Above everything the teacher must be sure, before any attempt is made to do anything further, that the pupil has a clear understanding at least of the language of what he reads. My own experience with boys who come from secondary schools even of good grade has shown me that they not infrequently display an extraordinary incapability of getting from the sentences and phrases of literature the most plain and obvious meaning, especially in the case of verse; while as to unusual expressions they are constantly at sea. On a recent entrance examination-paper I had put, as a test of this very power, the lines from "Macbeth:" And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff. The play is one which they had studied carefully at school, and they were asked to explain the force in these lines of "oblivious." Here are some of the replies: "Oblivious," used in this quotation, means that the person speaking was not particular as to the kind of antidote that was chosen. A remedy that would not expose the lady to public suspicion. The word "oblivious" implies a soothing cure, which will heal without arousing the senses. An antidote applied in a forgetful way, or unknown to the person. "Oblivious" here means some antidote that would put Lady Macbeth to sleep while the doctor removed the cause of the trouble. "Oblivious antidote" means one that is very pleasing. The word "oblivious" is beautifully used here. Macbeth wishes the doctor to administer to Lady Macbeth some antidote which will cure her of her fatal [_sic_] illness, but which will not at all be any bitter medicine. "Oblivious" here means relieving. "Oblivious" means some remedy the doctor had forgotten, but might remember if he thought hard enough. Of course many of the replies were sensible and sound, but those hardly better than these were discouragingly numerous. In my own second-year work, in which the students have had all the fitting-school training and the freshman drill besides, I am not infrequently confounded by the inability of students to understand the meaning of words which one uses as a matter of course. The statement that Raleigh secretly married a Lady in Waiting, for instance, reappeared in a note-book in the assertion that Sir Walter ran away with Queen Elizabeth's waiting-maid; and a remark about something which took place at Holland House brought out the unbelievable perversion that the event happened "in a Dutch tavern." Personally I have never discovered how far beyond words of one syllable a lecturer to students may safely go in any assurance that his language will be understood by all the members of his class; but this is one of the things which must be decided if teaching is to be effective.