constructive, previsionary power which is required in all the higher activities of the human mind. One may alter one's plan, one may not even provide for details; but the teacher must aim at the beginning to make of the child something more than a happy-go-lucky improvisor; must begin to make him see and feel that discourse must be orderly, must have arrangement; and that order and arrangement imply some scheme as a whole. And yet this, like everything else attempted in these uncertain early years, must be done with caution and tact. It is so easy by much drill and routine to stiffen the gait of a child's mind. It is better to err in the other direction.

To write but little original composition during the first three, or even four years, when the child is fettered by the mechanical difficulties of writing (which may be better coped with through work in copying and dictation); to lay foundations of good habit in oral work conversation and reproduction and answers to questions in the recitation; to be content with rough though careful results; to ask for only short productions, simple in form, and (in the third and fourth grades) with the occasional use of the outline; and to exercise good sense in the choice of subjects, this is the sum of our advice on the topic of this chapter.1

1 For the treatment of more specific points we must refer to the Outline on pp. 225-232. These details explain themselves, and we have thought it unnecessary to enumerate them here.

CHAPTER IX

READING IN THE GRAMMAR GRADES

I. WHAT TO READ

WHAT shall our children of Grammar School age (roughly, from ten to thirteen years old) read? This question subdivides itself into several that are less. general: What shall they be required to read in school? What have opportunity to read, or be encouraged to read, out of school at their pleasure? What is to be the relation of this free home reading to required school reading? Shall they read much or little? A few good books, or many books as they come to hand? Shall they taste and sample for themselves in the large liberties of the public library, or be restricted to the narrow but indubitably wholesome diet of well-selected school or home library? Such are the initial questions that wait to be answered by both teacher and parent. Here we are concerned with the answers which the teacher may make; for the teacher is bound to face these problems as involved in her school task.

It were to be wished, for the sake of simplicity and security, that decisive, categorical answers might

be returned to these questions. But, we reiterate, there is no rule of thumb to fall back upon here. On the contrary, the experienced and well-read teacher (especially a parent-teacher) will be likely to answer to all these questions: "It doesn't matter very much you may as well take your chances; it won't do to be too prescriptive and meddlesome;" or more cautiously, "There is no general answer, but only an answer relative to this or that particular child, and the average needs of this or that specific type of child-nature. This insensitive, narrow, hard, flighty child needs more than anything else the ministry of books; that voracious little reader, becoming more neurotic and unsociable over books in the chimney-corner, needs to be weaned from books." Yes, and we may add that lives of great men all remind us of this variableness. Sometimes we point rashly to Whittier, and cite his words thanking his stars that he was limited. in his childish reading to a few good books; and so fortified we press on to an absolute conclusion favoring a similar parsimony. But when we recall other great writers who fed at richer tables, Tennyson, Longfellow, Stevenson, and a host of others, we realize that our conclusion cannot be made absolute.

On the whole, looking to certain modern tendencies, one inclines to lean toward Whittier's precedent, not so much because one believes in a paucity of good books, as because one fears the multitude of poor

ones, and the dangers of juvenile precocity in using books under the pressure of a one-sided literary ideal and ambition in education. Our reading lists are becoming so long; we are so anxious to control the home reading of our children, as well as their school reading; we are hedging them about by so many libraries, school, class room, public libraries closely affiliated with the school, that one is prompted to cry a halt. We can be too ambitious (as several of our recent courses of study show that we are); we can overfeed; we can overtrain and overstimulate. The only reliable safeguard is a sense of character values. The teacher must be governed by an imperious sense of her task as that of developing character in the broadest sense, and of using Literature as she uses all other studies, - only more powerfully because of its greater emotional appeal, to illuminate and enhance the worth and glory of life and living, while training the pupil to the correct and effective use of language as a medium of communication. As a rule, the more magnetic and masterful a teacher is, especially as a wielder of words, the more careful must she be to keep her hands off her pupils; not to use books too tyrannically; not to assert her own literary preferences, or to work her own literary vein too dominatingly; above all, never to misunderstand her office so seriously—even if she is a special teacher of English—as to aim to produce writers or actors or

librarians, instead of contributing an important element to the making of cultivated manhood and womanhood, and that many-sided interest that ought to be maintained during childhood.

But this caveat will apply to only a small (though powerful) constituency, either of teachers or taught. Despite the temporary and localized violence of the notion of certain library enthusiasts, that men, women, and children are to be saved by cultivating the library habit, there is little danger of a general plague of literary decadents. We must expect to swing to an extreme reaction against the old régime, -the sterile leanness and monotony of old-time literary diet of our Grammar Schools; but we are already settling down to a wise moderation, and a flexibility of adaptation to the variable needs of childhood that promises well.

So we shall be voicing the best opinion of the educational expert when we say generally, in reply to the questions with which we set out that, while we ought to read with our pupils in the Grammar School a good deal more than we used to read, we shall not attempt to take sole charge of the literary education. of the child. The teacher or the librarian may well act as advisers and, within limits, as wardens of the child's literary destiny. In some cases, where there are no home influences or opportunities, the teacher cannot help standing in loco parentis; and a delicate