In general, do you think that the romantic or the realistic school has the truer conception of the mission and art of fiction? Why is it desirable that each school should hold the other in check? WALT WHITMAN.--How did his early life prepare him to be the poet of democracy? To what voices does he specially listen in his poem, _I Hear America Singing_? In his _Song of Myself_, point out some passages that show the modern spirit of altruism. In _Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking_, what lines best show his lyric gift? What individual objects stand out most strongly and poetically? Could this poem have been written by one reared in the middle West? Why does he select the lilacs, evening star, and hermit thrush, as the _motifs_ of the poem, _When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd?_ In _Patrolling Barnegat_, do you notice any resemblance to Anglo-Saxon poetry of the sea, _e.g._ to _Beowulf_ or _The Seafarer?_ In _With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!_ what touches are unlike those of Anglo-Saxon poets? (See the author's _History of English Literature_, pp. 21, 25, 33, 35, 37.) Which of Whitman's references to nature do you consider the most poetic? How does _O Captain! My Captain!_ differ in form from the other poems indicated for reading? What qualities in his verse impress you most? A GLANCE BACKWARD Lack of originality is a frequent charge against young literatures, but the best foreign critics have testified to the originality of the Knickerbocker Legend, of Leatherstocking, of the great Puritan romances, in which the Ten Commandments are the supreme law, of the work of that southern wizard who has taught a great part of the world the art of the modern short story and who has charmed the ear of death with his melodies, of America's unique humor, so conspicuous in the service of reform and in rendering the New World philosophy doubly impressive. American literature has not only produced original work, but it has also delivered a worthy message to humanity. Franklin has voiced an unsurpassed philosophy of the practical. Emerson is a great apostle of the ideal, an unexcelled preacher of New World self-reliance. His teachings, which have become almost as widely diffused as the air we breathe, have added a cubit to the stature of unnumbered pupils. We still respond to the half Celtic, half Saxon, song of one of these:-- "Luck hates the slow and loves the bold, Soon come the darkness and the cold." American poets and prose writers have disclosed the glory of a new companionship with nature and have shown how we, "... pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth." After association with them, we also feel like exclaiming:-- "Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue! ... rich apple-blossom'd earth! Smile, for your lover comes."