anguage as a living
organism, and the consequence is that his extempore vocalization of the
passage is more or less chaotic and--afflicting.

Extempore reading requires that the eye be well trained to keep ahead of
the voice, and to take in a whole period, or a whole stanza, in order
that each part of it be read with reference to the whole, that is, with
the proper perspective. To do this demands an almost immediate synthetic
grasp, the result of much training.

The perspective of speech is virtually a part of the meaning. One who
reads without perspective does not give his hearers the exact meaning,
for the reason that, subordinate parts standing out as prominently as
leading parts, the hearer does not get a correct impression of their
various degrees of importance, unless he do for himself what the reader
should do; and, certainly, not many hearers are equal to this--not one
in a thousand. Our estimates of all things are more or less relative, so
that perspective plays a large part in whatever we take account of. What
would a picture be without perspective? But it is of equal importance,
of greater importance, indeed, in the vocal presentation of language.

A true perspective demands, on the part of the reader, the nicest sense
of the relative values of successive and involved groups or sections of
thought--those belonging to the main current of thought being brought to
the front with a fulness of expression, and the subordinate groups or
sections according to their several degrees of subordination, being
thrown back with a corresponding reduction of expression. Along with
this, the whole must have that toning which reveals the spirit of the
whole. Could there be any better test than reading, of a student's
knowledge of the organic structure of the language, and the extent to
which the thought is spiritualized? Hardly. The ordinary examinations
of the schools, through questions, are wholly inadequate for getting at
such knowledge--for evoking a student's sense of the _life_ of the
language as an organ of the intellectual and the spiritual.

Technical knowledge is a good thing in its way, but a knowledge of life,
in whatever form, is a far better thing. And it is only life that can
awaken life. Technical knowledge, by itself, is only dry bones. The
technical, indeed, cannot by itself be appreciated. It must be
appreciated as an expression of life--as an expression of the plastic
spirit of thought and feeling.

Rea