THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THE AUTHOR.--What do we know of Goldsmith's childhood? his family? his education? his professional training? his travels? his friends in London? his loneliness? his disappointments? his literary successes? his eccentricities? his kindness?
How can we judge of his character from his references to the village of his childhood? from what he says of wealth, greed, etc.?
If a teacher were to attempt to investigate the methods employed in classes formed to study Shakespeare, he would doubtless be impressed first by their variety. One teacher lays great stress on reading the play with little or no comment; another, with painful slowness, works line by line to bring out the details of the thought; while a third lays the greatest stress on the structure of the play, following minutely the steps from exposition to climax and from climax to conclusion. Each plan has its advantages, and in the hands of an enthusiastic and sensible teacher ought to achieve admirable results.
The fundamental reason for these wide differences in method is the greatness of Shakespeare's genius. We are captivated, perhaps, by one phase of his work and fail to see, or to see in due proportion, other phases equally, or even more, important. As a rule, the limitations of time make it impossible thoroughly to investigate many lines of study, and the teacher naturally follows his own taste in making selections.
Now the average high school student has limitations which we are bound to recognize. Accustomed as he is to reading fiction where description and explanation are frequently used to aid the imagination and the understanding, he fails to appreciate the situations in a drama and the motives for the actions. Again, there are considerable difficulties of language which must be overcome by persistent work. The over-editing of some of our text-books is often a real difficulty. A conscientious pupil often feels that his lesson is not quite learned unless he has carefully read all the notes. In one school edition of a play there are nearly twice as many pages of introduction and unclassified notes as of the text. Such an edition adds to the difficulties of the work by confusing essential and unessential matters.