THE CHILD AND THE BOOK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18875, 30 May 1923, Page 5

THE CHILD AND THE BOOK

By the Rt. Hon. H. A. L. Fishbk, Minister for Education in the Lloyd George Government. In the education of an Englishman nothing is go important as the full possession of the English language. To speak and write English clearly and correctly to read English in such a manner as to bring out the full value of its meaning and its music, to enjoy without affectation the principal glories of English literature—these are the chief prizes which every English parent should desire his children to win from their education. Yet by how many are these prizes attained ?* What proportion of our population can express itself exactly, can enunciate with distinctness, can read aloud so as to give pleasure to others, or can by a natural instinct or acquired taste reject that which is insincere or slovenly in the printed page ? Great as has been the progress achieved in national education, there is still a big task to be accomplished by those whose office it is to teach the English language to English children.

It is not easy to exhaust the evils which flow from the wide acceptance of slatternly English either in speech or in writing by so large a number of British citizens. Loose speaking and loose writing always imply loose thinking, and loose thinking is at the root of most of the mistakes which are made in the conduct of ife.

Fortunately, we are here in presence of an evil which admits of a large degree of correction. In every community there will always be a certain number of very foolish or very stupid people. Education may do much for them; it may make them modest; but they will never really win the prize of possessing their native language for' they are incapable of clear and exact thought upon any subject; and being obscure in their ideas, will remain through life obscure in expression. Many, however, are more fortunate, and -without being highly gifted may be brought through education into' the enjoyment of the great inheritance of English speech. _ We are the more encouraged in this vierw by the evidence among so many children in ouir elementary schools of those imaginative gifts which lie at the root of artistic appreciation. We know that children often exhibit a surprising degree of skill in writing .short stories, in painting illustrations for poems (as was clearly shown a few years ago by an exhibition of children's paintings arranged by Mr Roger. Fry), and in constructing metrical exercises. Here, for instance, is a stanza, written after a rhythm picture placed on the blackboard of a boy of eleven, in an East Oxford school, and quoted in Mr Greening Lamborn's "Expression in Speech and Writing" : The spring Hath come and with it flowers and trees. The birds flying to their homes again, And now the crocus flutters in the breeze, So happy that the gentle spring doth reign; Biids twitter in the lane, Just by the shallow rippling river; The lamba do roll and romp about at ease Near where the slender rushes dance and quiver.

This example is sufficient to show that under a- fine teacher children in our elementary schools may receive a sound literary training, and may be taught to use their native tongue with suppleness and grace. There is, then, ample reason for supposing that a great educational effort for the improvement of .our methods of teaching our native language and literature will meet with its reward. We are in truth an artistic people, though we are shy of acknowledging it. We might, if we cared, become a great musical people. And that great educator. Miss Charlotte Mason, whose death we are now deploring, has shown us how readily English children respond' to the appeal of the masterpieces of English literature. , Before enjoyment can be received from printed books a' preliminary process must he endured. The child must be taught to read. Now, it is by no means a matter of indifference how this first stage of literary education is conducted. Just as children should be taught to form their letters in writing under the dominion of the idea that writing is an art, and that letters should be as beautiful as they can be made, so through the spoken voice of the teacher they should learn what Tennyson used to call “the glory of words. ’’ At a very early stage, too, they may be introduced to some of the sublimities of literature. The Lord’s Prayer, as even Napoleon pointed out, is an example 'of the sublime in literature.. So, too, are the Psalms and.the Book of Isaiah, and many passages in the Gospels, simple enough to be read by quite young children. Indeed, far too little use is made of the Bible in the literary education of our people,- as the admirable Report of tile Committee on the Teaching of English in England justly points out. * * » «■

It is through the spoken voice that most children are led to their first enjoyment of literature. A single poem read with intelligence and feeling is sometimes the fairy bell which awakens the soul to the splendour’s of imagination. How important, then, is it that the art of elocution should be carefully studied by those whose office it is to teach the young! There is another essential. It is impossible to communicate a pleasure which you do not experience yourself. If the teacher is to impart an enjoyment of literature, -he must himself take pleasure from written words. Children have a keen eye for insincere teaching. They know well enough whether their teacher is feeling or merely shamming enthusiasm. Arid so, since sincerity is the cardinal virtue, it is well that the teacher who really prefers Sheridan to Shakespeare should resort to “She Stoops to Conquer” rather than to Hamlet for his literary dissertations.

But Hamlet must be at hand, and the children must know how to find him., If boys and girls are to be taught to enjoy literature, they must have an easy access to books. I have been in schools where the library consists of a beggarly collection of tattered school books, hidden away in some obscure cupboard behind a screen of glass and only unlocked at stated intervals by the austere hand of authority. This is not the way to encourage familiarity with the great minds of the past. Books must be handled before they can bo loved. * * * *

In every school, then, there should be a library, and in every librarv a generous store of books upon which children should bo allowed to browse. If the school library is deficient, then let the circulating library come to the rescue. Let it also be observed that though fees are abolished in elementary schools, there is no rule which forbids a parent from presenting a book to the school library. With a little support and organisation the libraries in our elementary schools might be made far more effective than they now generally are.

The selection of books for such a library is clearly a matter of great importance. Children who are nourished on trash grow up into adults who, having kept nothing but mean company in youth, think mean thoughts and take life at a generally low

. What is principally wanted in the first instance is not a library composed of books which children ought to like, but a store of volumes which they are sure to bice In order to cultivate a taste for good literature we must begin by teaching children to take pleasure from a book. And so one of the cardinal rules -which should govern the choice of at least half the books in a school library should be not“ What should the little things like’” but ‘‘What will they like?’’ * * o *

Their tastes, of course, will be very various, and in every good library for the young, whether in nursery or in school, there should be a little of everything poetry, fairy stories, tales of travels and adventure, histories, popular science, novels, biographies. No children’s library will be complete without ‘‘Alice in Wonderland,” ‘Alice Through the LookingGlass.” and Andrew Lang’s fairy stories, and “Treasure Island,” and “Kidnapped,” and “The Child’s Garden of Verse ” and “David 'Copper-field,” and “Pickwick”— but, in truth, so many good books, justly loved bv all children, have been wriijeh in the English language that it is inrid--ous to particularise. What is interesting is that some of the older writers like

George Macdonald and Mrs Molesworth (who, by the way, write sounder English than many modern practitioners of the art) retain their popularity.

A word must now be said about undesirable literature. There is so much reading matter produced every year, and so much of this is indifferent, if not harmful, that the avoidance of printed trash has become one of the major arts in life. Here the educator may afford precious aid. It should at least be easy to provide children with such abundance of good, attractive, wholesome literature as to create in them the foundations of a sound taste. What' would really endanger the prospect would he a too pedantic insistence upon the exclusive claim of the great classics. Give children good literature suited to their age and taste, and. they will read it and enjoy it and rise to its level. Give them the police news, and to the police news they will sink. —John o’ London’s Weekly.