit and crime, without fear, without pleasure, without horror, and without pity. It is in the blunt hand and the dead heart, in the diseased habit, in the hardened conscience, that men become vulgar; they are forever vulgar, precisely in proportion as they are incapable of sympathy,-of quick understanding,-of a

ous. Now to feel with them we must be like them; and none of us can become that without pains. As the true knowledge is disciplined and te

y constructs all phases of social life and conduct, we have that union of the great powers

fence of Poetry" (p

ind itself by rendering it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought. Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar; it reproduces all that it represents, and the impersonations clothed in its Elysian light stand thenceforward in the minds of those who have once contemplated them, as memorials of that gentle and exalted content which extends itself over all thoughts and actions with which it coexi

ervable in the drama than in whatever other form. And it is indisputable that the highest perfection of human society has ever corresponded with the highest dramatic excellence; and that the

imaginative elements is well expressed by Shairp in

ou pass onward to the depths, the more vital places of the soul, the intellectual, the emotional, and the moral elements are all equally at work,-and this in virtue of their greater reality, their more essential truth, the

e to the region of fancy if they give their thought sufficient strength of wing to carry it into the coming years. The themes upon which they discoursed kindled the imagination and caused them to break forth into figures of speech and poetic license. The creative fancy is that which gives beauty, picturesqueness, and charm to all the work of poet or novelist. This element of fancy diffuses itself as a living glow through every classic product that was made to endure. In the masters of style the rhythmic flow and energy of language are enlivened by poetic imagery. Figures of speech in architectural simplicity and chasteness stand out to symbolize thought. That keenness and o

yrs of humanity. Imagination is the creative origin of what is fine, not in art and song alone, but also in all forms of action-in campaigns, civil triumphs, material conquest. I have mentioned its indispensability to the scientists." He says further: "Yet if there is one gift which sets Shake

imagination, but throughout the broader reaches of common humanity this power is everywhere present-constructive and creative. Max Müller has shown that the root words of language are

ess, freedom, and joy which is suggested by the term culture may spring up in the heart of every boy and girl

Knowledge, discipline, and technical training of the best sort are accessible on every hand; but the development of the faculty which unites all these in the highest form of activity must be secured mainly by personal effort. The richest and most accessible material for this highest education is furnished by art; and the for

ently stiff and formal, it is yet the consensus of critics that only through this channel can the soul of truth and beauty escape from the poet, and manifest itself to others. Says George Willis Cooke, "The poet worships at the triple shr

matic Art and Literat

aneously with the perfect development of the germ. We everywhere discover such forms in nature throughout the whole range of living powers, from the crystallization of salts and minerals to plants and flowers, and from these again to the human body. In the fine arts, as well as in the domain of nature,-the

far as possible, therefore, it is desirable to leave these creations in their native strength, and not to mar the work of masters. The poet has moulded his thought and feeling into these forms and transfused them wit

Much, indeed of the old beauty and original strength of the poem is lost in all these renderings; but the central truths which give the poetic work its persistent value are still retained. Such a poem is like a person; the underlying thought, though dressed up by different persons with varying taste and skill, is ye

e best modern writers have come to our help. Walter Scott, Macaulay, Dickens, Kingsley, Hawthorne, Irving, and Arnold have gathered up the old wine and poured it into new bottles. They have told the old stories in simple Anglo-Saxon for the boys and girls of our homes and schools. Nor are these renderings of the old masters lacking in that element of fancy and vigor of

ating glow of an artist's imagination, and find expression in some form of beauty. But these elements are so mingled and inte

hich will be discussed more fully in those chapters which deal wit

ature; the best novel and drama, as sources and means of culture; religious ideals as embodied in the choicest forms of literature; the powerful patriotic and s

ltiply similar testimony from the most competent judges. But enough has been said to remind teachers of this rich treasure house of educative materials. Those teachers who wish to pr

wer and charm of Ruskin's writing ap

pecially the chapters on "The Hero as P

ook, and published by Ginn & Co.) is a lit

"Essay o

er, "The Poet as Teacher," is very suggestive, while the chapters on Tennyson, Ruskin

" James Baldwin

ral Essays" (Macmillan & Co.). Chapte

ools" (Houghton, Mifflin, &

nterpretation of Nature" (

d's "Sweetnes

Libraries" (Hought

e Nature and Elements of Poet

cs on the merits of literature can take the pla