ding must supply all the deficiencies of written or printed language.
It must give life to the letter. How comparatively little is addressed
to the eye, in print or manuscript, of what has to be addressed to the
ear by a reader! There are no indications of tone, quality of voice,
inflection, pitch, time, or any other of the vocal functions demanded
for a full intellectual and spiritual interpretation. A poem is not
truly a poem until it is voiced by an accomplished reader who has
adequately assimilated it--in whom it has, to some extent, been born
again, according to his individual spiritual constitution and
experiences. The potentialities, so to speak, of the printed poem, must
be vocally realized. What Shelley, in his lines 'To a Lady, with a
Guitar,' says of what the revealings of the instrument depend upon, may
be said, with equal truth, of the revealings of every true poem; it

'will not tell
To those who cannot question well
The spirit that inhabits it;
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions; and no more
Is heard than has been felt before,'

by those who endeavor to get at its secrets.

Good reading is a vocal manifestation of responsiveness, on the part of
the reader, to the hieroglyphic letter.

Such early training in reading as I have described, is the best
preparation for the more elaborate expression demanded by the higher
literature. And we shall not have a true, honest vocal interpretation of
literature until we return to this early honest reading. I say 'return,'
for, so far as my knowledge goes, there is a plentiful lack of it, at
present, in primary schools--a lack somewhat due, no doubt, to the
ever-increasing amount and variety of knowledge which students are
compelled to acquire in the schools. _There is no time left for
education._ He would be the ideal teacher who could induce a maximum
amount of education on the basis of a minimum amount of acquirement. But
just the reverse prevails. Acquirement is made the all in all, and
education is left to take care of itself. The acquisition of knowledge,
too, becomes a mere indulgence with thousands of people, in these
days--an indulgence which renders them more and more averse to any of
that independent activity of mind upon which education so largely
depends.

I am quite surprised at what M. Ernest Legouve says, in his 'Petit
Traite de lecture a haute voix a l'usage des ecoles primaires,' of the
imp