we give our boys and girls freedom, they may surprise us and sing. Originality may bubble up in the wrong place some day. Why fail to recognize it, even so? A boy in an eastern city wrote a thrilling tale of a ball game between the city all-stars and the Greek mythical characters. Hundred-handed Briareus was right-fielder, and the two-headed dog Cerberus, the mascot. The Greeks won and were whirled to Olympus on Jupiter's thunderbolts; but the boy's work was turned down because he mixed his tenses. Happily he sent it to a newspaper, where they mended the tenses and published it, to the pleasure of many. Curiously enough, in the past great literary genius seemed to develop in spite of schools. The phenomenon of the future may be the development of genius by the schools. Concerning the course of study in English literature much may be said. A variation from the approved order herein stated, from Teachers' College Record, 1900, seems wise in view of the fact that high school may now be defined as a preparation for life. First Year. Ivanhoe and two or three of the following: Waverley, Rob Silas Marner. House of Seven Gables. The Last of the Mohicans. Selections from Irving. Lady of the Lake. Second Year. Vision of Sir Launfal. Bryant and Emerson selections. Outline of American Literature. "De Coverly Papers with "Tattler" and "Spectator." Ancient Mariner. Idyls of the King. Third Year. Julius Caesar, Merchant of Venice, As You Like It. Fourth Year. Burke's Speech. Milton's Minor Poems. Books 1 to 4, Paradise Lost. Tennyson's Princess. Macbeth. Selected poems from Wordsworth, Keats and Browning. Outline of History of English Literature. In 1902 changes were made by which four of "Idyls of the King" were selected, and Julius Caesar chosen for extensive study instead of Macbeth. King John, Richard III, Lear, and Midsummer Night's Dream are needed for the sake of history, ethics and pure poetry. Stevenson, Kipling and Bret Harte represent the literature of active life, and therefore may well be given in a list of electives. Victor Hugo enriches the study of the French Revolution. Alphonso Daudet's Short Stories, in translation, studied in connection with Poe's Tales, add a European point of view that is stimulating after Hawthorne's serious heaviness, and serve as a means of comparison. One Greek drama should be read-"Oedipus" or "Prometheus Bound"-in correlation with the study of Greek history. Macaulay, Carlyle and Emerson might well be left for first years in college. The study of Greek myths which belongs so admirably in first year high school, has failed to interest whole classes in eastern schools. The myths in literature are being supplemented by use of good pictures, plaster casts, excursions to art galleries and museums, points from the teachers' trips abroad, and lantern slides. Without much appeal to the eye and the vitalizing enthusiasm of a real teacher, myths fail to reach the practical student of the present. He is likely to ask frankly, "What's in it, anyway?" Finally, can we grown-ups ourselves answer the question, "What's in it all, anyway?" What is the aim? And is it worth while? DeGarmo seems to have doubts as to the ethical value of literature in high schools. "It is not highly conducive to moral training, because it stops short of the concrete deed," he states, adding further, "The muscular theory of morality is answered best by industrial education." Then he questions thus: "Does literature lift life above the dead level of the commonplace? Is it valuable in relieving the mind of vexatious experiences? Does not history teach ethical lessons better than literature?" These questions are asked less in a doubtful spirit, than in a spirit of suggestion. The value of fine literature has not decreased, but our enthusiasm toward it has become less keen in the flashlight of more practical interests. We need men and women to teach English literature who are broad-minded, who are deeply interested in literature and art because they have artistic and literary power themselves; who are able to judge a work from the point of literary criticism, not sentimentally; who know vitally the literature they teach, and keep at knowing it; who never stop studying, who never grow old, who are humanitarians in philosophy, and who are followers of an ideal and therefore can never fossilize. It is no mean task to teach a great classic well, and he who really knows ten great books is ten times a man, for he has added the sense perceptions of ten distinguished minds to his own. Have faith in humanity! It is sometimes hard to do so in these days. The reports of crime which are served up, ad nauseam, in the daily press, and the deeds that come to our individual notice, even in cultured centers and often in quiet country hamlets, get upon our nerves and sometimes make it seem to us as though these were indeed degenerate days in which we live, and as if the whole world were rapidly going to the bad. But it is not! Without closing our eyes wholly to the regrettable and reprehensible things, we should open them widely and deliberately to make note of and to rejoice in the far greater number of good deeds and kind, generous, noble services which abound on every hand. We are altogether too hasty in our judgments about individuals and about humanity as a whole. The good in mankind is often passed by without notice. The evil is seized upon and made much of and proclaimed from the housetop. It is sent by press, post and wireless to the ends of the earth,-thereby becoming fecund with evil and mischief for old and young. We should cultivate a habit of skipping the crime records, the divorce proceedings, the silly, shallow gossip-columns of our daily papers, and should select the good spots in them,-just as we pick our way to the depot of a wet morning, choosing the good places on the sidewalk and avoiding the mud-holes. Fortunately, there is much in the products of the press that is wholesome, stimulating and inspiring. Select your mental and spiritual pabulum, dear reader, and do not "guzzle" whatever is spread before you! The dailies, weeklies and monthlies are rich in records of wonderful and inspiring things. Everywhere there are good, noble, unselfish men and women working in all sorts of ways and affording all kinds of examples of self-sacrificing devotion to the welfare of their fellows. The half has not been told and cannot be told. The vast majority of people are living serious and useful lives. The world is growing wiser and better every day. Think back forty or fifty years, and see what has been accomplished in science and invention, in the mastery of nature's forces, in the spread of truth and the broadening of the field of education! Read the story of the missions, which have dispelled the darkness and alleviated the almost hopeless sufferings and despair of heathen peoples! Or just ask yourself how many of your own small circle of acquaintances are trustworthy, and note how very small a percentage you are obliged to distrust! Faith in humanity makes for faithfulness in ourselves. It is to the soul what oxygen is to the body. Without faith in our associates, our families, our neighbors, our shopmates, our pupils, our lawgivers and governors, our nation and our race, life is not worth living. Belief in God is impossible without belief in our fellow men. in humanity! Have faith We may well rejoice in our mastery over the forces of nature; but is it not self-evident that knowledge is the most dangerous thing in the world if unattended by moral character? When intellectual development outruns moral development we arrive at the arrogant assumption of materialism that might makes right; and that doctrine is the very charter of universal diabolism. The first demand of reconstruction, then, is the restoration of civilization to a moral basis. Civilization, indeed, cannot be built on any other basis. "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." What is the true function of prosperity? The moral view is that wealth is a means to an end, that wealth is equipment for service-everything is to be subordinated to manhood, to character, to wealth of being. Material prosperity should be merely a stepping-stone to intellectual, moral, spiritual attainment. The MAN should stand out above all that he possesses, as master of all, and using all as equipment for service. The fatal defect of a materialistic civilization is that it has no moral or spiritual ideals. In the materialistic view the moral does not exist, the spiritual does not exist; the only right is might, and the only law is self-interest. Hence, wealth becomes an end in itself; and when wealth becomes an end in itself, then, the only possible way to enjoy this wealth is through self-indulgence; self-indulgence tends inevitably toward degeneracy and ultimate collapse. Such is the fatal, uniform cycle of a materialistic civilization. How often it has been repeated in history! "How oft is the lamp of the wicked put out, and how oft cometh their calamity upon them!" * * We are all familiar with the splendid achievements of the modern magicians of science, whose wonder-working power is changing the whole aspect of the physical world. And we may well rejoice in these triumphs. But the final test of all our progress must be its effect upon our individual worth. Our extraordinary advantages count for nothing at all unless they enable our human nature to unfold and express itself progressively. Unless our age produces nobler types of men and women than former times produced, then all our boasted progress is but vanity and vexation of spirit. The measure of all moral strength is mastery-self-control and control of circumstances. In so far as we are possessed by our possessions |