he can at will bring forth things new and old.  It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of hobbies in a man’s own life—­and of course indirectly in his relations with his fellows.  A single hobby is dangerous.  You ride it to death or it becomes your master.  You need at least a pair of them in the stable.  What they are must depend, you say, upon the temperament, the bent of the individual.  True:  but our main responsibility as educators consists in our “bending of the twig.”  It is not temperament nor destiny which renders so many men and women unable to fill their leisure moments with anything more exhilarating than, gossip, grumbling, or perpetual bridge.  Perhaps the greatest blessing which a parent or a teacher can confer on a boy or girl is discreet, unpriggish, and unpatronising, encouragement and guidance in the discovery and development of hobbies:  and if I may venture on a piece of advice to anyone who needs it, I should say:  “Try to secure that everyone grows up with at least two hobbies; and whatever one of them may be, let the other be literature, or some branch of literature.”

  Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
  Are a substantial world, both pure and good;
  Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
  Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

(3) At this point I can imagine someone, who recognises the importance of literary culture in the equipment of a man or woman of the world, and perhaps feels even more strongly the truth summed up in these lines of Wordsworth, expressing the doubt whether the second at least of these objects can be secured, or will not rather be precluded, by admitting the study of literature as such into the school curriculum.  This doubt, which I have heard expressed by many lovers of literature, notably by the late Canon Ainger, is not lightly to be disregarded.  It is to be met, however, in my opinion, by keeping clearly before our eyes the third of the objects which we assumed to be aimed at by literary studies as a branch of education—­the immediate pleasure of the student.  The two objects which we have already discussed are ulterior objects, which should be part of the fundamental faith of the teacher; but while the teacher is in contact with his pupils they should be forgotten in the glowing conviction that the study of literature is, at that very moment, the most delightful thing in the world.  Of course we all know, or should know, that this is the only attitude of mind for the best teaching in any subject whatever.  It takes a great deal more than enthusiasm to make a competent teacher; and it is easy to prepare pupils successfully for almost any written examination without any enthusiasm for anything except success.  But, cramming apart, a bored teacher is inevitably a boring one:  and while unfortunately the converse is not universally true and an enthusiastic teacher may fail to communicate his enthusiasm, yet it is quite certain that you cannot communicate enthusiasm if you are not possessed of it.