Talks on Teaching Literature

• Abilities of children differ, 30, 60.
• Abstract ideas, 23, 112-115.
• Acting out poems, 94.
• Addison, De Coverley Papers, 128, 138, 146-150;
• Spectator, 146, 223.
• Analysis vs. synthesis, 21.
• Art, literature an, 53;
• not to be translated into words, 2;
• purpose of, 1, 73.
• Bach, Passion Music, 116.
• Beethoven, 53;
• Ninth Symphony, 116.
• Biography, literary, 222-226.
• Blake, William, quoted, 31;
• The Tiger, 93, 96-108.
• Bronson, W. C., Voluntary Reading, 228, 230.
• Brown, Dr. John, quoted, 79.
• Browning, 72, 115, 239;
• How they Brought the Good News, 113;
• The Lost Leader, 114.
• Burke, 221;
• Speech on Conciliation, 37, 65, 138-146.
• Byron, Destruction of Sennacherib, 133, 215.
• Carlyle, Burns, 213.
• Chaucer, 225, 239.
• Children, abilities differ, 30, 60;
• at disadvantage, 118;
• comply mechanically, 93;
• conceal feeling, 85;
• do not know how to study, 46-48;
• know when bored, 52;
• learn life by living, 19;
• must be taught in own language, 68;
• must do own work, 58;
• must form estimates, 70;
• not affected by preaching, 18;
• puzzled by literature, 49;
• responsive to metrical effects, 117;
• skip morals, 89;
• their world, 18, 79;
• too much demanded of, 45;
• understand only through personal experience, 15, 67.
• Coleridge, 72;
• Ancient Mariner, 37, 84, 85, 181.
• College entrance requirements, 8, 30, 138, 213;
• books, 34-38;
• editors of, 6.
• Conventionality, how met, 197.
• Cook, May Estelle, Methods of Teaching Novels, 128.
• "Cramming," 59.
• Criticism, 193-206;
• asked of pupils, 44;
• of trashy books, 231;
• must take pupil's point of view, 231.
• Decker, quoted, 169.
• Defoe, Journal of the Plague Year, 224.
• Deliberation in work necessary, 217.
• Description, how written by pupils, 127.
• De Quincey, 211;
• definition of literature, 123;
• Flight of a Tartar Tribe, 234.
• Diagrams, futility of, 6.
• Dickens, quoted, 7, 202.
• Didactic literature, 22, 109.
• Edgeworth, Maria, Parents' Assistant, 23.
• Eliot, George, 129;
• Silas Marner, 5, 32, 37, 56, 127, 152, 197.
• Emerson, 211;
• quoted, 65.
• Emotion, aim of literature to arouse, 85;
• in literature, 2, 90;
• the motive power, 24.
• Enthusiasm, connected with culture, 24;
• contagious, 241;
• necessary in teaching, 55;
• justification of, 57;
• reason to be reached through, 40, 50.
• Evangeline, 234;
• questions on, 42, 43, 45.
• Examinational teaching, 74, 121-135.
• Examinations, 28, 44, 70, 184;
• an Institute paper, 130-135;
• best prepared for by broad teaching, 122;
• boy's view of, 8, 9;
• danger of, 40;
• entrance, 35, 45;
• inevitable, 121;
• necessarily a makeshift, 4;
• not the aim in teaching, 28, 73;
• study for, 121-130;
• valuable only as tests, 121;
• what counts in, 125;
• what examinations should test, 44.
• Fables, truth of, 21.
• Fielding, Tom Jones, 202.
• Goldsmith, Vicar of Wakefield, 44, 56, 152.
• Hawthorne, quoted, 167.
• Heart of Oak Series, 91.
• Honesty essential in teaching, 54.
• Illustrations, care in using, 211.
• Il Percone, 32.
• Imagination essential in study of literature, 3;
• not created but developed, 53;
• nourished by literature, 26.
• Inspirational use of literature, 74, 88-95, 117, 236.
• Irving, Life of Goldsmith, 37.
• Ivanhoe, 37, 152;
• quoted, 169;
• study of, 159-163.
• Johnson, Samuel, quoted, 91.
• "Juvenile" literature, 80.
• Lamb, Charles, 234.
• Language of literature, 63-67, 118;
• of pupils, 64, 68-70;
• value judged by effect, 209.
• Life, "realities of," 20.
• Limitations, inevitable, 46-48;
• must be accepted, 31, 196;
• youthful, 240.
• Litchfield, Mary E., quoted, 77.
• Literature, a Fine Art, 53;
• aim of, 85;
• algebraic, 112;
• approached through personal experience, 67, 69;
• deals with abstract ideas, 67;
• difficulty in teaching, 28-38;
• defined by De Quincey, 123;
• essentially human, 238;
• history of, 40, 222;
• "juvenile," 80, 239;
• language of, 63-67, 118;
• measured by life, 56;
• must be connected with life, 68;
• must be taught in language of learner, 68;
• not didactic, 22, 109;
• not taught by arbitrary methods, 238;
• nourishes imagination, 26;
• pupils indifferent to, 48;
• relation to life, 110;
• reproduces mood, 116;
• symbolic, 113;
• truth in, 112-114;
• vocabulary of, 74;
• why included in school course, 11-27.
• See Study of Literature; Teaching of Literature; Literary Workmanship.
• Literary appreciation, may be unconscious, 93.
• Literary workmanship, 207-221.
• Longfellow, 83;
• Evangeline, 42, 43, 45.
• Macaulay, 211, 214;
• Life of Johnson, 37;
• Milton, 35, 36, 212, 213.
• Macbeth, 3, 5, 37, 40, 57, 69, 76, 77, 83, 85, 118, 124, 202;
• false explanations of words in, 63;
• Miss Cook on, 128;
• note on, 32;
• study of, 165-192.
• Machiavellus, 32.
• Memorizing, 191.
• Merchant of Venice, 6, 81, 118.
• Metrical effects, 116;
• beyond ordinary students, 186;
• children susceptible to, 117;
• in Evangeline, 43;
• relation to character, 119;
• study of, 94;
• vs. intellectual content, 216.
• Middleton, Witch, 32.
• Milton, 15, 53, 117, 220, 225;
• Comus, 34, 85, 117, 228;
• Il Penseroso, 34, 41, 190;
• L'Allegro, 34, 41, 190;
• Lycidas, 34, 117;
• Paradise Lost, 123, 127, 131, 228.
• Milton, Macaulay's, 35, 36, 212, 213.
• Moral, drawn by children, 129;
• not to be drawn by teacher, 71-73, 163, 164, 198;
• skipped by children, 89.
• North, Plutarch's Lives, 170.
• Notes, 75, 136;
• to be studied first, 76.
• Novel, study of, 152-164.
• Œdipus, 202.
• Oral recitation, 180, 184, 198.
• Originality in children, 43.
• Parables, truth of, 21-22.
• Paraphrases, 219.
• Plutarch, 170.
• Poetry, compared with prose, 211-217;
• nature of, 215.
• Point of departure, 83, 143.
• Point of view, 82, 149, 180.
• Pope, quoted, 211.
• Praise, not to be given beforehand, 70;
• when wise, 71.
• Prose, compared with poetry, 212-217.
• Quicken tree, 168.
• Raleigh, 25, 26, 64, 215.
• Raphael, Dresden Madonna, 57.
• Ray, 168.
• Reading, aloud, 61, 154, 177;
• final, of play, 186;
• first, of play, 176-179;
• in concert, 62;
• intelligent, basis of study, 61-67;
• second, of play, 179-186;
• voluntary, 227-236.
• Readings, disputed, 185.
• Reference, books of, 136, 137.
• Rembrandt, 208;
• The Night Watch, 57.
• Riche, Barnabie, quoted, 167.
• Ridicule, danger of, 230.
• Roosevelt, President, 57.
• Sarcasm, forbidden, 199.
• Scott, Ivanhoe, 37, 152, 159-163, 169;
• Lady of the Lake, 37.
• Shakespeare, 13, 16, 46, 47, 48, 49, 53, 57, 69, 72, 90, 117, 119, 129, 142, 168, 170, 181, 183, 184, 186, 187, 191, 206, 211, 212, 213, 225, 239;
• Hamlet, 77, 127;
• ill-judged notes on, 32;
• Julius Cæsar, 34;
• Lear, 168;
• Macbeth, 3, 5, 32, 37, 40, 57, 63, 69, 76, 77, 83, 85, 118, 128, 165-192, 202, 239;
• Merchant of Venice, 6, 81, 118;
• Midsummer Night's Dream, 32;
• Othello, 83, 167;
• quoted, 205;
• reason of greatness unexplained, 55;
• Richard III, 166;
• Romeo and Juliet, 6;
• Tempest, 118;
• Troilus and Cressida, 239.
• Silas Marner, 5, 37, 56, 127, 152, 197;
• note on, 32.
• Sir Roger de Coverley Papers, 128, 138;
• study of, 146-150.
• Speech on Conciliation, 37, 65;
• study of, 138-146.
• Stevenson, Treasure Island, 152-159.
• Swift, A Modest Proposal, 224.
• Study of literature, in lower grades, 30;
• must be deliberate, 217;
• not study about literature, 40;
• not study of notes, 34;
• object of, 27, 29, 31;
• obstacles to to-day, 39-60;
• overweighted with details, 187;
• puzzling to students, 47, 48;
• test of success in, 30;
• used as gymnasium, 88.
• Summary, not a criticism, 204.
• Supernatural, the, 84;
• in Macbeth, 181;
• in The Ancient Mariner, 181.
• Superstition, about witch, 173;
• about quicken tree, 168.
• Synthesis vs. analysis, 21.
• Teacher asks too much, 41-46;
• ignores strain on pupil, 80;
• must have clear ideas, 27, 49, 149;
• must take things as they are, 39;
• not clear as to object, 49;
• not equal to demands, 53-60;
• obliged to do work of home, 227;
• to lead, not to drive, 58.
• Teaching, helping to extend ideas, 210;
• method in, 136, 224.
• Teaching of literature, aim of, 11-27, 69-70, 236;
• cannot be done by rule, 86, 138;
• choice of selections in, 90-92;
• confused methods, 6;
• deals with emotion, 2;
• educational, 3, 74, 109-120;
• examinational, 3, 74, 121-135;
• fine passages taken up in, 80;
• importance of reading aloud in, 61;
• inspirational, 49, 74, 88-95, 117;
• must be adapted to average mind, 89;
• preliminary, 74-87;
• uncertainty in, 1-10;
• written work in, 126.
• Technique, instruction in. See Workmanship, literary.
• Tennyson, 49;
• Elaine, 37;
• Merlin and Vivian, 170;
• Princess, 37;
• Revenge, 26, 215.
• Text, 136;
• model, 137.
• Thoroughness, 119.
• Titian, 53, 208.
• Translating, effect of, 218.
• Treasure Island, study of, 152-159.
• Truth in literature, 112-114.
• Vicar of Wakefield, 44, 56, 152.
• Vocabulary, growth of, 209;
• Miss Litchfield's view, 77;
• of Burke's Speech, 139;
• of Ivanhoe, 160, 162;
• of Macbeth, 165-171;
• of prose, 137;
• of Sir Roger de Coverley, 147;
• of Treasure Island, 153, 155;
• study of, 76-79, 125, 193;
• to be learned first, 74, 110, n.;
• to be learned from reference-books, 76.
• Washington, George, 22.
• Words, value of, 16.
• Word-values, 17.
• Wordsworth, 49, 239;
• Lesson for Fathers, 195.
• Workmanship, literary, 207-221.
• Written work, 126-130;
• comparison in, 190;
• description in, 127;
• in study of Macbeth, 187-191;
• supreme test in, 129.

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