But in order to reach these results both teachers and pupils must put their minds to the stretch of earnest work. In the introduction to the above-named essay of Emerson, in the "Riverside Literature Series," occurs the following interesting and suggestive passage: "Yet many of his most notable addresses were given before audiences of young men and women, and out of the great body of his writings it is not difficult to find many passages which go straight to the intelligence of boys and girls in school. The plan of this series forbids the use of extracts, or many numbers might be filled with striking and appropriate passages from Emerson's writings; but there are certain essays and addresses which, though they may contain some knotty sentences, are in the main so interesting to boys and girls who have begun to think, they are so inspiring and yield so much to any one who will take a little trouble to use his mind, that it is obviously desirable to bring them in convenient form to the attention of schools. Some of the best things in literature we can get only by digging for them; and there is great satisfaction in reading again and again masterpieces like the essays in this collection, with a fresh pleasure in each reading as new ideas spring up in the mind of the attentive reader." It will be a day rich in promise and fruitful of great things when the general body of our teachers take hold of our great American classics in this determined spirit, treating them as wholes and grasping firmly the essential fundamental ideas. 2. It is in the thought-analysis of a reading lesson that a teacher's wit and wisdom are brought to the severest test. The words of Shakespeare may be applied to the teacher:-- "A prince most prudent, of an excellent And unmatched wit and judgment." There is much danger of wasting time in formal questions, questions striking no spark of interest, questions on familiar words that really need no elucidation, vague and unpremeditated questions that make no forward step. Simple, far-reaching questions, which touch the pupils' deeper thoughtfulness in preparing the lesson and stimulate his self-active effort, are needed. If the teacher has become keenly interested, he will ask more telling questions. If he has probed into the author's secret,--the thing which he has been hinting at and only gives occasional glimpses of to whet your curiosity,--he will discover that thought-getting is almost a tantalizing process with great writers. The teacher must spur and almost tantalize the children with a similar shrewdness of question. Problem-raising questions, involving thoughtful retrospect and shrewd anticipation, questions which cannot be answered offhand but lead on to a deeper study, are at a premium. Ruskin says:--