ADDITIONAL PROSE SELECTIONS FOR STUDY

Bulwer's Siege of Granada; Wirt's Blind Preacher; Dickens's Death of Little Paul Dombey (Dombey and Son, chap. xvi.), The Tempest (David Copperfield, chap. lv.), Death of Little Nell (Old Curiosity Shop, chaps. lxxi., lxxii.); Motley's Abdication of Charles V. (Dutch Republic, vol. i.), Sir Philip Sidney (United Netherlands, vols. i. and ii.), Battle of Ivry (Netherlands, vol. iii.); Prescott's Battle of Lepanto (Philip II.), Last Triumph of the Inca (Conquest of Peru); Bancroft's description of the battle of Bunker Hill; Cooper's Battle between the Ariel and the Alacrity (Pilot).

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 class room 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 properly to 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.

In addition to the preceding seventeen representative authors, the following classic writers may be studied as circumstances may permit. The relative order in which they may be taken up depends in a great measure upon the age and capabilities of the class. It has not been deemed advisable to consider in the book the lives of these authors, nor are any extended selections given, chiefly from lack of space.

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 American and British classic authors.

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

Thirdly, they are the most suitable and profitable for class-room 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 Shakespeare will remain closed books to him who has not been well drilled in the less difficult authors.

It is not, of course, necessary that the order of our "Representative Authors," 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 centers to work from, certain number of foundation stones to our building, a certain number of pegs on which to hang up our literary work.

The keynote to the whole is :

a

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 representative 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 Dry

den or Pope in our formal course: yet, with an advanced class, time could be spared, perhaps, for "Alexander's Feast," or "Essay on Man." A few recitations devoted to the "Vicar of Wakefield," or selections from Charles Dickens, will do much to relieve the monotony of everyday 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 molded the opinions and modified the literary career of the great writers of any particular period.1

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 combina

1 "A very attractive and instructive way of studying literature is to select some great book or some great author as a nucleus round which to group one's knowledge of the writers of a period. If, for example, one studies that universally delightful book, Boswell's 'Life of Johnson,' and follows up the clews which its perusal suggests, a very competent knowledge of a large part of the literature of the eighteenth century may be acquired.

"

Few more interesting literary studies could be suggested than, taking Shakespeare as a center, to mark wherein he differed from his predecessors and contemporaries, how far he availed himself of what they had done, how far he influenced them, and how far he was influenced by them, and to trace the whole course of the Elizabethan drama from its first dim drawings to its melancholy but not inglorious close." HENRY J. NICOLL.