CHAPTER VI.

OUTLINE COURSE OF STUDY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE.

"It is better to have a thorough acquaintance with one writer's works, than a superficial knowledge of the writings of many authors."— ARTHUR GILMAN. "There is a growing conviction that much time is wasted in the classroom by attempting to learn about too many authors." - TRUMAN J. BACKUS.

"The number of authors is of very little consequence in comparison with the thoroughness and completeness of the work done."- H. H. MORGAN.

GENERAL PLAN OF STUDY.

AFTER the pupil has been drilled by the study of a number of simple prose and poetical selections, and is prepared to enter upon the study of an author in detail, some general plan should be adopted by the teacher in order to properly balance his work. In mapping out a proposed course of study, we submit the following general plan:

I. A course of study based upon the study of the texts of a few representative authors.

II. Collateral study.

III. Manual study.

IV. Essays on general topics.
V. Essays on special topics.
VI. Supplementary reading.

There are several reasons why these authors have been chosen as the basis of a systematic course of instruction in English literature.

First, they are all English classic authors.

Secondly, they represent every period in the history of our literature.

Thirdly, they are most suitable and profitable for classroom purposes.

The order in which these authors have been arranged is somewhat arbitrary. It is generally admitted that the less difficult standard authors should be studied first. Beginning with Longfellow, Irving, and Whittier, the student is better prepared to appreciate the worth of

Burns, Addison, and Goldsmith. Milton and Shakspeare will remain closed books to him who has not been well drilled in the less difficult authors.'

It is not, of course, necessary that this or any other particular order should be rigidly followed. The arrangement in this book is such that the several authors may be taken up in any order that may be deemed best. The all-important point is to have a certain number of centres to work from, a certain number of foundation-stones to our building, a certain number of pegs on which to hang up our literary work.

Study systematically the texts of a few standard authors; that is, study authors, what they have written, and not about them.

All the rest of our work should be made subordinate to this.

II.-COLLATERAL STUDY.

In connection with the regular work on the representa tive authors, some time may, now and then, be given to reading certain selections from authors whose writings cannot be studied in detail in the present course. For instance, we cannot afford to devote much time to Dryden or Wordsworth in our formal course: yet, with an advanced class, time could be spared, perhaps, for “Alex

"We may begin with the earliest authors, and read in the historical order, tracing the progress of literature from antecedent to consequent; or, inversely, we may begin with modern authors, and work from consequent to antecedent. The latter course seems to me to possess the important advantage of starting the pupil where the language, idioms, and, to a degree, the incidents are familiar, and of gradually approaching the earlier and more difficult works. Nor can I see from personal experience that pupils reading in this order any less clearly comprehend the relations between the several epochs." -J. W. MACDONALD,

A few

ander's Feast," or "Intimations of Immortality." recitations devoted to the "Vicar of Wakefield," or selections from Charles Dickens, will do much to relieve the monotony of every-day routine work.

Examples. 1. Dryden's Alexander's Feast. 2. Collins's Ode to Evening. 3. Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality. 4. Keats's Eve of St. Agnes. 5. Shelley's Skylark. 6. Selections from Pilgrim's Progress, Vicar of Wakefield, Robinson Crusoe, and Thomson's Seasons. 7. Selections from Dickens and Charles Lamb.

III.-MANUAL STUDY.

In addition to the study of a few representative authors, the pupil should have some acquaintance with the history of English literature as a whole, its origin, growth, and gradual development. To this should be added a critical study of the various influences which have moulded the opinions and modified the literary career of the great writers of any particular period.

In brief, the student should become more or less familiar with the story of English literature. "It is the story of those prophets, sages, and worthies' of our nation, who, seeing more clearly than other men the truths of life, and what God meant the world to be, have striven in various forms in poems, stories, plays, essays, sermons, and lively jests to set forth the true ideal.

The work of each has been his own, shaped by his own individuality, tinged often by the circumstances of his own life, colored still more by the spirit and fashion of the age in which he lived; but having running through it all the honest looking for what is right, and the endeavor to make others. see it."

1 Anna Buckland's Story of English Literature.

The student may thus become familiar with the leading points in the history of our literature by occasional lessons from some manual, by oral instruction, or by a combination of both methods. Any one of the many excellent manuals will answer every purpose, with some help from the teacher in arranging the subjects, omitting unnecessary or unimportant details, and harmonizing the whole by a series of topics specially adapted to the needs of each class.

A text-book on the history of English literature will also prove useful as a work of reference, or a kind of commentary, to obtain facts concerning the life and times of minor authors, for dates, tables, historical data, and general information not otherwise easily obtained.1

NOTE. For a list of the best text-books on English literature, and some suggestions on selecting the same, see Blaisdell's "Study of the English Classics," p. 290.

IV. ESSAYS ON GENERAL TOPICS.

There are many points of general interest in English literature which may be selected as the subjects of essays. These essays should be written by each member of the

"The text-book amplified by the intelligent pupil, under the direction of the experienced teacher, becomes a means of exciting discussion, of giving life to the recitations, of stimulating thought in a most agreeable way, and of begetting enthusiasm for the study." - GILMAN'S First Steps in English Literature.

"A text-book in English literature should not assume functions which do not belong to it. A text-book, we think, is needed. It is needed to furnish the pupil that which he cannot help himself to. It may group the authors so that their places in the line and their relations to each other can be seen by the pupil; it may throw light upon the authors' times and surroundings, and note the great influences at work helping to make their writings what they are; it may present critical estimates of the leading writers, by those competent to make them, provided it requires the pupil to accept these judgments only as he finds them borne out by the passages quoted or the writings referred to; in all these ways and in other ways it may place the pupil on the best possible footing with those whose acquaintance it is his business as well as his pleasure to make." - KELLOGG's Text-Book on English Literature.