full content of the printed page! In the earlier years, the stress is naturally laid on learning letters and words, but after the child can "read," we leave all the rest to chance. In a few schools some stress is laid on vocal expression; but alas! too often "expression" is synonymous with gush and show and affectation.

To conclude then: expression is good, valuable, but it must be the natural, spontaneous response to an impression. Elocution, or expression, or vocal interpretation, whatever it may be called, is not the goal of the reading lesson. Our schools have made, and many still make, the fatal mistake of taking it for granted that because vocal expression may be of considerable importance as the outcome of the reading lesson, it is of the first importance. It is not. Beautiful as is the adequate vocal interpretation of literature, it is of infinitesimally less worth in a system of education than the ability to interpret silently. For the great majority of men and women, the need for correct impression is the most crying of all.

The method here presented consists of a series of simple progressive steps to master which means the development of ability to get more and more from the printed page, a greater pleasure in literature through a clearer grasp of its content, and finally, the growth of a power to express vocally, in a simple, natural, and effective way, the content of the printed page.

It is not to be supposed for a moment that I would insist on the making of a clear picture of what every word and sentence stands for. It would not only be

sheer nonsense to expect that; it would cause incalculable harm to develop the habit of reading only in pictures. (However, to be fair to those who insist on "getting pictures," I believe they use the phrase in the very general sense of getting the thought.) In fact, we seldom or never see pictures in our daily intercourse. If I am told, "Your lesson in history for tomorrow will be chapter five of Green's History of the English People," I certainly do not stop to make a picture of "lesson" and "tomorrow," etc. It would positively stand in my way if I had to get ideas and information in such a fashion. And so it is with all the ordinary conversation and reading of everyday life. The larger our experience with books and the world the easier it is to read without the aid of pictures.

But now comes a danger. Young students become so used to understanding people without effort and to reading rapidly that they skim lightly over the page, and many come to the point where that which does not come easily is passed by as being too hard, or not worth puzzling over. It is only those who are well acquainted with the subject-matter who can read rapidly and still understand. I do not mean that it is necessary to read every page of every book so carefully that nothing can escape us. It is quite possible we want to read just to get a general idea of what the author has to say. Some passages are under some conditions to be passed over lightly, and under others to be studied in minutest detail. For instance, we cannot be expected to study closely every word of the baseball news, nor of a railroad accident.

But when we come to good literature there is no choice. It was never written for the tired brain, nor for mere entertainment. Every word and phrase has a meaning and a purpose.

In this book I am insisting strongly with Ruskin that one must interpret not only sentences, but words, nay, “letter by letter," for with virtually no reservation the greater part of our educational system is guilty of total disregard of this fundamental need. The only way we can test the value of a method of "teaching literature" is in its results with the students, and I—with the highest appreciation of that small devoted body of teachers of English that insists not on "teaching literature," but on presenting it so that students may learn what it is—I unhesitatingly declare that, measured by the standard of adequate results, it is a miserable failure; it has not developed an interest in literature worth while, let alone a love for it. I concede the world is too much with us; that the cry for practical results drowns out the gentle voice of poesie; that the environment of our students may not be conducive to the study of literature; I grant everything except that all these are no excuse. We must find time and means to present literature for what it is, not as history, not as biography, not as composition, nor philology, nor histology, nor-nor -nor anything but the beautiful. It can never be easy to read good literature, thank the gods for that! but it must be made so interesting, so appealing to what is best in the students that they will gladly work over the text in order to enjoy it. There is no

time to hurry the study of a poem; it is the veriest art of pedagogy to dwell on it and have the class dwell on it lovingly, longingly, and loath to let it go; hanging on every word, every group and sentence; rolling rhyme and rhythm on the tongue as it were not trippingly, no, Hamlet, not trippingly— until we know it as we know the mother's voice, singing it to ourselves, dwelling on every cadence, flighting to the blue with Shelley's Skylark, going down with majestic steps to Milton's deep within the deep.

There is little love of good literature in America. We don't read it because we don't care for it; we don't care for it because it does not appeal to us; it does not appeal to us because we don't understand it; we don't understand because we don't know how to go about understanding-and our schools seldom show us how.

There is. some tendency nowadays to hold that we must learn to skim the printed page. It can't be skimmed unless we want but a bird's-eye view. True, there are some books written to be skimmed (most of which, by the way, might better be left alone entirely); others whose subject-matter is so familiar to a certain reader that he need not dwell on its every detail, because in the past, through patient study, he had mastered the fundamentals of the subject. But this is never true of good literature. Never! Never!! Never!!! The wretched habit of skimming explains not only our lack of interest in and love of good literature, but the inability of the average man and woman to grapple with any book or treatise of weight and

merit, anything outside of the popular treatment of the commonest occurrences of everyday life. Nay, even there, it is appalling how much can be read without understanding, frequently with a perverted under standing. For most people the ability to read (!) is a fatal facility for recognizing words. Their ability leads them to believe that they know and understand, when the truth is their skimming, skipping method destroys their power of concentration, of prolonged attention, their interest in the serious treatment of any subject, including even those most nearly touching their lives. Is it not true that we cannot trust the average graduate of the average high school to give us the gist of a leading article or editorial? And only one child out of nineteen who enter the public school ever gets as far as high-school graduation. What can we expect then of those who drop out at twelve and thirteen and fourteen? Well, at any rate, vaudeville prospers, the "movie" houses are packed, and the popular monthly magazines sell by the million. Shakespeare? Oh, yes, "John received a beautiful set for graduation; it's on the upper shelf, left-hand side." In the name of all that is sound in literary culture, what arraignment more terrible could be made of our methods than that virtually nobody reads good literature? Let us at least be honest and not keep talking about our priceless heritage in Shakespeare and Milton and Wordsworth and Shelley and Keats and George Eliot and Emerson, and frankly say they are not for the busy twentieth century.

How then can there be any adequate vocal expres