There are certain results in literary training that can be secured with children only by the teaching of poetry. In story we and they are intent upon subject-matter, and on the larger matters of the imaginative creation. And, while we older students know that the choice and arrangement of material involved in the making of a story are extremely important and most truly educative, we also know that they belong in the larger framework of the story and do not lend themselves to close inspection or detailed study when our scholars are elementary children.

Again, most of the stories best suited to the children must be used in translated and adapted versions, and all of them should be told in a way that varies more or less from telling to telling, in vocabulary, in figure, and occasionally in material detail. As a result, the stories, until we come down to the very last year of the period, make on the children no impression of the inevitableness of form, or of any of the smaller devices of style and finish. These may be brought to bear in verse. It should not be necessary to say again that the children will know nothing of "larger effects" and "smaller details;" but the teacher should know them, and should have some plan that will include both in his teaching. Neither is it necessary to say that these minor matters of style and finish that we will pause over with our elementary class will prove to be very simple matters from the point of view of the expert and adult critic.

It is verse that gives the child most experience in the musical side of literature. The rhythm and cadence of prose have their own music—perhaps more delicate and pleasing to the trained adult ear than the rhythm of verse. But the elementary children need the simple striking rhythm of verse, of verse whose rhythm is quite unmistakable. Indeed, it is profitable in the first verses that children learn to have an emphatic meter, so that the musical intention may not be missed, and that it may be possible easily to accompany the recitation of the verses with movement, even concerted movement as of clapping or marching. One who is trying to write a sober treatise in a matter-of-fact way dares not, lest he be set down as the veriest mystic, say all the things that might be said about the function of rhythm, especially in its more pronounced form of meter, among a community of children, no matter what the size of the group—how rhythmic motion, or the flow of measured and beautiful sounds, harmonizes their differences, tunes them up to their tasks, disciplines their conduct, comforts their hurts, quiets their nerves; all this apart from the facts more or less important from the point of view of literature, that it cultivates their ear, improves their taste, and provides them a genuinely artistic pleasure. If it happens that the sounds they are chanting be a bit of real poetry, it further gives them perhaps more than one charming image, and many pleasant or useful words.

Most children are pleased with the additional music of rhyme. This is true of all kinds of rhyme, but of course it is the regular terminal rhyme that most children notice and enjoy and remember.

all the children will rejoice in rye—pie. But there will be some to whom sing—song—sixpence—pocket, full—four, blackbirds—baked, are so many delights, and there may be some to whom the wonderful chime of the vowels will make music. Anyone who knows children will have noticed the pleasure that the merest babies will take in beautiful or especially pat collocations of syllables. A child whom I knew, just beginning to talk, would say to himself many times a day, and always with a smile of amused pleasure, the phrases "apple-batter pudding," "picallilli pickles," "up into the cherry tree," "piping down the valleys wild." It is probably true that some of his apparent pleasure was that species of hysteria produced in most babies by any mild explosion, and the little fusillade of p's in the examples he liked best would account for a part of his enjoyment. But we must think that there was pleasure there, and, whether it were physical or mental, it arose from the pleasing combination of verbal sounds. Most children have this ear for the music of words; and some attempt should be made to evoke it in those that have it not.

This quality, then, is the first thing we ask of the verse we choose for the youngest children. The mere jingles, provided they are really musical, are useful to emphasize this side of verse, because, being free from content, they can give themselves entirely to sound. It is also most desirable that some of these earliest verses be set to music that the children can sing; that the class march to the rhythm of recited verses; that they be taught, if possible, to dance to some of them. Some such form of accompaniment of the verses, deepens the impression of the music, records in the child's consciousness an impression of the poem as an image of motion, and opens a channel for the expression of the mood produced in the children by the verses—a more acceptable channel of expression, certainly, for all the lyrics and for most of the narrative verses, than mere recitation, and a more artistic one than what we commonly know and dread as elocution.

The teaching of verse gives a chance and an invitation to linger over and enjoy many fine and delicate aspects of the art that we are likely to miss in the story. Something in the nature of verse—the condensation, the careful arrangement, the chosen words—seems to call upon us to go slowly with it. It may be that we linger to apprehend one by one the details of an image or picture, like—

some apt or beautiful phrase—

some bit of simple wisdom that deserves pondering; some flash of wit or epigram, or enticing touch of nonsense.

These are really about all that we would pause over in teaching verses to the younger children. Indeed, are not these elements about all of what we call the smaller matters of literary art that elementary children may be expected to concern themselves with—the music of the spoken verse, appreciation of the beauty or adequacy of striking pictures and images, recognition of some specially fit epithet, interpretation of an aphorism or a paradox or a bit of nonsense? We will discuss later some possible ways of getting these things done.

When we say that a poem gives us our best chance to study these finer details, we should not by any means understand that in teaching a poem we are to ignore the other matter of plan and structure. The very condensation and beautiful organization of a poem are likely to result in a charming plan, which both adds to the children's sense of its beauty and helps to fix it in their memory. Every teacher will notice—merely to mention examples—the perfect structure, what we have called the "pattern," of Stevenson's "Dark brown is the river," of Allingham's "I wish I were a primrose," of Wordsworth's, "I heard a thousand blended notes;" and every teacher will realize the greater class utility of a poem with such a structure.

The kinds of poetry suitable by virtue of their content for the children throughout the whole elementary period are first, lyrics of the simpler varieties, beginning with those which are practically only jingles, and going on to those that are more complex in form and more mature in thought, but which still record, as it were, the first reaction of the mind, the primary mood, not the complex and remote moods of developed lyric poetry; and second, poetry of the epic kind, beginning with the Mother Goose ballads, and advancing to the objective heroic ballads in which English literature is so rich, and perhaps (undoubtedly in certain schools) including some of the longer narrative poems of the type of idyls.

It is clear to most teachers that the less the earlier lyrics say, the better. The simplicity of the content makes it possible to emphasize all the more the music and the motion. As the lyrics increase in content, and as we begin to expect the children to enter into the mood which their poem reflects, it becomes important to select such as record a mood or an experience which they can apprehend or might legitimately apprehend. Luckily, in our day it is no longer necessary to remonstrate against what one may almost call the crime of requiring children to study and to return "The Barefoot Boy," "Still sits the schoolhouse by the road," "I remember, I remember the house where I was born"—adult reminiscence of childhood, which is undoubtedly the most alien of moods and processes to the child. But we are likely to be caught by the apparent simplicity of certain verses which, written after the pattern of A Child's Garden—indeed, the class includes some of these very poems—record feelings about children and childhood. These verses, like some of the delightful stories and studies mentioned in a previous chapter are studies and realizations of the child's consciousness calculated to delight and illuminate the adult reader. If children read and understood them, the result would be that ghastly spectacle—a child conscious of his own childhood.

No poetry given to children should be too imaginative, too figurative, or too emotional. Here, to be sure, one must judge afresh for each class. It is obvious that children of the eighth grade can apprehend a poem that would bewilder the sixth; that children in one community, even in one neighborhood, will understand a poem which children of a different community and upbringing could not fathom. But the standard is, after all, not infinitely variable. A good average seventh grade almost anywhere would appreciate without difficulty, including the spiritual application, Tennyson's "Bugle Song;" they could not find their way among the many figures and the alien imaginative mood, the poignant unknown emotion, of "Tears, idle tears."

It is not easy to go wrong in choosing the ballads. And by "ballads" we are to understand the short narrative poem, traditionary or artistic. The folk-ballads need translation here and there, and are scarcely available at all for the youngest children. But those who are old enough to hear the Robin Hood tales will enjoy the folk-ballads, if the teacher take pains to prepare them and read them aright. As in the case of some of the heroic epics, some editing is necessary for most of the ballads. They should be given in the "say and sing," manner, turning the duller or the link portions into prose narrative, and reading the exciting and beautiful passages in the original form. Even this accommodated form of the folk-ballads may prove impossible in some classes. There are ballads ideal for the grades in nearly all the modern poets—Cowper, Scott, Wordsworth, Campbell, Browning, Longfellow, Whittier, Kipling.

It is not so easy to choose for elementary children among the longer narrative poems. As a matter of fact, a great number of them are of the idyllic kind, and there is in this class of poems something soft and meditative, or over-emotional and, if one must say it—sentimental or super-romantic, that fits them for the comprehension of older readers, and spoils them for the children. Others, such as Scott's narrative poems, are too long and a bit too difficult for children younger than the high-school age. Here and there one finds a poem, like "Paul Revere's Ride," really more ballad than tale; a tender simple tale like "King Robert of Sicily," for a mature eighth grade. "The Vision of Sir Launfal;" not forgetting Morris' The Man Born to Be King, "The Fostering of Auslag," and perhaps other things from The Earthly Paradise. The simple but lofty style and feeling of "Sohrab and Rustum" makes it possible for the older children. Any teacher who knows both literature and children will see at once what it is that constitutes the fitness of these poems, and what the unfitness of "Enoch Arden," "The Courtship of Miles Standish," or "Lancelot and Elaine."

Perhaps the only library of literature that is perfectly suited to its purpose and its public, and the only collection of masterpieces to be put into the hands of its readers without misgiving, is the nursery rhymes that we call Mother Goose's Melodies. It needs no more general praise, and there is no room for specifications. But it is always in order to urge teachers in this case, as in that of the fairy-tales, to increase their knowledge of those traditionary bits of art. When one knows their origin and something of their social and literary history, they take on new dignity and importance. One ceases to look upon them as mere nonsense to be rattled off for the amusement of the baby, and learns to see them as little treasures of primitive art, miraculously preserved and passed down from baby to baby through these many generations: bits of old song and ballad, games and charms, riddles and incantations, tales of charming incidents and episodes—a gallery of unmatchable portraits, sallies of wit just witty enough for the four-year-old, mild but adequate nonsense; all freed by the lapse of years and the innocence of its devotees from every taint of utilitarianism and occasionalism, winnowed and tested by the generations of mothers and babies that have criticized them, they yield a new charm at every fresh reading to the most experienced reader. They should constitute the first literary material of every English-speaking child. Every well-nurtured child will come to school already in possession of many of them. But he will be glad to go over them for the sake of those less fortunate, as well as for the sake of enjoying them with the whole community, and in consideration of the new pictures, games, and songs that will be joined with them.

Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses is in some sense a quite unique poetic production; and this remains true in spite of the many things produced in imitation of it and inspired by it. It is a wonderful example of the recovery by a grown person of the thread of continuity leading him back to actual childhood; the recovery, too, in many instances of the child's consciousness. It is the gate for us all to the lost garden of our own childhood, pathetic in every line with the evanescence of childhood, "whose hand is ever at his lips, bidding adieu."

Yet in spite of this most poignant appeal to the grown-up person, many of the verses are ideally suited to children. They do not induce in them our mood of pathos and regret, nor do they set their child-readers imaginatively in another experience. They do very really constitute, as Stevenson suggests, a window through which the child sees

a child with whom he tenderly sympathizes, at whom he lovingly smiles, at whose games he looks on, whose toys and books he knows and loves.

The Child in the Garden is an only child, a lonely child, and a very individualistic child; there is no comradeship in the verses; they cannot be becomingly recited in concert; there is not a chorus or a refrain in the whole book, in which all the children may join; there is nothing communal about them. In spite of all the efforts, they cannot be set to music, except as solos; and if the music matches the mood, it is likely to be difficult for a child to sing. Several of them are too imaginative—"Windy Nights," "Shadow March;" some are a bit ironic—"Good and Bad Children," "System," "A Happy Thought;" some too poignantly pathetic—"The Land of Nod;" some look at childhood too obviously with the man's eyes—"Keepsake Mill;" but all these exceptions leave many altogether suitable for children; and their perfect structure, their musical verse-form, their childlike objectivity, and the divine simplicity of their style render them an unceasing delight.

Though the Child of the Garden was a solitary child, he had a constantly haunting sense of the world beyond—other children in other lands, the foreign countries he might see by climbing higher, the children who would bring his boats ashore far down the river, the children singing in far Japan, the long-ago Egyptian boys, hints at the wider experience and bigger world to which the six- and seven-year-old children are so eagerly reaching out. At the same time nobody but Stevenson—nobody at least, that has written a book—has ever taken adequately the point of view of the human being three feet high—his tiny horizon, the small exquisite objects to which he comes close, the fairy-dells he sees, the rain-pool sea, the clover tree; nowhere else in art is the little world of the little people adequately pictured—the little world, and its obverse, the colossal grown-ups, with their elephantine furniture amidst which the little men and women must ordinarily move.

Many of these poems should be read with the single child at home. For the class at school we may use "Foreign Lands," "Singing," "Where Go the Boats," "My Shadow," "The Swing," "My Ship and I"—the more objective and universal of them.

There are many pretty bits for the youngest children in Christina Rossetti's Sing-Song—a book of nursery rhymes not sufficiently known. Certain of Blake's Songs of Innocence the children should know, though they are always found too delicate and contemplative for the whole class. Every teacher of children should know for his own enlightenment the poems of Jane and Ann Taylor, and Dr. Watts's Poems for Infant Minds. Psychologically speaking, they are in a world completely alien to the modern student of children and of education; but there is a stray verse or two like "The Violet" or "How doth the little busy bee," that may some day fit the needs of the class. Every friend of children, teacher or parent, should know Keble's Lyra Innocentium; he cannot afford to miss the tone and atmosphere of Wordsworth's poems about children and childhood. As a matter of fact, it is only a few of Wordsworth's poems that will go well for class study, though a really enthusiastic teacher may carry even a large class through "The Idle Shepherd Boys" or "The Blind Highland Boy;" the older children should know "Heartleap Well" and "Peter Bell." The true Wordsworthian is born, only occasionally made; if he declares himself in a class in elementary school, the teacher should guide him.

But we should soon learn, and aways remember, that the contemplative and idyllic lyric, however it may delight the chosen child and the adult, will, as a rule, neither please nor train the class, and that poems written for children and about children are not at all likely to be the things children love best and most profit by; the poetry should not linger long in the nursery stage. The class should be pushed on as early as possible into simple but heroic ballads, into lyrics, musical and noble, but simple and easy as to content—all chosen from the great poets.

Even if one desired it, it would probably be impossible to dislodge Hiawatha from its shrine in American elementary schools; and no one ought to covet the task, for the iconoclast is likely to be set down as a vulgar and egotistic person. Hiawatha has become entrenched in the schools by some such reasoning as this: Here is a poem written by an American on aspects of life among the American aborigines; American children should study it as literature. Children ought to be instructed in primitive life and in myth; therefore they should study Hiawatha as literature. Children should learn much about nature and should learn nature-poetry; therefore they should study Hiawatha as literature.

Of course, there are pretty things in Hiawatha. Some of the passages about the forest and the waters, the making of the canoe, the conquest of Mondanim, the picture-writing, may most profitably be interwoven with other things. It is instructive both as to literature and as to fact to put the making of Robinson Crusoe's boat beside the building of Hiawatha's canoe. But there are objections to a long and exclusive course in this poem. The mythical side of it is baffling and discouraging. Once more let me say that a class is an extremely acute and inquiring personality; after a few days it "wants to know." And it is puzzled and dismayed, and finally frightened off, by the fact that everything means something else. Furthermore, the details both of Indian life and of Indian belief are so chosen and sifted and beautified as to be most misleading, if we are emphasizing that side of the poem. Lastly, it is not good for the young children to have a long-continued and constantly renewed experience in the alien and wearing meter, and the unmusical rhythm of Hiawatha; and the verse-form dictates certain trying peculiarities of style, in especial the slightly varied iteration of detail:

This redundancy and repetition do not constitute the direct, forward-moving style we should like to impress on the children. All these considerations are offered to justify the judgment, held in great modesty, that Hiawatha should not be given in its entirety nor should the children be kept at it for any long drill, but, if at all, in chosen episodes and from time to time.

Of course, any teacher may see fit to draw out from Hiawatha the story of any episode and treat it as a story, for dramatization, or as illuminating some phase of the children's interest and activity. And students old enough to interpret the mythical meaning of the poem may profitably read it.

Occasionally, and as something apart from their regular lessons, the children should hear beautifully read passages of the incomparable music of some of the great masters, regardless of their understanding of the content—the first sixteen lines of Paradise Lost; some especially musical sonnet of Shakespeare's, or some passage of lofty eloquence from the plays; some vague and haunting bit of music from Shelly, or Poe, or Keats; some fanfare of trumpets from Byron, or Macaulay, or Kipling.

Every teacher will realize that all the titles and authors and kinds mentioned in this study cannot be put into the children's lessons. It is to be hoped that he will realize that they are mentioned as concrete examples, or suggestive instances of things that are good, and to support the principles under discussion.

The distinctive service of poetry will be the cultivation of the children's sense of the musical side of literature; the opportunity for appreciating some of the minor beauties of the literary art; and among the older children, acquaintance with the more highly imaginative method, and the more intensely emotional moods.