LITERATURE IN GRAMMAR GRADES 35 



is with regret that we reach the point where Whittier closes 

 the book of his memories, for by this time the members of 

 the family are our friends and their interests are ours. The 

 last two stanzas, however, are too difficult for sixth grade 

 children, and the poem closes for them with Whittier's apos- 

 trophe to memory, the " angel of the backward look." 



The papers, or " stories," based upon the poem are now 

 written. When they are finished enough time has elapsed 

 after the second reading of the poem so that 

 ^ can ^ e ^ ven i ts fi na ^ reading without the 



Reading 



repetition being at all tiresome. This final 



reading serves to put all the thoughts together as a whole, 

 to connect its pictures, to interweave its characters and re- 

 citals, and to discover new beauties. These are found in the 

 figures of speech, which are studied for the enjoyment that 

 they give, not to develop rhetorical knowledge. One result, 

 however, is that the pupils, already prepared in the fifth 

 grade by their studies of comparisons, recognize with con- 

 siderable readiness nearly all the similes, metaphors, and per- 

 sonifications, calling them by their proper names. This un- 

 derstanding of the simpler figures adds greatly to the pleas- 

 ure of the children in the poems. 



Memorizing is frequent, but is made as easy as possible. 

 The children are at an age when they remember easily and 

 Mem riz* constant supervision is given to training and 



exercising the memory. Much of the poem 

 is learned almost unconsciously. The teacher may start a 

 line, asking someone to continue, someone else to go farther 

 in the quotation, then still another to give the whole. By 

 almost daily observance of this practice the pupils form the 

 habit of memorizing, and the amount retained by some pupils 



