Literature in the school; aims, methods and interpretations

Preface

This book aims to suggest the purpose of literature in the elementary school and to aid the teacher in its presentation. It aims to recognize the problems of the classroom in the teaching of literature, and to give concrete illustrations of the method of teaching particular selections as type studies. It aims, too, to suggest a method of study which may be suggestive of the teaching process in simpler selections for grade work.

The author recognizes fully that all subjects rightly taught, whether cultural or industrial, tend to produce an adaptable, a reliable, an efficient worker; yet in every study one of these aims is more dominant than the others. While literature makes for adaptability and efficiency by setting up ideals of thought and action, and by its demands for concentrated thought and action, its emphasis is primarily upon reliability through its influence on character. Literature of itself will not develop character, but it will set up as ideals the fundamentals upon which character is based.

The pedagogy of the day has for its aim the setting up of great general principles and ideals which must govern and control the work of the teacher. Its defect is that it leaves the teacher who is seeking

6 PEEFACE

aid in solving the specific problems of tlie classroom in a helpless or confused state of mind. After perusing the available books on pedagogy, the particular problems of literature, geography, history, grammar or arithmetic still remain unsolved. If this volume in any essential way tends to remedy this defect in the realm of literature-teaching, if it suggests a mode of treatment to abler teachers, the author will feel fully compensated, even though his every step be subjected to adverse criticism.

Acknowledgment is herewith made of indebtedness to the many friends of the profession who have encouraged the work ; and especially to Col. Francis W. Parker, Orville T. Bright, Mrs. Ella Flagg Young and Dr. Arnold Tompkins for direction, encouragement and inspiration, when, working under their leadership, the possibilities of literature in the elementary school first dawned upon the writer.

For their many helpful suggestions in regard to this book, thanks are due to D. H. Christensen, Superintendent, Salt Lake City Schools ; A. C. Nelson, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Utah; Professor F. W. Eeynolds of the University of Utah; Dr. Henry Suzzallo of Columbia University; and Dr. T. M. Balliet of the University of New York.

The author takes this opportunity to express his indebtedness to Thomas Y. Crowell & Company for permission to quote from ''Robin Hood," by T. Walter McSpadden; and to Houghton Mifflin Company for permission to use " The Day is Done,"

PREFACE 7

"The Challenge of Thor," and ''King Robert of Sicily," by Henry W. Longfellow; "The Great Stone Face," by Nathaniel Hawthorne; "Little Red Hen," by Mrs. A. D. T. "Whitney; and "The Sandpiper," by Celia Thaxter.

CONTENTS Ipact One

FAOE

Introduction: The Aim 11

CHAPTBB

I. LiTEEATUKE, Its ScOPE AND PURPOSE . . . .20

11. Spiritual Environment 29

III. Literature and the Beading Problem . . .37

IV. Methods in Literature 51

V. Type Stories 71

Ipart tTwo

VI. Psychology and the Beading Problem . , . 89

VII. The Great Stone Face: The Story Analyzed ' . .110

VIII. Type Studies: Nathan Hale, Begulus, Pheidippides . 135

IX. Contrasted Studies: The Sicilian's Tale . . . 163

X, Contrasted Studies (continued) : Saul .... 180

XL Contrasted Studies (continued) : Job .... 207

XII. Contrasted Studies (concluded) : Comparative Study . 220

XIII. Supplements A, B and C 226

Index 233

Ipart ©ne

INTRODUCTION: THE POINT OF VIEW

The American public school, its best aims and right uses, presents a serious problem to every right-thinking American. It is a problem yet to be solved, but a problem which demands defining and to which bounds and limits must be set. The many vain attempts to graft on to our public school system the ideals and practices of the Old World bear witness to the confusion existing in the minds of educators as to the real aim and function of the public schools of this country. The latest attempt to import aims and ideals defines itself under the caption of " trade schools." That there is much in our school life which demands change is beyond question. That an efficient man is a worthy return for money invested no one will deny. That the "trade school," in connection with elementary school work, equals efficiency or even approaches it is a debatable proposition. To present the question squarely it may be permissible to make a contrast between the aims and ideals of the Old World and those of the New.

In the Old World society resolves itself into two classes, the aristocrats and the democrats. The

12 LITEKATUEB IN THE SCHOOL

fundamental idea back of its scliool systems is to perpetuate this difference. The prestige of the father, or the lack of it, determines the status of the son. The occupation of the father in a large measure determines and limits the ambition of the son. The aim of any school system based upon such an organization of society is to turn back to society the efficient cobbler, tinker or blacksmith, as the case may be. From the Volkschule of Germany it is utterly impossible to advance in a scholastic way unless the work of the school has been supplemented by a private tutor. The aim of the system is to produce a man who can do certain things efficiently in his own set way. Such an one lacks versatility and adaptability. He is a mechanic in his own line and in his own way. In all things else he is hopelessly inefficient.

The genius of the American public school is totally different. In the Old World system imperialism is accorded place and power. Through the public school of the New World sweep the demands and the spirit of a rational democracy. The necessity for universal education and enlightenment in a government of the people was the determinant of the American system of public schools. Unconsciously, but none the less surely, the public school system of America was shaped and fashioned in harmony with the law and the spirit of evolution. The period of infancy is the determinant in shaping man to what he is and may be. The American public school in its essential nature is an institution

INTEODUCTION : THE POINT OP VIEW 13

which still further prolongs the period of infancy. It prolongs the period during which the individual in the process of becoming is growing into a discovery and a possession of himself. This discovery, this possession, determine his ambitions and set the limits thereto. The tendencies, capabilities, possibilities of the individual himself, not the occupation nor possibilities of the father, determine the place which he shall assume in the world's workshop. Herein is one essential and fundamental difference between the aims and purposes of imperialism and those of democracy.

The idea back of the "trade school," in connection with elementary school work, is diametrically opposed to this American idea, and therein lies its weakness and its danger. It hastens the period of maturity. It determines choice of occupation at too early a date. The occupation of the father, or some phase of the industrial life of the immediate environment, determines the choice, not the discovered powers and limitations of the individual himself. By this process he may become narrowly efficient. He will not become versatile and adaptable — the very mark and genius of the American workman. By this technical training at too early a date the tendency is to become more and more a mere cog in an industrial machine ; and the needs of the mart, not the rights of the man, become the power and the genius which shape and define American school life, its aims and ideals.

Fortunately for this distinctive idea in American

14 LITEKATUEB IN THE SCHOOL

school life, the "trade school" idea limits itself to industrial centers, dominated to a considerable extent by foreign influences and prejudiced by Old World ideals and experiences. It finds little resiDonsive echo in the American consciousness, nor will it become the determining idea back of the American public school. At the same time the public school must recognize more clearly its own aims and ideals and functions and must move with clearly defined ideas to the realization of these aims, ideals, functions. Its aim must be to turn back to society as the finished product (1) the reliable man; (2) the adaptable man; (3) the efficient man. Its methods must be so shaped and defined that its theory will be exemplified and justified by its output.

The aim of this book is to deal with but one phase of this complex problem, to state its needs and to suggest a means. This phase pertains to the determining of the reliable man.

Any one who has given thought to present-day life in America ; who has followed with patriotic zeal the newspaper and magazine articles dealing with the problems of civic life ; who has witnessed the piracy of the market-place, the operation of gigantic combinations and concerns which merited and received the protest and antagonism of a great, virile President, must have been impressed by the fact that present-day society, in no mean way the product of our public schools, is much more efficient than reliable ; much more intellectual than ethical ; much more successful than moral. Surely the bread-and-butter

INTKODUCTION : THE POINT OF VIEW 15

factor for tlie individual was a greater determinant of the aims and practices of the public school than the needs of the society in which the individual found himself and which accorded him his opportunity. While the efficiency of the individual is not necessarily an evil, it must be toned and balanced by reliability of purpose and stamina of character. The reliable man who measures up to the full stature of society's needs and demands must also be adaptable to adjust himself to the great, complex changes continually going on in every phase of the world's work. In this complex situation must be found the aim and function of the school, the solution of its problem.

"As the twig is bent"

Childhood is the formative period for the physical, the intellectual, the spiritual stature of maturity. In this impressionable age is laid the foundation, is planted the seed of fine emotions, tender feelings, high ideals that are to determine future being and becoming. In the unfolding tendencies, feelings and emotions, the soul-growth records itself. The function of the best literature is to stimulate this soul-growth and ' ' to make the best that has ever been thought in the world the portion of every one born into the world. ' ' Its function is to lift the reader from the contemplation of material needs and advantages to the contemplation of the needs of the spirit in its hunger and thirst for righteousness. Its function is to bring to each individual the priceless treasures of the ages in terms of the spiritual environment, and, through it, to enable each individual to rise to higher and still more high ideals and aspirations of spirit. This is the law of life — of being and becoming. Ever the old ideals are realized, ever the newer and higher ideals take their place, ever the individual and the race strive to realize their best ideals through growth, through education. In the inability to set up and to aspire toward an ideal is recorded the death of the soul.

The modern tendency in school work to foster the essentially practical studies, particularly science, manual training and similar lines of work which lead toward the trades and industries, to the almost utter neglect of the study of literature in the elementary school, is due to a desire to secure a proper and adequate adjustment of the individual to his environment, and to prepare him for efficient service in the life which he is to live. It is a belief and a desire born of honest but mistaken convictions as to what constitutes an environment and as to what is the full measure of success. The error lies in the assumption that the environment is essentially material ; that the needs of the market and the loom are the be-all and the end-all of social and industrial life. A one-sided policy and a hypermyopic vision have led some schools and schoolmen to overlook the fact that the prime requisites in all the affairs of life, social, industrial, economic, are reliability, adaptability, efficiency, in the order named. Our penitentiaries are eloquent witnesses to the social iNTEODUCTlOlSr : THE POINT OF VIEW 17

inefficiency of the merely skillful man. For reliability the school must secure adjustment to the spiritual environment and anchor the individual to the fundamental ethical and moral laws of social relationship. To secure adaptability the period of infancy must be prolonged through versatility of requirement and the deferring of specialization. In the many-sided experiences afforded by the full, rich course, the maturing individual will find his scope and his limitations. He will find "new dynamos" in himself and will tend to make his own adjustment to his inclinations, tendencies, powers and possibilities.

That there must be a harmonious development of the individual in the process of becoming has been a trite saying of educators for several decades. They have contended also that the school is an institution for bringing together the being to be developed and the means for that development and for harmonizing them effectively and economically. Pedagogues of a later vintage scoff at the idea of an harmonious development. Shortsightedly, they fail to distinguish between presenting conditions for the development of body, intellect and spirit, and presenting conditions for an equal development of every power and sense, of tendency and possibility. This latter is a man of straw, and when he has been disposed of nothing has really been accomplished, because the most ardent advocate of the harmonious theory would say that that point of view was wholly foreign to the theory and spirit of harmonious development.

18 LITEKATUEB IN THE SCHOOL

The saner tliouglit of the twentieth century will see that the factors which have produced the present development of man and the race still survive, and will continue to be potent factors in the development of the individual along similar lines. It will realize also that the twentieth century child, the culmination of the past, the prophecy of the future, must not be sacrificed to the gods of the mart, the ex23ediency of business, the convenience of the counting-chamber. In these days of clamorous appeal for industrial training, for technical schools, for turning back the shoemaker, the seamstress, as the finished product, rather than the manly man, the womanly woman, the teacher must hearken back to the experiences of the past, note the various factors which have fostered present standards and ideals, and note also the factors which have hindered or rendered ineffective the realization of best modern ideals. She must conscientiously weigh their merit and justify their retention or rejection. She must determine carefully whether the present tendency to short-cut to the dollar is the natural outgrowth of American ideals, of a rational democracy, or of an imperialistic idea imported from abroad with the halt, the sick, the blind which constitute the slum problem of our city life. She must determine whether the harmonious theory of development which aims to produce a man is of more vital concern than the desired technical training which aims to produce a skilled artisan as an element in a great productive machine. She must de-

INTEODUCTION : THE POINT OF VIEW • 19

termine whether the efficiency or the reliability of the modern worker is at fault. If she believes with the modern sociologist that the successful man is the adaptable man, she will take thought to determine whether the function of the school is to hasten or to retard the time of specialization. She will submit the assumption of the superiority of the European trained workman to tests of actually demonstrated facts. She will seek to ascertain whether the European or the American artisan is the adaptable man, and whether our system of education makes for the adaptable man by prolonging the period of development and retarding the time of specialization.

When our school and our school courses are subjected to scientific tests, we have faith to believe that much that is useless will be eliminated; that ancient customs, traditions, even ' ' the wisdom of our ancestors," will be overcome; that more and better means and facilities for the development of mind and body through the vigorous use of brain and muscle will be devised ; but side by side with the means for the development and growth of intellect and physique, literature, rightly taught as a great spiritual influence, will find an abiding place also. The school of the future will be shot through and through with the idea: ''First render fit to live and then assure a fit living."

CHAPTEE I LITERATURE-ITS SCOPE AND PURPOSE

That man cannot live by bread alone is an ancient feeling of the human heart. Since the first dawn of consciousness man has realized the span and tension between what he is and what he may be and ought to be. In the contemplation of his infinite possibilities he has realized the meagerness of the accomplished fact. In the song of bard, in the story of romancer, in the prophecy of priest, man has sought to point the way from the actual to the possible.

Under the divine inspiration of what he might be, man has threaded his way upward across the centuries. He has harmonized seemingly antagonistic forces. He has redeemed wildernesses. He has, through the energy of hand and brain, increased the productivity of nature an hundredfold. He has wrested from the secret places of nature the useful minerals and the precious gems. He has dispelled the mystery of oceans. He has discovered natural laws. He has invented labor-saving contrivances. He has reared and adorned palaces. He has solved the fundamental life problems of food, clothing and shelter in his rise from the simple, crude and earthy

LITERATURE — ITS SCOPE AND PURPOSE 21

to the most complex, artistic and aesthetic. Through it all and in the midst of it all man realized that food, clothing and shelter do not make up the sum total of the thing called life. So he dedicated his temples, formulated his ceremonies, gave himself up to the contemplation of his ideal. He grew dimly conscious of the fact that he had realized in but a meager way his ideals of the city not built with hands ; had approached in a small measure only his conception of life beatific. He could not articulate, but however dimly, he inwardly saw and felt the mighty fact voiced by the modern poet :

" And so this glimmering life at last recedes In unknown endless depths beyond recall."

In the sweat of his brow man found the way and the means for physical development. In the reaction on and mastering of his physical environment he gave rise to his mental development. In the contemplation of an ideal life, of ideal relations, of an ultimate destiny, he provided for, gave expression to, spiritual growth and spiritual development. In these articulated hopes and aspirations, in these contemplations and ideals, is the genius of all that is worthy and vital in literature. And what is literature, its aim, its scope, its purpose?

Professor Clark says:

" Let us admit for the sake of argument that literature is the language of emotion and imagery with little or no appeal to the intellect. It is still worthy of study for the real pleasure and enjoyment that may be had from it."

Charles Eliot Norton says:

" Change as the world may with the rise and fall of nations, change as man may in knowledge, belief and manners, human nature remains unaltered in its elements, unchanged from age to age, and it is with human nature in its various guises that great poets deal. To acquire a love for the best poetry and a just understanding of it is the chief end in the study of literature. It is by means of poetry that the imagination is quickened, nurtured and invigorated, and it is through the exercise of his imagination that man can live a life that is in a true sense really worth living. It is his imagination that lifts him from the petty, transient, and physical interests which engross the greater part of his time and thought in self -regarding pursuits, to the large, permanent and spiritual interests which ennoble his nature and transform him from a solitary individual to a member of the brotherhood of the human race."

Emerson says:

" It is in the grandest strokes of the poet that we feel most at home. All that Shakspere says of the king, yonder slip of a boy who reads in the corner feels to be true of himself."

Carlyle says:

" The true poet, the man in whose heart remains some effluence of divine wisdom, some tone of the eternal melodies, is the most precious gift that can be bestowed upon a generation. He sees men more clearly than they see themselves and reveals to them their own dim ideals."

Matthew Arnold says :

" The grand work of a literary genius consists in the faculty of being inspired by a certain intellectual and spiritual atmosphere, by a certain order of ideas, — and of dealing divinely with these ideas."

LITEKATUEE ITS SCOPE AND PUKPOSE 23

Professor Woodberry says:

" Literature is the mind of all the race and the language of all the world."

These are a few of the many attempts that have been made to reduce literature to a definition and to intimate some of its functions.

If the first statement were accepted literally, not as the author meant it, it would be admitting that the products of the lower centers were the most enduring of man's creations. In scanning the pages of history closely, one has seen readily enough that systems of government have been organized that seemed as enduring as the ages ; religions have been formulated with the apparent sanction and approval of divinity, and temples of worship have been reared that seemed as firm-set as the pyramids; systems of social and industrial life which seemed absolutely indispensable have sprung into being : all these apparently included the totality of man's life for all time, while the expression of his spiritual hunger, its longings and its hopes, was merely a side issue. Yet these governments now live only in story; these religions and temples of worship have been reduced to a memory ; every phase and form of social and industrial life have yielded to the changecompelling wave of progress. But the great spiritual expressions embodied in the literature of the people still live with all of their original significance and meaning. The literature of the people, voicing the hopes and aspirations of the past, en-

24 LITEKATUEB IN THE SCHOOL

dures from age to age voicing the hopes and aspirations of an ever-expanding present. It flows into the present from the past, points the future, and embodies the immortal life-essence of the spiritual in man. Literature is the language of the human spirit in its moments of great exaltation. It does not depend upon the conventions of language, for all that the bards of old have sung (in Sanskrit or Hebrew, in Grreek or Latin, or any other combinations of characters to represent through sound human feelings and emotions) finds ready response in the heart of the modern reader. This is profoundly true whether their songs were originally sung amid the solitudes of the mountains, in fertile valleys, amid the pomp of royal courts or the splendor of ancient cities. These songs are still full of life and meaning, whether dealing with gods and men on the fields of Troy, picturing the self-sacrifice of an Alcestis, or the devotion of an Antigone to a higher law, or portraying the agony of soul of a Prometheus or a Siegfried.

If the abiding thing from age to age is the great literature of a people, surely it must be something more than the mere expression of the emotion and imagination. May it not more properly be defined as the product of the intellect working, under the stimulus of emotion and imagination, on spiritual things to produce spiritual results, just as the achievements of science and industrial life are the products of the intellect working, under the stimulus of the emotion and the imagination, on material

LITEEATUKE — ITS SCOPE AlTD PUEPOSE 25

things, to produce material results I Every achievement or creation of the human race was first an idea in one man's mind and the construction was that idea externalized, that idea shaped, defined and expressed.

FUNCTION OF IMAGINATION

Who can conceive of any worthy work done in the world in which the emotion and the imagination have not played a vital part? What must have been the emotion and imagination of Michael Angelo as he saw the form of his mighty Moses embedded in the unyielding stone, and what his emotion as he saw his idea materializing through conscious effort ! What his emotion and imagination as he flung his time-enduring pictures on the dome of the great Italian cathedral ! What must have been the mighty emotion and imagination of Columbus as he contemplated his western route and, as he thought, carried his contemplation to reality! Who can overdraw the masterful emotion and imagination of Galileo as he projected his vision to the infinite depths and through his great invention discovered the laws of motion! What vast emotion and imagination must have sustained Edison through his hours of vigil and labor as he forged the lightning's chains to make it subservient to man's daily needs ! What an emotion and imagination must have been required to sustain Charles Darwin as he devoted years of study to account for the origin of species ! Who can follow the emotion and imagination of Marconi in

26 LITEEATUEE IIST THE SCHOOL

their daring flights as they contemplated enlisting the very atmosphere in the service of mankind as a message-bearer! What must have been the clearvisioned emotion and imagination of Socrates as he endeavored to strike the shackles from the minds of Athenian youths, and as he quaffed the hemlock in defense of an idea! "What must have been the inspring emotion and imagination of Savonarola who impassionately proclaimed that, if created in the image and likeness of his Maker, man must indeed be Godlike, and who surrendered his life protesting that practice and precept must form the divine equation ! And what the divine emotion and imagination of the lowly Man of Nazareth as he scourged the money-changers from the temple, as he taught the multitude from the mountain-tops, as he unflinchingly faced his final problem in the Grarden of Gethsemane, and as he sent his message of mercy ringing down the ages in '^ Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. ' '

The intellect rises to its highest in every phase and form of human activity when impelled by a powerful emotion, aided by a quickened imagination and directed by an educated will. Surely the highest flights of the intellect are in the contemplation of the things of the spirit!

FUNCTION OF LITERATURE

/ Literature selects incidents, types, scenes, in nature and human life, and idealizes them. It lifts them out of the walls and limitations of particular

LITERATURE — ITS SCOPE AND PURPOSE 27

time and particular place and makes them harmonize with, and possess, all time and all place. The Promethean faith in man is no worn-out screed. The devotion of an Alcestis or an Antigone is not peculiar to Athenian life of ancient days. The moral grandeur of a Paradise did not pass away with the astronomical conception on which it was based. The soul-struggle of Saul was not peculiar to the Judean ruler, did not necessarily take its rise from the particular Hebraic environs. The courage, the heroism, the devotion to ideals, the struggles, the triumphs, the defeats, the symphonies and the tragedies of human life record the life spiritual, typify individual experiences, tendencies, hopes and aspirations. Through the splendor of the large, the heroic, the sublime, the universal, shines the glory of the commonplace.

Literature is at once a record and an interpretation of worthy life. In the individual and particular worth it perceives the embodiment of common hopes, aspirations, and possibilities. Through it runs the inspiration and the justification of moral clash and struggle, and in the ultimate triumph of the ideal is recorded the distinction between the transitory and the eternal. Literature thus becomes the guide and inspiration in times of stress and strain, a comforter in affliction, a balancing power in times of triumph and victory.

Literature has a higher scope or function which has been stated thus :

" To the Imman, intellectual and moral resources of the soul

28 LITEEATUEE IIST THE SCHOOL

are added the sustaining power of divine grace, the illuminating power of divine truth, the transforming power of divine love. So a poem becomes the very image of life expressed in eternal truth."

"With like idea Shelley says ;

" Indeed, what were our consolation on this side of the grave and our aspirations beyond it, if poetry did not ascend to bring light and fire from those eternal regions where the owl-winged faculty of calculation dare not soar ? "

And Perry:

" In literature human expression reaches its most exalted state, excepting only religion itself, wherein God is both seen and served."