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Volume VI

PRIMARY EDUCATION

PUBLISHED BY THE

Number 2

children may know every traditional story concerning the boy, the youth, the statesman, the general, and the president, Washington, and yet not feel the lofty Washington spirit, or recognize the crowning greatness of his individual manhood. They must know that these have given the lasting glory to Washington's supreme place in our national history. It is the Washington we respect, admire and love that must be taught the children, and not alone the great general. who could plan campaigns and win battles. Napoleon could do that.

For manhood is the one immortal thing Beneath time's changeful sky.

- Lowell

Lowell

I know no North, no South, no East, no West.

Henry Clay

MANHOOD AND PATRIOTISM Are not these the lessons of this month of birthdays?

Washington, Lincoln, Lowell and Longfellow! Do not these names stand for manhood and patriotism over and above every other gift or accomplishment which has given to them fame and immortality?

The primary teacher, in ways known only to herself will interweave these lessons of manliness and love of country into all the regular work of the month. Not in a mechanical, perfunctory correlation, but as the artist-weaver twines his golden thread of beautiful design, in and out of the substantial fabric. Each Each month suggests some special theme for attention, and offers the aid of circumstance and season to teach its lesson and accentuate its meaning. This does not mean that children are not to be taught a love of country every day; but there are times and seasons when this may be emphasized, just as there is a bird month and an arbor day.

Teaching the facts about Washington is not teaching the greatness of Washington's manhood. The

Learning and Teaching Life

"One bright morning the great Edison called his son to him and spake thus: "Thomas, my son, you know almost as much as your father, but what you know will never be of use to you until you know men. Get out, Thomas, and study men. Brush up against the world for a while, and let us see what you are made of. You have good ideas, work them. Good morning."

Why should the reading of this little incident suggest teachers? But it did. This view of a preparation for work always does suggest teachers. They need this miscellaneous mixing with the world more than any other class of women workers, and they get the least of it. Why? "No time!" "Too busy!" are the regulation excuses. There are other reasons besides these. Teachers do not realize that free, wholesome intercourse with the world helps them. to be better teachers. Such a thought never occurs to them. They have little taste and little time for mixing with people who have no special interest in teachers or schools.

But there is a preparation for the teaching and training of children in this contact with every phase of life in this "brushing up against the world; and it is a preparation that cannot be furnished by experts in pedagogy or in normal schools.

If teachers will go to evening socials, entertainments, fairs and clubs where schools are never mentioned; if they can enter into fun with boys and girls in the gameplaying stage; if they can look on at a "society" reception, where the width of a hem or the shade of a ribbon is of eternal moment; if they can listen when business men talk business; if they can watch men differ in politics; if they could overhear publishers discuss purchases, profits and possibilities; if they will linger while some tired, hedged-in mother deplores her monotonous, narrow life; if they can go to the theatre and be thrilled by some worthy play; if they can listen to a symphony concert; if they can see a good picture and hear it interpreted; if they can get inside the life of that ragged newsboy, calling "papers," on the street;- if teachers could do all of these things and many more of the same kind, what would it do for them?

time, if you like the book, to begin again at the first chapter, or in the middle, or at some especially attractive passage, and read it all through again- a very dear delight. And you have time to think it well over to get it into your life, if it belongs there out of it, if it does not. You have time, too, for an exercise more helpful not only in fixing but in forming a judgment, namely, the writing out as clearly as you can, your own impression of the book. It is well to keep a list of all books read, and into such a list to tuck, from time to time, a few lines of comment brief reviews which no one but yourself may ever see, but which will keep your memory of the book fresh and which you may find interesting more than once for purposes of comparison.

Points of Criticism

The points at which a novel challenges criticism are many and varied. The first question we must ask concerning it is, what its author has aimed to do. This question applies to all novels they are not necessarily novels " with a purpose," so called, but each of them has an aim, even though that aim be only to amuse.

It is a vexed question whether a novel should be anything but a story. A rather noisy group of critics claims that if a novel teaches or preaches, it is not a work of art. But it is also a question whether a novel that is a work of art that tells a true story of human life can help pointing a moral — can help suggesting to us the eternal difference between the good and the bad, the false and the true. Of course there are plenty of Pharisees in fiction, and we like them there no better than in real life unless the author takes us into his confidence and despises them with us. There is, however, a kind of prig that imposes on the author himself and that gets himself taken seriously, not only by the author, but by a great many readers and this, I think, is what we object to when we talk about "preachy novels." But between the novel which aims merely to tell a good story, and the one which is a sugar-coated pill, there is a vast number of gradations, and somewhere among them we shall find the book which seems to us the ideal novel. Your ideal novel and mine may not be the same but if the choice is honestly made they will have certain things in

common.

The first thing, once more, is to decide what the author has tried to do and if he has done it. Is it to bring out, in all its phases, the humor or the pathos of a situation? Is it to depict, in its development and results, the power of some overmastering passion, such as ambition, jealousy, avarice, revenge, hatred, love? Is it to show how no man can live his life without touching and influencing other lives, for good or ill? Is it to remind us that man is master of his fate?-or to convince us that we are but "impotent pieces of the game" in which fate makes all the moves? Is it to show life in all its beauty, or life in all its ugliness, in some special place or class of life? Whatever it be, whether one of these things or something else, has the author done the thing he tried to do?

Fidelity to Life

The next point to consider is whether the picture, completed, is broadly true to life. Does it give you the impression of reality? You cannot always decide unaided whether "local color" is true or not because you cannot always be familiar with the place or time described. For instance, you cannot say from personal observation, whether English country life early in the century was just what Jane Austen has described it in "Pride and Prejudice," but you can form some idea whether the motives prompting her men and women are real, or whether they are such motives as Miss Austen thought men and women ought to have. And while the test of accuracy in detail may and should be applied wherever we have the material for comparison, the first test of realness is that of the human heart. Etiquette and costume and local color- even manner of speech-are secondary.

Again, in applying this test, you must allow for the individuality of the author. If every writer of stories saw life in

precisely the same way, fiction would wear an aspect of gray monotony. It would be very tame and tedious indeed if all of them were as gossipy as Miss Austen, and very wearing if they were as intense as Victor Hugo. Nor should we relish a steady diet of either the satire of Thackeray or the alternate humor and pathos of Dickens. Probably no one comes nearer to giving us a well-ordered, nourishing and palatable diet in fiction, than Walter Scott, yet even Scott would not satisfy us continuously, we need variety.

For this reason we can afford to be patient and tolerant of the idiosyncracies of our authors. Perhaps it is not too much to say that we must not quarrel with even an exaggeration or distortation of facts so long as the thing to be demonstrated is true. A painter in his picture puts a streak of white paint on the rounded surface of the glass bowl he is studying, not because that part of the bowl is really white but because he must make you see that the light strikes it most sharply at that point. So the novelist may subject his heroine to severe trials and temptations, not because all women must face those very trials, but because he wants to show you how pure and beautiful is her soul.

A Word About Technique

These two elements, the aim of the book and its fidelity to life, should come first in forming our judgment. Then we must consider the technical treatment,- construction, movement, dramatic action, dialogue, artistic handling of detail. The construction of a novel is the framework of circumstance on which it is built. This is sometimes, and with perfect propriety, very slight. An elaborate plot and setting is not essential to the development of a great novel, although it is quite legitimate. It must, however, have continuity and consistency. A vague, disjointed structural outline is often disastrous to the artistic effect of a book which has other elements of real strength.

The movement of a novel is that process by which the different parts of the book are merged- into each other. When this is accomplished without "jerkiness" or a perceptible slackening of interest on the part of the reader, it may be called successful and it is one of the qualities most noticeable by its absence.

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Dramatic action has the same kind of value in the novel as in the play, but in less degree. It is, however, very necessary and all great novelists have it, it warms and electrifies their work. When it is missing we are conscious of a lack of life and color. We may grant the excellence of the story as a whole, its technique may be perfect, its construction admirable, its movement easy; but if there be not here and there a touch that flashes the men and women before our eyes, then it still lacks an essential of perfect fiction.

The artistic detail of a story consists in those subtle touches by which the author throws a glamour about his characters and helps you to see them as he wants you to. It would be harder to say just how this is done than to mention instances, but it is, or should be, a minor consideration in the novelist's art and it constitutes one of the most baffling differences between the sincere artist and the pretender. There are writers who have either no story to tell or else a wicked one, who are able to make their work alluring, even convincing, by these very touches. They captivate their public perhaps, but their success cannot survive the test of time. They pass away with the fashion of their period.

We have, then, in summing up our estimate of a novel, to consider on the one side the author's purpose, whether it be noble or ignoble, and his view of life, whether it be false or true; and on the other side, his mastery of the technical details of his art. And this double analysis of the novels we read, helps us not only to express clearly to others what we think about them, but to mature our own judgment and acquire the gift of estimating a book promptly and fairly.