The subject of my present paper is one of such wide importance and interest, and seems to me to bear so deeply and strongly and in so many different directions upon the springs of character and conduct, that my chief difficulty in treating it is to compress what I must say upon the subject into the limits allotted me. I have thought I it best, therefore, to narrow the field somewhat by dealing with a concrete ease first. I do not think that in doing this I shall lose anything by taking the case of a man of such exceptional experience in the matter of education as John Stuart Mill. His is, it is true, an extreme case; but I think that the study of it will tend to throw my subject into very strong relief, and thus to make its treatment easier for myself and my hearers.

He describes how a small ray of light broke in upon his gloom from reading a passage in Marmontel's Memoirs, and how this brought him some relief. It hardly concerns us to enquire what this passage was; it is sufficient to say that it moved him to tears. Nor do I intend to dwell upon the first of the two lessons which Mill tells us he learned from this terrible experience of his youth; it is sufficient to observe that Mill now found himself to be the victim of a very extraordinary system of education which had been imposed upon him by his father—an education wholly intellectual and non-emotional, and one tending to develope in an abnormal degree the power and the habit of analysis.

When Mill had thus been painfully convinced of the necessity of the culture of the feelings, be turned to music and poetry. His experience in music is interesting and amusing, and is often quoted, but does not concern us here. The first permanent relief he obtained, he tells us, from reading Wordsworth. He had tried Byron at the worst period of his depression, and got no good from him, "but the reverse" Wordsworth exactly suited his condition. This poet had himself passed through a very similar crisis, as recorded in the "Ode on Intimations of Immortality in Early Childhood," and also Wordsworth addressed himself to what had always been one of the strongest of Mill's pleasurable susceptibilities—"the love of rural objects and natural scenery." But this was not the chief benefit which Mill derived from him. "What made Wordsworth's poems a medicine for my state of mind, was that they expressed not mere outward beauty, but states of feeling and of thought coloured by feeling under the excitement of beauty. They seemed to be the very culture of the feelings which I was in quest of. In them I seemed to draw from a source of inward joy, of sympathetic and imaginative pleasure, which could be shared in by all human beings .... From them I seemed to learn what would be the perennial sources of happiness when all the greater evils of life shall have been removed; and I felt myself at page 3 once better and happier as I came under their influence .... The result was that I gradually but completely emerged from my habitual depression, and was never again subject to it."

The case which I have here sketched in Mill's words should have many lessons for us. Allowing for the peculiar constitution of the subject's fine mind, and for the abnormal conditions of that mind at the moment when Wordsworth first touched it, we may at least draw one general conclusion, namely: That if education be directed too allusively towards the cultivation of the intellectual faculties of the mind, so that the emotional faculties are neglected, very disastrous results may follow; and I would add: the finer the mind and the more delicate its susceptibilities, the greater is the danger of ruin to the growing soul. Leaving aside all the other lessons which may be drawn from Mill's case (even for the present the interesting question of Wordsworth's wonderful "healing power" and its sources), I have here a firm basis for some remarks on poetry as an instrument for the cultivation of the emotional side of human nature; and I may say, I think that in an age when so-called "scientific "culture is showing such a strong tendency to oust the "humaner" system of education, too much stress can hardly be laid upon this view of my subject. Poetry, I would say, is soul-food; of mind-food I suppose we shall always have enough and to spare. Intellectual repletion is synonymous with soul-starvation; and I think I have now said enough to indicate a rock ahead.

I must now clear my way a little by describing briefly what I refer to as education in this paper. I have thought that two kinds of education may be pretty clearly distinguished: the haphazard and the systematic; and again two kinds: education for character and education for intellect. (Education for a special purpose—technical or professional education—I must omit altogether to consider.) I think too, that my double classification may turn out to be really one. By the haphazard kind of education I mean (using an extreme term to characterise it) that kind of education which has been in vogue in England, with some not very radical changes and natural growths, from the sixteenth century to the present day, or rather, yesterday. It is that inconsistent, apparently ill-organised, mainly "classical" education, which, combined with the wonderful social machinery of the English public schools and universities, has made the British nation what it is. By the systematic kind of education I mean that well-balanced, well-thought-out, well-carried-out system of training the young which is now being aimed at by all civilised nations, page 4 with, I think I may say, the United States of America at their head. The system is, so far as I know, not perfectly organised as yet anywhere. Its field is of course rather the primary and secondary schools, in England and her dependencies and colonies, than the great old-established public schools, grammar schools and universities. There, war is being carried on briskly between the votaries of the old and the new kinds of education. At its best, the new system aims at good citizenship as its ideal result.

I think I am right in supposing that the old haphazard method of education aimed, in a vague, ill-defined and instinctive way perhaps, at the development of character, and in education in this sense I of course include the whole of that "social machinery," as I called it, of the English public school and university which, I venture to think, has been the most potent factor in moulding the character of the upper and middle-class Englishman of the past. Whereas the more modem system has for its object rather the cultivation of intellect, the production of efficient, dutiful, and law-abiding citizenship, and the advancement of the physical and mental well-being of the State. There; can, of course, be no question (leaving aside social influences) whether the first or second of these systems is ideally the better. The old method has, from a logical standpoint, hardly a merit; the new has all the merits and excellences possible. Yet the old method seems to have made England great, and the new has certainly introduced and developed to a most pernicious degree the present system (must I say inevitable or irreplaceable system?) of examinations.

Let me now show what seems to me to be the bearing of my subject upon the conflict which I conceive to be now impending or actually waging between the two methods of education which I have endeavoured to sketch, premising that I have been obliged for the sake of clearness in argument to represent them as perhaps more clearly distinct and more vitally in opposition to one another than they really are.

I think we shall find that the old system, from the point of view of poetry in education, is open to very severe criticism, and that the new system, from the same point of view, is threatened by a great danger. I cannot think that poetry, English poetry that is, had its fair share of attention, or anything like it, in the old English system of education. The plea for the study of English literature in the universities put forward by John Eachard in 1668 went unregarded, though winged with the feather of a very pretty wit, till the present day, when the heavier attack of Mr. Churton Collins has at last made a gap in the page 5 enemy's ranks. We cannot acquit the educators of English' youth in the past of wholesale neglect of the masterpieces of English literature. By haphazard, indeed, and in a random scrambling way, I believe most Englishmen of brains and culture did gain some knowledge of at least our greater lights, of Shakespeare certainly, of Milton probably, and of a few of the really great, but that is the most we can say. I hold no no brief for the old system from the point of view of poetry in education, and cannot here enter into the vexed question of the benefits arising or likely to arise from the study of Greek and Latin poetry by English schoolboys and youths.

In dealing with the modern style, I must return to the case of Mill and my main conclusion from it. I cannot but think that the tendency now-a-days is to make our educative system too exclusively rational and intellectual, to appeal to the reasoning faculties rather than to the gentler and more spiritual emotions. (The appeal to some of the lower emotions, the combative especially, is no doubt quite strong enough.) I must venture to say that I think Mill's disease is by no means unknown in the present generation, but that it exists in a very much milder form-milder by reason of the less terrible result upon the less susceptible and delicate organism. I must not pause to describe what would seem to me to be the present-day forms and symptoms of emotional starvation in the young, nor would I be understood to speak of the disease as present and rampant, but rather as incipient and menacing. I would say that there seems to be a danger, if things continue to develope as they do at present, that our youth may cultivate the mnemonic and mechanically rational powers at the expense of the feelings, and that very serious injury to character may be the result.

Coming to the more practical side of the question, as I hope to do by degrees, I must now describe how the term "poetry "is to be understood in this paper. If I thought it necessary to choose a definition of poetry for my purpose I should choose either that of Wordsworth: "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" or the more mystical one of Coleridge: "Poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of all human knowledge, thoughts, passions, emotions, language." Poetry, according to Wordsworth, being the outcome of strong feeling, must also stir feeling in the reader; it must stir or soothe; it must influence the feelings. This will fit in admirably with Mill's Lesson. Without classifying or defining poetry any further for the present, I would say then that all true poetry must make an appeal to the feelings, must stir or soothe. It would be superfluous for me to emphasise page 6 the fact that the higher feelings are meant; some of the finest art work of English poets must be a sealed book to youth because they appeal to the lower rather than to the higher feelings. I must consider as subsidiary and beside my subject all the incidental teaching which poetry may supply. I shall not dwell upon the fact that history may be studied in Shakespeare, ancient cosmology in Paradise Lost, Middle English phonology and grammar in Chaucer, and a fine old rugged foreign tongue in Beowulf. Poetry has already suffered much by performing the office of a whetstone. The outcry against the modern "annotated editions" of our classics is already so loud that I need not pause here to add my complaint to its volume. I am dealing here only with the influences of poetry itself unannotated yet understood, upon the mind and heart of youth. And I think I may take it as a good general rule that all poetry which does not stir the higher feelings may be neglected so far as the best and most essential kind of training of youth is concerned.

Taking this as a general rule I may now proceed to examine the various kinds of poetry which are open to the teacher to choose from. I must premise that I am now to speak of poetry for boys and girls. The University "man" must of course fend for himself, and all classes of poetry are, or should be, open to him.

To begin with the oldest kinds—the genuine epic, the epic of Homer, is most admirably suited for the education of youth. Kinglake's eloquent testimony to the effect of its magic upon his childish mind would be enough to prove this. But the reflected or "deliberate" epic, "Paradise Lost," for example, is by no means so suitable. I believe most young people of both sexes learn to dislike Milton violently from being obliged to read "Paradise Lost" at school. No author so lends himself to the arts of the annotator and the prospective examinee. I must confess that I should like to see "Paradise Lost" banished from the schools (if it be not so already), and I do not think that Milton's fame would suffer by its banishment. Other epics we have none. Homer may be read in Pope's Translation; youth is not likely to be very critical about diction, and it was in this form that the Iliad touched Kinglake. Chapman's translation of the Iliad is by no means suited for youth. But his "Odyssey" I know to be very pleasing to the palate of the young.

I think, on the whole, that the influence of the genuine epic, with its appeal to the healthy and natural story loving-instinct of youth, and its imaginative presentment of the primitive and basic virtues, is page 7 entirely for the good; and in the absence of any great accessible English epic for the purpose, I should personally like to see a fairly complete series of translations from the pure and noble classics of the Icelandic prose saga-literature read in place of it in our schools. I can conceive of no more bracing, stirring and tonic course of study than this.

The educative function of the epic may to some extent be performed by a selection from Scott's admirable balladesque narrative poems; some of the stirring war-poetry of Dobell, Tennyson and Campbell, Aytoun's Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, Henley's Lyra Heroica; some very carefully selected pieces of Mr. Kipling; and by such modern work as that of Mr. Newbolt. These, however, I can only regard as very second-rate substitutes for the true epic.

Of lyric poetry I need say little, not because there is little to say but because it is so very obvious that this is the class of poetry which is from every point of view the best for the purpose I have in view, Besides, have not Messrs. Palgrave (in the Golden Treasury) and Henley (in the Lyra Heroica) and a host of others, made this clear by their admirable Selections and collections from the vast body of our English lyrical poetry? In lyric poetry everything that is best in English Literature is included, with the exception of the work of the great dramatic schools.

Here, however, I must utter again a note of warning. There is an immense mass of lyrical poetry in English, produced mainly from the days of Surrey and Wyatt, early in the 16th century, to the end of the 17th century, which is entirely amorous and complimentary in its tone. It is most frequently fanciful and "metaphysical," also frequently coarse and gross; this body of verse contains much of the very best of English lyric poetry; yet I think that it is, on the whole, unsuited to youth. There are hundreds of these exquisite songs which are in their very "dialect of thought," if I may so express myself, incomprehensible to youth, and, if understood, not beneficial. I refer to such gems as "Drink to me only with thine eyes," Lilly's "Cupid and Campaspe," Waller's verses "On a Girdle," and many of Shakespeare's sonnets, which are included in the Golden Treasury. I cannot see that any good purpose is fulfilled by the study of this class of poetry by the young. If we educated with the idea of making poets, and courtly ones, the case would be different.

There is another matter connected with lyric poetry about which I feel strongly and must speak briefly. There are many beautiful lyric page 8 poems whose meaning is so abstruse, obscure, or attenuated, that it is I not comprehensible by the young, except perhaps by great effort. I refer to such poems as Wordsworth's great ode "On Intimations," etc, I Blake's "Whether on Ida's shady brow" and "The Tiger," Vaughan's I "Happy those early days," parts of Tennyson's "In Memoriam," and many of the songs of Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley. I believe that poems of this kind, though not fully understood, have, or may have, great influence upon the minds of the young. If learned by heart, they remain a perpetual possession, lying far back in the mind, subtly and unconsciously touching and directing the springs of feeling and thought. They act like fine melody, which carries no distinct formal idea to the mind, yet touches, stirs and elevates. It is in poems of this kind that the most delicate, most stately and beautiful rhythms of our tongue are attained, and such rhythms are a possession and a treasure apart from the meaning they convey. I do not believe that any boy or girl could recite, mentally or aloud, Wordsworth's "Ode" or Blake's "Whether on Ida's shady brow" without being spiritually the better for it. Of this I am very deeply convinced, and I am sure that it is in this class, and by this indefinable touching of the imagination and the soul, that poetry has its best, deepest, and most lasting influence upon the minds of the young of both sexes. It is here and in this way, I think, that true poetry enriches life.

I shall presently have occasion to speak of the danger of compelling children to read or learn poetry, and it is especially with reference to this class that I would emphasise the warning. I think this is too delicate and subtle an influence to be directed, as it were, by steam pressure upon the child-mind. I would remind you of Lamb's comment on one of Wordsworth's poems: "The instructions conveyed in it are too direct, they don't slide into the mind of the reader while he is imagining no such matter."

Of dramatic poetry I must also speak more briefly than I should like to do. The great bulk of the Elizabethan school, of which English literaure is so justly proud, must, by the very nature of its subject, it's almost exclusive treatment of vile and loathesome features and tendencies in human nature, its revelling in bloodshed, crime, lust, and graveyard horrors, be barred to our youth. Shakespeare already has his place; I I think he is over taught and over-annotated, but must let that pass for the present. I would only remark that the greatest of Shakespeare's plays, especially Othello, Lear, and Hamlet, are very questionable food for youth. Dealing as they do with mature passions of a very violent page 9 nature in violent disturbance, and touching upon the deepest and most obdurate secrets of our nature, they are hardly calculated, I think, from any point of view to influence the young healthily and naturally. But the value of the historical plays, and especially of the humorous characters presented in them, cannot be overrated. I feel, though I should find it hard perhaps to explain or justify the feeling, that an intimate literary acquaintance with a character like Falstaff, as with Mrs. Gamp, or Captain Costigan, or Mr. Jorrocks, is an excellent preparative for entry into the world of real men and women. And I should say that the peopling of the mind of the young with such personages is among the best results attainable from the study of the historical dramas of Shakespeare. I need not dwell upon the educational advantages to be gained, from a different point of view, by the reading of Marlowe's "Edward II.," of Browning's "Strafford," of Tennyson's "Harold" and "Becket," and of Taylor's "Philip van Arteveldt," because the case is obvious, and I have preferred to dwell rather upon the deeper and more essentially character-forming influences of poetry upon the mind. I need hardly apologise for introducing this remark on Falstaff and similar creations on the ground that he is a prose creation. I must of course speak of dramatic poetry as a class or not at all.

Spenser must be considered apart. The influence of his great allegory upon the minds of youth is proverbially great, and I can only say that it must be good. But I doubt whether all, or even the majority of the young of our generation, feel his charm. And I would say that if the charm be not felt, it is unjust both to the poet and to the pupil to make the reading of the "Faery Queen" compulsory. I am, I confess, not able to estimate at all accurately the degree of interest taken in this poem by boys and girls, and must express myself very diffidently about it.

Our religious verse, especially of the Carolean period, is so rich, melodious and profound that I think it should have a a very large share of attention in any curriculum of poetry for the young. The best work of Vaughan, Herrick, Milton, Donne, and their contemporaries, cannot be too highly praised, and its effect upon the minds and characters of English youth should be very great. I should not hesitate to recommend the learning by heart of a large number of pieces of this school and period by way of both esthetic and moral training. Their influence makes for purity and gentleness in life, and what could be a better aim?

I have now dealt with all those kinds of poetry which I believe to be most essential and valuable in the training of youth. I must also say something of those kinds which should, I think, be either excluded altogether or given a very subsidiary place. The ballad I have not spoken of separately, as it may be considered a special (and a very excellent) kind of lyric poetry; and what I have said of lyric in general will apply also to our ballad literature—to the great unnamed authors represented in Percy, to Coleridge, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning as ballad-writers. The following kinds of poetry or verse I should mention as being more or less unsuitable for reading in schools:—(1) Satire, which is at its best in English a growth of exotic character, based upon classical models which are hardly admirable in any sense. The satirical work of Nash, Oldham, Defoe, Dryden, Marvell, Pope, Churchill, and Thomson, as well as of the more genuinely English Skelton and Butler, may, I think, be neglected in schools. I do not think that boys and girls need be encouraged to admire the arts of giving pain and making personal enemies ridiculous. (2) Pastoral poetry, with some exceptions, like "Lycidas." Beautiful as the work of our best pastoralists is,—the work of Drayton, Wither and Browne, for example,—it is of exotic inspiration and essentially false in its prettiness and its optimistic presentment of toy-shop humanity. If we want the real poetry of sheep and of shepherd, of stream and rock and wood and mountain, we can find it in Wordsworth, in Matthew Arnold, and many other poets of our own time. (3) Rhetorical poetry. Poetry which is essentially rhetorical and declamatory, whose diction is glittering and tawdry, should, I think, be barred altogether or relegated to the elocution department. Collins' Ode on the Passions, e.g., is admirably suited for the training of Wopsles. Mrs. Meynell, I think, recently pointed out that Gray's "Elegy" was unsuitable for reading by the young. Her statement aroused much comment, as the "Elegy" has been for so long the prime favourite among English poems for the schools. I must say that on the grounds I have just mentioned, I think Mrs. Meynell was right; and I would exclude from a curriculum of poetry for the young all poems which resemble the "Elegy" in its pretentiously rhetorical, yet commonplace, philosophy. (4) Didactic poetry of all kinds, even the descriptive. The didactic work of Thomson, Dyer, Cowper and their school should, I think, be barred, in spite of much elegance and beauty in isolated passages. The chief drawback to even the best work of the descriptive and didactic poets of the Eighteenth Century is, I think, the fact that they are not poetry page 11 according to Wordsworth's definition of Mill's requirements. They are not the overflow of spontaneous or of powerful feeling. They have no spontaneity and no power. They can do no harm, but we need not fall back upon them as though our literature had nothing more vital and dynamic to offer us. (5) Humorous poetry. I must naturally refrain from saying much of this class, as its influence at its best is very different from that which I have made the subject of this paper. I should, of course, not deny that the influence, or rather the temporary effect, of such excellent work as that of Barham and Hood is for good; and very sorry I should be to think that these authors will not be read and laughed over by young people for many generations to come.

Having now endeavoured to show, in outline merely, what kinds of poetry the teacher has ready to his hand as educational instruments, I proceed to develop more fully what I have already incidentally touched upon—the influence of poetry upon character. I may say that the influence of the best poetry upon the mind and character is, in general, to purify, to stimulate, to brace and to harmonise. The best poetry, especially of the lyric and religious lyric classes, purifies by raising the tone of the mind above earth, and directing the spiritual energies into their proper channel. I would not be understood to recommend or uphold the study of deeply mystical or Platonic poetry by the young. I think that nothing more profound than "In Memoriam" need be read by young pupils, and that only in the higher grades. Such work as Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound," the bulk of Browning's productions, and the "metaphysical" poetry of Donne would be altogether unfitting for our purpose. The authors whose influence makes for gentleness and purity of life are rather those I have spoken of under the head of religious poetry—Herrick, Vaughan, Crashaw, Milton and Herbert; and among more modern writers: Tennyson, Arnold (in isolated pieces only) and Wordsworth. This purifying and raising the tone of the mind is one of those functions which can only be adequately and fitly performed by poetry, and I can have no hesitation in saying that the poets who are likely to do this best are those genuinely English, manly, and gentle writers, Wordsworth and Tennyson. Wordsworth can, of course, only be read in selections; but the whole of Tennyson's work is most excellently calculated to influence the minds of youth in the best possible directions.

Poetry also stimulates. It is part of its function, as I have said above, to stir the feelings. It may stimulate to thought and to action. page 12 The heroic virtues, physical and spiritual, are best learned in poetry. All those activities, and that thorough control of them, which we call "manliness" are here to be learned. I would instance "The Idylls of the King" as poetry which should make for true manliness. I must not over-rate the importance of patriotic and bellicose verse as mental tonic. I would not say that poetry is likely to be a more efficient instrument than prose in this instance. Indeed I fear there is some danger of our going too far in this direction. Just as I think that most of Browning's work is too subtly and abstrusely philosophical to be studied with full advantage by the young; so I would utter a note of warning against a part, at least, of the vigorous "patriotic" doggerel of Mr. Kipling, and still more strongly against most of the verse which has been written under his influence. Mr. Kipling's "Imperial" poetry has of course great excellence, as had that of Tennyson before him; but admirable as its influence may be upon the minds of youth, and especially from the political point of view, upon colonial youth, it falls outside the sphere with which I am endeavouring to deal in this paper.

When I say that poetry's function is to harmonise I use an expression which needs some explanation, as it hardly says what I mean, vet is the only term I can find to my hand. I mean that in a sense the best poetry has the tendency to make all people consciously or unconsciously philosophers. It makes men wise. It tends to produce and foster that true wisdom which was noted by Tennyson's nearest friends as eminently characteristic of him. It is that wisdom which results from a due appreciation of the value of things in relation to one another and in relation to life. It is that wisdom which is a kind of harmony in the mind, which is interfused throughout the mental structure, which acts subtly, profoundly, and as it were by a divine instinct. Part of Mill's Second Lesson was this: "The maintenance of a due balance among the faculties now seemed to me of primary importance." It is this balance of the faculties, and this only, that can produce true wisdom in minds not otherwise capable of the highest flights. I believe that this harmonising and tuning of the mind can only be produced by the study of the best poetry (I would perhaps except the prose of Carlyle, of Ruskin, and of Sir Thomas Browne), and it seems to me that it is here in this way so hard to define and so hard to understand that poetry produces its best, highest, and most permanent effect upon character. I am well aware that mental balance, mental harmony and wisdom are fruits of mature growth, and are not to be expected in the young; but page 13 it would be superfluous and impertinent for me to insist upon the fact that it is during the plastic period of youth, and during that period only, that the instrument can be prepared and the field tilled for the future harvest. Tennyson has given beautiful expression to the thought I have here endeavoured to describe, in his little lyric called "The Spiteful Letter," in some other brief lyrics of the same period, and at full length in that very subtle and profound lyric, number 114 of "In Memoriam." This harmony of the mind is also characteristic of Wordsworth, especially in his 1797 to 1807 period, and I would instance especially the rather puzzling lyrics "I heard a thousand blended notes" and "Up, up my Friend, and quit your books," the most beautiful and profound stanza of which, by the way, Mr. John Morley has pronounced to he "a half-playful sally."

I feel deeply that I have not been able to do justice to this part of my subject. I hope, however, to have shown, at any rate, what my own conviction is in the matter of the influence of poetry upon character. I must leave much unsaid, and leave the subject at the risk of repeating myself ad nauseam, with the remark that the highest function of poetry is to attune the mind to wisdom, and that the wisest of our poets, and the best to study if wisdom be desired, are the two great laureates of the nineteenth century.

I must now come to the practical and much-vexed question of the manner in which poetry should be studied by the young. I hope to have shewn that it is eminently desirable that poetry should form an important part of the ordinary educational pabulum of the growing mind, nay, that it would be dangerous to omit it. This has of course long been recognised, and a certain amount of poetry is always read in one way or another in schools. The question is: "How should poetry be treated in the schools if we desire that it should produce its fullest effect upon the minds of our pupils?" I cannot hope to answer this question fully. I shall presently put before you a tentative or provisional "curriculum in English poetry for the young," based upon the considerations which I have discussed in the earlier part of my paper, and I hope that this will go some way towards answering it. In the meantime I must add a few words upon the manner in which I think this mental food should be administered.

In the first place, I am deeply convinced that in this department, at least, there must be no driving, no compulsion. The fact that compulsion is, in fact, commonly resorted to in this matter, is partly due, no doubt, to the uninviting and even repulsive nature of the poetic fare page 14 which is too often put before the young. I believe that the youthful mind will gain little or nothing from the enforced study of poetry, before which it instinctively recoils. I am thinking of "Paradise Lost," and I am not quite sure about Gray's "Elegy." I think that all poetry which is not "simple, sensuous, passionate," to use Milton's own phrase, is likely to be uninteresting and unattractive to the young. When I hear a person say of a poet, "We read him at school," I understand him to mean "and therefore I have not read him since."

This is sad, but I am afraid that in the majority of cases it is true. And I do not think that this state of things is due only to the unattractive nature of the poetry usually read in the schools; it cannot be so. It is due also in part to the manner in which really attractive poetry is made repulsive and a bugbear to the learner. I must enquire briefly how this is done, for of the fact that it is done I can have no doubt.

There are, I think, three reasons why most people do not look back with pleasure upon the poetic part of their school curriculum. The first is the compulsion I have already alluded to, due to the unattractive nature of the material to be studied. The second is over-teaching and over-annotation of texts,—too common practice of making the poem a peg upon which to hang historical, philological, and metrical disquisitions. The third, and the most potent of all, is the examination system. With the first of these causes I have already dealt. I propose now to say a few words of the second and the third.

With regard to over-teaching and over-annotation of texts, I can hardly speak strongly enough, ft has been my lot to review a very large number of school editions, "edited and annotated" for schools, of the great English classics, principally, of course, of Shakespeare. There are some brilliant exceptions; but, in general, I may say that I can conceive no more efficient method of diverting the attention of the learner from what is essential to what is extraneous and incidental in works of literary art, than that supplied by the ordinary "annotated edition." The notes are not only superfluous and irrelevant—(I have seen, for instance, a "note" on one of Macaulay's Essays explaining gravely that "Bob" is short for "Robert"; and another on a passage in which the mole happened to be referred to, consisting of a long account of the appearance and habits of the animal, lifted bodily from a dictionary of natural history)—they are not only very frequently compiled by incompetent persons and done in a hurry (this kind of work not being highly paid),—but such passages as do really need a page 15 word of explanation or comment are too often explained and commented upon at such length, with such solemnity and parade of authorities, such copious reference to folios, and quartos, and Hanmer, and Steevens, and Malone, that no pupil can really he blamed for thinking that after all the notes are the chief thing, and that the examiner will certainly ask questions based upon them and not upon the text. It is by no means uncommon for students in higher classes than those I am referring to, to go up for examination in a given text without having read the text itself, but full charged with the thunder of the notes. To be honest with you, I will confess that I have done it myself, when pressed for time, with success, which is a poor compliment to my examiners. I made a practice, as a reviewer of school editions, of comparing the bulk of the text and of the notes in all cases, and I frequently found cases where the notes out bulked the text by twice or three times its volume, the notes, be it observed, being printed modestly in smaller types. These facts speak for themselves. I can hardly trust myself to speak of the results which I believe to follow, almost inevitably, the study of our great classics in this manner. Nobody will, of course, deny that in the case of Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century authors some explanatory and glossarial assistance is necessary for the comprehension of the text. What we must demand is that this assistance be reduced to a minimum, that the attention of the reader be not drawn off incessantly to irrelevant and subsidiary matters, however interesting these may intrinsically be; and that as far as possible in the schools explanations should proceed from the teacher rather than from the text-book. I need hardly add that a wise and competent teacher knows how to cause his pupils to explain difficulties for themselves, and obtrudes himself as little as possible upon the attention of his class.

I believe that this evil, which I consider a great and crying one, may he remedied by the adoption for study in schools of the least annotated, and least "edited" texts; and, in the case of modern authors, I am strongly of opinion that unannotated texts are by far the best. A Series of English classics on the model of the late Prof. Henry Morley's well-known little National Library Series, cheap, well-produced and unannotated, is, I think, the editio desiderata for use in schools. I must not leave this subject without adding that there seems already to be a fairly strong reaction setting in against over-annotation and its allied evils, and that in the case of Shakespeare, at least, there are now editions (notably that edited by Prof. Herford for Messrs. page 16 Macmillan) which leave little or nothing to he desired in the way of dispedagogisation.

I come now to the third cardinal fault in the teaching of poetry in schools, and what I have to say on this head applies also, to some extent, to the study of the English classics at the universities, old and new. It is only with reluctance that I can admit that the examination system is really necessary in any department, hut I must allow that in most subjects it is an unavoidable evil. I do not propose to enter at length here upon the question whether literature can be taught, or whether examinations in literature can be so conducted as to obviate the danger of cramming. The subject has attracted much attention in England of recent years, and has been the casus belli in several controversies. Some prominent English literary journals, notably the Saturday Review, have taken up a very decidedly hostile attitude to the examination system, as tending to encourage cramming and the development to perfection of the crammer's art. This seems to me very encouraging. With examinations and their effects in general I cannot here deal however, but must enter a most vigorous protest against our English classics being made the subjects of examinations in our schools. I would say, if examinations are really a necessity in schools, for the purpose of testing the relative capacity, industry, and progress of the pupils, let the English classics form an unrecognised, unofficial department of the school curriculum. I do not believe it is possible for any child or youth to enjoy or appreciate thoroughly any poem in which he is about to be, or has been, examined in the ordinary school way. I need not dilate here upon the evil effects of reading with a view to examination. It will be sufficient to say that the mind of the reader is directed solely, or almost so, to the detection of possible "points" and "likely" passages for examiners; and that the chief quality fostered and encouraged by this kind of reading is a kind of sharpness which may be called "examinee's cunning," and is only accentuated, aggravated, and acidulated by the emulative instinct which must always accompany the expectation of a list of marks or "examination result." I should weary you if I should endeavour to describe fully what I believe to be the effect of this kind of reading with a view to a competitive test. I will say briefly that it is benumbing to all the higher faculties, that it encourages feelings and instincts which need no encouragement, and that it would be quite impossible for any pupil to gain, from the reading of English poetry, under this system, any of the great advantages which I have spoken page 17 of as likely to result from the study of it when fitly and decently encouraged.

I suggest, therefore, that the reading of English poetry by schoolboys and girls should be interfered with as little as possible by teachers, and that no examination of any kind should be held in this subject. I think that some way might be devised by which the reading of certain books might be encouraged without the possibility of reward or punishment in case of industry or neglect. Many and many an English schoolmaster has made his pupils genuine lovers of English Literature and of English poetry especially, by simply reading to them, out of school hours, the right books in the right way; or by merely lending his books judiciously. It is in some such unofficial way as this that I should like this all-important kind of soul-food to be unobtrusively and unostentatiously communicated to the young. Pupils should by no means be compelled and in some cases they should not even be encouraged to write essays or compositions upon the poetry they have read. Anyone who has had the misfortune to be obliged to read a number of such productions for examination or other purposes will feel the full force of this remark, and, I am sure, will agree with me in it. It is almost impossible to keep certain critical text-books and histories of English literature out of the hands of the young, and their jargon is only too easily acquired. I believe that there are thousands of miles of criticism, plausible, glib, and even correct enough in a sense, written every year in the English language by young people who have not read a line of the works they criticise. And I cannot but think this is undesirable, dishonest, and hostile to the best instincts which the best teacher should have at heart. I do not myself think that any criticism of poetry should be required under any circumstances from the young. Critical taste is, as is well known and acknowledged, an exceedingly rare gift; and I do not think that the formation of a good taste in poetry, a thing so much to be admired, is likely to be assisted by encouraging the young to write or repeat the judgments of others, or to give expression to their own naturally crude and immature judgments. Good critical taste in poetry, I take it, if it can be acquired at all, is to be acquired by long, patient, loving and silent study of the best poets. How can we expect this from schoolboys and girls? I must remark, in case of misunderstanding, that I am here speaking of poetry itself and its study, not the history of poetry or of literature, which is an entirely different thing, and, in fact, may be called one of the inexact sciences.

To sum up: I have now endeavoured to show that poetry should play a very prominent part in the education of the young of both sexes; that its effects are beneficial to the mind, and more still to the soul and character of the young reader; that great care should he exercised in the selection of poetic works to be studied by the young; that English literature is peculiarly rich in those great wise natures whose expression in poetry is calculated to have the very best influence upon growing pliant minds; that there are very great and mischievous faults (which are tending to correct themselves however) in the methods of "teaching poetry" in our schools at the present day; that, in my opinion, the reading of good poetry should be encouraged, not enforced; and that, lastly, pupils should be encouraged to read solely for their own pleasure and delight, without being afterwards subjected to an annoying and wearisome examination in what they have read, or being obliged to write down their impressions, judgments and opinions. Much of what I have been obliged to say here has been said very often before; and much that I should have liked to say, I have been forced to leave unsaid; yet I have ample justification in my own mind for both these facts. If I am right in complaining of the evils which have crept into our schools, I am sure I cannot speak too often nor too strongly against them. I, like many others, am anxious that these evils should be corrected, and I have this matter at heart. On the other hand it would have been unwise in me to say all that I might have said on the examination system, for example, for I should then have defeated my object by wearying my hearers.

I have only now to put before you the following curriculum, naturally nearly an outline, which I recommend as a preliminary course of reading for the young in English poetry. I have been obliged to make it a strictly preliminary course, and I have designed it for the use of pupils between the ages of 12 and 17. Those who continue their studies after their 16th year usually read for some University Degree, and it is not with students of this age, and their requirements, that this paper primarily deals. I would also have it understood that the age of the pupil is not a matter of the first consequence, but rather his capacity and especially his bent or inclination towards such subjects as that I am dealing with. I am well aware that many children have no natural taste for poetry or for anything allied to it, yet I cannot recommend any compulsion, mild or severe, in these cases, for I am sure it can only replace indifference by dislike and want of taste by distaste. Very page 19 much must be left to the personal influence and judicious methods of encouragement of the teacher himself.

I must add that the scheme here proposed is by no means comprehensive. My object has been rather to indicate the class or grade of poem suitable for each period than to give a complete list of works to be read. Many old favourites will be missed, some omitted simply because to mention all would be beyond the scope of this paper, and some because I have hardly thought them eligible, in spite of their popularity.

First Year (12th to 14th years).

Blake: "Songs of Innocence."

Wordsworth: The simple Ballads of 1798 to 1807.

Percy's Reliques: "Chevy Chase," "Sir Patrick Spence," etc.

Coleridge: "Ancient Mariner."

Henley's "Lyra Heroica."

Scott: The Romantic Poems.

Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome" and "The Armada."

Tennyson: Patriotic Ballads; "The Revenge," etc.

Second Year (14th to 15th years).

Tennyson: "Idylls of the King"; "Enoch Arden."

Shakespeare: "Henry V."; "The Merchant of Venice"; "Julius Caesar "; "Coriolanus."

Coleridge: "Christabel"; "Kubla Khan."

Barham: "Ingoldsby Legends."

Wordsworth: "Peter Bell"; "The Waggoner", "Hart-Leap Well." Chapman's "Odyssey."

Third Year (15th to 16th years). Wordsworth: "Resolution and Independence"; "Michael"; "The Brothers."

Tennyson: "The Princess"; "Becket"; "Harold."

Herrick: Selections.

Vaughan: Selections.

Crashaw: Selections.

Herbert: Selections.

Shakespeare: "As You Like It"; "The Tempest:' "The Midsummer Night's Dream"; "Richard II."

Burns: The non-amatory songs and "Tarn o' Shanter."

Byron: "Prisoner of Chillon."

Milton: "Lycidas," "L'Allegro," and "II Penseroso."

Dryden: "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day."

Matthew Arnold: "Balder Dead"; "Sohrab and Rustum."

Fourth Year: (16th to 17th Years).

Tennyson: "In Memoriam; ""Maud."

Wordsworth: "Ode on Intimations;" "Tintern Abbey;"

Shakespeare: "Macbeth," "Hamlet," "Lear," "Romeo and Juliet." Marlowe: "Dr. Faustus:" "Edward II."

Chapman's "Iliad."

Milton's "Comus."

Chaucer's "Prologue and Knight's Tale."

Sir Henry Taylor: "Philip van Arteveldt."

Crabbe: "The Village."

Blake: "Songs of Experience."

Palgrave's Golden Treasury (a good deal of which might be selected for the earlier periods.) Keats' Poems.

Matthew Arnold: "Lyrics;, "The Scholar Gipsy;" "Thyrsis;" "Empedocles on Etna;"

Spenser: "Fairy Queen."