able for himself to make in a general way an application of the principles which underlie literary distinctions. He should be able broadly to recognize the qualities which belong to the best work. He should be able from personal experience to appreciate the force of the remarks of De Quincey:
What is it that we mean by literature? Popularly, and amongst the thoughtless, it is held to include everything that is printed in a book. Little logic is required to disturb this definition. The most thoughtless person is easily made aware that in the idea of literature one essential element is some relation to a general and common interest of man, so that what applies only to a local or professional or merely personal interest, even though presenting itself in the shape of a book, will not belong to literature. . . . Men have so little reflected on the higher functions of literature as to find it a paradox if one should describe it as a mean or subordinate purpose of books to give information. But this is a paradox only in the sense which makes it honorable to be paradoxical. . . . What do you learn from "Paradise Lost"? Nothing at all. What do you learn from a cookery-book? Something new, something you did not know before, in every paragraph. But would you therefore put the wretched cookery-book on a higher level of estimation than the divine poem? What you owe to Milton is not any knowledge, of which a million separate items are still but a million of advancing steps on the same earthly level; what you owe is power, that is, exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity of sympathy with the infinite, where each pulse and each separate influx is a step upward, a step ascending as upon a Jacob's ladder from earth to mysterious altitudes above the earth. All
the steps of knowledge, from first to last, carry you further on the same plane, but could never raise you one foot above your ancient level of earth; whereas the very first step in power is a flight, is an ascending movement into another element where earth is forgotten.—"The Poetry of Pope."
If a boy or girl has any vital and personal perception of the truth which is here so eloquently set forth, this perception affords a certain criterion by which to judge whatever work comes to hand. It will also give both the inclination and the power to judge rightly, so that anything which an examination-paper may legitimately ask is in so far within the scope of ordinary thought.
I have ventured, in another chapter, to give some idea of the way in which I think such a work as "Macbeth" might be treated in the secondary school. I wish to emphasize the fact that it is an illustration and not a model. It is the way in which I should do it; but the teaching of literature, I repeat, is naught if it is not marked by the personality of the teacher. Of the results to be aimed at one need not be in doubt; concerning the methods there are and there should be as many opinions as there are sound and individual instructors. This illustration I have included because it may serve as a sort of diagram to make plain things which can only clumsily be presented otherwise, and because I hope that it may be suggestive even to teachers who differ widely from this exact method.
What is aimed at in this manner of treating the
play is primarily the enjoyment of the pupil, secondarily the broadening of his mind, and thirdly the training of his powers for the examinations inevitably lying in wait for him. It may seem contradictory that I put pleasure first and yet would begin with straightforward drill on the vocabulary. Such training, however, is preparatory to the taking up of literature, I believe it necessary to the best results, and I have already said that to my mind no need exists for making this dull. Even if it be looked upon as simple drudgery, however, I should not shirk it. Children should be taught that they are to meet hard work pluckily. They cannot evade the multiplication-table without subsequent inconvenience, and the sooner they realize that this is true in principle all through life, the better for them. Their enjoyment, moreover, will be tenfold greater if they earn it by sturdy work.
It would be well, I believe, if all teachers in the secondary schools who are in the habit of concerning themselves largely with examinations and of allowing the minds of those under them to become fixed on these could realize that readers of blue-books are sure to be favorably impressed by two things: by the expression of thoughts obviously individual, and by the evidence of clear thinking. If these two qualities characterize an examination-book, the chances of its passing muster are so large that exact formal knowledge counts for little in comparison. All teachers who are intelligently in earnest try to put as little stress on examinations as
is possible under existing conditions, but not all keep clearly in mind the fact that the best remedy for possible harm is the cultivation of the student's individuality.
The question of written work in preparation for entrance tests is a difficult one, and it is one which has been largely answered by the papers set by the colleges. It is natural that teachers who are entirely aware that their own reputations will largely depend upon the success of the candidates they send up should endeavor to train their classes in the especial line of writing which seems best to suit the ideas of examiners. The principle of selection is not, it seems to me, a sound one, but it is inevitable. The one thing which may be done is to make the topics selected as human and as personal as possible: to insist that the boy or girl who is writing of Lady Macbeth or Hamlet shall make the strongest effort possible to realize the character as a real being; shall as far as possible take the attitude of writing concerning some actual person about whom are known the facts set down in the play. This is less difficult than it sounds, and while it is never entirely possible for a child to realize Lady Macbeth as if she were a neighbor, most children can go much farther in this direction than is generally appreciated.