The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-11-25

authors should be read, / want to speak
of the possibilities of cultivating literary
taste and developing literary Judgment IN
young students. Suppose you write on
the blackboard these lines from Southey:
Falht CLEANS the evening radiance
through the sky,
me sober twilight dimly darkens round,
In short, quick circles the shrill bat fits
by,
And the slow vapour curls along the
ground.
And the first stanza of Gray's Elegy:
The cur few tolls the knell of parting
day,
The lowing herd winds Slowly DER thelea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary
way,
And leaves the world to darknass and to
me-"
40 over each passage, line by lin :, with
the class, never once telling them what
you think but all the time irving to eet
them to tell what they think. Question
them: How many of you ever saw the
Dat ny IN short, sharp circles? and why
should the bat be called the shrill batY
How many OF you ever saw the slow
vapour curing along the ground? Which
Is the more impressive line, "The sober
twilight dimly darkens round" OF stAnd
leaves the world to darkness and to me?''
Which is the best line in the passage from
Gray? In the passage from Southey? In
which passage are movemen and rythm
better suited to a description of the dying
day and the gathering darkness? A half
hour spent in the manner have indicated
on these eight lines of poetry will teach
pupils n good deal about literary
criticism. Wardsworth's three sonnets
on sleep, and Shakespeare apostrophe to
sleep in Mackbeth and Keats's in
Endymion, lend themselves very readily
to this sort of study. Among longer
parallel pieces of composition are the
Cdes to a Syklark by Wordsworth and
Shelley; Leigh Hunts poem, s'The Glove
and the Lions,'' and Browning's s'The
Glove;" and Carlyle's review Of Crokens'
edition of Boswell's, johnson and
Macaulay's review of the same edition.
When a boy is able to tell you
WHY HE LIKES
one piece of literature better than an
other he is getting on famously.
Having spoken of some of the things to
do. want to speak of some things not to
do. Fhe teacher of English literature
should be careful not to ask his pupils to
read that for which they are not ready.
have seen college students dive into
Sartor Resartus and come up gasping,
with no courage left for another plunge
Sartor Resartus is a book that is to be
read with profit only after one has lived
While IN the world, and read a good deal
and thought good deal. II your class
are going to study Carlyle, they had
better ad the essay on Burns and the
essay on Scott and parts of Heroes and
Hero Worship" Sartor Resartus and
i" Past and Present." and the Latter Day
Pamphlets are books for the future II
your class are going to study Browning
you had better steer them clear Of
Sordello and Paraeelsus and Child
Roland to the Dark Tower Came and ever
so many Others. and read the comparative
ly simple lyric and narrative poems, like
Prospice and PorL hyrias Lover and The
Flight of the Duchess and the Pied Piper
of Hamelin. 1t is very easy work to give
a really Intelligent pupil the impression
that Browning is mass of untintelligi-
bility. When the pupil gets through
studying Browning he should have the
feeling that Browning ism It so very hard
reading after all, and then he will want
to go back to Browning sometime And
when ne goes back he will carry
mind and q keener insight to
the task of reading what is really diff
cult.
If your class are going
TO STUDY EMERSON
you had better not ask them to read the
essays on Spiritual Laws and on The
Over-Soul, or the lectures on The Method
Of Nature on The Trancendentalist. Ask
them TO read the essays on Clubs and on
Works and Dogs and on Farming, and
parts of English Traits. If pupils don't
and don't enjoy what they
read, if for example they see in Emerson
and Carlyle and Browning nothing but
words, they are getting only harm from
such reading, Eand Eperhaps meal leu
liable harm. My friend who hates Milton
was asked to read Chiffon too soon. Not
all literature is milk for babes.
Again the teacher should be careful not
to ask his pupils to read anything which
by it's very length is discouraging. If
FOUR class are going to study Wordsworth
they had better read Lucy Gray ana
Micael and some of the Sonnets, and the
Ode on the Intimations of Immortality,
,ather than attempt to read very much
If the long winded and somewhat tedious
And it is not best for pupils to read all
that an author has written, be it ever so
A good time to stop is when
she pupil is hungry for more. We want
our pupils in after life to be eager to con-
tinue the study of literature which we
helped them to begin in school. I want
to repeat with all the emphasis ] can
command that the study of literature is
not for the petty present, but
FOR THE LARGER FUTURE.
it is not for boys and girls but for men
and women.
And now want to bring this paper to
a close with description of teaching
exercise in English literature. Mr.. r. is
the teacher and has a class of five,
Thomas and Richard and Henry, Mary
and Martha. Mr., R. selects Charles
Lamb as the first author his class shall
study. The first day, Mr.. R. ellis they
the story of Charles Lambs life He
describes the most interesting circum-
stances of Charles Lambs childhood. He
jells of the years the boy spent in Christ
hospital that curious old school where so
many great men received their earliest
and he does not forget to
describe the methods of teaching en-
3loyed by that rare old schoolmaster Rev.
Mathew Bowyer, whom Leigh Hunt and
Joleridge so comically described Mr.
Il