imself. When the teacher
is a teacher of this kind, teaches the spirit of what he teaches--that
is, teaches the inside,--a classic can be taught.

Otherwise the best course in literature that can be devised is the one
that gives the masterpieces the most opportunity to teach themselves.
The object of a course in literature is best served in proportion as the
course is arranged and all associated studies are arranged in such a way
as to secure sensitive and contagious conditions for the pupil's mind in
the presence of the great masters, such conditions as give the pupil
time, freedom, space, and atmosphere--the things out of which a
masterpiece is written and with which alone it can be taught, or can
teach itself.

All that comes between a masterpiece and its thus teaching itself,
spreads ruin both ways. The masterpiece is partitioned off from the
pupil, guarded to be kept aloof from him--outside of him. The pupil is
locked up from himself--his possible self.

Not too much stress could possibly be laid upon intimacy with the great
books or on the constant habit of living on them. They are the movable
Olympus. All who create camp out between the heavens and the earth on
them and breathe and live and climb upon them. From their mighty sides
they look down on human life. But classics can only be taught by
classics. The creative paralysis of pupils who have drudged most deeply
in classical training--English or otherwise--is a fact that no observer
of college life can overlook. The guilt for this state of affairs must
be laid at the door of the classics or at the door of the teachers.
Either the classics are not worth teaching or they are not being taught
properly.

In either case the best way out of the difficulty would seem to be for
teachers to let the classics teach themselves, to furnish the students
with the atmosphere, the conditions, the points of view in life, which
will give the classics a chance to teach themselves.

This brings us to the important fact that teachers of literature do not
wish to create the atmosphere, the conditions, and points of view that
give the classics a chance to teach themselves. Creating the atmosphere
for a classic in the life of a student is harder than creating a
classic. The more obvious and practicable course is to teach the
classic--teach it one's self, whether there is atmosphere or not.

It is admitted that this is not the ideal way to do with college
students who suppose th