the other hand, there are some works-as the dramas of Shakespeare-that are specially well adapted for such exposition. In classes of younger pupils the discussion of linguistic or literary details should be avoided. An important general principle which may guide the teacher in this matter is that detailed treatment is desirable whenever it will add materially to the meaning or force of a passage for the pupil. The formal features of language and style must be studied in their relation to the subject-matter and the artistic objects of the writer when they are so studied, they cease to be merely formal, and become pregnant with meaning and interest. For example, Milton frequently employs words in unusual senses according to the meaning of the Latin or other words from which they are derived (e.g. "horrid" = bristling, in "a horrid front," Paradise Lost, I. 563); in such case the derivations of the words should be explained as throwing light on the meaning. Again, if a class were reading Tennyson's Coming of Arthur, and came to the words:

And on the spike that split the mother's heart

Spitting the child,

the teacher might first ask what classes of vowel and consonant sounds predominate in the words; and he would then proceed to ask what mental effect is produced by their use. If, in the reading of these lines, a pupil were made to feel the impression of short and sharp action produced by the succession of short vowel sounds and sharp consonant sounds, his appreciation of the content and force of the passage would be greatly heightened. Similarly, the content of these lines from The Lotos-Eaters

Is there any peace

In ever climbing up the climbing wave?

would be enlarged for the pupil if he felt that the repetition of the word "climbing" suggests a sense of repeated effort and continuous toil, opposed to the idea of peace mentioned in the first line.

Throughout the second reading of a literary work, the pupils should be required as far as possible to discover for themselves the significance of the linguistic or literary details selected for comment. The method of teaching literature should be largely heuristic; and this being so, it is desirable in most cases that the textbooks used in class should contain few "notes." The typical old-fashioned school-edition of an English author was, like Hamlet's marriage tables, "coldly furnished forth" with stale fragments of grammatical and philological information. Much of this information, regarded in the light of the principle that only such details should be selected for notice as will add to the meaning or the artistic conception of a passage, is seen to be misplaced and superfluous; and for the remainder, much of the material that is thus supplied by the editor may more profitably be acquired by the pupil's own

researches.

The oral work connected with the detailed study may be supplemented by written exercises mainly revisional in character. At intervals, after a certain amount of ground has been covered, written answers may be required which will summarize the significant details that have been studied. For example, an exercise might be set on the words that had been commented upon in the reading of a certain number of

pages. The pupil would be asked to write down, with adequate references to pages or lines, such features as obsolete words, words that have changed in meaning, derivations, explanations of meaning, or any other verbal characteristics that might have been noticed in the course of the class-teaching.

Another exercise might have for its subject the figures of speech that had been commented upon in

class.

Notes on Figures of Speech.

Similes Metaphors Antithesis Climax

Exclama- Page, tion

etc.

Other exercises might deal with grammatical peculiarities, or with metrical characteristics, or with allusions and their explanations. The writing of such

exercises enables the pupil to make and classify his own notes, which, as thus formulated, will be infinitely more valuable to him than similar notes that he might find supplied in a text-book.

Before the second reading in class is begun, the teacher should ask himself two questions, the answers to which will determine to a large extent the course of his later teaching. In the first place, he should ask himself: What is the main theme of the book? The answer given to this question will guide him in the selection of the literary details to be noted in the course of the second reading. The diction and tone of particular passages will be remarked when they are in harmony with, or show in a clearer light, the content and artistic aims of the book. The second question to be asked is: What is the essential spirit or atmosphere of the book? The answer given will guide the teacher in the selection of details to which the pupils' attention must be called in order that they may appreciate rightly the imaginative atmosphere of the book.

The effect of atmosphere in a literary work, when it is regarded intellectually and objectively (as it must be so far as practical teaching is concerned), is in many instances seen to be produced gradually through an accumulation of suitable details which are selected, consciously or sub-consciously, in obedience to the writer's artistic sense. It is the teacher's business so to present these details to the pupil's intellect as to assist him to recreate imaginatively for himself the characteristic atmosphere of the book. Suppose, for example, that a class were reading Shakespeare's As

You Like It. This play is marked by a fresh joyousness of spirit: it is an idyll of forest-life, full of the feeling of the open air and nature. The scene is the Forest of Arden, where the banished Duke and a many merry men with him live the free woodland life, and fleet the time carelessly, "as they did in the golden world." The fresh, young spirit of this golden world is breathed throughout, and finds expression in many touches. The allusions to the places and things seen in the forest help to create and maintain the illusion of out-of-door life. We read of the lioness, the snake, and the deer that inhabit the forest-glades. The sequestered stag seeks shelter near “an oak whose antique root peeps out upon the brook." Rosalind's cottage is “at the tuft of olives here hard by." The similes and metaphors that occur are frequently drawn from the analogy of woodland sights. Adversity is like the toad, which, "ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in its head." Orlando, when Adam offers to serve him, compares himself to a rotten tree—

That cannot so much as a blossom yield
In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry.

Adam's age is "as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly." When Orlando demands food from the Duke, he compares himself to a doe seeking food for its fawn. Silvius says that his mistress's love is like a harvest, of which he would be a humble gleaner

So holy and so perfect is my love,

And I in such a poverty of grace,

That I shall think it a most plenteous crop

To glean the broken ears after the man

That the main harvest reaps.