Special Method in the Reading of Complete English Classics Part 7

It is expected, of course, that children will get clear notions and opinions of such persons as Miles Standish and John Alden, of Whittier's father and mother and others in the fireside circle of "Snow-Bound," of Antonio and Shylock in the "Merchant of Venice," of Cinderella and her sisters in the story, of Wallace and Bruce in Scott's "Tales," of Gluck and his brothers in Ruskin's story, of Scrooge in the "Christmas Carol,"

of Evangeline, Enoch Arden, etc.

But boys and girls are not infallible judges of character. They are apt to form erroneous or one-sided judgments from lack of insight into the author's meaning, or from carelessness. There is the same possibility of error in forming moral judgments as in forming judgments in other phases of an author's thought.

It is the province of the teacher to stimulate the children to think, and, by his superior experience and judgment, to guide them into correct thinking. It is not the function of the teacher to impose his ready-made judgments upon children, either in morals or in anything else. But it is his concern, by questions, suggestions, and criticisms, to aid in clarifying the thought, to put the children upon the right track. There is no reason why a teacher should abdicate his place of instructor because he chances to come before moral problems. Literature is full of moral situations, moral problems, and moral evolutions in character, and even of moral ideals. Is the teacher to stand dumb before these things as if he had lost his wits? Or is he to consider it the greatest opportunity of his life to prudently guide young people to the correct perception of what is beautiful and true in human life? Why, indeed, should he suppress his own enthusiasm for these ideals? Why should not his personality be free to express itself in matters of moral concern, as well as in intellectual and aesthetic judgments? So long as the teacher throws the pupils back upon their own self-activity and thinking power, there need be no danger of moral pedantry or of moral dyspepsia.

It seems to me, therefore, that the teacher should use freedom and boldness in discussing with the children candidly and thoughtfully the characters presented in good literature. Let the situations be made clear so that correct judgments of single acts can be formed. Let the weaknesses and virtues of the persons be noted. Let motives be studied and characteristic tendencies traced out. In this way children may gradually increase their insight and enlarge the range of their knowledge of social life. If these things are not legitimate, why should such materials be presented to children at all? We need not make premature moralists of children, or teach them to pa.s.s easy or flippant moral judgments upon others. But we wish their interest in these characters to be deep and genuine, their eyes wide open to the truths of life, and their intuitive moral judgments to ripen in a healthy and hearty social environment. To this end the teacher will need to use all his skill in questioning, in suggestion, in frank and candid discussion.

In short, he needs just those qualities which a first-cla.s.s teacher needs in any field of study.

We have gotten out of the mode of tacking a moral to a story. Ostensibly moral stories, overweighted with a moral purpose, do not please us. We wish novelists and dramatists to give us the truth of life, and leave us to pa.s.s judgment upon the characters. Our best literature presents great variety of scenes and characterizations in their natural setting in life. They specially cultivate moral judgment and insight. One of the ultimate standards which we apply to all novels and dramas is that of their fundamental moral truth. Schlegel, in his "Dramatic Art and Literature," in his criticisms of great writers, discusses again and again the moral import of the characters, and even the moral purpose of Shakespeare and the dramatists. In fact, these moral considerations lie deep and fundamental in judging the great works of literary art. The masterpieces we use in the schools bear the same relation to the children that the more difficult works bear to adults.

The clear discussion of the moral element in literature seems, therefore, natural and legitimate, while its neglect and obscuration would be a fatal defect.

11. There are two kinds of reading which should be cultivated in reading lessons, although they seem to fall a little apart from the main highway of effort. They are, first, sight reading of supplementary matter for the purpose of cultivating a quick and accurate grasp of new thought and forms. When we leave school, one of the values of reading will be the power it gives to interpret quickly and grasp firmly the ideas as they present themselves in the magazines, papers, and books we read. Good efforts in school reading will lead forward gradually to that readiness of thought and fluency of perception which will give freedom and mastery of new reading matter. To develop this ability and to regulate it into habit, we must give children a chance to read quite a little at sight.

We need supplementary readers in sets which can be put into the hands of children for this purpose. The same books will answer for several cla.s.ses, and may be pa.s.sed from room to room of similar grade.

The reading matter we select for this purpose may be cla.s.sic, and of the best quality, just as well as to be limited to information and geographical readers which are much inferior. There are first-cla.s.s books of literary merit, which are entirely serviceable for this purpose and much richer in culture. They continue the line of study in cla.s.sic literature, and give ground for suggestive comparisons and reviews which should not be neglected. There is a strong tendency in our time to put inferior reading matter, in the form of information readers, science primers, short history stories, geographical readers, newspapers, and specially prepared topics on current events, into reading cla.s.ses. These things may do well enough in their proper place in geography, history, natural science, or general lessons, but they should appear scarcely at all in reading lessons. Preserve the reading hour for that which is choicest in our prose and verse, mainly in the form of shorter or longer masterpieces of literature.

Secondly, many books should be brought to the attention of the children which they may read outside of school. The regular reading exercises should give the children a lively and attractive introduction to some of the best authors, and a taste for the strength and beauty of their productions. But the field of literature is so wide and varied that many things can only be suggested, which will remain for the future leisure and choice of readers. Children might, however, be made acquainted with some of the best books suited to their age for which there is not school time. Many of the best books, like "Ivanhoe," "Quentin Durward,"

"Captains Courageous," "Swiss Family Robinson," and "Nicholas Nickleby,"

cannot be read in school. They should be in the school library, and the teacher should often refer to them and to others suggested by the regular reading, which give deeper and wider views into life.

12. In the use of the symbols and language forms of reading, the children should be led on to freedom and self-activity. How to get the mastery of these forms in the early reading work is discussed in the "Special Method in Primary Reading and Story."

In the fourth and fifth years of school, children should learn to use the dictionary. It is a great means of self-help when they have learned to interpret the dictionary easily. But special lessons are necessary to teach children: first, how to find words in the dictionary; second, how to interpret the diacritical markings so as to get a correct p.r.o.nunciation; and third, how to discriminate among definitions. Adults and even teachers are often deficient in these particulars, and children will not form habits of using the dictionary with quick and easy confidence without continuous, attentive care on the teacher's part. The best outcome of such training is the conscious power of the child to help himself, and there is nothing in school work more deserving of encouragement.

The system of diacritical markings used in the dictionary should be put on the blackboard, varied ill.u.s.trations of the markings given, and the application of these markings to new words in the dictionary discovered.

Lack of success in this work is chiefly due to a failure to pursue this plan steadily till ease and mastery are gained and habits formed.

In the later grades these habits of self-help should be kept up and extended further to the study of synonyms, root words and their kindred, h.o.m.onyms, prefixes and suffixes, and the derived meanings of words.

CHAPTER V

METHOD FURTHER DISCUSSED AND ILl.u.s.tRATED.

SUMMARY

In the following chapter some phases of method not fully treated before will be discussed and ill.u.s.trated.

1. The proposal to treat literary masterpieces as units of thought implies a searching study and sifting out of the essential idea in each poem or selection. In some, both of the longer and shorter pieces, it is not difficult to detect the motive. In Bryant's "Ode to a Waterfowl," it is even suggested as a sort of moral at the close. Likewise in the "Pied Piper of Hamelin," and in Burns's "Tam O'Shanter." In "Glaucis and Philemon," as well as in "The Golden Touch," even a child can quickly discern the controlling idea of the myth. But in many of our choicest literary products it requires deliberate thought to discover the poet's deeper meaning, especially that idea which binds all the parts together and gives unity to the whole. In Lowell's address "To the Dandelion," we may find in each stanza the gleam of the golden thread which unifies the whole. The first lines suggest it:--

"Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold."

And again in the second stanza:--

"'Tis the Spring's largess which she scatters now To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand."

In the succeeding stanzas he calls to mind how the dandelion suggests the riches of the tropics, the full promise of summer, the pure joys of childhood, the common loving courtesies of life, the rich love and prodigality of nature, and the divinity in every human heart.

When by reflection we bind all these thoughts together, and find that they focus in the idea that the best riches abound and even burst forth out of common things and from the hearts of common men and women, we realize that the poet has brought us to the point of discovering a deep and practical truth, which, put to work in the world, would bring rhythm and harmony into human life.

But such a deep impression is not made by a superficial or fragmental study of the poem.

A somewhat similar result may be wrought out by the study of Lowell's poem, "An Incident in a Railroad Car," and the idea is well expressed in the verse:--

"Never did poesy appear So full of heaven to me as when I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear To lives of coa.r.s.est men."

The study of a poem or other masterpiece in this way, to get at its inner life and continuity, reveals to us an interesting process of mental elaboration and comparative thought. Such self-active reflection is the subsoiling of the mind.

To set children to work upon problems of this sort, to put them in the way of thinking and feeling for themselves, and that too even in the longer cla.s.sics like "Evangeline," "Enoch Arden," "Silas Marner," etc., is to bring such studies into the realm of great culture-producing agencies.

Many minor questions of method will be solved by having these centres of thought, these problems for thinkers. Teachers are bothered to know what sort of questions to ask. It would be safe to say, those questions which move in the direction of the main truth, toward the solution of the chief problem. But let the questions be shrewd, not revealing too much, stimulating to thoughtfulness and heading off errors. To what extent shall geographical, historical, or biographical facts be gathered for the enrichment and clarifying of the poem? Those materials which throw necessary light on the essential ideas, omitting what is irrelevant and secondary.

A careful study of the life of Alexander, by Plutarch, will bring to light, more than anything else, his magnanimity. The thing that so much distinguished him from other men was his large, liberal temper, displayed on many various occasions. It reminds the mature student of that remarkable utterance of Burke, "Great affairs and little minds go ill together." The large-minded statesmans.h.i.+p with which Burke discusses conciliation with the colonies is of like quality with this magnanimous spirit of Alexander.

One who reads receptively Emerson's "The Fortune of the Republic" will open his eyes on two opposite but closely related ideas, the serious faults,--the low political tone, the materialism, the spread-eagle strut and slovenly mediocrity of much in American life,--and over against this the splendid promise, manliness, and intense idealism of our national life. To work out this conception in the brains of young people and let it kindle their hearts with some true glow of patriotism, is the highest form of teaching. Such instruction would convert every schoolhouse into a true temple of freedom and patriotism.

But in order to reach these results both teachers and pupils must put their minds to the stretch of earnest work. In the introduction to the above-named essay of Emerson, in the "Riverside Literature Series,"

occurs the following interesting and suggestive pa.s.sage: "Yet many of his most notable addresses were given before audiences of young men and women, and out of the great body of his writings it is not difficult to find many pa.s.sages which go straight to the intelligence of boys and girls in school. The plan of this series forbids the use of extracts, or many numbers might be filled with striking and appropriate pa.s.sages from Emerson's writings; but there are certain essays and addresses which, though they may contain some knotty sentences, are in the main so interesting to boys and girls who have begun to think, they are so inspiring and yield so much to any one who will take a little trouble to use his mind, that it is obviously desirable to bring them in convenient form to the attention of schools. Some of the best things in literature we can get only by digging for them; and there is great satisfaction in reading again and again masterpieces like the essays in this collection, with a fresh pleasure in each reading as new ideas spring up in the mind of the attentive reader."

It will be a day rich in promise and fruitful of great things when the general body of our teachers take hold of our great American cla.s.sics in this determined spirit, treating them as wholes and grasping firmly the essential fundamental ideas.

2. It is in the thought-a.n.a.lysis of a reading lesson that a teacher's wit and wisdom are brought to the severest test. The words of Shakespeare may be applied to the teacher:--

"A prince most prudent, of an excellent And unmatched wit and judgment."

There is much danger of wasting time in formal questions, questions striking no spark of interest, questions on familiar words that really need no elucidation, vague and unpremeditated questions that make no forward step. Simple, far-reaching questions, which touch the pupils'

deeper thoughtfulness in preparing the lesson and stimulate his self-active effort, are needed. If the teacher has become keenly interested, he will ask more telling questions. If he has probed into the author's secret,--the thing which he has been hinting at and only gives occasional glimpses of to whet your curiosity,--he will discover that thought-getting is almost a tantalizing process with great writers.

The teacher must spur and almost tantalize the children with a similar shrewdness of question.

Problem-raising questions, involving thoughtful retrospect and shrewd antic.i.p.ation, questions which cannot be answered offhand but lead on to a deeper study, are at a premium. Ruskin says:--

"And, therefore, first of all, I tell you earnestly and authoritatively (I know I am right in this), you must get into the habit of looking intensely at words and a.s.suring yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable,--nay, letter by letter." Again he says, of a well-educated gentleman, that "above all he is learned in the peerage of words; knows the words of true descent and ancient blood at a glance from words of modern canaille."

In order to make his thought unmistakable, I quote at length a pa.s.sage from Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies":--

"And now, merely for example's sake, I will, with your permission, read a few lines of a true book with you, carefully; and see what will come out of them. I will take a book perfectly known to you all; no English words are more familiar to us, yet nothing perhaps has been less read with sincerity. I will take these few following lines of 'Lycidas':--

"'Last came, and last did go, The pilot of the Galilean lake; Two ma.s.sy keys he bore of metals twain, (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain), He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake, How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain, Enow of such as for their bellies' sake Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold: Of other care they little reckoning make, Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest; Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else, the least That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs!

What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; And when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread; Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said.'

"Let us think over this pa.s.sage, and examine its words.

"First, is it not singular to find Milton a.s.signing to St. Peter, not only his full episcopal function, but the very types of it which Protestants usually refuse most pa.s.sionately? His 'mitred' locks! Milton was no Bishop-lover; how comes St. Peter to be 'mitred'? 'Two ma.s.sy keys he bore.' Is this, then, the power of the keys claimed by the Bishops of Rome, and is it acknowledged here by Milton only in a poetical license, for the sake of its picturesqueness; that he may get the gleam of the golden keys to help his effect? Do not think it. Great men do not play stage tricks with doctrines of life and death: only little men do that.

Milton means what he says; and means it with his might, too,--is going to put the whole strength of his spirit presently into the saying of it.