But this plea for an oral treatment rests upon firmer ground-it rests upon a sound pedagogy. Historically and psychologically, language appeals primarily to the ear. The ear is the first and, though not so generally recognized, the last, judge of the written as well as of the spoken word. How does it sound? is a test that must be applied to all style. And though educated persons for the most part apply this test silently as they read, none the less is it effective, for in the quiet porches of their ears cadence and rhythm of phrase, together with the deeper harmonies of words, are weighed and judged. To give children a poem meant to be recited, and then to keep from them their right of declamation, would be like giving them the score of a stirring piece of music and expecting them to enjoy it fully without hearing it played. The quiet pleasure of an educated adult is not the pleasure of the child.

Another reason for the oral treatment of the poems is its special helpfulness to the instructor. It is the best and easiest way for him to determine whether the student has a clear image of what he is reading, whether he gets the thought, "grasps the inner meaning of phrase and clause;" and no doubt it is the only way in which the teacher can find out precisely what impression the student is getting— the character as well as the clearness of the image in his mind. If a student reads in a dry sing-song, or emphasizes quite the wrong words in the line, it is not difficult to tell that he has a wrong image, and is missing whatsoever joy or fun that poem holds for him. A high-school boy who was asked to read to his class Tennyson's lyric, "Break, break, break," read it:

"" Break! Break! Break on!

Thy cold gray stones, O sea."

The class laughed, and the boy was acutely aware that he

had failed to get the writer's meaning. What he doubtless had in mind was Byron's

"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!"

And if a student should read the whole twentieth stanza of "Horatius" with uniform tone and tempo, the teacher would know that the student, however clear his image might be, had failed to get the mood, or rather the balancing against each other of two moods (in the two quatrains)— the confused hurry of fear, and the grim, silent foreboding of the Consul. How otherwise than by hearing the poem read can the teacher learn whether the student feels the mood of the verse-what the character of his image is, as well as how clear?

And there is a final and still more compelling reason for the oral reading of these poems.* L'oreille est le chemin du cœur is an old saying which the French made for sweethearts, but which is just as true for teaching poetry to youth. If we ask some one student to give us "Horatius," and he starts off in the dull monotone which is always the voice of dead interest, he should be stopped, and the question, "Is that what the stanza says?" put to the class. There is sure to be at least one student who, his blood stirred by the martial note, is chafing under the cold recital. Or even if there be not one, the teacher can awaken several to the meaning of the very first stanza merely by telling the story of the banishment of the house of Tarquin. And if the second reader puts spirit into his reading, but does it all in the same way— makes no change of voice or of tempo from line five on to the end of stanza 1, another question, "What is the meaning of the repetition in line five?" should give still another reader a chance to tell by his reading just what the stanza In this rightful competition to express the mean

means.

*The ear is the pathway to the heart.

ing, the fire will spread, and even the dullest must at times get the swing and rush of the poem which dints the picture of Horatius into the memory. The arousing of such interest will make the study of the notes something more than a dry task; if the student really comes to need the information they give, he will turn to them eagerly, instead of insulating himself against them.

1814. Sent to school at Shelford.