umbering Morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill:
Sometime walking, not unseen,
By hedgerow elms on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his state,
Robed in flames and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his sithe,
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Don't stop (I say) to explain that Hebe was (for once) the
legitimate daughter of Zeus and, as such, had the privilege to
draw wine for the gods. Don't even stop, just yet, to explain who
the gods were. Don't discourse on amber, otherwise ambergris;
don't explain that 'gris' in this connexion doesn't mean
'grease'; don't trace it through the Arabic into Noah's Ark;
don't prove its electrical properties by tearing up paper into
little bits and attracting them with the mouth-piece of your pipe
rubbed on your sleeve. Don't insist philologically that when
every shepherd 'tells his tale' he is not relating an anecdote
but simply keeping tally of his flock.

Just go on reading, as well as you can; and be sure that when the
children get the thrill of it, for which you wait, they will be
asking more questions, and pertinent ones, than you are able to
answer.

IX

This advice, to be sure, presupposes of the teacher himself some
capacity of reading aloud, and reading aloud is not taught in our
schools. In our Elementary Schools, in which few of the pupils
contemplate being called to Holy Orders or to the Bar, it is
practised, indeed, but seldom taught as an art. In our Secondary
and Public Schools it is neither taught nor practised: as I know
to my cost--and you, to yours, Gentlemen, on whom I have had to
practise.

But let the teacher take courage. First let him read a passage
'at the long breath'--as the French say--aloud, and persuasively
as he can. Now and then he may pause to indicate some particular
beauty, repeating the line before he proceeds. But he should be
sparing of these interruptions. When Laughter, for example, is
already 'holding both his sides' it cannot be less than
officious, a work of supererogation, to stop and hold them for
him; and he who obeys the counsel of perfection will read
straight to the end and then recur to particular beauties. Next
let him put up a child to continue wi