The following report of our talk was not written down at the time, and makes no pretense of being literal. It does represent, so far as I can judge, with substantial accuracy what passed between the straightforward lad and myself. Too deliberate and too diffuse to have taken place in a school-room, it yet gives, on an extended scale, what I believe is the true method of "teaching literature" in all the secondary-school work. I do not claim to have originated or to have discovered the method; but I hope that I may be able to make clearer to some teachers how children may be helped to do their own thinking and thus brought to a vital and delighted enjoyment of the masterpieces they study. I began to repeat aloud the opening lines of the poem. "Why," said the boy, "do you know that? Did you have to learn it at school when you were little like me?" "I'm not sure when I did learn it," I answered; "I've known it for a good while; but I didn't just learn it. I like it." I repeated the whole poem, purposely refraining from giving it very great force, even in the supreme symphonic outburst of the magnificent fifth stanza: Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder and what art Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And, when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand formed thy dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile His work to see? Did he who made the lamb make thee? "It sounds rather pretty," I commented, as carelessly as possible. "Yes, I suppose so," he assented colorlessly, looking at me rather suspiciously. He was a shrewd little mortal, and he had been so often told at school that he should like this and that for which in reality he did not care a button that he was on his guard. I made a casual remark about something entirely unrelated to the subject. It was well that the lad should not feel that he was being instructed. Then in a manner as natural and easy as I could make it I asked: "Did you ever see a tiger?" "Oh, yes; I've seen lots of them at the circus. Tom Bently never went to but one circus, but I've been to four." "What does a tiger look like?" I went on, ignoring the irrelevant. "He's a fierce-looking thing! Didn't you ever see one?" "Yes, I've seen them, but I wondered if they looked the same to you as they do to me." "Why, how do they look to you?" "I asked you first. It's only fair for you to say first."