Children's Literature / A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes

1. If in doubt about what to use beyond the material in the following pages, depend upon some of the fine collections mentioned in the bibliography. Every teacher should have access to Stevenson's Home Book of Verse for Young Folks, which contains many poems from recent writers as well as the older favorites. If possible, have the advantage of the fine taste and judgment of the collections made by Andrew Lang, Miss Repplier, E. V. Lucas, and as many of the others as are available.

2. Remember that in poetry, more than elsewhere, one can present only what one is really interested in and, as a consequence, enthusiastic about. Even poems about whose fitness all judges agree should be omitted rather than run the risk of deadening them for children by a dead and formal handling.

3. Mainly, poetry should be presented orally. The appeal is first to the ear just as in music. The teacher should read or, better, recite the poem in order to get the best results. There should be no effort at "elocution" in its worst sense, but a simple, sincere rendering of the language of the poem. The more informal the process is, the better. There should be much repetition of favorite poems, so that the rich details and pictures may sink into the mind.

4. There should be great variety in choice that richness and breadth of impression may thus be gained. It is a mistake to confine the work in poetry entirely to lyrics or entirely to ballads. Wordsworth's "Daffodils" and Gilbert's "Yarn of the Nancy Bell" are far apart, but there is a place for each. Teachers should always be on the lookout for poetry old or new, in the magazines or elsewhere, which they can bring into the schoolroom. Such "finds" are often fresh with some timely suggestion and may prove just what is needed to start some hesitating pupil to reading poetry.

5. The earliest poetry should be that in which the music is very prominent and the idea absent or not prominent. The perfection of the Mother Goose jingles for little folks is in their fulfillment of this principle. Use and encourage strongly emphasized rhythm in reading poetry, especially in the early work. Gradually the meaning in poetry takes on more prominence as the work proceeds.

6. Children should be encouraged to commit much poetry to memory. They do this very easily after hearing it repeated a time or two. Such memorizing should not be done usually as a task. Children are, however, very obliging about liking what a teacher is enthusiastic about, and what they like they can hold in mind with surprising ease. The game of giving quotations that no one else in the class has given is always a delight. Don't be misled by the fun poked at the "memory gem method" of studying poetry. The error is not in memorizing complete poems and fine poetic passages, but in doing this in a mechanical fashion.

7. It is a mistake to use too much poetry at one time. Children, as well as grown people, tire of it more quickly than they do of prose. The mind seems soon to reach the saturation point where it is unable to take in any more. Frequent returns to a poem rather than long periods of study give the best results.

8. Encourage children to read poetry aloud. By example and suggestion help them keep their minds on the ideas, the pictures, the characters. Only by doing this can they really read so as to interpret a poem. No one can read with a lazy mind, or merely by imitation. Encourage them to croon or recite the lines when alone.

9. It is not necessary that children should understand everything in a poem. If it is worth while they will get enough of its meaning to justify its use and they will gradually see more and more in it as time passes. In fact it is this constantly growing content of a poem that makes its possession in memory such a treasure. Neither should the presence of difficult words be allowed to rule out a poem that possesses some large element of accessible value. Many words are understood by the ear that are not recognized by sight.

Books such as Woodberry's Heart of Man and Appreciation of Literature are of especial value for getting the right attitude toward poetry. The most illuminating practical help would come from consulting the published lectures of Lafcadio Hearn, explaining poetry to Japanese students. His problem was not unlike that faced by the teacher of poetry in the grades. These lectures have been edited by John Erskine as Interpretations of Literature (2 vols.), Appreciations of Poetry, and Life and Literature. The whole philosophy of poetry is treated compactly in Professor Gayley's "The Principles of Poetry," which forms the introduction to Gayley and Young's Principles and Progress of English Poetry.