IRVING ONE OF THE CHIEF FOUNDERS OF

AMERICAN LITERATURE.

On the 19th of April, 1783, just eight years after the battle of Lexington, the commanding general of the American forces sent the joyful news of peace to his long-suffering army. On the third day of the same month, in the city of New York, the youngest of the eleven children of William and Sarah Irving was born. To the child was given the Christian name of Washington.

Before the time of Irving's first literary efforts the scholarly men of America, that is of the American colonies, were too busy with hard labor in subduing nature, resisting the rigorous acts of the English Parliament, and laying the foundations and rearing the walls of the new temple of liberty, to devote themselves in any special degree to literary culture. Born with the new Republic, and through the whole of his life an ardent lover of his country, it seems no stretch of the imagination to conceive that Irving was inspired from the beginning with the high resolve to add something to its glory, as well as to make for himself a name of renown.

The following brief outline will show that Irving, whom Thackeray styles "the first ambassador sent by the New World of Letters to the Old," preceded the authors whose works make it possible to use with certainty and pride the words, "American Literature": William Cullen Bryant's Thanatopsis was published in the North American Review in 1816; but in 1831 he was unknown in England, and solicited Irving to use his influence to have a volume of his poems published in London. Richard Henry Dana was four years younger than Irving. He was the editor of the North American Review; his most celebrated poem, The Buccaneer, was published in 1827. James Fenimore Cooper was six years younger than Irving, and his first novels appeared in 1821. Longfellow and Hawthorne were in college when Irving was famous. Whittier's best poems were written after Irving's death. Ralph Waldo Emerson was born the year after Irving began to write for The Morning Chronicle; Oliver Wendell Holmes, the year of the publication of Irving's History of New York; and James Russell Lowell, the year The Sketch-Book was published.

SOME QUESTIONS AND TOPICS SUITABLE FOR

A FINAL EXAMINATION PAPER.

WHEN and where was Irving born?

historical event.

Fix the date by an important

Give some account of his life in Europe.

What marked honors did he receive in England?

When was his fame as an author well established, both at home and abroad?

What distinguished British authors were his friends?

Name his chief works.

Who suggested the idea of Bracebridge Hall?

What books of his are truly American in subject?

Did Irving ever do any work besides book-making?

What distinguished American statesmen in his time?

Give the chief events in American history during the period of Irving's life; in English and French history.

Under what fictitious names did he write?

What was the name of his home? where was it?

Is there any appropriateness in the name, Geoffrey Crayon, as author of The Sketch-Book? Explain.

What idea of Irving as a man would be derived from reading his works?

What does the phrase "contemporary writers " mean?

Into what classes may we divide the sketches? Descriptive? humorous? pathetic? narrative? didactic? other?

Where is the scene of each sketch laid?

Name the chief characters in the sketches, connecting with each some appropriate qualifying word or phrase.

Which is your favorite sketch? Why?

Write briefly an outline of the story of The Widow and Her Son. Sketch the character and personal appearance of Ichabod Crane. Quote from the sketches, and state what there is that is striking in the passages quoted.

Name very humorous and very pathetic passages in the sketches. Select a passage of fine description.

"He loved his daughter better even than his pipe." Quoted from what? Is it humorous or matter of fact? Why?

Define the following words: cloisters, monastic, key-stones, effigies, obliterated, edifice, parsimony.

What is a sentence?

Of what parts does every sentence consist?

Analyze the last sentence in The Widow and Her Son.

SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS.*

THE following suggestions by the Board of School Supervisors in Boston will be found exceedingly helpful to many teachers:

During the short time given to English Literature in the High Schools, few authors can be studied, and only selections from their works can be critically read. The main purpose, then, of this brief course of study should be to form and cultivate a taste for good literature, to encourage careful and systematic reading, and to illustrate the principles which should guide in selecting authors and works to be read after leaving school. It should be the purpose of the teacher, while keeping the exercises in literature from becoming either mere tasks or pastimes, to make the lessons so interesting that they will be eagerly and vigorously studied, and will inspire a desire for a larger acquaintance with the best authors. This purpose, it is believed, can be accomplished, partly by leading the pupils to perceive the real intent of the author, his thoughts and feelings, the strength of his argument, the beauty and nobleness of his sentiment, and his clear, distinct, forcible, and happy expression; partly by giving a vivid account of his life and times and their influence on each other, and by exciting an interest in the lives of his most eminent literary contemporaries. Thus, by association and comparison, the study of a single author may be an introduction and an incentive to the study of the literature of his period.

While neither the thought nor expression should be slighted at any time during the study of the selections, more attention should, perhaps, be given to the thought the first year, and to the expression the second year. During the third year, the selections should be used not merely for exercises in the meaning, derivation, and use of words, or for enlarging the understanding or improving the taste; they should also be

* See page 157.

studied as specimens of literature, and should illustrate the intellect, the taste, and the genius of their authors.

At the outset, the whole of a poem, sketch, essay, or novel should be read by the pupils, either at home or at school. Having formed a general conception of the production, they should study carefully and read intelligently with their teacher those parts of it that are most interesting and instructive, and that represent the genius and style of the author.

To the foregoing may be added the following, by the same judicious authorities :

After the teacher has called attention to a few points in the life, times, and character of an author, the class should take some narrative or descriptive piece and read it aloud, special attention being given to reading it in such a manner as to express clearly the thought, with such modifications of the voice as the sentiment requires. This should be accompanied by such a running commentary by the teacher as will enable the pupils to understand the story, if it is a narrative, or to form a mental picture of the scene described. The commentary should not, however, be such as to interfere with the interest of the story or description; but simply what is necessary to a general understanding of the piece. It will often require an explanation of many words that are but vaguely understood by the pupils, and attention to such constructions as require elucidation. This having been done, it will be an excellent practice for the pupils to tell, orally, what they have read in their own language. This may be made a class exercise by having one pupil begin and others follow, each taking it up where his predecessor left off.

Let each pupil then write an abstract of it. The reading of the piece and the oral abstract which has been given will have secured such a knowledge of it that the pupils will be likely to express themselves with a clearness which can come only from a full and exact understanding of the author.

Having carefully read the narrative or description, some parts of it may be taken and subjected to such an analysis as will show the relations of the clauses, phrases, and words to each other. It may be well, too, if the pupils are sufficiently advanced, to show something of the

relations of logic- the grammar of thought-to grammar, which has to do with words, phrases, and clauses.

This will involve a knowledge of the parts of speech, the inflections, and the principles of syntax, and should therefore be preceded by some review of what the pupils may be supposed to have learned previously.

After this the attention may be directed more especially to subordinate matters, to allusions, suggestions, manners, customs, historical references, and the like. If the selection is poetry, call attention to the metrical structure, which will involve the necessity, perhaps, of some study of prosody.

The most common rhetorical figures may be learned, — as simile, metaphor, synecdoche, and metonymy, and the selection examined with reference to their use.

Then, the words may be examined with reference to their origin, derivation, and formation. This, of course, will necessitate the use of an etymological dictionary, and a knowledge of the common prefixes and suffixes.

The pupils will then be able to understand what is meant by purity of style, and to apply their knowledge in examining this and other selections. The habit, too, which the pupils have formed of seeing the exact meaning of words, and the force of particular constructions, will aid them in writing clearly.

Then may follow an exercise involving all that has been done; viz., an exercise in criticism, or an estimate of the merits and faults of the selection.

If it is a narrative or a description, does it give us a distinct and consistent conception of the story told, or the object described, as a whole? Or is there something wanting, or but vaguely hinted at, which is necessary to a perfect understanding of the author? A careful examination in these regards will determine its quality with regard to completeness.

Is there more than is necessary to give such a conception, something not so intimately connected with the subject as to render the conception more vivid and well defined, but rather to confuse? On the answer to this will depend its unity.

Then may follow an examination of the style. Are the words such as are sanctioned by "good use "?

Are the words well chosen to express the exact ideas of the author? Is the construction of the sentences in accordance with the idiom and