There are many people, young people in particular, who, with the best will in the world, cannot understand why it is that men make such a fuss about literature, and who are honestly puzzled by the praises bestowed upon the great literary artists. They would like to join in sympathetic appreciation of the masters, and they have an abundant store of gratitude and reverence to lavish upon objects that approve themselves as worthy; but just what there is in Shakespeare and Wordsworth and Tennyson to call for such seeming extravagance of eulogy remains a dark mystery. Such people are apt in their moments of revolt to set it all down to a sort of critical conspiracy, and to consider those who voice the conventional literary estimates as chargeable with an irritating kind of hypocrisy. They cannot see for the life of them why the books of the hour, with their timeliness, their cleverness, their sentimental or sensational interest, should be held of no serious account by the real lovers of literature, while the dull babblers of a bygone age are exalted to the skies by these same devotees of the art of letters. . . . Some young people never recover from the condition of open revolt into which they are thrown by the injudicious methods of our education. Out of his own experience and appreciation the teacher must be able to show the pupil some method of studying literature which shall in the measure of the student's individual capacity lead to a conception of what literature is and wherein lies its importance. Until this can be done, nothing has been effected which is of any real or lasting value.