CHAPTER IV.

Hamlet to the players William Shakespeare

The boy and the angel Robert Browning

Speech and silence Thomas Carlyle
the rich man and the poor
man Khemnitzer

Gathering of the fairies Joseph Rodman Drake

The song of the rain Spectator

Hearty reading Sidney Smith

Ivry Lord Macaulay

The daffodils William Wordsworth

Cheerfulness J. H. Friswell

April in the hills Archibald Lampman

INTRODUCTION.

    Teach me, then,
    To fashion worlds in little, making form,
    As God does, one with spirit,—­be the priest
    Who makes God into bread to feed the world. 
    —­Richard Hovey.

The revised edition of the “Evolution of Expression” is issued in response to frequent requests from teachers and students for a formulation of those principles upon which natural methods in the teaching of expression are based.  It is hoped that the brief explanatory text introducing each chapter may aid teacher and pupil to avoid arbitrary standards and haphazard efforts, substituting in their place, psychological law.  Growth in expression is not a matter of chance; the teacher who understands nature’s laws and rests upon them, setting no limit to the potentialities of his pupil, waits not in vain for results.

No printed text, however, can take the place of a discerning teacher.  A knowledge of the philosophy of education in expression avails little without the ability to create the genial atmosphere conducive to the development of the student.  The teacher is the gardener, his service—­his full service—­is to surround the young plant with favorable conditions of light and soil and atmosphere; then stand out of its way while it unfolds its full blossom and final fruitage.

The tendency of modern education is towards the discovery and perfection of methods.  The thought of leading educators is turned from the what to the how; to the development of systems of progressive steps through which the pupil may be led to a realization of himself.  This trend is best shown in the multiplicity and excellence of recent pedagogical treatises and in the appearance of carefully graded and progressive text-books.  The ancients believed that their heroes were born of gods and goddesses.  They knew of no means by which the mind could be developed to the compass of greatness.  The ancient theory to account for greatness was preternatural birth; the modern theory is evolution.  To-day the interest of the child is awakened, his mind is aroused, and then led onward in regular steps.