Part 8
These two examples from Browning I have taken almost at random, and not because they are unusual in this respect, for this quality is the universal property of all real literature, and indeed is one of the tests by which real literature is to be identified. Any selection which it is worth while to give students at all must have this relation which I have called "algebraic," but of which the true name is imaginative; and it is certainly one of the important parts of anything which in a high sense is properly to be called "teaching" literature to make the scholars realize and appreciate this.
The next step is more difficult because far more subtle; and I confess frankly that it is all but impossible to propose methods by which formal instruction may deal with it. The aim of literature is largely the attempt to produce a mood. The prime aim of the poet is to induce in the reader a state of feeling which will lead inevitably to the reception of whatever he offers in the same mood in which he offers it. In the simplest cases no instruction is needed, for even with school-boys a ringing metre, to take a simple and obvious example, has somewhat the same effect as the dashing swing of martial music; whoever comes under its influence falls insensibly into the frame of mind in which the ideas of the verse should be received. The thoughts are accepted in the exhilarated spirit in which they were written, and the effects of the metre are as great or greater than the influence of the literal meaning. It is a commonplace to call attention to the part which the melody of poetry or the rhythm of prose plays in the effect, but how to aid pupils to a responsiveness to this language of form is not the least of the problems of the teacher.
The means by which an author establishes or communicates his mood do not always appeal to the young. Indeed, beyond a certain limited extent they appeal to most adults only after careful cultivation in the understanding of art-language. It is as idle to suppose that literature appeals to everybody and without æsthetic education as it is to suppose that sculpture or music will surely meet with a response everywhere. Nobody expects Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony" or Bach's "Passion Music" to arouse enthusiasm in accidentally assorted school-children, yet to all the pupils in a mixed public school are offered the parallel works of Shakespeare and Milton. Unless a class is made up of boys or girls with unusual aptitude or wisely and carefully trained to responsiveness to metrical effect, it seems hardly less idle to offer them "Comus" or "Lycidas" than it would be to expect them to enjoy a classic concert. The language of form in the higher range of literature is to them an unknown tongue.
Children are likely to be susceptible to marked metrical effects, as witness their love of "Mother Goose;" but to the more delicate music of verse they are often largely or completely insensitive. A musical ear is not, it is probable, to be created, but it is certainly possible to develop the metrical sense. Children who are born with good native responsiveness to rhythm often are so badly trained or so neglected as to seem to have none, and it is part of the office of instruction to call out whatever powers lie in them latent. This is largely accomplished by the sort of use of literature which I have called "inspirational." In the ideal home-training children are so taken on from the rhymes of the nursery to more advanced literature that development of the rhythmical sense is continuous and inevitable; but one of the things which every school-teacher knows best is that this sort of home-training is rare and the work must be done in the class. The substitute is a poor one, but it has at least some degree of the universal human responsiveness to rhythm to appeal to.
Another difficulty is that children have to learn the verbal language of literature. Much of the atmosphere of a poem, for instance, is likely to be produced by suggestion, by the mention of legend or tale or hero, when the reader must find in previous knowledge and association a key to what is intended. All this is likely to be largely or entirely lost on children; and yet this is often the very quintessence of what the author tries to convey. Children are constantly at the same disadvantage in understanding literature that they are in comprehending life. They have not gathered the associations or experienced the emotions which make so large a part of the language of great writers. All this renders it difficult for the instructor to be sure that his class has any inkling even of the mood in which a piece is intended; yet he must first of all be sure that as far as is possible he has put them, each pupil according to his character and acquirements, in touch with the spirit of the work to be studied.
This cannot be done entirely. We cannot hope that a lad of a dozen years will enter into all the emotions, all the passions of the great poets. He may, however, be absorbingly interested and thrilled by "Macbeth," or the "Tempest," or the "Merchant of Venice." He does not get from these plays all that his elders might get, any more than he would perceive the full meaning and passion of a tremendous situation in real life; but he does get some portion of the message, some perception of the deeps and heights of human nature. Even if he find no more than simple, unreasoning enjoyment, he is gaining unconsciously, and he is obviously nourishing a love for good literature.
The question of what is thoroughness in school study of literature is of much importance, and it is of no less difficulty. Certainly it is not merely the mastery of technical obscurities of language, the solving of philological puzzles, or the careful examination of historical facts. Thoroughness in these things, as has already been said, may be exactness in learning about literature, but not in the study of literature itself. Consideration of the average acquirements of pupils in secondary schools makes it fairly evident, it seems to me, that the study of technique in any of its phases cannot in these classes be carried very far without the danger of its degenerating into the most lifeless formalism; and perhaps in nothing else is the tact and judgment of the teacher so well shown as in the decision how far it is wise to carry study along particular lines. I have never encountered a class even in my college work which I could have set to the subjects recommended in a book for teachers of literature which advises drilling the students of the high school on the relations in the plays of Shakespeare "of metre to character," whatever that may mean. Neither should I set them to distinguish, as is advised by another text-book, between "the kinds of imagination employed: (_a_) Modifying; (_b_) Reconstructive; (_c_) Poetical: creative, imperative, or associative." I could not, indeed, do much with such subjects, from the simple fact that I do not myself know what such questions mean, and still less could I answer them. Each instructor, however, must decide for himself, and with every class decide anew. No fixed standard can be established, but each case must be settled on its own merits.
FOOTNOTES:
[110:1] The vocabulary, of course, being known before the text is attempted.
[114:1] See page 221.
X
EXAMINATIONAL
Examinations are at present held to be an essential part of the machinery of education, and whether we do or do not believe this to be true, we are as teachers forced to accept them. Especially is it incumbent on teachers in the secondary schools to pay much attention to accustoming pupils to these ordeals and to preparing them to go through them unscathed. Many instructors, as has been said already, become so completely the slaves to this process that they confine their efforts to it entirely, and few are able to prevent its taking undue importance in their work and in the minds of their pupils.
The general principle should be kept in mind that no examination is of real value for itself in the training of youth, and that to study for it directly and explicitly is fatal to all the higher uses of the study of literature or of anything else. Tests of proficiency and advancement are necessary, but they should be regarded as tests, and no pains should be spared to impress upon every student the fact that beyond this office of measuring attainment they are of no value whatever.
Examinations exist, however, and nothing which can be done directly is likely to remove from the minds of sub-freshmen the notion that they study literature largely if not solely for the sake of being able to struggle successfully with the difficulties of entrance papers. The only means of combating this idea is the indirect method of making the study interesting in and for itself; of nourishing a love for great writings and fostering appreciation of masterpieces. It may be added, moreover, that this is also the surest way of securing ease and proficiency on just those lines in which it is the ambition of pedantic teachers to have their pupils excel. Classes are more effectively trained for college tests by teaching them to think, to examine for themselves, to have real responsiveness and feeling for literature, than they can possibly be by any drill along formal lines. Here as pretty generally in life the indirect is the surest.
More is done in the way of preparation for any rational examination, I believe, by training youth to recognize good literature and to realize what makes it good, than by any amount of deliberate drill of especially prescribed works or laborious following out of the lines indicated by old examination-papers. Much of this is effected by what has been spoken of as inspirational teaching, the simple training of children to have real enjoyment of the best. In the lower grades of school this is all that can be profitably attempted. Before the student leaves the secondary school, however, he should be able for himself to make in a general way an application of the principles which underlie literary distinctions. He should be able broadly to recognize the qualities which belong to the best work. He should be able from personal experience to appreciate the force of the remarks of De Quincey:
What is it that we mean by literature? Popularly, and amongst the thoughtless, it is held to include everything that is printed in a book. Little logic is required to disturb this definition. The most thoughtless person is easily made aware that in the idea of literature one essential element is some relation to a general and common interest of man, so that what applies only to a local or professional or merely personal interest, even though presenting itself in the shape of a book, will not belong to literature. . . . Men have so little reflected on the higher functions of literature as to find it a paradox if one should describe it as a mean or subordinate purpose of books to give information. But this is a paradox only in the sense which makes it honorable to be paradoxical. . . . What do you learn from "Paradise Lost"? Nothing at all. What do you learn from a cookery-book? Something new, something you did not know before, in every paragraph. But would you therefore put the wretched cookery-book on a higher level of estimation than the divine poem? What you owe to Milton is not any knowledge, of which a million separate items are still but a million of advancing steps on the same earthly level; what you owe is power, that is, exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity of sympathy with the infinite, where each pulse and each separate influx is a step upward, a step ascending as upon a Jacob's ladder from earth to mysterious altitudes above the earth. All the steps of knowledge, from first to last, carry you further on the same plane, but could never raise you one foot above your ancient level of earth; whereas the very first step in power is a flight, is an ascending movement into another element where earth is forgotten.—"The Poetry of Pope."
If a boy or girl has any vital and personal perception of the truth which is here so eloquently set forth, this perception affords a certain criterion by which to judge whatever work comes to hand. It will also give both the inclination and the power to judge rightly, so that anything which an examination-paper may legitimately ask is in so far within the scope of ordinary thought.
I have ventured, in another chapter, to give some idea of the way in which I think such a work as "Macbeth" might be treated in the secondary school. I wish to emphasize the fact that it is an illustration and not a model. It is the way in which I should do it; but the teaching of literature, I repeat, is naught if it is not marked by the personality of the teacher. Of the results to be aimed at one need not be in doubt; concerning the methods there are and there should be as many opinions as there are sound and individual instructors. This illustration I have included because it may serve as a sort of diagram to make plain things which can only clumsily be presented otherwise, and because I hope that it may be suggestive even to teachers who differ widely from this exact method.
What is aimed at in this manner of treating the play is primarily the enjoyment of the pupil, secondarily the broadening of his mind, and thirdly the training of his powers for the examinations inevitably lying in wait for him. It may seem contradictory that I put pleasure first and yet would begin with straightforward drill on the vocabulary. Such training, however, is preparatory to the taking up of literature, I believe it necessary to the best results, and I have already said that to my mind no need exists for making this dull. Even if it be looked upon as simple drudgery, however, I should not shirk it. Children should be taught that they are to meet hard work pluckily. They cannot evade the multiplication-table without subsequent inconvenience, and the sooner they realize that this is true in principle all through life, the better for them. Their enjoyment, moreover, will be tenfold greater if they earn it by sturdy work.
It would be well, I believe, if all teachers in the secondary schools who are in the habit of concerning themselves largely with examinations and of allowing the minds of those under them to become fixed on these could realize that readers of blue-books are sure to be favorably impressed by two things: by the expression of thoughts obviously individual, and by the evidence of clear thinking. If these two qualities characterize an examination-book, the chances of its passing muster are so large that exact formal knowledge counts for little in comparison. All teachers who are intelligently in earnest try to put as little stress on examinations as is possible under existing conditions, but not all keep clearly in mind the fact that the best remedy for possible harm is the cultivation of the student's individuality.
The question of written work in preparation for entrance tests is a difficult one, and it is one which has been largely answered by the papers set by the colleges. It is natural that teachers who are entirely aware that their own reputations will largely depend upon the success of the candidates they send up should endeavor to train their classes in the especial line of writing which seems best to suit the ideas of examiners. The principle of selection is not, it seems to me, a sound one, but it is inevitable. The one thing which may be done is to make the topics selected as human and as personal as possible: to insist that the boy or girl who is writing of Lady Macbeth or Hamlet shall make the strongest effort possible to realize the character as a real being; shall as far as possible take the attitude of writing concerning some actual person about whom are known the facts set down in the play. This is less difficult than it sounds, and while it is never entirely possible for a child to realize Lady Macbeth as if she were a neighbor, most children can go much farther in this direction than is generally appreciated.
Themes retelling the plot of novel or play are seldom satisfactory. Satisfactorily to summarize the story of a work of any length requires more literary grasp than can possibly be expected in a secondary school. It is far better to set the wits of children to work to fill up gaps of time in the stories as they are originally written; to imagine what Macbeth and his wife had said to each other before he goes to the chamber of Duncan in the second act, for instance, or the talk between Silas Marner and Eppie after the visit in which Godfrey Cass disclosed himself as the girl's father. These are not easy subjects, and it is not to be expected that the grade of work produced will be high, but it is at least likely to be original and genuine.
Description is a snare into which it is easy for teacher or pupil to fall. It generally means the more or less conscious imitation of passages from the reading, or a sort of crazy-quilt of scraps in which sentences of the author are clumsily pieced together. In the highest grades good work may sometimes be obtained by asking pupils to describe the setting of a scene in a play, but this is far too difficult for most classes.
Examination of character, of situations, or of motives affords the best opportunity for written work in connection with literary study. To make literary study subordinate to the practice of composition is manifestly wrong, yet in many schools this is done in practice even if it is not justified in theory. Children should be taught to write by other means than by themes in connection with the masterpieces of literature. The old cry against using "Paradise Lost," and the soliloquies of Hamlet as exercises in parsing might well be repeated with added emphasis of the modern fashion of making Shakespeare and Milton mere adjuncts to a course in composition. The written work is, of course, to be corrected where it is faulty, but its chief purpose should never be anything outside of the better understanding and appreciation of the authors read.
In a brief, sensible pamphlet on "Methods of Teaching of Novels" May Estelle Cook remarks:
There is another point which I should like to make for the study of character, though with some hesitation, since there is room for great difference of opinion about it. It is this: that the study of character leads directly to the exercise of the moral instinct. Whether we like it or not, it is true that the school-boy—even the boy, and much more the girl—will raise the question, "Is it right?" and "Is it wrong?" and that we must either answer or ignore these questions. My own feeling about it is that this irrepressible moral instinct was included by Providence partly for the purpose of making a special diversion in favor of the English teacher. . . . A boy will read scenes in "Macbeth" through a dozen times for the sake of deciding whether Macbeth or Lady Macbeth was chiefly responsible for the murder of Duncan, when he will read them only once for the story; and this extra zeal is not so much because he wants to satisfy a craving for facts, as because he enjoys fixing praise or blame. . . . My experience with the Sir Roger de Coverley papers has been that the class failed to get any imaginative grasp of them until I frankly appealed to the moral instinct by asking, "What did Addison mean to teach in this paper?" "Did the Eighteenth Century need that lesson?" and "Do we still need it?" By that process the class have finally reached a grasp of Sir Roger which has given them fortitude to write a theme on "Sir Roger at an Afternoon Tea."
My own definition of imagination is evidently not that of the writer, and I am not able to agree that this appeal to the moral instinct develops anything other than an intellectual understanding; but that point is unimportant here. The thing which is to be noted is that on the moral side children may be able to think intelligently and individually in regard to the characters and the situations of the plays and the novels read. The teacher, in choosing such subjects for written work, must, of course, be careful to avoid topics which have already been considered in the book itself. In a novel by George Eliot, for instance, all possible moral issues are likely to be so discussed and rediscussed by the novelist as to leave little room for the thought of the reader to exercise itself independently; but in all the plays of Shakespeare, and in the fiction of most of the masters, the opportunities are ample.
The supreme test of any subject which is to be given to students in their written work is whether it is one upon which it is reasonable to suppose they can and will have thought which is individual and therefore original. If it were necessary to make nice distinctions between that which is and that which is not legitimately part of the study of literature as an art, one must go much further than this. The writing of themes, however, is part of the examinational side of the work; the main thing is to be sure that it is not dwelt upon more than is necessary, and that it is within the range of the personal experience of the student. If teachers feel compelled to set their classes to write formal and lifeless themes on pedantic topics such as too often appear in examination-papers, they will do well to keep in mind that this is not the study of literature, but a stultifying process which lessens the power of appreciation and replaces intelligent comprehension by mechanical imitation.
* * * * *
In connection with the subject of this chapter I may mention a device which may not be without practical value in secondary-school examinations. It affords a means of discovering how well the student is succeeding in grasping general principles and in making actual application of them; while at the same time it should impress upon him the fact that he is not studying merely a series of required readings, but the nature and qualities of literature.
On an examination-paper in second-year English at the Institute of Technology was put this test:
It is assumed that the student has never read the following extract. State what seem its excellent points (_a_) of workmanship; (_b_) of thought; (_c_) of imagination.
To this was added a brief extract from some standard author.
The opening statement was made in order that the class should understand the selection to be not from any required reading, but from some work presumably entirely unfamiliar. The points of excellence only were asked for in order to fix attention on merits; and indirectly to strengthen, so far as might be, the perception of the importance of looking in literature for merits rather than for defects. It is undoubtedly proper that scholars should be able to perceive defects, but this power is best trained by educating them to be sensitive and responsive to excellencies.[131:1]
The necessities of time made it impossible to put upon the papers of which I am speaking extracts of much length, and the class were told that not much was expected in comment upon the thought expressed. The purpose of the question, that of seeing how intelligently they were able to apply such principles as they had learned, was also frankly put. They were warned against generalities and statements unsupported. Then they were left to their own devices. The results were all suggestive, and of course were of widely varying degrees of merit. A few samples may be given, chosen, I confess, from those more interesting. On one paper were the opening lines of the second book of "Paradise Lost."