The class in literature studies an author’s sentence-structure and paragraphing, and doubtless could tell the author more about it than he knows himself. The probabilities are that he never thought a moment about his sentence-structure or his paragraphing. He has thought only of his subject-matter and how to express himself clearly and forcibly; the structure of his sentences takes care of itself. From every art certain rules and principles may be deduced, but the intelligent apprehension of those rules and principles no more leads to mastery in that art, or even helps to mastery in it, than a knowledge of the anatomy and the vital processes of the stomach helps a man to digest his dinner, or than the knowledge of the gunsmith helps make a good marksman. In other words the science of any art is of little use to him who would practice that art. To be a fiddler you must fiddle and see others fiddle; to be a painter you must paint and study the painting of others; to be a writer you must write and familiarize yourself with the works of the best authors. Studying an author from the outside by bringing the light of rhetoric to bear upon him is of little profit. We must get inside of him, and we can only get inside of him through sympathy and appreciation. There is only one way to teach literature, only one vital way, and that is by reading it. The laboratory way may give one the dry bones of the subject, but not the living thing itself. If the teacher, by his own living voice and an occasional word of comment, can bring out the soul of a work, he may help the student’s appreciation of it; he may, in a measure, impart to him his own larger and more intelligent appreciation of it. And that is a true service.