examples more unsatisfactory than these; but this is a fair sample of
the things which are administered to pupils in the name of literary
study. The students are not interested in these details; and I am
inclined to believe that most of the teachers who mistakenly feel
obliged to drill classes in them could not honestly say that they
themselves care a fig for such barren facts. It is no wonder that out
of the school course young folk so often get the notion that literature
is dull. In a recent entrance paper a boy wrote as follows:
I could never understand why so much time has to be given in
school to old books just because they have been known a long
time. It would be better if we could have given the time to
something useful.
He said what many boys feel, and what not a few of them have thought
out frankly to themselves, although perhaps few would express it so
squarely. If the study of literature means no more than is represented
by work on notes and the history of books and authors, I most fully
agree with him.
Some of the books at present included in the college entrance
requirement, it must be added, lend themselves too much to
unintelligent pedantry. Undoubtedly much thought has been given to the
selection, although perhaps less sympathetic consideration of child
nature. The result is not in all cases satisfactory. To foster a taste
for poetry a teacher may, it is true, do much with "Julius Cæsar,"
but I have yet to see the class of undergraduates with which I should
personally hope to arouse enthusiasm with "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso,"
"Lycidas," or "Comus." I may be simply confessing my own limitations,
but I should think all of these poems, magnificent in themselves,
hardly fitted for the boys and girls who are found in our public
schools. I have extracted from more than one teacher a confession of
entire inability to take pleasure in the Milton which they assure their
pupils is beautiful; and while this is an arraignment of instructors
rather than of the works, it is significant of the attitude the honest
minds of children are likely to take.
By way of making things worse, scholars are drilled in Macaulay's
"Milton."[35:1] The inclusion of this essay, the product of the
author's 'prentice hand, is most lamentable. The philistinism of
Macaulay is here rampant; and the one thing which students are sure
to get from the essay is the conception that poetry is the product
of barbarism, to be outgrown and cast aside when civilization is
sufficiently advanced. Again and again in entrance examinations and
in second-year notebooks, I have found this idea expressed. It is not
only the one thing which survives out of the essay, but is often the
one conviction in regard to literature which has survived examinations
as the result of the study of the entire entrance requirement. In the
entrance paper of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for last
year (1905), I had put a question in regard to the difference between
poetry and prose. From the replies I have taken a few of the many
echoes from the study of the "Milton."
Macaulay claims that the uncivilized alone care for poetry.
I agree with Macaulay that prose is the product of
civilization, . . . while poetry was the way the ancients
expressed themselves.
Poetry is not being written nearly so much now as in the Dark
Ages, simply because men are learning to treat subjects in
classes.
Macaulay says that the writer of a great poem must have a
certain unsoundness of mind, and Carlyle makes the statement
that to be a great poet a man must first be as a little child.
If these opinions are just, one would think poetry could not be
regarded as of a quality equal to prose works.
Poetry came first in the lapse of time, and as people grew more
civilized, as their education grew higher, they wrote in prose.
Obviously these extracts hardly do justice to the views of Macaulay,
but it is evidently absurd to try to interest pupils in poetry when
they are getting from one of the works selected "for careful study" the
idea that the poet is a semi-madman practicing one of the habits of a
half-civilized race![36:1]
Fortunately much of the reading is better, although in effect the books
are sometimes limited by the difficulty of keeping the interest of
children up for the long poem. The inclusion in the list of "Elaine"
and "The Lady of the Lake" of course presupposes on the part of the
pupil familiarity in the lower grades with lyrics and brief narrative
poems; and in many cases this may be sufficient. Most pupils will be
sure to care for "The Ancient Mariner," many for "The Princess;" and
any wholesome boy, with ordinary intelligence, should be interested in
"Ivanhoe" and "Macbeth."
As things stand, however, the teacher is forced to deal largely with
books which almost compel formal and pedantic treatment. Burke's
"Speech on Conciliation," admirable as it is in its place and way,
will hardly give to a young student an insight into literature or a
taste for imaginative work. The normal, average lad is likely, it
seems to me, to be bored by "Silas Marner," or at least very mildly
interested; and I confess frankly my inability to understand how
youthful enthusiasm is to be aroused or more than youthful tolerance
secured for Irving's "Life of Goldsmith" or Macaulay's "Life of
Johnson." Plenty of pupils are docile enough to allow themselves to be
led placidly through these works, and indeed to submit to any volume
imposed by school regulations; but what the teacher is endeavoring to
do is to convince the young readers that books entitled to the name
"literature" are really of more worth and interest than the newspaper,
the detective story, the sensational novel, or the dime-theatre song.
It is perhaps not possible to find among the English Classics works
well adapted to such use,—although I refuse to believe it,—but I do
at least feel that the present entrance-requirement list does not lend
itself readily, to say the least, to the task of the teacher who aims
at developing an intelligent and loving appreciation of literature.
The list of obstacles which beset the way of a teacher of literature
might easily be lengthened; but these seem chief. They are
discouraging; but they exist. They must be faced and overcome, and
nothing is gained by ignoring them. The successful teacher, like the
successful general, is he who most clearly examines difficulties, and
best succeeds in devising means by which they may be vanquished.
FOOTNOTES:
[35:1] Since this was written this essay has been removed from the
list, but the effects of it are still with us, as it was used for all
classes entering college before 1906. I leave this comment, however,
because of its important bearing on a point which I wish to bring up
later.
[36:1] See page 212.
IV
OTHER OBSTACLES
The difficulties set down in the last chapter exist in the conditions
under which teachers must work. They should be recognized, to the end
that they may be as far as possible overcome. They can be done away
with only by the slow and gradual changing of public opinion and the
re-forming of pedagogic intelligence. For the present they are to be
reckoned with as inevitable limitations.
Another class of obstacles to the ideal result of the teaching of
literature exists largely in the application of the modern system or in
the method of the individual teacher. These may to a great extent be
done away with by a proper understanding of conditions, a just estimate
of what may be accomplished, and a wise choice of the means of doing
this. Teachers must take things as they find them, but the ultimate
result of work depends to a great extent upon how they take them. If
they must often accept unfortunate conditions, they may at least reduce
to a minimum whatever is uneffective in their own method.
The most serious defects which depend largely upon individual teaching
are four. The first is the danger, already alluded to, of teaching
children _about_ literature; the second is that of making too great a
demand upon the child; the third is the common habit of endeavoring to
reach the enthusiasm of the pupil through the reason, instead of aiming
at the reason through the enthusiasm; and the fourth is—to speak
boldly—the possible incapacity of the teacher for this particular work.
The first of these is the most widespread. It is so natural to bring
forward facts concerning the history of writers and of books, it is
indeed so impossible to avoid this entirely; to induce students to
repeat glibly what some critic has written about authors and their
works is so easy, that this insensibly and almost inevitably tends
to make up the bulk of instruction. Every incompetent teacher takes
refuge in such formal drill. The history of literature is concrete;
it is easily tabulated; and it is naturally accepted by children as
being exactly in line with the work which properly belongs to other
studies with which they are acquainted. If a child is set to treat
literature just as he has treated history or mathematics, the process
will appeal to him as logical and easily to be mastered. He will find
no incongruity in applying the same method to "Macbeth" and to the list
of Presidents or to the multiplication-table; and however well or ill
he succeed in memorizing what is given him, he will feel the ease of
working in accustomed lines. Names and dates may be learned by rote,
old entrance-paper questions are tangible things, and thus examinations
come to mean annual offerings of childish brains. To teach literature
requires sympathy and imagination: the history of literature requires
only perseverance. Much that in school reports is set down as the study
of masterpieces is in reality only a mixture of courses in biography
and history, more or less spiced with gossip.
The second danger, that of making too great a demand upon the child,
is one which, to some extent, besets all school work to-day, but which
seems to be especially great and especially disastrous in the case
of the study we are considering. Often the nature of the questions
asked shows one form of this demand in a way that is nothing less
than preposterous. Children in secondary schools are required to have
original ideas in regard to the character of Lady Macbeth; to define
the workings of the mind of Shylock; to produce personal opinions
in the discussion of the madness of Hamlet. Children whose highest
acquirements in English composition do not and cannot reach beyond the
plainest expository statement of simple facts and ideas, are coolly
requested to discriminate between the style of "Il Penseroso" and
that of "L'Allegro," and to show how each is adapted to the purpose
of the poet. If they were allowed to write from the point of view of
a child, the matter would be bad enough; but no teacher who sets such
a task would be satisfied with anything properly belonging to the
child-mind. It is probably safe to be tolerably certain that no teacher
ever gave out this sort of a question who could without cribbing from
the critics perform satisfactorily the task laid upon the unfortunate
children.
I have before me a pamphlet entitled "Suggestions for Teachers of
English Classics in the High Schools." It is not a gracious task to
find fault with a fellow worker and a fellow writer in the same line in
which I am myself offering suggestions, and I therefore simply put it
to the common sense of teachers what the effect upon the average high
school pupil would be if he were confronted with questions such as are
included in the proposed outline for the study of "Evangeline." The
author of the pamphlet directs that these points are to be used "after
some power of analysis has been developed."
The language.
Relative proportion of English and Latin.
Archaic element, proportion and use.
Weight of the style; presentative and symbolic words.
Emotional element; experimental significance of terms.
Picture-element; prevailing character of figures of
speech.
The structure.
Grammatical.
Poetic uses of words; archaisms, poetic forms.
Poetic uses of parts of speech, parse.[42:1]
Poetic constructions and inversions, analyze.
Metrical.
Number and character of metrical "feet."
Accent and quantity, the spondee.
Scan selected lines, compare with classic
hexameter.
Compare hexameter with other verse-forms.
Character of rhyme, compare with other poems.
Presence and use of alliteration.
Musical.
Examine for lightness and speed; trochee, dactyl,
polysyllables.
Examine for dignity; iambus, monosyllables.
Number of syllables in individual lines.
Character of consonants; stopped, unstopped,
voiced.
Character of vowels; back, front, round, harsh.
Correspondence of sound to sense.
It would be interesting, and perhaps somewhat humiliating, for each
one of us who are teachers to take a list of the questions we have set
for examinations in literature and with perfect honesty tell ourselves
how many of them we could ourselves answer with any originality, and
how many it is fair to suppose that our students could write about
with any ideas except those gathered from teacher or text-book. With
the pressure of a doubtful system and of unintelligent custom always
upon us, few of us, it is to be feared, would escape without a sore
conscience.
When I speak of a school-boy or a school-girl as writing with
"originality," I do not mean anything profound. I am not so deluded as
to suppose this originality will take the form of startlingly novel
discoveries in regard to the significance of work or the intention of
authors. I only mean that what the boy or girl writes shall be written
because he or she really thinks it, and that each idea, no matter if
it be obvious and crude, shall have some trace of individuality which
will indicate that it has passed through the mind of the particular
pupil who expresses it. This, I believe, is what should chiefly concern
the maker of examination-papers. He should especially aim at giving
students an opportunity of showing personal opinions and convictions.
No one who has looked over files of examination-papers is likely to
deny that we are most of us likely to be betrayed into asking of our
classes absurd things in the line of criticism. It is all very well
to remember the scriptural phrase about the high character of some of
the utterances of babes and sucklings; but this is hardly sufficient
warrant for insisting that our school-children shall babble in
philosophy and chatter in criticism. The honest truth is that we are
constantly demanding of pupils things that we could for the most part
do but very poorly ourselves. The unfortunate youngsters who should
be solacing themselves with fairy-tales or with stories of adventure
as their taste happens to be, are being dragged through "The Vicar of
Wakefield,"—an exquisite book, which I doubt if one person in fifty
can read to-day with proper appreciation and delight until he is at
least twenty-five. They are being asked to write themes about Lady
Macbeth,—and if they were really frank, and wrote their own real
thoughts, if they considered her from the point of view of the children
they are, where is the teacher who would not feel obliged to return
the theme as a failure? Those instructors who recognized that it was
of real worth because genuine would also realize that it would be
impossible when tried by the modern standard of examinations.
How far individual teachers go in demanding from children what the
youthful mind cannot be fairly expected to give will depend upon
the personal equation of the instructor. In too many cases the
entrance-examinations set a standard which in the fitting-schools may
not safely be ignored, but which is fatal to all original thinking.
Perhaps the worst form of this is the wrenching from the student what
are supposed to be criticisms upon artistic form or content. A hint of
the teaching which is intended to lead up to this has been given in
the topics suggested in connection with the study of "Evangeline" on
page 42. The "outline" from which those are quoted goes on to give the
following questions:
Of what literary spirit is "Evangeline" the expression?
What is the author's thought-habit as shown in the poem?
What is the place of this poem in the development of verse?
I am perhaps a little uncharitable to these queries because I am, I
confess, entirely unable to answer them myself; but I am also sure that
no child in the stage of mental development belonging to the secondary
schools would have any clear and reasonable idea even of what they
mean. The example is an extreme one, but it has more parallels than
would seem possible.
The formulation of views on æsthetics, whether in regard to workmanship
or to motive, is utterly beyond the range of any mental condition the
teacher in secondary schools has a right to assume or to expect. All
that can happen is that the student who is asked to answer æsthetic
conundrums will reproduce, in form more or less distorted according
to the parrot-like fidelity of his memory, views he has heard without
understanding them. Any teacher of common sense knows this, and any
teacher of independent mind will refuse to be bullied by manuals or by
entrance-examination papers into inflicting tasks of this sort upon his
pupils.
In any branch many students either go on blunderingly or fail
altogether through sheer ignorance of how to study. In the case of
literature perhaps more fail through this cause than through all others
combined. A robust, honest, and not unintelligent lad, who is fairly
well disposed toward school work, but whose real interests are in
outdoor life and active sport, who is intellectually interested only
in the obviously practical side of knowledge, is set down to "study" a
play of Shakespeare's. He is disposed to do it well, if not from any
vital interest in the matter, at least from a general habit of being
faithful in his work and a healthful instinct to do a thing thoroughly
if he undertakes it at all. He is at the outset puzzled to know what is
expected of him. In arithmetic or algebra he has had definite tasks,
and success has been in direct proportion to the diligence with which
he has followed a course definitely marked out. Now he casts about for
a rule of procedure. He can understand that he is expected to learn
the meaning of unusual or obsolete words, that he is to make himself
acquainted with the story so that he may be able to answer any of the
conundrums which adorn ingeniously the puzzle department of examination
papers. These things he does, but he is too sensible not to know that
if this is all there is to the study of literature the game is not
worth the candle. He cannot help feeling that the time thus employed
might be put to a better use; he is probably bored; and as he is sure
to know that he is bored, he is likely to conceive a contempt for
literature which is none the less deep and none the less permanent for
not being put into words. He very likely comes to believe, with the
inevitable tendency of youth to make its own feelings the criteria
by which to judge all the world, that everybody is really bored by
literature, if only, for some inscrutable reason, people did not feel
it necessary to shroud the matter in so much humbug. Talk about the
beauty of Shakespeare, about the greatness of his poetry, the wonders
of literary art, come to affect him as cant pure and simple. He puts
this to himself plainly or not according to his temperament; but the
feeling is in his mind, showing at every turn to one wise enough to
discern. Now and then a boy is born with the taste and appreciation of
poetry, and of course even in these days, when a literary atmosphere in
the home is unhappily so rare, an occasional student appears from time
to time who has been taught to care for poetry where every child should
learn to love it, in the nursery. On the whole, however, the average
school-boy really cares little or nothing for literature, and in his
secret heart is entirely convinced that nobody else cares either.
Not knowing how to "study" literature, then, and feeling that in
literature is nothing to study which is of consequence, the pupil is
in no position to make even a reasonable beginning. He cannot even
approach literature in any proper attitude unless he can be made to
care for it; unless he can be so interested that he ceases to feel the
profession of admiration for the Shakespeare he is asked to work upon
to be necessarily cant and affectation. Perhaps the hardest part of the
task set before the teacher is to bring the pupil into a frame of mind
where he can properly study poetry and to give him some insight into
what such study may and should mean.
How this is to be accomplished I cannot pretend fully to say. In
speaking of what I may call "inspirational" training in literature
I shall try to answer the question to some extent; and here I may at
least point out that the situation is from the first utterly hopeless
if the teacher is in the same state of mind as the pupil. If the
instructor is able to see no method of studying literature other than
mechanical drudgery over form, the looking-up of words, verification
of dates, dissection of plot, and so on, it is idle to hope that he
will be able to aid the class to anything better than this dry-as-dust
plodding. The teacher may at least learn what at its best the "study"
is. He may or may not have the power of inciting those under him to
enthusiasm, but he may at least show them that something is possible
beyond the mechanical treatment of the masterpieces of art.
A writer in the (Chicago) "Dial" states admirably the attitude of great
masses of students in saying:
There are many people, young people in particular, who, with
the best will in the world, cannot understand why it is that
men make such a fuss about literature, and who are honestly
puzzled by the praises bestowed upon the great literary
artists. They would like to join in sympathetic appreciation
of the masters, and they have an abundant store of gratitude
and reverence to lavish upon objects that approve themselves as
worthy; but just what there is in Shakespeare and Wordsworth
and Tennyson to call for such seeming extravagance of eulogy
remains a dark mystery. Such people are apt in their moments of
revolt to set it all down to a sort of critical conspiracy,
and to consider those who voice the conventional literary
estimates as chargeable with an irritating kind of hypocrisy.
They cannot see for the life of them why the books of the hour,
with their timeliness, their cleverness, their sentimental or
sensational interest, should be held of no serious account by
the real lovers of literature, while the dull babblers of a
bygone age are exalted to the skies by these same devotees of
the art of letters. . . . Some young people never recover from
the condition of open revolt into which they are thrown by the
injudicious methods of our education.
Out of his own experience and appreciation the teacher must be able to
show the pupil some method of studying literature which shall in the
measure of the student's individual capacity lead to a conception of
what literature is and wherein lies its importance. Until this can be
done, nothing has been effected which is of any real or lasting value.