The Training of the Imagination (1908)

8/6/2019 The Training of the Imagination (1908)

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Presented to the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTOLIBRARY

by the

ONTARIO LEGISLATIVELIBRARY

1980


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THE TRAINING OFTHE IMAGINATION


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By the same AutlwrOUT OF THE SILENCE


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LONDON : JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEADNEW YORK : JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMVIII


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London : Printed by Wm, Clowes and Sons, Ltd


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TOTHE MEMORY OFEDWARD MALET YOUNG


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GOT 2 9 1908 o;PREFACE

JHE following address, waswritten twenty-three yearsago, and read to membersof an essay-society con-

sisting exclusively of public schoolmasters. Shortly afterwards itappeared in the columns of TheJournal of Education, to whoseEditor I am indebted for leave topublish it in its present form. I doso with some misgivings, at theurgent solicitation of a few friends,from whom perhaps modesty oughtto have saved me. It seems such atiny rush-light to contribute to the


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PREFACEvast illumination which is now en-lightening or dazzling the darknessof men's minds as to the true theoryof educational aims and methods.

Such as it is, I have made noattempt to re -model or re-write it,and must therefore ask indulgencefor certain colloquialisms and levitiesof style, which render it, I fear, moresuitable to an audience of privateindividuals, than to that larger andmore exacting public, to which ithas now the audacity to appeal.

HASLEMERE,Jan. 19, 1908.


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THE TRAINING OFTHE IMAGINATIONHEN first I was requested

to read a paper beforethis august assembly, myheart, I confess, so failed

me, that nothing seemed less attain-able than the possession of sufficientcourage for the task. "And yet,"said I to myself, "can it really bethat, after so many years' experience,you have positively nothing to sayupon the art which you profess?"For many days echo answered" Nothing," and I wandered aboutforlorn and miserable, and " tremb-ling like a guilty thing surprised."I tried indeed to console myself

9 c


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THE TRAINING OFwith the reflection that it is notnecessary to practical success thatone should have a theory to ad-vance, or feel strongly about otherpeople's theories; that, after all, itmay be better to belong to thegreat company of dumb workers,better to dig in the gold mines ofsilence than the silver mines ofspeech ; that there was nothing toblush for, if I had always proceededupon instinct, and, without pre-conceived ideas, had trusted inemergencies to draw my inspirationfrom the " hour and the " boy. Butthe straws of comfort which I thusgleaned, ended, I felt, but in mildewed ears, from which could beobtained no solid sustenance. Mydespair deepened : I turned to Brad-shaw, either with a view to flight,or in the hope that he might guideme to a parliamentary train of


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THE IMAGINATIONthought ; but all was useless :

" thereis nothing for it," I moaned, " butto throw off the mask, to confessthat all these years you have beenan impostor, concealing your ignor-ance, with more or less success,from the British parent and confidingchiefs ; better, far better, not to godown into the vale of years with alie upon your lips, but having no-thing to say upon the subject ofEducation, to come forward like aman and say it." With thus muchthen, by way of introduction, Iproceed to say my " nothing " uponthe importance of training theImagination, satisfied that the sub-ject itself is a great and pressingone, and that, though the bestservice one can render may be tomake original remarks and thrownew light upon obscure problems,the next best is to clear the ground


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THE TRAINING OFfor others, and earn their heartfeltgratitudes by forestalling all theplatitudes. %

First, however, let me premisethat if in the present paper I shallseem to ignore all the advantagesthat are resulting from the increaseof the materials of knowledge onthe one hand, and the organizationof the means of acquiring it on theother, and if I seem to pose insome degree as a sceptic, or con-servative, it is not that I am blindto "the blessed light of Science,"although'! mayhave ceased tobelievethat it brings the millennium in itstrain, but because I have a latentfear, that where the gain is so enor-mous in one direction, there must bea corresponding loss in another,that the very completeness of oursuccess may involve our failure,that we may be so absorbed in


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THE IMAGINATIONperfecting the means and instru-ments of Education as to mistakethem for the end.

What, then, is the somewhat re-actionary attitude which I ventureto assume? It is this, that thereis a possible bad side, a very realperil, in all this increase of learning,multiplication of subjects, systematiz-ation of methods, cataclysm ofschool-books all the machinerywhich has been brought into playto aid us in our wild desire to know,and to reduce the art of teaching toan exact science. I hope you willagree with me that the object ofeducation is not to know, but tolive. True it is that Browning's" Grammarian " is held up for ad-miration, because he "determinednot to live, but know:" but thenhe existed in the dawn of the revivalof learning, and was an exceptional


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THE TRAINING OFcase, an intellectual pioneer ; ac-cordingly, if you remember, he suf-fered from baldness, tussis, calculus,and died, first from the waist down,and then altogether, at a compara-tively early period of his career.My contention then is that we arein danger of trusting too much tobooks and systems, too little to theliving influence of mind on mind;too much to rapidity of learning,too little to development of power ;that we are in danger of organizingthe soul out of education, of makingit mechanical and therefore barren ;of a tendency to look to the accumu-lation of facts as an adequate result,though they may lie like lead in thebrain that bears them; in a word,of confounding the mere capacityfor housing mental goods with thegrowth of the vital powers conferredby education.


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THE IMAGINATIONWhat is the meaning of all this

feverish desire to know ? What dowe gain by it ourselves that we shouldso labour to roll the mighty snow-ball on, a still increasing burdento every generation ? Is it a mor-bid appetite of the brain, destinedto grow with that which feeds it, tillit leaves us a race of monsters atlast, with bulbous heads and punyframes ? If so, why all this hasteto inoculate our children with thedeadly lymph ? Or is it a veritableboon ? a thing which makes ushappier in its possession, or better ?Not all the wise, at any rate, havethought so. "He that increasethknowledge increaseth sorrow," saida paragon of ancient learning. " Ah !years may come, and years maybring the truth that is not bliss,"said Clough.

"Knowledge comes,but wisdom lingers,"


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THE TRAINING OF" Nothing else will give you anycomfort, when you come to lie here,"said the dying Scott, but he was notreferring to his intellectual store.It does not, however, require theauthority of such opinions as theseto persuade us that knowledge maybring sorrow, that she is not synony-mous with bliss, that she is quitea distinct personage from Wisdom,and that she is of no service to uson our dying-bed. When we meeta learned man, it does not neces-sarily occur to us to wish to be likehim, or to have him as our com-panion upon a walking-tour : it doesnot follow that he is also an admir-able, or even a truly educated, man.Learning, therefore, cannot be the" summum bonum " of life : I doubtif it be a " bonum " at all, exceptwhen regarded as a means to a" melius." Knowledge, indeed, or


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THE IMAGINATIONrather the material of knowledge,I conceive to be simply mental food

that which, taken in moderationand duly digested, enables the mindto live and think and grow in itsown proper sphere, of which moreanon. To make knowledge an endin itself, to live for it, is surely asblind an act of folly as to live foreating ; excess in the one case beingfollowed by the same results as inthe other. " Inconveniences," saysSir Thomas Elyot, "always doehappen by ingurgitation and ex-cessive feedinges," and this is noless true of the mind than of thebody. I do not know that a well-informed man, as such, is moreworthy of regard than a well-fedman. The brain, indeed, is anobler organ than the stomach, buton that very account is the less tobe excused for indulging in reple-


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THE TRAINING OFtion. The temptation, I confess, isgreater, because in the former casethe banquet stands ever spreadbefore our eyes, and is, unhappily,as indestructible as the widow'smeal and oil. Only think whatwould become of us if the physicalfood, by which our bodies subsist,instead of being consumed by theeater, were passed on intact byevery generation to the next, withthe superadded hoards of all theages, the earth's productive powermeanwhile increasing year by year,beneath the unflagging hand ofScience, till, as Comus says, " Sheshould be quite surcharged by herown weight, and strangled with herwaste fertility " ! Should we thenattempt to eat it up, or even storeit ? Should we not rather pull downour barns, and build smaller, andmake bonfires of what they would


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THE IMAGINATIONnot hold ? And yet, with regard toknowledge, the very opposite of thisis what we do. We store the wholereligiously, and that, though nottwice alorie, as with the bees inVirgil, but scores of times in everyyear, is the teeming produce gatheredin. And then we put a fearful pres-sure on ourselves and others to gorgeof it as much as ever we can hold.

I believe, if the truth were known,men would be astonished at thesmall amount of learning with whicha high degree of culture is compat-ible. In a moment of enthusiasm Iventured once to tell my Englishset that if they could really masterthe Ninth book of Paradise Lost, soas to rise to the height of its greatargument, and incorporate all itsbeauties in themselves, they wouldat one blow, by virtue of that alonebecome highly cultivated men ; and


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THE TRAINING OFsurely so they would : more, andmore various learning might raisethem to the same height by differentpaths, but could hardly raise themhigher. (A parent afterwards toldme that his son went home, and soburied himself in the book that foodand sleep that day had no attractionsfor him. Next morning, I needhardly say, the difference in hisappearance was remarkable : he hadoutgrown all his intellectual clothes.)Yes, I am more and more con-vinced, it is not quantity so muchthat tells, as quality and thoroughnessof digestion. Now digestion, to bethorough, must have time, and, to beworth much, must get done by naturalmeans ; and therefore I doubtwhether our annotated school-texts^though excellent in themselves, arealtogether wholesome, where everymouthful almost of learning is as-


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THE IMAGINATIONsisted by its own peculiar little pep-sine pill of comment. This im-proved system of aids may indeedbe necessary to meet the increasedpressure of requirement from with-out ; still, it does not follow that weare gainers on the whole. But toreturn to the question of amount.To myself personally, as an excep-tion to the rule that opposites at-tract, a very well-informed personis an object of terror. His mindseems to be so full of facts that youcannot, as it were, see the wood forthe trees ; there is no room for per-spective, no lawns and glades forpleasure and repose, no vistasthrough which to view some tower-ing hill or elevated temple; every-thing in that crowded space seemsof the same value ; he speaks withno more awe of King Lear than ofthe last Cobden prize essay ; he has


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THE TRAINING OFswallowed them both with the sameease, and got the facts safe into hispouch; but he has no time toruminate, because he must still beswallowing ; nor does he seem toknow what even Macbeth, withBanquo's murderers then at work,found leisure to remember, thatgood digestion must wait on appe-tite, if health is to follow both.

Shakspear himself, it seems, Iquote from a recent review in theSpectator, " despite all that thecommentators, doctors, ornitholo-gists, entomologists, botanists, andother specialists find, or pretend tofind, in his Work, was anything buta man of learning. He knew

' smallLatin and less Greek,' and had buta smattering of French. Even ofEnglish literature, other than whatwas contemporary, he was no pro-found student, though he seems to


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THE IMAGINATIONlave read with some attention bothChaucer and the older chroniclers

. But his mind assimilated therery marrow of the books he read.''

w, if a mind like Shakspear'scan be built up on such a slender>asis, it follows that quantity inearning is not a matter of the firstmportance. I speak under correc-tion, but I suppose that Newton,with the stock of learning which hecarried " into the silent land," couldnot now-a-days win the seniorwranglership. And yet are any ofour senior wranglers his equals hither-to? It was something other thanlis learning, then, that made NewtonNewton. You may say that, both inlis case and in Shakspear's, it wasgenius, and that this is incommuni-cable. It may be so ; and yet canwe get much nearer to a definitionof genius than by naming it the


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THE TRAINING OFpower of assimilating in remarkabledegree all the influences whichradiate from the universe and man

the power of so sympathising andidentifying itself with all outside it,that the mind becomes surchargedat last, and needs must out with itsburden and disclose its secret,whether in song, or by the revela-tions of science, or on canvass, orwith the sculptor's tool ?Of course, in such supreme degree,this power can be but for a few ; butI maintain that intellects of ordinarystrength can be raised by education,not indeed to create, as does theartist, but through his creations toreach and to enjoy the same exaltedpleasure, and absorb it into theirsystems; that, till such absorptionbegins, there is no true education;that at this stage, and not before,the mind begins to live and move


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THE IMAGINATIONand have its being. Here then firstopens before the student's eyes whatI mean by the world of imagination,[f any one is still awake, I will tryto describe it further.Were I asked to sum up in a fewwords,my ideal of education, I shoulddefine it as the art of revealing tothe young or ignorant the existenceof an atmosphere above them andabout them of which they do not, orbut dimly, dream ; of teaching themto desire and aspire to it ; of un-locking for them one or more of allits myriad gates a world of thoughtand law, of marvels and of mysteries,of moral beauty and ideal truth,beginning haply where they hadhoped all need of effort ended; aglorious region, out of which conceitor sloth may keep them, but whichbesets them always and on everyside, and yet soars far above the


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THE TRAINING OFfoggy belt of highest man's attain-ment. To give them the upwardglance, the initiated eye ; to let in" the light that never was on seaor land " ; to show that " heavenlies about us," not only "in ourinfancy"; to help dispel those" shades of the prison-house " whichnever ought to

" close about thegrowing boy," if to do this for onebenighted mind thou hast been able," thou art among the best of the "pedagogues ; if for many and many," thou art the non-pareil."

I care not what the subject wemay teach : Of all I ever heard of,there is none that does not openupwards to this paradise. For thelover of science what a momentmust it be when he first feels thebeggarly elements are mastered, thathenceforth he is not merely soilinghands and clothes with acids and


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THE IMAGINATIONwith fossils, but projecting himselfin spirit into the unknown past andreading the secrets of the eternalMaster-builder ; that here is a realmof inexhaustible delights, throughwhich his mind may roam atpleasure, winged and free !To the lover of mathematics whatscent and taste of ocean when he,too, dares to push from shore intothose " strange seas of thought "where Newton voyaged " alone " !He need not make discovery ofcontinent or island, like the greatones that have gone before; butwafted with a breath of the samespirit, in their track he sails : hisbark is nobly rigged; and, thoughthe light breeze may not bear himfar from land, he can lie at anchorwhere he will, assured that, whethercutting through the billows or be-calmed upon their surface, he, at


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THE TRAINING OFany rate, is rocked upon the bosomof eternal truth. Not even to thepoet, I am told, is imagination amore present help than to themathematician (and I can wellbelieve it, for my own knowledge ofmathematics exists almost entirelyin imagination), nor is there anysubject, I suppose, in which a boy,who has been furnished by naturewith the requisite canoe, can sooneror with more delight paddle out intothe great unknown.

For the lover of music, again,what a door is opened, when hisenjoyment first ceases to be littlemore than a mere sensual pleasure,a soft shampooing of the soul, andhe gets a glimpse into the mysteriesof sound, and feels his whole beingswayed and thrilled by those mightylaws that seem to lie at the founda-tion of the universe, and to pervade


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THE IMAGINATIONit ; whose operation reaches from thewhirring of an insect's wings to therolling of the thunder, andfrom lowerstill to higher still, beyond the ear ofman, from the gurgling of the sapwithin the tree to the rhythmic orderand orbits of the stars ! Yes," Painter and poet are proud on the

artist- list enrolled :" But here is the finger of God, a flash

of the will that can,Existent behind all laws, that made

them, and lo they are !And I know not if, save in this, suchgift be allowed to man,That out of three sounds he frame,not a fourth sound, but a star.

" Consider it well ; each tone of ourscale in itself is nought ;

It is everywhere in the world loud,soft, and all is said ;

Give it to me to use ! I mix it withtwo in my thought,And there ! Ye have heard and seen :consider, and bow the head ! "


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THE TRAINING OFWhen, I say, this door is first opened,the wonder of the vision overpowershim, and he knows himself a pigmy,and burns his comic songs andbegins to read Mendelssohn's letters,and thinks no more of the patternof his trousers.And then, again, to the lover of

history what a field is there to roaiin and hold living converse, likeLandor, with the dead ! But,lest your patience fail, I will imaginemyself interrupted by an objection :" Yes," you may say, " all very fine.To the lover of this and the lover ofthat the revelation may come easily ;but how to make lovers of thosewho are not?" That is the ques-tion ; and, if I could have answeredit satisfactorily, I should not havekept you so long in doubt as to thediscovery.

But first, with regard to literature,


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THE IMAGINATIONwhat is the nature of the ideal realmto which, through its medium, themind may rise ? It seems to methat, the use of language being toconvey thoughts and emotions, thechief end of learning any language isto gain admission to those treasures,and that this, therefore, should bethe main educational aim with regardto language. Words are symbols,just as coins are; and, when wespeak of words as coined andcurrent, we imply that in them-selves they are mere counters, re-presenting, but not constituting,some form of real wealth and power.I do not say, of course, that wordshave no further value they havebut this is secondary, and curious,perhaps, rather than elevating orinspiring. They may be treated,as coins are by the coin-collector,as objects of historical and anti-


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THE TRAINING OFquarian interest ; but this is purelyan incidental and accessory, not aninherent and essential use. Totreat them as if it were otherwise,seems as little reasonable as toamass money chiefly for the purposeof numismatic research. To utilisecash, indeed, we must know thevalue of each piece ; but we neednot be acquainted with the date,the reign, the mint where it wasstruck, the depreciation caused byman's clipping or the wear and tearof time. Not that the comparisonis absolutely just. Words are of in-finitely greater variety than coins, andof infinitely deeper interest, being inthemselves, as it were, fossil frag-ments of the human life of ages, andyet having laws of development andgrowth, which raise them almost tothe level of living things. Still, Isay, that the beauty of the laws of


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THE IMAGINATIONlanguage is a lower thing thanliterary beauty, which depends partlyon the thought to be expressed andpartly on the fitness of the wordswhich express it ; just as beauty ofphysical frame and feature is a lowerthing than that subtle combinationof physical with spiritual which weterm " expression of countenance."A higher thing than the beautyeither of words, or of thoughtclothed in words, is the pure thoughtitself, which is thus conveyed to usthrough the senses, just as whatwe call soul or spirit is a higherthing than either physical beauty orbeauty of expression. But, asthrough the expression of a man'scountenance we can often read histhoughts and feelings, and even hischaracter too, in proportion as ithas power to imprint itself on theface, so through the medium of


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THE TRAINING OFliterary expression can we arrive atthe writer's thought and feeling, inproportion as they have power tostamp their likeness on the languagethat he uses. In literature, there-fore, the region that lies open tothe initiated rises heaven overheaven. There is the lowest of thethree, that which deals with languagepure and simple, and is mainly ofhistorical and antiquarian interest ;there is the second, the heaven ofincarnate thought, as it werethought clothed in language ; and,thirdly, there is the heaven of dis-embodied thought, to which fromthe last is but a moment's flight,and from which we must descend asoften as we would communicate itto our fellows.

What, then, is the point in allthese studies where routine endsand imagination begins? Exactly


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THE IMAGINATIONwhere interest, where pleasurebegins : where the mind, instead ofbeing led blindly in a groove, beginsto act upon its own account, like aliving thing, and, having taken andassimilated food, anon desires more,and roams abroad to find it, andmakes that glorious region herhome. To grow by any study, wemust admire, be touched, perceivethe latent charm, not merely be ableto dissect and reconstruct the outerframework. The works of nature orof man must awaken in us emotionscorresponding to the divine or humanfeeling or purpose that inspired them.Then, and not till then, the mindbegins to feel her wings, and triesher first flight into the ideal world" What poets feel not, when they make,A pleasure in creating,The world in its turn will not take

Pleasure in contemplating."


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THE TRAINING OFAnd equally true it is that, till theworld feels that pleasure, it cannotrise to the empyreal region fromwhich the poet sang.Now, to take a passage fromHorace referring to M. Atilius

Regulus :"(Atqui) And yet (sciebat) hewas all the time aware (quae) what

things (barbarus tortor) the foreignexecutioner (pararet) was preparing(sibi) for his entertainment," and soon, may be a very creditable trans-lation for a member of the LowerFifth; and, when you have furtherdiscovered that he knows why"pararet" is subjunctive and im-perfect, and that

" sibi " does notrefer to the executioner, a man mayflatter himself that the lesson hasbeen well learned and so it has.But, for all that, the main thing isyet to do. The learner with rope


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THE IMAGINATIONand axe, mechanically, has climbedhigh enough to get some view ofthe outward form; he cannot seethe passionate feeling of mingledpity and admiration which inspired,moulded, lies behind, that form ; hisimagination is not touched ; he littledreams that a man might have muchado to keep his voice steady whilereading the concluding stanzas ofthat ode aloud; he has not thefaintest notion that they are electricand alive for ever by virtue of theirinherent and undying charm. Littleby little then, even from the earlieststages, to open their eyes to thesewonders ought, surely, to be ouraim, more gradually of course inteaching a dead language, mostrapidly in teaching English ; to re-veal the splendours of the realm ofgenius, till at last the marvel of itstrikes them, and they feel " like


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THE TRAINING OFsome watcher of the skies when anew planet swims into his ken," amare amazed at the magic toucwhich can take a handful of commonwords, such as

"blow,"

"winter,"wind," "unkind," "ingratitude,

and, with a sprinkling of conjunctions, prepositions, and pronounstransform them into a thing of perfeet beauty and immortal breathIs this the wealth we desire to havfor ourselves and our children thwealth, for instance, of the soul oShakspear, or the possession amintimate knowledge of the coins thaexpress, and the caskets that containit? Which is best to live byWhich would help us most fromennui, disappointment, faint-heartedness, the spirit of " Blow, blow, thouwinter wind," and of "As you likeit" altogether, with its precious" implaister of content," or an ac


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THE IMAGINATIONcurate acquaintance with the etymo-logy of the words, the metrical,peculiarities, redundant pronouns,etc. ? I may be mistaken, but Inever can persuade myself thatShakspear would have passed highin a Civil Service examination-paper on one of his own plays ; andyet, I suppose, it would be ourambition to produce minds thatshould approximate to Shakspear'smind, rather than to that of Wren'smost successful pupil.

But this approximation is only tobe attained by seeing, admiring,loving. In his preface to the secondedition of Lyrical Ballads, Words-worth says : " We have no know-ledge that is, no general principlesdrawn from the contemplation ofparticular facts but what has beenbuilt up by pleasure, and exists inus by pleasure alone " ; and again


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THE TRAINING OFtaking an extreme instance toillustrate his point, " However pain-ful may be the objects, with whichthe anatomist's knowledge is con-nected, he feels that his knowledgeis pleasure ; and when he has nopleasure, he has no knowledge."

It is clear then that the teacher,unless he be a blind leader of theblind, must first possess enthusiasmfor the beautiful himself. If this beso, and if he do not hide his lightunder a bushel, the battle is halfwon already. He must lose nochance of rousing his pupil's sym-pathy for what is worthy of admira-tion. It often surprises me to findhow boys are awed by a master'sfeeling for what at present is abovetheir reach. Personally, wheneverin the lesson I can find a peg tohang a poem on, I always hang it ;and I have hardly ever felt myself


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THE IMAGINATIONunrewarded. When stirred himselfby the pathos or the grandeur ofsomeexpression, thought, or deed, thatoccurs in the course of teachingboys, and when the ripple in hisown mind spreads, and sends athrill of emotion, or perhaps only ofawakening interest into theirs, it isthen, I think, a master feels that fora moment he has touched "theshining table-lands " of his profes-sion.

Another aid, and one by no meansto be despised, is the possession andcultivation of a sense of humour.It would seem to be characteristicof the same mind to appreciate thebeauty of ideas in just proportionand harmonious relation to eachother, and the absurdity of the sameideas when distorted or brought intoincongruous juxtaposition. Theexercise of this sense, no less than


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THE TRAINING OFof the other, compels the mind toform a picture for itself, accompaniedby pleasurable emotion; and whatis this but setting the imagination towork, though in topsy-turvy fashion ?Nay, in such a case, imaginationplays a double part, since it is onlyby instantaneous comparison withideal fitness and proportion that itcan grasp in full force the grotesque-ness of their contraries. It is like aman who, gazing out of window, seespassing by some "phantom ofdelight," destined indeed to be "amoment's ornament" the next, bya faulty pane of glass caricatured,and grimacing in unconscious de-formity.

Yes, there is no other entrance tothe realm of which I speak butthrough the folding gates of pleasureand of wonder. It might almost besaid that, in teaching, the three


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THE IMAGINATIONmain faults to be avoided were :ist, dulness; 2nd, dulness; 3rd,dulness. The things that boys willforgive their masters well nighsurpass men's understanding. Beirascible, impatient, abusive, sar-castic, exacting, severe; make badpuns even, and they will forgive youtill 70 times 7, but not, if you bedull : " out, out, vile spot ! " or allthe perfumes of Arabia will notsweeten your teaching in the nostrilsof boys. Heavens and earth, whata world to be dull in ! and what aplace and opportunity to choose,with a score or so of minds aboutyou, each as dry and porous as asponge, and ready to drink in thebeauty and the wonder, if you couldbut show it them ! You may saysuch heights are altogether abovethem, out of reach of the younger atany rate ; that it is but teaching them


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THE TRAINING OFto fly badly, when they should belearning to walk well; that theylack imaginative power. There Ijoin issue : boys seem to me ofimagination almost compact : lookat their unquestioning faith, look atthe boldness of their sanguineguesses, outsoaring the highest flightof man's conjecture, look at theirdevotion to the inseparable novel; seehow, during a sermon, the momentsuch words as " I remember once "herald the coming story, all cough-ing, fidgeting, and shuffling ceases,back into pocket flies the surrep-titious watch ! you can almost heara pin lie still upon the floor. No,they have imagination, and to spare ;what it needs is wakening ariddirecting. But this calmot be doneby insisting on the mastery of meifacts alone. The most conscientiotdrudgery, though it may strengthen


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THE IMAGINATIONthe character, will not refine themind. You may set men to digthrough a mountain ; and chip, chip,chip, into the darkness they will go ;but they will not go far, unless theyfeel that they are working towardsthe air and light : you must let downshafts into the tunnel, and openheaven to them from above, or theywill sicken soon and drop. So toomust we irradiate the dreary chip,chip, chip, through fact and com-mentary with something of the breathand brightness of the open sky. " Itis increasingly felt," says an ac-complished scholar in the preface toa recent translation of Sophocles," that a good translation is a com-mentary of the best kind." This is ahopeful sign ; for this lets in the soulat once into the stiffened features ofa dead language, attracts, illumines,stimulates.


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THE TRAINING OFOne more practical hint occurs tome to offer, and then I have almost

done. If so much depends uponthe teacher's quickening and modu-lating power, it behoves him beforeall things to keep his own mind vigor-ous and in tune. Therefore, I wouldsay, avoid unwholesome diet both ofbody and mind; avoid needlessworry; do not open long blue en-velopes just before a lesson; 'do notattempt to enter on an argument withyour wife; above all do not putyourself at the mercy of your bettersand wisers by reading them paperson educational subjects. Thesethings are fatal to that equilibriumof nerve and temper, on which thesuccess of a schoolmaster so largelydepends.

Well, we started with the assump-tion that the end of Education wasnot to know, but live. It is the


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THE IMAGINATIONapplication of ideas to life that man'sexistence, even in the lowest sense,is rendered capable of improvement.So successful has the idea been indealing with material problems, in-creasing man's outward happiness,and ensuring his triumph overnature, that the danger seems nowto be lest he should pause here, andrest content with this meagre andbarren victory. Barren it is, andmeagre, because, in the stress oflife's extremities, the material doesnot stand us in good stead : it turnsout to be illusory, unsatisfying, notto be relied on. But in the realmof thought there is "hope thatmaketh not ashamed," consolationever ready to sustain us, friends thatcannot change or die. ThereforeMatthew Arnold thinks that "thefuture of poetry is immense," andthat "in poetry, as time goes on,


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THE IMAGINATIONour race will find a surer and eveasurer stay." Yes, for the ideal mordand more turns out to be the only reauIn religion, in politics, in the dailjstruggle of life, the more we lean onthe material, the more we find it failus. There is but one power thJseems alike proportioned to our high-est aspirations and our deepeaneeds. What it is, let Wordswortianswer :" Imagination is that sacred power,

Imagination lofty and refined ;'Tis hers to pluck the amaranthing

flowerOf Faith, and round the sufferer^

temples bindWreaths that endure affliction's heaviest;shower,And do not shrink from sorrow's keenealwind."


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THE LIBRARY OF GOLDENTHOUGHTS. Pott Svo. (6 x 3finches). Bound in cloth, price is.net ; bound in leather, price 2s. net.Postage 2d. extra

First Volumes:GOLDEN THOUGHTS FROM THEGOSPELSGOLDENTHOUGHTS FROM THOREAUGOLDEN THOUGHTS FROM SIRTHOS. BROWNEPrinted upon a paper specially manufactured

for the series, with end papers and cover designby Charles Ricketts, and border designs byLaurence Housman. Each volume has afrontispiece, and is bound in a manner whichwill recommend the series as specially appro-priate for presents.


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THE SACRED TREASURYEdited by FREDERIC CHAPMAN.

Pott 8vo. (6 X 3! in.). Price, Bound inCloth, ss, net ; in Leather, 2*. 6d. net.

THE POEMS OFJOHN HENRYNEWMAN. Afterwards Car-. dinal. With Portrait.MR. JAMES DOUGLAS in Star: " Men of

all creeds and men of none can draw inspira-tion and ennoblement from this fine nature,when it breaks through the mist of technicallanguage, and expresses its hopes and fears, itslongings, and its desires in simple human words.. . . Mr. Frederic Chapman contributes anadmirable introduction, full of delicateinsight."Scotsman : " A collection of really fine andcharming verses."DIVINE CONSIDERATIONS.

ByJOHNVALDESSO. The EnglishTranslation of NICHOLAS FER-RAR, with GEORGE HERBERT'SPrefatory Epistle and a Portrait.

Guardian : " Exceedingly interesting."Liverpool Courier'. "Mr. Chapman con-tributes a valuable introduction, which shows

industry and careful scholarship."Bookman : " Extremely interesting . .a volume of throe-fold charm."


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THE SACRED TREASURYEdited by FREDERIC CHAPMAN

NEW VOLUMESTHEHUNDREDBESTPOEMSOF JOHN AND CHARLESWESLEY.The complete poetical works of the brothersextend to thirteen volumes of about fivehundred pages each. From this immensemass of verse it has been the Editor's endeavour

to select one hundred poems, which, judgedpurely by poetical standards, may legiti-mately be described as "The Hundred BestPoems of John and Charles Wesley."THE SPIRIT OF LOVE. ByWILLIAM LAW, Author of " The

Serious Call." With Portrait.William Law had the misfortune, by the

extraordinary popularity attained by one ofhis works, the famous " Serious Call to a De-vout and Holy Life," to find all his otherwritings thrown into almost complete obscurity.Yet from time to time there have been editorsto call attention to one or other of his beauti-ful religious treatises. The present reprint isamongst the most interesting and beneficent ofhis writings, filled with a piety that does notpall, and free from rancour, as its title " TheSpirit of Love," befits : and it is certain thatmany will gladly place this edition of "TheSpirit of Love " beside their " De Imitatione"and their " Holy Living and Holy Dying."London :JOHN LANE, The Bodley Head,Vigo St.,\V.New York : JOHN LANE CO., 110-114 West 32nd St.


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The Training of the Imagination (1908)

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