s, so to speak, doubly indispensable for even competent teaching of
literature. On the one hand the ulterior objects of the study, of
which I have tried to indicate the importance, are of an impalpable
kind. I doubt if there is any subject of the curriculum which it would
be so difficult to commend to an uninterested pupil by an appeal to
simple utilitarian motives. On the other hand there clings to
literature, and particularly to poetry, which is the quintessence of
literature, an air of pleasure-seeking, of holiday, of irresponsibility
and detachment from the work-a-day world, which must captivate the
student, or else the study itself will seem very poor fooling compared
with football or hockey. If the attitude of the teacher reflects the old
question of the Latin Grammar "Why should I teach you letters?" he would
better turn to some other subject which his pupils will more easily
recognise as appropriate to school hours.

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her--

unless indeed he be a candidate for Responsions?

"Ah! it is just as I expected," says my friend Orbilius at this point:
"this literature-lesson of yours is to be mere play, a 'soft-option'
for our modern youth, who is not to be made to stand up to the tussle
with Latin prose or riders in geometry." Softly, my friend! It is
quite true that those twin engines of education, classics and
mathematics, are adapted partly by long practice, but partly, as I too
believe, by their very nature, to discipline the youthful mind to
habits of intellectual honesty, of accuracy, of industry and
perseverance. It is true that they accomplish some of this
discipline--though at what a cost!--in the hands of indifferent
teachers. It is true that every other subject of the usual curriculum
is much more obviously liable than they are to the dangers of
idleness, unreality, false pretence; and that the scoffs, for
instance, about "playing with test-tubes," "tracing maps," "dishing up
history notes," are in fact too often deserved. But in the first
place, if the object to be attained is a worthy one, it is our
business to face the dangers of the road, and not to give up the
object. If a knowledge and love of literature is part of the
birthright of our children, and a part which, as things are, very
many of them will never obtain away from school, then we teachers must
strive to give it them, even if the process seems shockingly frivolous
to the gra