PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 759 
Meynell was right; and I would exclude from a curriculum 
of poctry for the young ail poems which resemble the 
‘“Blegy ’’ in its pretentiously rhetorical, yet commonplace, 
philosophy. (4) Didactic poetry of all kinds, even the 
cescriptive.. The didactic work of Thomson, Dyer, Cowper 
and their school should, I think, be barred, in spite of much 
elegance and beauty in isolated passages. The chief draw- 
back to even the best work of the descriptive and didactic 
poets of the Eighteenth Century is, I think, the fact that 
they are not poetry according to Wordsworth’s definition of 
Mill’s requirements. They are not the overflow of spon- 
taneous or of powerful feeling. They have no spontaneity 
and no power. They can do no harm, but we need not fall 
back upon them as though our literature had nothing more 
vital and dynamic to offer us. (5) Humorous poetry. I 
must naturally refrain from saying much of this class, as its 
influence at its best is very different from that which I 
have made the subject of this paper. I should, of course, 
not deny that the influence, or rather the temporary effect, 
of such excellent work as that of Barham and Hood is for 
good; and very sorry I should be to think that these 
authors will not be read and laughed over by young people 
for many generations to come. 
Having now endeavoured to show, in outline merely, what 
kinds of poetry the teacher has ready to his hand as educa- 
tional instruments, I proceed to develop more fully what I 
have already incidentally touched upon—the influence of 
poetry upon character. I may say that the influence of the 
best poetry upon the mind and the character is, in general, 
to purify, to stimulate, to brace, and to harmonise. The 
best poetry, especially of the lyric and religious lyric classes, 
purifies by raising the tone of the mind above earth, and 
directing the spiritual energies into their proper channel. 
I would not be understood to recommend or uphold the 
study of deeply mystical or Platonic poetry by the young. 
I think that nothing more profound than “In Memoriam ” 
need be read by young pupils, and that only in the higher 
grades. Such work as Shelley’s ‘‘ Prometheus “Unbound,” 
the bulk of Browning’s productions, and the “metaphysical ”’ 
poetry of Donne would be altogether unfitting for our pur- 
pose. The authors whose infiuence makes for gentleness 
and purity of life are rather those I have spoken of under 
the head of religious poetry—Herrick, Vaughan, Crashaw, 
Milton, and Herbert; and among more modern writers: 
Tennyson, Arnold (in isolated pieces only), and Words- 
worth. This purifying and raising the tone of the mind is 
one of those functions which can only be adequately and 
