Teaching the Spirit of Literature

READERS of Balzac’s Une Fille d’Ève will recall his description of the depressing education given by the Countess de Granville to her two young daughters. That she might make smooth their path to heaven and matrimony, she subjected them to a regimen that had at least one fatal defect in that it took no account of their emotions. Its results may be learned from the story, but few thoughtful readers will refrain from asking themselves whether our educational regimen is not in too many cases followed by results similar in kind, it not in degree.

Parents and teachers of modern America have doubtless quite different ideals for their children from those of the Countess de Granville, but they often make the same mistake of pursuing these ideals at the cost of their children’s emotions ; that is to say, at the cost of their real happiness. The ideals of the French mother were summed up in the word convenance ; the ideals of too many American mothers and fathers, and, I regret to add, teachers, are summed up in the word “ utility.” Neither set of ideals takes much account of those emotions which are the highest part of our nature, and are most impressionable in childhood ; for the world of the suitable and of the useful is the world of fact, and fact has to be transmuted by the imagination before it can reach and act upon the emotions. It follows, then, that every educational regimen which appeals to the mind through facts should be supplemented by one which appeals to the soul through ideas; that is, through facts transmuted by the imagination. Hence no educational system is complete that does not include instruction in religion and art, the two chief sources of appeal to the emotions. For obvious reasons we Americans have been compelled to leave religion outside the ordinary school and college curriculum, and this is practically the case with the plastic arts. We are thus reduced to rely mainly on literature and music as sources of appeal to the emotions of our youth, but we have hitherto made insufficient use of both.

This was not the case with the best educated people the world has ever known, the Greeks. Literature, especially poetry, and music were the basis of a Greek boy’s education, and education in these two arts (which it must be remembered were closely connected with religion) led to the culmination of all the other arts in the Athens of Pericles. But the Athens of Pericles had its weakness as well as its strength, and the world has moved forward greatly in twenty-three hundred years ; hence the basis of a boy’s education should be far broader now than it was then. Yet while broadening the base and shifting its centre, we should not be rash enough to cast away its old material. Poetry and music are still essential to any sound educational system ; and this being so, the inquiry how they may best be taught is of great interest, and, if confined to the first, named, leads to the main topic of this paper.

I use the term “ poetry ” advisedly, for it best represents the literature of the imagination, and that is what we have to deal with, as we shall see at once after a little analysis. What did the Greek teacher expect his pupils to get from their study of Homer? Probably two sets of good results; one affecting the mind, the other the soul. From the Iliad and the Odyssey the Greek hoy could derive much information with regard to mythology, genealogy, and socalled history. They served also as reading-books, and for a long while took the place of formal grammars and rhetorical treatises. In other words, they were to him a storehouse of facts. But they also filled him with emotions of pleasure. They charmed his ear by their cadences ; they charmed his inner eye by their pictures ; they charmed his moral nature by the examples they offered him of sublime beauty and bravery and patriotism. In short, they were to him a storehouse of ideas : and this, in the eyes of his teacher, was doubtless their chief value. But nowadays we need not use poetry as a storehouse of facts, and we need to use literature for this purpose only so far as a good style helps in the presentation of facts, as for example in the case of history. With our long list of sciences, natural and linguistic and moral, we are in no danger of ignoring the world of facts, and are therefore free to use literature, especially poetry, in order to appeal to the emotions of youth. Hence, in inquiring how we may best teach literature, we are really inquiring how we may best teach the literature of the imagination,—that is, poetry in a wide sense; for it would seem that literature used as a storehouse of facts might be taught like any other subject in the domain of fact.

Some one may ask, While all this is true enough, what has it to do with the practical teaching of literature ? I answer that it has everything to do with it. If the chief reason for teaching literature be the fact that we shall thereby best appeal to the emotions, what is one to say of the amount of time given to the study of the history of literature, and to those critical, philological, and historical annotations which fill most of our literary textbooks ? The history of literature is important enough, but it belongs to the domain of fact; it does not appeal primarily to the emotions. It is well for a child to know the names of great books and their authors; it is just as well that he should not say that Fielding wrote Tom Jones’s Cabin or that Telemachus was a great French preacher of the seventeenth century, as I have known university students to do. But if literary history really appealed to the emotions, if it vitally affected any pupil, would he make such mistakes? Literary history belongs to the domain of fact just as much as geography dues, and the ability on the part of a child to reel off the names of authors and their dates is just as useless as his ability to tell the capital of Bolivia or to draw a map of Afghanistan. A certain amount of literary history is useful, — the amount given in Mr. Stopford Brooke’s and Professor Richardson’s primers and in Mr. Brander Matthews’s volume on American literature, — but not a bit more ; for as intellectual training literary history is not nearly so efficient as many another study.

But if teaching the history of literature be beside the mark, if we wish to reach the emotions, what are we to say of criticism ? I cannot see that we can say anything different. That pupil of mine who called Cowper’s lines on the receipt of his mother’s picture out of Norfolk an “ ode ” made an utterly absurd mistake, but I am not at all sure that he would have been essentially better or happier if he had not made it. Critical appreciation is certainly better than uncritical, but, after all, appreciation is the main thing, and must precede criticism. Just how much critical, philological, and historical elucidation is needed to make a poem intelligible — for of course it has to be apprehended intellectually before it can produce its full emotional effect — is a hard matter to decide, but I am sure that the amount varies with the ages of the pupils. The younger the pupils, the simpler and less numerous the teacher’s comments should be ; for he has no right to be dealing with an obscure poem, and he must remember that he is not, or should not be, trying to teach his pupils facts. I am forced to conclude, then, that the common practice of putting into the hands of pupils a certain number of fully annotated classics, with the understanding that the unfortunate pupils are to be examined on the numerous facts contained in the notes and introductions, whatever may be claimed for it by college associations or by the editors of such books, is not the very best way of using literature as an appeal to the emotions of the young. Criticism, philology, and history are admirable handmaids to literature, but they are not literature, and they will not help us much in an appeal to the emotions. To make this appeal we must bring pupils in contact with the body of literature, and here is the crucial point of the problem before us.

But is not this to play into the hands of men like the late Professor Freeman, who opposed the establishment of a Chair of Literature at Oxford on the plea that we cannot examine on tastes and sympathies ? If we are to make a minimum use of criticism, philology, and history, what manner of examination shall we be able to set our classes in literature ? To this question Mr. Churton Collins replied that we ought to examine in Aristotle, Longinus, Quinctilian, and Lessing; that is to say, in criticism. A very good answer so far as university students are concerned. The history and theory of literary composition, especially of poetry, should be included in every well-organized curriculum, and any competent teacher can examine on them. But though these studies may chasten the emotions, they do not primarily appeal to or awaken them, and for the purposes of the elementary teacher they are almost useless. Are such teachers, then, to be debarred from making use of those departments of literary study that admit of being tested by examination ? I answer, Yes, so far as their main work is concerned. A small amount of literary history may be required and pupils may be examined on it, and perhaps a tiny amount of criticism, but for the most part school classes in literature should go scot-free from examination.

This will seem a hard saying to teachers enamored of school machinery, — who teach by cut - and - dried methods, and regard the school-day as a clock face, with the recitation hours corresponding to the figures, and themselves and their pupils to the hands. But the literary spirit and the mechanical spirit have long been sworn enemies, for machinery has no emotions; so, for the purposes of this paper, we need hardly consider the mechanical teacher, who had best keep his hands off literature. The born teacher, the teacher with a soul, — and I am optimist enough to believe that many of the men and women in this country who are wearing their lives away in the cause of education belong to this category, — will be glad to believe that there is at least one important study that need not and should not be pursued mechanically. The trouble will be not so much with the pupils and teachers as with the parents and statisticians, who want marks and grades, and that sort of partly necessary, partly hopeless thing. Now I have not the slightest idea how a child can be graded or marked on his emotions, yet I am sure that all teaching of literature that is worthy the name takes account of these chiefly. If this be true, should we not be brave enough to let the machinery go, and confine ourselves to the one pertinent and eternal question, how young souls can be best brought in contact with the spirit of literature ?

If I may judge from my experience with college work, covering several years, and from my briefer experience with school work, I am forced to the conclusion that sympathetic reading on the part of the teacher should be the main method of presenting literature, especially poetry, to young minds. I have never got good results from the history of literature or from criticism except in the case of matured students, and I never expect to. I have examined hundreds of papers in the endeavor to find out what facts or ideas connected with literature appeal most to the young, and I have found that in eight out of ten cases it is the trivial or the bizarre. I remember a curious instance in point. I had been using Gosse’s History of Eighteenth Century Literature, and I asked my class to give a brief account of the life of Alexander Pope. Judge of my astonishment when I found that three fourths of a large class had, without collusion, and no matter what the merits of the individual paper, copied verbatim the following sentence: “Pope, with features carved as if in ivory, and with the great melting eyes of an antelope, carried his brilliant head on a deformed and sickly body.” Fortunately, in this case the trivial facts retained were rightly applied. In another case I was gravely informed that the poet Collins died “ of a silk-bag shop,” information that completely staggered me until I found that Mr. Gosse, with quite unnecessary particularity, had stated that Sterne died in “lodgings over a silk-bag shop.” I need hardly cite further examples of utter and ridiculous confusion of names, for such examples are familiar to all teachers of experience. What I need to point out is that these mistakes are due, not to the stupidity of our pupils or to our own bad teaching, but to the fact that the history of literature is drier than mineralogy to any one who is not already fairly well read. Much the same thing may be said of criticism, only the chances of making mistakes are magnified through the elusive nature of the subject. It is well, certainly, to give a child some interesting information about great authors, and to try to teach him the distinctions between the broader categories of literature; but after this it seems to me that the primary and secondary teachers should rely mainly upon sympathetic reading. Certainly this is my experience with younger students. Whenever I find their attention flagging, I begin to read, and make my comments as brief as possible. In this way I have reached men who seemed at first sight to be hopeless. My most signal success was when I involuntarily set a baseball pitcher to committing certain sonnets of Shakespeare to memory, while he was resting from practicing new curves. I have always been proud of that achievement, but I believe it would be a by no means unusual one if teachers generally would criticise less and read more. Of course the teacher must read sympathetically, or the result will be far from good. He must read with sincerity and enthusiasm and understanding, and with critical judgment. To try Browning’s Red Cotton Night-Cap Country on a class of freshmen would be simply silly. To abstain from reading Byron to them on account of Mr. Saintsbury’s recent utterances on the subject of his lordship’s poetry would be equally silly. But there is, fortunately, a large amount of English and American poetry that is both noble and suitable to the comprehension of young minds. Where Emerson’s Brahma will prove incomprehensible, his Concord Hymn will stir genuinely patriotic emotions.

It will be perceived that I am throwing a great deal of responsibility on the teacher ; and I think this is right, for the emotions of his pupils are like the strings of an instrument. After a while his intermediation will become less necessary, but at first it is essential in most cases. In spite of what many critics say, it is a fact that with a majority of children Whatever literary appreciation they may have lies dormant until it is awakened by some skillful hand. It is better that this hand should be the teacher’s, if only for the reason that the performance of such a service will add a pleasure to many a life wearied with the daily rounds of mechanical duty. I am sure that there is no teacher, man or woman, who would not be glad to have a halfhour set apart in each school-day in which arithmetics and grammars could be laid aside, and some favorite volume of poetry brought out from the desk and read with sympathy and enthusiasm. If I had a private school of my own, I should surely snatch the time for this, if I had to have fewer maps drawn and fewer examples in partial payments worked. “ What passion cannot music raise and quell ? ” asked Dryden, and we may ask the same question with regard to poetry. I have so much belief in the power of the “ concord of sweet sounds” that I am inclined to say that many pupils will receive benefit from merely hearing great poetry read, even though it may not convey much meaning to their minds. Take, for example, this magnificent passage from Lycidas :

For the elucidation of these eleven lines I felt compelled to give recently nearly three pages of notes, over one page being concerned with the single word “ Angel.” Now I do not believe that the average schoolboy would have any clear notion as to who this Angel was, or as to what Bellerus or Namancos means, but I think that the noble picture of the corpse of Lycidas washed by the sounding seas would appeal profoundly to his imagination, and that he would be the better for having heard his teacher read the lines. That he would be the better for nine out of ten of the critical or philological annotations that editors are constrained to make on the passage I see grave reason to doubt. The fact is that we have let the teacher of the Greek and Latin classics affect us by methods of minute analysis better fitted to the study of a dead than of a living language. These same classical teachers have, too, not a little to answer for, on account of the slight which time out of mind they have put on the purely literary side of their work. How many teachers of Latin, when reading Virgil, stop to comment on the sonorous quality of such a grand verse as

or upon this verse of Horace’s,

which suggests comparison at once with Shakespeare’s “multitudinous seas,” or with Matthew Arnold’s

The mention of Arnold reminds me that the stress I am laying on sympathetic reading of poetry by the teacher is but an amplification of his advice that we should keep passages of great poetry in our minds, to serve as touchstones (perhaps tuning-forks would be a more accurate though less elegant metaphor) that will enable us to detect the presence or absence of truly poetic qualities in the verse we read. I should add also that this method of study is strictly in line with the best modern ideas ; for pupils should be put in touch with a subject as a whole before they are set to studying its parts.

There are many other things that I should like to say, did space permit. I should like to protest against the use of great literature for exercises in parsing or for etymological or philological investigations ; it ought even to be sparingly used for the purposes of reading-classes. I should like to protest against the lack of judgment shown by teachers and college professors in the texts they assign for study, — two books of Pope’s Iliad, for example, in place of his Rape of the Lock, — a matter, however, in which we teachers of English are so far ahead of our friends who teach French and German that perhaps I ought to be thankful for the progress we have made. I should like finally to insist upon what I believe will some day be generally recognized, — the supremacy of literature as a study over all others that now occupy the world’s attention. For when everything is said, it is literature, and especially poetry, that has the first and undisputed right to enter the audiencechamber of the human soul. Painting, sculpture, music, the whole noble list of the sciences, the lower but still important useful arts, may and must continue to appeal and minister to the spirit of man ; but artistic prose and poetry are the servants, — nay, are they not rather the masters? —on which that spirit has relied from the beginning of time, and on which it will rely till time itself shall end.

W. P. Trent.