The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-03-20
THE POEMS THAT ARE PARSED.

THE POEMS, THAT ARE PARSED.
When one admires a man tremen-
dously it is difficult to find fault with
anything he says. Americans most as
suredly appreciate and reverence DR..
Henry Van Dyke, yet it is probable that
many of them will disagree with his
statement that good poetry should not
be used as medium of grammatical
instruction and scholastic or domestic
discipline"
1t is not difficult, of course, to ap-
preciate DR.. Van Dykes point Of view.
He is a lover of good poetry and he
would not have that which he loves
associated with the hateful name of
task" Yet do the tasks of childhood
linger as hateful memories when we
have attained mans stature? Is it
their unpleasant feature that stands
out with the greatest prominence when
viewed across the space that separates
childhood from manhood or woman
hood? We are sure that the majority
Of men and women can answer no to
those questions; and we are sure, too,
that the poems that they have learned
as tasks in childhood, that they have
even parsed, if you like, are not the
ones they avoid in after life.
Somebody. has said that one cannot
appreciate a poem until he has learned
it by heart. If this is true, it limits
appreciation to a very few people; for
in the very full life of today little time
is allowed for the learning Of poetry by
whose memories are in such admirable
working order that they can remember
a poem after they have read it over
few times, and there are others who
have not such well-trained memories,
but who can remember the lines Of GER
tain poems because these possess for
them a significance that writes them in
indelible letters on the brain. But to
the majority the learning of a poem re-
mains a task, and there are so many
tasks thrust upon men and women to-
day that few are inclined to assume q
fresh one of their own accord. If these
men and women were so fortunate in
their childhood as to have teachers
who were wise enough to give them
great poems to be learned as tasks,
their knowledge is so much the greater,
their lives are so much the richer.
DR.. Van Dyke does not say what
kind Of literature should be used as
the medium of grammatical instruction
and scholastic or domestic discipline.
Would he prefer that school children
should parse and learn by heart the In
different kind? There would seem to
be as much sense in such course as
there would be in giving the student Of
music popular" composition to prac-
tice, in the belief that by so doing he
will have a greater regard for the cIas-
steal when he has the leisure and the
proper frame of mind to devote himself
to the latter.
1t was the fashion some years ago to
put great poems, or selections from
them, into the school readers. And 1t
was the custom of the teachers to de-
mand that the pupils learn some Of
those poems by heart. Bryant's "Thana-
topsis," Whittier's "Snowbound," Grey's
"Elegy"-these were some of the poems
found in those old-time readers, and
some of them were parsed and some
were learned by heart. But the task
did not make them hateful. On the
contrary, many men and women can
trace the beginning of their love for
great poetry to that very task.
We hope it is still the fashion to ana
lyze and learn by heart great poems in
the school. We hope that what Dr.
Van Dyke has written on the subject
will not make 1t less the fashion.