had. If a teacher of literature enjoys being the editor
of AEschylus, or if he is happier in appearing on a title-page with a
poet than he could possibly be in being a poet, it is personally well
enough, though it may be a disaster to the rest of us and to AEschylus.
Men who can be said as a class to care more about literature than they
do about life, who prefer the paper side of things to the real one, are
at liberty as private persons to be editors and footnote hunters to the
top of their bent; but why should they call it "The Study of
Literature," to teach their pupils to be footnote hunters and editors?
and how can they possibly teach anything else? and do they teach
anything else? And if good teachers can only teach what they have, what
shall we expect of poor ones?

In the meantime the Manufacture of the Cultured Mind is going ruthlessly
on, and thousands of young men and women who, left alone with the
masters of literature, might be engaged in accumulating and multiplying
inspiration, are engaged in analysing--dividing what inspiration they
have; and, in the one natural, creative period of their lives, their
time is entirely spent in learning how inspired work was done, or how it
might have been done, or how it should have been done; in absorbing
everything about it except its spirit--the power that did it--the power
that makes being told how to do it uncalled for, the power that asks and
answers its "Hows?" for itself. The serene powerlessness of it all,
without courage or passion or conviction, without self-discovery in it,
or self-forgetfulness or beauty in it, or for one moment the great
contagion of the great, is one of the saddest sights in this modern day.

In the meantime the most practical thing that can be done with the
matter of literary drill in college is to turn the eye of the public on
it. Methods will change when ideals change, and ideals will change when
the public clearly sees ideals, and when the public encourages colleges
that see them. The time is not far off when it will be admitted by all
concerned that the true study of masterpieces consists, and always must
consist, in communing with the things that masterpieces are about, in
the learning and applying of the principles of human nature, in a
passion for real persons, and in a daily loving of the face of the
universe.

This idea may not be considered very practical. It stands for a kind of
education in which it is difficult to exhibit in