The "Courtship of Miles Standish," for example, is deeper and stronger than history because it idealizes the stern and rigid qualities of the Puritan, while John Alden and Priscilla touch a deeper universal sympathy, and body forth in forms of beauty that pulsing human love which antedates the Puritan and underlies all forms of religion and society.
Illustrative cases have been given in sufficient abundance to show that literature, among other things, has a strong political side. It grasps with a master hand those questions which involve true patriotism. It exalts them into ideals, and fires the hearts of the people to devotion and sacrifice for their fulfilment.
Burke's "Oration on the American War" is, to one who has studied American history, an astonishing confirmation of how righteous and far-sighted were the principles for which Samuel Adams and the other patriots struggled at the opening of the Revolution. Webster's speech at Bunker Hill is a graphic and fervent retrospect on the past of a great struggle, and a prophetic view of the swelling tide of individual, social, and national well-being.
If the teacher is to interpret history to school children, he must learn to grasp what is essential and vital; he must be able to discriminate between those events which are trivial and those of lasting concern. The study of our best American literature will reveal to him this distinction, and make him a keen and comprehensive critic of political affairs.
Barnett, in his "Common Sense in Education and Teaching" (p. 170), says:—
"In the second place, literature provides us with historical landmarks. We cannot be said to understand the general 'history' of a particular time unless we know something of the thought that stirred its most subtle thinkers, and interpreted and made articulate the spirit of the times in which they lived. The most notable facts in the history of the times of Edward III, of Elizabeth, and of Victoria are that Chaucer and Shakespeare and Tennyson and their contemporaries lived and wrote. Political history, social history, economic history, even ecclesiastical history, are all reflected, illustrated, and interpreted by what we find in the great works of contemporary literature."
Charles Kingsley, in his "Literary and General Essays" (p. 249), holds a like opinion:—
"I said that the ages of history were analogous to the ages of man, and that each age of literature was the truest picture of the history of its day, and for this very reason English literature is the best, perhaps the only, teacher of English history, to women especially. For it seems to me that it is principally by the help of such an extended literary course that we can cultivate a just and enlarged taste which will connect education with the deepest feelings of the heart."
Literature is also a mirror that reflects many sides of social life and usage. There is no part of a teacher's education that is so vital to his practical success as social culture. John Locke's "Thoughts on Education" are, in the main, an inquiry into the methods and means by which an English gentleman can be formed. The aim of the tutor who has this difficult task is not chiefly to give learning, to fill the mind with information, to develop mentality, but to train the practical judgment in harmony with gentlemanly conduct. The tutor, himself a scholar, is to know the world, its ins and outs, its varieties of social distinction and usage, its snares and pitfalls, its wise men and fools. The child is to learn to look the world in the face and understand it, to know himself and to be master of himself and of his conduct, to appreciate other people in their moods and characters, and to adapt himself prudently and with tact to the practical needs. The gentleman whom Locke sets up as his ideal is not a fashion-plate figure, not a drawing-room gallant, but a clear-headed man who understands other people and himself, and has been led by insensible degrees to so shape his habitual conduct as most wisely to answer his needs in the real world. Emerson, with all his lofty idealism and unconventionalism, has an ideal of education nearly akin to that of Locke. This social ideal of Locke and Emerson is one that American teachers can well afford to ponder. As a nation, we have been accustomed to think that a certain amount of roughness and boorishness was necessary as a veil to cover the strongest manly qualities. Smoothness and tact and polish, however successful they may be in real life, are, theoretically at least, at a discount. The Adamses, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Thoreau, were men who did violence in a good many ways to social usages, and we may admire their faults overmuch.
To the teacher who stands in the presence of thirty or fifty distinct species of incipient men and women, social insight and culture, the ability to appreciate each in his individual traits, his strength or weakness, are a prime essential to good educative work.