Literature in the Elementary School Part 13

"My Garden Acquaintance," Warner.

"The Goblin Market," Christina Rossetti.

"Each and All," Emerson.

"Hart-leap Well," Wordsworth.

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," Wordsworth.

"The Splendor Falls," Tennyson.

"The Revenge," Tennyson.

"Etin the Forester," Folk Ballad.

"Thomas Rymer," Folk Ballad.

Anyone who has read these eighteen chapters should find himself provided with a set of maxims and injunctions among which will be the following:

1. Choose the literature for the children under the guidance of those principles by which you test any literature.

2. Remember that literature is art; it must be taught as art, and the result should be an artistic one.

3. Never teach a thing you do not love and admire. But learn to suspect that when you do not love it the fault is in you, and is curable.

4. According to the best light you have, choose those things that are fitted for the children--corresponding to their experience, or awakening in them experiences you would like them to have.

5. Teach your chosen bit of literature according to its nature and genius. Study it so sympathetically that you can follow its hints, and make its emphases. Teach each piece for its characteristic effect, and do not try to teach everything in any one piece.

6. Be contented to read with the children a limited number of things.

You cannot read every delightful and helpful thing. You can only introduce them to literature and teach them to love it.

7. When you have led your cla.s.s, or half your cla.s.s, into a vital and personal love of literature and set their feet on the long path of the reader's joy, you have done them the best service you can perform as a teacher of literature.

FINISH