Publisher's Synopsis
From the PREFACE.
The manner in which I was led to develop and use in teaching English Literature the method outlined in the following pages is too long a story to tell here. For a long time I had been convinced that an objective plan was best, but failed in attempts to devise one until some six years ago. Finding then a substantial principle on which a system of analysis might be based, I ventured several experiments with it upon classes in the advanced study of prose authors. The results were extraordinary. Students not only learned much more of the subject proper than I had ever expected or required in former years, but in a few weeks radically altered their own styles. Those accustomed to write in a lumbering awkward fashion began to express themselves in strong, clear phrases, and with a large preponderance of simple sentences. After the analysis contained essentially in the prose chapters of this volume had been worked out, the poetic side of literature was taken up. Would the objective method answer as well here? With considerable confidence of its success I began experimenting as before. The results were even more surprising. Students apparently without taste for reading, or capacity to discern common literary excellencies, were enabled to appreciate and enjoy poetry as well as the best. Bright scholars were also in their way benefited not less than the undiscerning. Things vague were made definite. Grounds of judgment before indeterminate or hidden were made plain. Criticism was rendered confident; and no little enthusiasm was aroused. On account of unqualified success with the mode, and not only in my own teaching but of others who have tried it in ways different from mine, the resolution was formed to prepare this manual, -- primarily for personal use, and also for others who may wish to try the plan.
With a little theorizing, the results just described were seen to be in no way either singular or remarkable. They were simply what they should be, and just such as had been and were being achieved abundantly elsewhere. Twenty years ago the college study of Physics and Chemistry consisted of recitations in assigned pages from a text-book, just as in Greek Grammar and Metaphysics. At times the students were called together to witness experiments carried on by the professor, while the class remained on the other side of the laboratory table. Of course this instruction, if of some value to the best scholars, who could by imagination supplement and deepen the impressions derived, was of no use to slower minds, - we can all see why. It assumed that it was possible to make the laboratory experiences of the instructor answer for the laboratory experiences of the student. Little by little this assumption has been given up. Not only Physics and Chemistry and Botany, but also Zoology and Geology, and, following their lead, History and Economics and Psychology, have gone over from theoretical and dogmatic to experimental modes of teaching. The results have more than justified the change. Plodding, ungifted students, by taking pains, and by being led through all the consecutive processes, have been enabled to acquire the scientific consciousness like their betters, and, indeed, to become practically just as good analysts and electricians and assayers as their instructors themselves. It is no longer a question of gifts or genius, except in theoretical lines and in dealing with unsolved problems. Science has, in its method of substituting experiments and experiences for second-hand knowledge, found a means of bridging the chasm between exceptionally endowed and mediocre minds....
