Talks on Teaching Literature

by Arlo Bates

the purpose of giving the class some notion of the point of view; and indeed it is to be doubted whether as a matter of fact any great harm would be done if even this were omitted. What is needed is to interest the class in the work, and facts about times and circumstances seldom effect much real good in this study.

The vocabulary will give little trouble. It is well to be sure that the readers understand beforehand such words as may be rather remote from daily speech. In the account of the club (March 2, 1710-11), for instance, the list given out for test might include such terms as these: baronet, country-dance, shire, humor, modes, Soho-square, quarter-sessions, game-act. In the first paragraph, from which these words are taken, are also two or three phrases which should be familiar before the reading is undertaken: "never dressed afterward," "in his merry humors," "rather beloved than esteemed," and "justice of the quorum." The historical allusions, as represented by the names Lord Rochester, Sir George Etherege, and Dawson, go also into this preliminary study.

The paper should be first read as a whole, with no other interruption than may come in the form of questions from the class. The teacher should make no effort at anything here but intelligent reading. Then the paper may be given out for careful study; the form of this may be varied at the pleasure of the teacher and the needs of the class. The presentation of character is the point to be

most strongly brought out, and this must be done delicately but as completely as possible. The "De Coverley Papers" necessarily seem to the modern youth extremely remote from actual life as he knows it, and the majority of Institute students with whom I have talked admit that they found Addison very quiet, or, in their own phrase, "slow." The characters are accordingly apt to appear to them dim and unreal; to be hardly more alive than the figures on an ancient tapestry. This feeling cannot be wholly overcome, especially in the limited time which is at the command of the teacher of school literature, yet whatever vividness of impression a reader of the essays gets is directly proportional to the extent to which Sir Roger and his friends emerge from the land of shadows, and seem to the boys and girls genuine flesh and blood. The chief care of the instructor in dealing with these papers, the aim to which everything else should be subordinated, is to encourage and to develop the sense of reality. The little touches by which the personality of the old knight is shown must be dwelt upon as each appears; and in the end a summary of these may be made as a means of stating briefly but clearly Sir Roger's character. Constantly, too, by means homely enough to be clearly and easily intelligible to the class, must each of these passages be connected with the personal experiences of the children. In the essay generally headed "Sir Roger at Home," for instance, the author remarks:

Sir Roger, who is very well acquainted with my humor, lets me rise and go to bed when I please; dine at his own table, or in my chamber, as I think fit; sit still, and say nothing, without bidding me be merry.

The whole situation, that of a notable man's visit to a country squire, is utterly foreign to the pupil's probable experience. He can, however, be made to recall occasions in which he has been considered and his wishes consulted. He may or may not as a guest have tested different forms of hospitality, but he easily decides how under given circumstances he would wish to be treated. From this he is without difficulty led to an appreciation of the consideration with which Sir Roger was intent not upon his own wishes or the ease of his household, but upon the pleasure of his guest. Few boys or girls can have come to the school age without understanding what a drawback to good spirits it is to be told to be merry, and they can appreciate the common sense of the knight in thinking of this, and his tact in not bothering his guest. The same thoughtful kindness is shown in the way Sir Roger protected his lion from sightseers. Incidentally the point may be made in passing that Addison humorously took this means of impressing on the reader of the "Spectator" the importance of the supposed writer.

The best preparation a teacher can make for dealing with these essays is to get clearly into his own mind the personality, the characteristics, even the outward appearance of each of the characters

dealt with. It is impossible to make these quiet and delicately drawn pictures real and alive unless we have for them a genuine love and a sense of acquaintance; and I know of no method by which in practical work this can be communicated except by the vivifying of such passages as that quoted above.

Each student should bring to the class a statement of what he regards as the chief thought in each paper as it comes up,—not the moral of the paper, but the chief end which the writer seems to have in view, the thought which most strongly strikes the reader. These opinions should be talked over in class, and from them one produced which at least the majority of the class are willing to accept. No pupil, however, should be discouraged from holding to his own original proposition, or from adopting a view at variance with that of the majority.