CHAPTER VII

READING

Reading a fundamental of most subjects.-Reading in the proper manner is an essential not only of the course in English, but of all other courses in high school. There are } careless readers in the mathematics rooms, in the physics laboratories, and in the assembly halls. Recognition of this fact has led to the active coöperation of other departments in the improvement of reading. History, for instance, is being taught in such a way as to induce a taste and ability for the reading of historical writing. There are so many careless readers outside school that if the teachers believe in reproducing in classes the conditions of actual life they may fold their hands and say complacently, "What's the use of trying to train pupils to read intelligently? Few grown persons do." Another group will assert in reply that the reason for this is that the present adults were not trained properly when they were young. In either case high school teachers of English cannot shift the responsibility of training in reading, although if our school systems are regulated properly they should never have to teach the rudiments of reading.

Teach readers to understand.-The first requisite of reading is understanding, and understanding depends directly upon knowing what the words mean. It is true that mature persons read rapidly, that they glance, that they skip, but they are mature and therefore different from pupils, and secondly, they frequently find themselves mistaken in impressions they have seized thus rapidly. Here again, the

instructor must keep in mind continually the differences between the pupils' learning to read and their reading.

Intensive reading.-By the time pupils enter high school they should be adequately prepared for intensive reading. This is the most profitable method of teaching reading to persons of some intelligence. The teacher must be skilful in determining just how long and how exacting the exercise shall be. Naturally, in exhaustiveness, it should increase with the age of the pupils, although conversely, if over the entire high school course the process is followed consistently, the upper classes will have been led to read intensively for themselves, thereby reducing the time and attention needed for it in actual instruction. The results of intensive reading are two adequate knowledge of the material, increased power in reading everything. Instructors and more generally administrators who judge by quantity as well as quality, wonder whether the result justifies the time and energy. These are likely to have their eyes fixed only on the first result, seldom apprehending or measuring the second, which is likely to be the more valuable of the two, even if intangible. Teachers who have pupils during a term or a year can see and mark the increase in the second, intangible result. They know that intensive reading should be applied to certain prose selections and to nearly all poems. Since poetry will always be in the courses in English, it is incumbent that it be properly taught. It should be impossible for a single pupil to reach the tenth year and be able to declare, "I never knew that poetry meant anything."

Upon what intensive reading depends.-Intensive reading is simply that reading which results in comprehending fully the meaning and intention of the writer. Could anything be simpler? In its application it involves no great display of erudition, no amazing remoteness of preference, no intricate refining of definition, no juggling with words. It

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fere may depend upon so simple a thing as grammar. "While adi follow eyes the steady keel." The class must dwell upon se this line long enough to see grammatical relationship, not be read satisfied with a "general impression."

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour;

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

The first three lines become clear only when the class discovers the subject of awaits. The pupil will likely read te the third line without being impressed by the seeming incongruity of the words. The teacher's questions must produce the recognition and the correct explanation. Countless passages in poems need only the simplest grammatical. analysis in order that their meaning become lucid.

Frequently the application of intensive reading depends upon unusual, archaic, even obsolete meanings of words. Quite as often interpretation depends upon knowledgesupposed by the poet or prose writer to be common-which the pupils' limited experience or reading has not yet illuminated for them. This knowledge must be supplied by the notes, by some member of the class, or by the teacher. Are the impressions intended by the words tide and curfew as vivid as teachers assume? Quite as likely the common knowledge is restricted, and unless an intelligent note is appended, the pupil secures only a hazy impression, unless the instructor can help him. Mr. Kipling wrote a short poem describing the yearning for England felt by fugitives from the law who gaze upon British vessels in South American ports. The last two lines are:

How stands the old Lord Warden,

Are Dover Cliffs still white?

The Lord Warden is not, as might be supposed, an officer of the law, but the famous hotel on the heights to the west of Dover. It is quite possible that the import of a poem be lost unless a pupil knows that the Statue of Liberty is at the entrance to New York harbor. Unless a certain amount of geography and history antedate them, references to the Golden Gate, Golden Horn, the Fountain of Youth, Pillars of Hercules, are meaningless to young readers. The difficulty indicated here is not confined to so-called "classic" material. Ask any class in high school to tell what this title suggests to them: General William Booth Enters into Heaven. Intensive reading will elicit explanations of entire phrases. Old Ironsides is a simple enough poem at first glance, yet there are a few things which must be added for pupil understanding. Its title must be explained. The circumstances of its conception are essential. No child who is not furnished with these two essentials will be able to understand what the poem means. Unless readers know exactly what meteors are, one line will be flat and unemphatic. It is not sufficient to translate harpies of the shore by the word commerce. This misses entirely the intention of Holmes to point the contrast between harpies of the shore and the eagle of the sea. It overlooks the opportunity to increase the vocabulary. A single sentence of explanation will make this line vivid in meaning, suggestive in metaphorical identification, emphatic by contrast, and worth recalling in the future. A similar method can be applied profitably to an unlimited number of words and phrases which occur in reading matter. The teacher who passes over the word Siren in Homer without asking or showing why the word is applied to a beautiful woman and a noise-producing apparatus is not teaching reading profitably.

Develop intensive reading into re-creative reading.There is no need of indicating here all the phases or steps

by which intensive reading develops the only kind of reading worth anything in appreciating literature. This may be called re-creative reading. Just as in oral reading, the eye should not be kept fixed closely upon what is being read, but should travel in advance to punctuation marks, or should take in the audience, so in the best silent reading the mind should read a great deal more than the mere words upon the page. The homely advice is to read between the lines. Every teacher must be able to do this; every teacher must do it in preparation for class work; every teacher should be able to show pupils how to do it for themselves. If selections for study are graded properly the effect of this kind of reading will be cumulative. More frequently necessary for poetry, it may be requisitioned for prose of certain types by a few authors. Let us apply the method to a specimen of each form, in order that the teacher may see the aims to be applied in class reading.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting

And cometh from afar;

Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy,

But he beholds the light and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away
And fade into the light of common day.