A complete masterpiece, studied as a whole, reveals the author's power. It gives some adequate perception of his style and compass. A play, a poem, a novel, a biography, is a unit. No single part can give a satisfactory idea of the whole. A single scenefrom "Crusoe" or from the "Merchant of Venice" does not give us the author's meaning. An extract from one of Burke's speeches supplies no adequate notion of his statesmanlike grasp of thought. To get some impression of what Daniel Webster was we must read a whole speech. A literary product is like a masterpiece of architecture. The whole must stand out in the due proportion of its parts to reveal the master's thought.
"Walk about Zion, and go round about her:Tell the towers thereof.Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces;That ye may tell it to the generations following."
"Walk about Zion, and go round about her:Tell the towers thereof.Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces;That ye may tell it to the generations following."
To have read through with care and thoughtful appreciation a single literary masterpiece and to have felt the full measure of a master's power, is a rare and lasting stroke of culture. As children move up through the grades they may receive the strong and abiding impress of the masters of style. Let it come to them in its undiminished strength. To feel the powerful tonic effect of the best stories and poems suited to their age will give them such an appreciation of what is genuine and good in literature, that frivolous and trashy reading is measured at its true value.
The fragments and extracts with which our higher readers are filled are not without power and influence upon culture. They have given many children their first taste of the beauty and strength of literature.But it is a great mistake to tear these gems of thought from their setting in literature and life, and to jam them into the close and crowded quarters of a text-book. Why satisfy ourselves with crumbs and fragments when a full rich feast may be had for the asking?
In some cases it is said that the reading of fragments of large poems or plays has excited curiosity and led to the reading of the larger wholes. This is doubtless true, but in the greater number of cases we are inclined to think the habit of being satisfied with fragments has checked the formation of any appreciation of literary wholes. This tendency to be satisfied with piecemeal performances illustrates painfully the shallowness and incoherency of much of our educational work. If teachers cannot think beyond a broken page of Shakespeare, why should children burden themselves with the labor of thought? Charles Kingsley, in his essay on English literature, says:—
"But I must plead for whole works. 'Extracts' and 'Select Beauties' are about as practical as the worthy in the old story, who, wishing to sell his house, brought one of the bricks to market as a specimen. It is equally unfair on the author and on the pupil; for it is impossible to show the merits or demerits of a work of art, even to explain the truth or falsehood of any particular passage, except by viewing the book as an organic whole."
What would the authors themselves say upon seeing their work thus mutilated? There is even a touch of the farcical in the effort to read naturally and forcibly and discuss intelligently a fragment like Antony's speech over Cæsar.
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 entangleshimself 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 Scotchscenery 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 ofScotland. 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 richblessing 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 theRoman 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."
Mabie, in "Books and Culture" (pp. 88, 89-113), says:—
"Now, it is upon this imperishable food which the past has stored up through the genius of great artists that later generations feed and nourish themselves. It is through intimate contact with these fundamentalconceptions, worked out with such infinite pain and patience, that the individual experience is broadened to include the experience of the race."
"The student of literature, therefore, finds in its noblest works not only the ultimate results of race experience and the characteristic quality of race genius, but the highest activity of the greatest minds in their happiest and most expansive moments. In this commingling of the best that is in the race and the best that is in the individual, lies the mystery of that double revelation which makes every work of art a disclosure, not only of the nature of the man behind it, but of all men behind him. In this commingling, too, is preserved the most precious deposit of what the race has been and done, and of what the man has seen, felt, and known. In the nature of things no educational material can be richer, none so fundamentally expansive and illuminative."
Emerson, in his "Essay on History," says:—
"The advancing man discovers how deep a property he has in literature,—in all fable as well as in all history. He finds that the poet was no odd fellow who described strange and impossible situations, but that universal man wrote by his pen a confession true for one and true for all. His own secret biography he finds in lines wonderfully intelligible to him, dotted down before he was born. One after another he comes up in his private adventures with every fable of Æsop, of Homer, of Hafiz, of Ariosto, of Chaucer,of Scott, and verifies them with his own head and hands.
"The beautiful fables of the Greeks, being proper creations of the imagination and not of the fancy, are universal verities. What a range of meanings and what perpetual pertinence has the story of Prometheus! Besides its primary value as the first chapter of the history of Europe (the mythology thinly veiling authentic facts, the invention of the mechanic arts and the migration of colonies), it gives the history of religion with some closeness to the faith of later ages."
"Thus in all ways does the soul concentrate and reproduce its treasures for each pupil. He, too, shall pass through the whole cycle of experience. He shall collect into a focus the rays of nature. History no longer shall be a dull book. It shall walk incarnate in every just and wise man. You shall not tell me by languages and titles a catalogue of the volumes you have read. You shall make me feel what periods you have lived. A man shall be the Temple of Fame. He shall walk, as the poets have described that goddess, in a robe painted all over with wonderful events and experiences; his own form and features by their exalted intelligence shall be that variegated vest. I shall find in him the Foreworld; in his childhood the Age of Gold; the Apples of Knowledge; the Argonautic Expedition; the calling of Abraham; the building of the Temple; the Advent of Christ; Dark Ages; the Revival of Letters; the Reformation; the discovery of new lands; the opening of new sciences, and new regions in man."
6. It is not intended to limit the reading of the schools to the longer classics, such as "Snow-Bound," "The Vision of Sir Launfal," and Webster's Bunker Hill speech, etc. There are also many shorter poems and stories, ballads, and myths, that are equally good and stand out as strong, complete expressions of thought such as Tennyson's "Brook," Longfellow's "Village Blacksmith," Whittier's "Barefoot Boy," and many others. These shorter pieces should be interspersed among the longer, and freely used to give greater variety and zest to reading exercises. Many of the finest literary products of the language are found in these shorter poems and stories. They also should be studied for the beauty and unity of thought contained in each.
7. But thesustained powergained from the full and rich study of longer classics is the best fruitage of the reading work. Every term of school should lead the children into the full appreciation of one or more of these masterly works. The value of such study is well expressed by Scudder in his "Literature in Schools" (pp. 54-56):—
"The real point of practical reform, however, is not in the preference of American authors to English, but in the careful concentration of the minds of boys and girls upon standard American literature,in opposition to a dissipation over a desultory and mechanical acquaintance with scraps from a variety of sources, good, bad, and indifferent. In my paper on 'Nursery Classics in School,' I argued that there is a true economy in substituting the great books of that portion of the world's literature which represents the childhood of the world's mind for the thin, quickly forgotten, feeble imaginations of insignificant bookmakers. There is an equally noble economy in engaging the child's mind, when it is passing out of an immature state into one of rational, intelligent appropriation of literature, upon such carefully chosen classic work as shall invigorate and deepen it. There is plenty of vagrancy in reading; the public libraries and cheap papers are abundantly able to satisfy the truant: but it ought to be recognized once for all that the schools are to train the mind into appreciation of literature, not to amuse it with idle diversion; to this end, the simplest and most direct method is to place before boys and girls for their regular task in reading, not scraps from this and that author, duly paragraphed and numbered, but a wisely selected series of works by men whom their country honors, and who have made their country worth living in.
"The continuous reading of a classic is in itself a liberal education; the fragmentary reading of commonplace lessons in minor morals, such as make up much of our reading-books, is a pitiful waste of growing mental powers. Even were our reading-books composed of choice selections from the highest literature, they would still miss the very great advantage which follows upon the steady growth of acquaintance with a sustained piece of literary art. I do not insist, of course, that 'Evangeline' should be read at one session of the school, though it would be exceedingly helpful in training the powers of the mind if, after this poem had been read day by day for a few weeks, it were to be taken up first in its separate thirds, and then in an entire reading. What I claim is that the boy or girl who has read 'Evangeline' through steadily has acquired a certain power in appropriating literature which is not to be had by reading a collection of minor poems,—the power of long-sustained attention and interest."
8. The study of literary wholes, whether longer or shorter, in the common school is based upon the notion that the full, rich thought of the author is the absorbing purpose of our effort. Literature is a reservoir of mental refinement and riches, for the gaining of which we can afford to sacrifice many things and make many even good things subordinate. The words of the wise man in recommending wisdom to the sons of men are not inappropriate: "Hear; for I will speak of excellent things and the opening of my lips shall be right things, and wickedness is an abomination to my lips. Receive my instruction and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies;and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it."
To get at the wisdom of the best thinkers of the world, so far as it is accessible to children, is the straightforward aim of such study. The teachers of reading, if they but realized it, are the guardians of a temple more beautiful than the Parthenon in the days of Pericles, more impressive than the sacred towers and porticos at Jerusalem; they are the custodians of a treasure far more rich and lasting than that in any palace of a king. Such comparisons, indeed, are almost belittling to the dignity of our subject. How noble and vast is the temple of literature! What single mind can grasp its proportions or the boundless beauty of its decorations? Moreover, it is a living temple, ever springing up afresh, in all its pristine strength and beauty, whereever minds are found reverent, studious, and thoughtful.
9. The old proverb suggests that we "beware of the man of one book," and is significant of a strong practical truth. Our modern life demands a somewhat broader basis of operations than one book can furnish. But a few of the great books, well mastered, give the main elements of strength.
Mabie has a short chapter on the "Books of Life" which "include the original, creative, first-hand books in all literatures, and constitute in the last analysis a comparatively small group, with which any studentcan thoroughly familiarize himself. The literary impulse of the race has expressed itself in a great variety of works of varying charm and power, but the books which are fountain-heads of vitality, ideas, and beauty are few in number."
The effect upon the teacher of the study of a few of the "Books of Life" is deserving of emphasis. First, by limiting the choice to a few things, teachers are able, without burdening themselves, to penetrate into the deeper thought and meaning of standard works which are good specimens and criteria of all superior literature. Teachers are enabled thus to become, in a limited way, real students of literature. It has been observed, not seldom, that teachers of usual capacity, when turned into a single rich field like that of "Hiawatha" or the "Merchant of Venice" or "The Lays of Ancient Rome" or the "Lady of the Lake," receive an awakening which means much for their general culture and teaching power. The scattering of the attention over miscellaneous selections and fragments can hardly produce this awakening.
Certain difficulties are incident to the reading of longer works as wholes which it is well to recognize.
1. There is no such nice grading of verbal and language difficulties as has been wrought out in some of the standard readers. On this point Scudder says (p. 41 of "Literature in Schools"):—
"The drawback to the use of these nursery classics in the schoolroom undoubtedly has been in theabsence of versions which are intelligible to children of the proper age, reading by themselves. The makers of the graded reading-books have expended all their ingenuity in grading the ascent. They have been so concerned about the gradual enlargement of their vocabularies that they have paid slight attention to the ideas which the words were intended to convey. But just this gradation may be secured through the use of these stories, and it only needs that they should be written out in a form as simple, especially as regards the order of words, as that which obtains in the reading-books of equivalent grade."
But in the longer classics for more advanced grades there can be no such adaptation, and the author's form should be retained. The authors of "Rip Van Winkle" or "Snow-Bound" or "Horatius at the Bridge" were not trying to phrase their thought to meet the needs of children, but wrote as the spirit moved them. The greater vigor and intensity of the author's style will make up, however, in large part, for this defect in easy grading. Children are not so much afraid of big or new words, if there is attractiveness and power of thought. The larger richness and variety of language in a fruitful author is a positive advantage as compared with the leanness and dulness of many a smoothly graded reading lesson.
2. It is claimed that there is, in some masterpieces, like "Evangeline" or one of Webster's speeches, amonotony and tiresome sameness which grows burdensome to pupils ere the conclusion is reached. At least there is much less variety in style and thought than in an equal number of pages in the usual reader.
In some cases there is good ground for this criticism. It may be a defect in the writer's style, or in not finding a suitable selection for the class. In some cases it is due to lack of power in the teacher to bring the children properly into close contact with the author's thought.
But dulness and apathy are often found in reading short selections as well as in longer ones. Generally speaking, longer pieces are apt to kindle a deeper and stronger interest. Many of the longer selections have also great variety of rhetorical style. Dickens's "Christmas Carol" is employed in one of the drill books in reading to illustrate all phases of voice and tone.
3. It is not an unusual experience to find that a longer story or poem seems too hard for a class, and it may be impossible to interest them because of verbal or thought difficulties. But the teacher should not give up the struggle at once. Often, in a new author, difficulties that seem at first insurmountable give way before vigorous effort, and a lively interest is awakened. This has been noticed in Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome," in Irving's "Rip Van Winkle," in Scott's "Lady of the Lake," also in Webster's "Speech in reply to Hayne." The teachershould not depend wholly upon the author's making himself intelligible and interesting to the children. His own enthusiasm, clear grasp of thought, suggestive assignment of lesson, and skill in comment and question should awaken insight and attention. It is advisable at times to pass by specially difficult passages, or leave them for later special study.
4. In some schools it is not possible to secure books containing the complete classics. But even the regular readers often contain complete poems and stories, and several of the large companies are publishing many of the complete masterpieces in good print and binding, no more expensive than the regular readers.
5. The greatest difficulty, after all, is the lack of experience of many teachers with the longer classics. In many cases their inability to select what would suit their classes is a hindrance. But the experience of many teachers with these materials is rapidly settling the question as to the place and importance of the leading masterpieces as well as of many shorter selections.
There is great abundance and variety of choice reading matter suitable for the grades from the fourth to the eighth inclusive. The best sets of reading-books have drawn from this rich material, but no series of readers can compass adequately the field. Some of the longer classical stories and poems have been incorporated into readers, but a single set of readers cannot be made large enough to contain a quarter of the valuable reading matter which should be furnished in these grades. The large publishing houses now supply, at moderate expense, in small and convenient book form, a great variety of the very best complete masterpieces. In order to show more clearly the richness and variety of this material, we will discuss briefly the principal kinds of reading matter which are distributed through these five grades. We assume that during the first three years of school life children have learned how to read, having mastered the forms and symbols of printed language. At the beginning of the fourth grade, therefore, they are prepared to read some of those choice literary products which constitute a part of the permanent literature of the world. After having collected and arranged these products, we find that they fall into several distinctly marked classes.
1. The Myths.
These include such stories as Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" and "Tanglewood Tales," Peabody's "Old Greek Folk Stories," Kingsley's "Greek Heroes," "The Story of Ulysses," Bryant's translation of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," Pope's "Homer," and many other prose and poetic renderings of the Greek myths.
Another group of myths include Mabie's "Norse Stories," "Heroes of Asgard," "Siegfried," "Myths of Northern Lands," Skinner's "Readings in Folk Lore," and many forms of the Norse myths. The story of "Hiawatha" belongs also to this group, while some of the earlier English and Roman myths belong to the same class.
The choicest of these mythical stories are distributed as reading matter through the fourth and fifth grades. They constitute a large share of the most famous literature of the great civilized nations. It is worth while to name over the virtues of these stories and poems.
They have sprung directly out of the people's life, they are race products, worked over from age to age by poetic spirits, and finally gathered into enduring form by a Homer, Virgil, or Spenser. The best of our later poets and prose masters haveemployed their finest skill in rendering them into simple and poetic English, as Bryant, Kingsley, Longfellow, Pope, Hawthorne, Palmer, Tennyson, Church, and many more.
They are the best descriptions we have of the customs, ideas, and dress, the homes, habits, and motives, of the ancestral races. Many other sources, as temples, ruins, tombs, coins, etc., help to explain this early history; but this literature calls it again into life and puts meaning into all other sources of knowledge.
The influence which this early literature has had upon later historical growth of the great races is overwhelming, and is plain to the eyes of even unscholarly persons. The root from which the marvellous tree of Greek civilization grew is seen in Homer's poems.
In these myths we find those commanding characters which typify the strength and virtues of the race, as Achilles, Ulysses, Siegfried, Penelope, Thor, Apollo, Theseus, Hiawatha, Orpheus, Diana, Vulcan, Prometheus, and the Muses.
A close acquaintance with these creative ideas of the early world is necessary to an understanding of all subsequent life and literature. And it is not merely the names of Greek divinities and definitions of their character and qualities which put meaning into the numberless allusions of modern writers. One reason why many modern thinkers smile at the triteness and childishness of Greek fable is, that they have not caught the spirit and meaning of the Greek story. The great masters of thought, like Goethe, Shakespeare, Emerson, Tennyson, and Bryant, have seen deeper.
It is, moreover, in childhood, during the early school years especially, that we may best appreciate and enjoy these poetic creations of an early world. It is hardly to be expected that people whose youth has been clamped into the mould of commonplace and sensuous facts, and whose later years have been crusted over with modern materialism and commercialism, should listen with any patience to Orpheus and the Muses, or even to the wood notes of Pan.
We hardly need to dwell upon the idea that the old heroic myths are the delight of boys and girls, and that this sympathy for the myth is the foundation of its educative power. Nor is it the purpose of the school to warp the minds of children into this one channel of growth. The historical and scientific studies run parallel with the myth, and give strength for realities.
It is not difficult to see that music, the drama, and the fine arts spring from these old myths as from their chief source. They furnish motive to many of the greatest works of dramatist, composer, painter, and sculptor, in all the ages since. Æschylus and the Greek dramatists, Goethe and Wagner, Fénelon and Shakespeare, drew abundantly from these sources.
A few of the striking characters of this great age of heroic myths should be treated with such fulness as to stand out clearly to the children and appeal to the heart as well as to the head. Ulysses and Siegfried stand in the centre of two of the chief stories, and exemplify great qualities of character, strength, wisdom, and nobleness of mind.
In the third grade the children have had an oral introduction to some of the old stories, and have had a spirited entrance to Mythland. This oral treatment of the stories is a fitting and necessary prelude to the reading work of the fourth and fifth grades. It is more fully discussed, together with the art of the story-teller, in "The Special Method in Primary Reading and Story."
Closely related to the myths, and kindred in spirit, are such choice reading materials as "The Arabian Nights," "King of the Golden River," Stockton's "Fanciful Tales," "The Pied Piper," and a number of shorter poems and stories found in the collections recommended for fourth and fifth grades. Some of Hawthorne's and Irving's stories belong also to this group.
2. Ballads and Traditional Stories.
A somewhat distinct group of the best reading for fourth and fifth grades is found in the historical ballads and national legends from the early history of England, Germany, Italy, and France. They include such selections as "Sir Patrick Spens," "TheBallads of Robin Hood," "Horatius," "Bannock-burn," "The Heart of the Bruce," "The Story of Regulus," of "Cincinnatus," "Alfred the Harper," and many more. In the list of books recommended for children's reading are several ballad books, Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome," "The Book of Golden Deeds," "Tales from English History," and several others, with great variety of poem and story. Many of these selections are short and spirited and well suited to awaken the strongest enthusiasm of children. They are sometimes in dialogue form, both in prose and verse, have strong dramatic action, and are thus helpful in variety and force of expression. There is also much early history and national spirit involved. The old historical ballads and traditions have great educative value. They are simple, crude, and powerful, and awaken the spirit to receive the message of heroism. In her introduction to the "Ballad Book," Katharine Lee Bates says, "For these primitive folk-songs, which have done so much to educate the poetic sense in the fine peasantry of Scotland—that peasantry which has produced an Ayreshire Ploughman and an Ettric Shepherd—are assuredly,
"'Thanks to the human heart by which it lives,'
"'Thanks to the human heart by which it lives,'
among the best educators that can be brought into our schoolrooms."
"The Lays of Ancient Rome," the "Ballads," andthe "Tales from English History" belong to the heroic series. Though far separated in time and place, they breathe the same spirit of personal energy, self-sacrifice, and love of country. They reveal manly resistance to cruelty and tyranny. We may begin this series with a term's work upon Macaulay's "Lays" and a few other choice stories in prose and verse. Thereafter we may insert other ballads, where needed, in connection with history, and in amplification of longer stories or masterpieces like Scott's "Tales of a Grandfather," and "Marmion." In the fifth grade, children are of an age when these stories of heroism in olden days strike a responsive chord. They delight in such tales, memorize them, and enter into the full energy of their spirited reproduction. The main purpose at first is to appreciate their thought as an expression of history, tradition, and national life. A complete and absorbing study of a single series of these ballads, as of Macaulay's, supplies also an excellent standard of comparison for other more or less similar episodes in the history of Switzerland, Greece, England, and America.
These historical legends merge almost imperceptibly into the historical tales of early English, Roman, and French or German history. The patriarchal stories of the Old Testament furnish the finest of early history stories and should be included in these materials. "The Old Stories of the East,"and "Old Testament Stories in Scripture Language" are among the best.
3. Stories of Chivalry.
Tales of chivalry, beginning with "Arthur and his Round Table Knights," "Roland and Oliver," and other mediæval tales, have a great attraction for poets and children. Such books are included in our lists as "The Court of King Arthur," the "Story of Roland," "Tales of Chivalry," "The Boys' King Arthur," the "Age of Chivalry," and "The Coming of Arthur" and "Passing of Arthur." There are also many shorter poems touching this spirit of chivalry in the Ballad literature. The character and spirit of King Arthur as revealed in the matchless music of Tennyson should find its way to the hearts of children before they leave the school. Like Sir Galahad, he could say,
"My strength is as the strength of tenBecause my heart is pure."
"My strength is as the strength of tenBecause my heart is pure."
4. Historical Stories and Poems.
In the fifth and sixth grades children should begin to read some of the best biographical and historical stories of America and of European countries. Of these we have excellent materials from many lands and periods of time, such as Higginson's "American Explorers," Morris's "Historical Tales" (both American and English), "Stories of American Life and Adventure," "Stories of Our Country," "Pioneer History Stories," "Ten Boys on the Road from LongAgo," "The Story of the English," "Stories from Herodotus," "Pilgrims and Puritans," Hawthorne's "Biographical Stories," "Stories from American Life," and others.
In the oral history lessons given on alternate days in fourth grade (see special method in history) we have made a spirited entrance to American history through the pioneer stories of the Mississippi Valley. These should precede and pave the way for classic readings in American history. In the fifth grade, the stories of Columbus and of the chief navigators, also the narratives of the Atlantic coast pioneers, are told. The regular history work of the sixth grade should be a study of the growth of the leading colonies during the colonial period and the French and Indian Wars.
In the fifth grade we may begin to read some of the hero narratives of our own pioneer epoch as rendered by the best writers; for instance, Higginson's "American Explorers," "Pilgrims and Puritans," "Stories of Our Country," and "Grandfather's Chair." They are lifelike and spirited, and introduce us to the realism of our early history in its rugged exposure and trials, while they bring out those stern but high ideals of life which the Puritan and the Cavalier, the navigator, the pioneer hunter, and explorer illustrate. Higginson's collection of letters and reports of the early explorers, with their quaint language and eye-witness descriptions, is strikinglyvivid in its portraiture of early scenes upon our shores. Hawthorne, in "Grandfather's Chair," has moulded the hardy biography of New England leaders into literary form.
5. Great Biographies.
In addition to the shorter biographical stories just mentioned, as children advance into the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, they should make a close acquaintance with a few of the great biographies. There is an abundance of excellent American biographies, but we should limit ourselves to those most important and best suited to influence the character of young people. It is necessary also to use those which have been written in a style easily comprehended by the children. Some of the best are as follows: Scudder's "Life of Washington," Franklin's "Autobiography," Hosmer's "Life of Samuel Adams," and the lives of John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, and Lincoln in the "Statesman Series." There are two fairly good books of Lincoln's early life for children. There are also many shorter biographies included in the books recommended for regular or collateral reading.
In style and content the story of Franklin is one of the best for children. The "Autobiography" of Franklin has many graphic touches from American life. His intense practical personality, his many-sidedness and public spirit, make up a character that will long instruct and openout in many directions the minds of the young. His clear sense and wisdom in small affairs as in great, and the pleasing style of his narrative, are sufficiently characteristic to have a strong personal impression. It will hardly be necessary to take the whole of the "Autobiography," but the more attractive parts, leaving the rest to the private reading of children. "Poor Richard's Almanac" intensifies the notion of Franklin's practical and everyday wisdom, and at the same time introduces the children to a form of literature that, in colonial days, under Franklin's patronage, had a wide acceptance and lasting influence in America.
Plutarch's "Lives" furnish a series of great biographies which grammar school children should become well acquainted with. The lives of American writers and poets should be brought to the attention of children in conjunction with their productions. "The Children's Stories of American Literature" and the introductory chapters of many of the masterpieces furnish this interesting and stimulating material. It should not be neglected by pupils and teachers. For older pupils and for teachers several of Macaulay's "Essays" are valuable, and the style is strikingly interesting. For example, the essays on Samuel Johnson, Lord Chatham, Milton, Addison, and Frederick the Great. Motley's "Essay on Peter the Great" and Carlyle's "Essay on Burns" are of similar interest and value. "The Schönberg CottaFamily" is valuable in the upper grammar grades. Most of this kind of reading must be outside reference work if it is done at all. Teachers should, first of all, enrich their own experience by these readings, occasionally bring a book to the class from which selections may be read, and, secondly, encourage the more enthusiastic and capable children to this wider field of reading.
6. Historical Poems and Pictures of American Life.
Some of the best American poems and prose masterpieces are fine descriptions of American life and manners, in different parts of the country and at various times. Such are: "Courtship of Miles Standish," "Tales of the White Hills," "Snow-Bound," "Rip Van Winkle," and "Sleepy Hollow." "The Gentle Boy," "Mabel Martin," "Giles Corey," "Evangeline," "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and some of the great biographies, like those of Samuel Adams, Franklin, Washington, and Lincoln, are also fine descriptions of home life in America. The same may be said of some of the masterpieces of English and European literature, for example, "Ivanhoe," "Roger de Coverley," "The Christmas Carol," "Vicar of Wakefield," "William Tell," "Silas Marner," "The Cotter's Saturday Night," and "Schönberg Cotta Family."
The culture value of these pictures of home and domestic life for young people is surpassingly great.Gradually their views are broadened, and they may be imbued with those social, home-bred qualities and virtues so fundamental in human life.
Irving's stories and Longfellow's "Miles Standish" give a still more pronounced and pleasing literary cast to two of the characteristic forms of life in our colonial history, the Puritan and the Dutch Patroon. If the children have reached this point, where they can read and enjoy the "Sketch-Book," it will be worth much as a description of life along the Hudson, and will develop taste and appreciation for literary excellence. Even the fanciful and ridiculous elements conduce to mental health and soundness, by showing up in pleasing satire the weaknesses and foibles of well-meaning people.
"Snow-Bound," "Songs of Labor," and "Among the Hills," while not historical in the usual sense, are still plainly American, and may well be associated with other poetic delineations of American life. "Snow-Bound" is a picture of New England life, with its pleasing and deep-rooted memories. Its family spirit and idealization of common objects and joys make it a classic which reaches the hearts of boys and girls. "Among the Hills" is also a picture of home life in New England mountains, a contrast of the mean and low in home environment to the beauty of thrift and taste and unselfish home joys. The "Songs of Labor" are descriptive of the toils and spirit of our varied employments in NewEngland and of that larger New England which the migrating Yankees have established between the oceans.
"Evangeline" is another literary pearl that enshrines in sad and mournful measures a story of colonial days, and teaches several great lessons, as of the harshness and injustice of war, of fair-mindedness and sympathy for those of alien speech and country, of patience and gentleness and loyalty to high ideals in a character familiar and sacred to all.
7. The Poetry of Nature in the Masterpieces of Literature.
Both in poetic and in prose form there is great variety and depth of nature worship in good literature. There are few, if any, of the great poets who have not been enthusiastic and sympathetic observers of nature,—nature lovers, we may call them. We can hardly mention the names of Emerson, Bryant, and Wordsworth, without thinking of their loving companionship with nature, their flight to the woods and fields. But the same is true of Lowell, Whittier, Hawthorne, Whitman, and all the rest. When we add to these, those companions of nature, such as Thoreau, Leander Keyser, Olive Thorn Miller, Burroughs, Warner, and others of like spirit, we may be surprised at the number of our leading writers who have found their chief delight in dwelling close to the heart of nature.
An examination of the books recommended forchildren's study and delight will reveal a large number of the most graceful, inspiriting products of human thought, which are nature poems, nature hymns, odes to skylark, the dandelion, the mountain daisy, communings with the myriad moods and forms of the natural world. Such books as "Nature Pictures by American Poets," "Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics," "Poetry of the Seasons," the "Open Sesame" books, and others, show an infinite variety of poetic inspiration from nature. Adding to these Burroughs's "Birds and Bees," "Wake Robin," "Squirrels and other Fur-bearers"; Thoreau's "Succession of Forest Trees"; Higginson's "Outdoor Papers"; Keyser's "News from the Birds," "In Bird Land," and "Birddom"; Torrey's "Footpath Way," and "Birds in the Bush"; Long's "Wilderness Ways," and "Ways of Wood Folk"; the "Plant World" of Vincent, the "Natural History" of Selborne, and others of like quality,—and we have an abundance of the most friendly and enticing invitations to nature study. These materials are suited, by proper arrangement, to all the grades from the fourth up. Under good teachers such books can do no other than awaken and encourage the happiest kind of observation and sympathy for nature. It is the kind of appreciation of birds and trees, insects and clouds, which at once trains to close and discriminating perception, and to the cultivation of æsthetic sense in color, form, and sound.
The love of nature cannot be better instilled than by following these poets.
While the study of literature as it images nature cannot take the place of pure science, it is the most powerful ally that the scientist can call in. The poets can do as much to idealize science study, to wake the dull eye, and quicken the languid interest in nature, as scientists themselves. Away, then, with this presumed antagonism between literature and science! Neither is complete without the other. Neither can stand on its own feet. But together, in mutual support, they cannot be tripped up. The facts, the laws, the utilities, adaptations, and wonders in nature are not so marvellous but the poet's eye will pierce beneath and above them, will give them a deeper interpretation, and clothe them in a garment of beauty and praise. There is nothing beautiful or grand or praiseworthy that the poet's eye will not detect it, and the poet's art reveal it in living and lasting forms. Let the scientist delve and the poet sing. The messages between them should be only those of cheer.
It is in this myriad-voiced world of fields and brooks, of mountain, lake, and river, of storm and cloud and of the changing seasons, that poets find the images, suggestions, and analogies which interpret and illustrate the spiritual life of man. The more rigid study of science in laboratory and class-room is necessary to the student, but it would be anarrow and pedantic teacher who would not welcome the poetic temper and enthusiasm in nature study.
The teachers of reading have, therefore, the best of all opportunities for cultivating this many-sided sympathy for and insight into nature, and at the same time to train the children to correlate these nature poems with their science studies. Observers like Thoreau and Burroughs give us the greatest inducement for getting out into the woods. They open our eyes to the beauties and our hearts to the truth of nature's teachings. These are the gardens of delight where science and poetry walk hand in hand and speak face to face. It would not be difficult to show that many of the greatest scientists were poets, and that some of the chiefest poets have been foremost in scientific study.
8. The Sentiment of Patriotism in Literature.
The powerful national spirit finds expression in many forms of literature, in hymns, in war song, in oration, in essay, in pioneer narrative, in stories of battle, in novel, in flag song, in ballad, and in biography.
We have already noted the great significance of American history stories in fourth and fifth grades. It is from the early pioneer epoch and the colonial history that we derive much of our best educative history. The heroism of these old days has been commemorated in story and poem by our best writers.
As we approach the Revolutionary crisis a new body of choice literary products, aglow with the fire of patriotism and independence, is found stored up for the joy and stimulus of our growing young Americans: "Paul Revere's Ride," "Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill," Washington's letters, "A Ballad of the Boston Tea Party," "Ode for Washington's Birthday," "Lexington" (Holmes), "The Song of Marion's Men," "The Green Mountain Boys," Webster's speeches at Bunker Hill and on Adams and Jefferson, "Old Ticonderoga" (Hawthorne), Burke's speech on the American War, Washington's "Farewell to the Army," The Declaration of Independence, "Under the Old Elm," and descriptions of some of the great scenes of the war by our best historians.
It is to be desired that children in the seventh grade may have opportunity in regular history lessons to study in detail a few of the central topics of the Revolutionary epoch. This will put them in touch with the spirit and surroundings of the Americans.
In the reading lessons of the same grade we may well afford to discover and feel what our best patriots and men of letters have said and felt in view of the struggle for freedom. The noblest expressions of sentiment upon great men and their achievements are contagious with the young. Patriotism can find no better soil in which to strike its deepest roots than the noble outbursts of our orators and poets and patriotic statesmen. The cumulative effect of these varied but kindred materials is greater than when scattered and disconnected. They mutually supporteach other, and when they are brought into close dependence upon parallel historical studies, we may well say that the children are drinking from the deep and pure sources of true Americanism.
Parallel to whatever history we attempt to teach in the eighth grade should run a selection of the best literary products that our American authors can furnish, and here again we are rich in resources. The thought and life of our people find their high-water mark in the poet's clarion note and the statesman's impassioned appeal. No others have perceived the destiny of our young republic as our cherished poets, Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, Holmes, and Emerson. They have stood upon the mountain tops, looking far and wide through the clear atmosphere, while the great army of the people has been tenting in the valleys below. These wakeful priests and prophets have caught the bright tints of the morning while the people were still asleep, and have witnessed the suffused glory of the sunset clouds when the weary masses below had already forgotten the day's toil. One thing at least, and that the greatest, can be done for our children before they finish the common school course. They may rise into this pure atmosphere of poet, patriot, sage, and prophet. They may hear these deathless strains and feel the thrill of these clarion notes. Let their ears be once attuned to the strength and harmony of this music, and it will not cease to echo in their deeper life. The futurepatriots will be at hand, and the coming years will see them rising to the great duties that inevitably await them. We have a body of noble, patriotic material which is capable of producing this effect if handled by skilful teachers: the Ordinance of 1787,The Federalist, Numbers 1 and 2, Washington's "Inaugurals" and the "Farewell Address," Everett's "Oration on Washington," "O Mother of Mighty Race" (Bryant); "Our Country's Call" (Bryant); "Abraham Lincoln" (Bryant); Lincoln's "Inaugurals" and "Gettysburg Speech," "Army Hymn" and "The Flower of Liberty" (Holmes), Webster's "Second Speech on Foot's Resolution," The Emancipation Proclamation, "The Fortune of the Republic" (Emerson), etc., "Antiquity of Freedom" (Bryant); "Centennial Hymn" (Whittier); "The Building of the Ship" (Longfellow); "The Poor Voter on Election Day" (Whittier).
Why not gather together these sources of power, of unselfish patriotism, of self-sacrifice, of noble and inspiring impulse? Let this fruit-bringing seed be sown deep in the minds and hearts of the receptive young. What has inspired the best of men to high thinking and living can touch them.
It is not by reading and declaiming a few miscellaneous fragments of patriotic gush, not by waving flags and banners and following processions, that the deeper sentiments of patriotism and humanity are to be touched, but by gathering and concentrating thesefuller, richer sources of spiritual power and conscious national destiny. The schoolroom is by far the best place to consolidate these purifying and conserving sentiments. By gathering into a rising series and focussing in the higher grades the various forms, in prose and verse, in which the genius of our country has found its strongest expression; by associating these ringing sentiments with the epochs and crises of our history, with the valorous deeds of patriots upon the field and of statesmen in the senate, with the life and longings of home-nurtured poets and sages,—we shall plant seed whose fruitage will not disappoint the lovers of the fatherland.
Mr. Horace E. Scudder, in his two essays on "Literature" and "American Classics in the Common School," has portrayed with convincing clearness the spiritual power and high-toned Americanism which breathe from those literary monuments which have been quarried from our own hillsides and chiselled by American hands. We recommend to every teacher the reading in full of these essays, from which we quote at much length:—
"Fifty years ago there were living in America six men of mark, of whom the youngest was then nineteen years of age, the oldest forty-four. Three of the six are in their graves and three still breathe the kindly air. [Since this was written, in 1888, the last of the six has passed away.] One only of the six has held high place in the national councils, and it isnot by that distinction that he is known and loved. They have not been in battle; they have had no armies at their command; they have not amassed great fortunes, nor have great industries waited on their movements. Those pageants of circumstances which kindle the imagination have been remote from their names. They were born on American soil; they have breathed American air; they were nurtured on American ideas. They are Americans of Americans. They are as truly the issue of our national life as are the common schools in which we glory. During the fifty years in which our common school system has been growing up to maturity these six have lived and sung; and I dare say that the lives and songs of Bryant, Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, and Lowell have an imperishable value, regarded as exponents of national life, not for a moment to be outweighed in the balance by the most elaborate system of common schools which the wit of man may devise. The nation may command armies and schools to rise from the soil, but it cannot call into life a poet. Yet when the poet comes and we hear his voice in the upper air, then we know the nation he owns is worthy of the name. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Even so, pure poetry springs from no rank soil of national life.
"I am not arguing for the critical study of our great authors, in the higher grades of our schools.They are not the best subjects for critical scholarship; criticism demands greater remoteness, greater foreignness of nature. Moreover, critical study is not the surest method of securing the full measure of spiritual light, though it yields abundant gain in the refinement of the intellectual nature and in the quickening of the perceptive faculties. I am arguing for the free, generous use of these authors in the principal years of school life. It is then that their power is most profoundly needed, and will be most strongly felt. We need to put our children in their impressionable years into instant and close connection with the highest manifestation of our national life. Away with the bottle and the tube! Give them a lusty draft at the mother's full breast!
"Nor do I fear that such a course will breed a narrow and parochial Americanism. On the contrary, it would destroy a vulgar pride in country, help the young to see humanity from the heights on which the masters of song have dwelt, and open the mind to the more hospitable entertainment of the best literature of every clime and age. I am convinced that there is no surer way to introduce the best English literature into our schools than to give the place of honor to American literature. In the order of nature a youth must be a citizen of his own country before he can become naturalized in the world. We recognize this in our geography and history; we may wisely recognize it also in our reading.
"The place, then, of literature in our common school education is in spiritualizing life, letting light into the mind, inspiring and feeding the higher forces of human nature.
"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. There is the element of destiny. No nation lives upon its past; it is already dead when it says, 'Let us eat and drink to-day; for to-morrow we die.' But what that destiny is to be may be read in the ideals which the young are forming; and those ideals, again, it is the business of the old to guide. They cannot form them; the young must form them for themselves; but whether these ideals shall be large or petty, honorable or mean, will depend upon the sustenance on which they are fed.
"Now in a democracy, more signally than under any other form of national organization, it is vitally necessary that there should be an unceasing, unimpeded circulation of the spiritual life of the people. The sacrifice of the men and women who have made and preserved America, from the days of Virginia and New England to this hour, has been ascending from the earth in a never-ending cloud; they have fallen again in strains of music, in sculpture, in painting, in memorial hall, in tale, in oration, in poem, in consecration of life; and the spirit which ascended is the same as that which descended. Inliterature above all is this spirit enshrined. You have but to throw open the shrine, and the spirit comes with its outspread blessings upon millions of waiting souls. Entering them, it reissues in countless shapes, and thus is the life of the nation in its highest form kept ever in motion, and without motion is no life.
"The deposit of nationality is in laws, institutions, art, character, and religion; but laws, institutions, character, and religion are expressed through art and mainly through the art of letters. It is literature, therefore, that holds in precipitation the genius of the country; and the higher the form of literature, the more consummate the expression of that spirit which does not so much seek a materialization as it shapes itself inevitably in fitting form. Long may we read and ponder the life of Washington, yet at last fall back content upon those graphic lines of Lowell in 'Under the Old Elm,' which cause the figure of the great American to outline itself upon the imagination with large and strong portraiture. The spirit of the orations of Webster and Benton, the whole history of the young giant poised in conscious strength before his triumphant struggle, one may catch in a breath in those glowing lines which end 'The Building of the Ship.' The deep passion of the war for the Union may be overlooked in some formal study of battles and campaigns, but rises pure, strong, and flaming in the immortal 'Gettysburg Speech.'
"Precisely thus the sentiment of patriotism must be kept fresh and living in the hearts of the young through quick and immediate contact with the sources of that sentiment; and the most helpful means are those spiritual deposits of patriotism which we find in noble poetry and lofty prose, as communicated by men who have lived patriotic lives and been fed with coals from the altar.
"It is from the men and women bred on American soil that the fittest words come for the spiritual enrichment of American youth. I believe heartily in the advantage of enlarging one's horizon by taking in other climes and other ages, but first let us make sure of that great expansive power which lies close at hand. I am sure there never was a time or country where national education, under the guidance of national art and thought, was so possible as in America to-day.
"The body of wholesome, strong American literature is large enough to make it possible to keep boys and girls upon it from the time when they begin to recognize the element of authorship until they leave the school, and it is varied and flexible enough to give employment to the mind in all its stages of development. Moreover, this literature is interesting, and is allied with interesting concerns; half the hard places are overcome by the willing mind, and the boy who stumbles over some jejune lesson in his reading-book will run over a bit of genuine prosefrom Irving which the schoolbook maker, with his calipers, pronounces too hard.
"We have gone quite far enough in the mechanical development of the common school system. What we most need is the breath of life, and reading offers the noblest means for receiving and imparting this breath of life. The spiritual element in education in our common schools will be found to lie in reserve in literature, and, as I believe, most effectively in American literature.
"Think for a moment of that great, silent, resistless power for good which might at this moment be lifting the youth of the country, were the hours for reading in school expended upon the undying, life-giving books! Think of the substantial growth of a generous Americanism, were the boys and girls to be fed from the fresh springs of American literature! It would be no narrow provincialism into which they would emerge. The windows in Longfellow's mind looked to the east, and the children who have entered into possession of his wealth travel far. Bryant's flight carries one through upper air, over broad champaigns. The lover of Emerson has learned to get a remote vision. The companion of Thoreau finds Concord become suddenly the centre of a very wide horizon. Irving has annexed Spain to America. Hawthorne has nationalized the gods of Greece and given an atmosphere to New England. Whittier has translated the Hebrew Scriptures intothe American dialect. Lowell gives the American boy an academy without cutting down a stick of timber in the grove, or disturbing the birds. Holmes supplies that hickory which makes one careless of the crackling of thorns. Franklin makes the America of a past generation a part of the great world before treaties had bound the floating states into formal connection with venerable nations. What is all this but saying that the rich inheritance we have is no local ten-acre lot, but a part of the undivided estate of humanity. Universality, Cosmopolitanism,—these are fine words, but no man ever secured the freedom of the Universe who did not first pay taxes and vote in his own village."—"Literature in School" (Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.).
9. The series of American classics is nowise confined to the ideas of local or national patriotism, but above and beyond that deep and powerful sentiment which magnifies the opportunity and manifest destiny of our nation, it grasps at the ideal form and content of those Christian virtues which now and evermore carry healing and comfort to the toiling millions. Our poets, as they have pondered on the past and looked into the future, were not able to be content with less than the best. As the vision of the coming years unrolled itself before them they looked upon it with joy mingled with solicitude. In the mighty conflicts now upon us only those of generous and saintly purpose and of pure hearts can prevail.