Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1907-06-21
MateriaIism's War Upon Litera-
ture.

Concluded from last week
The list of offenders is not exhausted
1t is no longer possible to sit dowr
lqnietly with child on your knee ant
read or tell him simple Bible stories
more elabOra te than that. An offend
er know as ''sand table, is placed
before the child, who is to hear the
story of David the battle field is
spread out before the astonished gazt
of the young auditor. good sized boy
doll bellttles Goliath a small. tin one,
David land the story proceeds. A two
inch. tin David And yet Dauld is to
symbolize the omnipotenca of Ged in
mans struggle. with evil Plainly
this is mistaken theory. Then are
''sand tables" condemned? Not at all.
Their legitimate function is to serve as
a means of expression to young child
when he wishes to give outward man
Hesitation to his concepts thru his de-
light in the use of a pile of sand The
sand table finds its real sphere in the
geography class.
The conclusion need not be reached
that nothing is to be done in an ad-
equate treatment of literat ure aside
from the reading of the classic; that
all accessories are to be discarded. In
the classics used during the early years
much manual expression is the ma
tural. spontaneous result of delight
Ell interest in fairy story. folk STORY,
fable. nursery rhyme, or jingle. Nor
could the child reading Robinson
Crusoe very we'll dispense with the
sand table and other means of showing
his pleasure in bis narrative. The
crude environment of Crusoe, his sim
gle-handed struggles with the forces
of nature, readily lend themselves to
reproduction in sand. clay, wood, or
stone by the unframed artisans of the
lYWer classes of the elementary school.
But the limitations of manual, free
construction work as applied to litera
ture, should be recognized. 1.-The old
woman and her pig" may be reproduce
cd in sand, clay, or by dramatization;
not so THE Idylls of the King The
distance is many a league between
CamelOt and a pig. Coleridge's g ''Kubla
Khan" is too exquisite, too Elusive, to
be dissected or to be imaged phrase by
phrase. The continued demand for
the construction of mental images in
this typs of literature tends to strip
the selection of its charm. But there
is a more serious error. 1t frequently
chains the mind to details to such de.
gree that the real import of the classic
1oes not appear. The power to vivid
ly paint mental pictures is an exceed
lngly valuable one, one which should
be fOstered; but not at too high cost. |
There is much material of the Dickens
and the Kipling character that serves
as a field for the training of the power |
TO image. There are many poems like |
Browning ''Herve Rel" that offer
abundant opportunity for historical
and geographical research on the part |
Of the young reader to give him excel
lent training in mastering the details |
of a work. But many a masterpiece |
suffers imIneasurably from such close
rendering.
All art is one, poetry, painting, |
10 lsic, sculpture. A hint as to how
literature should be handled may be
gained by glaucing at the sister arts.
Would yen think that MiIlet s "Glean |
ers'' had been inadequately presented
to the lay mind if there were no his
trionic eprOductioD, no modelling in
clay, no use of water-colOrs Would |
you pass the same judgment upon |
M ichael ADgelo's "David,' or Beeth- j
ovens "Sonata in F. If no material
results followed their study There
is too much pedagogy and too little art
in the teaching of poetry. Of old the
taught their matchless poetry
by means of another art-music. The
Greek youth was taught to chant the
HOmeric poems to an accompaniment
on the Tyre; indeed, an accompanim ent,
in harmony with the sentiment of the
selection, was frequently improvised
by the student. Neither of these na-
ti0ns has been excelled In the prod uc-
ton of an enduring literature There
a-e no records of laborious materials
z4tion of poetry on the part of those
ancient scholars. The best in Iitera-
ture, coming as it does from the crea
tive Imagination, refuses to yield its
r4al treasures to the mind engrossed
in things material. Iu approaching any
great work of art one must shake ones
self free from the fetters of the finite;
and, in the words of Jean-Francois
Millet, 'One must grasp the infinite -
Selected.
Remarkable Rescue.