Special Method in the Reading of Complete English Classics Part 2

Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies." The power and charm of Ruskin's writing appears in full measure in these essays.

Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship," especially the chapters on "The Hero as Poet," and "The Hero as Man of Letters."

Sh.e.l.ley's "Defence of Poetry" (edited by Cook, and published by Ginn & Co.) is a literary masterpiece of rare beauty and charm.

Emerson's "Essay on History."

George Willis Cooke, "Poets and Problems" (Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.).

The first chapter, "The Poet as Teacher," is very suggestive, while the chapters on Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning are fine introductions for those who will study the authors themselves.

"The Book Lover," James Baldwin (McClurg & Co.).

Charles Kingsley's "Literary and General Essays" (Macmillan & Co.).

Chapter on "English Literature," and others.

Scudder's "Literature in Schools" (Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.). Excellent for teachers.

J. C. Shairp, "On Poetic Interpretation of Nature" (Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.).

Matthew Arnold's "Sweetness and Light."

Lowell's "Books and Libraries" (Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.).

Edmund Clarence Stedman's "The Nature and Elements of Poetry" (Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.).

It is not implied that even the essays of critics on the merits of literature can take the place of a study of the works of the best writers.

CHAPTER II

THE USE OF MASTERPIECES AS WHOLES

With the increasing tendency to consider the literary quality and fitness of the reading matter used in our schools, longer poems and stories, like "Snow Bound," "Rip Van Winkle," "Hiawatha," "Aladdin,"

"The Courtship of Miles Standish," "The Great Stone Face," and even "Lady of the Lake" and "Julius Caesar," are read and studied as complete wholes. Many of the books now used as readers are not collections of short selections and extracts, as formerly, but editions of single poems, or kindred groups, like "Sohrab and Rustum," or the "Arabian Nights," or "Gulliver's Travels," or a collection of a few complete stories or poems of a single author, as Hawthorne's "Stories of the White Hills," or Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal," and other poems. Even the regular series of readers are often made up largely of longer poems and prose masterpieces.

The significance of this change is the deeper regard which is being paid to good literature as a strong agency of true culture. The real thought and the whole thought of the best authors is sought for, presupposing, of course, that they are within the range of the children's comprehension. The reading books of a generation ago contained oftentimes just as choice literary materials as now; but the chief purpose of its selection was to give varied exercise in oral reading, not to cultivate a taste for good literature by furnishing complete poetic and prose specimens for full and enthusiastic study. The teachers who lay stress on elocutionary skill are not quite satisfied with this drift toward literary study as such. It remains to be seen how both aims, good oral rendering and superior literary training, can be secured at the same time.

At the close of the last chapter of this volume we give a carefully selected series of the literary materials adapted to the different grades. This body of selections, taken from a wide range of literature, will const.i.tute a basis for our whole treatise. Having made plain by our previous discussion what we understand by the quality of literary masterpieces, we will next consider why these poems and stories should be read and studied as complete wholes, not by fragments or by extracts, but as whole works of literary art.

1. A stronger interest is developed by the study, for several weeks, of a longer complete masterpiece. The interest grows as we move into such a story or poem as "Sohrab and Rustum." A longer and closer acquaintance with the characters represented produces a stronger personal sympathy, as in the case of Cordelia in "King Lear," or of Silas Marner. The time usually spent in school upon some cla.s.sic fragment or selection is barely sufficient to start up an interest. It does not bring us past the threshold of a work of art. We drop it just at the point where the momentum of interest begins to show itself. Think of the full story of Aladdin or Crusoe or Ulysses. Take an extract from "Lady of the Lake,"

"Rip Van Winkle," "Evangeline." The usual three or four pages given in the reader, even if taken from the first part, would scarcely suffice to bring the children into the movement of the story; but oftentimes the fragment is extracted from the body of the play without preliminary or sequence. In reading a novel, story, or poem, we do not begin to feel strongly this interest till two or three chapters are pa.s.sed. Then it begins to deepen, the plot thickens, and a desire springs up to follow out the fortune of the characters. We become interested in the persons, and our thoughts are busy with them in the midst of other employments or in leisure moments. The personality of the hero takes hold of us as that of an intimate friend. Such an interest, gradually awakened and deepened as we move into the comprehension of a work of art, is the open sesame to all the riches of an author's storehouse of thought.

This kind of interest presupposes in the children the ability to appreciate and enjoy the thought, and even the style, of the author.

Interest in this sense is a fundamental test of the suitableness of the story or poem to lay hold of the inner life of the children. In many cases there will be difficulties at the outset in awakening this genuine form of interest, but if the selection is appropriate, the preparation and skill of the teacher will be equal to its accomplishment.

As we get deeper into the study of masterpieces, we shall discover that there are stronger and deepening sources of a genuine interest. Even the difficulties and problems which are supposed to dampen interest will be found, with proper study, to be the source of a stronger appreciation and enthusiasm. The refining and strengthening of these interests in literature leads on steadily to the final goal of study, a cultivated taste and habit of using the best books.

2. A complete work of a master writer is a unit of thought. It is almost as complete a whole as a living organism. Its parts, like the branches of a tree, have no vitality except in communication with the living trunk. In the "Vision of Sir Launfal," there is a single thought, like a golden thread, running through the poem, which gives unity and perfection to it. The separate parts of the poem have very great intrinsic beauty and charm, but their deeper and more vital relation is to this central thought. The story of "The Great Stone Face" is the grouping of a series of interesting episodes along the path of a single developing motive in the life of Ernest. A great writer would scarcely waste his time in trying to produce a work of art without a controlling motive, collecting his thought, as it were, around a vacuum. This hub-thought must become the centre of all intelligent study. The effort to unravel the motive of the author is the deeper stimulus of thoughtful work by both teacher and pupils.

In other studies, like geography, history, and natural science, we are gradually picking out the important units of study, the centres of thought and interest, the types. This effort to escape from the wilderness of jumbled and fractional details into the sunlit region of controlling ideas, is a substantial sign of progress in the teacher's work. In literature these units have been already wrought out into perfect wholes by first-cla.s.s thinkers.

In the greatest of all studies, the works of the literary masters, we have the surest models of inspiring thought, organized and focussed upon essential topics. Teachers, in some cases, are so little accustomed to lift their heads above the tall gra.s.s and weeds around them, that they are overtaken by surprise and bewilderment when called upon to take broad and liberal surveys of the topography of school studies.

It is fortunate that we have, within the fenced boundaries of the commonly recognized school course, these shining specimens of organized, and, what we might call, intelligent thought.

We can set the children at work digging for the root-thoughts of those who are the masters of strong thinking. This digging process is not wholly out of place with children. Their abundant energy can be turned to digging if there is anything worth digging for. Ruskin, in "Sesame and Lilies," says:--

"And it is just the same with men's best wisdom. When you come to a good book, you must ask yourself: 'Am I inclined to work as an Australian miner would? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order, and am I in good trim myself, my sleeves well up to the elbow, and my breath good, and my temper?' And, keeping the figure a little longer, even at cost of tiresomeness, for it is a thoroughly useful one, the metal you are in search of, being the author's mind or meaning, his words are as the rock which you have to crush and smelt in order to get at it. And your pickaxes are your own care, wit and learning; your smelting furnace is your own thoughtful soul. Do not hope to get at any good author's meaning without those tools and that fire; often you will need sharpest, finest chiselling, and patientest fusing, before you can gather one grain of the metal."

It is not the dreamy, hammock-soothing, vacation idling with pleasant stories that we are now considering. This happy lotus-land has also its fitting season, in the sultry heats of summer, when tired people put their minds out to gra.s.s. Any study will grow dull and sleepy that lacks energy.

Teachers who shrink back with anxiety lest works such as Irving's "Sketch Book," "Evangeline," "Merchant of Venice," and "Marmion," are too hard for children in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, should consider for a moment what cla.s.sical preparatory schools for centuries have required of boys from ten to twelve years of age, the study of "Caesar," "Eutropius," and "Virgil," of "Herodotus" and "Xenophon," in unknown languages extremely difficult to master. Yet it has been claimed for ages, by the best scholars, that this was the true strength-producing discipline for boys. It would hardly be extravagant to say that the masterpieces of literature now used, in our intermediate and grammar grades, are not a quarter so difficult and four times as appropriate and interesting as the Latin and Greek authors just cited.

It seems obvious that we are summoned to a more energetic study and treatment of our masterpieces.

This struggle to get at the deeper undercurrent of thought in an author is the true stimulus and discipline of such studies.

A great author approaches his deeper thought step by step. He has many side-lights, variety of episode and preliminary. He provides for the proper scenery and setting for his thought. He does not bring us at once, point blank, upon his hero or upon the hero's fate. There is great variety of inference and suggestion in the preparation and grouping of the artist's work. As in climbing some mountain peak, we wind through canon, along rugged hillsides and spurs, only now and then catching a glimpse of the towering object of our climb, reaching, after many a devious and toilsome march, the rugged backbone of the giant; so the poet carries us along many a winding road, through byways and thickets, over hill and plain, before he brings us into full view of the main object of search. But after awhile we do stand face to face with a real character, and are conscious of the framework upon which it is built. King Saul has run his course and is about to reap the reward of his doings, to lie down in the bed which he has prepared. We see the author's deeper plan, and realize that his characters act along the line of the silent but invincible laws of social life and conduct. These deep significant truths of human experience do not lie upon the surface. If we are really to get a deep insight into human character, as portrayed by the masters, we must not be in haste. We should be willing to follow our guide patiently and await results.

A complete masterpiece, studied as a whole, reveals the author's power.

It gives some adequate perception of his style and compa.s.s. A play, a poem, a novel, a biography, is a unit. No single part can give a satisfactory idea of the whole. A single scene from "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."

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 ill.u.s.trates 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 pa.s.sage, 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 Caesar.

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 entangles himself 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 cla.s.sic 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 ma.s.ses, 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 Scotch scenery and geography, of mountain or valley, of frowning castle or rocky coast, much of Scotch tradition, custom, superst.i.tion, 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.