ur instruction. In the
early stages of education this sympathy is generally to be found
either in parents, if they are fond of literature, or in the teacher,
who is usually of the more sympathetic sex. The stories and poetry
offered to children nowadays seem to be, as a rule, sympathetically,
if sometimes rather uncritically, chosen. The importance of voice and
ear in receiving the due impression of literature is recognised; and
the value of the child's own expression of its imaginations and its
sense of rhythm and assonance is understood. Probably more teachers
than Mr. Lamborn supposes would heartily subscribe to the faith which
glows in his delightful little book _The Rudiments of Criticism_,
though there must be very few who would not be stimulated by reading
it.

It is when we come to the middle stage, at any rate of boyhood--for of
girls' schools I am not qualified to speak--that there is a good deal
to be done before the cultivation of literary taste, and all that this
carries with it, will be successfully pursued. In the past, the Latin
and Greek classics were, for the few who really absorbed them, both a
potent inspiration and an unrivalled discipline in taste: but it is
noteworthy how few even of the _elite_ acquired and retained that
lively and generous love of literature which would have enabled them
to sow seeds of the divine fire far and wide--"of joy in widest
commonalty spread." Considering the intensity with which the classics
have been studied in the old universities and public schools of the
United Kingdom, the fine flower of scholarship achieved, the sure
touch of style and criticism, one cannot help being amazed at the low
standard of literary culture in the rank and file of the classes from
which this _elite_ has been drawn. How rare has been the power, or
even apparently the desire, of a Bradley or a Verrall or a Murray, to
carry the flower of their classical culture into the fields of modern
literary study! And how few and fumbling the attempts of ordinary
classical teachers to train their pupils in the appreciation of our
English literature!

In recent years a new type of literary teachers has been rising, who
owe little, at any rate directly, to the old classical training; and
although their zeal is often undisciplined and "not according to
knowledge," with them lies the future hope of literary training in our
schools. They bring to their task an enthusiasm which was too often
lacking in the