Part 6

The two facts that Antonio has incurred the hatred of Shylock through his kindness to persons in trouble and that he comes within the range of danger through raising money to aid his friend Bassanio are so closely allied to universal human feelings and universal human experience that it is only needful to be sure these points are clearly perceived to have the sympathies of the class thoroughly awakened. All this is so obvious that it is hardly necessary to say it except for the sake of not omitting what is of so much real importance. Every teacher understands this and acts upon it.

To include this in the preliminary work may seem a contradiction of a previous statement that it is not wise to tell children what they are expected to get from any given book. The two matters are entirely distinct. What should be done is really that sort of giving of the point of view which we so commonly and so naturally exercise in telling an anecdote in conversation. "Of all conceited men I ever met," we say, "Tom Brandywine was the worst. Why, once I saw him"—and so on for the story which is thus declared to be an exposition of overweening vanity. "See," we say to the class in effect, "you must have felt sorry to see some kindly, honest fellow cheated just because he was too honest to suspect the sneak that cheated him. Here is the story of a great, splendid, honest Moor, a noble general and a fine leader, who was utterly ruined and brought to his death in just that way." This is not drawing a moral, and it seems to me entirely legitimate aid to the student. It is less doing anything for them that they could and should do than it is directing them so that they may advance more quickly and in the right direction.

This indication of the general direction in which the mind should move in considering a work is closely connected with what might be called establishing the proper point of departure. This is neither more nor less than fixing the fact of common experience in the life of the pupil at which it seems safe and wise to begin. What has been said about the way in which a teacher calls upon the experience of the pupils to bring home the picture of the Village Blacksmith at his forge is an indication of what is here meant. In teaching history to-day, with a somewhat older grade of pupils than would be reading that poem of Longfellow's, an instructor naturally makes vivid the Massacre of St. Bartholomew by comparison with the reports of Jewish massacres in our own time; and in the same line the fact that it is so short a time since the King of Servia was assassinated, or that the present Sultan of Turkey cemented on his crown with the blood of his brothers, may be made to assist a class to take the point of view necessary for the realization of the tragedy in "Macbeth." I have already spoken[83:1] of the humbler, but perhaps even more vital way in which the vice of ambition that is so strong a motive power in that tragedy is to be understood by starting from the rivalry in sports, since from this so surely intelligible emotion the mind of the boy is easily led on to the ambition which burns to rule a kingdom. It is wise not to be afraid of the simple. If the poem to be studied is "The Ancient Mariner," it is well to discover what is the strangest situation in which any member of the class has ever found himself. After inciting the rest of the pupils to imagine what must be one's feelings in such circumstances, it is not difficult to lead them on to understand the declaration of Coleridge that he tried to show how a man would feel if the supernatural were actual.

For natural, wholesome-minded children it is not in the least necessary to take pains to reconcile them to the supernatural. To the normal child the line between the actual and the unreal does not exist until this has been drilled into him by adult teaching, conscious or unconscious. The normal condition of youth is that which accepts a fairy as simply and as unquestioningly as it accepts a tree or a cow. Certainly it is true that children are in general ready enough for what they would call "make-believe," that stage of half-conscious self-deception which lies between the blessed imaginative faith of unsophisticated childhood and the more skeptical attitude of those who have discovered that "there isn't any Santa Claus." For all younger classes nothing more is likely to be necessary than to assume that the wonderful will be accepted.

When occasion arises to justify the marvellous, the teacher may always call attention to the fact that in poems like "The Ancient Mariner," or "Comus," or "Macbeth" the supernatural is a part of the hypothesis. To connect with this the pupil's conception of the part the hypothesis plays in a proposition in geometry is at once to help to connect one branch of study with another, always a desirable thing in education, and to aid them in understanding why and how they are to accept the wonders of the story entirely without question. The impossible is part of the proposition, and this they must be made to feel before they can be at ease with their author or get at all the proper point of view.

The aim of literature is to arouse emotion, but we live in a realistic age, and the youth of the present is not given to the emotional. Youth, moreover, instinctively conceals feeling, and the lads in our school-classes to-day are in their outside lives and indeed in most of their school-work called upon to be as hard-headed and as unemotional as possible. They are likely to feel that emotion is weak, that to be moved is effeminate. They will shy at any statement that they should feel what they read. The notion of conceiving an hypothesis helps just here. A boy will accept—not entirely reasoning the thing out, but really making of it an excuse to himself for being moved—the idea that if the hypothesis were true he might feel deeply, although he assures himself that as it is he is actually stable in a manly indifference. The aim of the teacher is to awake feeling, but not to speak of it; to touch the class as deeply as possible, yet not to seem aware, or at least not to show that he is aware that the students are touched.

In this as in all treatment of literature, any connection with the actual life of the pupil is of the greatest value. It seems to justify emotion, and it gives to the work of imagination a certain solidity. Without reasoning the thing out fully, a boy of the present day is likely to judge the importance of anything presented to him at school by what he can see of its direct bearing upon his future work, and especially by its relations to the material side of life. This is even measurably true of children so young that they might be supposed still to be ignorant of the realism of the time and of the practical side of existence. The teacher best evades this danger by starting directly from some thought or fact in the child's present life and from this leading him on to the mood of the work of literature which is under consideration.

Here and everywhere I feel the danger of seeming to be recommending mechanical processes for that which no mechanical process can reach. If the teacher has a sympathetic love for literature, he will understand that I do not and cannot mean anything of the sort; if he has not that sympathy, he cannot treat literature otherwise than in a machine fashion, no matter what is said. It sometimes seems that it is hardly logical to expect every teacher to be an instructor in literature any more than it would be to ask every teacher to take classes in music and painting. Art requires not only knowledge but temperament; both master and pupil must have a responsiveness to the imaginative, or little can be accomplished. Since the exigencies of our present system, however, require that so large a proportion of teachers shall make the attempt, I am simply endeavoring to give practical hints which may aid in the work; but I wish to keep plainly evident the fact that nowhere do I mean to imply a patent process, a mechanical method, or anything which is of value except as it is applied with a full comprehension that the chief thing, the thing to which any method is to be at need completely sacrificed, is to awaken appreciation and enthusiasm, to quicken the imagination of the student, and to develop whatever natural powers he may have for the enjoying and the loving of good books.[87:1]

FOOTNOTES:

[83:1] Page 69.

[87:1] While this volume was in press a writer in the _Monthly Review_ (London) has remarked: "I fail to see how a literary sense can be cultivated until a firm foundation of knowledge has been laid whereon to build, and I tremble to think of the result of an enforced diet of 'The Canterbury Tales,' 'The Faerie Queen,' and 'Marmion' upon a class as yet ignorant of the elements of English composition."

VII

THE INSPIRATIONAL USE OF LITERATURE

The term "inspirational," which I have used as indicating the second division of the teaching of literature, is a somewhat absurdly large word for what is the most simple and natural part of the whole dealing with books which goes on between teacher and pupil. It is a term, however, which expresses pretty well what is or should be the exact character of the study at its best. The chief effect of literature should be to inspire, and by "inspirational," as applied to teaching, I mean that presentation of literature which best secures this end.

Put in simpler terms the whole matter might be expressed by saying that the most important office of literature in the school as in life is to minister to delight and to enthusiasm; and whoever is familiar with the limited extent to which the required training in college requirements or in prescribed courses fulfils this office will realize the need which exists for the emphasizing of this view of the matter. Literature is made a gymnasium for the training of the intellect or a treadmill for the exercise of the memory, but it is too seldom that delight which it must be to accomplish its highest uses.

That the secondary schools should be chiefly concerned with this phase of literature seems to me a truth so obvious and so indisputable that I can see only with astonishment that it is so generally ignored. In the lower grades, it is true, something is done in the way of letting children enjoy literature without bothering about didactic meanings, history of authors, philological instances, critical manipulations, and all the devices with which later the masterpieces of genius are turned into bugbears; but even here too many teachers feel an innate craving to draw morals and to make poetry instructive. They seem to forget that as children themselves they skipped the moral when they read a story, or at best received it as an uninteresting necessity, like the core of an apple, to be discarded when from it had been gleaned all the sweets of the tale. Nothing is more amazing than the extent to which all we teachers, in varying degrees, but universally, even to the best of us, go on dealing with a sort of imaginary child which from our own experience we know never did and never could exist. The first great secret of all teaching is to recognize that we must deal with our pupils as if we were dealing with our own selves at their age. If we can accomplish this, we shall not bore them with dull moralizings under the pretext that we are introducing them to the delights of literature.

Where a class has to be dealt with, the work in any branch must be adapted to the average mind, and not to the understanding of the individual; so that in school many things are impossible which at home, or in individual training, are not difficult. It is not hard, I believe, to interest even the average modern boy, distracted by the multiplicity of current impressions, in the best literature, provided he may be taken alone and competently handled. Almost any wholesome and sane lad may at times be found to be indifferent in class to the plays of Shakespeare, for instance; yet I believe few healthy and fairly intelligent boys of from ten to fifteen could resist the fascination of the plays if these were read with them by a competent person at proper times, and without the dilution of mental perception which necessarily comes with the presence of classmates. Be this, however, as it may, the teacher must be content with arousing as well as he can the spirit of the class as a whole. Some one or two of the cleverest pupils will lead, and may seem to represent the spirit of all; but even they are not what they would be alone, and in any case the instructor must not devote himself to the most clever while the rest of the pupils are neglected.

It follows that in the choice of pieces to be read to students the first thing to be considered is that these shall be effective in a broad sense so that they will appeal to the average intelligence and taste of a given class easily and naturally. They must first of all have that strong appeal to general human emotion which will insure a ready response from youth not well developed æsthetically and rendered less sensitive by being massed with other students in a class. Such a selection is not easy, and it involves the careful study of what may be termed the individuality of any given group of pupils; but it seems to me to be at once one of the most obvious and one of the most important of the points which should be considered in the beginning of any attempt to create in school a real enjoyment in literature.

A danger which naturally presents itself at the very outset is the likelihood of forgetting that the possession of this easy and obvious interest is not a sufficient reason why a work should be presented to a class. It too often happens that the desire of arousing and interesting pupils leads teachers to bring forward things that are sensational and have little if any further recommendation. Doubtless Dr. Johnson was right when he declared that "you have done a great thing when you have brought a boy to have entertainment from a book;" yet after all the teacher is not advancing in his task and may be doing positive harm if he sacrifice too much to the desire to be instantly and strongly pleasing. Flashy and unworthy books are so pressed upon the reading public at the present day that especial care is needed to avoid fostering the tendency to receive them in place of literature.

It is not my purpose to give lists of selections, for in the first place it has been done over and over, notably in such a collection as the admirable "Heart of Oak" series; and in the second no selection can be held to be equally adapted to different classes or to have real value unless it has been made with a view to the actual needs of a definite body of pupils. Pupils must be interested, yet the things chosen to arouse their interest should be those which have not only the superficial qualities which make an instant appeal, but possess also those more lasting merits essential to genuine literature.

In the lower grades it is generally, I believe, possible for the teacher to control the choice of selections put before students, although even here this is not always the case. If errors of selection are made, however, they are largely due to inability to judge wisely and to a too great deference to general literary taste. A teacher must remember that two points are absolutely essential to any good teaching of literature: first, that the selection be suited to the possibilities of the individual class; second, that the teacher be qualified so to use and present the selection as to make it effective. Many conscientious teachers take poems which they know are regarded as of high merit, and which have been used with advantage by other instructors, yet which they individually, from temperament or from training, are utterly inadequate to handle. They either lack the insight and delight in the pieces which are essential if the pupils are to be kindled, or are deficient in power so to present their own appreciation and enjoyment that these appeal to the children.

For illustration of one of the ways in which a child may be led into the heart of a poem I have chosen "The Tiger," by William Blake. This belongs to the class of literature constantly taken for use with children because it is reputed to be beautiful, yet which constantly fails in its appeal to a class. It is to me one of the most wonderful lyrics in the language, yet I doubt if it would ever have occurred to me to use it in our common schools, and certainly I should never have dreamed that it was to be presented to children in the lower grades. I do not know with what success teachers in general may have used it, but in one or two Boston schools with which I happen to be fairly well acquainted the effect is pretty justly represented by the mental attitude of the small lad spoken of in the next chapter. The extent to which children acquiesce in a sort of mechanical compliance in what to them are the vagaries of their elders in the matter of literature can hardly be exaggerated. Doubtless they often unconsciously gain much of which they do not dream in the way of the development of taste and perception, but too often the whole of the instruction given along æsthetic lines slides over them without producing any permanent effect of appreciable value.

Of course I do not contend that children are not advancing unless they know it. Early training in literature may often be of the highest value without definite consciousness on the part of the child. Self-analysis is no more to be expected here than anywhere else in the early stages of training. The child does not in the least comprehend, for instance, that the ditties of Mother Goose, meaningless jingles as they are, are educating his sense of rhythm; he does not understand that his imaginative powers are being nourished by the fairy-tale, the normal mental food for a certain stage of the development of the individual as it is the natural and inevitable product of a corresponding stage in the development of the race. So long as a child has genuine interest in a poem or a tale he is getting something from it, but he does not concern himself to consider anything beyond present enjoyment. In the earlier stages at least, and for that matter at any stage, the thing to be secured is interest; and instruction in the lower school grades should be confined to what is actually needed to make children enjoy a given piece. Anything beyond this may wisely be deferred.

In many of the lower grades it is now the fashion to have children act out poems. The method is spoken of with satisfaction by teachers who have tried it. I know nothing of it by experience, but should suppose it might be good if not carried too far. Children are naturally histrionic, and advantage may be taken of this fact to stimulate their imagination and to quicken their responsiveness to literature, if seriousness and sincerity are not forgotten.

In this early work it does not seem to me that much can wisely be done in the study of metrical effects. Indeed, I have serious doubts whether much in the way of the examination of the technique of poetry properly has place anywhere in preparatory schools. The child, however, should be trained gradually to notice metrical effects, by having attention called to passages which are especially musical or impressive. By beginning with ringing and strongly marked verse and leading on to effects more delicate the teacher may do much in this line.

I have called this early work "inspirational" because it should be directed to making literature a pleasure and an inspiration. The word, clumsy as it may seem, does express the real function of art, and the only function which may with any profit be considered in the earlier stages of the "study" of literature. The object is to make the children care for good books; to show them that poetry has a meaning for them; and to awaken in them—although they will be far from understanding the fact—a sensitiveness to ideals. The child will not be aware that he is being given higher views of life, that he is being trained to some perception of nobler aims and possibilities greater than are presented by common experiences; but this is what is really being accomplished. Any training which opens the eyes to the finer side of life is in the best and truest sense inspiration; and it should be the distinct aim of the teacher to see to it that whatever else may happen, in the lower grades or in the higher, this chief function of the teaching of literature shall not be lost sight of or neglected.

VIII

AN ILLUSTRATION

To attempt to give a concrete illustration of the method in which any teaching is to be carried on is in a way to try for the impossible. Every class and every pupil must be treated according to the especial nature of the case and the personal equation of the teacher. I perhaps expose myself to the danger of seeming egotistic if I insert here an experience of my own, and, what is of more consequence, I may possibly obscure the very points I am endeavoring to make clear. As well as I can, however, I shall set down an actual talk, in the hope that it may afford some hint of the way in which even difficult pieces of literature may be made to appeal to a child. Of course this is not in the least meant as a model, but solely and simply as an illustration.

I once asked a fine little fellow of eight what he was doing at school. He answered—because this happened to be the task which at the moment was most pressing—that he was committing to memory William Blake's "Tiger."

"Do you like it?" I asked.

"Oh, we don't have to like it," he responded with careless frankness, "we just have to learn it."

The form of his reply appealed to one's sense of humor, and I wondered how many of my own students in literature might have given answers not dissimilar in spirit, had they not outgrown the delicious candor which belongs to the first decade of a lad's life. The afternoon chanced to be rainy and at my disposal. I was curious to see what I could do with this combination of Blake and small boy, and I made the experiment. I should not have chosen the poem for one so young; but it is real, compact of noble imagination, the boy was evidently genuine, and a real poem must have something for any sincere reader even if he be a child.

The following report of our talk was not written down at the time, and makes no pretense of being literal. It does represent, so far as I can judge, with substantial accuracy what passed between the straightforward lad and myself. Too deliberate and too diffuse to have taken place in a school-room, it yet gives, on an extended scale, what I believe is the true method of "teaching literature" in all the secondary-school work. I do not claim to have originated or to have discovered the method; but I hope that I may be able to make clearer to some teachers how children may be helped to do their own thinking and thus brought to a vital and delighted enjoyment of the masterpieces they study.

I began to repeat aloud the opening lines of the poem.

"Why," said the boy, "do you know that? Did you have to learn it at school when you were little like me?"

"I'm not sure when I did learn it," I answered; "I've known it for a good while; but I didn't just learn it. I like it."

I repeated the whole poem, purposely refraining from giving it very great force, even in the supreme symphonic outburst of the magnificent fifth stanza:

Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?