3. The moral effect of a complete masterpiece is deeper and more permanent. Not only do we see a person acting in more situations, revealing thus his motives and hidden springs of action, but the thread of his thought and life is unravelled in a steady sequence. Later acts are seen as the result of former tendencies. The silent reign of moral law in human actions is discovered. Slowly but surely conduct works out its own reward along the line of these deeper principles of action. Even in the books read in the early grades these profound lessons of life come out clear and strong. Robinson Crusoe, Theseus, Siegfried, Hiawatha, Beauty and the Beast, Jason, King Arthur, and Ulysses are not holiday guests. They are face to face with the serious problems of life. Each person is seen in the present make-up and tendency of his character. When the eventual wind-up comes, be it a collapse or an ascension, we see how surely and fatally such results spring from such motives and tendencies. Washington is found to be the first in the hearts of his countrymen; Arnold is execrated; King Lear moves on blindly to the reward which his own folly has prearranged; Macbeth entangles himself in a network of fatal errors; Adam Bede emerges from the bitter ordeal of disappointment with his manly qualities subdued but stronger. Give the novelist or poet time and opportunity, and he is the true interpreter of conduct and destiny. He reveals in real and yet ideal characters the working out in life of the fundamental principles of moral action.
4. A classic work is often a picture of an age, a panoramic survey of an historical epoch. Scott's "Marmion" is such a graphic and dramatic portrayal of feudalism in Scotland. The castle with its lord, attendants, and household, the steep frowning walls and turrets, the moat, drawbridge, and dungeon, the chapel, halls, and feastings, the knight clad in armor, on horseback with squire and troop,—these are the details of the first picture. The cloister and nuns, with their sequestered habits and dress, their devotion and masses, supply the other characteristic picture of that age, with Rome in the background. The court scene and ball in King James's palace, before the day of Flodden, the view of Scotland's army from the mountain side, with the motley hordes from highland and lowland and neighboring isles, and lastly, the battle of Flodden itself, where wisdom is weighed and valor put to the final test,—all these are but the parts of a well-adjusted picture of life in feudal times on the Scottish border. There is incidental to the narrative much vivid description of Scotch scenery and geography, of mountain or valley, of frowning castle or rocky coast, much of Scotch tradition, custom, superstition, and clannishness. The scenes in cloister and dungeon and on the battle-field are more intensely real than historical narratives can be. While not strict history, this is truer than history because it brings us closer to the spirit of that time. Marmion and Douglas stand out more clear and lifelike than the men of history.
Although feudalism underwent constant changes and modifications in every country of Europe, it is still true that "Marmion" is a type of feudal conditions, not only in Scotland, but in other parts of Europe, and a full perception of Scott's poem will make one at home in any part of European history during feudal times. As a historical picture of life, it is a key to the spirit and animating ideas that swayed the Western nations during several centuries. It is fiction, not history, in the usual sense, and yet it gives a more real and vivid consciousness of the forces at work in that age than history proper.
While the plot of the story covers a narrow field, only a few days of time and a small area of country, its roots go deep into the whole social, religious, and political fabric of that time. It touches real history at a critical point in the relations between England and Scotland. It is stirred also by the spirit of the Scotch bard and of minstrelsy. It shows what a hold Rome had in those days, even in the highlands of Scotland. It is full of Scotch scenery and geography. It rings with the clarion of war and of battle. It reveals the contempt in which letters were held even by the most powerful nobles. Oxen are described as drawing cannon upon the field of Flodden, and in time these guns broke down the walls of feudalism. As a historical picture Marmion is many-sided, and the roots of the story reach out through the whole fabric of society, showing how all the parts cohere. Such a piece of historical literature may serve as a centre around which to gather much and varied information through other school and home readings. Children may find time to read "Ivanhoe," "The Crusades," "Roland," "Don Quixote," "The Golden Legend," "Macbeth," "Goetz von Berlichingen," etc. They will have a nucleus upon which to gather many related facts and ideas. It should also be brought into proper connection with the regular lessons in history and geography. History reveals itself to the poet in these wonderfully vivid and lifelike types. In many of these historical poems, as "William Tell," "Evangeline," "Crusoe," "The Nibelung Song," "Miles Standish," the "Odyssey," "Sohrab and Rustum," some hero stands in the centre of the narrative, and can be understood as a representative figure of his times only as the whole series of events in his life is unrolled.
Where the study of larger literary wholes has been taken up in good faith, it has brought a rich blessing of intelligent enthusiasm. Even in primary schools, where literary wholes like "Hiawatha," "Robinson Crusoe," and the "Golden Touch" are handled with a view to exploit their whole content, there has been a remarkable enrichment of the whole life of the children. Such a treatment has gone so deep into the problems and struggling conditions of life delineated, that the children have become occupied with the tent-making, boat-building, spinning, and various constructions incident to the development of the story.
5. If it is true, as clearly expressed by strong thinkers in the most various fields of deeper investigation, that many of the chief literary products that have come down to us from former ages are the only means by which we can be brought into vital touch and sympathy with the spirit and motives then ruling among men; if it is equally true that children will not grow up to the proper appreciation and interpretation of our present life, except as they have experienced, in thought and interest at least, the chief struggles and motives of our fathers,—we may find in these historic and literary materials the deep and living springs of true education for children.
The thought of the educative power of this ancestral literature has been forcibly expressed by many eminent writers.
Scudder, in "Literature in School," says:—
"There is the element of continuity. In the Roman household there stood the cinerary urns which held the ashes of the ancestors of the family. Do you think the young ever forgot the unbroken line of descent by which they climbed to the heroic founders of the state? In the Jewish family the child was taught to think and speak of the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. In that great succession he heard a voice which told him his nation was not of a day. It is the business of the old to transmit to the young the great traditions of the past of the country; to feed anew the undying flame of patriotism.
"It is this concentration in poetry and the more lofty prose which gives to literary art its preciousness as a symbol of human endeavor, and renders it the one essential and most serviceable means for keeping alive the smouldering coals of patriotism. It is the torch passed from one hand to another, signaling hope and warning; and the one place above all others where its light should be kindled is where the young meet together, in those American temples which the people have built in every town and village in the country."