Elson Grammar School Literature Part 1

Elson Grammar School Literature, Book Four.

by William H. Elson and Christine Keck.

INTRODUCTION

This book is designed to furnish reading material of choice literary and dramatic quality. The selections for the most part are those that have stood the test of time and are acknowledged masterpieces. The groupings into the separate parts will aid both teachers and pupils in the cla.s.sification of the material, indicating at a glance the range and variety of the literature included.

Part One deals with poetry, and it is believed the poems offered in this group are unsurpa.s.sed. No effort on the teacher's part will be needed to arouse the enthusiasm of pupils who read the series of famous rides with which this group opens. The thrill of delight which children feel as they read of "A hurry of hoofs in a village street," or "Charging an army while all the world wondered," may lead to the stronger and more enduring emotions of patriotism and devotion. "John Gilpin's Ride," which has furnished amus.e.m.e.nt for generations of old and young, finds a place here.

The rhythmic movement of these poems makes a natural transition to those selections especially designed as studies in rhythm. The series of nature poems and selections from Shakespeare complete a group of choice literary creations. Part Two is given to a study of the great American authors, and no apology is needed either for the choice of material or for the prominence given to this group. It is especially suited to parallel and supplement the work of this grade in American history. Part Three contains patriotic selections and some of the great orations. These are lofty and inspiring in style, within the grasp of the pupils, and are especially helpful in developing power of expression.

It is not expected that the order of selections will be followed. On the contrary, each teacher will follow the order which will best suit her own plans and purposes. While there is much material in the book that will re-enforce lessons in history, geography, and nature study, yet it is not for this that these selections should be studied, but rather for the pleasure that comes from reading beautiful thoughts beautifully expressed.

The reading lesson should therefore be a study of literature, and it should lead the children to find beauty of thought and imagery, fitness in figures of speech, and delicate shades of meaning in words. Literature is an art, and the chief aim of the reading lesson is to discover and interpret its art qualities. In this way children learn how to read books and are enabled to appreciate the literary treasures of the race. The business of the reading book is to furnish the best available material for this purpose.

It is worth while to make a thorough study of a few well-chosen selections.

Through the power gained in this way children are enabled to interpret and enjoy other selections without the aid of the teacher. If the cla.s.s work is for the most part of the intensive kind, the pupils will read the remaining lessons alone for sheer pleasure, which is at once the secret and goal of good teaching in literature. Moreover, they will exercise a discriminating taste and judgment in their choice of reading matter. To love good literature, to find pleasure in reading it and to gain power to choose it with discrimination are the supreme ends to be attained by the reading lesson. For this reason, some selections should be read many times for the pleasure they give the children. In music the teacher sometimes calls for expressions of preference among songs: "What song shall we sing, children?"

So in reading, "What selection shall we read?" is a good question for the teacher to ask frequently. Thus children come to make familiar friends of some of the stories and poems, and find genuine enjoyment in reading these again and again.

Good results may also be obtained by a.s.signing to a pupil a particular lesson which he is expected to prepare. On a given day he will read to the cla.s.s the selection a.s.signed to him. The orations are especially suited to this mode of treatment. The pupil who can read one selection well has gone a long way toward being a good reader. The teacher who said to her pupils, "I shall read to you tomorrow," recognized this truth and knew the value of an occasional exercise of that kind. Good pedagogy approves of a judicious use of methods of imitation in teaching reading.

The biographies are intended to acquaint the children with the personal characteristics and lives of the authors, making them more interesting and real to the children, giving them the human touch and incidentally furnis.h.i.+ng helpful data for interpreting their writings. In this connection, the authors have, by permission, drawn freely from Professor Newcomer's English and American Literatures. "Helps to Study" include questions and notes designed to stimulate inquiry on the part of pupils and to suggest fruitful lines of study. Only a few points are suggested, to indicate the way, and no attempt is made to cover the ground adequately; this remains for the teacher to do.

While placing emphasis primarily on the thought-getting process the formalities of thought-giving must not be overlooked. The technique of reading, though always subordinate and secondary to the mastery of the thought, nevertheless claims constant and careful attention. Good reading requires clear enunciation and correct p.r.o.nunciation and these can be secured only when the teacher steadily insists upon them. The increase of foreign elements in our school population and the influence of these upon clearness and accuracy of speech furnish added reason for attention to these details. Special drill exercises should be given and the habit of using the dictionary freely should be firmly established in pupils. The ready use of the dictionary and other reference books for p.r.o.nunciation and meaning of words, for historical and mythical allusions should be steadily cultivated. Without doubt much of the reading accepted in the public schools is seriously deficient in these particulars. The art of good reading can be cultivated by judicious training and the school should spare no pains to realize this result.

Professor Clark, in his book on "How to Teach Reading," sets forth the four elements of vocal expression--Time, Pitch, Quality and Force. We quote a few of the sentences from his treatment of each of these elementary topics.

"I. TIME. Time, then, refers to the rate of vocal movement. It may be fast, or moderate, or slow, according to the amount of what may be called the collateral thinking accompanying the reading, of any given pa.s.sage. To put it another way: a phrase is read slowly because it means much; because the thought is large, sublime, deep. The collateral thinking may be revealed by an expansive paraphrase. For instance, in the lines

"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note As his corse to the rampart we hurried,"

_why_ do we read slowly? The paraphrase answers the question. It was midnight. There lay our beloved leader, who should have been borne in triumphal procession to his last resting place. Bells should have tolled, cannon thundered, and thousands should have followed his bier. But now, alas, by night, by stealth, without even a single drum tap, in fear and dread, we crept breathless to the rampart. This, or any one of a hundred other paraphrases, will suffice to render the vocal movement slow. And so it is with all slow time. Let it be remembered that a profound or sublime thought may be uttered in fast time; but that when we dwell upon that thought, when we hold it before the mind, the time must necessarily be slow. If a child read too rapidly, it is because his mind is not sufficiently occupied with the thought; if he read too slowly, it is because he does not get the words; or because he is temperamentally slow; or because, and this is the most likely explanation, he is making too much of a small idea. To tell him to read fast or slow is but to make him affected, and, incidentally, even if unconsciously, to impress upon him that reading is a matter of mechanics, and not of thought-getting and thought-giving."

"II. PITCH. By Pitch is meant everything that has to do with the acuteness or gravity of the tone--in other words, with keys, melodies, inflections and modulations. When we say of one that he speaks in a high key, we should be understood as meaning that his pitch is prevailingly high; and that the reverse is true when we say of one that he speaks in a low key. While it is true that the key differs in individuals, yet experience shows that within a note or two, we all use the same keys in expressing the same states of minds. The question for us is, what determines the key? It can be set down as a fixed principle, that controlled mental states are expressed by low keys, while the high keys are the manifestation of the less controlled mental conditions. Drills in inflections as such are of very little value, and potentially very harmful. Most pupils have no difficulty in making proper inflections, so that for them cla.s.s drills are time wasted; for those whose reading is monotonous, because of lack of melodic variety, the best drills are those which teach them to make a careful a.n.a.lysis of the sentences, and those which awaken them to the necessity of impressing the thought upon others. We have learned that when a pupil has the proper motive in mind and is desirous of conveying his intention to another, a certain melody will always manifest that intention. The melody, then, is the criterion of the pupil's purpose. The moment a pupil loses sight of a phrase and its relation to the other phrases, that moment his melody betrays him."

"III. QUALITY. Quality manifests emotional states. By Quality we mean that subtle element in the voice by which is expressed at one time tenderness, at another harshness, at another awe, and so on through the whole gamut of feeling. The teacher now knows that emotion affects the quality of tone.

Let him then use this knowledge as he has learned to use his knowledge of the other criteria. We recognize instinctively the qualities that express sorrow, tenderness, joy, and the other states of feeling. When the proper quality does not appear it is because the child has no feeling, or the wrong feeling, generally the former. There is but one way to correct the expression, i. e., by stimulating the imagination."

"IV. FORCE. Force manifests the degree of mental energy. When we speak in a loud voice, there is much energy; when softly, there is little. Do not tell the child to read louder. If you do, you will get loudness--that awful grating schoolboy loudness--without a particle of expression in it. Many a child reads well, but is bashful. When we tell him to read louder, he braces himself for the effort and kills the quality, which is the finer breath and spirit of oral expression, and gives us a purely physical thing--force. Put your weak-voiced readers on the platform; let them face the cla.s.s and talk to you, seated in the middle of the room, and you will get all the force you need. On the whole, we have too much force, rather than too little. Let the teacher learn that we want quality, not quant.i.ty, and our statement of the mental action behind force will be of much benefit in creating the proper conditions."

To discriminating teachers it will be apparent that this book is not the usual school reader. On the contrary it differs widely from this in the cultural value of the selections, in the cla.s.sification and arrangement of material, in the variety of interest to which it appeals, and in the abundance of cla.s.sic literature from American authors which it contains. It aims to furnish the best in poetry and prose to be found in the literature of the English-speaking race and to furnish it in abundance. If these familiar old selections, long accepted as among the best in literature, shall be the means of cultivating in pupils a taste for good reading, the book will have fulfilled its purpose.

For permission to use valuable selections from their lists, acknowledgment is due to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Charles Scribner's Sons, and The Whitaker and Ray Company.

Grateful acknowledgment is also made to those teachers who have given valuable suggestions and criticisms in the compilation of this book.

THE AUTHORS.

April, 1909.

"We live in deeds, not years, in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial."

PHILIP JAMES BAILEY.

PART I.

FAMOUS RIDES, SELECTIONS FROM SHAKESPEARE AND OTHER POETS, AND STUDIES IN RHYTHM

PAUL REVERE'S RIDE

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five: Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend: "If the British march By land or sea from the town tonight, Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch Of the North Church tower, as a signal-light,-- One if by land, and two if by sea; And I on the opposite sh.o.r.e will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middles.e.x village and farm, For the country-folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "good night," and with m.u.f.fled oar Silently rowed to the Charlestown sh.o.r.e, Just as the moon rose over the bay, Where, swinging wide at her moorings, lay The Somerset, British man-of-war: A phantom s.h.i.+p, with each mast and spar Across the moon, like a prison-bar, And a huge black hulk, that was magnified By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street Wanders and watches with eager ears, Till in the silence around him he hears The muster of men at the barrack-door, The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, And the measured tread of the grenadiers Marching down to their boats on the sh.o.r.e.

Then he climbed to the tower of the church, Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, To the belfry-chamber overhead, And startled the pigeons from their perch On the sombre rafters, that round him made Ma.s.ses and moving shapes of shade,-- Up the trembling ladder, steep and tall, To the highest window in the wall, Where he paused to listen and look down A moment on the roofs of the town, And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead In their night-encampment on the hill, Wrapped in silence so deep and still, That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread, The watchful night-wind, as it went Creeping along from tent to tent, And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"

A moment only he feels the spell Of the place and the hour, the secret dread Of the lonely belfry and the dead; For suddenly all his thoughts are bent On a shadowy something far away, Where the river widens to meet the bay,-- A line of black, that bends and floats On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride, On the opposite sh.o.r.e walked Paul Revere.

Now he patted his horse's side, Now gazed at the landscape far and near, Then impetuous stamped the earth, And turned and tightened his saddle-girth; But mostly he watched with eager search The belfry-tower of the old North Church, As it rose above the graves on the hill, Lonely, and spectral, and sombre, and still.

And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height, A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!

He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight A second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in a village-street, A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, And beneath from the pebbles, in pa.s.sing, a spark Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet: That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light, The fate of a nation was riding that night; And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

He has left the village and mounted the steep, And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; And under the alders, that skirt its edge, Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge, Is heard the tramp of the steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village-clock When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.

He heard the crowing of the c.o.c.k, And the barking of the farmer's dog, And felt the damp of the river-fog That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village-clock When he galloped into Lexington.

He saw the gilded weatherc.o.c.k Swim in the moonlight as he pa.s.sed, And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, Gaze at him with a spectral glare, As if they already stood aghast At the b.l.o.o.d.y work they would look upon.

It was two by the village-clock When he came to the bridge in Concord town.

He heard the bleating of the flock, And the twitter of birds among the trees, And felt the breath of the morning-breeze Blowing over the meadows brown.