Macbeth does not know the prophecies of the witches has little knowledge of that tragedy. The boy who cannot give the formula for the sine of angle x plus angle y knows little of trigonometry. The girl who having studied the Conciliation Speech cannot tell how Burke proves that the temper and character of the American Colonies cannot be changed, knows little about that production. The girl who says that Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation brought about the Civil War knows nothing of that phase of our history. The girl who has memorized and recited Bryant's Thanatopsis and then declares that it deals with the immortality of the soul simply does not know the material of that poem. If a class has read Pope's The Rape of the Lock and then does not know that Belinda's toilet is described as a religious ceremony, its members have wasted their time. A class should know as accurately the facts of the linguistic discussion between Gurth and Wamba in the opening chapter of Ivanhoe as the rules for factoring algebraic expressions. Pupils who can solve problems dealing with the acceleration of falling bodies can distinguish the two plots in Silas Marner and group the characters in each. Such knowledge-accurate, clear, essential-may be entirely separate from the appreciative element already considered. It is the basis of the appreciative element. Without it, all the efforts of the teacher to develop appreciation will be fruitless of results, or productive only of the shallowest efforts at reproduction and imitation. Even to be able to say that one does not like a poem or play or essay, one must know what the composition aims to do and what it contains. It is quite possible for the matter-of-fact, plodding drill-master with little or no literary sensitiveness in himself to overestimate the time and attention to be given to the mastery of fact. But its importance is paramount. Adults are criticized for not understanding what they read. Mnemonic schemes to train mature minds

to retain what they hear or try to read are advertised in the popular magazines. Countless pedagogic devices endeavor to help the reader to grasp the material upon the printed page. The lack in reading ability is felt not only in literature classes. Teachers of mathematics and science complain that pupils do not understand the facts over which they skim.

In their simplest phases the fullest knowledge and appreciation of any literary entity depend merely upon a careful consideration of the work itself. Knowledge of the content and form, weighing of the worth of the unit, may require no attention to anything outside the pages read or studied. Such restricted consideration seldom exists in good teaching. Almost invariably literature levies upon extraneous but 2 closely related concepts for its message and impression. The second phase of knowledge and appreciation of any selection of literature is as a criticism of life. No person who has read Matthew Arnold's exposition of this phrase will need any explanation of that aspect of study. No teacher who meets high school boys and girls needs to be reminded of their facility in finding in what they read the reflection of lifeethical and unethical. Many a boy believes The Vision of Sir Launfal to be a great poem because to him it expressed a criticism of one detail of human relationship. Pupils, asked to explain why fiction should be read, will invariably worm from it a moral benefit. Worthy imaginative delight in reading as a mere pleasure is almost beyond their ken. Many a girl feels that Romola is great because Tito receives his just deserts. Even some adults-though most of these have child brains consider all literature from the standard of ethical principles and moral lessons. Countless readers, if asked, would be able to concoct a moral for Maupassant's masterpiece, The Necklace. A hard-headed and tight-fisted business man, confronted by a supreme work of art in music, sculpture, or drama, is as likely as not to ask, with contented participa

tion in general grammatical slackness, "But what's its use? It don't get you anywhere." Not a few teachers, lacking literary culture based on wide reading and sympathetic understanding of the logic of art, dutifully torture from story, play, and poetry, their little sermons of utilitarian application. Some of their struggles are amusing and amazing. A class was reading about William Penn's quarrel with his father, as a result of which the boy was turned out of the house. Ethically, of course, the teacher tried to show that children must obey their parents, yet here was a model character who contradicted that rule of conduct. Would a teacher dare to distort the facts and brand William Penn as an unworthy person? Fortunately for teachers who must be ethical leaders, literature provides enough specimens of moral teachings, from Silas Marner to Macbeth. Better equipped as teacher of English is that teacher who interprets "criticism of life" as stimulating reflection upon life, and judges a book accordingly.

Knowledge and appreciation of literature are deepened and widened by the study of selections in relation to time. Many products do not need such consideration. They may be read and studied with no attention to the dating of their material. They are as great when they exist in vacuo as when neatly placed in a literary or historical epoch. They belong early in high school, before literary history, biographical reading, and cultural background can be demanded or provided. To this group belong such masterpieces as a few of Shakespeare's tragedies, many of his romantic comedies, Andersen's fairy tales, Alice in Wonderland, Maeterlinck's Blue Bird, Barrie's Peter Pan, Rostand's Chantecler, Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, many of Poe's short stories.

The problem of the background of literature is involved in the study of those books in which the time of the story,

the play, the essay, the speech, and the drama, must be considered and mastered. Primarily, the happy solution of the problem depends upon the intellectual and literary equipment of the teacher. At no other time is it so dangerous to be only "ten pages ahead of the class." At no other time and in no other phase of the teaching of English is the meager preparation of the teacher so likely to betray. It is a difficult task to herd the alert minds of an interested group of pupils along a single safe highway. A teacher must at times frankly admit ignorance concerning certain topics, but the teacher dealing with a literary masterpiece should have a background sufficient to meet every legitimate query and to satisfy all intelligent curiosity. The usual notes in a school edition are seldom sufficient for the conscientious teacher. They should have been prepared by the editor for the pupil, not for the. teacher. If they are adequate enough for the teacher's mature, trained mind, they are likely to be far above the comprehension of the pupil. In that case, the text is not a good one for high school reading or study. In junior high schools and the lower years of senior high schools, sections of American literature are poorly taught because instructors do not know enough of the history of both American and English literature, and have not read enough of the books! common among all intellectually trained minds. Can a teacher present Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare without having studied the plays themselves? Can a teacher so little versed in the philosophy of existence that he believes death the most terrible punishment adequately present the theme of expiation in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?

The teacher of literature must be equipped with a great reserve of knowledge and experience to draw upon in studying literature in relation to the time it displays. Translations of Homer, poetry, and drama, require familiarity with antiquity. English literature is the artistic mirror of the

nation's history. The romances of Scott reflect the history of a thousand years. Ivanhoe is dead without a knowledge of the Crusades and chivalry. Shakespeare displays the heart of the sixteenth century. Milton was a product of the seventeenth. Lorna Doone springs from that same period. The eighteenth century is alive with high school charactersSir Roger DeCoverley, Henry Esmond, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith, and Robert Burns. Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot cannot be torn from the Victorian period. The Idylls of the King display nineteenth century ideals. In Memoriam is opaque unless readers know of the spread of scientific investigation and religious latitudinarianism some seventy-five years ago. Comparison with other works will support knowledge and appreciation of literature. In the lower grades of junior high school the beginnings may be made with a certainty of impression, if not with the same breadth of view as in a college class. The reading child can be shown how to weigh the effects, the qualities of two stories, two poems, two tales, either from a subjective impression or an objective opinion. As more examples of literature are read, the standards for comparison and contrast will be multiplied. The wits should be sharpened, the sensibilities cultivated. In order to operate most resultfully in such comparative study, the teacher should know all the reading of the years preceding the one he is teaching. Stevenson's The Black Arrow, Scott's Ivanhoe, a dozen ballads, may be linked with earlier reading about Robin Hood and his companions. Comparative study to train the appreciative and discriminating senses is the one form of classroom activity which reflects most closely the practice of mature readers and even professional critics. The teacher of English should seize upon this to point the obvious lesson-that reading in school is a regulated introduction to a life-long delight in books. In this kind of