How to read English authors, v. g. a drama of Shakespeare?
1. Read first the whole piece, quickly, uncritically, to gain a knowledge of its contents; or induce the pupils to do it at home, but in this case examine whether they do so. – 2. Explain then part after part: all archaic words, difficult constructions, until everything is understood. – 3. Explain historical and literary allusions. – 4. Explain the plot, the tragic idea, the chief characters (in an oration, the proposition and the argumentation). – 5. Criticise the work as a whole. Show its excellences and shortcomings. – 6. Have choice passages learned by heart, and delivered well. Besides, for each lesson make the pupils write something on the lesson previously explained: let them give the contents of a scene, write a synopsis, criticise a passage, or explain a beautiful sentence. Otherwise there is a danger that some will not even look at the author at home.
§ 2. Memory Lessons.
The nineteenth rule prescribes the regular recitation of memory lessons. These frequent practices of the memory in Jesuit schools have often been censured by modern writers.[1] But renowned teachers as Dr. Arnold of Rugby,[2] in fact, all educators that are not mere theorizers, strongly insist on the necessity of these exercises.
Why should we exercise the memory of the pupils?[3] The answer to this question in general is: because we
