TEE HESPERIAN
11
science is of quite recent growth. Twenty
years ago the student of chemistry was con
tent to accept all his laboratory experiences
from tho professor. Tho introduction later
of a few experiments as an accompaniment
to the lecture was, of course, a boon to the
student; yet the lecture-room table remained
an impassable barrio' between him and
practical chemistry. Now it is a recognized
necessity that the student should be made to
get his experiences at first hand, not only in
chemistry, but also in history, economics,
psychology, and, last of all, in literature.
Advances in education are of course made
with the plodder in view. Yet while the
laboratory method is the only salvation for
tho student that is slow, it is very largely
supererogation and a hindrance to him who
has imagination enough to supply processes
and results subjectively. Can this be the
reason why instruction by the laboratory
method never flags in Germany? In liter
ature such a student usually arrives at his
principles by ways unknown to himself, and
to have his consciousness definitely directed
to certain elements and processes of thought
that he unconsciously follows cannot but bo
beneficial.
But it is in tho resolution of all the va
rieties of poetry good, bad, sentimental,
intellectual, strong, weak to certain con
stant elements that the Analytics of Litera
ture will be a boon to both, teacher and stu
dent. AVhat should we think of a chemist
o regarded starch, ether, and carbolic
acid as elements, and recognized no differ
ence in the molecular complexity of distilled
water and coal-tar ( Yet the teacher of lit
erature deals with Spencer or Tennyson as
Spenser or Tennyson as elements, not as
the complex compounds they really are. The
existence of these ultimate, constant elements
whose presence in varying proportions make
Spenser, or Tennyson, or Shakespeare, or
Bill Nye, it is the especial object of the
Analytics to make clear. Given the ele
ments, the presentation of them inductively
fchould be no task to the teacher that knows
his business.
Tho Analytics of course follows the objec
tive plan. To have followed the subjective
would have been to assume the existence in
the student of what tho book was written to
dovolope literary taste. Though there Is
no formal division into two parts, the prose
and poetic sides of our literature aro kept
quite distinct. It is in the treatment of
prose stylo that tho reduction to elements
becomes especially beneficial. A person
may learn to write in the course of twenty
years. But of how he learned he has often
absolutely no notion. Formal rhetoric, in
that it does not deal with ultimate elements,
is frequently of no benefit, at all. Indeed,
tho Analytics owes its inception to the ob
servation that a little objective study of
English prose effected marked changes in the
student's stylo. From writing in a shambling,
disconnected way he came in very many
cases to write in short, sharp sentences, with
some degree of power.
The book itself consists of about 400
pages of text and some 80 pages of notes.
This arrangement adapts it to two classes of
readers. Those who need more facts and
more extended discussions upon various
topics than appear in the text will find them
in the notes. On the other hand, those who
have the details at command will not be dis
tracted in reading the tot by unnecessary
discussions. A set of questions on Shake
speare's Macbeth appear, in an appendix, and
the whole is closed by a copious index.
H. C. Fktkkson.
Learning a Language.
Learning a language by studying its gram
mar is like learning to play the piano by
studying harmony. Learning a language
by studying its literature is like learning to
play the piano by studying musical notation.
Literature is no more language than notation
is music.
It is a deplorable fact that under the pres
ent methods of instruction, graduates from
the classical department are unable to speak
Greek or Latin, as well as they could Eng
lish when they were two years old. Is this
Y
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