days by the same things. The poems and stories and fables of men also serve to awaken us to see what they saw and to feel what they felt. The literature of the world guides us into a deeper appreciation of the beautiful.

We may know more about the facts of nature to-day than was known in other ages, but our feelings and sympathies are practically the same. Nature-study, if it becomes a mere cold, scientific search for facts will have no power to perform that highest function of education, the awakening and disciplining of our feelings. Our study of nature must be stimulated by imagination and feeling, and nothing can compensate for a lack of true co-ordination or union between the study of material things, the observation of nature and the appreciation and study of literature and poetry.

Here, for example, is a poem about the swallows which was written more than 2,500 years ago in a far-off island of Greece. Its writer observed that the swallows went in the winter to the distant Nile. Though living in another part of the world, in a different age, a different language, Anacreon makes us feel as if we were brothers to him.

Stanley's Translation.

Gentle swallow, thou we know

Every year dost come and go;

In the spring thy nest thou makest;
In the winter it forsakest,

To divert thyself awhile

Near the Memphian towers, or Nile.

Anacreon

The appreciation of poetry and literature accordingly, is an awakening of ourselves to realize the world around us, and the being within us. It means that we are beginning to live, that we are obtaining an insight into the meaning of things, finding harmony in thought and feeling, and sharing in the life of our race.

We

This is the great beauty of literature; herein lies its value to us, its necessity in our unfoldment. It so awakens the imagination as to enable us to live the life of every age and people, takes us out of our narrowness. feel something of this life in reading history, the fables, stories and poems that have come down to us from early times. History tells us what people did, but the poem tells

us what they tried to do. History tells their actions and deeds; poetry their joys and sorrows. A man is greater than what he does. Since character is the product of our aspirations and ideals, we are led to see that those men that endeavor to achieve the ideal perform the only deeds that can make human character.

It is, therefore, a necessary part of the study of the modulations of our voice to appreciate the primary forms of literature, and to be able to reveal our impressions and realizations of the spirit of literature as it is embodied in words.

The understanding of great literature requires, not so much hard study, as the disposition to enjoy. The study of literature should be as natural as a trip to the woods. It requires no more than attention, simply listening to the birds.

We must not regard poetry and literature as something for the few, as something foreign, something for learned men or the maturity of age. The deepest forms of poetry begin in the cradle. The first crowing of the little child is lyric, his first play is dramatic, his first conception of an ideal being is epic; his first fable is allegoric.

Those simple Mother Goose rhymes given to you before you could walk awoke your mind and heart. The best of these caused you to move. You "rode a cock horse to Banbury Cross." You came with the lady "pace, pace; you straightened up in simple dignity to "trot" with the gentleman and felt the abandon and heartiness as you went "joggety jog " with the "Hoosier." Step by step from its early beginning your horizon has widened. Stories of deeper and broader significance followed fables with deeper meaning, and poetry with deeper feeling.

To appreciate the different forms of literature we must live over our experiences and become as simple as a little child. To get any interpretation or embodiment of the spirit of this into our voice demands that we give ourselves up to the simplest conceptions of the imagination.

Suppose we render one of the simplest poems we can find. Do not call any of them silly. It may be really hard

for you to become simple enough and child-like enough to give yourself up and to realize the union of your imagination, your thinking, your feeling, your voice and your body. Try to make your reading acceptable to some little child. Granted that you have outgrown the literature to which it belongs, there is a question whether you ought to have outgrown it. "The child is father of the man," and our deeds must be linked together in a living sequence. There are things to be gained from childhood rhymes which keep us simple, which keep the union of mind, voice and body. Later abstract thinking may tend to interrupt or lose it. I had a little pig,

And I fed him on clover;
When he walked

He shook all over.

In this passage the word "walked " may be changed to "ran" or "hopped" or "laughed" or "cried." The point especially to note is that voice and body shall equally respond to the thought. Going deeper than this you find that it is your thinking and imagination that awaken the right feeling. It is done with a spontaneous directness between the thought and the outward expression.

Little Robin Redbreast sat upon a tree,
Up went Pussy cat, and down went he;
Down came Pussy cat, and away Robin flew;

Says little Robin Redbreast, “Catch me, catch me, do!”

Little Robin Redbreast hopped upon a wall,

Pussy cat jumped after him, and almost got a fall;
Little Robin chirped and sang, and what did Pussy say?
Pussy cat said, "Mew!" and Robin flew away.

If we look carefully into any nursery rhyme or story familiar with very young children, we find that the individual ideas are very pronounced. They are not abstract. The child in thinking, individualizes pictures; and his speech is at first exclamatory.

This is in accordance with what the previous lessons have asserted. We must begin all our vocal expression in attention. We must realize and give one thing at a time.

Hence, in beginning our study of this wonderful and

strange creation, called literature, we meet again the steps we have already taken, and may now review them in a higher plane.

In all the steps in literature we shall find something of the same thing. Lyric poetry is an intense and emotional realization of a single idea or situation. This explains why the song or the repetition of the nursery rhyme is so deeply appreciated for "Mother Goose" has lyric character.

In the story, on the other hand, there is a rapid succession of complete, simple, ideas. The ideas are made to move. This indicates why children are such lovers of stories. They love action. With a child all these things are massed together. He does not feel so definite a disparity between words, tone and action. Hence, a song which has movement or tones and action together is very pleasing to the child. It is helpful indeed to the older man or woman who has become stiff, whose tones have become hard, whose body no longer responds harmoniously, whose ideas and imagination have become separated, whose feelings have become suppressed.

Hence, to study the forms of literature, we need mainly to discover that our principles are embodied objectively in words. Then we must learn to interpret what we find in books in a simple way by our voices. We should tell stories. We should read stories aloud, act dialogues, and trust our instincts to assimilate and interpret the spirit of anything we find.

To enter into a realization of the relation of literature to the voice, the student should first of all talk. Talk about poems or fables. Give the meaning in your own words. All expression must begin with conversation. Our touch with our fellow-men must be tested by our ability easily and naturally and sympathetically to talk with them upon the simplest or the most difficult subjects.

All art centres in joy. William Morris has said that "Art is joy in our work." When we are able to put the enjoyment gained from any form of poetry into tone and words, we get the key to vocal expression. Written words are cold mere symbols - but the living tones are the

direct product of our feelings. The way we think and the way we feel determines even the way we breathe, and establishes, as we have found, conditions of voice.

XL. STORIES AND STORY-TELLING

AND THEN

WHAT HAPPENED THEN?

I heard of a spider who wanted to fly;
He had no wings, but he thought he'd try,
It looked so easy; so he climbed up high,
And then

What happened then?

There came by a bird, who got his eye
On this very spider who wanted to fly.

"I'll watch this spider," he said, "maybe I—”

And then

What happened then?

Well, the spider jumped, as spiders do,
Forgetting to fly; the bird, he knew,

Might eat him up in a minute or two,

And then

What happened then?

The bird was scared by a cat in the tree,

Who had climbed up there, as still as could be,
Saying, "That bird shall make a meal for me,'
And then

What happened then?

Why, the bird flew away to another tree;
The cat crawled down, as meek as could be;
And the spider gave up flying, you see;

And so

Nothing happened then.

Mrs. R. E. Clark

One of the earliest forms of literature is the story. It is one of the first we all enjoy when children.

The reason for the importance of the story and for the fact that we enjoy it, is that it requires us to see things in living relations. It is like taking a walk wherever we please without effort and without being hindered by great distances or great obstacles

The story requires the simplest mental action. It calls for the most natural association of ideas. Idea follows idea, not on account of some great purpose, but on account of the simple succession of facts and events.