we may test familiarity with the play by short class. exercises, asking by whom certain important lines were spoken.

Now the way is clear for character-study, leading on into the deeper study of the plot, with which it is to some extent involved. This may be by means of problems, or in question form. For example, we may ask: "What mistakes did Brutus make? And what light do they throw upon his character?" Or we may call for a tabular presentation of Cæsar's character (data for a composition) thus:

Or we may ask for a comparative study, in similar form, of Calpurnia and Portia, or a contrast between Brutus and Cæsar.

Lastly, returning to plot again, we may try to master its logic. Here are some of the questions we may put (sometimes the class is equal to only one or two of the simpler of them):—

1. Seeing that Cæsar is killed so early in the play, how is the title to be justified? Is he the hero?

2. Does Cæsar's death mark the climax? If so, how is the interest sustained in the major portion of the play which follows?

3. Why is Scene I a good opening scene? Of what facts and circumstances does it put us in posses

sion? In what state of mind does it leave us? 4. Could we omit the scene with Cinna the poet? 5. What object is served by the scene between Portia, Lucius, and the Soothsayer?

6. Why the scene introducing Cicero, who appears this once only?

7. Why does the Ghost appear to Brutus rather than to Cassius?

Or, if our class is equal to it, we can enumerate (in table) Shakespeare's departures from Plutarch, and try to discover the reason for them.

We have left untouched any discussion of the ethics of the play, and the rhetorical exercises that may grow out of it. These will be incidental for the most part. Such questions as-Was Cæsar's assassination justifiable? Why do we condemn Brutus's suicide? — are sure to arise. Sometimes these problems can be turned over to the debating class. It is in connection also with the work in public speaking and argument that we would deal with the speeches of Brutus and Antony

a comparison of the prose style of the one (why prose?) with the verse style of the other; and an analysis of the parts in their effect upon the audience.

While the many opportunities the play presents for work in Narration, Description, and Exposition will be utilized in connection with the course in Composition, we must use these exercises to help the imaginative grasp of the circumstances and setting of the play. What sort of man was Cæsar to outward view, as Shakespeare presents him?-is an instance. Or we have given as a general topic "A Street Scene in Rome," asking each student to describe as he sees it, vividly in his mental eye, any one street scene in which the populace of Rome share, that mob whose presence is felt, whose murmur is heard, so continually throughout the play. Various moments of the play will be selected.

We have still to consider how we shall provide for a study of the life and times of Shakespeare, and of other matters connected therewith. We have generally found time for a mastering of the few facts about his life in the first year. In the second year we have placed in our pupils' hands Dowden's "Primer"; and in the third and fourth years have sent them for amplifications to Lee's Life, Dowden's larger work, "Shakespeare, his Mind and Art," Moulton's "Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist"; and have put them in touch, for special purposes, with Hudson's "Shakespeare's Life, Art, and Character," Ward's "English Dramatic Literature," Coleridge's "Lectures on Shakespeare," Halliwell-Phillips' "Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare," and Furness's Variorum Edition of the

plays. We have found it convenient to distribute the topics of this supplementary work thus:

Ist year, Life of Shakespeare.

2d year, The Age of Shakespeare, with special reference to the theatre.

3d year, Periods of his dramatic activity: facts as to folios, quartos, etc.

4th year, His dramatic development: internal evidences

chiefly.

In this chapter our outline of the first year's work has been interrupted by a necessary treatment of such topics as note-taking, Shakespearean studies, etc. These we have thought it better to treat incidentally as they arose than to defer for separate treatment elsewhere.

1 Valuable suggestions to teachers for the advanced studies which it is essential for them to undertake, will be found in the pamphlet, "English in Secondary Schools," by Professors Gayley and Bradley of the University of California (published by the University, at Berkeley).

CHAPTER XVI

LITERATURE IN THE HIGH SCHOOL: METHODS OF TREATMENT AND STUDY (continued)

Ar this pausing point we may remark upon the impossibility of dealing, in a treatise so general in scope as this one, with the manifold problems of High School work. We shall hope to have covered the leading problems; but even this necessitates an exposition so condensed and rapid as to court some danger of confusion.

What we have said about the leading features of the work of the first year renders unnecessary an equally detailed treatment of the work of the three following years. At the beginning of the second year the emphasis shifts from the narrative - that is, preeminently the structural aspect of literary art – to the descriptive — that is, preeminently its color and music, its impressionistic aspect. Wholes are now of less importance: parts of more. We shall aim to get our pupils to see and feel now how a perfectly simple idea can clothe itself or unfold itself in a fascinating manner by means of image, association, and enriched. musical language. Milton's "L'Allegro" and "Il