THE TEACHING OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

THE

IX.

HOW TO TEACH LITERATURE.

BY ELLEN E. KENYON, BROOKLYN.

HERE is a saying that "human nature is human nature the world over." The truth of this as it stands is indisputable. Of course, human nature is human nature. If it weren't, it wouldn't be human nature. But while human nature is a unit, it is a unit of growth, and has its historical aspect. There is human nature in the bud, human nature in the blossom, and human nature in the ripened fruit. There is also human nature nipped in the bud, and nipped all the way along, so that but a small proportion of it, as yet, attains the stage of ripeness.

What is literature? A record left by human nature, either in its final attainment or at certain points in growth where it stopped, grew painfully big with the stoppage and found relief in expression.

What is it in relation to the student? A means of leading him in its own direction, if not to its own ends.

How shall it take hold of him? By meeting him on his own level and following the natural order of growth with him no faster than he can grow.

What is the order of growth? That of evolution in the race. Dr. C. Wesley Emerson puts it very plainly in the following four periods into which he divides the growth of art: First, the colossal; second, the effective; third, the true; fourth, the suggestive. Just as the works of the earlier races evince no admiration of anything more admirable than the large and powerful, so, if your pupil is a little boy, he loves giant stories and tales of mighty heroes. Just as the nations succeeding those makers of pyramids and colossal statues reveled in fantastic incongruities, as the centaur, etc., so, if your pupil has entered the second stage of growth, he wants the marvelous in fiction the fairy tale, for instance. Just as the Greeks worshipped the true in representa

1 Copyright, 1889, by Eastern Educational Bureau.

tion and attained it to so remarkable a degree, if your pupil has passed into this period, he wants to find in his reading apt penpictures of experiences similar to his own, or intelligible histories and biographies. Just as the highest development of art is in its suggestiveness, by which alone it can point either upward or downward, so, if your pupil has outlived his passion for the real, he wants no longer the whole material truth, but enough of the material truth to suggest something indefinite and spiritual.

It is likely that your pupil is in the third or fourth stage. If in the third, he has not quite lost his taste for representations of the supernaturally powerful and fantastic, unless he has been starved or surfeited during the periods of their natural predominence in his imagination. Something from the Iliad and Paradise Lost, followed by something from the Greek and German mythologies would not be a bad introduction to the new study, if literature as a study is new to him. If he does not become spontaneously interested in these, give him a brief history of those primitive nations whose highest admiration was for the spectacular and give these selections as examples of what most thoroughly pleased those simple people. This will be true, and, by appealing to his taste for the real, will chain his interest.

Such an introduction, extending the history and introduction a little farther, will be appropriate also if your pupil has reached the fourth stage and wants the suggestive. In that case, make your narrative as suggestive as you can, and dwell on it a longer or a shorter time according to the poor or the good quality of the pupil's former reading. If he has read well previously he can the more rapidly pass to the suggestive works of modern literature.

Prof. Daniel Dorchester, of the Boston University, approaches the subject of English Literature through a broad historical and critical review of art. Of course, his pupils are somewhat advanced in the fourth stage of development. It is almost impossible to guess what he would do with an elementary class or a fashionable class, his instruction is of so high an order, and his assumption of previous literary culture on the part of the students so confident. He treats the arts in the order of their scope and intensity of expressive power. Architecture, with its vague expressiveness (as of aspiration, in the spires and domes of the cathedral), depending on "the combination in accordance with mathematical laws" of the heaviest material; sculpture, also

dependent upon clay and stone, and limited to instantaneous views of isolated life and action; painting, with its freedom from the laws of gravity, its power of grouping and its possibilities of color and background; music, with its continuous tale but fleeting breath, having "no relation to space and but a single point of contact with time," yet addressing the spirit so powerfully, as though in the spirit's own language; poetry, presenting to the imagination all that the other arts, more limited by their media, do to the eye and ear, yet lacking the power that painting has of presenting simultaneously all the parts of a picture such, in brief, is the course of Professor Dorchester's introduction to the critical study of English Literature. It remains to be said, however, that he dwells upon the suggestive power of all the arts in turn. His tuition is peculiarly adapted to the highest class of students, teachers of English literature, for instance, but is calculated also to draw persons several planes below upward toward an appreciation of classics they never dreamed of attaining.

How much of this high class instruction is practicable in any given instance cannot be determined by the teacher until she has placed herself in perfect sympathy with her pupils. Do not attempt to show them a higher heaven than they have grown to. Meet them on their own plane and lead them gently upward.

HYGIENIC CONDITIONS DESIRABLE FOR A WRITING LESSON.

BY A. E. CHACE, BOSTON NORMAL SCHOOL.

SOME hygienic considerations apply equally well at all times

and in all places; some, though of general import, receive additional emphasis during a writing-lesson; while others still arise from the nature of the lesson itself.

The most general consideration is that of the air; it should be pure, slightly moist, but not damp, and of even temperature.

On this account, the building itself should be so situated that no noxious vapors arise from its surroundings, that the air may circulate freely about it, and that, during some part of the day, the sun may shine directly upon it. The drainage of the building should be perfect. Doors leading to basements into which water

closets open should be kept shut during school hours. When heated air is sent into the school room, care should be taken that the air to be heated is taken from out-of-doors. No sinks should be allowed in the schoolroom. Doors from the school room to the dressing room should be closed while school is in session. The air of the school room should be kept free from contamination by soiled desk covers, slate cloths and sponges, soiled clothing and unclean bodies, from remnants of luncheon, stagnant water in vases, decaying flowers and dead leaves of plants, from floating chalk dust, and all other avoidable impurities; and vitalized by the frequent presence of direct sunlight.

The room should be large enough to allow from three to six hundred cubic feet of air space for each occupant. Means should be provided for introducing about ten cubic feet of air per minute for each person and for the removal of a like amount of vitiated air. The fresh air should enter the room in such a way as not to cause a cold current to blow upon any individual.

The temperature should be kept as nearly as possible at 68°F. and not allowed to drop below 65°F. nor rise above 70°F. Too great heat produces extreme lassitude, headaches, and sometimes Habitual exposure to high temperatures often affects the

nausea.

heart injuriously.

The clothing of the pupils should fit easily to allow perfect freedom of the respiratory organs and to prevent any constraint on change of position.

The time chosen for the lesson should not be immediately after the pupils have been engaged in violent exercise, as the hand is then scarcely steady enough to accomplish the best results. Nor, in general, should the time be late in the day because of the lack of light. On dark days the lesson should be omitted.

The light in the room should be steady, free from an over-proportion of red or yellow rays, and sufficient to enable each pupil to see without conscious effort both his own work and the copy.

The light must not strike into the pupil's eyes, but upon his work. The source of the light must be high enough or far enough at the side, to prevent casting the pupil's shadow upon his work; to avoid the shadow of the hand, it is preferable for the light to come from the left.

The position assumed must necessarily depend somewhat upon the arrangement of the light. Provided the right conditions for

that can be secured, probably the most comfortable position is with the right side towards the desk, as the arm can then more easily be rested on the desk. Any position, however, which requires pupils to face the light is to be condemned.

Care must be taken that the seat be low enough to allow the whole foot to rest comfortably upon the floor, or upon some support; otherwise, the pressure of the chair upon the under side of the thigh brings on temporary numbness through acting upon the nerves, and interferes with the circulation in such a way as to cause permanent injury to the veins of the legs if the pressure is habitual.

Besides, inability to rest the feet tends to induce a habit of twisting the ankles into unnatural positions, thereby weakening them and making them more easily sprained.

The desk should be high enough not to press upon the child's knees when he faces it; low enough to enable him to rest his forearm without thrusting up the shoulder, and so causing the right shoulder to become higher than the left, and the spinal column to receive a lateral curvature. The distance between desk and chair should not be great enough to require the child to bend forward or sideways to reach it. Lateral curvature of the spine may be induced by the latter, and posterior curvature by the former habit. On the other hand the desk must not be so near as to press against the child when the writing is held appropriately near the edge. Such pressure will affect the lungs, and also, in some instances, the heart and stomach, according to the relative height of the desk and the writing position assumed.

The body should be erect to avoid cramping the lungs and for reasons before indicated. The head should be inclined slightly forward in order to bring the eyes into such a position that a line perpendicular to the written surface may strike the eye near the centre of the pupil. If the head is not bent, the eyeballs themselves must be turned downward abnormally. This would require too strong a contraction of the lower straight muscle of the eye which would then increase so largely in diameter as to cause uncomfortable pressure upon the eyeball and disturb the internal parts. It is particularly necessary, on this account, that the neck be loosely clothed. If the head is unduly bent, if the neck is tightly dressed, or if high, stiff collars are worn, the pressure upon the large veins of the neck will impede the return of blood from