self-evident propositions; axioms, or mere truisms, which, nevertheless, our education seems determined to ignore entirely, and a due application of which would totally revolutionize our whole educational system.

Now knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense does not appear to be exactly the thing for gaining an honest living. All people but a few, a very few indeed, have, ought to have, must have, other things to do. I suspect that one Shakespearian in about five millions is enough. And a vast majority are to get their living by hand-work, not by headwork; and even with those who live by head-work Shakespeare can very seldom be a leading interest. He can nowise be the substance or body of their mental food, but only, at the most, as a grateful seasoning thereof. Thinking of his poetry may be a pleasant and helpful companion for them in their business, but cannot be the business itself. His divine voice may be a sweetening tone, yet can be but a single tone, and an undertone at that, in the chorus of a well-ordered life and a daily round of honourable toil. Of the students in our colleges not one in a thousand, of the pupils in our high schools not one in a hundred thousand, can think, or ought to think, of becoming Shakespearians. But most of them, it may be hoped, can become men and women of right intellectual tastes and loves, and so be capable of a pure and elevating pleasure in the converse of books. Surely, then, in the little time that can be found for studying Shakespeare, the teaching should be shaped to the end, not of making the pupils Shakespearians, but only of doing somewhat it cannot be much—towards making them wiser, better, happier men and women.

So, in reference to school study, what is the use of this cant about knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense? Why

talk of doing what no sane person can ever, for a moment, possibly think of attempting? The thing might well be passed by as one of the silliest cants that ever were canted, but that, as now often urged, it is of a very misleading and mischievous tendency; like that other common folly of telling all our boys that they may become President of the United States. This is the plain and simple truth of the matter, and as such I am for speaking it without any sort of mincing or disguise. In my vocabulary, indeed, on most occasions I choose that a spade be simply a spade," and not an instrument for removing earth."

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This brings me to the main point, to what may be called the heart of my message. Since any thing worthy to be termed an eminent knowledge of Shakespeare cannot possibly be gained or given in school, and could not be, even if ten times as many hours were spent in the study as can be, or ought to be, so spent, the question comes next, What, then, can be done? And my answer, in the fewest words, is this: The most and the best that we can hope to do, is to plant in the pupils, and to nurse up as far as may be, a genuine taste and love for Shakespeare's poetry. The planting and nursing of this taste is purely a matter of culture, and not of acquirement: it is not properly giving the pupils knowledge; it is but opening the road, and starting them on the way to knowledge. And such a taste, once well set in the mind, will be, or at least stand a good chance of being, an abiding principle, a prolific germ of wholesome and improving study moreover it will naturally proceed till, in time, it comes to act as a strong elective instinct, causing the mind to gravitate towards what is good, and to recoil from what is bad: it may end in bringing, say, one in two millions to "know Shakespeare in an eminent sense"; but it can hardly

fail to be a precious and fruitful gain to many, perhaps to most, possibly to all.

This I believe to be a thoroughly practicable aim. And as the aim itself is practicable, so there are practicable ways for attaining it or working towards it. What these ways are or may be, I can best set forth by tracing, as literally and distinctly as I know how, my own course of procedure in teaching.

In the first place, I never have had, never will have, any recitations whatever; but only what I call, simply, exercises, the pupils reading the author under my direction, correction, and explanation; the teacher and the taught thus communing together in the author's pages for the time being. Nor do I ever require, though I commonly advise, that the matter to be read in class be read over by the pupils in private before coming to the exercise. Such preparation is indeed well, but not necessary. I am very well satisfied by having the pupils live, breathe, think, feel with the author while his words are on their lips and in their ears. As I wish to have them simply growing, or getting the food of growth, I do not care to have them making any conscious acquirement at all; my aim thus always being to produce the utmost possible amount of silent effect. And I much prefer to have the classes rather small, never including more than twenty pupils; even a somewhat smaller number is still better. Then, in Shakespeare, I always have the pupils read dramatically right round and round the class, myself calling the parts. When a speech is read, if the occasion seems to call for it, I make comments, ask questions, or have the pupils ask them, so as to be sure that they understand fairly what they are reading. That done, I call the next speech; and so the reading and the talking proceed till the class-time

is up.

In the second place, as to the nature and scope of these exercises, or the parts, elements, particulars they consist of.In Shakespeare, the exercise is a mixed one of reading, language, and character. And I make a good deal of having the Poet's lines read properly; this too both for the utility of it and as a choice and refined accomplishment, and also because such a reading of them greatly enhances the pleasure of the exercise both to the readers themselves and to the hearers. Here, of course, such points come in as the right pronunciation of words, the right place and degree of emphasis, the right pauses and divisions of sense, the right tones and inflections of voice. But the particulars that make up good reading are too well known to need dwelling upon. Suffice it to say, that in this part of the exercise my whole care is to have the pupils understand what they are reading, and to pronounce it so that an intelligent listener may understand it: that done, I rest content. But I tolerate nothing theatrical or declamatory or oratorical or put on for effect in the style of reading, and insist on a clean, clear, simple, quiet voicing of the sense and meaning; no strut, no swell, but all plain and pure; thạt being my notion of tasteful reading.

Touching this point, I will but add that Shakespeare is both the easiest and also the hardest of all authors to read properly, the easiest because he is the most natural, and the hardest for the same reason; and for both these reasons together he is the best of all authors for training people in the art of reading: for an art it is, and a very high one too, insomuch that pure and perfect reading is one of the rarest things in the world, as it is also one of the delightfullest. The best description of what it is that now occurs to me is in Guy Mannering, chapter 29th, where Julia Mannering writes

to her friend how, of an evening, her father is wont to sweeten their home and its fireside by the choice matter and the tasteful manner of his reading. And so my happy life—for it is a happy one has little of better happiness in it than hearing my own beloved pupils read Shakespeare.

As to the language part of the exercise, this is chiefly concerned with the meaning and force of the Poet's words, but also enters more or less into sundry points of grammar, wordgrowth, prosody, and rhetoric, making the whole as little technical as possible. And I use, or aim to use, all this for the one sole purpose of getting the pupils to understand what is immediately before them; not looking at all to any lingual or philological purposes lying beyond the matter directly in hand. And here I take the utmost care not to push the part of verbal comment and explanation so long.or so far as to become dull and tedious to the pupils. For as I wish them to study Shakespeare, simply that they may learn to understand and to love his poetry itself, so I must and will have them take pleasure in the process; and people are not apt to fall or to grow in love with things that bore them. I would much rather they should not fully understand his thought, or not take in the full sense of his lines, than that they should feel any thing of weariness or disgust in the study; for the defect of present comprehension can easily be repaired in the future, but not so the disgust. If they really love the poetry, and find it pleasant to their souls, I'll risk the rest.

In truth, average pupils do not need nearly so much of catechizing and explaining as many teachers are apt to suppose. I have known divers cases where this process was carried to a very inordinate and hurtful excess, the matter being all chopped into a fine mince-meat of items; questions and topics being multiplied to the last degree of minuteness and