Greek Drama.
Another topical lesson suggested is number 5, on the Greek drama. The growth of drama from the old chorus may be traced with its addition of an actor—then two actors—then three. The names of the chief dramatists, Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, should be linked with our Shakespeare and Molière, (What American playwrights fit worthily in such a class?) The difference between tragedy and comedy can be shown, tracing the etymology of the two words as given in any standard dictionary. Set the pupils to discussing the difference between a good play and a bad one. Why do these few old Greek plays live, and their characters become commonplaces of literature, with the characters of Goethe and Shakespeare? What characters of modern plays are likely or worthy to live? And at some time in the all-too-short period there might be short illustrative readings from a translation—Browning, or Shelley. Only by some such enlivening method will our charges ever get any grasp on the fact that Greek drama was epoch-making in its importance. We might well compare the open-air theater of Greece with our modern play-house; and also the different spirit in which the Greek took his drama.
Greek Art.
Again attention is to be focused on the fact that the Greeks were leaders and masters in art. And the surpassing wonder is that when the rest of the world had been satisfied with winged bulls and sphinxes and grotesquely conventional forms of men these people arrived in a century or two at a perfection which is the delight and the despair of the world. Their supremacy in carving the human figure in marble needs to be connected with their devoted attention to the development of the living form by athletic exercise. In our larger schools will be found casts, perhaps, at any rate, pictures, of the best pieces of Greek art. Their restraint, their simplicity may be dwelt on. In the country where the one lone teacher, not an expert, either in history or art, has not even a “pallid bust of Pallas,” he or she can at least make use of the illustrations in the text-book. Above all, let us try not to let this period be one of dull memorizing of names. It needs interpreting to the young folks so that they may see the wonder of it all, and the controlling influence it has exercised on the ages since.
The Lesson in Philosophy.
That same lone teacher just referred to may feel that it is absurd to ask for a lesson on philosophy with children. But, is it not true that in childhood some of us have been more curious about the problems of existence than we have since had time or taste to be? So if we cannot read to the boys and girls passages from the Phædo or the Apology, we can stir our pupils to a sense of the pressing nature of the problems which the Greeks first (save the Hebrews) strove rationally to solve. They asked and tried to find rational answers to such questions as, What is the relation of mind to matter? What is God? What is man? Does man die as the beast dies? And to these questions the men of this period found not unworthy answers. So in every field of human thought we find them pioneers and teachers of the world.
English History in the Secondary School
C. B. NEWTON, Editor.
IV. VARIOUS PHASES OF THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.