memory recalls another, and that in turn awakens a third which has lain asleep perhaps for years. Few minds can revivify the fringes of memory, if the term may be used, by a rapid or careless reading. What the author has written with careful and happy art must be read with care and leisure. Sometimes a stanza of four lines will require far more time than a whole novel. Tennyson's "Flower in the Crannied Wall" and Lowell's "Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration" are poems that require not only maturity but also much time for understanding and appreciation. Although the words of the first are all short and in themselves relatively simple, many people can not really read the poem in a whole lifetime. The hard core of sense at the center of the poem or story must be the same to all readers; but beyond that, varied experience, time, and imagination will afford a result that is peculiar for every one.

Images

Children in the grades especially should be trained in using their vivid imaginations, not only that their present but that their future reading also may be more pleasurable. A demand for "pictures," or "images," makes the child more curious, too, in his observation of the world about him; for in imagining he feels the need of accuracy concerning details that he may have overlooked or thought utterly needless before. Ask a child to draw a man's head, and the chances are that he must look to see if the ears extend above the eyebrows! Ask him to image a

picture suggested by the poem and he not only gets a better understanding of the poem, but he also is impressed by the notion that he must look more closely at everything that lies about him. It is important in every way that this habit be encouraged. For instance, in reading Tennyson's "Owl,” we should at the line

"And rarely smells the new-mown hay"

recall as clearly as possible the odor; and coming to the stanza:

"I would mock thy chant anew;
But I can not mimic it;
Not a whit of thy tuwhoo,
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,

Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,

With a lengthened loud halloo

Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-o-o"

we should hear the owl, if we read the poem silently, and suggest his hooting if we read it aloud. Unless we have vivid sense images of the odor that rises from roast pig, of the pain in burnt fingers and the consequent impulsive action, and of the deliciousness of the roast flesh to the tongue, we shall not be able to read Charles Lamb's delightful "Dissertation upon Roast Pig" with full appreciation.

These imaginative images, we must remember, are not visual pictures only. They may result also, though probably in a less degree in most readers,

from each of the other senses as well. Illustrations have just been given of images of smell, hearing,. taste, and touch. But by far the most mental images are visual: they bring up pictures to the mind's eye, varying in vividness according to several elements, chiefly the habit of visualizing that the reader has. This habit is far more easily fixed in childhood than at any other time; and a teacher of reading or literature who fails to give the imaging faculties exercise and encouragement is sadly derelict in duty. The habit will give pleasure to age, not merely in reading, but also in recalling scenes of earlier life.* In imaging exercises the teacher must be alert, for so far as their experiences have gone, children have extremely vivid images; and not infrequently they will vivify distinctly what appeals only to the intellect of an adult.

Images May Differ

It should be noted by the teacher that although the mental image of each person should be as definite as possible and stable, there are many cases in which it does not need to correspond, except in a very general way, with that of any other reader. In

* Halleck's "The Education of the Central Nervous System" (The Macmillan Co.) will be found helpful here. Contrary to what might be expected from the title, the book is very readable, especially if at first one omits the first four chapters, which are largely physiological, and begins with the chapter on "Environment and Training." In Chapter VIII are listed a number of experiments that not only would b⚫ instructive but also might furnish great amusement at some party. Every teacher and parent should read the whole book.

Longfellow's "Children's Hour," for instance, we have a good picture in the stanza:

"From my study I see in the lamplight,

Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,

And Edith with golden hair.”

Each person who reads this stanza appreciatively as literature sees the study of the poet, the staircase in the hall, and the three children, each clearly different from the other two. But the point is that one reader's picture would not necessarily satisfy another reader: one has his notion of how "grave Alice" looked; another pictures her in quite a different way. But each must have a picture that is clear to his own mind's eye.

In other passages, where the suggestions are even less definitely given than here, the pictures may differ so widely among several readers as to make us sometimes wonder if they were inspired by the same words. Of course some readers will have better imaginations, wider experience, better taste, and a true understanding of the poem. Their pictures will help all of us to understand the poem better, perhaps; yet it remains that oftentimes one's own picture, however crude, is the best one for him, with his understanding of the poem, to hold. It may be changed and improved, as indeed it is apt to be by a comparison with the others that are presented. But it is very rare when any other can or should be substituted for it.

Limits in Variation

The following lines from Tennyson, for instance, call up a more or less vivid picture in the imagination of every reader:

"The splendor falls on castle walls

And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory."

To read this passage appreciatively all readers must see the details mentioned, but they do not necessarily agree on the location or the image of the castle, the snowy summits, or the cataract. Good taste will to some extent govern the selection and arrangement of the details, as will the previous experience of each reader. All must agree, however, on the direction from which "the long light shakes," for the source of it is without doubt the setting sun. It is thus apparent that the same poem may sometimes stimulate quite different images in different readers, but that wherever there are restricting details they will serve to make the various images more nearly alike.

Translation

The author's intention is to awaken in each reader the emotion that he himself has deeply felt, and to that end all of his art is directed. It is evident that his results will, on account of the readers' varied experiences, taste, and care in reading, vary somewhat; but the variation must be within such limits as will effect the desired emotion, or the poem read