Part 12 (1/2)

The study of these literary masterpieces, the choicest of the world, while it offers a broad perspective of history, also enters deep into the psychology of children and their periods of growth and change. What a study for the teacher!

Suppose now that a wise selection of the best products for school use had been made. The books for each grade would respond not only to the ability but to the characteristic temper and mental status of children at that age. The books would arouse the full compa.s.s of the children's mental power, their emotional as well as intellectual capacities, their sympathy, interest, and feeling. The teacher who is about to undertake the training of these children may not know much about children of that age. How can she best put herself into an att.i.tude by which she can meet and understand the children on their own ground? Not simply their intellectual ability and standing, but, better still, their impulses and sympathies, their motives and hearts? Most people, as they reach maturity and advance in years, have a tendency to grow away from their childhood. Their purposes have changed from those of childhood to those of mature life. They are no longer interested in the things that interest children. Such things seem trivial and even incomprehensible to them.

Now the person who is preparing to be a teacher should grow back into his childhood. Without losing the dignity or purpose of mature life, he should allow the memories and sympathies of childhood to revive. The insight which comes from companions.h.i.+p and sympathy with children he needs in order to guide them with tact and wisdom.

The literature which belongs to any age of childhood is perhaps the best key to the spirit and disposition of that period. The fact that it is of permanent worth makes it a fit instrument with which the teacher may reawaken the dormant experiences and memories of that period in his own life. The teacher who finds it impossible to reawaken his interest in the literature that goes home to the hearts of children has _prima facie_ evidence that he is not qualified to stimulate and guide their mental movements. The human element in letters is the source of its deep and lasting power; the human element in children is the centre of their educative life, and he who disregards this and thinks only of intellectual exercises is a poor machine. The literature which children appreciate and love is the key to their soul life. It has power to stimulate teacher and pupil alike, and is therefore a common ground where they may both stand and look into each other's faces with sympathy.

This is not so much the statement of a theory as a direct inference from many observations. It has been observed repeatedly, in different schools under many teachers, that the ”Lady of the Lake,” ”Vision of Sir Launfal,” ”Sleepy Hollow,” or ”Merchant of Venice” have had an astonis.h.i.+ng power to bring teacher and children into near and cherished companions.h.i.+p. It is not possible to express the profound lessons of life that children get from the poets. In the prelude to Whittier's ”Among the Hills,” what a picture is drawn of the coa.r.s.e, hard lot of parents and children in an ungarnished home, ”so pinched and bare and comfortless,” while the poem itself, a view of that home among the hills which thrift and taste and love have made,--

”Invites the eye to see and heart to feel The beauty and the joy within their reach; Home and home loves and the beat.i.tudes Of nature free to all.”

To study such poetry in its effect upon children is a monopoly of the rich educational opportunity which falls naturally into the hands of teachers. Psychology, as derived from text-books, is apt to be cold and formal; that which springs from the contact of young minds with the fountains of song lives and breathes. If a teacher desires to fit herself for primary instruction, she can do nothing so well calculated to bring herself _en rapport_ with little children as to read the nursery rhymes, the fairy tales, fables, and early myths. They bring her along a charming road into the realm of childlike fancies and sympathies, which were almost faded from her memory. The same door is opened through well-selected literature to the hearts of children in intermediate and grammar grades.

The sense of humor is cultivated in literature better than elsewhere. In fact, no other study contains much material of humorous quality. A quick sense of it is deemed by many of the best judges an indispensable quality in teachers. Not that a teacher needs to be a diverting story-teller or entertainer, if only he has an indulgent patience and kindly sympathy for those who enjoy telling stories. There is a certain hearty, wholesome social spirit in the enjoyment of humor which diffuses itself like sunlight through a school. It contains an element of kindliness, humanity, and good fellows.h.i.+p which lubricates all the machinery and takes away unnecessary stiffness and gravity in conduct.

Best of all it is a sort of mental balance-wheel for the teacher, which enables him to see the ludicrous phases of his own behavior, should he be inclined to run to foolish extremes in various directions. Much of our best literature abounds in humorous elements. Lowell, Holmes, Shakespeare, and Irving are spontaneously rich in this quality of ore, and it is just as well perhaps to cultivate our appreciation in these richer veins as in shallow and unproductive ones elsewhere.

Schlegel says of Shakespeare, his ”comic talent is equally wonderful with that he has shown in the pathetic and tragic; it stands at an equal elevation and possesses equal extent and profundity.... Not only has he delineated many kinds of folly, but even of sheer stupidity he has contrived to give a most diverting and entertaining picture.”

The inability to appreciate the ludicrous and farcical, and especially of witty conceits, is felt to be a mark of dulness and heaviness, and in dealing with children and young people a versatile perception of the humorous is very helpful. Many of the pupils possess this quality of humor in a marked degree, and the teacher should at least have sufficient insight to appreciate this peculiar bent of mind and turn of wit.

A brief retrospect will make plain the profitableness of cla.s.sics to the teacher. They show a deep perspective into the spirit and inner workings of history. The social life and insight developed by the study of literature give tact and judgment to understand and respect the many-sided individualities found in every school. The teacher's own moral and aesthetic and religious ideals are constantly lifted and strengthened by the study of cla.s.sics. Such reading is a recreation and relief even in hours of weariness and solitude. It is an expansive spiritual power rather than a burden. Literary artists are also a standing ill.u.s.tration of the graphic, spirited manner of handling subjects. Finally, this rich and varied realm of cla.s.sic thought and expression is the doorway by which we enter again into the moods and impulses and fancies of childhood. We thus revive our own youth and fit ourselves for a quick and appreciative perception of children's needs.

It is the best kind of child study.

A few of the books which are suggestive, and ill.u.s.trate the value of literature for teachers, and in some cases even lay out lines of profitable and stimulative reading, are as follows:--

Newell Dwight Hillis. Great Books and Life Teachers. (Fleming H.

Revell Co.)

George Willis Cooke. Poets and Problems. (Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.)

The Schoolmaster in Literature. (The American Book Co.)

Representative Essays. (G. P. Putnam's Sons.)

Hamilton Wright Mabie. Books and Culture. (Dodd, Mead, & Co.)

James Baldwin. The Book Lover. (A. C. McClurg & Co.)

The Schoolmaster in Comedy and Satire. (The American Book Co.)

Emerson's Essays.

Schlegel's Dramatic Art and Literature. (Bohn's Libraries.)

Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, and Seven Lamps of Architecture.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Book and Heart. (Harper & Brothers.)