What kind of verse is to be handed over to the boy, and how much is there to be of it? To the latter question the only safe answer is this: not too much. Talents and tastes vary. Every student can be made to get by rote a certain amount of verse; but as for learning it by heart, feeling and appreciating its music, that is a different thing. The greatest and most painstaking of all anthologists of English verse, Francis Turner Palgrave, claims that there ought to be more than a glimpse into the Elysian fields of song. In the best collection that has yet appeared for the teacher or student, "The Children's Treasury of English Song," Professor Palgrave has this to say in the introduction: "The treasures here collected are but a few drops from an ocean, unequalled in wealth and variety by any existing literature. But the hope is held that it may prove a pleasure and gain to the dear English and English-speaking children, all the world over,--yet the editor will hold his work but half fulfilled, unless they are tempted by it to go on and wander, in whatever direction their fancy may lead them, through the roads and winding ways of this great and glorious world of English poetry. He aims only at showing them the path, and giving them a little foretaste of our treasures.--'To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.'" That hope is to be the hope of the teacher; and it needs back of it the mastering of a few choice lyrics, after which the boy is to be sent forth to browse alone to his heart's desire.