Page 15 - 1916 February - To Dragma

94 TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI

happiness, she looks up to find a classroom of twenty or so very-
young, very restless youths, of whom she has been dimly but con-
stantly conscious during the reading, so quiet and so interested that
her first movement is distinctly audible. When this reading is finish-
ed, whether the hour is over or not, the pupils should be dismissed.
Ask no questions; let them go with whatever impression it has made
upon each undisturbed. The next work should be given out as a
personal reading of the poem to divide it into parts and to select
the lines giving pictures.

There is something, however, in connection with the reading which
I feel has been neglected. A lyric poem cannot be read and under-
stood, to say nothing of appreciated, unless one is in the proper mood
for it. This truth should be explained to the class. The pupils
should be warned not to read it in a hurried moment, when the duty
feeling presses strong upon them, or after an exciting tennis match,
or a race, or a party. Explain that such a mood is wrong for poetry.
I f this mood idea is new, they will be surprised by i t ; some will in-
wardly scoff, others will be interested while the majority will try the
suggestion simply from curiosity, that blessed characteristic which
makes the wheels of teaching turn less laboriously. An organ recital,
a few minutes at their own musical instruments, or listening to an-
other's music, ten minutes of being alone out of doors or watching
the sky may be suggested as fitting and practical preparation for
reading poetry. We acknowledge that poetry is essentially different
from prose. Why, then, try to teacli it as prose? Make them feel it
should be studied differently.

During the next recitation period an outline of the poem showing
the divisions and the progress of thought should be put upon the
board, the model made from a comparison of several of their own.
Simplicity must be the aim, for the thoughts of the poem must not
be lost in a study of the outward form of the poem. I have ex-
pressed the topic in such simple terms as the pupils themselves
would use. Next after the discussion of the pleasures, which comes
up in the outline making, naturally follows a selection of the lines
which they chose as giving pictures and then easily from that the
lines which are musical. There are fortunately in every class—at
least I have yet to experience one in which they were lacking—a
few members that by instinct can find such lines. They unfailingly
and unfalteringly select the sunrise, the rustics at work, and the
landscape pictures. With these to break the ice the teacher can lead
them on, so that finding pictures and music becomes something of a
game and the pupils take it up rather eagerly or at least not in-