at particular points, to look back for the view, and gave the
history and date of the work with its surrounding circumstances, and the
meaning of every word, while they took away the soul of the poem, and
robbed us of our whole impression. We realize now that by reading and
reading again, until they have mastered the music, and the meaning dawns
of itself, children gain more than the best annotations can give them;
these will be wanted later on, but in the beginning they set the
attitude of mind completely wrong for early literary study in which
reverence and receptiveness and delight are of more account than
criticism. The memory of these things is so much to us in after life,
and if the living forms of beautiful poems have been torn to pieces to
show us the structure within, and the matter has been shaken out into
ungainly paraphrase and pursued with relentless analysis until it has
given up the last secret of its meaning, the remembrance of this
destructive process will remain and the spirit will never be the same
again. The best hope for beautiful memories is in perfect reading aloud,
with that reverence of mind and reticence of feeling which keeps itself
in the background, not imposing a marked per-Bonal interpretation, but
holding up the poem with enough support to make it speak for itself and
no more. There is a vexed question about the reading allowed to girls
which cannot be entirely passed over. It is a point on which authorities
differ widely among themselves, according to the standard of their
family, the whole early training which has given their mind a particular
bent, the quality of their own taste and their degree of sensitiveness
and insight, the views which they hold about the character of girls,
their ideas of the world and the probable future surroundings of those
whom they advise, as well as many other considerations. It is quite
impossible to arrive at a uniform standard, or at particular precepts or
at lists of books or authors which should or should not be allowed. Even
if these could be drawn up, it would be more and more difficult to
enforce them or to keep the rules abreast of the requirements of each
publishing season. In reading, as in conduct, each one must bear more
and more of their own personal responsibility, and unless the law is
within themselves there is no possibility of enforcing it.

The present Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, when rector of St.
John's Seminary, Wonersh, used t