This redundancy and repetition do not constitute the direct, forward-moving style we should like to impress on the children. All these considerations are offered to justify the judgment, held in great modesty, that Hiawatha should not be given in its entirety nor should the children be kept at it for any long drill, but, if at all, in chosen episodes and from time to time.
Of course, any teacher may see fit to draw out from Hiawatha the story of any episode and treat it as a story, for dramatization, or as illuminating some phase of the children's interest and activity. And students old enough to interpret the mythical meaning of the poem may profitably read it.
Occasionally, and as something apart from their regular lessons, the children should hear beautifully read passages of the incomparable music of some of the great masters, regardless of their understanding of the content—the first sixteen lines of Paradise Lost; some especially musical sonnet of Shakespeare's, or some passage of lofty eloquence from the plays; some vague and haunting bit of music from Shelly, or Poe, or Keats; some fanfare of trumpets from Byron, or Macaulay, or Kipling.
Every teacher will realize that all the titles and authors and kinds mentioned in this study cannot be put into the children's lessons. It is to be hoped that he will realize that they are mentioned as concrete examples, or suggestive instances of things that are good, and to support the principles under discussion.
The distinctive service of poetry will be the cultivation of the children's sense of the musical side of literature; the opportunity for appreciating some of the minor beauties of the literary art; and among the older children, acquaintance with the more highly imaginative method, and the more intensely emotional moods.
CHAPTER XIII DRAMA
There are many of the elements of drama that are eminently serviceable in the child's literary and artistic training. One cannot use the word "elements" in this connection without explaining that the word as used here does not designate absolutely simple and primitive things. They are elements only with respect to the complex whole which we call a drama. The elements of drama are story, plot, character, impersonation, dialogue, gesture, stage requirements; add to these the matter of literary expression, a pronounced structure which divides the production into clearly distinguished parts or acts; and add the further fact that in all its developed and typical specimens drama is the expression and presentation of a complex social situation, or the vehicle of a mature philosophy. It is quite evident, then, that the fully constituted literary drama will be both too complex and too difficult for children under twelve, and in most communities for any elementary children.
But the elements of drama are not of necessity always in the difficult and elaborate combination which constitutes a literary drama. They appear singly and in simpler combinations here and there in many of the experiences and occupations of the child. They may be selected and combined for him in such products as will secure for him the distinctive joys and discipline of the drama.