Before one attempts to describe his method of teaching, he should make very clear his conception of the object for which the subject is studied. One may read a piece of literature, for example, in many different ways. One may treat it as a piece of art, a record of life, a truth that some fellow-man has seen in a moment of clear-sightedness, has "snatched from the eternal silence," and has set down that we may see it too. Again, one may read it with a view to its structure, as an example of literary technique; or one may treat it as an historical document, a reflection of the spirit of the age which produced it; or, again, as an exercise in philology, as material for the study of words. According as one object or another predominates, so will the method of teaching change; if one object is sought to the exclusion of all others, the method of teaching will, of course, vary with the object in view. The philologist will subordinate everything to the study of philology; the historian will fasten all his attention on the evidences of date, the local references, the flavour of contemporary philosophy, politics, religion, or whatever it may be; the technician will be entirely occupied with form, metre, structure. _Hamlet_, for example, may be treated as a work of art, as the history of a man doomed to destruction through an inherent and fatal flaw, a human soul caught in the web of circumstance and tortured to death; or it may be treated as a study in the language of the Elizabethans; or as an example of the stagecraft of Shakespeare; or even as material for constructing ingenious cipher messages revealing the fact that, as Shakespeare was utterly unable to write plays for himself, Bacon kindly wrote them for him. The first question which the teacher of literature must ask is, what is the relative importance of all these objects for which literature may be studied. Which should be the main end of our teaching, and which should be subordinate? On the answer he gives to that question will depend the method of his teaching. Personally, I have no doubt whatever as to which of these things is the most important, although I may have some doubts as to the relative importance of the others. To me a piece of literature is first and foremost a work of art, a record of life in forms of truth and beauty, a spiritual revelation; it speaks to my intellect, but only that, through my intellect, it may reach my heart. If it reaches my intellect only, if it penetrates no farther, if it does not become part of my being, if the experience it records does not become _my_ experience, then it is of little value to me, it is not _my_ piece of literature, and I want no literature that I cannot make my own.