How to Teach Reading in the Public Schools

by S. H. Clark

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In describing what is small, delicate, nice, we often note the tendency to use a rather high key. This is no doubt due to the tension that results from unconscious imitation. The voice is to a certain extent squeezed in endeavoring to express the smallness of the idea, with the result that the key is raised. Note how the child’s key rises when he asks for a “leetle, teeny bit.”

[2] The rising inflection will be heard only on the last syllable of this word. Note the discreet skip of the voice between the first and second syllables.

[3] Prof. W. B. Chamberlain in his “Rhetoric of Vocal Expression.” This work is now out of print, but a revision and enlargement of it is published by Scott, Foresman & Co., of Chicago, under the title “Principles of Vocal Expression and Literary Interpretation.”

[4] The falling inflection may properly be given on the italicised words; but the latter are not therefore necessarily to be emphasized.

[5] See Tyndall on “Sound;” or Prof. Halm on the same subject.

[6] A few words are italicized in order to draw attention to the places where we should be likely to use this stress. Observe, too, how the stress impresses us with the desire of the speaker to push away opposition.

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[PART TWO]
METHOD OF INSTRUCTION

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[CHAPTER V]
THE MENTAL ATTITUDE OF THE READER

In our knowledge of the psychology of the elements of expression, we have the solution of the difficulties resulting from the complexity and intangibility of vocal expression. The teacher now knows what to look for, and hence is enabled to diagnose the case. There is now the second step to be taken in the development of the teacher: he must have method. It can hardly be claimed that there is any definite progression in our instruction. In the primary grades, the pupils learn the letters, their sounds, and a meagre amount of expression. After that the teaching is haphazard. This is not the case with arithmetic or history, or geography; why should it be so in reading? The answer is clear. For many reasons, not difficult to ascertain, the child has a vague idea that reading is simply vocal utterance; that his work as a reader is done when he has pronounced the words. This state of mind may be attributed, first, to his primary training, and, second, to the perfunctoriness of the reading lesson in the grammar grades. We seem to be satisfied, in the beginning, if a pupil learns to recognize and pronounce words. This is a serious error. We should never for a moment forget that our purpose in giving pupils the ability to recognize words is to enable them to extract the thought from the printed page. Hence, from the outset, as was enjoined in the Introduction, we should lay the least possible stress upon word-getting, and, contrariwise, all possible stress on thought-getting. If the primary teachers should succeed in developing the state of mind that would cause the pupils to go to the printed page as they go to the feet of one who has a story to tell, we should be willing to ask for nothing else of them as a result of all their teaching.

But let us accept reading as we find it to-day, and let us suppose the pupil is about ten or eleven years of age. What is the first step? To impress upon him that the printed page is a picture; that it contains ideas, sights, sounds; that it takes the place of the author, and that he must listen to it as to the voice of the author. This is the all-important factor. Many of us think we are following this plan, when, in reality, we defeat our ends by the way we use the means. We allow slovenly reading and pass over the grossest carelessness; so that, unconsciously, the pupil forms the loosest habits of expression. Then the pupil must be stimulated to hold the thought; to let it hold him, if you will. This, too, is a very necessary part of the training. The defective reading of preachers and authors is not due to the fact that they cannot get the thought, but that they are not dwelling upon it in detail while reading. The third stage in the first step is to train the pupil so that he will never get up to read without the consciousness that he has something to give. Let the pupils, and, first of all, the teacher, close their books, and so give the poor reader some encouragement. Do not have him read to the backs of the class. How should we like to address an audience of inexpressive backs? The following of this last suggestion will produce wonderful results, and quickly too. But it has another value: it compels the class to think, to follow the reader, to get thought through the ear (a talent becoming rarer every day), and, above all, it stimulates the imagination. Summarized, the first step means, Get the thought, hold the thought, give the thought. Keep at this for a month, if necessary.

The one object of this lesson is to impress upon the mind of the pupil that words have no meaning unless they stimulate thought. It is, perhaps, needless to add that the teacher should be on his guard against teaching inflections and pauses and the like, as such. No other aim should be held in mind than that of getting the pupil to see clearly and to express forcibly.

The teacher should use constantly such criticism as, “Is that the thought?” or, “Won’t you tell that to me?” This method will soon set the pupil to thinking. It will gradually impress upon him the true function of the reading lesson. There will soon disappear that dreadful perfunctoriness so characteristic of class-room reading. How much preparation does the pupil now give to his reading? Practically none. He prepares those lessons in which he gradually learns he can be definitely tested: his arithmetic, spelling, composition, geography. Then, if he has any time, he may look over his reading lesson to discover if there are any “hard” words, and when he has mastered these he thinks his work is done. But let us remember that such preparation is by no means adequate. There are passages in every lesson which require patient study, even though each word may be simple. Words in themselves mean little; it is words in relation that we must study.

This first step includes all the others. It may be asked then, “Why are there others?” The subsequent chapters will deal with this question, but it may be explained here that the purpose of this first step is to create and make permanent the proper atmosphere of the reading hour. The criticisms should be general, not particular, and the teacher should be careful to offer no discouraging criticism. Every effort should be made to stimulate the pupil. He should be urged to get the thought, and especially impressed with the idea that the class depends upon him for their understanding of the text.

Choose selections from all sources—from the history lesson, and from the geography lesson. Let these selections be fairly simple, and above all, vital and interesting. Barbara Frietchie, Longfellow’s Peace-Pipe from Hiawatha, and Browning’s Ride from Ghent to Aix, or The Pied Piper, and even shorter extracts of prose or poetry, are excellent material. Give out a dozen of these, let each pupil learn one by heart, and tell it,—not declaim it,—to his classmates.

Let the teacher not worry because this process is slow and threatens to leave the work outlined for a given term incomplete. It is not the quantity but the quality we are after. But by this method we shall in time cover more ground than we now do in a given period. If we continually offer such criticism as will impress the pupil that thought-getting is everything, that reading is but the expression of that thought, he will go to his history, and geography, and arithmetic lesson for thought; so that the time spent in the reading hour is virtually just the training for every other lesson. Finally, this is the true preparation for the making of sight-readers. It is true, one should be able to read better after some preparation than he does at sight; but everyone should be able, by the time he leaves the public school, to read any ordinary passage at sight without blundering. The mental attitude formed by the method urged will cause the student to approach the printed page warily, prepared to deal with its difficulties, and will thus produce better reading.

A word to those who ride the sight-reading hobby too hard. It is only the experienced reader who can read well at sight. To ask an immature pupil to read at sight is to do one of two things: if he is timid, it frightens him; if he is a poor reader it simply fastens the careless habits upon him, by leading him to believe, by implication, that reading is merely pronunciation. In the upper grades, there should be sight-reading, but only where the previous training has been methodical. It is well to give the class a chance to read over the selection for a few minutes before the test is made.

Each teacher must decide for himself how he will develop the foregoing principles. The following plan, however, representing the actual work of a teacher before his class, will be suggestive:

We are going to study how to read; and the first thing we must know is, What is reading?

Now, before we answer this question, let us try to get an answer to another: What is speaking? Speaking is telling someone what I am thinking or feeling. So, if you were in the author’s school, he could tell you the thoughts he has. But you are not, and so he must write them. Now we are ready to answer the question, What is reading? Reading is getting thought from the printed or written page.

Let us go a little further. Suppose a writer wants to say something to you through the printed page, what does he do? He first thinks over very carefully what he has to say, and then chooses and writes the words that will give you his meaning. But remember, you must study his words and think about them as carefully as he did when he wrote them.

Have you been attentive so far? Let us see. Can you tell me what speaking is? what reading is? If you can not, do you not see you have not been paying attention?

Getting thought from the printed page should be just like listening carefully to speaking. Yes, you must be more careful in reading, because the author is not here to explain things to you, or to repeat his words. You have only the printed words, and if you do not listen very carefully to what they say, you will not understand him. Now let us see whether this is clear. Here is a sentence; can you see what I see? “The next day, which was Saturday, the king called his generals and some of his friends to the royal tent, and told them, in a quiet voice, that at daybreak on Tuesday he was going to return to London and give up the war.”

Now take your eyes off the blackboard and tell us all you saw, and tell it in just the order the pictures occur on the board. If you miss any steps, you must read again and again until you see the whole thought so clearly that it seems real; then I am sure you will be able to tell it correctly. You need not use my words; just use your own language.

Now you are ready to take the next step. Read the sentence to the class so that you make them see just what you see. Be sure you never forget this.

You must remember that unless you try to make them see the pictures you have in mind, they will be very likely not to understand you.

Now, what have we been doing? First, we studied the meaning of the words; second, we got several pictures; and third, we tried to give those pictures to others. So we see there are two kinds of reading: the first for ourselves, the second for others. The first kind must always go before the second: for if we have nothing in our mind to tell, how can we give it to others?

Let us remember then, that reading for others is just like talking to them, and unless we get from the page just the thought the writer had in mind we cannot give that thought to another. Sometimes it is not easy to get this thought; but if you will study carefully, it will become clearer and clearer, until at last it is just as easy to understand as if it had been your own. I want to give you a short drill, and then our first lesson will be over. “In the summer the grass is green, but it turns brown in the fall.” Can you imagine how green grass looks? how brown grass looks? Do you notice that fall is the time when grass is brown? Again, “He was a very tall man, with light, curly hair, tanned skin and blue eyes. His shoulders were stooped like those of a farmer or of one who has been digging in the mines.” Close your eyes and then call up the picture of this man. Do you see him as a real man? Now read this sentence aloud so that your classmates may get the same picture that you have.

These are the three things we have learned in our first lesson, and they are very, very important: We must get the thought; we must hold the thought; and we must give the thought. This is reading aloud.

Remember, I want you to be getting these pictures from everything you read; from your geography lesson, your history lesson, and even your arithmetic lesson. I am sure you will get these lessons better than you ever did before.

Here are some interesting stories and parts of stories which you must tell to the class. Be sure you understand them, and then tell them so that your classmates will understand them too.

[7]Keep busy! ’tis better than standing aside

And dreaming, and sighing, and waiting the tide.

In life’s earnest battle, they only prevail

Who daily march onward, and never say fail.

There’s a rogue at play in my sunlit room,

And scarcely he rests from fun;

Floor, window, shelf, or closet’s gloom

All are to him as one.

He opens the books and peeps within,

The paper turns inside out,

Snatches my thread, and thinks no sin

To throw my work about.

He clutches the curtains and whisks them down,

Then pulls at the picture cords,

Tosses my hair in the way of his own,

Nor heeds my coaxing words.

I wonder if one so glad and young

Will ever be prim and old?

He answers not, for he has no tongue—

Yet tells sweet tales as are told.

He climbs the walls, yet has no feet;

No wings, but flies the same;

No hands, no head, but breath so sweet—

For West Wind is his name.

In closing this chapter, it should be remarked that the time to be spent on this and subsequent steps depends upon the circumstances. In the lower grades more time will be necessary than in the upper. If the teacher of the eighth grade (the highest) wishes to devote some time to teaching reading, he should make a careful study of the needs of the class, and then use such of the steps, and in such order, as are most likely to meet those needs. In the lower classes it is suggested that the teacher follow in a general way the plan set forth in this book. About one step a month is all that a pupil can grasp. After he has the principle, let the teacher take up the regular reading lesson, laying special stress upon the principles already covered.

[8]It is believed that the reading lessons contained in this series are the first attempt to present in an orderly and philosophic manner the difficulties the pupils have in learning to read.

There is very little doubt that the reading lesson hardly pays for the time spent upon it. All authorities are agreed that, except in rare cases, pupils do not read any better at the end of the school year than they do at the beginning, except that they may pronounce with a little more facility or are possessed of a somewhat wider vocabulary. In many class rooms, reading becomes a lesson in composition, spelling, definition, and the like.

The method in vogue in certain districts of telling pupils about Inflections, and Time, and Kinds of Emphasis, is certainly faulty. On the other hand, very little more progress has been made by those who, in a very general and vague manner, tell the pupil to get the thought. As a result of the methods heretofore in use, it has been found impossible for the teacher in any given grade to determine how much real knowledge of reading a pupil has who has just been promoted from a lower grade.

In the lessons here presented, it is impressed upon the pupil not only that he must get the thought, but he is shown how to get it. The various difficulties of reading are presented one at a time, and further, are so graded that the least difficult shall precede the more complex. It is well known that the reading lesson, as a reading lesson, gets little or no preparation by the pupils. By the method here laid down careful preparation is a necessity; and the lesson which, as a rule, is very ill prepared, may now be studied at home with a very definite object in view, and more important still, the pupil can be held responsible for definite results.

It must be remembered that the young pupil knows nothing of inflections, emphasis, etc., and cares still less about them. While the teacher may be thoroughly conversant with the whole range of vocal technique in reading, he should try to avoid the use of technical terms with the pupils, especially with the younger ones. This is the very essence of the present method, which is based upon a well-established psychological law: If the thought is right, the expression will be right. Talking to pupils about technique, only confuses them and in many cases results in gross affectations. The mind is taken from the thought to the form of its expression. We must remember that shyness, and other forms of self-consciousness (which so often mar the reading) are really but signs that the pupil’s mental action is awry. The reading may be more quickly and more permanently improved by eradicating the self-consciousness than by resorting to technical drills. Make the pupil want to read, and the chances are strongly in favor of his losing self-consciousness.

While it is not possible in the space allotted the author of these articles to give the fullest possible instruction, yet these lessons will serve a definite purpose by presenting to the pupils, in a rational order, the various difficulties everyone has to overcome in learning to read. There may be certain phases of technique that a teacher may miss in this series of lessons, but it is certain, that if they are carefully taught, the pupils will improve not only along the particular line laid down in each lesson, but along the whole line of reading in general.

This method is introduced in the hope that the measure of a pupil’s progress will not be gauged by the number of selections he reads in a given period. It is better to prepare carefully and philosophically six or eight lessons in one-half of the school year, than to endeavor to cover three times as many in the usual hurried fashion. The teacher may be sure that when the first six or eight lessons are thus carefully prepared, the progress thereafter will be more rapid. There is no doubt that the pupil who will spend two years in this graded work will be able to read any ordinary selection with ease, and with pleasure to the listener.

It is urged (1) that the teacher use additional examples under each new principle, in order that the pupil may have the principle impressed upon him by selecting new examples for himself and by reading them aloud in class; (2) that the same lesson be repeated as many times, with the same or new illustrations, as may be necessary to assure the teacher that the class has thoroughly grasped the spirit of the lesson; and (3) that the teacher insist upon most careful and adequate preparation. So, and so only, can we hope to teach reading.

The main objects of the first lessons are two. First; to develop what may be termed the logical side of reading; in other words, the intellectual side. The greatest stress should be laid on getting the sense, which is, of course, the basis of all reading. The emotional side need not be altogether neglected, but should be always subsidiary to the intellectual. If the teacher succeed in getting the expression vital, nothing more should be expected. To get the sense and to express it with earnestness is the first step. Second; the teacher is urged not to follow mechanically the order of the general reading lessons. If Lesson XX offer a better opportunity than, let us say, Lesson X for illustrating the principle laid down in any of the special lessons, the former should be used, no matter what the preceding general lesson may have been. The teacher should be acquainted with the pedagogical possibilities of all the general lessons, and should use such, irrespective of their place in the book, as are best adapted at the moment to assist the pupils in mastering the principle in any given special reading lesson. I have found much good in keeping a little note book on the following plan: I give a page to each of the steps, and every example I come across, no matter in what book—history, geography, reader—is noted. Thus:

EXAMPLES OF CONTRAST.
Book.	Page.	Paragraph.
——’s History,	250	3
——’s “	109	1
Reader (3)	87	8

In this way, the teacher has always plenty of illustrative matter on hand.

While not in entire sympathy with the method that compels teachers to cover a certain number of reading lessons in a given time, yet I am sensible that it would be useless to attempt to change all this at once. Recognizing the futility of such an effort, I advise the teacher to conform to this arbitrary and unscientific method until the community is educated to the newer method. The best results may be obtained, under the circumstances, by following some such plan as this: Begin with the first special lesson as soon as possible. Then, having dwelt on that as long as necessary, pass to the regular reading lessons, bearing in mind that until the second special lesson, the principle of the first should be constantly reiterated. For the entire time (say a month) between the first and second special lessons let the teacher revert to the former again and again. Let the corrections be made over and over by asking such questions as, “Is that the way you would say it if you were talking?” or, “You are not trying to make us see the picture,” and so on. After the second special lesson has been taken up in class, and before the third, the endeavor of a teacher should be to enforce the principles of the first two lessons. This plan should be kept up until the last lesson has been taught.

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[CHAPTER VI]
GROUPING

If the work of the first step has been carefully done, the transition to the second step will present few difficulties. As a matter of fact, the pupil has been grouping unconsciously, but in a way more or less uncertain. The purpose of the next step is to fix firmly the habit of grouping. As a general rule, the pupil pronounces as many words in one group as his eye can take in and his voice utter; consequently, his reading is choppy and often meaningless.

At the outset care should be exercised in the choice of extracts. Any extract will not do. Simple passages, with simple ideas, are needed. Avoid complex, involved, inverted rhetoric. Later on, when proper habits have been formed, the difficulties may be increased; but we shall meet only with discouragement if we introduce them too soon. The following is just difficult enough to bring out the efforts of an ordinary child of ten or eleven:

Once upon a time there lived a very rich man, and a king besides, whose name was Midas; and he had a little daughter, whom nobody but myself ever heard of, and whose name I either never knew, or have entirely forgotten. So, because I love odd names for little girls, I choose to call her Marygold.—The Golden Touch. Hawthorne.

The teacher should use a great many isolated extracts. These may not be so interesting as entire selections, but if chosen carefully and read with a definite object, it is surprising how they hold the attention of the class. It may also be possible to find short stories to supplement the extracts. Many good extracts may be found in the reader or even in some of the other books the children are using.

The reason for urging this plan is that few reading books present the difficulties of reading, in a rational, graded manner. Any selection may contain the simplest problem and the most difficult in one paragraph. The pupil must be trained to get his ideas from the printed page in groups, and such training can surely be gained better by using carefully selected passages than by the present aimless wandering among a labyrinth of words. It is admitted that a good teacher of reading may be able to get along without calling the attention of the class to grouping as a definite step; but he must certainly have that step in mind as part of the development of a reader.

In this lesson we begin exercises in what might be called “mental technique.” It must be borne in mind that these lessons are planned with the object of presenting one element at a time, and the pupil must not be expected to read well where he has had no previous drill. In this lesson, therefore, the pupil should be held responsible for what he has learned in the first and second lessons only. It must further be remembered that all corrections should be made by putting such questions as, “Is that the whole picture?” or, “Have you not given us more than one picture?” Never tell a pupil to make a pause here or a pause there, or to read faster or more slowly. Such corrections are useless. We must learn to rely upon the thinking to govern the rate of speed, or the length and frequency of the pauses.

It might be well to bear in mind that in colloquial speech pauses are less frequent. In other words, the groups are longer.

As a result of such training as the pupil gets in this lesson we shall note that he will learn to look ahead, and so rid himself of the too general tendency to utter words as soon as he sees them, regardless of the sense. The process of recognizing words and pronouncing them simultaneously is attended with no small amount of danger. It begets a fatal facility in reading that is a positive detriment to the pupil. There are thousands who read glibly and yet are utterly ignorant of the meaning of what they read. To prevent the formation of such a habit or to break it up where it already exists, there is no better plan than that herein advocated for the study of grouping. It need hardly be said that the method of telling a pupil “to pause before a relative pronoun, inverted adjectives, prepositional phrases,” and the like, is virtually useless. The thought, and not the grammatical construction, determines the pause.

Another suggestive lesson for the teaching of grouping is offered:

You remember that in our last lesson we learned that we must first get the thought before we could read. Now we are to study how to get the thought.

Did you ever notice how you think? If you hear the word “Car,” what do you think of? Some, of a horse car, some, of an electric car, and some, of a steam car. So you see the word “Car” by itself does not give us a very clear picture. The words, “I saw,” do not mean very much either. For unless we know what you saw we get nothing to think about. The two words “in a” do not mean much, and by this time you know why.

Let us put all these words together and add a word or two: “I saw a man in a steam car.” Now we have a clear picture. What do we learn from this? We learn that a single word does not give us a clear picture, and that it takes three, and four, and sometimes many words, to give us a picture. We can think “I saw a man” or “in a steam car,” but we get a complete thought only when we put these two groups of words together. We notice also that while it takes just a moment to see a picture, it often takes many words to describe it.

What we have done is called grouping; that is, reading several words together just as we read the syllables of a word. Let us try some examples. “Charles gave a sled to his brother.” Here there are two groups: One ending at “sled,” the other, at “brother.” “I went to King Street with my sister to buy a new hat.” Here we have three groups. Can you pick them out?

The last thing we are to learn in this lesson is that every group of words has a picture in it, and that we must not read aloud any word until we have got the thought or the picture in the group.

Pick out the groups in the following sentence, and then read aloud, but be sure you pay attention to the picture in each group: “When-our-school-closes for-the-summer-vacation, some-of-us-go-to-the-country, others-go-to-the-lakes, some-go-to-the-mountains, and-many stay-in-the-city.”

For to-morrow’s lesson[9] I want you to bring in the groups in the following examples, putting hyphens between the words of each group, just as we did in the sentence about the summer vacation.

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[CHAPTER VII]
SUCCESSION OF IDEAS

The next step is but a very short one in advance of the second, and yet one of exceeding importance. It deals with the succession of ideas. Every long sentence is made up of small phrases more or less intimately connected. The inflection denotes this connection. If several phrases point forward to a thought further on, the end of each of these will be marked by a rising inflection; if any one of the phrases be of sufficient importance to demand particular emphasis, its end will be marked by the falling inflection.

As was said in Chapter II, the reading of a long sentence presents great difficulties for the child. He loses himself in the maze of words, and his mental condition is clearly shown in his melody, which drifts about here and there, like a rudderless ship. It is the purpose of this step to train him in the development of his powers of continuous thinking; to enable him to keep in mind the main idea, no matter how numerous the details. This step and that dealing with subordinate ideas have much the same object in view.

The following excerpt from the Introduction to The Song of Hiawatha is a good illustration of a sentence in which the sense is suspended through many lines:

Ye, who sometimes, in your rambles

Through the green lanes of the country,

Where the tangled barberry-bushes

Hang their tufts of crimson berries

Over stone walls gray with mosses,

Pause by some neglected graveyard,

For a while to muse, and ponder

On a half-effaced inscription,

Written with little skill of song-craft,

Homely phrases, but each letter

Full of hope and yet of heart-break,

Full of all the tender pathos

Of the Here and the Hereafter;—

Stay and read this rude inscription,

Read this Song of Hiawatha!

It is in sentences like the following that the pupil is likely to fail. Speaking of rain, the poet says:

How it clatters along the roofs,

Like the tramp of hoofs!

How it gushes and struggles out

From the throat of the overflowing spout!

There may be some justification for the falling inflection on “roofs”; there can be no doubt that the same inflection would be incorrect on “out.” And yet, the very structure of the verse would be likely to cause the careless reader to read it with that very inflection. This is a typical case, and, if this point has been made clear, one that should be very helpful to the teacher. The following passage, from the same poem, affords another exercise in succession of ideas:

In the country, on every side,

Where far and wide,

Like a leopard’s tawny and spotted hide,

Stretches the plain,

To the dry grass and the drier grain

How welcome is the rain!

Let us observe that the plain does not stretch to the dry grass. There will be a falling inflection on “plain,” and a rising on “grain.”

The pause has nothing to do with succession of ideas. It would make little difference how long the pause after “plain” if it were read with a rising inflection. This principle must never be lost sight of.

Pupils who should know better frequently make mistakes of the kind we have been discussing, in reading the following passage:

In the furrowed land

The toilsome and patient oxen stand;

Lifting the yoke-encumbered head,

With their dilated nostrils spread,

They silently inhale

The clover-scented gale,

And the vapors that arise

From the well-watered and smoking soil.

For this rest in the furrow after toil

Their large and lustrous eyes

Seem to thank the Lord,

More than man’s spoken word.

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Near at hand,

From under the sheltering trees,

The farmer sees

His pastures, and his fields of grain.

As they bend their tops

To the numberless beating drops

Of the incessant rain.

The following extracts from Gulliver’s Travels are within the comprehension of fairly young children, and will afford good practice:

1. The empire of Blefuscu is an island situated to the northeast of Lilliput, from which it is parted only by a channel eight hundred yards wide.

2. I had not yet seen it, and, upon this notice of a intended invasion, I avoided appearing on that side of the coast, for fear of being discovered by some of the enemy’s ships, who had received no intelligence of me; all intercourse between the two empires having been strictly forbidden during the war, upon pain of death, and an embargo laid by our emperor upon all vessels whatsoever.

3. I walked toward the northeast coast, over against Blefuscu, where, lying down behind a hillock, I took out my small perspective glass and viewed the enemy’s fleet at anchor, consisting of about fifty men-of-war and a great number of transports. I then came back to my house, and gave orders (for which I had a warrant) for a great quantity of the strongest cable and bars of iron. The cable was about as thick as pack-thread, and the bars of the length and size of a knitting-needle.

4. I trebled the cable to make it stronger, and for the same reason I twisted three of the iron bars together, bending the extremities into a hook. Having thus fixed fifty hooks to as many cables, I went back to the northeast coast, and putting off my coat, shoes and stockings, walked into the sea in my leathern jerkin, about half an hour before high water. I waded with what haste I could, and swam in the middle about thirty yards, till I felt ground.

5. When I had got out of danger, I stopped awhile to pick out the arrows that stuck in my hands and face, and rubbed on some of the same ointment that was given me at my first arrival, as I have formerly mentioned. I then took off my spectacles, and, waiting about an hour, till the tide was a little fallen, I waded through the middle with my cargo, and arrived safe at the royal port of Lilliput.

6. The emperor and his whole court stood on the shore, expecting the issue of this great adventure. They saw the ships move forward in a large half-moon, but could not discern me, who was up to my breast in water. When I advanced to the middle of the channel, they were yet more in pain, because I was under water to my neck. The emperor concluded me to be drowned, and that the enemy’s fleet was approaching in a hostile manner.

7. But he was soon eased of his fears; for, the channel growing shallower every step I made, I came in a short time within hearing, and, holding up the end of the cable by which the fleet was fastened, I cried in a loud voice, “Long live the most puissant King of Lilliput!” This great prince received me at my landing with all possible encomiums, and created me a nardac upon the spot, which is the highest title of honor among them.

It need hardly be noted that there are many examples of momentary completeness in the preceding passages; as, for instance:

“Lilliput,” in paragraph one.

“Ships,” in paragraph two.

“Anchor,” in paragraph three.

“Arrival,” in paragraph five.

“Me,” “pain,” in paragraph six.

“Spot,” in paragraph seven.

It will be seen that the purpose of this step is to draw the pupil’s attention to two possibilities in every sentence: Does the phrase point forward, or is it momentarily complete? Great care must be observed not to confuse him with statements regarding inflections.

Momentary completeness has been so fully discussed in a preceding chapter that it need not be dwelt upon further.

The following lesson-talk may be helpful for the teacher:

Read to yourself this little sentence: “Robert has a slate.” Is that a complete picture? You see that it is. Now read this sentence: “Robert has a slate and a pencil.” Here you note that Robert has two things, so the sentence is not complete when we come to the word “slate.” Although we have a clear picture, yet we have not the whole picture. How do we know this? In the first sentence there was a period after “slate,” but in the second sentence there was none, and because there wasn’t, we kept on reading and found there was another group of words giving us the picture of something else Robert had. Now this teaches us that if we want to read just as we speak, we must be careful to get not only one picture or two, but all the pictures in the sentence.

Let me show you how we often make mistakes in our reading because we don’t pay attention to what I have just shown you. Suppose we have this sentence: “I saw a cat, and a mouse, and a rat.” Now, some pupils are careless and they read, “I saw a cat,” just as if that were the whole sentence. Then they look a little further and see the next group, “and a mouse,” and they read that. Then they see the rest of the sentence, “and a rat,” and they read that. But we know that is not the way to read. We must first read the whole sentence silently until we get the picture in each group, and then we shall be sure to read the sentence just as one of us would speak it if he really saw the cat, the rat, and the mouse, at the same time.

Here is a very good example for you to study. Read it through slowly and carefully, and do not try to read it aloud until you see clearly the picture in each group. If you do as I ask, you will get a complete picture of the way in which the young soldier prepares to go out to battle:

But when the gray dawn stole into his tent,

He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword,

And took his horseman’s cloak, and left his tent.

Can you not see the young warrior rising from his couch, dressing himself, girding on his sword, and so forth? If you can, then I am sure you will be able to make others see it as a complete picture, without breaking it up into many little pieces, just as we used to do in the first book. You see, he did not rise and stop; and then dress himself and stop; and gird his sword and stop; but one action followed the other, just as each car in a long, moving train, follows another. Each car is like a group of words, and the whole train is like the complete sentence.

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[CHAPTER VIII]
THE CENTRAL IDEA

A little reflection must make it manifest that every sentence, or even phrase, has a central idea. When this idea is brought out in vocal expression it is by means of some form of emphasis, such as inflection or force or time, and so forth. The exact form of the manifestation need not concern us here.

Now that the pupils have been trained to look for the thought, the average sentence will take care of itself as far as the leading idea is concerned; but it must be admitted that in the sentence of more than average difficulty we find much obscure and more faulty reading, due, no doubt, to ignorance of the central idea. It is perhaps not wise in all cases to teach this step, as a step, to pupils under eleven years; but when it is taught, great care must be exercised to keep the class from forming the habit of pounding out every important word. Be this as it may, the attention of teachers should be directed to the great importance of such studies as are included in the present chapter. Furthermore, there can be no doubt that the step may be undertaken in the higher grades and in high schools to great advantage.

Perhaps there is no more severe test of the student’s apprehension of the meaning than his emphasis—using that term in its broadest sense. Determining the central idea is essentially a logical process; the student weighs and determines the value of every word, and by a process of elimination finally fixes upon the exact thought to be conveyed.

Rules for emphasis so commonly given are, comparatively, of little value. If the student has the thought, his emphasis may be trusted to take care of itself; where he has not, the rules are confusing and misleading. Mr. Alfred Ayres says facetiously, but truly, “There is only one rule for emphasis—Gumption.”

It is understood that emphasis has a much wider meaning than that of merely making a word stand out distinctly by means of force; it includes any manner of making a thought prominent. What we are here studying is simply that form of emphasis which is manifested by inflection or force, or both. The central idea in colloquial utterance is generally made significant through force; but by far the most suggestive method, when occasion requires, is through inflection. Of course, these two are very often combined in various proportions.

In the following illustrations, two classes of examples will be noticed. In the first, the central ideas are indicated by means of italics and capitals. It is not claimed that some other interpretation might not be possible; but that suggested is at least justifiable. The teacher will study these examples carefully with the object of determining the reason for the marking. In the second list of illustrations, the teacher himself will determine the central idea, and manifest it through his rendition.

By following this plan, the teacher’s own reading will show much improvement, and he will probably learn better how to work out the problem with his classes.

It is to be regretted that we have no recognized symbols for showing shades and degrees of emphasis. The teacher will, no doubt, be able to determine for himself whether the element of force or that of inflection predominates.

[10]There on the dais sat another king

Wearing HIS ROBES, his CROWN, his SIGNET-RING.

—King Robert of Sicily. Longfellow.

Note that “his” and “robes” are of about equal importance, the former perhaps weighing a little heavier than the latter. In the next phrase the inflection on “his” is much narrower than on the first “his,” while the “crown” becomes more important. Finally, the last “his” has no emphasis, while the climax of thought and emotion is reached on “signet-ring.”

And do you NOW put on your best attire!

And do you NOW cull out a HOLIDAY?

And do you now STREW FLOWERS in HIS way

That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood?

—Julius Caesar, Act i., Sc. 1.

Note the climax: “best attire” is weaker than “holiday,” and it than the strewing of flowers. Conversely, the emphasis on “now” diminishes at each repetition. The context should be carefully digested.

I rather tell thee what is to be fear’d

Than what I fear.

—Julius Caesar, Act i., Sc. 2.

An actor (?) was once heard to read the above passage, putting his emphasis on “thee” and the second “I.” How illuminating!

If ’twere done when ’tis done, then ’twere well

It were done quickly.

—Macbeth, Act i., Sc. 7.

The above is a fine illustration of the claim that the study of the “Central Idea” is essentially a logical process. Any other emphasis is puerile, and yet every other emphasis is heard except this. Let us look a little closer. The passage beginning with this line resolves itself into this: I am hampered with doubts and fears; I can find no rest by day or night until I kill the king or resolve to abandon the attempt. But if I can be assured that there shall be no after consequences here, I’ll risk the life to come. Hence, the following paraphrase is the equivalent of the first line: If it [the murder] were out of people’s minds, if it were blotted out of recollection, consigned to oblivion, when it is committed [when I do the murder], then the sooner it is done the better for my peace of mind. In a word, if it is all over when it is committed, “then ’twere well it were done quickly.” Many purposely avoid repeating the emphasis on “done” because they believe the two “done’s” are identical in meaning. Nothing could be farther from the truth, as shown above. The truth is, this line is one of those grim plays upon words in which Shakespeare is so prolific. It need hardly be added that when properly read the sense will be made clear by keeping in mind the paraphrase just given. The result will be that the first “done” will be read with a very decided falling inflection, and the second with a rising circumflex inflection (the mind looking forward at the end to the conclusion of the sentence). Perhaps to the sensitive student of literature there is another argument. Shakespeare’s vocabulary would indeed have been very limited had he found it necessary to use three “done’s” in the opening line of a most important soliloquy. To one who is alive to æsthetic effects, the very fact that Shakespeare does use them suggests a more careful analysis, and one soon discovers the cause. The play on the words makes the salient idea more striking.

And flood upon flood hurries on never ending; and it

never will rest nor from travail be free.

—The Diver. Schiller-Lytton.

Macbeth. I dare do all that may become a man;

Who dares do more is none.

Lady Macbeth. What beast was’t then

That made you break this enterprise to me?

When you durst do it, then you were a man,

And, to be more than what you were, you would

Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place

Did then adhere, and yet you would make both,

They have made themselves, and that their fitness now

Does unmake you.

—Macbeth, Act i., Sc. 7.

... it becomes

The thronèd MONARCH better than his CROWN.

—The Merchant of Venice, Act iv., Sc. 1.

Why is “better” not the most significant word?

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime.

—Psalm of Life. Longfellow.

Why not emphasize “we”?

... perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub!

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.

—Hamlet, Act iii., Sc. 1.

“What” is equivalent to what horrible or awful.

Cassius. I may do that I shall be sorry for.

Brutus. You have done that you should be sorry for.

—Julius Caesar, Act iv., Sc. 3.

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,

And that craves wary walking.

—Julius Caesar, Act ii., Sc. 1.

And since the quarrel

Will bear no color for the thing he is,

Fashion it thus; that what he is, AUGMENTED,

Would run to these and these extremities.

—Ibid.

This reading brings out most clearly the rationale of Brutus’s attitude. The soliloquy should be studied in its entirety.

Give me that man

That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him

In my heart’s core, ay, in my HEART of heart,

As I do thee.

—Hamlet, Act iii., Sc. 2.

This example is used in Fulton and Trueblood’s Practical Elocution. The authors state:

It has been a question with the actors which word of the phrase heart of heart should receive the chief emphasis, some claiming the reading should be “heart of heart,” others “heart of heart,” still others “heart of heart.” The first seems to us the preferable reading, for if the lines read, “I will wear him in my heart’s core, ay, in the center of it,” the case would be clear. Here “center” stands in the place of the first “heart.”

She looked down to blush and she looked up to sigh,

With a smile on her lip and a tear in her eye.

—Lochinvar. Scott.

There are those who argue that “lip” and “eye” should not be emphasized. This is a serious error. The phrases “on her lip” and “in her eye” are elaborative, and hence the emphasis is distributed over the entire phrase. If this is wrong, we must blame the writer for tautology. But literature has many similar examples. Here is another:

Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him: and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.—Luke xv. 22.

There is a rule telling us to emphasize words in antithesis. In many cases we do so; but these cases would emphasize themselves, so to speak. There are, however, many cases of rhetorical antithesis where it interferes with the sense to emphasize both members of the antithesis, and here the rule steps in to lead astray the pupil. To illustrate: “I am going to town to-morrow, but you need not go until the day after.”

Mr. A. Melville Bell has put this very clearly. In his Essays and Postscripts on Elocution, he says:

The emphasis of contrast falls necessarily on the second of a contrasted pair of words, but not necessarily on the first. The first word is emphatic or otherwise, according as it is new, or implied in preceding thoughts; but it is not emphatic in virtue of subsequent contrast. A purposed anticipation may give emphasis to the first word, but such anticipatory emphasis should not be made habitual.

If the bright blood that fills my veins, transmitted free from godlike ancestry, were like the slimy ooze which stagnates in your arteries, I had remained at home.

Is it not clear that the anticipatory emphasis on “my” is not only unnecessary, but would, if given, weaken the force of the succeeding phrase?

I have nothing more to say, but the honorable gentleman will no doubt speak for hours.

What could I do less; what could he do more?

Messala. It is but change, Titinius; for Octavius

Is overthrown by noble Brutus’ power,

As Cassius’ legions are by Antony.

Titinius. These tidings will well comfort Cassius.

Messala. Is not that he that lies upon the ground?

Titinius. He lies not like the living. Oh my heart!

Messala. Is not that he?

Titinius. No, this was he, Messala,

But Cassius is no more,—O setting sun!

As in thy red rays thou dost sink to-night,

So in his red blood Cassius’ day is set;

The sun of Rome is set! Our day is gone;

Clouds, dews, and dangers come; our deeds are done!

Mistrust of my success hath done this deed.

—Julius Caesar, Act v., Sc. 3.

It is evident that the speakers have been conversing about the two parts of the battle, and Titinius has told his friend that Cassius has been overthrown. To this Messala replies, comfortingly, Affairs are balanced, then, etc. The entire extract needs and will amply repay most critical study. It would be hard to find one containing more difficulties.

Bassanio. This is no answer, thou unfeeling man,

To excuse the current of thy cruelty.

Shylock. I am not bound to please thee with my answer.

Bassanio. Do all men kill the things they do not love?

Shylock. Hates any man the thing he would not kill?

Bassanio. Every offense is not a hate at first.

Shylock. What! wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?

—Merchant of Venice, Act iv., Sc. 1.

Duncan. Go, pronounce his present[11] death,

And with his former title greet Macbeth.

Ross. I’ll see it done.

Duncan. What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.

—Macbeth, Act i., Sc. 2.

Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.

—Macbeth, Act i., Sc. 3.

Macbeth. The thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me

In borrow’d robes?

Angus. Who was the thane, lives yet.

—Ibid.

Ligarius. What’s to do?

Brutus. A piece of work that will make sick men whole.

Ligarius. But are not some whole that we must make sick?

—Julius Caesar, Act ii., Sc. 1.

When beggars die, there are no comets seen;

The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.

—Julius Caesar, Act ii., Sc. 2.

Brutus. He hath the falling sickness.

Cassius. No, Caesar hath it not; but you and I,

And honest Casca, we have the falling sickness.

—Julius Caesar, Act i., Sc. 2.

Romans now

Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors,

But, woe the while! our fathers’ minds are dead,

And we are govern’d with our mothers’ spirits.

—Julius Caesar, Act i., Sc. 3.

That you do love me, I am nothing jealous;

What you would work me to, I have some aim;

How I have thought of this, and of these times,

I shall recount hereafter; for this present,

I would not, so with love I might entreat you,

Be any further mov’d. What you have said,

I will consider; what you have to say,

I will with patience hear, and find a time

Both meet to hear, and answer such high things.

—Julius Caesar, Act i., Sc. 2.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once.

—Julius Caesar, Act ii., Sc 2.

Flavius. Thou art a cobbler, art thou?

Citizen. Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl.

—Julius Caesar, Act i., Sc. 1.

Sir Peter. Very well, ma’am, very well! So a husband is to have no influence—no authority!

Lady Teazle. Authority? No, to be sure! If you wanted authority over me, you should have adopted me, and not married me; I am sure you were old enough!—The School for Scandal. Sheridan.

We live in deeds, not years; in thought, not breath;

In feelings, not in figures on a dial;

We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives,

Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.

—Festus. Bailey.

I must be cruel, only to be kind;

Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

Our new heraldry is—hands, not hearts.

He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

Friendship was in their looks, but in their hearts there was hatred.

Oh! the blood more stirs

To rouse a lion than to start a hare.

You will find it less easy to uproot faults than choke them by gaining virtues.

A maiden’s wrath has two eyes—one blind, the other keener than a falcon’s.

The storm that rends the oak uproots the flower.

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

Suggestions for a class lesson follow:

Let us look at the following sentence: “I heard William say it.” Can you read that sentence now? I should say you could not, and my reason is, that you are not quite sure of its meaning. Let us see what that meaning is.

One person might mean that he had heard William say it, but that you had not. How would you read the sentence then? Another person might mean, “I am sure William said it, for I was there to hear him.” How would you express that? Again, a third person might mean that he was sure George or John had not said it, but William. How would you read that?

We learn from this another reason why we must use great care in preparing our reading lesson. You see, if we do not, we shall not stop to consider just what the sentence means, and then in reading we shall not express the author’s meaning. Let us try a few more examples. In each make up your mind just what you want to say, and then say it as if you meant it.

Example 1.—“I like geography better than I do history.” Now, if you have been talking to a friend about the studies you like best, and he has just said, “I like geography as well as I do history,” how would you read the above example? Of course, you see that the main idea in your mind would be to tell him that you liked geography not only as well as, but better than, history. Well then, now you may read the example.

Example 2.—“I should rather be a lawyer than a doctor.” Suppose in this case a friend has said, “My father wants me to be a doctor.” How would you then read the sentence?

Example 3.—“Queen Victoria has reigned longer than any other monarch who ever sat upon the English throne.” Suppose you are telling this to your classmates, and that you have not been talking about Queen Victoria before, but you want only to give them a piece of information.

Let us remember, then, that every sentence has a principal, or, as we sometimes say, a central idea. We need be extremely careful to get that central idea, and if we have been, we notice that certain words will stand out very prominently in our reading. This is true because reading is just like speaking. If some one asks you where you are going, and you are going to school, what do you think of? You don’t think of each word of your answer; you think only one idea—school. So you say, “I am going to school,” and you make the word “school” very prominent, or important. “School” is the central idea.

Until our next step I want you to study every sentence of every reading lesson, bearing in mind this very important fact regarding the central idea. Every sentence has such a central idea, and until you have found it you cannot read the sentence.

Very few directions are necessary except to warn the teacher against speaking about the various kinds of emphasis. No matter what the kind, the thought will find its natural channel if the conditions be right. It is true, that sometimes a word is made prominent by inflection (rising, falling, circumflex), sometimes by slower time, sometimes by force alone. But let us remember, these various forms are the results of various forms of thinking. If those are right, correct reading will follow.

It is further worth noting that the best authorities use “emphasis” as signifying any means of making the thought stand out. Hence, the teacher is urged not to use the term “emphasis” at all. If a pupil err, tell him he has not given you the central, or leading, idea.

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[CHAPTER IX]
SUBORDINATION

The analysis for determining the central idea must have led the student to discern subordinate ideas. As a rule, the expression of these will not be difficult, but there are certain phases of subordination that require special study. We have noted that in our desire to impress the leading thought upon another we have used significant inflection, or force or time. It must follow then that the relatively unimportant words will be read in a manner less striking. In the following speech of Portia, observe how naturally we slight the relatively unimportant ideas:

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.

There will be degrees of subordination, of course: the above marking is meant only to draw attention to the purely instinctive process as a result of which the vocal modulations manifest the relative degrees of thought value.

It is something of an art to touch lightly upon the unimportant and yet not to slur it. We are not advocating that the teacher should at any length dwell upon this, though it is well for him to recognize this feature of expression. There are two reasons for this: first, in the earlier stages of reading there is a tendency to overemphasize; second, in the later stages, the unimportant words are hurried, with the result that the reading becomes indistinct.

As there are slighted words in every phrase, so there are slighted phrases and clauses in many sentences. We are all acquainted with the time-honored advice concerning the manner in which one should read words in parentheses: “Lower the voice and read faster.” It is not to be denied that the average parenthetical thought is expressed in that way, but there are many examples in which the injunction will not apply. Whether the key will be raised or lowered, and whether the time will be accelerated or retarded, will depend entirely upon the mental attitude of the reader. To illustrate: “The battle of Waterloo,—the most important battle of the nineteenth century,—ended the career of Napoleon.” If one has been speaking of the great importance of this battle, and takes for granted that his audience recognizes this importance, he will probably lower the key in the subordinate sentence, and read it faster; but otherwise he would read it more slowly (as a result of the importance of the thought), even if he did not raise the key. This leads us to the conclusion that a phrase or clause may be grammatically subordinate and yet of the greatest importance. The degree of importance determines how it shall be read, and not arbitrary rules. The main result to be obtained in this step is the training of the student’s mind in apprehending thought-modulation; to enable him to weigh the thought in order that he may perceive more clearly the relative values of the various phrases. This perception leads in expression to that most desirable phase of utterance—variety.

A few simple illustrations are added as examples of what may be used for class drill. The more difficult illustrations may be used for advanced classes, and for practice by the teacher himself:

And children, coming home from school,

Look in at the open door;

And, with his hard, rough hand, he wipes

A tear out of his eyes.

However, as the sun baked these two very dry and hard, I lifted them very gently, and set them down again in two great wicker baskets, which I had made on purpose for them, that they might not break; and, as between the pot and the basket there was a little room to spare, I stuffed it full of the rice and barley straw; and these two pots, being to stand always dry, I thought would hold my dry corn, and perhaps the meal, when the corn was bruised.

Though I succeeded so poorly in my design for large pots, yet I made several smaller things with better success, such as little round pots, flat dishes, pitchers, and pipkins, and anything my hand turned to; and the heat of the sun baked them very hard.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

Then it was that Jo, living in the darkened room, with that suffering little sister always before her eyes, and that pathetic voice sounding in her ears, learned to see the beauty and sweetness of Beth’s nature, to feel how deep and tender a place she filled in all hearts, and to acknowledge the worth of Beth’s unselfish ambition to live for others, and make home happy by the exercise of those simple virtues which all may possess, and which all should love and value more than talent, wealth, or beauty.[12]

It was past two o’clock when Jo, who stood at the window thinking how dreary the world looked in its winding-sheet of snow, heard a movement by the bed, and, turning quickly, saw Meg kneeling before their mother’s easy-chair, with her face hidden.

In what school did the worthies of our land—the Washingtons, Henrys, Franklins, Rutledges—learn those principles of civil liberty?

Next to the worship of the Father of us all—the deepest and grandest of human emotions—is the love of the land that gave us birth.

I am not—I need scarcely say it—the panegyrist of England.

I have returned,—not, as the right honorable member has said, to raise a storm,—I have returned to discharge an honorable debt of gratitude to my country.

May that God (I do not take his name in vain), may that God forbid it.

One day—shall I forget it ever?—ye were present—I had fought long and well.

I was about to slay him, when a few hurried words—rather a welcome to death than a plea for life—told me he was a Thracian.

One raw morning in spring—it will be eighty years the 19th of this month—Hancock and Adams were both at Lexington.

And are we to speak and act like men who have sustained no wrong? We! Six millions of—what shall I say?—citizens?

Among the exploits of marvelous and almost legendary valor performed by that great English chieftain—who has been laid aside uncoroneted, and almost unhonored because he would promote and distinguish the men of work in preference to the men of idleness—among his achievements not the least wondrous was the subjugation of the robber tribes of the Cutchee Hills in the north of Scinde.

But if there is one man here—I am speaking not of shapes and forms, but of feelings—if there is one here that feels as men were wont to feel, he will draw the sword.

And you—you, who are eight millions strong—you, who boast at every meeting that this island is the finest which the sun looks down upon—you, who have no threatening sea to stem, no avalanche to dread—you, who say that you could shield along your coast a thousand sail, and be the princes of a mighty commerce—you, who by the magic of an honest hand, beneath each summer sky, might cull a plenteous harvest from your soil, and with the sickle strike away the scythe of death—you, who have no vulgar history to read—you, who can trace, from field to field, the evidences of civilization older than the Conquest—the relics of a religion far more ancient than the Gospel—you, who have thus been blessed, thus been gifted, thus been prompted to what is wise and generous and great—you will make no effort—you will perish by the thousand, and the finest island that the sun looks down upon, amid the jeers and hooting of the world, will blacken into a plague spot, a wilderness, a sepulcher.

In his early manhood, at the bidding of conscience, against the advice of his dearest friends, in opposition to stern paternal commands, against every dictate of worldly wisdom and human prudence, in spite of all the dazzling temptations of ambition so alluring to the heart of a young man, he turned away from the broad fair highway to wealth, position, and distinction, that the hands of a king opened before him, and, casting his lot with the sect weakest and most unpopular in England, through paths that were tangled with trouble, and lined with pitiless thorns of persecution, he walked into honor and fame, and the reverence of the world, such as royalty could not promise and could not give him.

No one venerates the Peerage more than I do; but, my Lords, I must say that the Peerage solicited me,—not I the Peerage. Nay, more,—I can say, and will say, that, as a Peer of Parliament, as Speaker of this right honorable House, as keeper of the great seal, as guardian of his Majesty’s conscience, as Lord High Chancellor of England,—nay, even in that character alone in which the noble Duke would think it an affront to be considered, but which character none can deny me, as a MAN,—I am at this moment as respectable—I beg leave to add—I am as much respected,—as the proudest Peer I now look down upon.

Fresh as the flower, whose modest worth

He sang, his genius “glinted” forth,

Rose like a star that touching earth,

For so it seems,

Doth glorify its humble birth

With matchless beams.

The piercing eye, the thoughtful brow,

The struggling heart, where be they now?

Full soon the aspirant of the plow,

The prompt, the brave,

Slept, with the obscurest, in the low

And silent grave.

True friends though diversely inclined;

But heart with heart and mind with mind,

Where the main fibers are entwined,

Through Nature’s skill,

May even by contraries be joined

More closely still.

Sighing I turned away; but ere

Night fell, I heard, or seemed to hear,

Music that sorrow comes not near,

A ritual hymn,

Chanted in love that casts out fear

By Seraphim.

Too frail to keep the lofty vow

That must have followed when his brow

Was wreathed—“The Vision” tells us how—

With holly spray,

He faltered, drifted to and fro,

And passed away.

The five preceding stanzas are from Wordsworth’s poem, At the Grave of Burns.

In the illustrations that follow, the student will note three distinct degrees of importance of thought; in other words, there is the main idea, its modifier, and the modifier of the modifier. The vocal expression of these illustrations will be affected just to the extent that the student appreciates the value of the different phrases.

At Atri in Abruzzo, a small town

Of ancient Roman date, but scant renown,

One of those little places that have run

Half up the hill, beneath a blazing sun,

And then sat down to rest, as if to say,

“I climb no farther upward, come what may,”

The Re Giovanni, now unknown to fame,

So many monarchs since have borne the name,

Had a great bell hung in the market-place.

It is my purpose, therefore, believing that there are certain points of superiority in modern artists, and especially in one or two of their number, which have not yet been fully understood, except by those who are scarcely in a position admitting the declaration of their conviction, to institute a close comparison between the great works of ancient and modern landscape art.

Many students who find no difficulty in silently reading such extracts as the above, will often fail in their vocal expression because of the fact that the latter is more deliberate; and consequently they may lose the trend of the main thought in rendering the explanatory and parenthetical portions. To overcome this difficulty, they are advised to read the sentence, with the omission of all but the most essential idea; then let them add one idea after another to the main idea, until the sentence is read correctly in its entirety. In the last example quoted, the main idea is, “It is my purpose ... to institute a close comparison between the great works of ancient and modern landscape art.” Read this three or four times, until the idea is clearly apprehended. Now read the sentence, omitting “and especially in one or two of their number,” until this larger thought is grasped; after which let the sentence be read as a whole.

Following the usual plan, a class lesson is added:

“When I was in Paris (which is in France), I saw a great many pretty things.”

Read this sentence carefully and you will find something we have not had before: a group of words in parenthesis.

You notice, we should have very good sense without this group. Read it: “When I was in Paris I saw a great many pretty things.”

So you see, the words “which is in France” are not so important as the rest of the sentence. You might say they were thrown in after you had thought of the other idea.

Now, I want you to read the sentence aloud, leaving out the group, “which is in France.” After you have done this five or six times, then read the whole sentence, keeping in mind that the words in parenthesis are not very important, but just thrown in to let people know that you mean Paris in France, and not some other Paris.

The groups that are thrown in are not always put in parenthesis. But that does not make any difference in the reading. Here are a few examples. I want you to practice on them just as you did on the first example in this lesson.

1. “The king of England, who was a very brave man, won several victories over the French.”

2. “The largest school in our city, which is Chicago, has more than five hundred children in it.”

3. “During the Christmas vacation, which lasts ten days, I went to see my grandmother.”

4. “Frank did all his mother asked him to do; but William, because he was careless and disobedient, gave his mother and teacher a great deal of trouble.”

This last example makes very clear what we have been studying in this lesson. You see plainly that the words, “because he was careless and disobedient,” are put in simply to explain why William gave a great deal of trouble.

You must be very careful about this kind of sentence, because there are a great many of them on every page, and you will be sure to miss them if you are careless.

The teacher should ask the pupils to bring in other examples, and have them read in the class. He should also select examples from the reading book.

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[CHAPTER X]
VALUES

This feature of expression is one of the most vital. It has to do with the value of each phrase of the sentence and each phase of the whole selection. With every change of thought and emotion comes another form of expression, and these different forms we may call Values. We apply the term Transition to the act of passing from one shade of thought or feeling to another. All transitions are not necessarily emotional, and yet those most significant are certainly of this character. Let us first consider a few examples not strongly marked with emotion:

“Three quarters round your partners swing!”

“Across the set!” The rafters ring,

The girls and boys have taken wing,

And have brought their roses out!

’Tis “Forward six!” with rustic grace,

Ah, rarer far than—“Swing to place!”

Than golden clouds of old point lace,

They bring the dance about.

In the foregoing we have a picture of the country dance. We hear the figures called out by the old fiddler, and see the ever-varying changes of The Money Musk. Study the lines so as to be able to bring out the calls clearly, noting the two distinct calls at the opening, and the abrupt break in the sixth line.

The next extract presents a wife confiding to a friend the story of her courtship. Her husband is a true knight, and would perhaps resent it to have even his bravery form the subject of conversation. The story has reached its conclusion when the speaker says:

Our elder boy has got the clear

Great brow; tho’ when his brother’s black

Full eyes show scorn, it—

and she is probably about to add some such statement as, “It behooves one to look out,” when suddenly the husband appears on the scene. With a woman’s ready wit, she breaks off the sentence abruptly, saying:

Gismond here?

And have you brought my tercel back?

I was just telling Adela

How many birds it struck since May.

We might put into words what passes through her mind. She is about to add something further concerning the eyes of her boy, when she hears the sound of feet along the walk. Expecting her husband, the concluding words of her sentence pass from her mind as she turns to see the visitor. It is Gismond. He must not know that she has been speaking of him. The tercel in his hand gives her the opportunity of opening the conversation, which she is quick to do, adroitly pretending that it was of that very tercel she and her friend had been conversing before his arrival.

One more illustration of this kind will suffice. A tender, loving woman is talking to her husband. He is a learned poet, and perhaps just a trifle of a pedant. He is most minute and exact in all he does, ever losing sight of the spirit in the letter. The wife is the true poet, caring nothing for the archæology and philology and the geography, but quick to perceive the inner meaning of the poetic. He has told her a story in the past, and she is going now to tell it back to him with a new moral.

Here is the first stanza:

What a pretty tale you told me

Once upon a time

—Said you found me somewhere (scold me!)

Was it prose or was it rhyme,

Greek or Latin?

When the woman comes to “somewhere,” she finds she has forgotten the source of the original story. That means so much to him! It is so important! With a quizzical look, she pretends to rack her brains for the missing information, knowing all the time she will not find it, and knowing equally well that it makes no difference in the story. Then, with a coy expression and a look of mock humility on her face, she lets fall her eyes, meekly acknowledging her awful guilt, and stands prepared to accept her just punishment, saying, Scold me! I deserve it. I have sinned; my punishment is just.

Many students find it no easy task to make these transitions naturally. Some do not make them at all, but run the two phases of thought or emotion together. Others anticipate the coming idea, and hurry the last two or three words before the break. The proper training is to write or think out the incomplete sentence, then let it more or less quickly vanish from the mind as the new conception grows clearer, without betraying the fact that one is conscious of a coming interruption. For instance, in the second example, one must read up to and through “it” without the slightest suggestion of the coming of Gismond, and even think the conclusion of the sentence. Then hear or suddenly see Gismond just as the word “it” falls from the lips, and dismissing from the mind the former idea, conclude with the joyous, wifely welcome and question.

It might be proper to remark here that the same principle applies to the reading of dialogue. Except in rare cases the reader should not in any way anticipate the speech of one character while rendering the words of another.

For those who do not intend to become readers, but who would be preachers or lawyers, the practice here recommended will prove of great value. Too many speakers, in their excitement on the one hand and in their spiritlessness on the other, glide along line after line in one monotonous drift. A study of these exercises will teach the necessity of transitions, and train in the control of the mental action in this regard,—a control antecedent to that most important requisite, variety. After almost every paragraph or stanza there is more or less of change in the thought, and the apprehension of this change will be sufficient to modulate the vocal expression.

Even where there is no abrupt change in the flow of ideas, there is often a gradual transition from one emotion to another, and these transitions may occur several times within one paragraph. Take the following excerpt from Webster’s reply to Hayne. It is one paragraph; but it is divided into four smaller paragraphs, each of which is a marked “phase” of the thinking. Practice in the analysis of selections to determine these phases is the best and only rational training in transitions. But its value does not stop here; for the student not only makes transitions, but is led, through careful analysis, to discern shades of meaning and emotion he might otherwise overlook:

Sir, the gentleman inquires why he was made the object of a reply. Why was he singled out? If an attack has been made on the East he, he assures us, did not begin it; it was made by the gentleman from Missouri.

Sir, I answered the gentleman’s speech because I happened to hear it, and because I chose to answer that speech which, if unanswered, I thought most likely to produce injurious impressions.

I did not stop to inquire who was the original drawer of the bill. I found a responsible endorser before me, and it was my purpose to hold him liable, and to bring him to his just responsibility without delay.

But, sir, this interrogatory of the honorable member was only introductory to another. He proceeds to ask whether I had turned upon him in this debate from the consciousness that I should find an overmatch if I ventured on a contest with his friend from Missouri.

Transitions in emotion do not differ in principle from those we have been considering. The student must pursue the same method with these as with the others, expressing the first emotion until he comes to the break, making then an elliptical paraphrase, and then presenting the new emotion. An excellent model is the following speech of King Lear.

The aged monarch has, in a fit of rage, cast adrift his youngest child, and his eldest has turned him from her home. He turns in despair to his remaining daughter, assured that he will here receive a filial welcome. To his surprise, she refuses to meet him; says she is sick and travel-weary; and his amazed feeling finds vent in an uncontrolled explosion of passion:

Lear. Vengeance! plague! death! confusion!—

Fiery? what quality? Why, Gloucester, Gloucester,

I’d speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.

Gloucester. Well, my good lord, I have inform’d them so.

Lear. Inform’d them! Dost thou understand me, man?

Gloucester. Ay, my good lord.

Lear. The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear father

Would with his daughter speak; commands her service:

Are they inform’d of this?—My breath and blood!

Fiery? the fiery Duke? Tell the hot Duke that—

No, but not yet: may be he is not well:—

—King Lear, Act ii., Sc. 4.

and he then proceeds to find excuses for her action, and that of her husband, the Duke of Cornwall. There is hardly a more pathetic incident in a most pathetic play than this, in which the old man, past his eightieth year, after holding undisputed sway through his long reign, is at last compelled to temporize. He is about to send a message to the Duke, the character of which is easily judged from his previous language. If that message is sent, Lear will be alone in the world. But suddenly his fearful position flashes upon him. The threat dies upon his lips, gradually blending into apology and conciliation.

EXAMPLES OF EMOTIONAL TRANSITIONS.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.

You all do know this mantle: I remember

The first time ever Caesar put it on;

’Twas on a summer’s evening, in his tent,

That day he overcame the Nervii:

Look, in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through.

—Julius Caesar, Act iii., Sc 2.

He spoke; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and stood

Speechless; and then he utter’d one sharp cry:

“O boy—thy father!”—and his voice choked there.

And then a dark cloud pass’d before his eyes,

And his head swam, and he sank down to earth.

—Sohrab and Rustum. M. Arnold.

“Ferood, and ye, Persians and Tartars, hear!

Let there be truce between the hosts to-day.

But choose a champion from the Persian lords

To fight our champion Sohrab, man to man.”

As in the country, on a morn in June,

When the dew glistens on the pearlèd ears,

A shiver runs through the deep corn for joy—

So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said,

A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran

Of pride and hope for Sohrab, whom they loved.

But as a troop of peddlers from Cabool,

Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,

The vast sky-neighboring mountain of milk snow;

Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass

Long flocks of traveling birds dead on the snow,

Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves

Slake their parch’d throats with sugar’d mulberries—

In single file they move and stop their breath,

For fear they should dislodge the o’erhanging snows—

So the pale Persians held their breath with fear.

—Sohrab and Rustum. M. Arnold.

Note how, after the words, “whom they loved,” the atmosphere changes from that of joy to that of dread and scorn—scorn at the cowardice of the Persians, and the dread that the speaker would sympathetically feel as he recounted the deed.

This too thou know’st, that while I still bear on

The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world,

And beat the Persians back on every field,

I seek one man, one man, and one alone—

Rustum, my father; who I hoped should greet,

Should one day greet, upon some well-fought field,

His not unworthy, not inglorious son.

So I long hoped, but him I never find.

Come then, hear now, and grant me what I ask.

Let the two armies rest to-day; but I

Will challenge forth the bravest Persian lords

To meet me man to man; if I prevail,

Rustum will surely hear it; if I fall—

Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin.

Dim is the rumor of a common fight,

Where host meets host, and many names are sunk;

But of a single combat fame speaks clear.

—Sohrab and Rustum. M. Arnold.

STUDIES IN “PHASES.”

This extract from Tennyson’s Charge of the Heavy Brigade contains five distinct phases, or strata, ending respectively with the words, “fight,” “close,” “then,” “thousands,” and “Brigade.”

The trumpet, the gallop, the charge, and the might of the fight!

Thousands of horsemen had gather’d there on the height,

With a wing push’d out to the left and a wing to the right,

And who shall escape if they close? but he dash’d up alone

Thro’ the great gray slope of men,

Sway’d his saber, and held his own

Like an Englishman, there and then;

All in a moment follow’d with force

Three that were next in their fiery course,

Wedged themselves in between horse and horse,

Fought for their lives in the narrow gap they had made—

Four amid thousands! and up the hill, up the hill,

Gallopt the gallant three hundred, the Heavy Brigade.

As when a boar

Or lion mid the hounds and huntsmen stands,

Fearfully strong, and fierce of eye, and they

In square array assault him, and their hands

Fling many a javelin;—yet his noble heart

Fears not, nor does he fly, although at last

His courage cause his death; and oft he turns,

And tries their ranks; and where he makes a rush

The rank gives way;—so Hector moved and turned

Among the crowd, and bade his followers cross

The trench.

—The Iliad.

Hector, thou almost ever chidest me

In council, even when I judge aright.

I know it ill becomes the citizen

To speak against the way that pleases thee,

In war or council,—he should rather seek

To strengthen thy authority; yet now

I will declare what seems to me the best:

Let us not combat with the Greeks, to take

Their fleet; for this, I think, will be the end,—

If now the omen we have seen be meant

For us of Troy who seek to cross the trench;—

This eagle, flying high upon the left,

Between the hosts, that in his talons bore

A monstrous serpent, bleeding, yet alive,

Hath dropped it mid our host before he came

To his dear nest, nor brought it to his brood;—

So we, although by force we break the gates

And rampart, and although the Greeks fall back,

Shall not as happily retrace our way;

For many a Trojan shall we leave behind,

Slain by the weapons of the Greeks, who stand

And fight to save their fleet. Thus will the seer,

Skilled in the lore of prodigies, explain

The portent, and the people will obey.

—The Iliad.

And thus King Priam supplicating spake:—

“Think of thy father, an old man like me,

Godlike Achilles! On the dreary verge

Of closing life he stands, and even now

Haply is fiercely pressed by those who dwell

Around him, and has none to shield his age

From war and its disasters. Yet his heart

Rejoices when he hears that thou dost live,

And every day he hopes that his dear son

Will come again from Troy. My lot is hard,

For I was father of the bravest sons

In all wide Troy, and none are left me now.

Fifty were with me when the men of Greece

Arrived upon our coast; nineteen of these

Owned the same mother, and the rest were born

Within my palaces. Remorseless Mars

Already had laid lifeless most of these,

And Hector, whom I cherished most, whose arm

Defended both our city and ourselves,

Him didst thou lately slay while combating

For his dear country. For his sake I come

To the Greek fleet, and to redeem his corse

I bring uncounted ransom. O revere

The gods, Achilles, and be merciful,

Calling to mind thy father! happier he

Than I; for I have borne what no man else

That dwells on earth could bear,—have laid my lips

Upon the hand of him who slew my son.”

He spake: Achilles sorrowfully thought

Of his own father. By the hand he took

The suppliant, and with gentle force removed

The old man from him. Both in memory

Of those they loved were weeping. The old king,

With many tears, and rolling in the dust

Before Achilles, mourned his gallant son.

Achilles sorrowed for his father’s sake,

And then bewailed Patroclus, and the sound

Of lamentation filled the tent. At last

Achilles, when he felt his heart relieved

By tears, and that strong grief had spent its force,

Sprang from his seat; then lifting by the hand

The aged man, and pitying his white head

And his white chin, he spake these wingèd words:

—The Iliad.

It is especially in the reading of description that the study of values will prove most beneficial. There are very few readers who can make description interesting, and their failure is in most cases due to the monotony arising from their inability to perceive and make palpable the different values. The reply of Achilles to Priam becomes most interesting reading when values are carefully observed.

Great have thy sufferings been, unhappy king!

How couldst thou venture to approach alone

The Grecian fleet, and show thyself to him

Who slew so many of thy valiant sons?

An iron heart is thine. But seat thyself,

And let us, though afflicted grievously,

Allow our woes to sleep awhile, for grief

Indulged can bring no good. The gods ordain

The lot of man to suffer, while themselves

Are free from care. Beside Jove’s threshold stand

Two casks of gifts for man. One cask contains

The evil, one the good, and he to whom

The Thunderer gives them mingled sometimes falls

Into misfortune, and is sometimes crowned

With blessings. But the man to whom he gives

The evil only stands a mark exposed

To wrong, and, chased by grim calamity,

Wanders the teeming earth, alike unloved

By gods and man. So did the gods bestow

Munificent gifts on Peleus from his birth,

For eminent was he among mankind

For wealth and plenty; o’er the Myrmidons

He ruled, and, though a mortal, he was given

A goddess for a wife. Yet did the gods

Add evil to the good, for not to him

Was born a family of kingly sons

Within his house, successors to reign.

One short-lived son is his, nor am I there

To cherish him in his old age; but here

Do I remain, far from my native land,

In Troy, and causing grief to thee and thine.

Of thee, too, aged king, they speak, as one

Whose wealth was large in former days, when all

That Lesbos, seat of Macar, owns was thine.

And all in Phrygia and the shores that bound

The Hellespont; men said thou didst excel

All others in thy riches and thy sons.

But since the gods have brought this strife on thee

War and perpetual slaughter of brave men

Are round thy city. Yet be firm of heart,

Nor grieve forever. Sorrow for thy son

Will profit nought; it cannot bring the dead

To life again, and while thou dost afflict

Thyself for him fresh woes may fall on thee.

—The Iliad.

The subject may be presented to the class somewhat in the manner of the following lesson:

Suppose you were very busy studying your reading lesson, and you were just about to read aloud a sentence like this:

There’s a good time coming, boys,

A good time coming!

But when you came to the second “good,” let us suppose somebody knocks at the door and you say, “Come in.” What has happened in your reading? You have broken off one thought suddenly and another has come in its place. Let us see how such a sentence would look:

There’s a good time coming, boys,

A good—Come in.

Now, what is the difference between this sentence and those we studied in our last lesson? It is this: In the former lesson the new thought that was thrown in was really a part of the principal thought; but in this the new thought has no connection with the principal idea. In the previous lesson the group that was thrown in was a kind of explanation; in this lesson, the first picture is driven entirely out of mind by the second.

Breaks in the thought are of many kinds, and it is very necessary that you should be on the look-out for them. Here is an example of a kind you will find quite often:

“Halt!” The dust-brown ranks stood fast.

“Fire!” out blazed the rifle-blast.

The words “halt” and “fire” are commands given by the general; the sentence that follows each of these words tells us what happened after the commands were given.

Another kind of break is found in those selections in which there are two or more persons speaking. As in this: “Frank said, ‘Will you go to school with me?’ and his brother said, ‘No, I don’t like it.’ ‘Not like school?’ replied Frank, who was very much surprised, ‘I would rather go there than anywhere I know.’” You can see plainly that there is a break when the reader changes from one person to another.

The last kind of break we shall speak about in this lesson is that which occurs between the stanzas of a poem or between the paragraphs of a prose selection. I need not give any examples here, for you will find them on every page of your reader. All I need do is tell you that the new paragraph or the new stanza generally begins with a new thought. So you must be sure to get that new thought, and hold it well in mind, before you try to express it.

In closing this lesson I want to show you that you may learn how to read such examples as we have had, if you will but be careful. You must be sure to get each new picture before you utter a word. Take the first example. You have read the first line, “There’s a good time coming, boys,” and you are just about to repeat it. Now think what you are going to say, and just as you come to the word “good,” imagine you hear a knocking, and say, “Come in.” If you will only think what the words mean and see the picture, there will be no trouble about reading the example well.

A few examples for class use are appended. The teacher may easily invent suitable contexts:

My servant-boy, with a reserve gun, was ten or twelve yards off—a long way at such a moment.

It would make the reader pity me to learn that, after having labored hard, I could not make above two large earthen, ugly things (I can not call them jars) in about two months’ labor.

The tear will start, and let it flow;

Thou “poor Inhabitant below,”

At this dread moment,—even so—

Might we together

Have sate and talked where gowans blow,

Or on wild heather.

In the above, Wordsworth laments that the death of Burns should have deprived them of the joy of communion. Note the force of the semicolon after “flow,” and the pathos of “even so.” The following lines are from the same poem:

Too frail to keep the lofty vow

That must have followed when his brow

Was wreathed—“The Vision” tells us how—

With holly spray,

He faltered, drifted to and fro,

And passed away.

Now, when the Hare came to the top of the field, the Hedgehog cried out, “Hallo! here I am. Where have you been all this while?” But the Hare was out of his wits, and cried out, “Once more—turn about, and away!” “By all means,” answered the Hedgehog; “for my part, as often as you please.”

Young Harry was a lusty drover—

And who so stout of limb as he?

His cheeks were red as ruddy clover;

His voice was like the voice of three.

Old Goody Blake was old and poor;

Ill-fed she was, and thinly clad;

And any man who passed her door

Might see how poor a hut she had.

There is a change of feeling in almost every stanza of the following poem. If the pupils can grasp its meaning it will be an excellent exercise in training them to perceive the relative values. It may be well to delay the study of this selection until after the principle of the next two chapters has been thoroughly grasped and put into practice:

On Linden, when the sun was low,

All bloodless lay th’ untrodden snow,

And dark as winter was the flow

Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

But Linden saw another sight,

When the drum beat at dead of night,

Commanding fires of death to light

The darkness of her scenery.

By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,

Each horseman drew his battle-blade,

And furious every charger neighed,

To join the dreadful revelry.

Then shook the hills, with thunder riven;

Then rushed the steed, to battle driven;

And, louder than the bolts of heaven,

Far flashed the red artillery.

But redder yet that light shall glow

On Linden’s hills of stainèd snow,

And bloodier yet the torrent flow

Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

’Tis morn, but scarce yon lurid sun

Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun,

Where furious Frank and fiery Hun

Shout in their sulph’rous canopy.

The combat deepens. On, ye brave,

Who rush to glory or the grave!

Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave,

And charge with all thy chivalry!

Few, few shall part where many meet!

The snow shall be their winding-sheet,

And every turf beneath their feet

Shall be a soldier’s sepulcher.

—Hohenlinden. Campbell.

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[CHAPTER XI]
EMOTION

Teaching children to read with feeling is one of the most difficult tasks falling to the lot of the teacher, and yet it is one that has, if successfully accomplished, far-reaching results. For, apart from the legitimate development of emotion, it enlarges their sympathy and lays the foundation for a genuine love of literature.

We must confess that emotional expression is rarely found in our public schools. It would avail little to discuss the causes of this condition in detail. In this chapter we shall try to discover a remedy. Emotion in reading comes largely through the imagination. Unless the mind conceives the thought, how can the nerves thrill and tingle? It is for this that we need teachers who are themselves lovers of the beautiful, sublime, tender, in order that they may impart their appreciation and feeling to their classes. Emotion is catching, and so is the absence of it! Time, time, time, is here the great need. It takes time to think; time for the picture to come forth in its fulness out of subconsciousness. Is not imagination the basis of literary interpretation, of historical study, yes, even of mathematics and science? The time spent on the development of imagination and emotion in the reading lesson will show its results in every other study.

If, then, the teacher would get the right emotion, he must see to it that the child has the proper and adequate stimulus. Appeal to his everyday experience and make that serve as an introduction to the new experience of the poem.

Let us suppose we are speaking to the children:

If your class were to have a contest with another class, let us say in spelling, and your class were to come out victorious, you would, no doubt, feel very joyful over the result. Now, let us suppose that after the victory one of the members of the class should get up on his seat and wave his hand above his head, crying: “Three cheers for our class!” Would there be any difference between the way in which he spoke those words and the way in which he would read the same words if they came in a sentence like this: “If we win I shall give three cheers for our class”?

Of course, you will see at once that there would be a great deal of difference. In the first place, he would be very joyful, and perhaps excited, and this joy and excitement would get into his voice, and he would call out, “Three cheers for our class,” with a great deal of feeling, or emotion; and everybody would see at once just how exultant he was. Now, what is it that causes that feeling, or emotion? I do not think that there will be much difficulty in answering this question. He was very much excited before the spelling contest came off, and now that it has been decided in your favor there is a feeling of great joy that comes over the whole body, and it is almost impossible to keep back the expression of that joy. In other words, he has been strongly moved.

I want to impress now upon you that as you go on with your study of reading, you will find that there is a great deal of emotion in many of the passages you will be called upon to read, and the only way to discover what the emotion is, must be by getting a very clear picture. But remember that the picture itself is not very likely to move you unless you enter into the spirit of the picture just as you entered into the spirit of the spelling contest. Do you see my meaning? One might say the words, “Three cheers for our class,” and not express very much emotion. One might even have a very clear picture of the whole spelling match, and yet not be very much moved. But if you will close your eyes and let the picture get hold of you, I think there will be no trouble about the emotion. Let me see whether I can make clear to you what I mean by letting the picture get hold of you.

Suppose we take this line from a well-known speech, “Wolsey on His Fall:”—“Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness!” Who speaks those words? is the first question. The answer is: An old man who has been for many years one of the leading men in the court of Henry VIII. He has used every effort to gain great power, and has forgotten his God, and now at last the king has cast him off. Just after Wolsey has been informed of his loss of power, he utters the words quoted above. Just think how much these words mean to this poor man. Think how much he must suffer, and then try to feel as much as you can what it would mean to you if everything you had hoped for and struggled for were to be taken away from you. Of course, I know that you have not been so ambitious as Wolsey, but yet I think you will have no trouble in imagining just how you would feel if everything you cared for were to be taken away from you. Well, this is all that you need feel in order to read with emotion the lines of Wolsey. Just think this over for a few minutes, and then see how much regret you can feel as you utter these words. Be sure that you get the meaning of the words; be sure you get hold of the picture; try to imagine just how you would feel if you were very deeply disappointed, and then utter the words of Wolsey.

This, then, is what I mean by telling you to let the picture get hold of you. When you were exultant over the result of the spelling contest, joy possessed you. When Wolsey learned of his fall, sorrow and remorse possessed him. So with all emotions. You must think over the whole story; you must think over all the events connected with it until you really feel somewhat as the speaker felt whose words you are reading. Then there will be no trouble about the expression.

The teacher will observe that the two illustrations are chosen from two distinct fields: one near to the child’s experience, the other far removed from it. It is further observed that both are direct discourse rather than description.

It seems the best plan to begin the definite study of emotional expression by using extracts in which the pupil uses direct rather than indirect discourse. The reason for this is that it is far more difficult to read, with expression, a passage of description in which the pupil would be expected to put emotion, than a piece of direct quotation. For instance, is it not easier for a child to enter into the spirit of the first of the following stanzas than into that of the second, granting even that it is difficult to conceive the anguish of the father?

The father came on deck. He gasped,

“O God! thy will be done!”

Then suddenly a rifle grasped,

And aimed it at his son:

“Jump—far-out, boy, into the wave!

Jump, or I fire!” he said;

“That only chance your life can save!

Jump! jump! boy!” He obeyed.

He sank—he rose—he lived—he moved,

And for the ship struck out:

On board we hailed the lad beloved,

With many a manly shout.

His father drew, in silent joy,

Those wet arms round his neck,

And folded to his heart his boy—

Then fainted on the deck.

In the second place, the reason for choosing selections in which the emotion is akin to those of the child’s own experience must be clear. How many pupils ten or eleven years old can be expected to enter into the spirit of Whittier’s The Barefoot Boy?

Blessings on thee, little man—

Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!

With thy turned-up pantaloons,

And thy merry whistled tunes;

With thy red lip, redder still,

Kissed by strawberries on the hill;

With the sunshine on thy face,

Through thy torn brim’s jaunty grace;

From my heart I give thee joy!

I was once a barefoot boy!

It is only to discourage him, to ask him to feel like an adult who looks back upon the joys of boyhood. One hears this selection read in an affected voice and manner, where it is clear that the child is simply trying to imitate his teacher. But such experiences simply go to prove the contention that children should not be called upon to represent emotions far removed from their own experience.

But how shall we get our pupils to express emotions beyond their experience? The answer is: the teacher should strive to find those experiences in the child’s life that are similar to those of the selection to be read. We have shown how this might be done in the line from Wolsey’s speech. The child has experienced regret; let us make use of this experience to get him to feel something of Wolsey’s feeling. Again (and this applies largely to advanced classes), it is by no means necessary that the pupil should ever have come into contact with the picture that stirs the writer, in order to represent the latter’s feelings. It is the joy that the lover of nature feels that finds expression in these lines:

How the robin feeds her young,

How the oriole’s nest is hung;

Where the whitest lilies blow,

Where the freshest berries grow,

Where the ground-nut trails its vine;

Where the wood-grape’s clusters shine;

Of the black wasp’s cunning way,

Mason of his walls of clay.

—The Barefoot Boy. Whittier.

But how can we get the true expression from one who knows nothing of the joy we take in contemplating the pictures of this stanza? By reminding him that our joy is not far different from his when rejoicing in a beautiful book, a lucky hit at baseball, or a pretty Christmas gift. Let us remember that it is not enough that he shall get the pictures: he must get the joy. And if he cannot get the joy from the pictures of the poet, he must get it from the memory of his own past joy, no matter under what circumstances. It is simply a question of transferring his own past emotion to the present moment.

Summarized, our points are:

First, choose emotions near to the child’s experience.

Second, transfer his past experiences and emotions to the particular poem or stanza to be read.

Third, use direct discourse, in drill work, as far as possible.

Perhaps it would not be advisable to use selections in our reading lessons that call for an extremely difficult exercise of imagination on the part of the child, but since these selections are found in our reading books it is well to know how to do the best possible under the circumstances.

The most important point of all is that children must be brought into contact with nature. We cannot expect them to delight in a description of a sunset, or a robin’s nest, or a bunch of pansies, when they have never delighted in sunsets, or robins’ nests or pansies. When their early training is wise they will not need to transfer their emotions from another realm to read with true expression.

We are now to enter the more complex realm of expression, in which the emotion is more intense, and instead of being a single emotion is a blending of many. Take, for example, the trial scene from The Merchant of Venice. There are many speeches of Shylock that might illustrate our point, and we shall take the first that presents itself. The Duke of Venice has been urging Shylock to abandon his suit, whereupon the latter replies:

I have possessed your grace of what I purpose;

And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn,

To have the due and forfeit of my bond.

What emotions does Shylock portray? There is the emotion of hatred of Antonio and the feeling of obstinacy; and there is, further, the sense of wrong that has been heaped upon his race in general, and himself in particular. It would be useless to discuss how far each of these elements is an emotion. It is sufficient for our purpose to have shown that these three mental conditions are present virtually at one time in the brain of the speaker. Now, if any one of these elements (to say nothing of others that might be mentioned) is omitted, the characterization will lack truthfulness.

There is another element in complexity of expression that needs a moment’s attention. The emotion itself may be a simple one, but the character we aim to represent may be so far removed from our own that one must assume or take on many attributes. For instance, if one were portraying old Adam in As You Like It, he would be compelled to manifest the weakness of old age in body and voice. Now, when the old man says, “Dear master, I can go no further; O, I die for food,” it is not sufficient for the reader to portray simply the pathos of the line, but his expression becomes more complex in so far as it must manifest both the pathos and the weakness.

In preparing to present the emotions in the following extracts it is well for the student to study carefully the nature of the thought, the emotion, and the character separately, and conceive each of the simpler emotional elements by itself. If he is representing, let us say, pathos and dignity, let him hold dignity before his mind until the whole being responds; then let him conceive pathos by itself; and, finally, let him conceive pathos and dignity, and endeavor to present them. This process will not be necessary in all cases; for there are those who can conceive these more complex conditions with one effort, as it were. But unless the student has this ability, the preceding process should be followed. And even when a student has the necessary ability to conceive the complete expression at once, he is very likely to lose some of what might be called the ingredients of a composite emotion. For instance, in representing the strong language of one who might be said never to lose his anger, the student who is particularly choleric by nature is very likely to forget the dignity of the character. He may be reminded of his error by recalling dignity to his mind, and at once the natural temperament of the speaker will be modified by the new stimulus.

It might also be well to consider here another reason for the practice of these illustrations. Many students are temperamentally restricted and shy, and others have become so through training and environment. Before these can hope to become effective readers there must be a certain amount of genuine abandon. Hence, even if a student may never have any use for the ability to impersonate, the practice here recommended will prove to be one of the best, surest, and quickest methods of bringing him out of himself. The abandon thus gained will stand him in good stead in any effort he may be called upon to make as a public speaker.

Let it be remembered that niceties of form are not to be expected for a long time. If the student’s abandon is developed, that is all that should be expected.

In the following speech the student must never forget that Othello is a warrior, one accustomed to command, and of large heart. His dignity, therefore, must be manifest throughout the address:

Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,

My very noble and approv’d good masters,—

That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter,

It is most true; true, I have married her;

The very head and front of my offending

Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,

And little bless’d with the soft phrase of peace;

For, since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith,

Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used

Their dearest action in the tented field;

And little of this great world can I speak,

More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,

And therefore little shall I grace my cause

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,

I will a round unvarnished tale deliver

Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,

What conjuration, and what mighty magic,

(For such proceeding I am charg’d withal,)

I won his daughter with.

Her father lov’d me; oft invited me;

Still question’d me the story of my life,

From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes,

That I have passed.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,

To the very moment that he bade me tell it:

Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,

Of hair-breadth ’scapes i’ the imminent deadly breach;

Of being taken by the insolent foe,

And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence,

And portance in my travel’s history.—

—Othello, Act i., Sc. 3.

Another excellent extract for practice is the following speech of Cassius from the first act of Julius Caesar. Note the dignity, the sarcasm, the ridicule, the contempt, and the sense of triumph:

I cannot tell what you and other men

Think of this life; but, for my single self,

I had as lief not be, as live to be

In awe of such a thing as I myself.

I was born as free as Caesar; so were you:

We both have fed as well, and we can both

Endure the winter’s cold as well as he:

For once upon a raw and gusty day,

The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,

Caesar said to me, “Darest thou, Cassius, now

Leap in with me into this angry flood,

And swim to yonder point?” Upon the word,

Accoutred as I was, I plungèd in,

And bade him follow; so indeed he did.

The torrent roared, and we did buffet it

With lusty sinews, throwing it aside

And stemming it with hearts of controversy;

But ere we could arrive the point proposed,

Caesar cried, “Help me, Cassius, or I sink!”

I, as Æneas, our great ancestor,

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder

The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber

Did I the tirèd Caesar. And this man

Is now become a god, and Cassius is

A wretched creature, and must bend his body,

If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.

—Julius Caesar, Act i., Sc. 2.

These speeches of Cassio in Othello show remorse, self-contempt, with anger and regret:

Cassio. Reputation, reputation, reputation! Oh! I have lost my reputation. I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!

Iago. As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily wound; there is more sense in that than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving: you have lost no reputation at all, unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man! there are ways to recover the general again: you are but now cast in his mood, a punishment more in policy than in malice; even so as one would beat his offenseless dog, to affright an imperious lion. Sue to him again, and he’s yours.

Cassio. I will rather sue to be despised, than to deceive so good a commander with so slight, so drunken, and so indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear, and discourse fustian with one’s own shadow? O thou invisible spirit of wine! if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.

Iago. What was he that you followed with your sword? What had he done to you?

Cassio. I know not.

Iago. Is’t possible?

Cassio. I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!

Iago. Why, but you are now well enough: how came you thus recovered?

Cassio. It has pleased the devil drunkenness, to give place to the devil wrath: one unperfectness shows me another, to make me frankly despise myself.

Iago. Come, you are too severe a moraler. As the time, the place, and the condition of this country stands, I could heartily wish this had not befallen; but, since it is as it is, mend it for your own good.

Cassio. I will ask him for my place again: he shall tell me, I am a drunkard. Had I as many mouths as Hydra, such an answer would stop them all. To be now a sensible man, by-and-by a fool, and presently a beast! O, strange! Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil.—Othello, Act ii., Sc. 3.

In conclusion, begin with simple emotions. Do not ask the younger pupils to represent intense pathos, great solemnity, and the like. Reserve these for the upper grades of the high school. Again, avoid the baser emotions, such as anger, hate, jealousy. Time does not permit us to enlarge on this, but the whole trend of the best psychology is in favor of this admonition. Select extracts in which the characters manifest simple, noble, inspiring, and uplifting feeling. Patriotism, self-sacrifice, love of nature, these are the themes with which the imagination of the pupils should come into contact.

The teacher is heartily advised to gather a dozen or more extracts and speeches (from this book and elsewhere) under three or four significant heads, such as patriotism, love of nature, etc., and to keep the class at each phase until definite results are attained. There is no hesitation in deprecating the method that compels teachers to teach any lesson simply because it follows, numerically, the preceding lesson. The proper method is hinted at elsewhere. A few words are now added to justify that method. In many readers there may be two patriotic selections; one at the beginning, one at the end. Probably a year will intervene between these two. Is it not good pedagogy to take up these lessons in succession? To keep the pupils in a patriotic mood for five consecutive days must be certainly productive of better results than can be obtained by the other method of Lesson I, Lesson II, Lesson III. So also with other emotions. When a certain emotion is present in only one or two paragraphs of a selection, only those paragraphs need, of course, to be prepared.

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[CHAPTER XII]
ATMOSPHERE

This element of expression, perhaps more than any other, manifests the artistic nature of the reader; artistic, inasmuch as the atmosphere, or vocal color, shows the sensitiveness of the reader to sense stimuli; shows that he is moved by the contemplation of the beautiful, the sublime, the tender, the pathetic. This element is called by different names, but perhaps none is more significant than Atmosphere. This effect is not easy to describe, and yet it is as real as rhythm or inflection or any other of the elements discussed in this book. Atmosphere is that sympathetic quality of voice that manifests the spirit of literature. Who can fail to notice the tender motherly sympathy that pervades every word of the lyric Sweet and Low? Now compare this with the knights’ chorus from The Coming of Arthur. This is permeated throughout with the spirit of the Round Table. The spirit of motherly love in the former, and of knightly courage and the clang of arms in the latter, completely envelop these poems, and permeate every letter. Therefore, in the rendering the reader must exercise the greatest care not to dissipate this atmosphere. The least misstep, one false note, and the atmosphere is dissipated.

In longer selections there may be variety of atmosphere in the different stanzas or paragraphs, provided always that the variety enhances the poem as a whole. Mere variety in reading is not art, but chaos, says Professor Corson.

The following lines from Matthew Arnold’s Sohrab and Rustum[13] illustrate the principle of variety in unity. The poem purports to be an extract from the epic of Rustum, the Persian Achilles, and is especially marked by a dignity truly Homeric. This atmosphere of dignity envelops every line. Hence pathos and joy, patriotism and defiance, scorn and contempt, and all the other emotions, are always dignified. The Tartar champion, Sohrab, challenges the bravest Persian champion to meet him in single combat; and the Tartar leader, Peran-Wisa, announces the challenge. The Tartars love their hero, and the thrill that pervades their army is significant of that love. But the Persian champion, Achilles-like, sulks in his tent; and the knowledge of this fact, when the announcement of the challenge is heard by the Persians, fills them with awe and dismay. Read the following lines, bringing out the significant atmosphere of the two parts of the contrast, but being careful to bear in mind the general atmosphere of dignity:

And the old Tartar came upon the sand

Betwixt the silent hosts, and spake, and said:—

“Ferood, and ye, Persians and Tartars hear!

Let there be truce between the hosts to-day.

But choose a champion from the Persian lords

To fight our champion Sohrab, man to man.”

As, in the country, on a morn in June,

When the dew glistens on the pearled ears,

A shiver runs through the deep corn for joy—

So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said,

A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran

Of pride and hope for Sohrab, whom they loved.

But as a troop of peddlers from Cabool,

Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,

The vast sky-neighboring mountain of milk snow;

Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass

Long flocks of traveling birds dead on the snow,

Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves

Slake their parch’d throats with sugar’d mulberries—

In single file they move and stop their breath,

For fear they should dislodge the o’erhanging snows—

So the pale Persians held their breath with fear.

The reader must also bear in mind that from the very beginning of each picture the atmosphere of joy and fear respectively must be in the mind, and must never be lost sight of under any circumstances.

Sometimes the atmosphere is modified by the fact that the speaker is quoting the words of another person, and then it is often a matter of the most subtle analysis to determine the extent to which the quoted words will modify the atmosphere of the reader, whether speaking in his own person or in the person of another.

There are two kinds of literature that must be considered in this connection. First, that class in which the reader tells the story in his own person. Second, when the reading is a personation throughout. An example of the first class is The Idylls of the King; and of the second, the “Instigation” speech of Cassius in Julius Caesar. The principle governing atmosphere applies equally and in the same way to both kinds of selections. The knowledge of this fact will often be valuable to the reader.

We get a good example in the “Instigation” speech, where Cassius tells Brutus that Caesar, when he had a fever, cried, “‘Give me some drink, Titinius,’ as a sick girl.” The whole matter of atmosphere, as far as quoted words are concerned, will be made clear by a study of this simple passage. Cassius is so exercised over the success of Caesar and his own consequent humiliation, that his scorn and rage are well-nigh boundless. As the torrent of his emotion rushes forth, is it not entirely inconsistent with our knowledge of human nature to suppose that that torrent would be so impeded or arrested when Cassius came to the above words, that he would stop to reproduce the actual manner and tones of Caesar? What Cassius probably does is to suggest something of the effeminate manner of Caesar enveloped in Cassius’ own atmosphere of bitterest loathing and contempt. One will be helped in work of this kind by asking himself the question, What is the atmosphere of the speaker? Then, having determined this, he must next make up his mind, through his knowledge of human nature, to what extent this atmosphere is modified by the quoted words that are introduced into the body of the story. He may be assisted in determining this by putting a second question to himself, Is what the quoted words convey, or the manner in which they are conveyed, of the greater importance? This is well illustrated in King Robert of Sicily. It makes no difference in this particular poem how the sexton uttered the words, “Who is there?” and, consequently, it would be a mistake to give them any very significant atmosphere. As a matter of fact, the words are really equivalent to indirect discourse; the expression would convey exactly the same meaning to the listener if read, Asking who was within. The following from King Lear is full of suggestiveness in this connection. We recall that Kent has sent a gentleman to Cordelia to tell her of the condition of her father. Later in the drama, Kent meets the gentleman, and from him gets the story of the manner in which Cordelia received the sad news of her father’s suffering. How truly ridiculous it would be for the gentleman to imitate the manner of Cordelia! The psychological explanation of what happens is probably this: As he relates the story to Kent, the tearful face and voice of Cordelia come into his mind, and, since there is always in human nature a tendency to become that which one describes, something of the manner of Cordelia will be suggested in the voice of the speaker; but let us bear in mind that the imitation is not intentional and detailed, but instinctive and suggestive only. It is not meant that the reader is not conscious of what he is doing, but that the gentleman (to use a concrete illustration) is not consciously imitating Cordelia. The artistic reader in reproducing this scene is conscious of what he is doing, but consciously sympathetic, not imitative:

Kent. Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?

Gentleman. Ay, sir; she took them, read them in my presence;

And now and then an ample tear trilled down

Her delicate cheek: it seemed, she was a queen

Over her passion, who, most rebel like,

Sought to be king o’er her.

Kent. O, then it moved her.

Gentleman. Not to a rage: patience and sorrow strove

Who should express her goodliest. You have seen

Sunshine and rain at once; her smiles and tears

Were like a better May: those happy smilets

That played on her ripe lip, seemed not to know

What guests were in her eyes, which parted thence

As pearls from diamonds dropped.—In brief,

Sorrow would be a rarity most beloved,

If all could so become it.

Kent. Made she no verbal question?

Gentleman. ’Faith, once, or twice, she heav’d the name of “father,”

Pantingly forth, as if it pressed her heart;

Cried, “Sisters! sisters! Shame of ladies! sisters!

Kent! father! sisters! What? i’ the storm? i’ the night?

Let pity not be believèd!”—There she shook

The holy water from her heavenly eyes,

And clamor moistened: then away she started

To deal with grief alone.

—King Lear, Act iv., Sc. 3.

This leads to another feature of the study of atmosphere. In the following lines from the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, we certainly speak slowly; but let it be remembered that this is done, not in imitation of the slow movement of the objects described, but in sympathy with them. The solemnity and dignity of the occasion so affect us that our movement becomes slow, and this movement and the right vocal quality give us the proper atmosphere.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,

And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower,

The moping owl does to the moon complain

Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,

Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,

Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap,

Each in his narrow cell forever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

Let us remember, too, that an event which once filled us with joy may be recalled with pain and sorrow, and that it is our present condition that determines the atmosphere. Browning’s Patriot will illustrate this.

The untrained reader is altogether too prone to imitation; but let him bear in mind that imitation, if ever art, is its lowest form. The province of the reader is to manifest, through his interpretation, the innermost spirit of the poem. Very often by imitating, by literally reproducing the voice, manner, and movements, we obscure the underlying spirit of the line, paragraph or poem. There are certain readers, for instance, who sing, Non ti scordar di me, in Aux Italiens. For the sake of argument, we might admit, that at the end of the poem there might be some slightest justification for this procedure; but in the beginning, it is absolutely indefensible. The speaker is in a deep reverie; he dwells in the past. His mind goes back to a visit to the opera-house in Paris, years before. The opera is Il Trovatore; and the heroine comes before us seeking her lover, who has been snatched from her arms through the jealousy of another. She arrives before the monastery as the monks chant the Miserere. Her prayer ascends heavenward; and when she ceases, there rises clear and passionately the voice of her lover from within his cell, singing, Non ti scordar di me (Forget me not). As the audience in the opera-house hear these words, their minds go back to the past. The king goes back to his early triumphs; the queen’s mind reverts to her life in Spain; the wife of the Marquis of Carabas lets her thoughts glide back to her first husband; and to the speaker’s mind there comes the vision of his early love. Non ti scordar di me, then, is the source of the poem. The tie that binds us to the past is the poet’s theme, “Old things are best.” Now let us look at the stanza at the end of which occurs the line we are discussing:

The moon on the tower slept soft as snow,

And who was not thrilled in the strangest way,

As we heard him sing while the gas burned low,

“Non ti scordar di me.”

In the first place, when one sings these lines, he is just a little likely to be deemed presumptuous when it is recalled that the previous stanza has said:

And Mario can soothe with a tenor note,

The souls in purgatory.

It is hardly likely that the reader is a Mario; but this is a small criticism, comparatively speaking. The atmosphere of the poem is one of reverie; and what possesses the speaker is not the literal way the words were sung, but the memory of the thrill that passed through him and through the audience as these words rang out in a pause of the solemn Miserere of the monks. Let it be borne in mind that the argument is not against the singing as singing, but against the method that would completely destroy the atmosphere of the poem for the sake of a vocal affectation. What should be expressed is the rapture of the speaker as he recalls those passionate words and tones, in his present moment of contemplation. There are certain reprints of this poem that leave out the stanzas describing the effect of the song on the king, the queen, and the marchioness. Does this not prove that those who print such versions have missed the very essence of the story?

There is one more element that we are to discuss in this connection, and that is the atmosphere of sympathy that envelops the reading of description. This atmosphere shows the effect upon us of that which the author describes.

The tendency of most readers is toward imitation,—to groan and moan, and laugh and cry, whenever these words appear in the selection interpreted. In such passages as the following from Aldrich’s Face Against the Pane, we have heard more than one reader imitate the screeching and the moaning, and the groaning and the breaking:

She hears the sea bird screech,

And the breakers on the beach

Making moan, making moan.

And again, in the same poem, we have heard imitations of the tolling bells in:

How it tolls for the souls

Of the sailors on the sea;

In these passages and all similar ones, as, for instance, those already quoted from the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, our aim should be to manifest through the atmosphere the effect of the description upon ourselves.

Perhaps it will assist us to get a clearer conception of this important feature if we discuss a few typical examples, even repeating some of the selections already used in the discussion.

Example 1 (from Sohrab and Rustum). The atmosphere of the first simile is that of joy; not in imitation of the joy of the Tartars, but because we are moved to joy by our sympathy with Sohrab.

Example 2 (ibid.). We do not express the fear of the Persians or of the peddlers, but our contempt for the former—perhaps slightly tinged, through sympathy, with their fear.

Example 3 (from King Robert of Sicily). The atmosphere is that of simple narrative, which is in no wise changed by the words of the sexton.

Example 4. Eugene Field’s Little Boy Blue presents a father standing before the dust-covered toys of his dead child. The father speaks throughout, and yet there are those who actually imitate the voice and manner of the child in the opening lines of the second stanza:

“Now don’t you go till I come,” he said,

“And don’t you make any noise;”

So toddling off to his trundle-bed

He dreamt of the pretty toys.

It is the father we want, not the child.

Example 5 (from the Elegy in a Country Churchyard). We read the passage slowly, not because we desire to imitate the slow movement of the objects described, but because we are impressed by their solemnity.

It may be thought that the principle here discussed has no value except for advanced pupils or for those who desire to make a specialty of reading. This is a grave error and one that has had much to do with the spiritless reading of our schools. At least one-half of the selections in our readers, above the second, present opportunities for the expression of what we have termed sympathy. In the chapter on Values we observed that there were ever-varying phases of thought and feeling, each one of which would be read with a different atmosphere. Let us look at another complete poem solely with a view to applying the principles of phases and of atmosphere:

Gusty and raw was the morning;

A fog hung over the seas,

And its gray skirts, rolling inland,

Were torn by the mountain-trees.

No sound was heard but the dashing

Of waves on the sandy bar,

When Pablo of San Diego

Rode down to the Paso del Mar. 8

The pescador, out in his shallop,

Gathering his harvest so wide,

Sees the dim bulk of the headland

Loom over the waste of the tide;

He sees, like a white thread, the pathway

Wind round on the terrible wall,

Where the faint, moving speck of the rider

Seems hovering close to its fall! 16

Stout Pablo of San Diego

Rode down from the hills behind;

With the bells on his gray mule tinkling,

He sang through the fog and wind.

Under his thick, misted eyebrows

Twinkled his eye like a star,

And fiercer he sang as the sea-winds

Drove cold on the Paso del Mar. 24

Now Bernal, the herdsman of Corral,

Had traveled the shore since dawn.

Leaving the ranches behind him:

Good reason had he to be gone!

The blood was still red on his dagger,

The fury was hot in his brain,

And the chill, driving scud of the breakers

Beat thick on his forehead in vain. 32

With his blanket wrapped gloomily round him

He mounted the dizzying road,

And the chasms and steeps of the headland

Were slippery and wet as he trode.

Wild swept the wind of the ocean,

Rolling the fog from afar,

When near him a mule-bell came tinkling,

Midway on the Paso del Mar. 40

“Back!” shouted Bernal full fiercely,

And “Back!” shouted Pablo in wrath,

As his mule halted, startled and shrinking,

On the perilous line of the path.

The roar of devouring surges

Came up from the breakers’ hoarse war;

And “Back, or you perish!” cried Bernal;

“I turn not on Paso del Mar!” 48

The gray mule stood firm as the headland;

He clutched at the jingling rein,

When Pablo rose up in his saddle

And smote till he dropped it again.

A wild oath of passion swore Bernal,

And brandished his dagger still red;

While fiercely stout Pablo leaned forward,

And fought o’er his trusty mule’s head. 56

They fought till the black wall below them

Shone red through the misty blast.

Stout Pablo then struck, leaning farther,

The broad breast of Bernal at last;

And, frenzied with pain, the swart herdsman

Closed round him with terrible clasp,

And jerked him, despite of his struggles,

Down from the mule in his grasp. 64

They grappled with desperate madness

On the slippery edge of the wall;

They swayed on the brink, and together

Reeled out to the rush of the fall!

A cry of the wildest death-anguish

Rang faint through the mist afar,

And the riderless mule went homeward

From the fight of the Paso del Mar! 72

—The Fight of Paso del Mar. Bayard Taylor.

l. 1-4.—Simple description, the last line slightly colored with emotion.

l. 5, 6.—Note how the voice becomes suppressed in sympathy with the picture.

l. 7, 8.—Simple description.

l. 9-12.—Simple description.

l. 13-16.—The important part this pathway is to play in the poem and the danger of the rider will bring the suggestion of fear into the voice of the reader. It is the effect of the picture upon us that we must manifest; this is half the art of reading.

l. 17-24.—The joy of Pablo will find an echo in our reading, as will his joyous defiance in l. 23, 24.

l. 25-27.—Simple description to “behind him,” when the coming event casts its shadow before; the color of the next line is clearly anticipated on these two words.

l. 28.—The atmosphere is difficult to characterize in a word, but not to manifest.

l. 29-32.—Note the marked change. The atmosphere is largely that of sympathy—fury and dogged, gloomy determination. Perhaps there might be something of our horror and loathing in l. 29.

l. 33-36.—Simple description.

l. 37, 38.—Sympathy.

l. 39, 40.—Brighter.

l. 41, 42.—The atmosphere is that of the speakers.

l. 43, 44.—Our fear of a fatal misstep.

l. 45, 46.—The effect upon us, not imitation of the roar.

l. 47, 48.—Anger and determination.

l. 49.—See l. 45, 46.

l. 50-56.—Virtually the same atmosphere, throughout, of terror, strife, determination, hate.

l. 57, 58.—Oh! the pity of it.

l. 59-64.—See l. 50-56.

l. 65-68.—Terror and fear increase until the climax on “fall.”

l. 69, 70.—Terror and pity.

l. 71.—Observe the transition. Restrained pathos to the end.

The most important fact to be borne in mind in endeavoring to develop the pupil’s sympathy with what he describes is this: imitation of sounds, and of gestures, and of movement, is a very low order of art. We can not imitate thunder, but we can show in our voices the awe that it inspires. When we unconsciously hurry our reading under the impulse the imagination receives from contemplating, let us say, the rapid movement of a cavalry charge, we do so not in imitation of, but in sympathy with, the picture. This is not primarily a question of art, but of nature. It is only ignorant teaching that says to a pupil, “Is that the way the thunder roars?” or “Read more rapidly; don’t you see that you are describing the flight of the horses?” Furthermore, if we read slowly a passage describing a funeral procession, there is no conscious imitation of slowness, but a sympathy with the solemnity, stateliness and dignity of the occasion.

A very little observation will show us whether the imitation is conscious or sympathetic. In the former case, the voice will be expressing merely speed or slowness. In the latter, there will be speed or slowness, too, but accompanied by an indefinable and yet recognizable quality of voice, which is the expression of our sympathy. This is an infallible criterion.

Lastly, it must be urged that we give more time to this work. The imagination cannot be developed in a week or a month; and unless there is imagination, there can be no sympathy. It is difficult to restrain one’s self and not dwell longer on the value of the training of the imagination. We have no hesitation in saying that that feature of education is the most neglected. Such training as is here suggested will, in many cases, do much to bring about a more favorable condition of affairs. But it takes time, and plenty of it. The teacher should read to the class quite often such passages as are likely to stimulate the imagination. Make the class follow attentively and get them to give back the picture, as far as possible, in minutest detail. Do this again and again and improvement must follow. Just in proportion as the imagination is stimulated may we hope for a better class of reading. We have no time to teach any subject poorly!

This phase of the subject may be presented to pupils in some such manner as this:

Let me tell you a story:

The other day, a little child came to its mother, saying, “Oh, mother! I just saw a beautiful toy in the window: I wish you would buy it for me.” The sweet voice was full of pleading. The mother was very poor, and had hardly earned enough to pay for fuel. How could she spare even the few pennies for the toy? But she said to herself, “This is Christmas time;” and the tears came into her eyes. The little one saw the tears, and said: “What are you crying for, mother?” And then the mother hugged her child to her breast and kissed her again and again, saying over and over, “Because I love you! Because I love you!”

When Christmas morning dawned the little toy was on the mantel and the child was happy. But when the time for breakfast came, the child asked her mother why she did not eat; and the mother answered, “I am not hungry, darling; don’t mind me,” and she smiled tenderly upon the sweet face, upturned to kiss her.

After you have read this simple tale two or three times, I think you will begin to feel some sympathy with the loving mother who would do without her food to give joy to her little child. When you read the sentences I have put in italics, if you have really tried to see the pictures, I am sure you will feel some sympathy that will make your reading so different from the reading of, let us say, the first sentence in this lesson. Take the line, “The sweet voice was full of pleading.” Can’t you imagine some sweet child-voice pleading for the toy? Well, then, listen to that voice, and after you have, then read, “The sweet voice was full of pleading.” You will find that your voice will be so full of sympathy that it will say not only the words, but also will express love, and tenderness, and sympathy. You will think, perhaps, some such thought as, “She was such a lovely child and she wanted the toy so much. It made me feel sorry to hear her ask for it.” There is another sentence in italics that I want you to think about. When you read, “And the tears came into her eyes,” can you not feel something of the sadness of that mother, as she thinks how much she would like to buy the toy, and yet there is nothing to buy it with? When you express your feeling, your voice will say, “And the mother’s heart was sad when she thought that her darling could have no little gift at Christmas, when it seemed everyone should be made happy. How disappointed the sweet one would be when she found out how many toys her playmates had while she had not one!” All these thoughts will run through your mind if you will only think about this scene long enough, and then your voice will express that sympathy with the picture you are describing without which you can never be a good reader. Let us then close this lesson by reminding you that the best way to develop our feelings as we read is through sympathy.

There are several other phrases and sentences in this story that I want you to study sympathetically for to-morrow’s lesson. Then, after you have grasped the idea of this lesson, be sure, in every selection you read hereafter, that you do not fail to pay particular attention to sympathy.

Let us, in closing this long but most vital discussion, direct attention in a few words to the psychology of the atmosphere of description. When we are giving the description for its own sake, desiring simply to impress the picture upon the audience, we should probably use the normal quality. To illustrate:

A fellow in a market-town,

Most musical, cried “Razors!” up and down,

And offered twelve for eighteen pence;

Which certainly seemed wondrous cheap,

And for the money quite a heap,

As every man would buy, with cash and sense.

When, however, we are somewhat moved through the contemplation of what we see, when it takes possession of us, we should be likely to manifest our feeling in a suggestive imitation of the object described. See the [third stanza] of The Fight of Paso del Mar. The third stage is reached when the picture moves us to such an extent that imitation and suggestion disappear, and we show merely our own feelings. See lines 69 and 70 of the same poem. In reading these we do not utter the cry, nor do we show the death anguish, but our own feelings of pity and perhaps terror. There is a fourth stage, in which the conditions of the second and third are blended. Again we may use the same poem as an illustration. In lines 53 and 54, one could conceive a reader partaking through sympathy of the passion of Bernal, and yet manifesting his own feeling of fear and horror at the same time.

It is believed that this classification is psychologically sound, and that it will repay close study. It need hardly be added that the attention of the pupil is not to be drawn to the details. Selections for practice follow:

As thro’ the land at eve we went,

And pluck’d the ripen’d ears,

We fell out, my wife and I,

O we fell out I know not why,

And kiss’d again with tears.

And blessings on the falling out

That all the more endears,

When we fall out with those we love

And kiss again with tears.

For when we came where lies the child

We lost in other years,

There above the little grave,

O there above the little grave,

We kiss’d again with tears.

—The Princess. Tennyson.

The essence of these exquisite lines is in their tender simplicity.

Sweet and low, sweet and low,

Wind of the western sea,

Low, low, breathe and blow,

Wind of the western sea!

Over the rolling waters go,

Come from the dying moon, and blow

Blow him again to me;

While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,

Father will come to thee soon;

Rest, rest, on mother’s breast,

Father will come to thee soon;

Father will come to his babe in the nest,

Silver sails all out of the west

Under the silver moon:

Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.

—Ibid.

Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May;

Blow trumpet, the long night hath roll’d away!

Blow thro’ the living world—“Let the King reign.”

Shall Rome or Heathen rule in Arthur’s realm?

Flash brand and lance, fall battleaxe upon helm,

Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign.

Strike for the King, and live! his knights have heard

That God hath told the King a secret word.

Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign.

Blow trumpet! he will lift us from the dust.

Blow trumpet! live the strength and die the lust!

Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.

Strike for the king and die! and if thou diest,

The King is King, and ever wills the highest.

Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.

Blow, for our Son is mighty in his May!

Blow, for our Son is mightier day by day!

Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.

The King will follow Christ, and we the King

In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing.

Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign.

—“Knights’ Chorus” from The Coming of Arthur. Tennyson.

It would hardly be appropriate to imitate the blow of the trumpet; and, striking as the effect would be, it would not be the highest art to have an accompaniment of clanging arms.

But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth,

And turn’d away, and spake to his own soul:—

“Ah me, I muse what this young fox may mean!

False, wily, boastful, are these Tartar boys.

For if I now confess this thing he asks,

And hide it not, but say: ‘Rustum is here!’

He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes,

But he will find some pretext not to fight,

And praise my fame, and proffer courteous gifts,

A belt or sword perhaps, and go his way.

And on a feast tide, in Afrasiab’s hall,

In Samarcand, he will arise and cry:

‘I challenged once, when the two armies camp’d

Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords

To cope with me in single fight; but they

Shrank, only Rustum dared; then he and I

Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away.’

So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud;

Then were the chiefs of Iran shamed through me.”

—Sohrab and Rustum. M. Arnold.

Note that when Rustum utters the supposed words of Sohrab he would still speak in the musing mood. It is still the voice and manner of Rustum, with the faint suggestion of the other’s supposed boastfulness.

He spoke, and Sohrab kindled at his taunts,

And he too drew his sword; at once they rush’d

Together, as two eagles on one prey

Come rushing down together from the clouds,

One from the east, one from the west; their shields

Dash’d with a clang together, and a din

Rose, such as that the sinewy woodcutters

Make often in the forest’s heart at morn,

Of hewing axes, crashing trees—such blows

Rustum and Sohrab on each other hail’d.

And you would say that sun and stars took part

In that unnatural conflict; for a cloud

Grew suddenly in heaven, and dark’d the sun

Over the fighters’ heads; and a wind rose

Under their feet, and moaning swept the plain,

And in a sandy whirlwind wrapp’d the pair.

In gloom they twain were wrapp’d, and they alone;

For both the on-looking hosts on either hand

Stood in broad daylight, and the sky was pure,

And the sun sparkled on the Oxus stream.

But in the gloom they fought, with bloodshot eyes

And laboring breath: first Rustum struck the shield

Which Sohrab held stiff out; the steel-spiked spear

Rent the tough plates, but fail’d to reach the skin,

And Rustum pluck’d it back with angry groan.

Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum’s helm,

Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crest

He shore away, and that proud horsehair plume,

Never till now defiled, sank to the dust;

And Rustum bow’d his head; but then the gloom

Grew blacker, thunder rumbled in the air,

And lightnings rent the cloud; and Ruksh, the horse,

Who stood at hand, utter’d a dreadful cry;—

No horse’s cry was that, most like the roar

Of some pain’d desert lion, who all day

Hath trail’d the hunter’s javelin in his side,

And comes at night to die upon the sand.

The two hosts heard that cry, and quaked for fear,

And Oxus curdled as it cross’d his stream.

—Sohrab and Rustum. M. Arnold.

The above is an interesting illustration. We are not to be eagles and the wind and the sand, but to manifest the awe which overwhelms us as we describe the terrible struggle of this father and son, each ignorant of the identity of the other.

As when some hunter in the spring hath found

A breeding eagle sitting on her nest,

Upon the craggy isle of a hill lake,

And pierced her with an arrow as she rose,

And follow’d her to find her where she fell

Far off;—anon her mate comes winging back

From hunting, and a great way off descries

His huddling young left sole; at that, he checks

His pinion, and with short uneasy sweeps

Circles above his eyry, with loud screams

Chiding his mate back to her nest; but she

Lies dying, with the arrow in her side,

In some far stony gorge out of his ken,

A heap of fluttering feathers—never more

Shall the lake glass her, flying over it;

Never the black and dripping precipices

Echo her stormy scream as she sails by—

As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss,

So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood

Over his dying son, and knew him not.

—Sohrab and Rustum. M. Arnold.

Rustum has mortally wounded his son in the combat, and now the poet introduces the exquisite simile given above. It is a fine study in the reading of description.

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[CHAPTER XIII]
CONTRASTS

It is because contrasts are a distinct feature of literature that it is well to make the study of them and their vocal presentation a feature of the reading course. It is understood, of course, that the teacher must use his discretion as to the time when the definite study of contrasts should be undertaken; but when clearly presented and discriminatingly illustrated, even young children can be led to perceive the artistic value of contrast, to enjoy it as art, and to manifest their appreciation of it in their reading. It should not be difficult to show young children that Cinderella’s character is made to appear more lovable because it is set over against those of her sisters. Children enjoy such effects as well as adults, when pleasantly and suggestively presented to them.

In literature there are found illustrations of contrast upon every page. There are contrasts of ideas, contrasts of emotions, contrasts of scenes, contrasts of characters, and many others. Under the head of “The Central Idea” will be found numerous examples of the first class. We shall here consider a few illustrations of the other classes, while in later pages will be found illustrations for more extended study.

Contrast of emotion is admirably illustrated in the following scene from The Merchant of Venice, Act iii., Sc. 1:

Shylock. How now, Tubal! what news from Genoa? hast thou found my daughter?

Tubal. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.

Shylock. Why there, there, there, there! a diamond gone, cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon our nation till now; I never felt it till now:—two thousand ducats in that; and other precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of them? Why so;—and I know not what’s spent in the search: why, thou loss upon loss! the thief gone with so much, and so much to find the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge: nor no ill luck stirring but what lights on my shoulders; no sighs but of my breathing; no tears but of my shedding.

Tubal. Yes, other men have ill luck too. Antonio, as I heard in Genoa,—

Shylock. What, what, what? ill luck, ill luck?

Tubal. Hath an argosy cast away, coming from Tripolis.

Shylock. I thank God, I thank God! Is it true, is it true?

Tubal. I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck.

Shylock. I thank thee, good Tubal. Good news, good news! ha, ha!—Where? in Genoa?

Tubal. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night fourscore ducats.

Shylock. Thou stick’st a dagger in me; I shall never see my gold again. Fourscore ducats at a sitting! fourscore ducats!

Tubal. There came divers of Antonio’s creditors in my company to Venice, that swear he cannot choose but break.

Shylock. I am very glad of it: I’ll plague him; I’ll torture him: I am glad of it.

Tubal. One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey.

Shylock. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal: it was my turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.

Tubal. But Antonio is certainly undone.

Shylock. Nay, that’s true, that’s very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an officer; bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of him, if he forfeit; for, were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandise I will. Go, go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.

We cannot fail to remark how the contrast between Shylock’s emotions (when bemoaning the loss of his ducats at one moment, and cursing the daughter who has robbed him and eloped with a Christian at another) serves to bring out his peculiar character.

Contrast of character is brought out in every great play. Horatio and Hamlet, Cordelia and her sisters, Macbeth and his wife, suggest themselves as examples. The third act of King Lear, where the jester’s jibes are interpolated between the fearful outbursts of the king, is a striking example of character, as well as of emotional contrast.

It may be well to remark that the two parts of a contrast do not always occur in succession. Do not the last three or four speeches of Shylock depend, for their effect, upon the keeping in mind by the audience of his emotions and bearing during the former scenes? Let the audience forget these, and they have lost a most significant æsthetic detail. Similarly, when King Robert utters the speech beginning, “Thou knowest best,” the whole effect is lost unless we bear in mind that never for three years has his answer to the angel’s question been other than, “I am, I am the king.”

The following examples will afford good practice:

Sheltered by the verdant shores, an hundred triremes were riding proudly at their anchors, their brazen beaks glittering in the sun, their streamers dancing in the morning breeze, while many a shattered plank and timber gave evidence of desperate conflicts with the fleets of Rome.—Regulus to the Carthaginians. Kellogg.

The multitude swayed to and fro like a forest beneath a tempest, and the rage and hate of that tumultuous throng vented itself in groans, and curses, and yells of vengeance. But calm, cold and immovable as the marble walls around him stood the Roman.—Ibid.

If there be three in all your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come on. And yet I was not always thus, a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men! My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella. My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when at noon I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd’s flute, there was a friend to join me in the pastime.... One evening, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra, and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples and bade me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars. That very night the Romans landed on our coast. I saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the hoof of the war-horse, and the bleeding body of my father flung amidst the blazing rafters of our dwelling!—Spartacus. Kellogg.

O Rome, Rome, thou hast been a tender nurse to me! Ay, thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laughing girl.—Ibid.

The shouts of revelry had died away.-Ibid.

The roar of the lion had ceased.—Ibid.

You all do know this mantle: I remember

The first time ever Caesar put it on;

’Twas on a summer’s evening in his tent,

That day he overcame the Nervii.

Look! in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through.

—Julius Caesar, Act iii., Sc. 2.

The selection entitled the “Choric Song,” a part of Tennyson’s The Lotos-Eaters, is a fine study in contrast. The speakers are the followers of Ulysses, who are debating whether they shall remain in this new found land of the Lotos or return to their homes. The first, third, fifth, and seventh stanzas are in striking contrast to the others. The feelings of the sailors as they alternately contemplate their life as it is and has been, in contrast with what it might be should they remain here, are strikingly depicted.

The subject of contrasts may be presented to the class in some such manner as the following:

Have you not noticed how much brighter the sunlight seems to be after a thunder-shower? how keenly we enjoy a victory after defeat seems certain? Why is this? Because the clouds by their blackness make us appreciate the sunlight; and the fear of losing the contest makes us doubly glad when we win. If we had sunshine all the time, how monotonous it would be, and how little we should notice it! And you must see that if the other side in a contest were very weak, we should not derive much pleasure from the outcome. All nature is full of these contrasts: joy and sorrow, light and darkness, success and failure, are always around us. So literature, which deals with nature, contains these contrasts, too.

In literature, the contrast is used to impress upon us some idea or picture more completely than could be done by merely describing it. This is done by placing before us the idea and its opposite: it is like placing a dark screen behind a white marble statue. This being so, we can easily see how necessary it is for us to recognize these contrasts in order that we may present them with our voices to the listeners.

Let us take a few simple examples. Our grandparents tell us that it took them sixty days to cross the ocean from England to America; and now, we know, it takes but six. The best way to show how great an advance this century has made in boat-building would be by contrasting the past and the present. We might say: “It took my grandparents sixty days, in a sailing vessel, to cross the ocean, but now we go by steam in six.”

Again: “Last week I was sleighing and skating in Minneapolis; but to-day I am plucking violets and japonicas in the gardens of Savannah.”

In both examples you observe that the concluding idea of the sentence is made more striking because of the contrast it makes with the first part. Be sure to bear this in mind. A contrast is made up of two ideas, and you must have both of them in mind or your reading will be a failure. Do you not see that this is true? If you were to say “I am plucking violets in Savannah to-day,” there would be very little emotion shown in your voice: you would be making just an ordinary statement. But if you were thinking of the great change you had made; how strange it was that you should be in the midst of winter one week and in the midst of spring the next, then the contrast would be such a pleasant one that your voice would be full of joy, and your joy would be largely the result of the contrast. If you had violets all the year round, perhaps you would hardly notice them.

Here are two more examples of contrast, more difficult to express, but more beautiful than the others.

Imagine a noble warrior whose whole life is devoted to good deeds. Imagine him as he speaks the following words descriptive of the old time tournament. Then imagine how grateful he would feel for the relief after the fierce struggle, a relief so beautifully described by the author:

My good blade carves the casques of men,

My tough lance thrusteth sure,

My strength is as the strength of ten,

Because my heart is pure.

The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,

The hard brands shiver on the steel,

The splintered spear-shafts crack and fly,

The horse and rider reel.

They reel, they roll, in clanging lists,

And when the tide of combat stands,

Perfume and flowers fall in showers,

That lightly rain from ladies’ hands.

—Sir Galahad. Tennyson.

In this next example, we have the picture of a king who is punished for his pride by being deprived of all his power, wealth, and friends. See how powerful the contrast he makes as he, who should be master, rides in mock state amid the splendor of his courtiers. The word “he” in the first line does not refer to the king, but to another.

Then he departed with them o’er the sea,

Into the lovely land of Italy,

Whose loveliness was more resplendent made

By the mere passing of that cavalcade,

With plumes, and cloaks, and housings, and the stir

Of jeweled bridle and of golden spur.

And lo! among the menials, in mock state,

Upon a piebald steed, with shambling gait,

His cloak of foxtails flapping in the wind,

The solemn ape demurely perched behind,

King Robert rode, making huge merriment

In all the country towns through which they went.

—King Robert of Sicily. Longfellow.

Let us remember that contrasts are of two kinds: logical and emotional. The former are largely antitheses, such as “I said John, not Charles,” and will need but casual attention. The pupils will perceive them without difficulty. The other class need much care. Perhaps the most important fact that the teacher must bear in mind concerning these, is that their successful rendition depends upon the pupils’ keeping both parts of the contrasts in mind, the first serving as a background, or relief, for the second. Just as contrasts in literature afford variety and relief, so the reading aloud of contrasts gives great variety in vocal expression.

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[CHAPTER XIV]
CLIMAXES

In Genung’s Practical Rhetoric we find the following definition of Climax: “This figure, which depends upon the law that a thought must have progress, is the ordering of thought and expression so that there shall be uniform and evident increase in significance, or interest, or intensity.”

An excellent illustration of increase in Significance is found in the following speech from Regulus:

The artisan had forsaken his shop, the judge his tribunal, the priest the sanctuary, and even the stern stoic had come forth from his retirement.

Here the author desires to show that the return of Regulus had thrown all Carthage into a state of intense excitement. The artisan, who could ill afford to lose his day’s labor, had left his shop to join the throng that was taking its way to the great square of the city. The judge, whose duty it was to administer justice, could not refrain from joining the crowd. The priest, whose sacred office was to tend the altars of the gods, he too, for once, was neglecting his duty. And even the stern stoic, whose philosophy taught him to remain unmoved under any and all conditions of life, even he, perforce, must mix with the multitude thronging the Carthaginian streets. Each succeeding clause presents to us a more unusual disturbance of the normal condition of Carthaginian affairs; and the climax is reached when even the man whose whole philosophy teaches him never to be moved, is impelled to do violence to his life-long convictions.

In the following lines from Lord Chatham’s speech we have an illustration of the climax of Intensity:

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms! Never! Never! Never!

The verbal expression does not progress; and yet the emotion increasing in force, as the mind dwells upon the thought, finds vent in increasing intensity of vocal expression. It may be well to note that by increasing the intensity is not necessarily meant greater loudness or higher pitch; but greater intensity of feeling, which may result in greater loudness or higher pitch, or, on the other hand, in deeper, more controlled, or more dignified expression.

We have thus far been considering simple and palpable forms of climaxes. Let us turn now to the examination of the more difficult and complex. The following speech is uttered by Marullus, one of the tribunes, in the first scene of the first act of Julius Caesar. We recall the fact that Marullus appears to be greatly surprised that the citizens of Rome should dress themselves in holiday garb and make holiday to celebrate the return of the victorious Caesar. He inquires of them what is their purpose in thus celebrating; and, after considerable bantering, one of the crowd remarks that they make holiday to see Caesar, and to rejoice in his triumph, whereupon Marullus speaks:

Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?

What tributaries follow him to Rome,

To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!

O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,

Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft

Have you climb’d up to walls and battlements,

To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,

Your infants in your arms, and there have sat

The livelong day, with patient expectation,

To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome:

And when you saw his chariot but appear,

Have you not made an universal shout,

That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,

To hear the replication of your sounds

Made in her concave shores?

And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now cull out a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way,

That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood?

Be gone!

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,

Pray to the gods to intermit the plague

That needs must light on this ingratitude.

The first three ideas are arranged in order of climax. It may be termed a climax of Significance. But we must not lose sight of the fact that, throughout the speech, as the emotion of Marullus increases, we shall have a climax in Intensity. In line 4, we have another climax, reaching its height on the word “worse.” Then, with “many a time and oft,” begins another climax, which, with occasional diminutions, continues to “shores.” In the next four lines we have a climax which is intensified by contrast. The word “now” is full of reproof and condemnation; and by the time the speaker utters the words “over Pompey’s blood” he is so overcome with the enormity of the crime that, with the utmost fervor, he urges the mob to run to their houses and pray to the gods to refrain from visiting upon their heads the rightful punishment of their ingratitude.

This cursory analysis of the speech has shown us that while there is a steady increase in intensity from the first word to the last, there are, besides, many smaller climaxes in Significance. We find these in lines 1 to 3, line 4, lines 6 to 16, lines 17 to 20, lines 22 to 24. It may be said in passing, that the climax in lines 17 to 20 forms a very interesting study. “Best attire,” “holiday,” “strew flowers in his way,” are plainly arranged in order of climax, while the three “now’s” are evidently an anti-climax. The first “now” is most significant, while the last is of very little importance. On the other hand, the fact of strewing flowers in Caesar’s way is clearly a very much more striking mark of their ingratitude than that of merely putting on their best attire.

Just as in the long paragraph that we have analyzed we find a climax, so in a drama or in a poem we find this steady progression. That scene which is the climax of the action is gradually led up to by successive steps, each one more significant and intense than the preceding. The artist is careful not to destroy his effect by anti-climax, for to do so would be to lessen the interest of the audience, and consequently defeat the very purpose of the drama or story. The play of The Merchant of Venice illustrates this. Each scene manifestly increases the intensity which finally culminates in the trial scene, after which the play, being a comedy, descends to a restful close at the end of the fifth act.

In recitation the ordinary climax of Significance presents no great difficulty for the reader. As soon as he appreciates the fact of the growth in significance, he will manifest that increase in greater loudness or intensity, or increase of passion. It may be well to repeat that the increase need not be in loudness, nor is it necessary that the pitch of the voice be raised; but there will unquestionably be some form of climax in the expression. The difficulty begins when the climax is made up of smaller climaxes, as in the example from Julius Caesar, or when a climax is, so to speak, one of considerable length. In the latter case, the utmost care must be used to husband one’s resources, that when the moment of intensest feeling is reached, there shall be sufficient power to produce the required result. One of the most striking defects in oratory, recitation, and acting, is the inability to present climaxes artistically. Either from a failure to perceive their literary value, or from lack of control, or other limitations of technique, the effect is often spoiled, with most disastrous results. The student, then, is advised to determine carefully that point of a passage or story where the strongest effect is to be made, and then to be careful to subordinate all else to this.

GRADATION

This feature of literary art may appropriately be considered in connection with Climax. The law of gradation demands that the progress from the smaller to the greater be gradual and regular. In the musical and elocutionary arts this is by no means an easy task, and great care must be taken to reserve the strongest effects for the culmination of the climax. This is not difficult when the climax is short, but in the longer examples one requires all the art at his command.

To assist in rendering a climax artistically, let the reader bear in mind the end from the beginning. Then the temptation to overdo the less important details will be reduced.

Antony. O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,

That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!

Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever livèd in the tide of times.

Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!

Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,—

Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips

To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue,—

A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;

Domestic fury and fierce civil strife,

Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;

Blood and destruction shall be so in use,

And dreadful objects so familiar,

That mothers shall but smile when they behold

Their infants quartered with the hands of war,

All pity choked with custom of fell deeds;

And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,

With Até by his side, come hot from hell,

Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice

Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war;

That this foul deed shall smell above the earth

With carrion men groaning for burial.

—Julius Caesar, Act iii., Sc. 1.

Cassius. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,

As well as I do know your outward favor.

Well, honor is the subject of my story.—

I cannot tell what you and other men

Think of this life; but for my single self,

I had as lief not be, as live to be

In awe of such a thing as I myself.

I was born free as Caesar; so were you:

We both have fed as well, and we can both

Endure the winter’s cold as well as he:

For once, upon a raw and gusty day,

The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,

Caesar said to me, “Darest thou, Cassius, now

Leap in with me into this angry flood,

And swim to yonder point?”—Upon the word,

Accoutred as I was, I plungèd in,

And bade him follow: so, indeed, he did.

The torrent roared, and we did buffet it

With lusty sinews, throwing it aside

And stemming it with hearts of controversy;

But ere we could arrive the point proposed,

Caesar cried, “Help me, Cassius, or I sink.”

I, as Æneas, our great ancestor,

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder

The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber

Did I the tirèd Caesar. And this man

Is now become a god; and Cassius is

A wretched creature, and must bend his body

If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.

He had a fever when he was in Spain,

And when the fit was on him, I did mark

How he did shake: ’tis true, this god did shake:

His coward lips did from their color fly;

And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world,

Did lose his luster. I did hear him groan;

Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans

Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,

Alas it cried, “Give me some drink, Titinius,”

As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me,

A man of such a feeble temper should

So get the start of the majestic world,

And bear the palm alone. [Shout. Flourish.

Brutus. Another general shout!

I do believe that these applauses are

For some new honors that are heaped on Caesar.

Cassius. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world,

Like a Colossus; and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs, and peep about

To find ourselves dishonorable graves.

Men at some time are masters of their fates:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Brutus, and Caesar: what should be in that Caesar?

Why should that name be sounded more than yours?

Write them together, yours is as fair a name;

Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;

Weigh them, it is as heavy;—conjure with ’em,

Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Caesar.

Now, in the names of all the gods at once,

Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,

That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed!

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!

When went there by an age, since the great flood,

But it was famed with more than with one man?

When could they say, till now, that talked of Rome,

That her wide walls encompassed but one man?

Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough,

When there is in it but one only man.

O, you and I have heard our fathers say,

There was a Brutus once that would have brooked

The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome

As easily as a king.

—Julius Caesar, Act i., Sc. 2.

In the preceding illustration it must be remembered that the description of the rescue of Caesar from the Tiber is only the beginning of Cassius’ plan; and that his object is to cite the illustrations of Caesar’s weakness, and finally to lead up to that subtle flattery with which the “Instigation” speech closes.

It is an outrage to bind a Roman citizen; to scourge him is an atrocious crime; to put him to death is almost parricide; but to crucify him—what shall I call it?

I know it, I concede it, I confess it, I proclaim it.

When a wind from the lands they had ruin’d awoke from sleep,

And the water began to heave and the weather to moan.

If there be one among you who can say that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be three in all your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come on.

O comrades, warriors, Thracians,—if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors! If we must die, let it be under the clear sky, by the bright water, in noble, honorable battle!

Next morning, waking with the day’s first beam,

He said within himself, “It was a dream!”

But the straw rustled as he turned his head,

There were the cap and bells beside his bed;

Around him rose the bare, discolored walls,

Close by, the steeds were champing in their stalls,

And in the corner, a revolting shape,

Shivering and chattering, sat the wretched ape.

It was no dream; the world he loved so much

Had turned to dust and ashes at his touch!

Have I not, since first my youthful arms could wield a spear, conquered your armies, fired your towns, and dragged your generals at my chariot wheels?

Remember that Greece had her Alexander, Rome her Caesar, England her Cromwell, France her Bonaparte, and that, if we would escape on the rock on which they split, we must avoid their errors.

“But, Mr. Speaker, we have a right to tax America.” Oh, inestimable right! Oh, wonderful, transcendent right! the assertion of which has cost this country thirteen provinces, six islands, one hundred thousand lives, and seventy millions of money.

This last example is a peculiar one. Under ordinary circumstances thirteen provinces would be more valuable than six islands, and surely one hundred thousand lives are more valuable than seventy millions of money. On the other hand, the figures in the last three phrases certainly rise to a climax. On the whole, I think it better to regard this as an oratorical climax, understanding Burke not to have had in mind anything more than to present the losses of England, as each occurred to him, while his emotion and indignation rise with each enumeration.

The climax is a very important feature in reading. It stimulates the imagination and feelings, and, through them, the voice. It should be remembered that no definite method of expressing a climax vocally can be laid down. In one case the pitch may rise; in another it may fall. Sometimes the force increases; at other times it diminishes. Hence, the admonition so often given must be repeated: Do not tell the pupil to raise his voice, or to speak louder. Work at his imagination. If there be a climax there, it will come out in his expression.

Frequent drills in climax will do much to give flexibility, power, and range to the voice. And that, too, in a far more rational way than through any mechanical exercises in pitch and force.

The following plan of presenting climaxes to classes has been found extremely helpful:

Read the following sentence carefully to yourself. Notice each clause, and try to discover if there is not something here that we have not had before. I want to ask you not to read more than that sentence until you have studied over it for some time. “It is an outrage to bind a Roman citizen; to scourge him is an atrocious crime; to put him to death is almost parricide; but to crucify him—what shall I call it?”

We have here another method used by writers and speakers for making an idea more striking. In this case, the speaker is condemning one who has caused the crucifixion of a Roman. The orator desires to impress upon the judges the seriousness of the offense. How does he do it? Instead of speaking at once about the crucifying of the victim, he begins by showing that a far less serious punishment was a grave offense against the Roman law. He says, “It is an outrage to bind a Roman citizen.” Then he goes another step, saying: “To scourge him is an atrocious crime.” Worse still: “To put him to death” (by any means) “is almost parricide.” And now, having shown that less extreme methods of punishment were great crimes, the orator is ready for his final statement: “But to crucify him—what shall I call it?” In other words, the speaker seems to have exhausted his vocabulary in giving names to lower crimes; when he comes to a name with which to describe the crime of crucifying a Roman, he finds his vocabulary does not have one strong enough. Do you not see how powerful an effect such an arrangement of clauses must have? It is much stronger than if the speaker had said merely, “I know no word to describe the crime of crucifying a Roman citizen.”

Analyze the following sentence, and explain how the thought is made more striking by this kind of arrangement. “I know it, I concede it, I confess it, I proclaim it.”

This method of increasing the effect is called climax. Whenever, for any reason, a speaker or writer keeps on adding thought to thought, making each succeeding idea stronger than the preceding, we have a climax. Although you may never have called it by this name you have used it many times. If you were determined to do a certain thing you might say, “I can do it, I will do it, I must do it.” Well, that is a climax. Or you might say, “You can’t have it for ten dollars, for fifty dollars, for a hundred dollars.” That is another climax.

Note this example: “If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms! never! never! never!” This, too, is a climax, each of the last three “never’s” being stronger than the preceding. If you will put yourself in the position of the speaker, you will soon feel that each “never” after the first is the result of stronger, more intense feeling. If you will think of it in this way you will notice the effect in your expression.

We shall close this lesson with two illustrations. Your teacher will tell you the story from which these extracts are taken, and then you will prepare them very carefully, taking particular pains to note the climax in each.

When a wind from the lands they had ruin’d awoke from sleep,

And the water began to heave and the weather to moan,

And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew,

And a wave like a wave that is raised by an earthquake grew,

Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and their flags,

And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter’d navy of Spain,

And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags,

To be lost evermore in the main.

—The Revenge. Tennyson.

And thro’ the centuries let a people’s voice

In full acclaim,

A people’s voice,

The proof and echo of all human fame,

A people’s voice, when they rejoice

At civic revel and pomp and game,

Attest their great commander’s claim

With honor, honor, honor, honor to him,

Eternal honor to his name.

—Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. Tennyson.

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[CHAPTER XV]
CONCLUDING REMARKS ON METHOD

In taking leave of the pedagogy of the subject it may be profitable to review some of the principal features of the method advocated, and add a few hints on minor topics not treated elsewhere.

The method herein laid down aims to present one principle at a time; calls for specific preparation on the part of the pupils; urges that there be definite grading of the difficulties encountered by children in learning to read; advises strongly against calling their attention to the vocal technique of expression; and lastly, holds out the hope that the impression will eventually find an outlet in true expression.

As at present taught, no distinction is drawn, in reading, between the easy and the difficult, the simple and the complex. We trust that in the suggestions of this book will be found at any rate a partial solution of the difficulty.

It should be impressed upon pupils from the outset that they are studying the thoughts and feelings of others that find expression in words upon the printed page. They must discover the thoughts behind the words and then express them; that is all there is to reading.

While it is believed that the order of the steps as here outlined is a rational one, it is not claimed that this order is hard and fixed. In advanced classes, where the method has not been used in the lower grades, the teacher should endeavor to discover the particular weakness of his pupils, and use with them the step most likely to produce the desired effect. Or if it is thought advisable, he may start with the first step and cover all the ground in one grade as fast as the pupils can absorb the spirit of each step. But it must never be forgotten that carelessness in reading is a habit not easily eradicated; and, further, that because a pupil satisfactorily prepares a lesson in, let us say, grouping, he will not necessarily have formed the habit of grouping correctly. We are dealing with complicated psychical phenomena, and until the eye, the memory, the voice, in fact, all the elements of expression are thoroughly co-ordinated, we are in constant danger of error.

The time deemed necessary in public schools to complete all the steps, is about two years, beginning with the grade third or fourth below the highest. Before the pupils reach that grade, the sole effort of the teacher should be directed to making the reading vital and meaningful. If this is done the work of subsequent teachers will be relatively easy.

Avoid, and the admonition is repeated once more, talking to the pupils about inflection, pause, and the like. These are instinctive manifestations of mental states, and will appear when the conditions are right.

Let the teacher not follow slavishly the order of lessons in the regular reading book. Let him choose such selections or parts of them as offer the best opportunity for practice where the class most needs it. Let him further find extracts from outside sources for class use. These may be written on the board or mimeographed.

It has been said that we must have a technique if we would read. This may be granted; but it is equally to be granted that the principal technique is mental, and, moreover, that, in the public schools, our aim is to produce simple, natural, expressive readers, not artistic actors and orators. There is, then, no necessity for drills on inflection, time, modulation, and the like, as such. Give the pupil all the drill that is necessary on the states of mind producing these effects, but let us never separate the technique from the mental condition that will find instinctive expression in that technique.[14] Expression grows through expressing. If we will bear this in mind, and present the right thoughts and emotions to be expressed, at the right time, there should and will be no difficulty.

It is suggested that, perhaps once a week, short extracts be committed and recited before the class. There need be no gesture, just simple saying. Such a procedure will give the pupil confidence, develop his earnestness, improve his voice, and in every way affect for good the reading spirit of the class. Where a suitable selection can be found, it will be well to give a stanza to each pupil. A word may be added about the recitations that form so large a part of the closing exercises in our schools. If the recitation were an honest, legitimate presentation of the reading as taught in the school, there could be no objection to it; but in most cases it is anything but this. Special teachers are called in to “coach” the students, and the result is far from satisfactory. A few lessons can seldom make a reader, and where that plan partially succeeds, so much greater is the hypocrisy; for the reading stands for the work of the school rather than for that of an individual teacher. A true showing of the work of the school, and one that would in time be heartily appreciated by parents, would be to select the good readers (a few hints to them are all that would be necessary), and let them, book in hand, read as they would in class. If the class reading has been good, so will be the individual reading; otherwise it has no business to parade under false colors at public exercises.

To what extent shall pupils imitate? No fixed rule should be laid down, but one might say that they should never attempt to imitate inflections, pauses, rate of movement, and the like. On the contrary, there seems to be much value in stimulating the pupils’ imagination by having the teacher read certain emotional passages for them. They then may catch the spirit of the selection without any conscious effort at imitation. There are many who train a class to read in concert from imitation. The results of such training are worse than baneful, leading only to inane, affected expression.