me:

The first thing I noticed in reading the extract was the perfect rhythm. You cannot read the extract without wanting to say it aloud. Then the choice of words struck "The sheen of their spears ; "“when summer is green." It is hard for me to distinguish workmanship, thought, and imagination. I cannot tell whether the words and metaphors used in the extract were the result of deliberate choice and of long thought; but I strongly suspect that he saw the whole thing in his imagination, and the words just came to him. It is hard to understand how anything that reads so smoothly could have been written with labor. The strongest point of the extract seems to be its richness in illustration 66 : The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold." No long, detailed description could explain better the wildness of such an attack, the sudden swoop of some half-barbaric horde, striking suddenly, and then disappearing into the night. "The sheen of the spears was like stars on the sea.' "The flash from a spear would be just such a gleam as the reflected star from the crest of a wave, visible for a moment and then gone.

Some of its excellent points of workmanship are melody and selection of words. The melody is excellent. It has a soothing effect when read aloud, and there is not a place where one would hesitate in regard to the accenting of words. I believe the melody is so good that a person only knowing the pronunciation of the first line could almost read the rest of it correctly because the sound of each line is so closely connected with that of all other lines. The selection of words is very good. There is not a place where a substitution could be made which would improve the meaning, sense, or melody. The extract shows great thought. In the last paragraph especially where the Assyrians are compared to

the leaves of summer and in autumn. No better thought could bring out more clearly how badly the host was defeated. In the first paragraph it also compares the Assyrians to a wolf coming down upon a fold. This again gives a definite idea, and seems to point out how confident they were of victory. The imagination is very vivid. You can almost think you were on the field and that all the events were taking place before you.

I have copied these partly to emphasize the point that it is idle to expect too much, and partly to illustrate the form in which genuine perception is likely to work out upon a school examinationpaper. These have not been chosen as the best papers written, but each is good because each shows sincere opinion.

This sort of question is of course in the line of what is constantly done in class, but it is after all a different thing when it is made to emphasize the idea that an examination is a test of the power x to appreciate literature instead of an exercise of memory.

ΧΙ

THE STUDY OF PROSE

METHOD in teaching is properly the adaptation of the personality of a given teacher to the personality of a given class. It cannot be defined by hard and fast rules, and the only value in presenting such illustrations as the following is that they may afford hints which teachers will be able with advantage to develop in terms of their own individuality. The way that is wise in one is never to be set down as the way best for another; and here as elsewhere I offer not a model but simply an illustration. If it suggest, it has fulfilled a better purpose than if it were taken blindly as a rigid guide.

My own feeling would be that classes in literature should be provided with nothing but the bare text, without notes of any kind unless with a glossary of terms not to be found in available books of reference. In the matter of looking up difficulties the books of reference in the school library should be used; and if the school has no library beyond the dictionary, I should still hold to my opinion. The vocabulary may be very largely worked out with any fairly comprehensive dictionary, and what cannot be discovered in this way is better taken viva

voce in recitation than swallowed from notes without even the trouble of asking. Much will be done, moreover, by the not unhealthy spirit of emulation which is sure to exist where the pupils are set to use their wits and to report the result in class. They will remember much better; and, what in general education is of the very first importance, they will have admirable practice in the use of books of reference. Many difficulties must be explained by the teacher; but this, I insist, is better than the following of notes, a habit which is sure to degenerate into lifeless memorizing. The model text for school use would be cut in those few passages not suited for the school-room, would be clearly printed, and would be as free as possible from any outside matter whatever. In the case of poetry the ideal method would be to keep the text out of the hands of the student altogether until all work necessary to the mastering of the vocabulary • had been done: but in practice such voluntary reading as a pupil chose to do beforehand would do no harm other than possibly to distract his attention from the learning of the meaning of words and phrases. In prose he will generally be in a key which allows the interruption of a pause for looking up words without much injury to the effect of the work.

The study of prose is of course directed by the same principles as that of poetry, but the application is in school-work somewhat modified in details. In the first place the vocabulary of any prose used

in the schools is not likely to contain obsolete words such as are found in Shakespeare, and in the second place the length of a novel forbids its being read aloud in class in its entirety. I have taken my illustrations chiefly from books included in the College Requirements, because these books are the ones with which the majority of teachers are obliged to work. The Sir Roger de Coverley papers are sure to be taken up in any school-room where literature is studied to-day, and Burke “On Conciliation" is one of the inevitable obstacles in the way of every boy who wishes to enter college. Whatever the work, however, the important thing is that each pupil shall understand, shall appreciate, and shall connect what he reads with his own life.

The order in which different works are taken up in class is a matter of much moment. No rules can be given arbitrarily to govern the arrangement of the readings, since much depends upon the individual class to be dealt with. On general principles, for instance, it might seem that Burke's "Speech," as being the least imaginative of the prescribed work, might well come first; but on the other hand, the argument demands intellectual capacity and maturity which will often require that it be not put before a given group of scholars until they have had all the training they can gain from the other requirements. A teacher can hardly afford to have any rule in the whole treatment of literature which is not so flexible that it may be modified or