ENGLISH.
"If Chaucer, as has been said, is Spring, it is a modern, premature
Spring, followed by an interval of doubtful weather. Sidney is the very
Spring--the later May. And in prose he is the authentic, only Spring. It
is a prose full of young joy, and young power, and young inexperience,
and young melancholy, which is the wilfulness of joy; . . .
"Sidney's prose is treasureable, not only for its absolute merits, but
as the bud from which English prose, that gorgeous and varied flower,
has unfolded."--FRANCIS THOMPSON, "The Prose of Poets."
The study of one's own language is the very heart of a modern education;
to the study of English, therefore, belongs a central place in the
education of English-speaking girls. It has two functions: one is to
become the instrument by which almost all the other subjects are
apprehended; the other, more characteristically its own, is to give that
particular tone to the mind which distinguishes it from others. This is
a function that is always in process of further development; for the
mind of a nation elaborates its language, and the language gives tone to
the mind of the new generation. The influences at work upon the English
language at present are very complex, and play on it with great force,
so that the changes are startling in their rapidity. English is not only
the language of a nation or of a race, not even of an empire; and the
inflowing elements affirm this. We have kindred beyond the empire, and
their speech is more and more impressing ours, forging from the common
stock, which they had from us, whole armouries full of expressive words,
words with edge and point and keen directness which never miss the mark.
Some are unquestionably an acquisition, those which come from States
where the language is honoured and studied with a carefulness that puts
to shame all except our very best. They have kept some gracious and rare
expressions, now quaint to our ear, preserved out of Elizabethan English
in the current speech of to-day. These have a fragrance of the olden
time, but we cannot absorb them again into our own spoken language. Then
they have their incisive modern expressions so perfectly adapted for
their end that they are irresistible even to those who cling by
tradition to the more stable element in English. These also come from
States in which language is conscious of itself and looks carefully to
literary use, and they do us good rather than harm. Other importations
from younger States are too evidently unauthorized to be in any way
beautiful, and are blamed on both sides of the ocean as debasing the
coinage. But these, too, are making their way, so cheap and convenient
are they, and so expressive.
It is needful in educating children to remember that this strong
inflowing current must be taken into account, and also to remember that
it does not belong to them. They must first be trained in the use of the
more lasting elements of English; later on they may use their discretion
in catching the new words which are afloat in the air, but the
foundations must be laid otherwise. It takes the bloom off the freshness
of young writers if they are determined to exhibit the last new words
that are in, or out of season. New words have a doubtful position at
first. They float here and there like thistle-down, and their future
depends upon where they settle. But until they are established and
accepted they are out of place for children's use. They are contrary to
the perfect manner for children. We ask that their English should be
simple and unaffected, not that it should glitter with the newest
importations, brilliant as they may be. It is from the more permanent
element in the language that they will acquire what they ought to have,
the characteristic traits of thought and manner which belong to it. It
is not too much to look for such things in children's writing and
speaking. The first shoots and leaves may come up early though the full
growth and flower may be long waited for. These characteristics are
often better put into words by foreign critics than by ourselves, for we
are inclined to take them as a whole and to take them for granted; hence
the trouble experienced by educated foreigners in catching the
characteristics of English style, and their surprise in finding that we
have no authentic guides to English composition, fend that the court of
final appeal is only the standard Of the best use. The words of a German
critic on a Collection of English portraits in Berlin are very happily
pointed and might be as aptly applied to writing as to painting.
"English, utterly English! Nothing on God's earth could be more English
than this whole collection. The personality of the artist (_it happened
that he was an Irishman_), the countenances of the subjects, their
dress, the discreetly suggestive backgrounds, all have the
characteristic touch of British culture, very refined, very high-bred,
very quiet, very much clarified, very confident, very neat, very
well-appointed, a little dreamy and just a little wearisome--the precise
qualities which at the same time impress and annoy us in the English."
This is exactly what might be said of Pater's writing, but that is
full-grown English. Pater is not a model for children, they would find
him more than "just a little wearisome." If anyone could put into words
what Sir Joshua Reynolds' portraits of children express, that would be
exactly what we want for the model of their English. They can write and
they can speak in a beautiful way of their own if they are allowed a
little liberty to grow wild, and trained a little to climb. Their charm
is candour, as it is the charm of Sir Joshua's portraits, with a quiet
confidence that all is well in the world they know, and that everyone is
kind; this gives the look of trustful innocence and unconcern. Their
writing and talking have this charm, as long as nothing has happened to
make them conscious of themselves. But these first blossoms drop off,
and there is generally an intermediate stage in which they can neither
speak nor write, but keep their thoughts close, and will not give
themselves away. Only when that stage is past do they really and with
full consciousness seek to express themselves, and pay some attention to
the self-expression of others. This third stage has its May-day, when
the things which have become hackneyed to our minds from long use come
to them with the full force of revelations, and they astonish us by
their exuberant delight. But they have a right to their May-day and it
ought not to be cut short; the sun will go down of itself, and then June
will come in its own time and ripen the green wood, and after that will
come pruning time, in another season, and then the phase of severity and
fastidiousness, and after that--if they continue to write--they will be
truly themselves.
In every stage we have our duty to do, encouraging and pruning by turns,
and, as in everything else, we must begin with ourselves and go on with
ourselves that there may be always something living to give, and some
growth; for in this we need never cease to grow, in knowledge, in taste,
and in critical power. The means are not far to seek; if we really care
about these things, the means are everywhere, in reading the best
things, in taking notes, in criticising independently and comparing with
the best criticism, in forming our own views and yet keeping a
willingness to modify them, in an attitude of mind that is always
learning, always striving, always raising its standard, never impatient
but permanently dissatisfied.
We have three spheres of action in the use of the language--there is
English to speak, English to write, And the wide field of English to
read, and there are vital interests bound up in each for the after life
of children. As they speak, so will be the tone of their intercourse; as
they write, so will be the standard of their habits of thought; and as
they read so will be the atmosphere of their life, and the preparation
of their judgment for those critical moments of choice which are the
pivots upon which its whole action moves.
If practice alone would develop it to perfection, speaking ought to be
easy to learn, but it does not prove so, and especially when children
are together in schools the weeds grow faster than the crop, and the
crop is apt to be thin. The language of the majority holds its own;
children among children can express with a very small vocabulary what
they want to say to each other, whereas an only child who lives with its
elders has usually a larger vocabulary than it can manage, which makes
the sayings of only children quaint and almost weird, as the perfection
of the instrument persuades us that there is a full-grown thought within
it, and a child's fancy suddenly laughs at us from under the disguise.
There is general lamentation at present because the art of conversation
has fallen to a very low ebb; there is, in particular, much complaint of
the conversation of girls whose education is supposed to have been
careful. The subjects they care to talk of are found to be few and poor,
their power of expressing themselves very imperfect, the scanty words at
their command worked to death in supplying for all kinds of things to
which they are not appropriate. We know that we have a great deal of
minted gold in the English language, but little of it finds its way into
our general conversation, most of our intercourse is carried on with
small change, a good deal of it even in coppers, and the worst trouble
of all is that so few seem to care or to regret it. Perhaps the young
generation will do so later in life, but unless something is done for
them during the years of their education it does not seem probable,
except in the case of the few who are driven by their professional work
to think of it, or drawn to it by some influence that compels them to
exert themselves in earnest.
Listening to the conversation of girls whose thoughts and language are
still in a fluid state, say from the age of 17 to 25, gives a great deal
of matter for thought to those who are interested in education, and this
point of language is of particular interest. There are the new
catch-words of each year; they had probably a great _piquancy_ in the
mouth of the originator but they very soon become flat by repetition,
then they grow jaded, are more and more neglected and pass away
altogether. From their rising to their setting the arc is very
short--about five years seems to be the limit of their existence, and no
one regrets them. We do not seem to be in a happy vein of development at
present as to the use of words, and these short-lived catch-words are
generally poor in quality. Our girl talkers are neither rich nor
independent in their language, they lay themselves under obligations to
anyone who will furnish a new catch-word, and especially to boys from
whom they take rather than accept contributions of a different kind. It
is an old-fashioned regret that girls should copy boys instead of
developing themselves independently in language and manners; but though
old-fashioned, it will never cease to be true that what was made to be
beautiful on its own line is dwarfed and crippled by straining it into
imitation of something else which it can never be.
What can be done for the girls to give them first more independence in
their language and then more power to express themselves? Probably the
best cure, food and tonic in one, is reading; a taste for the best
reading alters the whole condition of mental life, and without being
directly attacked the defects in conversation will correct themselves.
But we could do more than is often done for the younger children, not by
talking directly about these things, but by being a little harder to
please, and giving when it is possible the cordial commendation which
makes them feel that what they have done was worth working for.
Recitation and reading aloud, besides all their other uses, have this
use that they accustom children to the sound of their own voices
uttering beautiful words, which takes away the odd shyness which some of
them feel in going beyond their usual round of expressions and extending
their vocabulary. We owe it to our language as well as to each
individual child to make recitation and reading aloud as beautiful as
possible. Perhaps one of the causes of our conversational slovenliness
is the neglect of these; critics of an older generation have not ceased
to lament their decay, but it seems as if better times were coming
again, and that as the fundamentals of breathing and voice-production
are taught, we shall increase the scope of the power acquired and give
it more importance. There is a great deal underlying all this, beyond
the acquirement of voice and pronunciation. If recitation is cultivated
there is an inducement to learn by heart; this in its turn ministers to
the love of reading and to the formation of literary taste, and enriches
the whole life of the mind. There is an indirect but far-reaching gain
of self-possession, from the need for outward composure and inward
concentration of mind in reciting before others. But it is a matter of
importance to choose recitations so that nothing should be learnt which
must be thrown away, nothing which is not worth remembering for life. It
is a pity to make children acquire what they will soon despise when they
might learn something that they will grow up to and prize as long as
they live. There are beautiful things that they can understand, if
something is wanted for to-day, which have at the same time a life that
will never be outgrown. There are poems with two aspects, one of which
is acceptable to a child and the other to the grown-up mind; these, one
is glad to find in anthologies for children. But there are many poems
about children of which the interest is so subtle as to be quite
unsuitable for their collection. Such a poem is "We are seven." Children
can be taught to say it, even with feeling, but their own genuine
impression of it seems to be that the little girl was rather weak in
intellect for eight years old, or a little perverse. Whereas Browning's
"An incident of the French camp" appeals to them by pride of courage as
it does to us by pathos. It may not be a gem, poetically speaking, but
it lives. As children grow older it is only fair to allow them some
choice in what they learn and recite, to give room for their taste to
follow its own bent; there are a few things which it is well that every
one should know by heart, but beyond these the field is practically
without limits.
Perfect recitation or reading aloud is very rare and difficult to
acquire. For a few years there was a tendency to over-emphasis in both,
and, in recitation, to teach gesture, for which as a nation we are
singularly inapt. This is happily disappearing, simplicity and restraint
are regaining their own, at least in the best teaching for girls. As to
reading aloud to children it begins to be recognized that it should not
be too explicit, nor too emphatic, nor too pointed; that it must leave
something for the natural grace of the listener's intelligence to supply
and to feel. There is a didactic tone in reading which says, "you are
most unintelligent, but listen to ME and there may yet be hope that you
will understand." This leaves the "poor creatures" of the class still
unmoved and unenlightened; "the child is not awakened," while the more
sensitive minds are irritated; they can feel it as an impertinence
without quite knowing why they are hurt. It is a question of manners and
consideration which is perceptible to them, for they like what is
best--sympathy and suggestiveness rather than hammering in. They can help
each other by their simple insight into these things when they read
aloud, and if a reading lesson in class is conducted as an exercise in
criticism it is full of interest. The frank good-nature and gravity of
twelve-year-old critics makes their operations quite painless, and they
are accepted with equal good humour and gravity, no one wasting any
emotion and a great deal of good sense being exchanged.
Conversation, as conversation, is hard to teach, we can only lead the
way and lay down a few principles which keep it in the right path. These
commonplaces of warning, as old as civilization itself, belong to
manners and to fundamental unselfishness, but obvious as they are they
have to be said and to be repeated and enforced until they become
matters of course. Not to seem bored, not to interrupt, not to
contradict, not to make personal remarks, not to talk of oneself (some
one was naive enough to say "then what is there to talk of"), not to get
heated and not to look cold, not to do all the talking and not to be
silent, not to advance if the ground seems uncertain, and to be
sensitively attentive to what jars--all these and other things are
troublesome to obtain, but exceedingly necessary. And even observing
them all we may be just as far from conversation as before; how often
among English people, through shyness or otherwise, it simply faints
from inanition. We can at least teach that a first essential is to have
something to say, and that the best preparation of mind is thought and
reading and observation, to be interested in many things, and to give
enough personal application to a few things as to have something worth
saying about them.
By testing in writing every step of an educational course a great deal
of command over all acquired materials may be secured. As our girls grow
older, essay-writing becomes the most powerful means for fashioning
their minds and bringing out their individual characteristics.
It is customary now to begin with oral composition,--quite rightly, for
one difficulty at a time is enough. But when children have to write for
themselves the most natural beginning is by letters. A great difference
in thought and power is observable in their first attempts, but in the
main the structure of their letters is similar, like the houses and the
moonfaced persons which they draw in the same symbolic way. Perhaps both
are accepted conventions to which they conform--handed down through
generations of the nursery tradition--though students of children are
inclined to believe that these symbolical drawings represent their real
mind in the representation of material things. Their communications move
in little bounds, a succession of happy thoughts, the kind of things
which birds in conversation might impart to one another, turning their
heads quickly from side to side and catching sight of many things
unrelated amongst themselves. It is a pity that this manner is often
allowed to last too long, for in these stages of mental training it is
better to be on the stretch to reach the full stature of one's age
rather than to linger behind it, and early promise in composition means
a great deal.
To write of the things which belong to one's age in a manner that is
fully up to their worth or even a little beyond it, is better than to
strain after something to say in a subject that is beyond the mental
grasp. The first thing to learn is how to write pleasantly about the
most simple and ordinary things. But a common fault in children's
writing is to wait for an event, "something to write about," and to
dispose of it in three or four sentences like telegrams.
The influences which determine these early steps are, first, the natural
habit of mind, for thoughtful children see most interesting and strange
things in their surroundings; secondly, the tone of their ordinary
conversation, but especially a disposition that is unselfish and
affectionate. Warm-hearted children who are gifted with sympathy have an
intuition of what will give pleasure, and that is one of the great
secrets of letter-writing. But the letters they write will always depend
in a great measure on the letters they receive, and a family gift for
letter-writing is generally the outcome of a happy home-life in which
all the members are of interest to each other and their doings of
importance.
What sympathy gives to letter-writing, imagination gives to the first
essays of children in longer compositions. Imagination puts them in
sympathy with all the world, with things as well as persons, as
affection keeps them in touch with every detail of the home world. But
its work is not so simple. Home affection is true and is a law to
itself; if it is present it holds all the little child's world in a
right proportion, because all heavenly affection is bound up with it.
But the awakening and the rapid development of imagination as girls grow
up needs a great deal of guidance and training. Fancy may overgrow
itself, and take an undue predominance, so that life is tuned to the
pitch of imagination and not imagination to the pitch of life. It is
hardly possible and hardly to be desired that it should never overflow
the limits of perfect moderation; if it is to be controlled, there must
be something to control, in pruning there must be some strong shoots to
cut back, and in toning down there must be some over-gaudy colours to
subdue. It is better that there should be too much life than too little,
and better that criticism should find something vigorous enough to lay
hold of, rather than something which cannot be felt at all. This is the
time to teach children to begin their essays without preamble, by
something that they really want to say, and to finish them leaving
something still unsaid that they would like to have expressed, so as not
to pour out to the last drop their mind or their fancy on any subject.
This discipline of promptitude in beginning and restraint at the end
will tell for good upon the quality of their writing.
But the work of the imagination may also betray something unreal and
morbid--this is a more serious fault and means trouble coming. It
generally points to a want of focus in the mind; because self
predominates in the affections feeling and interest are self-centred.
Then the whole development of mind comes to a disappointing check--the
mental power remains on the level of unstable sixteen years old, and the
selfish side develops either emotionally or frivolously--according to
taste, faster than it can be controlled.
There are cross-roads at about sixteen in a girl's life. After two or
three troublesome years she is going to make her choice, not always
consciously and deliberately, but those who are alive to what is going
on may expect to hear about this time her speech from the throne,
announcing what the direction of her life is going to be. It is not
necessarily the choice of a vocation in life, that belongs to an order
of things that has neither day nor hour determined for it, but it is
when the mental outlook takes a direction of its own, literary, or
artistic, or philosophical, or worldly, or turning towards home; it may
sometimes be the moment of decisive vocation to leave all things for
God, or, as has so often happened in the lives of the Saints, the time
when a child's first desire, forgotten for a while, asserts itself
again. In any case it is generally a period of new awakenings, and if
things are as they ought to be, generally a time of deep happiness--the
ideal hour in the day of our early youth. All this is faithfully
rendered in the essays of that time; we unsuspectingly give ourselves
away.
After this, for those who are going to write at all, comes the "viewy"
stage, and this is full of interest. We are so dogmatic, so defiant, so
secure in our persuasions. It is impossible to believe that they will
ever alter. Yet who has lived through this phase of abounding activity
and has not found that, at first with the shock of disappointment, and
afterwards without regret, a memorial cross had to be set by our
wayside, here and there, marking the place of rest for our most
enthusiastic convictions. In the end one comes to be glad of it, for if
it means anything it means a growth in the truth.
The criticism of essays is one of the choice opportunities which
education offers, for then the contact of mind with mind is so close
that truth can be told under form of criticism, which as exhortation
would have been less easily accepted. It is evident that increasing
freedom must be allowed as the years go on, and that girls have a right
to their own taste and manner--and within the limits of their knowledge
to form their own opinions; but it is in this period of their
development that they are most sensitive to the mental influence of
those who are training them, and their quick responsiveness to the best
is a constant stimulus to go on for their sakes, discovering and tasting
and training one's discernment in what is most excellent.
From this point we may pass to what is first in the order of things--but
first and last in this department of an English education--and that is
reading, with the great field of literature before us, and the duty of
making the precious inheritance all that it ought to be to this young
generation of ours--heiresses to all its best.
English literature will be to children as they grow up, what we have
made it to them in the beginning. There will always be the exceptional
few, privileged ones, who seem to have received the key to it as a
personal gift. They will find their way without us, but if we have the
honour of rendering them service we may do a great deal even for them in
showing where the best things lie, and the way to make them one's own.
But the greater number have to be taken through the first steps with
much thought and discernment, for taste in literature is not always easy
to develop, and may be spoiled by bad management at the beginning. We
are not very teachable as a nation in this matter--our young taste is
wayward, and sometimes contradictory, it will not give account of
itself, very likely it cannot. We have inarticulate convictions that
this is right, and suits us, and something else is wrong as far as our
taste is concerned, and that we have rights to like what we like and
condemn what we do not like, and we have gone a considerable way along
the road before we can stop and look about us and see the reason of our
choice. English literature itself fosters this independent spirit of
criticism by its extraordinary abundance, its own wide liberty of
spirit, its surpassing truthfulness. Our greatest poets and our truest
do not sing to an audience but to their Maker and to His world, and let
anyone who can understand it catch the song, and sing it after them. No
doubt many have fallen from the truth and piped an artificial tune, and
they have had their following. But love for the real and true is very
deep and in the end it prevails, and as far as we can obtain it with
children it must prevail.
Their first acquaintance with beautiful things is best established by
reading aloud to them, and this need not be limited entirely to what
they can understand at the time. Even if we read something that is
beyond them, they have listened to the cadences, they have heard the
song without the words, the words will come to them later. If there is
good ground for the seed to fall upon, and we sow good seed, it will
come up with its thirtyfold or more, as seed sown in the mind seems
always to come up, whether it be good or bad, and even if it has lain
dormant for years. There are good moments laid up in store for the
future when the words, which have been familiar for years, suddenly
awake to life, and their meaning, full-grown, at the moment when we need
it, or at the moment when we are able to understand its value, dawns
upon the mind. Then we are grateful to those who invested these revenues
for us though we knew it not. We are not grateful to those who give us
the less good though pleasant and easy to enjoy. A little severity and
fastidiousness render us better service. And this is especially true for
girls, since for them it is above all important that there should be a
touch of the severe in their taste, and that they should be a little
exacting, for if they once let themselves go to what is too
light-heartedly popular they do not know where to draw the line and they
go very far, with great loss to themselves and others.
One of the beautiful things of to-day in England is the wealth of
children's literature. It is a peculiar grace of our time that we are
all trying to give the best to the children, and this is most of all
remarkable in the books published for them. We had rather a silly moment
in which we kept them babies too long and thought that rhymes without
reason would please them, and another moment when we were just a little
morbid about them; but now we have struck a very happy vein, free from
all morbidness, very innocent and very happy, abounding in life and in
no way unfitting for the experiences that have to be lived through
afterwards. No one thinks it waste of time to write and illustrate books
for children, and to do their very best in both, and the result of
historical research and the most critical care of texts is put within
the children's reach with a real understanding of what they can care
for. A true appreciation of the English classics must result from this,
and the mere reading of what is choice is an early safeguard against the
less good.
Reading, without commentary, is what is best accepted; we are beginning
to come back to this belief. It is agreed almost generally that there
has been too much comment and especially too much analysis in our
teaching of literature, and that the majesty or the loveliness of our
great writers' works have not been allowed to speak for themselves. We
have not trusted them enough, and we have not trusted the children so
much as they deserved. The little boy who said he could understand if
only they would not explain has become historical, and his word of
warning, though it may not have sounded quite respectful, has been taken
into account. We have now fewer of the literary Baedeker's guides who
stopped us at particular points, to look back for the view, and gave the
history and date of the work with its surrounding circumstances, and the
meaning of every word, while they took away the soul of the poem, and
robbed us of our whole impression. We realize now that by reading and
reading again, until they have mastered the music, and the meaning dawns
of itself, children gain more than the best annotations can give them;
these will be wanted later on, but in the beginning they set the
attitude of mind completely wrong for early literary study in which
reverence and receptiveness and delight are of more account than
criticism. The memory of these things is so much to us in after life,
and if the living forms of beautiful poems have been torn to pieces to
show us the structure within, and the matter has been shaken out into
ungainly paraphrase and pursued with relentless analysis until it has
given up the last secret of its meaning, the remembrance of this
destructive process will remain and the spirit will never be the same
again. The best hope for beautiful memories is in perfect reading aloud,
with that reverence of mind and reticence of feeling which keeps itself
in the background, not imposing a marked per-Bonal interpretation, but
holding up the poem with enough support to make it speak for itself and
no more. There is a vexed question about the reading allowed to girls
which cannot be entirely passed over. It is a point on which authorities
differ widely among themselves, according to the standard of their
family, the whole early training which has given their mind a particular
bent, the quality of their own taste and their degree of sensitiveness
and insight, the views which they hold about the character of girls,
their ideas of the world and the probable future surroundings of those
whom they advise, as well as many other considerations. It is quite
impossible to arrive at a uniform standard, or at particular precepts or
at lists of books or authors which should or should not be allowed. Even
if these could be drawn up, it would be more and more difficult to
enforce them or to keep the rules abreast of the requirements of each
publishing season. In reading, as in conduct, each one must bear more
and more of their own personal responsibility, and unless the law is
within themselves there is no possibility of enforcing it.
The present Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, when rector of St.
John's Seminary, Wonersh, used to lay down the following rules for his
students, and on condition of their adhering to these rules he allowed
them great freedom in their reading, but if they were disregarded, it
was understood that the rector took no responsibility about the books
they read:--
1. "Be perfectly conscientious, and if you find a book is doing you harm
stop reading it at once. If you know you cannot stop you must be most
careful not to read anything you don't know about."
2. "Be perfectly frank with your confessor and other superiors. Don't
keep anything hidden from them."
3. "Don't recommend books to others which, although they may do no harm
to you, might do harm to them."
These rules are very short but they call for a great deal of
self-control, frankness, and discretion. They set up an inward standard
for the conscience, and, if honestly followed, they answer in practice
any difficulty that is likely to arise as to choice of reading. [1--In
the Appendix will be found a pastoral letter by Cardinal Bourne,
Archbishop of Westminster, then Bishop of Southwark, bearing on this
subject and full of instruction for all who have to deal with it.]
But the application of these rules presupposes a degree of judgment and
self-restraint which are hardly to be found in girls of school-room
years, and before they can adjust themselves to the relative standard
and use the curb for themselves, it is necessary to set before them some
fixed rules by which to judge. While life is young and character plastic
and personal valuations still in formation, the difficulty is to know
what is harmful. "How am I to know," such a one may ask, "whether what
seems harmful to me may not be really a gain, giving me a richer life, a
greater expansion of spirit, a more independent and human character? May
not this effect which I take to be harm, be no more than necessary
growing pains; may it not be bringing me into truer relation with life
as it is, and as a whole?"
There will always be on one side timid and mediocre minds, satisfied to
shut themselves up and safeguard what they already have; and on the
other more daring and able spirits who are tempted beyond the line of
safety in a thirst for discovery and adventure, and are thus swept out
beyond their own immature control. Books that foster the spirit of
rebellion, of doubt and discontent concerning the essentials and
inevitable elements of human life, that tend to sap the sense of
personal responsibility, and to disparage the cardinal virtues and the
duty of self-restraint as against impulse, are emphatically bad. They
are particularly bad for girls with their impressionable minds and
tendency to imitation, and inclination to be led on by the glamour of
the old temptation; "Your eyes shall be opened; you shall be as gods,
knowing good and evil."
To follow a doubt or a lie or a by-way of conduct with the curiosity to
see what comes of it in the end, is to prepare their own minds for
similar lines of thought and action, and in the crises of life, when
they have to choose for themselves, often unadvised and without time to
deliberate, they are more likely to fall by the doubt or the lie or the
spirit of revolt which has become familiar to them in thought and
sympathy.