the sole object of all analysis), has not resulted in a knowledge of language as a living organism, and the consequence is that his extempore vocalization of the passage is more or less chaotic and—afflicting.

Extempore reading requires that the eye be well trained to keep ahead of the voice, and to take in a whole period, or a whole stanza, in order that each part of it be read with reference to the whole, that is, with the proper perspective. To do this demands an almost immediate synthetic grasp, the result of much training.

The perspective of speech is virtually a part of the meaning. One who reads without perspective does not give his hearers the exact meaning, for the reason that, subordinate parts standing out as prominently as leading parts, the hearer does not get a correct impression of their various degrees of importance, unless he do for himself what the reader should do; and, certainly, not many hearers are equal to this—not one in a thousand. Our estimates of all things are more or less relative, so that perspective plays a large part in whatever we take account of. What would a picture be without perspective? But it is of equal importance, of greater importance, indeed, in the vocal presentation of language.

A true perspective demands, on the part of the reader, the nicest sense of the relative values of successive and involved groups or sections of thought—those belonging to the main current of thought being brought to the front with a fulness of expression, and the subordinate groups or sections according to their several degrees of subordination, being thrown back with a corresponding reduction of expression. Along with this, the whole must have that toning which reveals the spirit of the whole. Could there be any better test than reading, of a student's knowledge of the organic structure of the language, and the extent to which the thought is spiritualized? Hardly. The ordinary examinations of the schools, through questions, are wholly inadequate for getting at such knowledge—for evoking a student's sense of the life of the language as an organ of the intellectual and the spiritual.

Technical knowledge is a good thing in its way, but a knowledge of life, in whatever form, is a far better thing. And it is only life that can awaken life. Technical knowledge, by itself, is only dry bones. The technical, indeed, cannot by itself be appreciated. It must be appreciated as an expression of life—as an expression of the plastic spirit of thought and feeling.

Reading must supply all the deficiencies of written or printed language. It must give life to the letter. How comparatively little is addressed to the eye, in print or manuscript, of what has to be addressed to the ear by a reader! There are no indications of tone, quality of voice, inflection, pitch, time, or any other of the vocal functions demanded for a full intellectual and spiritual interpretation. A poem is not truly a poem until it is voiced by an accomplished reader who has adequately assimilated it—in whom it has, to some extent, been born again, according to his individual spiritual constitution and experiences. The potentialities, so to speak, of the printed poem, must be vocally realized. What Shelley, in his lines 'To a Lady, with a Guitar,' says of what the revealings of the instrument depend upon, may be said, with equal truth, of the revealings of every true poem; it

by those who endeavor to get at its secrets.

Good reading is a vocal manifestation of responsiveness, on the part of the reader, to the hieroglyphic letter.

SUCH early training in reading as I have described, is the best preparation for the more elaborate expression demanded by the higher literature. And we shall not have a true, honest vocal interpretation of literature until we return to this early honest reading. I say 'return,' for, so far as my knowledge goes, there is a plentiful lack of it, at present, in primary schools—a lack somewhat due, no doubt, to the ever-increasing amount and variety of knowledge which students are compelled to acquire in the schools. There is no time left for education. He would be the ideal teacher who could induce a maximum amount of education on the basis of a minimum amount of acquirement. But just the reverse prevails. Acquirement is made the all in all, and education is left to take care of itself. The acquisition of knowledge, too, becomes a mere indulgence with thousands of people, in these days—an indulgence which renders them more and more averse to any of that independent activity of mind upon which education so largely depends.

I am quite surprised at what M. Ernest Legouvé says, in his 'Petit Traité de lecture à haute voix à l'usage des écoles primaires,' of the importance attached, in America, to reading aloud. In the very opening sentence of this work, he says, 'La lecture à haute voix compte, en Amérique, parmi les éléments les plus importants de l'instruction publique; elle est une des bases de l'enseignement primaire.' And elsewhere he calls upon the people of France to imitate the United States of North America, in making the art of reading aloud the very corner-stone of public education! Where could M. Legouvé have got this remarkable opinion of the high estimate, in this country, of reading aloud, as an educational agency? From whatever source he derived it, it is certainly most remote from the truth. What Sir Henry Taylor says of the neglect of the art of reading in England (Correspondence, edited by Professor Dowden, p. 225), is quite applicable to this country. After saying that he regards the reading of Shakespeare to boys and girls, if it be well read and they are apt, 'as carrying with it a deeper cultivation than anything else which can be done to cultivate them,' he adds, 'I often think how strange it is that amongst all the efforts which are made in these times to teach young people everything that is to be known, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall, the one thing omitted is teaching them to read. At present, to be sure, it is a very rare thing to find any one who can teach it; but it is an art which might be propagated from the few to the many with great rapidity, if a due appreciation of it were to become current. The rage for lecturing would be a more reasonable rage if that were taught in lectures which can be conveyed only by voice and utterance, and not by books.'

Here, by the way, is indicated what the literary lecture should be. It is a comparatively easy thing to lecture about literary products and to deal out literary knowledge of various kinds, and cheap philosophy in regard to the relations of literature to time and place. A professor of literature might do this respectably well without much knowledge of the literature itself. But what students especially need is to be brought into direct relationship with literature in its essential, absolute character; so that the very highest form of literary lecturing is