The system of diacritical markings used in the dictionary should be put on the blackboard, varied illustrations of the markings given, and the application of these markings to new words in the dictionary discovered. Lack of success in this work is chiefly due to a failure to pursue this plan steadily till ease and mastery are gained and habits formed. In the later grades these habits of self-help should be kept up and extended further to the study of synonyms, root words and their kindred, homonyms, prefixes and suffixes, and the derived meanings of words. CHAPTER V METHOD FURTHER DISCUSSED AND ILLUSTRATED. SUMMARY In the following chapter some phases of method not fully treated before will be discussed and illustrated. 1. The proposal to treat literary masterpieces as units of thought implies a searching study and sifting out of the essential idea in each poem or selection. In some, both of the longer and shorter pieces, it is not difficult to detect the motive. In Bryant's "Ode to a Waterfowl," it is even suggested as a sort of moral at the close. Likewise in the "Pied Piper of Hamelin," and in Burns's "Tam O'Shanter." In "Glaucis and Philemon," as well as in "The Golden Touch," even a child can quickly discern the controlling idea of the myth. But in many of our choicest literary products it requires deliberate thought to discover the poet's deeper meaning, especially that idea which binds all the parts together and gives unity to the whole. In Lowell's address "To the Dandelion," we may find in each stanza the gleam of the golden thread which unifies the whole. The first lines suggest it:-- "Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold." And again in the second stanza:-- "'Tis the Spring's largess which she scatters now To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand." In the succeeding stanzas he calls to mind how the dandelion suggests the riches of the tropics, the full promise of summer, the pure joys of childhood, the common loving courtesies of life, the rich love and prodigality of nature, and the divinity in every human heart. When by reflection we bind all these thoughts together, and find that they focus in the idea that the best riches abound and even burst forth out of common things and from the hearts of common men and women, we realize that the poet has brought us to the point of discovering a deep and practical truth, which, put to work in the world, would bring rhythm and harmony into human life. But such a deep impression is not made by a superficial or fragmental study of the poem. A somewhat similar result may be wrought out by the study of Lowell's poem, "An Incident in a Railroad Car," and the idea is well expressed in the verse:-- "Never did poesy appear So full of heaven to me as when I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear To lives of coarsest men."