It is not my purpose to give lists of selections, for in the first place it has been done over and over, notably in such a collection as the admirable "Heart of Oak" series; and in the second no selection can be held to be equally adapted to different classes or to have real value unless it has been made with a view to the actual needs of a definite body of pupils. Pupils must be interested, yet the things chosen to arouse their interest should be those which have not only the superficial qualities which make an instant appeal, but possess also those more lasting merits essential to genuine literature. In the lower grades it is generally, I believe, possible for the teacher to control the choice of selections put before students, although even here this is not always the case. If errors of selection are made, however, they are largely due to inability to judge wisely and to a too great deference to general literary taste. A teacher must remember that two points are absolutely essential to any good teaching of literature: first, that the selection be suited to the possibilities of the individual class; second, that the teacher be qualified so to use and present the selection as to make it effective. Many conscientious teachers take poems which they know are regarded as of high merit, and which have been used with advantage by other instructors, yet which they individually, from temperament or from training, are utterly inadequate to handle. They either lack the insight and delight in the pieces which are essential if the pupils are to be kindled, or are deficient in power so to present their own appreciation and enjoyment that these appeal to the children. For illustration of one of the ways in which a child may be led into the heart of a poem I have chosen "The Tiger," by William Blake. This belongs to the class of literature constantly taken for use with children because it is reputed to be beautiful, yet which constantly fails in its appeal to a class. It is to me one of the most wonderful lyrics in the language, yet I doubt if it would ever have occurred to me to use it in our common schools, and certainly I should never have dreamed that it was to be presented to children in the lower grades. I do not know with what success teachers in general may have used it, but in one or two Boston schools with which I happen to be fairly well acquainted the effect is pretty justly represented by the mental attitude of the small lad spoken of in the next chapter. The extent to which children acquiesce in a sort of mechanical compliance in what to them are the vagaries of their elders in the matter of literature can hardly be exaggerated. Doubtless they often unconsciously gain much of which they do not dream in the way of the development of taste and perception, but too often the whole of the instruction given along æsthetic lines slides over them without producing any permanent effect of appreciable value.