Literature, in the sense in which we have been using it, has been called the literature of power, the literature of the spirit. That is, it has generative, spiritual life. It is not simple knowledge, it is knowledge energized, charged with potency. It is knowledge into which the poet has breathed the breath of life. The difference between bare knowledge and the literature of power is like the difference between a perfect statue in stone and a living, pulsing, human form. One of the virtues of literature, therefore, is the mental stimulus, the joy, the awakening, the intensity of thought it spontaneously calls forth. Textbooks are usually a bore, but literature is a natural resource even in hours of weariness. Who would dream of enlivening leisure hours or vacation rest with text-books of grammar, or arithmetic, or history, or science? But the poet soothes with music, solemn or gay, according to our choice. If we go to the woods or lakes to escape our friends, we take one of the masters of song with us. After a day of toil and weariness, we can turn to "Evangeline," or "Lady of the Lake," or the "Vision of Sir Launfal," and soon we are listening to-- "The murmuring pines and the hemlocks," or the echo of the hunter's horn,-- "The deep-mouthed bloodhound's heavy bay Resounded up the rocky way, And faint, from farther distance borne, Were heard the clanging hoof and horn." At a time when we are not fit for the irksome and perfunctory preparation of text-book lessons, we are still capable of receiving abundant entertainment or hearty inspiration from Warner's "How I killed a Bear," or Tennyson's "Enoch Arden," or "Sleepy Hollow." Literature is recreation in its double sense. It gives rest and relief, and it builds up. Teachers should shake themselves free from the conviction that severe disciplinary studies are the best part of education. They have their well-merited place. But there are higher spiritual fountains from which to draw. Read the lives of Scott, Macaulay, Irving, Hawthorne, and Emerson, and discover that the things we do with the greatest inward spontaneity and pleasure and ease are often the best.