THE WHY AND WHEREFORE OF THE

NOTES

Recently, a former pupil was telling me about his summer vacation-two months spent near the sea. (Most of it, I fancy, had been in the sea.) He casually remarked that he had taught eight people to dive.

"Splendid! How do you teach them?" I queried.

"Oh, anybody could do it. First you have them come out on the raft with you every day and watch the fun. After awhile you begin to tease them about not doing it and tell them how easy it is. Sometimes you just accidentally push them off the raft when they're standing near the edge. Once they've found out that it doesn't kill them to go 'way under water, you can begin to tell them how to dive right-how to keep their feet together, and aim out rather than down. Not too much at a time, though, because that rattles them. I guess they learn most from watching the different people on the raft do it. Of course, they have to keep at it themselves all the time. But they certainly learn a lot from seeing stunts done right, or even from seeing them done wrong."

"Could a person learn without being taught?"

"Well, yes, if he kept at it long enough. Some people find it a lot easier than others. But I know, myself, that it would have taken me weeks longer if I hadn't kept my eyes open and taken tips from the other fellows once in a while. Maybe you don't call that being taught. It's more like-well, it's being shown how to teach yourself."

This boy is planning to be an engineer. I hope he will sometime have a chance to combine teaching with his en

206 THE WHY AND WHEREFORE OF THE NOTES

gineering. For unconsciously he has discovered the chief secret of pedagogy—giving a person directions and examples whereby he may teach himself.

These Notes give examples of the way some boys and girls at Hartford High have studied modern verse for the last two years. I don't claim it is the only way; perhaps it is not always the right way. For instance, my pupils have never cared much about lists of all the books written by individual poets. (If they were really interested in an author's work. they went down to the Public Library and looked him up for themselves; otherwise, titles made no impression on them.) So here I have usually indicated only the general extent of each poet's work, except in cases where further information was not readily accessible. Neither have my classes liked ready-made critical estimates of a poet's work. As a girl once put it, “I suppose the critics are right in saying that Shakespeare was great, because critics don't agree on a thing for hundreds of years unless it's true; but with modern authors, I should think every one had a right to her own opinion." That seemed to be the general feeling, and it produced some heated discussion which we found most stimulating. For that reason, I have tried to refrain from labels of all kinds. Now, perhaps, pupils in other schools would like all this information. If so, there are plenty of library catalogues available, and plenty of books of criticism. (At the end of the Supplementary Reading List will be found several titles of the latter.)

Three things, however, my pupils did find of very great assistance in "being shown how to teach themselves" poetry. They were always curious to know about the lives of authors, and often discovered interesting connections between biographical details and poems which they read. Second, before they could really understand a poem, they sometimes needed information about its allusions, its background, its technique; and they found such information hard to track down, espe

THE WHY AND WHEREFORE OF THE NOTES 207

cially in a short time. And last, the majority of them appreciated a few hints how to study a poem-questions showing them what to look for, suggesting parallels, or stimulating thought and imagination. It was understood that any such questions were merely typical, illustrative of many others which they would doubtless ask themselves, once their minds had received the initial impetus. If pupils honestly preferred-as a few did-to read the poem over and over again until subconsciously they realized its full appeal, they were quite at liberty to do so. I should hate to feel that any future reader of this book was forced to "study" the Notes when he was inwardly convinced that such study was spoiling his enjoyment of the poems. For to some young people-a fortunate few-poetry comes as naturally as diving does to others; and some would rather keep patiently at it for and by themselves without paying much attention to the examples of others. But the majority of my three-hundred-odd pupils, I think, felt that it paid to "keep their eyes open and take tips once in a while" that by learning a few facts and having a few ideas suggested to them they taught themselves sooner than they otherwise could have to appreciate poetry instinctively and intelligently.

On a scorching summer day, the person who does not know how to dive looks with mingled awe and envy at the lithe, beautifully poised figures on the raft and the cool, green depths below them. Down-down-down they plunge, coming up again with new exhilaration in their faces and new light in their eyes. Many people hesitate as they stand above the sparkling "many-voiced" sea of modern verse. But the deeper one teaches himself to dive into that sea, the oftener he wishes to do it, and the more his mind becomes refreshed and strengthened. Who wouldn't be an experienced diver?

SEA-FEVER

(From Salt-Water Poems and Ballads)

John Masefield was born in 1874. From childhood he had such a love of the sea that his parents apprenticed him, at fourteen, to a shipmaster as a cabin boy. Later, he spent. several years before the mast. Then he wandered on foot through various countries. For awhile he worked in New York, first in a saloon and then in a factory. Returning to England with his mind finally made up to devote himself to literature, he worked patiently for over ten years before the publication of The Everlasting Mercy (which won the Edmond de Polignac prize in 1912) made him famous. Since then he has published many volumes of verse and plays. During the war he served with the Red Cross in France and at Gallipoli, fitting out a hospital ship at his own expense. He has made a lecture tour of the United States.

For generations, love of the sea has been a characteristic of the Englishman. Over a thousand years ago, an AngloSaxon poet whose name we do not know-and in a way, it does not matter, since he was but a voice for many of his fellows-composed a long poem called "The Seafarer." A few scattered lines from it (Cook and Tinker's translation) will show the similarity of feeling:

"The hail flew in showers about me; and there I heard only The roar of the sea, ice-cold waves, and the song of the swan; For pastime the gannet's cry served me; the kittiwakes' chatter For laughter of men; and for mead-drink the call of the sea-mews."