Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by

HENRY N. HUDSON,

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

GINN & HEATH:

J. S. CUSHING, PRINTER, 16 HAWLEY STREET,

BOSTON.

TO TEACHERS.

HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL.

As

SI have long been in frequent receipt of letters asking for advice or suggestions as to the best way of using Shakespeare in class, I have concluded to write out and print some of my thoughts on that subject. On one or two previous occasions, I have indeed moved the theme, but only, for the most part, incidentally, and in subordinate connection with other topics, never with any thing like a round and full exposition of it.

And in the first place I am to remark, that in such a matter no one can make up or describe, in detail, a method of teaching for another: in many points every teacher must strike out his or her own method; for a method that works very well in one person's hands may nevertheless fail entirely in another's. Some general reasons or principles of method, together with a few practical hints of detail, is about all that I can undertake to give; this too rather with a view to setting teachers' own minds at work in devising ways, than to marking out any formal course of procedure.

In the second place, here, as elsewhere, the method of teaching is to be shaped and suited to the particular purpose in hand; on the general principle, of course, that the end is to point out and prescribe the means. So, if the purpose

iii

be to make the pupils in our public schools Shakespearians in any proper sense of the term, I can mark out no practicable method for the case, because I hold the purpose itself to be utterly impracticable; one that cannot possibly be carried out, and ought not to be, if it could. I find divers people talking and writing as if our boys and girls were to make a knowledge of Shakespeare the chief business of their life, and were to gain their living thereby. These have a

sort of cant phrase current among them, about "knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense"; and they are instructing us that, in order to this, we must study the English language historically, and acquire a technical mastery of Elizabethan idioms.

Now, to know Shakespeare in an eminent sense, if it means any thing, must mean, I take it, to become Shakespearians, or become eminent in the knowledge of Shakespeare; that is to say, we must have such a knowledge of Shakespeare as can be gained only by making a special and continuous, or at least very frequent, study of him through many long years. So the people in question seem intent upon some plan or program of teaching whereby the pupils in our schools shall come out full-grown Shakespearians; this too when half-a-dozen, or perhaps a dozen, of the Poet's plays is all they can possibly find time for studying through. And to this end, they would have them study the Poet's language historically, and so draw out largely into his social, moral, and mental surroundings, and ransack the literature of his time; therewithal they would have their Shakespeare Grammars and Shakespeare Lexicons, and all the apparatus for training the pupils in a sort of learned verbalism, and in analyzing and parsing the Poet's sentences.

Now I know of but three persons in the whole United

States who have any just claim to be called Shakespearians, or who can be truly said to know Shakespeare in an eminent sense. Those are, of course, Mr. Grant White, Mr. Howard Furness, and Mr. Joseph Crosby. Beyond this goodly trio, I cannot name a single person in the land who is able to go alone, or even to stand alone, in any question of textual criticism or textual correction. For that is what it is to be a Shakespearian. And these three have become Shakespearians, not by the help of any labour-saving machinery, such as special grammars and lexicons, but by spending many years of close study and hard brain-work in and around their author. Before reaching that point, they have not only had to study all through the Poet himself, and this a great many times, but also to make many excursions and sojournings in the popular, and even the erudite authorship of his period. And the work has been almost, if not altogether, a pure labour of love with them. They have pursued it with impassioned earnestness, as if they could find no rest for their souls without it.

Well, and what do you suppose the result of all this has done or is doing for them in the way of making a living? Do you suppose they can begin to purchase their bread and butter, or even so much as the bread without the butter, with the proceeds of their great learning and accomplishments in that kind? No, not a bit of it! For the necessaries of life, every man of them has to depend mostly, if not entirely, on other means. If they had nothing to feed upon but what their Shakespeare knowledge brings them, they would have mighty little use for their teeth. If you do not believe this, ask the men themselves: and if they tell you it is not so, then I will frankly own myself a naughty boy, and will do penance publicly for my naughtiness. For my own poor