1. _Understanding._—The meaning of each word, the meaning of each line, the meaning of the whole stanza. This should not be a mere passive understanding. Students should be made to reëxpress the ideas, not only by paraphrase in other words but especially by _imaginative realization_. “For instance,” “Just like what?” are two phrases to be often on the teacher’s lips. “Have you a heard a curfew?” “Have you heard a knell tolling?” “Did you ever see in picture or in reality a lowing herd winding o’er the lea?” A thought illustrated by the thinker’s imagination is realized fully, is felt as well as grasped, and will persist. 2. _Judgment._—What is the logical subject and logical predicate of each line and of the whole stanza? That is, what is the author’s chief topic and what does he say about it? This need not always be the grammatical subject of the passage. The art of expression is not only apprehending by vivid understanding, but it is also judging by predication, by affirming or denying something of the subject. There is not a class of any grade which cannot profitably exercise itself in clear and concise judgements. The successive judgements briefly put are: The bell tells the end of day: the cows return to the barn: the ploughman comes home: I am left alone in the darkness. 3. _Reasoning._—As as single sentence may be analyzed into a definite subject and a definite predicate for a judgment, so two or more sentences may be compared to grasp the relation between them. Poetry does not go through a process of reasoning. It states thoughts and presents pictures, permitting the mind to infer. The three pictures in the opening lines have a common trait which the mind detects: all three pictures are signs of nightfall. The mind draws an inference which is inductive in nature, and the whole stanza may be briefly stated: The coming of night leaves me alone in darkness. These stages in analyzing the thought are elaborated here. In practice they may be expedited. Before being read, the judgment and inference may be presented as problems for solution: What does the writer say in each line? What one idea is found in the first three lines? What will be the title, the head-line, the summary of each line and of the whole stanza?[5] II. ANALYSIS OF FORM