CHAPTER I

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THE READING OF COMPLETE

ENGLISH CLASSICS

IN THE COMMON SCHOOL

SPECIAL METHOD

IN THE

READING OF COMPLETE

ENGLISH CLASSICS

IN THE GRADES OF THE

COMMON SCHOOL

BY

CHARLES McMURRY, PH.D.

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.

1903

_All rights reserved_

COPYRIGHT, 1903,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped October, 1902.

Norwood Press

J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith

Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LITERATURE 1

CHAPTER II

THE USE OF MASTERPIECES AS WHOLES 41

CHAPTER III

LITERARY MATERIALS FOR THE FIVE UPPER GRADES 67

CHAPTER IV

CLASS-ROOM METHOD IN READING 102

CHAPTER V

METHOD FURTHER DISCUSSED AND ILLUSTRATED 135

CHAPTER VI

THE VALUE OF CLASSICS TO THE TEACHER 176

CHAPTER VII

LIST OF BOOKS 205

SPECIAL METHOD OF CLASSICS

CHAPTER I

EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LITERATURE

The gradual introduction of the choicer products of literature into the

grades of the common school has been going on for several years.

Bringing the school children face to face with the thoughts 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 this open portal to the Elysian

Fields of literature, there may fall upon us something of the beauty,

something even of the solemn stillness, of the arched cathedral with its

golden windows. But how inadequate is the Gothic cathedral, or the Greek

temple, to symbolize the temple of literature.

Within less than a score of years there has been such reading of varied

literary masterpieces by children as to bring us face to face with a

problem of prime significance in education, the place and importance of

literature in the education of American children.

Millions of children are introduced yearly to bookland, and it is a

matter of greater importance than what Congress does, what provision is

made for these oncoming millions in the sunlit fields and forest glades

of literature, where the boys and girls walk in happy companionship with

the "wisest and wittiest" of our race. We have now had enough experience

with these treasures of 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 value. Literature,

certainly a peer in the hierarchy of great studies, if not supreme in

value above others, is one of the most difficult to estimate. Tangible

proofs of the vital culture-force of good literature upon growing minds

can be given in many individual cases. But to what degree it has general

or universal fitness to awaken, strengthen, and refine all minds, is in

dispute.

It seems clear, at least, that only those who show taste and enthusiasm

for a choice piece of literature can teach it with success. This

requirement of appreciation and enjoyment of the study is more

imperative in literature, because its appeal is not merely to the

intellect and the reason, as in other studies, but especially to the

emotions and higher aesthetic judgments, to moral and religious sentiment

in ideal representation.

It has been often observed that discussions of the superior educative

value of literature before bodies of teachers, while entertaining and

delightful, fall far short of lasting results because of 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 exaltation of such studies fall

harmless. Yet literature in the schools is hopeless without teachers who

have felt at home in this delightsome land, this most real world of

ideal strength and beauty.

The discussion of the subject for teachers is beset, therefore, with

peculiar and seemingly insurmountable difficulties. The strength, charm,

and refinement of literature are known only to those who have read the

masters with delight, while even people of cultured taste listen

doubtfully to the praise of authors they have never read. To one

enamoured of the music of Tennyson's songs, the very suggestion of "In

Memoriam" awakens enthusiasm. To one who 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

teachers are willing to learn, and to discover new sources of enthusiasm

in their profession. It is probable, also, that the original capacity to

enjoy great literature is much more common than is often supposed, and

that the great average of teachers is quite capable of receiving this

powerful stimulus. The fact is, our common schools have done so little,

till of late, to cultivate this fine taste, that we have faint reason to

expect it in our teachers.

Overwhelmed as we are with the folly of indulging in the praise of

literature before many whose ears have been but poorly attuned to the

sweet melody or majestic rhythm of the masters, we still make bold to

grapple with this argument. There is surely no subject to which the

teachers need more to open their eyes and ears and better nature, so as

to 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 properly expended upon

them. The colleges, universities, high schools, and normal schools have

largely abandoned the dull epitomizing of literature, the talk about

authors, for the study of the works themselves of the masters. The

consequence is, that the study of literature in English is becoming an

enthusiasm, and teachers of this type are multiplying.

The deeper causes for this widespread lack of literary appreciation

among the people, and even among teachers and scholars, is found partly

in the practical, scientific, and utilitarian spirit of the age, and

partly in the corresponding unliterary courses of study which have

prevailed everywhere in our common schools. The absence of literary

standards 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 knowledge. It is no small thing to introduce the rarest and finest

culture of the world into the common school, and thus propagate, in the

broadest democratic fashion, that which is the peculiar, superior

refinement of the choicest spirits of the world. If progress in this

direction is slow, we may remember that the best ideals are slow of

attainment.

There is also an intangible quality in all first-class literature, which

is not capable of exact description or demonstration. George Willis

Cooke, in "Poets and Problems" (pp. 31-32), says:--

"Poetry enters into those higher regions of human experience concerning

which no definite account can be given; where all words fail; about

which all we know is to be obtained by hints, symbols, poetic figures,

and imagings. Poetry is truer and more helpful than prose, because it

penetrates those regions of feeling, beauty, and spiritual reality,

where definitions have no place or justification. There would be no

poetry if life were limited to what we can understand; nor would there

be any religion. Indeed, the 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 Being, voices

his soul sorrow, illumines his path with hope and objects of beauty.

Man's aspiration, his sense of imperfection, his yearning for a

sustaining truth and reality, as the life within and over all things,

find expression in poetry; because it offers the fittest medium of

interpretation for these higher movements of soul. Whenever the soul

feels deeply, or is stirred by a great thought, the poetic form of

utterance at once becomes the most natural and desirable for its loving

and faithful interpretation."

This intangible excellence of superior literature, which defies all

exact measurement by the yardstick, puzzles the practical man and the

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

with some uncomplimentary name. But Shakespeare's mild reign continues,

and old Homer sings his deathless song to those who wish to hear.

Teachers need both the exact methods of science and the spiritual life

of the poets, and we may well spend some pains in finding out the

life-giving properties of good literature.

Lowell, in his "Books and Libraries," says:--

"To wash down the drier morsels that every library must necessarily

offer at its board, let there be plenty of imaginative literature, and

let its range be not too narrow to stretch from 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 is in man and the earth on which he dwells. It is the

realm of Might-be, our haven of refuge from the shortcomings and

disillusions of life. It is, to quote Spenser, who knew it well,--

"'The world's sweet inn from care and wearisome turmoil.' Do we believe,

then, that God gave us in mockery this splendid faculty of sympathy

with things that are a joy forever? For my part, I believe that the love

and study of works of imagination is of practical utility in a country

so profoundly material (or, as 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 useful legacy to his countrymen than Watt. We hold all the deepest,

all the highest, satisfactions of life as tenants of imagination. Nature

will keep up the supply of what are called hard-headed people without

our help, and, if it come to that, there are other as good uses for

heads as at the end of battering-rams."

"But have you ever rightly considered what the mere ability to read

means? That it is the key which admits us to the whole world of thought

and fancy and imagination? to the company of saint and sage, of the

wisest and wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moments? That it

enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and

listen to the sweetest voices of all time? More than that, it

annihilates 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 Caesar 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 who will descend to any servility, submit to any

insult, for the sake of getting themselves or their children into what

is euphemistically called good society. Did it ever occur to them that

there is a select society of all the centuries to which they and theirs

can be admitted for the asking, a society, too, which will not involve

them in ruinous expense, and still more ruinous waste of time and health

and faculties?

"The riches of scholarship, the benignities of literature, defy fortune

and outlive calamity. They are beyond the reach of thief or moth or

rust. As they cannot be inherited, so they cannot be alienated. But they

may be shared, they may be distributed."

This notion of the select companionship of books finds also happy

expression in Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies":--

"We may intrude ten minutes' talk on a cabinet minister, answered

probably with words worse than silence, being deceptive; or snatch, once

or twice in our lives, the privilege of throwing a bouquet in the path

of a princess, or arresting the kind glance of a queen. And yet these

momentary chances we covet; and spend our years, 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 it is so numerous and so gentle,--and can be kept

waiting round us all day long, not to grant audience, but to gain it;

kings and statesmen lingering patiently in those plainly furnished and

narrow anterooms, our bookcase shelves,--we make no account of that

company,--perhaps never listen to a word they would say, all day long!

"This court of the past differs from all living aristocracy in this: it

is open to labor and to merit, but to nothing else. No wealth will

bribe, no name overawe, no artifice deceive, the guardian of those

Elysian gates. In the deep sense, no vile or vulgar person ever enters

there. At the portieres of that silent 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, we

cannot stoop to you. The living lord may assume courtesy, the living

philosopher explain his thought to you with considerable pain; but here

we neither feign nor interpret; you must rise to the level of our

thoughts if you would be gladdened by them, and share our feelings, if

you would recognize our presence.'"

Wordsworth says:--

"Books, we know,

Are a substantial world, both pure and good;

Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,

Our pastime and our happiness will grow."

Carlyle says:--

"We learn to read, in various languages, in various sciences; we learn

the alphabet and letters of all manner of Books. But the place where we

are to get knowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the Books themselves!

It depends on what we read, after all manner of Professors have done

their best for us. The true University of these days is a Collection of

Books."

Were we willing to accept the testimony of great writers and thinkers,

we should but too quickly acknowledge the supreme value of books. James

Baldwin, 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 may at least suggest to some of us who have drunk but

sparingly of the refreshing springs of literature, that there are better

things in store for us.

We will first inquire into those vital elements of strength which are

peculiar to literature.

One of the elements that goes into the make-up of a masterpiece of

literature is its underlying, permanent truth. Whether written to-day or

in earlier centuries, it must contain lasting qualities that do not fade

away or bleach out or decay. Time and weather do not stain or destroy

its merit. Some classics, as Gray's "Elegy," or "Thanatopsis," are like

cut diamonds. The quality that gives them force and brilliancy is

inherent, and the form in which they appear has been wrought out by an

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 a real man. Shylock is a Jew of flesh and blood, who will laugh if he

is tickled, and break into anger if he is thwarted. The true poet builds

upon eternal foundations. The bookmaker or rhymer is satisfied with

empty or fleeting thoughts and with a passing notoriety. New books are

often caught up and blazoned as classics which a few years reveal as

patchwork and tinsel. Time is a sure test. Showy tinsel rusts and dulls

its lustre, while simple poetic truth shines with growing brightness.

Schlegel, in his "Dramatic Art and Literature," thus contrasts the false

and the true (pp. 18-19):--

"Poetry, taken in its widest acceptation, as the power of creating what

is beautiful, and representing it to the eye or the ear, is a universal

gift of Heaven, being shared to a certain extent even by those whom we

call barbarians and savages. Internal excellence is alone decisive, and

where this exists we must not allow ourselves to be repelled by the

external appearance. Everything must be traced up to the root of human

nature: if it has sprung from thence, it has an undoubted 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 plant them in the earth;

everything at first assumes a noble appearance: the childish gardener

struts proudly up and down among his showy beds, till the rootless

plants begin to droop, and hang their withered leaves and blossoms, and

nothing soon remains but the bare twigs, while the dark forest, on which

no art or care was ever bestowed, and which towered up toward heaven

long before human remembrance, bears every blast unshaken, and fills

the solitary beholder with religious awe."

In his "Poets and Problems," George Willis Cooke fitly portrays the

poet's function (pp. 42, 32, and 44):--

"The poet must be either a teacher or an artist; or, what is better, he

may be both in one. Therefore, he can never stop at form or at what

delights and charms merely. 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 seeks to bring into

expression with such power and grandeur in it as he can produce, and

which he wills to send forth for the sake of this higher impression on

the world."

"Man has within him a need for the food which does not perish; he always

is finding anew that he cannot live by bread alone. His mind will crave

truth, his heart love, somewhat to satisfy the inward needs of life. A

heavenly homesickness will draw him away from the material to those

aesthetic and spiritual realities which are at the source of the truest

poetry. Whenever these wants find fit interpretation, the poet and the

poetic method of expression appear and give to them outward forms of

beauty. Consequently the poet is

'One in whom persuasion and belief

Have ripened into faith, and faith become

A passionate intuition.'

"The true poet is the man of his time who is most alive, who feels,

sees, and knows the most. In the measure of his life he is the greatest

man of his age and country. His eye sees farther and more clearly; his

heart beats 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. He creates life under the ribs of dead tradition; he

illumines the present with heart flames of beaconing truth, and he makes

the future seem like home joys far off, but drawing ever nigher. The

poet is the world's lover."

Emerson found the Greeks standing as close to nature and truth as

himself ("Essay on History"):--

"The costly charm of the ancient tragedy, and indeed of all old

literature, is, that the persons speak simply,--speak as persons who

have great good sense without knowing it, 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 not reflective, but perfect in their senses and in their health,

with the finest physical organization in the world. Adults acted with

the simplicity and grace of children."

In his "Defence of Poetry" Shelley says:--

"Poetry thus makes immortal all that is best and most beautiful in the

world; it arrests the vanishing apparitions which haunt the

interlunations of life, and, veiling 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 portal

of expression from the caverns of the spirit which they inhabit into the

universe of things. Poetry redeems from decay the visitations of the

divinity in man."

Carlyle, in his "Heroes and Hero-worship," portrays the deeper art and

insight of the poet thus:--

"For my own part, I find considerable meaning in the old vulgar

distinction of Poetry being metrical, having music in it, being a Song.

Truly, if pressed to give a definition, one might say this as soon as

anything else: If your delineation be authentically musical, musical not

in word only, but in heart and substance, in all the thoughts and

utterances of 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 has a right to be, here in this world. All inmost things,

we may say, are melodious; naturally utter themselves in Song. The

meaning of Song goes deep. Who is there that, in logical words, can

express the effect music has upon us? A kind of inarticulate

unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the Infinite, and

lets us for moments gaze into that!

"Nay all speech, even the commonest speech, has something of song in it:

not a parish in the world but has its parish-accent;--the rhythm or tune

to which the people there sing what they have to say! Accent is a kind

of chanting; all men have accent of their own,--though they only notice

that of others. Observe, too, how all passionate language does of itself

become musical,--with a 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; that the soul of all

her voices and utterances was perfect music. Poetry, therefore, we will

call musical Thought. The Poet is he who thinks in that manner. At

bottom, it turns still on power of intellect; it is a man's sincerity

and depth of vision that makes him a Poet. See deep enough, and you see

musically; the heart of Nature being everywhere music, if you can only

reach it."

"Or indeed we may say again, it is in what I called Portrait-painting,

delineating of men and things, especially of men, that Shakespeare is

great. All the greatness of the man comes out decisively here. It is

unexampled, I think, that calm creative perspicacity of Shakespeare. The

thing he looks at reveals not this or that face of it, but its inmost

heart, and generic secret: it dissolves itself as in light before him,

so that he discerns the perfect structure of it. Creative, we said:

poetic creation, what is this, too, but seeing the thing sufficiently?

The word that will describe the thing, follows of itself from 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; sets them all

forth to us in their round completeness; loving, just, the equal brother

of all. 'Novum Organum,' and all the intellect you will find in Bacon,

is of a quite secondary order; earthy, material, poor in comparison with

this. Among modern men, one finds, in strictness, almost nothing of the

same rank. Goethe alone, since the days of Shakespeare, reminds me of

it. Of him, too, you say that he saw the object; you may say what he

himself says of Shakespeare, 'His characters are like watches with

dial-plates of transparent crystal; they show you the hour like others,

and the inward mechanism also is all visible.'"

"Dante, for depth of sincerity, is like an antique Prophet, too; his

words, like theirs, come from his very heart. One need not wonder if it

were predicted that his Poem might be the most enduring thing our Europe

has yet made; for nothing so endures as a truly spoken word. All

cathedrals, pontificalities, brass and stone, and outer arrangement

never so lasting, 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, encyclopaedias, creeds, bodies of opinion and practice: but it

has made little of the class of Dante's Thought. Homer yet is, veritably

present face to face with every open soul of us; and Greece, where is

it? Desolate for thousands of years; away, vanished; a bewildered heap

of stones and rubbish, the life and existence of it all gone. Like a

dream; like the dust of King Agamemnon! Greece was; Greece, except in

the words it spoke, is not."

J. C. Shairp, in his "On Poetic Interpretation of Nature" (p. 19),

says:--

"The real nature and intrinsic truth of Poetry will be made more

apparent, if we may turn aside for a moment to reflect on the essence of

that state of mind which we call poetic, the genesis of that creation

which we call Poetry. Whenever any object of sense, or spectacle 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 as to touch him to

the quick, to pierce him with a more than usual vividness and sense of

reality, then is awakened that stirring of the imagination, that glow of

emotion, in which Poetry is born. There is no truth cognizable by man

which may not shape itself into Poetry."

The passages just quoted are but examples of many that might be cited

expressing the strength and scope of the poetic spirit, its

truth-revealing quality, its penetrating yet comprehensive 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 knowledge." These utterances will hardly be deemed

poetical extravagancies to one who has read such things as the Ninetieth

Psalm, "King Lear," or "The Deserted Village," or "Elaine."

There is no form of inspiring truth which does not find expression in

literature, but it is preeminently a revelation of human life and

experience, a proclamation from the housetops of the supreme beauty and

excellence of truth and virtue. This brings us close to the question of

moral education, and the elements in literature that contribute to this

end. Literary critics are 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 a more fitting

figure, it is the very pulse and heart-beat of the highest idealism. The

proneness toward moralizing, toward formal didacticism, can be best of

all corrected by the use of choice literature. The best literature is

free from moral pedantry, but full of moral suggestion and stimulus.

Edmund Clarence Stedman says, in his "Nature and Elements of Poetry" (p.

216):--

"The highest wisdom--that of ethics--seems closely affiliated with

poetic truth. A prosaic moral is injurious to virtue, by making it

repulsive. The moment goodness becomes tedious and unideal in a work of

art, it is not real goodness; the would-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

depravity.... An obtrusive moral in poetic form is a fraud on its face,

and outlawed of art. But that all great poetry is essentially ethical is

plain from any consideration of Homer, Dante, and the best dramatists

and lyrists, old and new."

In literature, as in life, those persons make the strongest moral

impression who have the least express discussion of morals. Their

actions speak, and the moral qualities appear, not in didactic formality

and isolation, but in their life setting. This is seen in the great

dramas, novels, and epic poems.

These masterpieces are of strong and lasting value to the schools

because they bring out human conduct and character in a rich variety of

forms corresponding to life. Against the background of scenery created

by the poet, men and women and children march along to their varied

performances. Theseus, Ulysses, Crusoe, Aladdin, Alfred, Horatius,

Cinderella, Portia, Evangeline,--they speak and act before 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 from which well up strengthening waters. The

warmth and energy with which judgments are passed upon the deeds of

children and adults is the original source of moral ideas. Literature is

especially rich in opportunities to register these convictions. It is

not the bare knowledge of right and wrong developed, but the deep

springs of feeling and emotion are opened, which gush up into volitions

and acts.

Just as we form opinions of people from their individual acts, and draw

inferences as to their character and motives, so the overt act of Brutus

or of Miles Standish stands out so clear against the 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 mercy, or the hammer-stroke that

fells a giant or routs an army, as with Charles Martel or Alfred, the

sense of right or wrong is the deep underflow that gives meaning to all

events and stamps character.

There is, however, a deeper and more intense moral teaching in

literature than that which flows from the right or wrong of individual

acts. The whole life and evolution of character in a person, if

graphically drawn, reveal the principles of conduct and their fruitage.

Character is a growth. Deeds are only the outward signs of the direction

in which the soul is moving. A dramatist like Shakespeare, or a

novelist like George Eliot, gives us a biographical development. Deeds

are done which leave their traces. Tendencies are formed which grow into

habits, and thus 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 figs of thistles. As we move on

from step to step in a life-history, the sympathy deepens. The fatal

influence of a false step, followed up, is keenly felt by the reader;

the upward tendency of a right act inspires and lifts into freedom. But

whether we love or hate or pity, the character moves on in the course

which his deeds mark out. When finally he is overwhelmed in shame and

defeat, we see the early tendencies and later forces which have led to

this result. If ethical triumph is achieved, we recognize the reward of

generous, unselfish impulses followed out.

As the interest in such a life-history deepens, the lessons it evolves

come out with convincing and overwhelming power. The effect of a great

novel or drama is more intense and lasting than any sermon. The

elements of thought and feeling have been accumulating energy and

momentum through all the scenes, and when contracted into a single

current at the close they sweep forward with the strength of a river. A

masterpiece works at the foundations of our sympathies and moral

judgments. To bring ourselves under the spell of a great author and to

allow him, hour after hour and perhaps for days in succession, to sway

our feelings and rule far up among the sources of our moral judgments,

is to give him great opportunity to stamp our character with his

convictions. We seldom spend so many hours in close 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, and

biographies, allowing the mind to ponder upon the problems of conduct

involved, will receive many deep and permanent moral lessons. The

realism with which the artist clothes his characters only strengthens

the effect and makes them lasting food for thought in the coming years.

Even in early childhood we are able to detect what is noble and debasing

in conduct as thus graphically and naturally revealed, and a child forms

an unerring judgment along moral lines. The best influence that

literature has to bestow, therefore, may produce its effect early in

tender years, where impressions are deep and permanent. There are many

other elements of lasting culture-value in the study of literature, but

first of all the deep and permanent truths taught by the classics are

those of human life and conduct.

George Willis Cooke gives clear and simple expression to the ethical

force in poetry ("Poets and Problems," p. 46):--

"True poetry is for instruction as much as for pleasure, though it

inculcate no formal lessons. Right moral teaching is by example far more

than by precept; and the real poet teaches 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 repetition; but he gives the spirit of life and the impulse of

true activity. An infallible test of the great poet is that he inspires

us with a sense of the richness and grandeur of life."

Rooted in the genuine realism of social life, moral ideas are still more

strongly energized by feeling and even by passion. It is doubtful if

moral ideas have any roots that do not reach down into deep and genuine

feeling.

Ruskin, in "Sesame and Lilies," speaks to the point.

"Having then faithfully listened to the great teachers, that you may

enter into their Thoughts, you have yet this higher advance to

make,--you have to enter into their Hearts. As you go to them first for

clear sight, so you must stay with them that you may share at last their

just and mighty Passion. Passion, or "sensation." I am not 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, perhaps sensation might not be easily got

for us; if we were earthworms, liable at every instant to be cut in two

by the spade, perhaps too much sensation might not be good for us. But,

being human creatures, it is good for us; nay, we are only human in so

far as we are sensitive, and our honor is precisely in proportion to our

passion.

"You know I said of that great and pure society of the dead, that it

would allow 'no vain or vulgar person to enter there.' What do you

think I meant by a 'vulgar' person? What do you yourselves mean by

'vulgarity'? You will find it a fruitful subject of thought; but,

briefly, the essence of all vulgarity lies in want of sensation. Simple

and innocent vulgarity is merely an untrained and undeveloped bluntness

of body and mind; but 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 all that, in deep insistence on

the common, but most accurate term, may be called the 'tact' or

touch-faculty of body and soul; that tact which the Mimosa has in trees,

which the pure woman has above all creatures,--fineness and fulness of

sensation, beyond reason,--the guide and sanctifier of reason itself.

Reason can but determine what is true: it is the God-given passion of

humanity which alone can recognize what God has made good.

"We come then to the great concourse of the Dead, not merely to know

from them what is True, but chiefly to feel with them, what is

Righteous. 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

tested knowledge,--not the first thought that comes,--so the true

passion is disciplined and tested passion,--not the first passion that

comes."

When we add to this deep feeling and sympathy the versatile poetic

imagination which freely constructs all phases of social life and

conduct, we have that union of the great powers of the mind and heart

which give such concentrated ethical energy to the best literature.

Shelley, in his "Defence of Poetry" (pp. 13-14, 20), says:--

"The whole objection, however, of the immorality of poetry rests upon a

misconception of the manner in which poetry acts to produce the moral

improvement of man. Ethical science arranges the elements which poetry

has created, and propounds schemes and proposes examples of civil and

domestic life; nor is it for want of admirable doctrines that men hate,

and despise, and censure, and deceive, and subjugate one another. But

poetry acts in another and diviner manner. It awakens and enlarges the

mind 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

coexists. The great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our own

nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which

exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be greatly

good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in

the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his

species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the

imagination; and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the

cause."

"The drama being that form under which a greater number of modes of

expression of poetry are susceptible of being combined than any other,

the connection of poetry and social good is more observable 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 corruption or the extinction of the

drama in a nation where it has once flourished, is a mark of corruption

of manners, and an extinction of the energies which sustain the soul of

social life."

The inseparable union of the intellectual, moral, and imaginative

elements is well expressed by Shairp in his "On Poetic Interpretation

of Nature" (pp. 23-24):--

"Imagination in its essence seems to be, from the first, intellect and

feeling blended and interpenetrating each other. Thus it would seem that

purely intellectual acts belong to the surface and outside of our

nature,--as you 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, their nearer contact with the centre of things. To

this region belong all acts of high imagination--the region intermediate

between pure understanding and moral affection, partaking of both

elements, looking equally both ways."

Besides the moral element or fundamental truth involved, every classic

masterpiece is infused therefore with an element of imagination. Whether

in prose or verse, the artist reveals himself in the creative touch. The

rich coloring and imagery of his own mind give a tint to every object.

The literary artist is never lacking in a certain, perhaps indefinable,

charm. He possesses a magic wand that transforms into beauty every

commonplace object that is met. We observe this in Irving, Hawthorne,

Warner, as well as in still greater literary masters. Our poets,

novelists, and essayists must all dip their pens in this magic ink. Even

Webster and Burke, Lincoln and Sumner, must rise 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 originality which astonishes us in master

thinkers is due to the magic vigor and picturesqueness of their images.

Underneath and permeating all this wealth of ideas is the versatile and

original mind which sees everything in the glow of its own poetic

temperament, kindling the susceptible reader to like inspiration. Among

literary masters this creative power shows itself in an infinite variety

of forms, pours itself through a hundred divergent channels, and links

itself so closely with the individuality of the writer as to merge

imperceptibly into his character and style. But as we cannot secure

wholesome bread without yeast, so we shall fail of a classic without

imagination.

Stedman says: "If anything great has been achieved without exercise of

the imagination, I do not know it. I am referring to striking

productions and achievements, not to acts of virtue. Nevertheless, at

the last analysis, it might be found that imagination has impelled even

the saints and martyrs 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 Shakespeare at a distance even from

those who approach him on one or another side, it is that of his

imagination. As he is the chief of poets, we infer that the faculty in

which he is supereminent must be the greatest of poetic endowments. Yes:

in his wonderland, as elsewhere, imagination is king."

Not only is it true that the vitality of poets and prose writers, the

conceptive power of scientists, inventors, and business organizers,

depend upon the fertility and strength of the imagination, but

throughout the broader reaches of common humanity this power is

everywhere present--constructive and creative. Max Mueller has shown that

the root words of language are imbedded in metaphor, that "Language is

fossil poetry." Again, the mythologies of the different races, grand and

stately, or fair and lovely, are the immediate product of the folk

mind.

It has been said that "The man of culture is preeminently a man of

imagination." But the kind of mental alertness, freedom, and joy which

is suggested by the term _culture_ may spring up in the heart of every

boy and girl endowed with a modicum of human nature. Hamilton Wright

Mabie, in his "Books and Culture" (pp. 148-149), says:--

"The development of the imagination, upon the power of which both

absorption of knowledge and creative capacity depend, is, therefore, a

matter of supreme importance. To this necessity educators will some day

open their eyes, and educational systems will some day conform;

meantime, it must be done mainly by individual work. 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 form of art within reach of every civilized

man, at all times, in all places, is the book. To these masterpieces,

which have been called the books of life, all men may turn with the

assurance that as the supreme achievements of the imagination they have

the power of awakening, stimulating, and enriching it in the highest

degree."

Besides the strong thread of truth and the work of the swift-glancing

shuttle of imagination, the woven fabric of the literary master must

show a beauteous pattern or form. The melody and music of poetry spring

from a rhythmic form. Apparently 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 shrine of

beauty, love, and truth; and his mission is to teach men that all other

objects and places of veneration are but faint imitations of this one

form of faith." But the spirit of this worship can best embody itself in

the poetic form.

Schlegel, in his "Dramatic Art and Literature" (p. 340), says:--

"The works of genius cannot therefore be permitted to be without form;

but of this there is no danger.... [Some] critics ... interpret it

[form] merely in a mechanical, and not in an organical sense....

Organical form, again, is innate; it unfolds itself from within, and

acquires its determination contemporaneously 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

supreme artist,--all genuine forms are organical, that is, determined by

the quality of the work. In a word, the form is nothing but a

significant exterior, the speaking physiognomy of each thing, which, as

long as it is not disfigured by any destructive accident, gives a true

evidence of its hidden essence."

Some products, like the "Paradise Lost," "Thanatopsis," and "Hamlet,"

show such a perfect fitness of form to thought that every effort to

change or modify is profanation. The classic form and thought go

together. As 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 with his own imagery and individuality. The power of the

writer is in his peculiar mingling of the poetic elements. Our English

and American classics, therefore, should be read in their original form

as far as possible.

A fixed form is not always necessary. We need many of the stories and

epics that were written in other languages. Fortunately some of the

works of the old poets are capable of taking on a new dress. The story

of Ulysses has been told in verse and prose, in translation, paraphrase,

and simple narrative for children. 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 yet the

same; the same heart beats beneath the kingly robes and the peasant's

frock. Robinson Crusoe has had many renderings, but remains the same old

story in spite of variations. The Bible has been translated into all

modern tongues, but it is a classic in each. The Germans claim they have

as good a Shakespeare as we.

But many of the best masterpieces were originally written in other

languages, and to be of use to us the ancient form of thought must be

broken. The spirit of the old masters must be poured into new moulds. In

educating our children we need the stories of Bellerophon, Perseus,

Hercules, Rustum, Tell, Siegfried, Virginius, Roland, Wallace, King

Arthur. Happily some of the 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 expression which distinguishes

fertile writers. They have entered freely and fondly into the old

spirit, and have allowed it to pour itself copiously through these

modern channels. It takes a poet, in fact, to modernize an ancient

story. There are, indeed, many renderings of the old stories which are

not ideal, which, however, we sometimes use for lack of anything better.

From the preceding discussion we may conclude that a choice piece of

literature must embody a lasting truth, reveal the permeating glow of an

artist's imagination, and find expression in some form of beauty. But

these elements are so mingled and interlaced, so organically grown into

one living plant, that even the critics have given up the effort to

dissect and isolate them.

There are other strength-conferring qualities in good literature which

will be discussed more fully in those chapters which deal with the

particular literary materials selected for use in the schools.

Among the topics to be treated in connection with materials which

illustrate them, are the following: the strong handling of essential

historical ideas in literature; 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 social influence of the best

writers; the educative quality of the humorous phases of literature; the

great writers as models of skill and enthusiasm in teaching.

In the foregoing pages the significance of literature among great

studies has been but briefly and inadequately suggested by these few

quotations and comments. It would be easy to multiply 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 probe deeper into this subject will find that it

has been handled in a masterly way by some of the great essayists and

critics. We will suggest the following for more elaborate study:--

Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies." The power and charm of Ruskin's writing

appears in full measure in these essays.

Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship," especially the chapters on "The

Hero as Poet," and "The Hero as Man of Letters."

Shelley's "Defence of Poetry" (edited by Cook, and published by Ginn &

Co.) is a literary masterpiece of rare beauty and charm.

Emerson's "Essay on History."

George Willis Cooke, "Poets and Problems" (Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.).

The first chapter, "The Poet as Teacher," is very suggestive, while the

chapters on Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning are fine introductions for

those who will study the authors themselves.

"The Book Lover," James Baldwin (McClurg & Co.).

Charles Kingsley's "Literary and General Essays" (Macmillan & Co.).

Chapter on "English Literature," and others.

Scudder's "Literature in Schools" (Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.). Excellent

for teachers.

J. C. Shairp, "On Poetic Interpretation of Nature" (Houghton, Mifflin, &

Co.).

Matthew Arnold's "Sweetness and Light."

Lowell's "Books and Libraries" (Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.).

Edmund Clarence Stedman's "The Nature and Elements of Poetry" (Houghton,

Mifflin, & Co.).

It is not implied that even the essays of critics on the merits of

literature can take the place of a study of the works of the best

writers.