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The gradual introduction of the choicer products of literature into the grades of the common school has been going on for several years. Bringing the school children face to face with the thoughts of the masters has had often a thrilling effect, and the feeling has spread among teachers that a new door has been opened into what Ruskin calls "The King's Gardens." As we stand at this open portal to the Elysian Fields of literature, there may fall upon us something of the beauty, something even of the solemn stillness, of the arched cathedral with its golden windows. But how inadequate is the Gothic cathedral, or the Greek temple, to symbolize the temple of literature.

Within less than a score of years there has been such reading of varied literary masterpieces by children as to bring us face to face with a problem of prime significance in education, the place and importance of literature in the education of American children.

Millions of children are introduced yearly to bookland, and it is a matter of greater importance than what Congress does, what provision is made for these oncoming millions in the sunlit fields and forest glades of literature, where the boys and girls walk in happy companionship with the "wisest and wittiest" of our race. We have now had enough experience with these treasures of culture to get a real foretaste of the feast prepared for the growing youth. We know that their appetites are keen and their digestive powers strong. It is incumbent upon educators to get a comprehensive survey of this land and to estimate its resources. Other fields of study, like natural science, geography, music, etc., are undergoing the same scrutiny as to their educative value. Literature, certainly a peer in the hierarchy of great studies, if not supreme in value above others, is one of the most difficult to estimate. Tangible proofs of the vital culture-force of good literature upon growing minds can be given in many individual cases. But to what degree it has general or universal fitness to awaken, strengthen, and refine all minds, is in dispute.

It seems clear, at least, that only those who show taste and enthusiasm for a choice piece of literature can teach it with success. This requirement of appreciation and enjoyment of the study is more imperative in literature, because its appeal is not merely to the intellect and the reason, as in other studies, but especially to the emotions and higher æsthetic judgments, to moral and religious sentiment in ideal representation.

It has been often observed that discussions of the superior educative value of literature before bodies of teachers, while entertaining and delightful, fall far short of lasting results because of the teachers' narrow experience with literature. In the case of many teachers, the primitive alphabet of literary appreciation is lacking, and the most enthusiastic appeals to the charm and exaltation of such studies fall harmless. Yet literature in the schools is hopeless without teachers who have felt at home in this delightsome land, this most real world of ideal strength and beauty.

The discussion of the subject for teachers is beset, therefore, with peculiar and seemingly insurmountable difficulties. The strength, charm, and refinement of literature are known only to those who have read the masters with delight, while even people of cultured taste listen doubtfully to the praise of authors they have never read. To one enamoured of the music of Tennyson's songs, the very suggestion of "In Memoriam" awakens enthusiasm. To one who has not read Tennyson and his like, silence on the subject is golden. To those not much travelled in the fields of literature, there is danger of speaking in an unknown tongue, while they, of all others, need a plain and convincing word. To speak this plain and convincing word to those who may have acquired but little relish for literature, and that little only in the fragmentary selections of the school readers, is a high and difficult aim. But teachers are willing to learn, and to discover new sources of enthusiasm in their profession. It is probable, also, that the original capacity to enjoy great literature is much more common than is often supposed, and that the great average of teachers is quite capable of receiving this powerful stimulus. The fact is, our common schools have done so little, till of late, to cultivate this fine taste, that we have faint reason to expect it in our teachers.

Overwhelmed as we are with the folly of indulging in the praise of literature before many whose ears have been but poorly attuned to the sweet melody or majestic rhythm of the masters, we still make bold to grapple with this argument. There is surely no subject to which the teachers need more to open their eyes and ears and better nature, so as to take in the enrichment it affords. There is encouragement in the fact that many teachers fully appreciate the worth of these writers, and have succeeded in making their works beautiful and educative to the children. Very many other teachers are capable of the full refreshing enjoyment of classic works, when their attention and labor are properly expended upon them. The colleges, universities, high schools, and normal schools have largely abandoned the dull epitomizing of literature, the talk about authors, for the study of the works themselves of the masters. The consequence is, that the study of literature in English is becoming an enthusiasm, and teachers of this type are multiplying.

The deeper causes for this widespread lack of literary appreciation among the people, and even among teachers and scholars, is found partly in the practical, scientific, and utilitarian spirit of the age, and partly in the corresponding unliterary courses of study which have prevailed everywhere in our common schools. The absence of literary standards and taste among teachers is due largely to the failure of the schools themselves, hitherto, to cultivate this sort of proficiency. Those very qualities which give to literature its supreme excellence, its poetic beauty, its artistic finish and idealism, are among the highest fruits of culture, and are far more difficult of attainment than mere knowledge. It is no small thing to introduce the rarest and finest culture of the world into the common school, and thus propagate, in the broadest democratic fashion, that which is the peculiar, superior refinement of the choicest spirits of the world. If progress in this direction is slow, we may remember that the best ideals are slow of attainment.

There is also an intangible quality in all first-class literature, which is not capable of exact description or demonstration. George Willis Cooke, in "Poets and Problems" (pp. 31–32), says:—

"Poetry enters into those higher regions of human experience concerning which no definite account can be given; where all words fail; about which all we know is to be obtained by hints, symbols, poetic figures, and imagings. Poetry is truer and more helpful than prose, because it penetrates those regions of feeling, beauty, and spiritual reality, where definitions have no place or justification. There would be no poetry if life were limited to what we can understand; nor would there be any religion. Indeed, the joy, the beauty, and the promise of life would all be gone if there were nothing which reaches beyond our powers of definition. The mystery of existence makes the grandeur and worth of man's nature, as it makes for him his poetry and his religion. Poetry suggests, hints, images forth, what is too wonderful, too transcendent, too near primal reality, too full of life, beauty, and joy, for explanation or comprehension. It embodies man's longing after the Eternal One, expresses his sense of the deep mystery of Being, voices his soul sorrow, illumines his path with hope and objects of beauty. Man's aspiration, his sense of imperfection, his yearning for a sustaining truth and reality, as the life within and over all things, find expression in poetry; because it offers the fittest medium of interpretation for these higher movements of soul. Whenever the soul feels deeply, or is stirred by a great thought, the poetic form of utterance at once becomes the most natural and desirable for its loving and faithful interpretation."

This intangible excellence of superior literature, which defies all exact measurement by the yardstick, puzzles the practical man and the scientist. There is no way of getting at it with their tools and measurements. They are very apt to give it up in disgust and dismiss it with some uncomplimentary name. But Shakespeare's mild reign continues, and old Homer sings his deathless song to those who wish to hear.

Teachers need both the exact methods of science and the spiritual life of the poets, and we may well spend some pains in finding out the life-giving properties of good literature.

Lowell, in his "Books and Libraries," says:—

"To wash down the drier morsels that every library must necessarily offer at its board, let there be plenty of imaginative literature, and let its range be not too narrow to stretch from Dante to the elder Dumas. The world of the imagination is not the world of abstraction and nonentity, as some conceive, but a world formed out of chaos by a sense of the beauty that is in man and the earth on which he dwells. It is the realm of Might-be, our haven of refuge from the shortcomings and disillusions of life. It is, to quote Spenser, who knew it well—

"'The world's sweet inn from care and wearisome turmoil.' Do we believe, then, that God gave us in mockery this splendid faculty of sympathy with things that are a joy forever? For my part, I believe that the love and study of works of imagination is of practical utility in a country so profoundly material (or, as we like to call it, practical) in its leading tendencies as ours. The hunger after purely intellectual delights, the content with ideal possessions, cannot but be good for us in maintaining a wholesome balance of the character and of the faculties. I for one shall never be persuaded that Shakespeare left a less useful legacy to his countrymen than Watt. We hold all the deepest, all the highest, satisfactions of life as tenants of imagination. Nature will keep up the supply of what are called hard-headed people without our help, and, if it come to that, there are other as good uses for heads as at the end of battering-rams."

"But have you ever rightly considered what the mere ability to read means? That it is the key which admits us to the whole world of thought and fancy and imagination? to the company of saint and sage, of the wisest and wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moments? That it enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time? More than that, it annihilates time and space for us; it revives for us without a miracle the Age of Wonder, endowing us with the shoes of swiftness and the cap of darkness, so that we walk invisible like fern-seed, and witness unharmed the plague at Athens or Florence or London; accompany Cæsar on his marches, or look in on Catiline in council with his fellow-conspirators, or Guy Fawkes in the cellar of St. Stephen's. We often hear of people who will descend to any servility, submit to any insult, for the sake of getting themselves or their children into what is euphemistically called good society. Did it ever occur to them that there is a select society of all the centuries to which they and theirs can be admitted for the asking, a society, too, which will not involve them in ruinous expense, and still more ruinous waste of time and health and faculties?

"The riches of scholarship, the benignities of literature, defy fortune and outlive calamity. They are beyond the reach of thief or moth or rust. As they cannot be inherited, so they cannot be alienated. But they may be shared, they may be distributed."

This notion of the select companionship of books finds also happy expression in Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies":—

"We may intrude ten minutes' talk on a cabinet minister, answered probably with words worse than silence, being deceptive; or snatch, once or twice in our lives, the privilege of throwing a bouquet in the path of a princess, or arresting the kind glance of a queen. And yet these momentary chances we covet; and spend our years, and passions, and powers in pursuit of little more than these; while, meantime, there is a society continually open to us, of people who will talk to us as long as we like, whatever our rank or occupation;—talk to us in the best words they can choose, and with thanks if we listen to them. And this society, because it is so numerous and so gentle—and can be kept waiting round us all day long, not to grant audience, but to gain it; kings and statesmen lingering patiently in those plainly furnished and narrow anterooms, our bookcase shelves—we make no account of that company—perhaps never listen to a word they would say, all day long!

"This court of the past differs from all living aristocracy in this: it is open to labor and to merit, but to nothing else. No wealth will bribe, no name overawe, no artifice deceive, the guardian of those Elysian gates. In the deep sense, no vile or vulgar person ever enters there. At the portières of that silent Faubourg St.-Germain, there is but brief question, 'Do you deserve to enter?' 'Pass. Do you ask to be the companions of nobles? Make yourself noble, and you shall be. Do you long for the conversation of the wise? Learn to understand it, and you shall hear it. But on other terms?—no. If you will not rise to us, we cannot stoop to you. The living lord may assume courtesy, the living philosopher explain his thought to you with considerable pain; but here we neither feign nor interpret; you must rise to the level of our thoughts if you would be gladdened by them, and share our feelings, if you would recognize our presence.'"

Wordsworth says:—

"Books, we know,

Are a substantial world, both pure and good;

Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,

Our pastime and our happiness will grow."

Carlyle says:—

"We learn to read, in various languages, in various sciences; we learn the alphabet and letters of all manner of Books. But the place where we are to get knowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the Books themselves! It depends on what we read, after all manner of Professors have done their best for us. The true University of these days is a Collection of Books."

Were we willing to accept the testimony of great writers and thinkers, we should but too quickly acknowledge the supreme value of books. James Baldwin, in the first chapter of his "Book Lover," has collected more than a score of like utterances of great writers "In Praise of Books." Such testimony may at least suggest to some of us who have drunk but sparingly of the refreshing springs of literature, that there are better things in store for us.

We will first inquire into those vital elements of strength which are peculiar to literature.

One of the elements that goes into the make-up of a masterpiece of literature is its underlying, permanent truth. Whether written to-day or in earlier centuries, it must contain lasting qualities that do not fade away or bleach out or decay. Time and weather do not stain or destroy its merit. Some classics, as Gray's "Elegy," or "Thanatopsis," are like cut diamonds. The quality that gives them force and brilliancy is inherent, and the form in which they appear has been wrought out by an artist. The fundamental value of a classic is the deep, significant truth which, like the grain in fine woods, is wrought into its very structure. The artist who moulds a masterpiece like "Enoch Arden" or "The Scarlet Letter" is not a writer of temporary fame. The truth to which he feels impelled to give expression is strong, natural, human truth, which has no beginning and no end. It is true forever. Schiller's William Tell, though idealized, is a human hero with the hearty thoughts of a real man. Shylock is a Jew of flesh and blood, who will laugh if he is tickled, and break into anger if he is thwarted. The true poet builds upon eternal foundations. The bookmaker or rhymer is satisfied with empty or fleeting thoughts and with a passing notoriety. New books are often caught up and blazoned as classics which a few years reveal as patchwork and tinsel. Time is a sure test. Showy tinsel rusts and dulls its lustre, while simple poetic truth shines with growing brightness.

Schlegel, in his "Dramatic Art and Literature," thus contrasts the false and the true (pp. 18–19):—

"Poetry, taken in its widest acceptation, as the power of creating what is beautiful, and representing it to the eye or the ear, is a universal gift of Heaven, being shared to a certain extent even by those whom we call barbarians and savages. Internal excellence is alone decisive, and where this exists we must not allow ourselves to be repelled by the external appearance. Everything must be traced up to the root of human nature: if it has sprung from thence, it has an undoubted worth of its own; but if, without possessing a living germ, it is merely externally attached thereto, it will never thrive nor acquire a proper growth. Many productions which appear at first sight dazzling phenomena in the province of the fine arts, and which as a whole have been honored with the appellation of works of a golden age, resemble the mimic gardens of children: impatient to witness the work of their hands, they break off here and there branches and flowers, and plant them in the earth; everything at first assumes a noble appearance: the childish gardener struts proudly up and down among his showy beds, till the rootless plants begin to droop, and hang their withered leaves and blossoms, and nothing soon remains but the bare twigs, while the dark forest, on which no art or care was ever bestowed, and which towered up toward heaven long before human remembrance, bears every blast unshaken, and fills the solitary beholder with religious awe."

In his "Poets and Problems," George Willis Cooke fitly portrays the poet's function (pp. 42, 32, and 44):—

"The poet must be either a teacher or an artist; or, what is better, he may be both in one. Therefore, he can never stop at form or at what delights and charms merely. He must go on to the expression of something of deep and real abidingness of thought and beauty. This comes at last to be the real thing for which he works, which he seeks to bring into expression with such power and grandeur in it as he can produce, and which he wills to send forth for the sake of this higher impression on the world."

"Man has within him a need for the food which does not perish; he always is finding anew that he cannot live by bread alone. His mind will crave truth, his heart love, somewhat to satisfy the inward needs of life. A heavenly homesickness will draw him away from the material to those æsthetic and spiritual realities which are at the source of the truest poetry. Whenever these wants find fit interpretation, the poet and the poetic method of expression appear and give to them outward forms of beauty. Consequently the poet is

'One in whom persuasion and belief

Have ripened into faith, and faith become

A passionate intuition.'

"The true poet is the man of his time who is most alive, who feels, sees, and knows the most. In the measure of his life he is the greatest man of his age and country. His eye sees farther and more clearly; his heart beats more warmly and with a more universal sympathy; his thought runs deeper and with a swifter current, than is the case with other men. He is the oracle and guide, the inspirer and the friend, of those to whom he sings. He creates life under the ribs of dead tradition; he illumines the present with heart flames of beaconing truth, and he makes the future seem like home joys far off, but drawing ever nigher. The poet is the world's lover."

Emerson found the Greeks standing as close to nature and truth as himself ("Essay on History"):—

"The costly charm of the ancient tragedy, and indeed of all old literature, is, that the persons speak simply—speak as persons who have great good sense without knowing it, before yet the reflective habit has become the predominant habit of the mind. Our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old, but of the natural. The Greeks are not reflective, but perfect in their senses and in their health, with the finest physical organization in the world. Adults acted with the simplicity and grace of children."

In his "Defence of Poetry" Shelley says:—

"Poetry thus makes immortal all that is best and most beautiful in the world; it arrests the vanishing apparitions which haunt the interlunations of life, and, veiling them or in language or in form, sends them forth among mankind, bearing sweet news of kindred joy to those with whom their sisters abide—abide, because there is no portal of expression from the caverns of the spirit which they inhabit into the universe of things. Poetry redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity in man."

Carlyle, in his "Heroes and Hero-worship," portrays the deeper art and insight of the poet thus:—

"For my own part, I find considerable meaning in the old vulgar distinction of Poetry being metrical, having music in it, being a Song. Truly, if pressed to give a definition, one might say this as soon as anything else: If your delineation be authentically musical, musical not in word only, but in heart and substance, in all the thoughts and utterances of it, in the whole conception of it, then it will be poetical; if not, not. Musical: how much lies in that! A musical thought is one spoken by a mind that has penetrated into the inmost heart of the thing; detected the inmost mystery of it, namely the melody that lies hidden in it; the inward harmony of coherence which is its soul, whereby it exists, and has a right to be, here in this world. All inmost things, we may say, are melodious; naturally utter themselves in Song. The meaning of Song goes deep. Who is there that, in logical words, can express the effect music has upon us? A kind of inarticulate unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the Infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into that!

"Nay all speech, even the commonest speech, has something of song in it: not a parish in the world but has its parish-accent;—the rhythm or tune to which the people there sing what they have to say! Accent is a kind of chanting; all men have accent of their own—though they only notice that of others. Observe, too, how all passionate language does of itself become musical—with a finer music than the mere accent; the speech of a man even in zealous anger becomes a chant, a song. All deep things are Song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, Song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls. The primal element of us; of us, and of all things. The Greeks fabled of Sphere-Harmonies: it was the feeling they had of the inner structure of Nature; that the soul of all her voices and utterances was perfect music. Poetry, therefore, we will call musical Thought. The Poet is he who thinks in that manner. At bottom, it turns still on power of intellect; it is a man's sincerity and depth of vision that makes him a Poet. See deep enough, and you see musically; the heart of Nature being everywhere music, if you can only reach it."

"Or indeed we may say again, it is in what I called Portrait-painting, delineating of men and things, especially of men, that Shakespeare is great. All the greatness of the man comes out decisively here. It is unexampled, I think, that calm creative perspicacity of Shakespeare. The thing he looks at reveals not this or that face of it, but its inmost heart, and generic secret: it dissolves itself as in light before him, so that he discerns the perfect structure of it. Creative, we said: poetic creation, what is this, too, but seeing the thing sufficiently? The word that will describe the thing, follows of itself from such clear intense sight of the thing. And is not Shakespeare's morality, his valor, candor, tolerance, truthfulness; his whole victorious strength and greatness, which can triumph over such obstructions, visible there too? Great as the world! No twisted, poor convex-concave mirror, reflecting all objects with its own convexities and concavities; a perfectly level mirror—that is to say withal, if we will understand it, a man justly related to all things and men, a good man. It is truly a lordly spectacle how this great soul takes in all kinds of men and objects, a Falstaff, an Othello, a Juliet, a Coriolanus; sets them all forth to us in their round completeness; loving, just, the equal brother of all. 'Novum Organum,' and all the intellect you will find in Bacon, is of a quite secondary order; earthy, material, poor in comparison with this. Among modern men, one finds, in strictness, almost nothing of the same rank. Goethe alone, since the days of Shakespeare, reminds me of it. Of him, too, you say that he saw the object; you may say what he himself says of Shakespeare, 'His characters are like watches with dial-plates of transparent crystal; they show you the hour like others, and the inward mechanism also is all visible.'"

"Dante, for depth of sincerity, is like an antique Prophet, too; his words, like theirs, come from his very heart. One need not wonder if it were predicted that his Poem might be the most enduring thing our Europe has yet made; for nothing so endures as a truly spoken word. All cathedrals, pontificalities, brass and stone, and outer arrangement never so lasting, are brief in comparison to an unfathomable heart-song like this: one feels as if it might survive, still of importance to men, when these had all sunk into new irrecognizable combinations, and had ceased individually to be. Europe has made much; great cities, great empires, encyclopædias, creeds, bodies of opinion and practice: but it has made little of the class of Dante's Thought. Homer yet is, veritably present face to face with every open soul of us; and Greece, where is it? Desolate for thousands of years; away, vanished; a bewildered heap of stones and rubbish, the life and existence of it all gone. Like a dream; like the dust of King Agamemnon! Greece was; Greece, except in the words it spoke, is not."

J. C. Shairp, in his "On Poetic Interpretation of Nature" (p. 19), says:—

"The real nature and intrinsic truth of Poetry will be made more apparent, if we may turn aside for a moment to reflect on the essence of that state of mind which we call poetic, the genesis of that creation which we call Poetry. Whenever any object of sense, or spectacle of the outer world, any truth of reason, or event of past history, any fact of human experience, any moral or spiritual reality; whenever, in short, any fact or object which the sense, or the intellect, or the soul, or the spirit of man can apprehend, comes home to one so as to touch him to the quick, to pierce him with a more than usual vividness and sense of reality, then is awakened that stirring of the imagination, that glow of emotion, in which Poetry is born. There is no truth cognizable by man which may not shape itself into Poetry."

The passages just quoted are but examples of many that might be cited expressing the strength and scope of the poetic spirit, its truth-revealing quality, its penetrating yet comprehensive grasp of the realities. Shelley says, "A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth"; and Wordsworth that poetry is "the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge." These utterances will hardly be deemed poetical extravagancies to one who has read such things as the Ninetieth Psalm, "King Lear," or "The Deserted Village," or "Elaine."

There is no form of inspiring truth which does not find expression in literature, but it is preëminently a revelation of human life and experience, a proclamation from the housetops of the supreme beauty and excellence of truth and virtue. This brings us close to the question of moral education, and the elements in literature that contribute to this end. Literary critics are quick to take alarm at the propensity of the schoolmaster and the moralist to make literature the vehicle of moral training. To saddle the poets with a moral purpose would be like changing Pegasus into a plough-horse. But the moral quality in the best literature is not something saddled on, it is rather like the frame and muscle which give strength to the body, or, to use a more fitting figure, it is the very pulse and heart-beat of the highest idealism. The proneness toward moralizing, toward formal didacticism, can be best of all corrected by the use of choice literature. The best literature is free from moral pedantry, but full of moral suggestion and stimulus. Edmund Clarence Stedman says, in his "Nature and Elements of Poetry" (p. 216):—

"The highest wisdom—that of ethics—seems closely affiliated with poetic truth. A prosaic moral is injurious to virtue, by making it repulsive. The moment goodness becomes tedious and unideal in a work of art, it is not real goodness; the would-be artist, though a very saint, has mistaken his form of expression. On the other hand, extreme beauty and power in a poem or picture always carry a moral, they are inseparable from a certain ethical standard; while vice suggests a depravity. … An obtrusive moral in poetic form is a fraud on its face, and outlawed of art. But that all great poetry is essentially ethical is plain from any consideration of Homer, Dante, and the best dramatists and lyrists, old and new."

In literature, as in life, those persons make the strongest moral impression who have the least express discussion of morals. Their actions speak, and the moral qualities appear, not in didactic formality and isolation, but in their life setting. This is seen in the great dramas, novels, and epic poems.

These masterpieces are of strong and lasting value to the schools because they bring out human conduct and character in a rich variety of forms corresponding to life. Against the background of scenery created by the poet, men and women and children march along to their varied performances. Theseus, Ulysses, Crusoe, Aladdin, Alfred, Horatius, Cinderella, Portia, Evangeline—they speak and act before us with all the realism and fidelity to human instincts peculiar to the poet's art. These men and women, who are set in action before us, stir up all our dormant thought-energy. We observe and judge their motives and approve or condemn their actions. We are stirred to sympathy or pity or anger. Such an intense study of motives and conduct, as offered in literature, is like a fresh spring from which well up strengthening waters. The warmth and energy with which judgments are passed upon the deeds of children and adults is the original source of moral ideas. Literature is especially rich in opportunities to register these convictions. It is not the bare knowledge of right and wrong developed, but the deep springs of feeling and emotion are opened, which gush up into volitions and acts.

Just as we form opinions of people from their individual acts, and draw inferences as to their character and motives, so the overt act of Brutus or of Miles Standish stands out so clear against the background of passing events that an unerring judgment falls upon the doer. A single act, seen in its relations, always calls forth such a sentence of good or ill. Whether it be a gentle deed of mercy, or the hammer-stroke that fells a giant or routs an army, as with Charles Martel or Alfred, the sense of right or wrong is the deep underflow that gives meaning to all events and stamps character.

There is, however, a deeper and more intense moral teaching in literature than that which flows from the right or wrong of individual acts. The whole life and evolution of character in a person, if graphically drawn, reveal the principles of conduct and their fruitage. Character is a growth. Deeds are only the outward signs of the direction in which the soul is moving. A dramatist like Shakespeare, or a novelist like George Eliot, gives us a biographical development. Deeds are done which leave their traces. Tendencies are formed which grow into habits, and thus a character ripens steadily toward its reward. We become conscious that certain deeper principles control thought and action, whether good or bad. There is a rule of law, a sort of fatalism, in human life. "The mills of the gods grind slow, but they grind exceeding small." It is the function of the dramatist or novelist to reveal these working principles in conduct. When the principle adopted by the actor is a good one, it works out well-being in spite of misfortunes; when evil, the furies are on the track of the evil-doer. Men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. As we move on from step to step in a life-history, the sympathy deepens. The fatal influence of a false step, followed up, is keenly felt by the reader; the upward tendency of a right act inspires and lifts into freedom. But whether we love or hate or pity, the character moves on in the course which his deeds mark out. When finally he is overwhelmed in shame and defeat, we see the early tendencies and later forces which have led to this result. If ethical triumph is achieved, we recognize the reward of generous, unselfish impulses followed out.

As the interest in such a life-history deepens, the lessons it evolves come out with convincing and overwhelming power. The effect of a great novel or drama is more intense and lasting than any sermon. The elements of thought and feeling have been accumulating energy and momentum through all the scenes, and when contracted into a single current at the close they sweep forward with the strength of a river. A masterpiece works at the foundations of our sympathies and moral judgments. To bring ourselves under the spell of a great author and to allow him, hour after hour and perhaps for days in succession, to sway our feelings and rule far up among the sources of our moral judgments, is to give him great opportunity to stamp our character with his convictions. We seldom spend so many hours in close companionship with a living friend as with some master of the art of character-delineation. Children are susceptible to this strong influence. Many of them take easily to books, and many others need but wise direction to bring them under the touch of their formative influence. A book sometimes produces a more lasting effect upon the character and conduct of a child than a close companion. Nor is this true only in the case of book-lovers. It is probable that the great majority of children may feel the wholesome effect of such books if wisely used at the right time. To select a few of the best books as companions to a child, and teach him to love their companionship, is one of the most hopeful things in education. The boy or girl who reads some of our choice epics, stories, novels, dramas, and biographies, allowing the mind to ponder upon the problems of conduct involved, will receive many deep and permanent moral lessons. The realism with which the artist clothes his characters only strengthens the effect and makes them lasting food for thought in the coming years. Even in early childhood we are able to detect what is noble and debasing in conduct as thus graphically and naturally revealed, and a child forms an unerring judgment along moral lines. The best influence that literature has to bestow, therefore, may produce its effect early in tender years, where impressions are deep and permanent. There are many other elements of lasting culture-value in the study of literature, but first of all the deep and permanent truths taught by the classics are those of human life and conduct.

George Willis Cooke gives clear and simple expression to the ethical force in poetry ("Poets and Problems," p. 46):—

"True poetry is for instruction as much as for pleasure, though it inculcate no formal lessons. Right moral teaching is by example far more than by precept; and the real poet teaches through the higher purpose he arouses, by the stimulus he gives, and by the purer motive he awakens. He gives no precept to recite, no homilies to con over, no rules for formal repetition; but he gives the spirit of life and the impulse of true activity. An infallible test of the great poet is that he inspires us with a sense of the richness and grandeur of life."

Rooted in the genuine realism of social life, moral ideas are still more strongly energized by feeling and even by passion. It is doubtful if moral ideas have any roots that do not reach down into deep and genuine feeling.

Ruskin, in "Sesame and Lilies," speaks to the point.

"Having then faithfully listened to the great teachers, that you may enter into their Thoughts, you have yet this higher advance to make—you have to enter into their Hearts. As you go to them first for clear sight, so you must stay with them that you may share at last their just and mighty Passion. Passion, or "sensation." I am not afraid of the word; still less of the thing. You have heard many outcries against sensation lately; but, I can tell you, it is not less sensation we want, but more. The ennobling difference between one man and another—between one animal and another—is precisely in this, that one feels more than another. If we were sponges, perhaps sensation might not be easily got for us; if we were earthworms, liable at every instant to be cut in two by the spade, perhaps too much sensation might not be good for us. But, being human creatures, it is good for us; nay, we are only human in so far as we are sensitive, and our honor is precisely in proportion to our passion.

"You know I said of that great and pure society of the dead, that it would allow 'no vain or vulgar person to enter there.' What do you think I meant by a 'vulgar' person? What do you yourselves mean by 'vulgarity'? You will find it a fruitful subject of thought; but, briefly, the essence of all vulgarity lies in want of sensation. Simple and innocent vulgarity is merely an untrained and undeveloped bluntness of body and mind; but in true inbred vulgarity, there is a deathful callousness, which, in extremity, becomes capable of every sort of bestial habit and crime, without fear, without pleasure, without horror, and without pity. It is in the blunt hand and the dead heart, in the diseased habit, in the hardened conscience, that men become vulgar; they are forever vulgar, precisely in proportion as they are incapable of sympathy—of quick understanding—of all that, in deep insistence on the common, but most accurate term, may be called the 'tact' or touch-faculty of body and soul; that tact which the Mimosa has in trees, which the pure woman has above all creatures—fineness and fulness of sensation, beyond reason—the guide and sanctifier of reason itself. Reason can but determine what is true: it is the God-given passion of humanity which alone can recognize what God has made good.

"We come then to the great concourse of the Dead, not merely to know from them what is True, but chiefly to feel with them, what is Righteous. Now to feel with them we must be like them; and none of us can become that without pains. As the true knowledge is disciplined and tested knowledge—not the first thought that comes—so the true passion is disciplined and tested passion—not the first passion that comes."

When we add to this deep feeling and sympathy the versatile poetic imagination which freely constructs all phases of social life and conduct, we have that union of the great powers of the mind and heart which give such concentrated ethical energy to the best literature.

Shelley, in his "Defence of Poetry" (pp. 13–14, 20), says:—

"The whole objection, however, of the immorality of poetry rests upon a misconception of the manner in which poetry acts to produce the moral improvement of man. Ethical science arranges the elements which poetry has created, and propounds schemes and proposes examples of civil and domestic life; nor is it for want of admirable doctrines that men hate, and despise, and censure, and deceive, and subjugate one another. But poetry acts in another and diviner manner. It awakens and enlarges the mind itself by rendering it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought. Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar; it reproduces all that it represents, and the impersonations clothed in its Elysian light stand thenceforward in the minds of those who have once contemplated them, as memorials of that gentle and exalted content which extends itself over all thoughts and actions with which it coexists. The great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination; and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the cause."

"The drama being that form under which a greater number of modes of expression of poetry are susceptible of being combined than any other, the connection of poetry and social good is more observable in the drama than in whatever other form. And it is indisputable that the highest perfection of human society has ever corresponded with the highest dramatic excellence; and that the corruption or the extinction of the drama in a nation where it has once flourished, is a mark of corruption of manners, and an extinction of the energies which sustain the soul of social life."

The inseparable union of the intellectual, moral, and imaginative elements is well expressed by Shairp in his "On Poetic Interpretation of Nature" (pp. 23–24):—

"Imagination in its essence seems to be, from the first, intellect and feeling blended and interpenetrating each other. Thus it would seem that purely intellectual acts belong to the surface and outside of our nature—as you pass onward to the depths, the more vital places of the soul, the intellectual, the emotional, and the moral elements are all equally at work—and this in virtue of their greater reality, their more essential truth, their nearer contact with the centre of things. To this region belong all acts of high imagination—the region intermediate between pure understanding and moral affection, partaking of both elements, looking equally both ways."

Besides the moral element or fundamental truth involved, every classic masterpiece is infused therefore with an element of imagination. Whether in prose or verse, the artist reveals himself in the creative touch. The rich coloring and imagery of his own mind give a tint to every object. The literary artist is never lacking in a certain, perhaps indefinable, charm. He possesses a magic wand that transforms into beauty every commonplace object that is met. We observe this in Irving, Hawthorne, Warner, as well as in still greater literary masters. Our poets, novelists, and essayists must all dip their pens in this magic ink. Even Webster and Burke, Lincoln and Sumner, must rise to the region of fancy if they give their thought sufficient strength of wing to carry it into the coming years. The themes upon which they discoursed kindled the imagination and caused them to break forth into figures of speech and poetic license. The creative fancy is that which gives beauty, picturesqueness, and charm to all the work of poet or novelist. This element of fancy diffuses itself as a living glow through every classic product that was made to endure. In the masters of style the rhythmic flow and energy of language are enlivened by poetic imagery. Figures of speech in architectural simplicity and chasteness stand out to symbolize thought. That keenness and originality which astonishes us in master thinkers is due to the magic vigor and picturesqueness of their images. Underneath and permeating all this wealth of ideas is the versatile and original mind which sees everything in the glow of its own poetic temperament, kindling the susceptible reader to like inspiration. Among literary masters this creative power shows itself in an infinite variety of forms, pours itself through a hundred divergent channels, and links itself so closely with the individuality of the writer as to merge imperceptibly into his character and style. But as we cannot secure wholesome bread without yeast, so we shall fail of a classic without imagination.

Stedman says: "If anything great has been achieved without exercise of the imagination, I do not know it. I am referring to striking productions and achievements, not to acts of virtue. Nevertheless, at the last analysis, it might be found that imagination has impelled even the saints and martyrs of humanity. Imagination is the creative origin of what is fine, not in art and song alone, but also in all forms of action—in campaigns, civil triumphs, material conquest. I have mentioned its indispensability to the scientists." He says further: "Yet if there is one gift which sets Shakespeare at a distance even from those who approach him on one or another side, it is that of his imagination. As he is the chief of poets, we infer that the faculty in which he is supereminent must be the greatest of poetic endowments. Yes: in his wonderland, as elsewhere, imagination is king."

Not only is it true that the vitality of poets and prose writers, the conceptive power of scientists, inventors, and business organizers, depend upon the fertility and strength of the imagination, but throughout the broader reaches of common humanity this power is everywhere present—constructive and creative. Max Müller has shown that the root words of language are imbedded in metaphor, that "Language is fossil poetry." Again, the mythologies of the different races, grand and stately, or fair and lovely, are the immediate product of the folk mind.

It has been said that "The man of culture is preëminently a man of imagination." But the kind of mental alertness, freedom, and joy which is suggested by the term culture may spring up in the heart of every boy and girl endowed with a modicum of human nature. Hamilton Wright Mabie, in his "Books and Culture" (pp. 148–149), says:—

"The development of the imagination, upon the power of which both absorption of knowledge and creative capacity depend, is, therefore, a matter of supreme importance. To this necessity educators will some day open their eyes, and educational systems will some day conform; meantime, it must be done mainly by individual work. Knowledge, discipline, and technical training of the best sort are accessible on every hand; but the development of the faculty which unites all these in the highest form of activity must be secured mainly by personal effort. The richest and most accessible material for this highest education is furnished by art; and the form of art within reach of every civilized man, at all times, in all places, is the book. To these masterpieces, which have been called the books of life, all men may turn with the assurance that as the supreme achievements of the imagination they have the power of awakening, stimulating, and enriching it in the highest degree."

Besides the strong thread of truth and the work of the swift-glancing shuttle of imagination, the woven fabric of the literary master must show a beauteous pattern or form. The melody and music of poetry spring from a rhythmic form. Apparently stiff and formal, it is yet the consensus of critics that only through this channel can the soul of truth and beauty escape from the poet, and manifest itself to others. Says George Willis Cooke, "The poet worships at the triple shrine of beauty, love, and truth; and his mission is to teach men that all other objects and places of veneration are but faint imitations of this one form of faith." But the spirit of this worship can best embody itself in the poetic form.

Schlegel, in his "Dramatic Art and Literature" (p. 340), says:—

"The works of genius cannot therefore be permitted to be without form; but of this there is no danger. … [Some] critics … interpret it [form] merely in a mechanical, and not in an organical sense. … Organical form, again, is innate; it unfolds itself from within, and acquires its determination contemporaneously with the perfect development of the germ. We everywhere discover such forms in nature throughout the whole range of living powers, from the crystallization of salts and minerals to plants and flowers, and from these again to the human body. In the fine arts, as well as in the domain of nature—the supreme artist—all genuine forms are organical, that is, determined by the quality of the work. In a word, the form is nothing but a significant exterior, the speaking physiognomy of each thing, which, as long as it is not disfigured by any destructive accident, gives a true evidence of its hidden essence."

Some products, like the "Paradise Lost," "Thanatopsis," and "Hamlet," show such a perfect fitness of form to thought that every effort to change or modify is profanation. The classic form and thought go together. As far as possible, therefore, it is desirable to leave these creations in their native strength, and not to mar the work of masters. The poet has moulded his thought and feeling into these forms and transfused them with his own imagery and individuality. The power of the writer is in his peculiar mingling of the poetic elements. Our English and American classics, therefore, should be read in their original form as far as possible.

A fixed form is not always necessary. We need many of the stories and epics that were written in other languages. Fortunately some of the works of the old poets are capable of taking on a new dress. The story of Ulysses has been told in verse and prose, in translation, paraphrase, and simple narrative for children. Much, indeed of the old beauty and original strength of the poem is lost in all these renderings; but the central truths which give the poetic work its persistent value are still retained. Such a poem is like a person; the underlying thought, though dressed up by different persons with varying taste and skill, is yet the same; the same heart beats beneath the kingly robes and the peasant's frock. Robinson Crusoe has had many renderings, but remains the same old story in spite of variations. The Bible has been translated into all modern tongues, but it is a classic in each. The Germans claim they have as good a Shakespeare as we.

But many of the best masterpieces were originally written in other languages, and to be of use to us the ancient form of thought must be broken. The spirit of the old masters must be poured into new moulds. In educating our children we need the stories of Bellerophon, Perseus, Hercules, Rustum, Tell, Siegfried, Virginius, Roland, Wallace, King Arthur. Happily some of the best modern writers have come to our help. Walter Scott, Macaulay, Dickens, Kingsley, Hawthorne, Irving, and Arnold have gathered up the old wine and poured it into new bottles. They have told the old stories in simple Anglo-Saxon for the boys and girls of our homes and schools. Nor are these renderings of the old masters lacking in that element of fancy and vigor of expression which distinguishes fertile writers. They have entered freely and fondly into the old spirit, and have allowed it to pour itself copiously through these modern channels. It takes a poet, in fact, to modernize an ancient story. There are, indeed, many renderings of the old stories which are not ideal, which, however, we sometimes use for lack of anything better.

From the preceding discussion we may conclude that a choice piece of literature must embody a lasting truth, reveal the permeating glow of an artist's imagination, and find expression in some form of beauty. But these elements are so mingled and interlaced, so organically grown into one living plant, that even the critics have given up the effort to dissect and isolate them.

There are other strength-conferring qualities in good literature which will be discussed more fully in those chapters which deal with the particular literary materials selected for use in the schools.

Among the topics to be treated in connection with materials which illustrate them, are the following: the strong handling of essential historical ideas in literature; the best novel and drama, as sources and means of culture; religious ideals as embodied in the choicest forms of literature; the powerful patriotic and social influence of the best writers; the educative quality of the humorous phases of literature; the great writers as models of skill and enthusiasm in teaching.

In the foregoing pages the significance of literature among great studies has been but briefly and inadequately suggested by these few quotations and comments. It would be easy to multiply similar testimony from the most competent judges. But enough has been said to remind teachers of this rich treasure house of educative materials. Those teachers who wish to probe deeper into this subject will find that it has been handled in a masterly way by some of the great essayists and critics. We will suggest the following for more elaborate study:—

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."

Shelley'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.