IX
I cannot shirk entirely, as I should be glad to do, the question of written work on the play we
have been considering.[188:1] It is a thousand pities that children must be required to write anything about "Macbeth" when they have read it; but it is evident that under existing conditions they will be required to produce something on paper. In regard to this I must repeat that they should never be asked to write as exercises in composition. Everything that a child writes is, in one sense, a rhetorical exercise, but the teacher should impress it upon the class that here the chief aim is to get an expression of the child's thought. The more completely the children can be made to feel that this is not a "composition," but a statement of impressions, of personal tastes, and of opinions, the better.
What subjects are suited for written work is a matter which must be decided by each teacher according to the dispositions, the knowledge, the aptitude shown by the scholars in a particular class. It will inevitably be influenced largely by examination-papers; and in the face of the lists of subjects provided by these it is idle to offer any particular suggestions. In general the test of a subject, so far as real benefit is concerned, is whether it is one upon which the student may fairly be expected to be able to feel and to reason in terms of his own experience. A subject is suited to his needs so long, and so long only, as he is able to consider it as a matter which might concern him personally. He may think crudely and he
must of course think inadequately; but he should at least think sincerely and without regard to what somebody else has thought before him. He should be original in the sense that he is putting down his own impressions, is writing thoughts which have not been gathered from books, but have been come at by considering the play in the light of whatever knowledge he personally has of life and human nature.
Much may depend, it is worth remarking, upon the way a subject for theme-work is given out. Phrases count greatly in all human affairs, but especially in the development of children. Adults are supposed to understand words so readily as to be free from the danger of receiving wrong impressions from phraseology which is unfamiliar; but whether this be true or not, certain it is that the young are often bewildered by words and queerly affected by turns of language. The same theme-subject may be hopelessly incomprehensible or at least unhappily remote when stated in one way, while in another wording it is entirely possible. The first essential is to make clear beyond all possibility of doubt what is required, and this is to be accomplished only by using language which the student understands. The teacher must here as in all instruction keep constantly in mind that language that is clear and familiar to him may be nothing less than cryptic to the class. I remember a lad in a country school who was hopelessly bewildered when confronted with the subject given
out by his teacher: "What Character in this Book Appeals to You Most, and on what Grounds?" yet who wrote easily enough a very respectable theme when I said: "She only wants you to pick out the person in the book you like best, and tell why you like him." "Oh, is that all?" he said at first incredulously. "But that isn't saying anything about grounds." The incident, absurd as it is, is really typical.
I have usually found that the word "compare" will reduce most students to mere memories, as they strive almost mechanically to reproduce things set down in the notes of text-books. Nothing is more common than subjects like "Compare the Characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth," "Compare 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso,'" and so on. The result is generally a statement of the criticisms of the characters or works mentioned, a statement which is a poor rehash of notes, but has of real comparison no trace. The comparison calls for analytical powers far beyond anything pupils are likely to have developed; and when a boy asked me not so very long ago what a teacher expected of him when he had been required to compare Sir Roger de Coverley and Will Honeycomb I was forced to reply that I was utterly unable even to conjecture. I regard the frequent appearance of theme-subjects of this sort in the secondary schools with mingled envy and wonder: envy for the teachers who apparently possess the power to elicit satisfactory work on these lines, and wonder that the power
to do this work seems so completely to disappear when the pupil leaves the secondary schools.
To comment on the subjects which have actually stood upon entrance examinations in the last half-dozen years would in the first place be invidious, in the second would expose me to an unpleasant danger of seeming to challenge attention to papers for which I have been personally responsible, and in the third place would do no possible good. A teacher with common sense can make the application of the general principles I have stated if he choose; and he will at least minimize the unfortunate necessity of making the written work a preparation for examinations.