mulation of their senses, must have
experienced the luxurious effects of orchards, flower gardens, and
clover fields; the odours of apple blossoms and the smell and taste of
the "full-juiced apple waxing over-mellow"; the perfumes and
temperatures of spring, midsummer, and winter if they are to read nature
literature intelligently and feel its charm. The words must have meaning
if they are to awaken the feeling that was part of the original
experience.

THE LITERATURE OF NOBLE THOUGHT

In literature, as in other arts, there is a great deal that is merely
decorative. It is not the purpose here to disparage this form of art. "A
thing of beauty is a joy for ever. Its loveliness increases." Some of
the most famous portraits and landscapes in the picture galleries afford
infinite pleasure to the student of art by the technique in colour,
drawing, and arrangement. They are greater than photography. "The light
that never was on sea or land, the consecration and the poet's dream"
have given them a beauty that is greater than the realism of the actual
person or natural scene. It is the same in literature. The author's
feelings, his language, the rhythm of his words, and his delicate fancy
afford the reader greater delight than he has ever known when he has met
similar persons, scenes, or actions in real life. This is genuine
aesthetic pleasure, similar to the pleasure that people derive from
china, music, or landscape gardening.

There is, however, a higher form of art in both pictures and literature.
There are pictures that suggest some noble aspiration, some great
universal truth, some great conflict between duty and interest. We feel
instinctively that these are greater than pictures possessing mere
masterly technique. It is the same in literature. There are poems in
which we feel that the thoughts and feelings are sublime. Perhaps the
technique of these is not equal to that of the poetry described in the
preceding paragraph, but the experienced teacher has felt his pupils
lifted above mundane affairs, when they begin to grasp the true
significance of such poems. The youngest pupils show their appreciation
by wide open eyes, when these are read. They instinctively feel that
this work is better than the merely pretty and dainty things in poetry.

In the _Ontario Readers_ we have numerous poems of this nature. In the
First Reader, the pupils instinctively feel that _Piping Down the
Valleys Wild_ is of different calibre fr