E-text prepared by MFR and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustration.
See 58461-h.htm or 58461-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/58461/pg58461-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58461/58461-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/readinghowtoteac00arnoiala
Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
READING: HOW TO TEACH IT.
[Illustration: GIRL READING.
W. M. Hunt.]
READING:
HOW TO TEACH IT
by
SARAH LOUISE ARNOLD
Supervisor of Schools, Boston, Mass., and author of
“Stepping Stones to Literature,” “Waymarks
for Teachers,” etc.
[Illustration]
Silver, Burdett and Company
Boston New York Chicago
Copyright, 1899
by
Silver, Burdett and Company
_GREETING._
_The teacher of children must know how to guide her work so that the
seemingly trivial beginnings shall tend toward a goal whose attainment
is worth striving for. Hers is a day of small things. The child does not
see the end from the beginning, but the teacher must, and the constant
recognition of the desired object must influence her simplest lesson._
_These pages are written in the hope of helping teachers to appreciate
the true import of the familiar task. They attempt to interpret and
to dignify the commonplace routine. They have grown out of thoughtful
experience, and are sent forth with good will, to their service._
_SARAH LOUISE ARNOLD._
_Boston, Mass., July, 1899._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. WHY DO WE READ? 9
II. LITERATURE IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM 25
III. LEARNING TO READ 45
IV. THE STUDY OF THE LESSON 87
V. LANGUAGE LESSONS AS A PREPARATION FOR READING LESSONS 105
VI. EXPRESSION IN READING 117
VII. LESSONS TO SUGGEST PLANS OF WORK 139
VIII. LESSONS TO SUGGEST PLANS OF WORK—CONTINUED 157
IX. THE STUDY OF PICTURES 185
X. HINTS FOR READING LESSONS 199
XI. THE USE OF THE LIBRARY 223
XII. A LIST OF BOOKS 251
XIII. A LIST OF POEMS 273
_Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A
company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked
out of all civil countries, in a thousand years, have set in
best order the results of their learning and wisdom. The men
themselves were hidden and inaccessible, solitary, impatient
of interruption, fenced by etiquette; but the thought that
they did not uncover to their bosom friend is here written
out in transparent words to us, the strangers of another age.
We owe to books those general benefits which come from high
intellectual action. Thus, I think, we often owe to them the
perception of immortality. They impart sympathetic activity
to the moral power. Go with mean people, and you think life
is mean. Then read Plutarch, and the world is a proud place,
peopled with men of positive quality, with heroes and demi-gods
standing around us, who will not let us sleep. Then they
address the imagination: only poetry inspires poetry. They
become the organic culture of the time. College education is
the reading of certain books which the common sense of all
scholars agrees will represent the science already accumulated.
In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest
delight._
_RALPH WALDO EMERSON._
[Illustration]
READING: HOW TO TEACH IT.
CHAPTER I.
WHY DO WE READ?
The power to read is so ordinary a part of our mental equipment that we
rarely question its meaning or its origin. All common things pass us
unchallenged, however marvellous they may be. We take little note of our
sunrises and sunsets, the hill range which we see every day from our
window, the clear air which infuses new energies into our lives with
every new morning. Common institutions, however precious—the home, the
school, the church, the state—are received by us as a matter of course,
just as children receive without surprise the most valuable gifts from
the hands of their friends. We need not marvel, then, that this power,
which has so long been a part of ourselves, should remain unquestioned,
or that we learn to read without giving a thought to the motive which
impels us to learn. It may be well for even the most thoughtful among us
to pause for a moment to question why everybody learns to read; to ponder
the returns from the effort, the time, and the pains spent in the mastery
of the art.
It is evident that our estimate of the value of reading will depend upon
our kind of reading; or, in other words, the kind of knowledge which we
gain from reading. For example, you and I may turn to the daily newspaper
for a certain knowledge to direct our everyday plans. We wish to go to
the city on the morrow:—this evening’s paper warns us of an approaching
rain; we therefore provide ourselves with an umbrella before starting
on our journey. Or we desire to hear Nansen’s lecture:—the newspaper
apprises us of the time, the place, the subject, the cost of tickets,
the place where they are to be sold, the arrangement for extra trains.
Or, again, we plan a trip to Florida:—the ways and means of going, the
departure and arrival of trains, the choice of routes, the cost of the
journey, the hotels which we may expect to find, together with a thousand
other items,—all these are learned by means of time-tables, guide-books,
and printed pamphlets, which we carefully read before going. Without
this information which has been written down for us, and without this
power on our part to read it, our journey would be to us like that of
a traveller in an unexplored country, except as our friends give us the
result of their experience. The business man consults the paper to learn
of the quotations of stocks and bonds, the arrival or departure of ships,
the scarcity or abundance of crops. The enthusiastic bicyclist learns
of the proposed runs of the club through the obliging columns of the
paper; his guide-book supplies the directions which take him safely to
his journey’s end, or the descriptions which interpret to him the places
through which he rides. Can we imagine ourselves as bereft of this power
of reading the printed directions which are every day consulted by us for
our ordinary convenience? How limited, how hindered our lives would seem
to us with this power withdrawn!
Through the various agencies to which we have referred, and similar
sources equally familiar to us, we share the experience of others and
add to our limited life that which they have learned for us. Our power
is multiplied, our convenience is assured, our happiness is increased by
means of the work which has been done by others. The fruit of others’
thought and experience is stored ready for our use as soon as we have
mastered the art of reading. Therefore, in order that we may add to
our own power by sharing the experience and wisdom of others in the
management of our everyday, practical affairs, we have learned to read.
And, furthermore, as members of a community we need to know what others
are doing. We cannot live to ourselves alone. Ordinary intelligence
demands a knowledge of contemporary events. A strike in the Fall River
mills, a freshet in the Connecticut Valley, a cyclone in Iowa, a frost
in Florida, a famine or a pestilence in India, a war in Cuba, the
threatened partition of China, the accession of Hawaii, are matters
which pertain to us also. In these days of rapid transmission of
intelligence, the world has become one great family, and in proportion
as one recognizes his responsibility to the brotherhood of which he is
a member, he will be interested to know the deeds of other men, the
happenings in other communities. These exert a direct influence upon our
own environment. Therefore we read to obtain knowledge of the life about
us, in countries near and remote; and in proportion as our interest is
wide and intelligent does such reading become a necessity to us.
Moreover, an intelligent judgment of the events of the present involves
a knowledge of the past, which to so large a degree determines the
present. What men have done, what they have discovered, what they have
thought, in the ages that are past, enables us to interpret the present.
A complete knowledge of our own time is the possession only of the man
who can read the past. The history of any nation, the development of
any art or science, the growth of any religion can be known only to him
who reads. The student of his own times must turn to the life of the
yesterdays for answers to the problems which are confronting him. The
experience of the past has been chronicled in books in order that we may
share the blessings of that experience. How narrow seems the life of
the person who is without the power to read even the outlines of that
history! We have but to imagine the books of the past as closed to the
entire world, and the power of reading as cut off from every one, to
realize the individual loss when the power of thus reading is withheld.
It is a recognized truth that the broader one’s life, the greater his
consciousness of the necessity for general knowledge such as is gained
from books.
A fourth type of reading is suggested by the ministrations of literature.
If we imagine ourselves as seated by the study table reading our
favorite poem, we shall recognize that it has been through the reading
of literature that much of our highest inspiration has come to us. It
is the poet who brings to us true insight into our own experience,
who interprets for us the great problems of life. With what joy and
exultation we recall our magnificent hymns! What waves of emotion sweep
over us as we read the lines in which the master hand has recorded the
deepest experiences! For enjoyment, for culture, for spiritual help we
turn to the higher order of books. In the truest sense, this reading
directs our lives, interprets our experiences, and determines our
ideals. We cannot imagine ourselves as defrauded of this birthright. How
meagre would our lives at once become if every vestige of the treasures
of literature was removed from our experience:—the army without the
battle hymn, the home without the poem, the struggle without the psalm
of courage, the mortal defeat without the inspiring shout of spiritual
triumph! In attempting thus to picture a life without the inspiration of
literature, we realize our dependence upon its teachings. The higher our
conception of living, the fuller our realization of the help which comes
to us through literature.
Our motives in reading, then, may be recorded in an ascending series:
To obtain practical guidance in everyday affairs; to enrich our lives
with the experience of our neighbors; to share the wisdom resulting from
the experience of the past; to gain pleasure, insight, and spiritual
direction. Any one of these motives would be sufficient to warrant us
in teaching reading; through any one of these results we are fitted to
become better members of the community. But can we draw the line, giving
to our children the lower results only, where so much might well be given?
We have asked why we read, and the question which naturally follows is:
“What shall we read?” We must be able to read ordinary facts affecting
our everyday life, expressed in the terms of that life. Such reading
involves little growth. Its purposes are exceedingly practical in the
ordinary sense of the term. There is little widening of our horizon,
little deepening of our experience in consequence of such practice.
Second, we should read such books and papers as will serve to inform us
of contemporary events,—such events as really have a bearing upon our
present environment or the life of the future. This reading gives us
knowledge of other peoples and places, widening our horizon, and urging
us back to study, with clearer eyes, the environment which has been
constantly about us. Only thus can we truly see the life which is nearest
to us. Third, the reading of the past leads us to the pages of history
in which the best has been chronicled. As has been said, the knowledge
of the present can be obtained only through the interpretation of the
past. That life is narrow indeed which confines its range to the present
alone. And fourth, we must be able to read and interpret literature, a
reading which requires a fuller power than any which has been heretofore
described, and involves a higher type of teaching.
In the thought of many parents and friends of the school, the immediately
practical aim of reading is the only one considered. Because reading
facilitates buying and selling, coming and going, and is ordinarily
accepted as a mark of intelligence, it is considered as an essential in
our school courses. But the higher our conception of life, the higher
will be our conception of education; and with the higher conception of
education comes the acceptance of the higher aim, even in our simplest
teaching. We may learn to read in such a way that we never rise beyond
the first result of our attainment. This will almost assuredly be the
case if the so-called “practical” aim is the only one considered; but if,
from the beginning, the teacher’s hope and that of the parent are that
the child may grow into fuller power, we shall find his life strengthened
and inspired by the loftier aim, by the surer accomplishment of the
greater result. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things shall be added unto you.” The old saying is far from
being interpreted in these days of hurrying to obtain the immediate and
the practical,—but it is forever true that as our aim becomes higher,
the type of our work becomes nobler, while the character of the results
justifies our endeavors. The greater will include the less, but the
lower aim may never lead to the higher. Can we dare to withhold from our
children the comfort, the inspiration, the strength, the guidance that
has come to us through the higher type of reading? Is it not a necessity
that, from the beginning, they shall be taught to look forward to such
power of acquisition as shall open to them the treasures of experience
which have been written down for them in the best books?
[Illustration]
_It is as undesirable as it is impossible to try to feed the
minds of children only upon facts of observation or record.
The immense product of the imagination in art and literature
is a concrete fact with which every educated being should be
made somewhat familiar, such products being a very real part
of every individual’s actual environment. … Do we not all know
many people who seem to live in a mental vacuum—to whom we
have great difficulty in attributing immortality, because they
apparently have so little life except that of the body? Fifteen
minutes a day of good reading would give any one of this
multitude a really human life. “The uplifting of the democratic
masses depends upon the implanting at schools of the taste for
good reading.”_
_CHARLES W. ELIOT._
[Illustration]