work must be inspired by "supreme enjoyment of some aspect of the world about him." But by such enjoyment everyone of us-even the lowest intelligence is from time to time inspired; and whenever we experience this enjoyment-if we look upon a landscape and keenly feel its beauty, when we see amid a crowd a face that interests us and stirs us to a sense of what is in man, whenever in any way a spark of intimate thought or real feeling is struck in us by immediate contact with the world-we are then moved by an impulse which is essentially artistic, because inspired directly by life. In this sense, and with the limitation that few are gifted with the capacity for artistic expression, we all possess "the artistic temperament"; and it may be added that in the teaching of literature, if proper methods be adopted, the human interest of the study may be made to appeal to all our pupils, from the youngest to the oldest. Viewed from the standpoint of its subjectmatter, the essential function of literature is to enlarge the scope of our ideas and sympathies, to enrich and develop our human nature, to teach us to see and appreciate rightly "the varied spectacle and drama of life"; and it is this function that gives to the study of literature universal validity, a firm standing at all stages of the curriculum.

A further important inference which the teacher may draw from the nature of the subject-matter of literature is that the study of it, as dealing with life and reality, is calculated not only to create and foster in the pupil a theoretic interest in life and its manifestations, but also to teach him how to live-it has

a distinct ethical value. Here we touch upon a wide question, the complete discussion of which would involve an examination of the fundamental principles that determine the relation generally of Art to Ethics. Into such a general discussion it is no part of our present task to enter; but a few necessary conclusions which have an important bearing on the teaching of literature may be briefly stated. In the first place, it seems obvious that into literature, the subject-matter of which is as wide as the universe and life, an ethical element must necessarily enter. This will be generally admitted; but it may be asserted, on the principle of "Art for Art's Sake," that the ethical element in literature is essentially irrelevant and should be for the educated critic a negligible quantity. To this it may be replied that the teacher is concerned not with the trained critic but with the immature student; nevertheless, apart from this consideration, and from the standpoint of method, it is important that we should form some idea of the meaning and value that belongs to this principle of "Art for Art's sake." Since all literature may be regarded as an imitation of life, the principle cannot mean that literature is indifferent to moral distinctions: these exist in the universe, and therefore they must be reflected in literature. From the teacher's point of view, an important truth that would seem to be contained in the principle is the negative truth that the end of literature, as of all art, is not consciously ethical: its aim is not consciously to teach or preach. Understood to that effect, the principle indicates a valuable maxim of method: the subject of literature belongs not to the domain of

Ethics but to that of Art, and so soon as it is used deliberately as a means of teaching morality the teacher has passed beyond his proper vocation and ceased to be a teacher of literature as literature. At the same time, the ethical element is always present in his subjectmatter, and as there presented cannot but influence the minds and characters of his pupils. "Literature," says Mr John Morley1, "consists of all the books-and they are not so many-where moral truth and human passion are touched with a certain largeness, sanity, and attraction of form. My notion of the literary student is one who through books explores the strange voyages of man's moral reason, the impulses of the human heart, the chances and changes that have overtaken human ideals of virtue and happiness, of conduct and manners, and the shifting fortunes of great conceptions of truth and virtue. Poets, dramatists, humorists, satirists, masters of fiction, the great preachers, the character-writers, the maxim-writers, the great political orators-they are all literature in so far as they teach us to know man and to know human nature. This is what makes literature, rightly sifted and selected and rightly studied, not the mere elegant trifling that it is so often and so erroneously supposed to be, but a proper instrument for a systematic training of the imagination and sympathies, and a genial and varied moral sensibility.......Literature is one of the instruments, and one of the most powerful instruments, for forming character, for giving us men and women armed with reason, braced by knowledge, clothed with steadfastness

1 "On the Study of Literature," in Studies in Literature (Macmillan and Co.).

and courage, and inspired by that public spirit and public virtue of which it has been well said that they are the brightest ornaments of the mind of man."

The conception of the content of literature as being thus related to life will give the teacher a firm belief in his subject as being interesting and valuable to his pupils at all stages; but taken in this connexion certain psychological considerations are important. At every stage in the study of any subject, the selection and grading of material must be in line with the pupil's dominant directions of activity, and must not be determined merely from the logical point of view of the adult, with reference to the logically distinguished sections of a systematized subject of study. The pupil's experience of life has been small, and consequently care must be taken that the literature which he studies reflects such aspects of life as he is capable of understanding. The subject-matter that is read must be varied according to the stage of development of the pupil: if it be beyond his comprehension and range of sympathy the reading of it will be hopelessly barren and uninteresting alike to teacher and pupil. Thus from the age of eight to twelve the literature that is read should deal generally with the lighter and more cheerful aspects of life: it may tell a story or deal with action: the poetry that is studied should be musical: and always the diction should be clear and simple; on the other hand, whatever is gloomy or deeply reflective or passionate in tone, with whatever is obscure or complex in diction, should be avoided.

Coming now to the second aspect involved in a logical conception of literature as a subject of study,

we have to ask: is it possible for a pupil of school age to study the structural form of literary works, and, if this possibility be granted, at what stage of the curriculum should such study begin?

It has been remarked above that the essence of structure lies in its adaptation of means to an end: there can be no coherent structure in a literary work apart from the operation of a moulding and governing idea which shall underlie the whole work and each of its parts in relation to the whole: in other words, it is of the essence of literary structure that it should bear the marks of organisation and system. Now, this conception of system is one which can have no real meaning for pupils below the age of twelve or thirteen years before it can be in any degree understood, a pupil must possess some power of reasoning continuously and connectedly, he must be able to grasp mentally different threads of reason and consequence, and perceive their interrelations in a coherent whole. the earlier stages of mental development a child is satisfied with the mere play of bodily and mental activity, underlying which there is no conscious or explicit motive or end. Only by degrees there comes to the growing consciousness some sense of cause and effect, or of the connexion between a certain course of action and a certain result, with a perception of the possibility of more permanent and objective ends than have hitherto occupied the attention. With the gradual increase of power, it becomes possible for the mind to distinguish between the sphere of natural or physical causation and the sphere of human action and thought as determined by a purpose or end. And as the mental

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