cried; "what are they?
I have analyzed them: a little chloride of sodium, some alkaline salts,
a little mucin, and some water. That is all." And he went back to his
work.

The story is an old one, and very likely apocryphal, but it is not
without its lesson to us in the present connection. Unless we
distinguish between these two factors that I have named, we are likely
either to take this man's attitude or something approaching it, or to go
to the other extreme, renounce the accuracy and precision of the
scientific method, and give ourselves up to the cult of emotionalism.

Now, while we do not wish to read out of the teaching of literature the
factors of appreciation and inspiration, we do wish to find out how
these important functions of our teaching may be best fulfilled. And it
is here that facts and principles gained by the scientific method not
only can but must furnish the ultimate solution. We have a problem. That
problem, it is true, is concerned with something that is not scientific,
and to attempt to make it scientific is to kill the very life that it is
our problem to cherish. But in solving that problem, we must take
certain steps; we must arrange our materials in certain ways; we must
adjust hard and stubborn facts to the attainment of our end. What are
these facts? What is their relation to our problem? What laws govern
their operation? These are subordinate but very essential parts of our
larger problem, and it is through the scientific investigation of these
subordinate problems that our larger problem is to be solved.

Let me give you an illustration of what I mean. We may assume that every
boy who goes out of the high school should appreciate the meaning and
worth of self-sacrifice as this is revealed (not expounded) in Dickens's
delineation of the character of Sidney Carton. There is our
problem,--but what a host of subordinate problems at once confront us!
Where shall we introduce _The Tale of Two Cities_? Will it be in the
second year, or the third, or the fourth? Will it be best preceded by
the course in general history which will give the pupil a time
perspective upon the crimson background of the French Revolution against
which Dickens projected his master character? Or shall we put _The Tale
of Two Cities_ first for the sake of the heightened interest which the
art of the novelist may lend to the facts of the historian? Again, how
may the story be best presented? What part shall the pupils re