802 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 
schools the teaching of English literature is a scandal; in 
primary schools there is none. 
Far be it from me to advocate the thrusting of elaborate 
literature manuals into the gver-crowded curriculum of over- 
crowded Australasian schoolrooms, where there is already 
so much teaching and so little taught. The cramming of 
literature handbooks for examination purposes, seems to me 
about the least-worthy employment of time that could well 
be devised. And, even if it were desirable, it would clearly 
be impossible, to cram the lower classes of primary schools 
in the way in which it is unfortunately possible to cram the 
higher classes of secondary schools. My proposal is much 
more modest. It is simply that in all classes, except those 
for infants, an hour a week should be devoted in primary , 
schools to a brief talk upon the life of a chosen author, 
followed by the reading aloud by the teacher* of such 
passages from the author as seem most likely to hold the 
children’s attentign, stimulate their imagination, and form 
their character. At the end of the hour might perhaps 
come one or two questions, a test of the lesson’s success, and 
for the next lesson the name of the book read, its author, 
the place of his life, and the date of his death—nothing 
else—should be committed to memory by the class. 
Thus, young children would be told the story of the life 
and times of Alsop (and here, surely, a little fable might be 
allowed concerning the father of them), of Defoe, of Hans 
Andersen, of Charles Kingsley, “ Lewis Carroll,’ George 
Macdonald, and Rudyard Kipling. Then they would hear, 
and, if I know anything of children, would hear with delight, 
the best of the “ Fables,’ a passage or two from “ Robinson 
Crusoe,” the ‘“ Fairy Tales,” the ‘‘ Water Babies,” “ Alice 
in Wonderland,” “‘ At the Back of the North Wind,” and 
the ‘ Jungle Book,” read in consecutive weeks as the litera- 
ture hour came round. Older classes of children would 
learn more of Kingsley, through extracts from the “ Heroes” 
and ‘“‘ Westward Ho,” each of which books would, I suppose, 
require some three or four lessons. They would find rich 
food for fancy in the “Arabian Nights” and ‘“ Don 
Quixote ” ; and would learn to love Shakespeare and Homer 
through Lamb’s “ Tales from Shakespeare” and ‘“‘ Adven- 
tures of Ulysses.” “Tom Brown’s School-Days’’ would 
give an insight to all that is best in English public school 
* This differentiates my proposal from the spasmodic efforts to intro- 
duce good literature into schools by the medium of school reading-books. 
The best literature loses its effectiveness when made the battle-ground 
of spelling urchins, 
