Page:Shakespeare in the Class-Room, Weld, Shakespeariana, October 1886.djvu/3

Rh the thought it reveals, seems to have dropped by gravitation into its own place. Let him who doubts this take a page of Shakespeare's and substitute for any of its words better ones of his own if he can.

The study of such works tends to form a correct taste, habits of critical analysis, a terse, vivid and graceful style, and that keen discrimination which separates the dross or strained fancies, pragmatic conceits and tinseled word painting, from the beaten gold of a sterling literature.

Fifth. Being works of transcendent imagery their appeal is incessant to the imagination, and, as every faculty plied by its appropriate stimulant gains vigor thereby, the imagination of the student, thus under the tuition of the greatest of masters must be hopelessly stolid not to profit by such training.

Besides, the relation of the imagination to the other faculties is such that their scope, grasp, hardy growth, their symmetry, poise, and point are greatly determined by the force and range of its conceptive power, which becomes thus pre-eminently their educator, beckoning them out and up,—their watchword and talisman, their badge, beacon and banner. No power of the mind performs for it so high a service as this. When wisely developed it is the standard bearer for them all. It alone buoys us from our low actuals, toward a higher possible. It comes to us where we are, points us to where we should be, and lifts and lures us along the way. Without it we should have neither ideals, nor standards of excellence in art, science, literature, or moral attainment. It is the patron of all progress, hovering over and moving before us, our pillar of cloud, our pillar of fire, uplifted ever, and spanning our vision with its bow of promise and of hope. Without it life would slug itself away stifled in the miasms of its own stagnation,

Such being the special function of the imagination, its training and general culture become of vast moment in education.

What can minister to the pupils' powers of conception such training and discipline as the study of Shakespeare under a direction instinct with his spirit and roundly in earnest. But the works of Shakespeare are not merely those of the imagination, he was was preeminently a thinker. Thoughts the deepest, keenest, wittiest, the most far-reaching and myriad-phrased glow on every page.

He is the greatest of dramatists, and poets, the greatest of wits, humorists and literary artists, the most profound in his æsthetic intuitions, the most original and subtile of mental analysts—too profound, as well as too simple and true, to parade the machinery of philosophy, or be lavish of its technics; so acute as a metaphysician that the delicacy of his dissections, sometimes escapes the scrutiny of his ablest commentators, baffling the skill of even Pope, Arbuthnot, and Dr. Johnson. May I not add to this that Shakespeare was also the wisest of sages. Does he not give us more lessons of practical wisdom and fraught with deeper meaning in the conduct of life, than ever fell