The schoolmaster in comedy and satire

Introduction

Two of the three humorists who are reckoned greatest in the literature of the world have left to us pictures of education which have passed into proverb. The greatest of dramatists devoted to the portrayal of an academy one of his brightest and happiest comedies. Of Pope's incomparable satire, the book which is distinguished as The Greater Dunciad is devoted to educational shams. Colman the Younger is still preserved from oblivion through the humorous delineation of educational absurdities in one of his dramas. The greatest and most popular of novel writers, whose works exert an inestimable influence in favor of reforms, owes his reputation largely to his satirical pictures of school life. The most popular English playwright of the past generation, and his contemporary, the favorite painter of manners among the dramatists of France, have both chosen teachers and pupils for the subjects of merry plays. A favorite German writer of to-day has been most happy in a character study of a German gymnasium.

There is a potent moral force in humor and satire; and there are few stronger influences than these that can be brought to bear on the training of teachers and the improvement of sj^stems of education. Moreover, the rank of the authors to whom reference has been made, and of others as well, seems to render it especially desirable that teachers shall become acquainted with their style, and with their place in literature.

4 IiYTBODUCTION

For this reason, and because of the favor with which The Schoolmaster in Literature has been received, the publishers offer this book as a companion volume, in the belief that it will be found a source of pleasure and of profit to teachers and to the general reader.

With the satirical and humorous selections have been incorporated some other extracts from modern classics, which have been greatly admired for their beauty and for their elevated tone. Among these are pen-pictures from the first of the great Russian novelists — Gogol — and from such other notable authors as Fenelon, Maria Edgeworth, Nathaniel Parker Willis, and Arnaud Berquin, ' ' The Friend of the Children ' ' ; also a sketch from a representative American educator of the present time.

The selections from Rabelais and Fenelon are revisions of old and standard English versions. The translations from Berquin, Scribe, Gogol, and Eckstein are original and new, having been prepared expressly for this volume. The rendering oi " The Visit to the Cell " is by the late Hanford Skinner, and represents the last literary work of a gentleman of rare scholarship and promise.

In order to adapt the volume especially to the needs of Reading Circles and Round Tables, and of individual students of literature and education, the book is divided into parts, corresponding to the months of the school year, and is furnished with outlines, pedagogical notes, and suggestive questions for reviews and examinations.

Contents

PAGE

Francois Rabelais .9

The Education of Gargantua and Pantagruel 12