This clear and logical appeal from the South involves not alone the intellectual and moral salvation of the neglected black millions, but also involves the larger safety of Southern citizenship and national security. To take these unschooled, untrained millions, and fit them to cope with the problems of their environment will not only reduce juvenile crime and spread intelligence and industrial efficiency among the masses, but will also add to the wealth and welfare of the nation. One million five hundred thousand black boys and girls denied common school training! Do you fully sense the significance of it? Have you pondered that this army of illiterates is coming up from an environment of ignorance into American citizenship? Will the nation heed this Macedonian cry from the blacks of the South? Will it give prompt and vigorous aid to a million and a half of its citizens who are pleading and yearning for schools, for teachers and for a fuller life? Every consideration enforces the importance of such aid. Expediency dictates it; justice demands it; national security requires it. Examination Questions for Goldsmith's Deserted Village MAUD ELMA KINGSLEY 1. Give an account of Goldsmith's life: his eccentricities, his genius, his versatility. Describe that period of his life during which THE Deserted VILLAGE was written. 2. Explain what is meant by "Didactic Poetry." Show the extent to which THE DESERted Village is a didactic poem. Give reasons for the fact that this poem possesses a charm which other poems of its class lack. De Does 3. Read the note appended to chapter xxviii of Irving's Life of Goldsmith and give the popular identification of "Auburn." scribe the restoration of the village, from Irving's account. it seem to you that "sweet Auburn" is a real place or an imaginary one? 4. Bring out in detail the contrast which the poet draws between Auburn as it was and as it is. To what does the poet attribute the change? Enumerate the charms of the village described in the poem. 5. After you had finished the poem, which was the prominent impression left on your mind-the populous Auburn, or the deserted Auburn? 6. Give the arguments presented by Goldsmith to prove his position that "Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay." 7. What, according to Goldsmith, are the evils of the luxury that wealth and trade bring in their train? 8. Show the extent to which the poet blunders in his Political Economy. 9. From the poem, state Goldsmith's views on depopulation. Show that this subject is the motive of his poem. 10. Write a brief article setting forth the opposite side of the picture drawn by Goldsmith in lines 57-74 of The Deserted Village. 11. Reproduce Goldsmith's views on the evils of emigration. Draw the other side of the picture. 12. Enumerate the details which would enter into the composition of a picture painted from lines 9-14. 13. In lines 9-24, enumerate all the adjectives and state the exact significance of each. 14. Point out the devices used by the poet to strengthen the impression of the utter desolation into which the village has fallen. 15. Give in plain prose the statement made by the poet when he says, "And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand, 16. Explain the following lines: His best riches, ignorance of wealth; Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom; To husband out life's taper at the close; And keep the flame from wasting by repose; Tempt the dangerous deep; When every rood of ground maintained its man. 17. Describe in your own words the picture which Goldsmith draws in lines 103-106. 18. Enumerate the sounds of lines 113-122. Are there any which seem to you not to belong to the scene? 19. Reproduce in plain prose Goldsmith's description of the village preacher; of the schoolmaster; of the inn. How does the poet characterize the tavern? 20. Enumerate the manners and customs of Goldsmith's boyhood to which reference is made in the poem. 21. Reproduce Goldsmith's description of England before the in-troduction of trade. Give his arguments on the advantage of small farms over large ones. 22. Quote the lines in which the poet gives utterance to his lifelong desire "To die at home at last." 23. Discuss the style and treatment of the poem. Describe its versification. Show that this criticism is true: "In no other rural piece is there so much poetry and reality combined. The text is a continuous succession of felicities." 24. Cite passages in illustration of the following criticism: "Of the entire poem it may be truthfully said, that it has more tenderness and pathos, gives more of picture to the eye, and of feeling to the heart, than any other in the language which is written in the same verse or metre." 25. How much of the poet's life and thoughts is revealed by this poem? How many of the details seem to be memories of actual scenes? Editorial UCH has been written by the great educators about attention and interest, and much of it needs to be repeated over and over again to get the best pedagogical service from our teachers and the best work from the pupils. How can we secure attention and awaken interest that shall lead on to the mastery of the subjects studied, and to the best results in the minds and characters of the youths in our public schools? This is partly a problem for the individual teacher, and partly it belongs to the school authorities. and to the general public. For how can the teacher secure the attention and awaken the interest of each pupil when she is obliged to teach classes of seventy-five or eighty; or when she is required to do her work in an ill-ventilated schoolroom; or when she is so miserably rewarded for her unselfish labors that she has to half starve herself in order to meet the ordinary expenses of life? It is of the utmost importance to all concerned that our boys and girls should be interested in their school work. Youth will quickly pass and the opportunities which it brings will not return. It is a critical period, when the character is forming, and success or failure in later life is being determined. When a father sees that the school has the attention of his boy and that he is interested in his work, then the father's heart is glad, and he knows that the money invested in his boy's education is money well spent. When he sees his child careless and indifferent, getting no grip on his school work, and wishing he were not obliged to go, or longing to leave and "get a job," then it is needful for the parent, as well as the teacher, to begin to take notice. There is trouble somewhere, and it were well to make an earnest effort to locate it. Sometimes it is a good plan to get the boy a job and let him find out that a business life is not a bed of roses. Oftener one will find the source of the difficulty in the school, or in something in the boy himself that can be corrected. An accurate diagnosis is the first and a most important step toward a cure. An entire change is often an excellent thing for an unawakened and uninterested boy. A year at a boarding school, or away in another town with some near relative's family, where he can attend another school in a different environment, and with new associates, will sometimes make a man of him. The earnest and thoughtful teacher will watch her pupils and study them individually, and be the wise adviser of the pupils themselves and their parents. Usually a teacher of this description will have no permanent difficulty in engaging the child's attention and awakening his mind. But occasionally there is a case that needs heroic treatment. Certainly no pupil should be allowed to drift along year after year in an inattentive, listless, uninterested frame of mind, convinced himself, and convincing his relatives and teachers that he is not capable of "book learning." It is demoralizing to the rest of the school and will do no good to the boy himself, who must probably be given some sort of a jolt to wake him up and bring him to self-realization. IN N every secondary school some adequate provision should be made for instruction in public speaking. There is hardly anything that one will be more certain to have occasion to use in after life than the power to express himself in effective speech in public. This power must be acquired in youth. One must learn to overcome self-consciousness, to become accustomed to hear his own voice in the presence of others without embarrassment, to command appropriate language, to arrange a decent argument, and to fortify the same with apt illustration; in short to "think upon his feet." It is not expected that every high school pupil will master the difficult art of oratory and become a Demosthenes or a Burke. But nearly everyone is sooner or later brought into situations where it is an immense advantage to be able to express himself clearly, calmly and cogently, in well-chosen English. And taking the general run of graduates from our public schools not more than one in a dozen can do it. There is nothing that more certainly or more practically demonstrates to the public the value of an education than this power of public utterance. What is the use of all this expenditure of time and money in schooling if at the end of it all the graduate does not dare say his soul' is his own except with pen and paper, or in the retirement of his own home, or in the inner intimate circle of his bosom friends? To be able to think clearly is of first importance, to be sure; but it is not enough to constitute a good education. One must be able to tell others what one thinks, and to do it clearly, concisely and convincingly. This is the flower and the fruitage of a good education. The training which our boys and girls may receive along this line in the public schools will be helpful to them in every relation of after life. It will promote good salesmanship as well as good citizenship. It will make them happier and more useful in home and society, in church and state. Do not then neglect rhetoricals, but in this age that is demanding above all things an education which is practical, see to it that a large place is given in the curriculum to instruction that will enable the pupils to use to the best advantage the intellectual culture which the balance of the curriculum affords. |