Unwillingly to School
SIR.—I was charmed by Virginia Graham's article. It is so true. Yet it is my good fortune to live among boys of prep. school age who delight in their Shakespeare and read it with an avidity that is certainly not put on to please. I do not teach English, but I know from living with these boys the pleasure they find in the plays they read. And is not my colleague able to quell the unruly by a threat of no Shakespeare next week?
This appetite for Shakespeare can only be developed by a teacher of the most talented enthusiasm, not existing in every school; but the point is, it can be developed. To insist on Shakespeare when it bores, under an uninspiring teacher, is criminal; but today there is a danger of educa- tionists ignoring completely the possibility that it can appeal to the young. Recently I heard of a lecturer at a teachers' training college declaring in the most decided manner that no boy of twelve should have even the simpler plays of Shakespeare given him to read, nor Harrison Ainsworth, nor even Stevenson's Treasure Island! Her mind was closed to the possibility of their understanding such works. And that one whose work is the training of teachers!
Of course the prep. school boy will not understand everything in the plays. But he can, when properly taught, feel the beauty of language. And if he can satisfy the appetite of his age with Shakespeare. or Ainsworth, or Dickens, or Scott, must we have them excised from his life as this trend of opinion would like? Must none read the Bible save learned theologians? Let boys read their Biggies and their other modern books, but let none of us desist from encouraging those who come under us from reading the- more lively of the classics. For a sad fate indeed awaits our tongue if youth is not encouraged to taste our classic litera- ture, if youth is left unguided, reading only its transient stories and tasting none of the profounder beauties of English letters.—Yours faithfully,
The Prebendal School, Chichester, Sussex. JAMES NOWELL
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