These two examples from Browning I have taken almost at random, and not because they are unusual in this respect, for this quality is the universal property of all real literature, and indeed is one of the tests by which real literature is to be identified. Any selection which it is worth while to give students at all must have this relation which I have called "algebraic," but of which the true name is imaginative; and it is certainly one of the important parts of anything which in a high sense is properly to be called "teaching" literature to make the scholars realize and appreciate this. The next step is more difficult because far more subtle; and I confess frankly that it is all but impossible to propose methods by which formal instruction may deal with it. The aim of literature is largely the attempt to produce a mood. The prime aim of the poet is to induce in the reader a state of feeling which will lead inevitably to the reception of whatever he offers in the same mood in which he offers it. In the simplest cases no instruction is needed, for even with school-boys a ringing metre, to take a simple and obvious example, has somewhat the same effect as the dashing swing of martial music; whoever comes under its influence falls insensibly into the frame of mind in which the ideas of the verse should be received. The thoughts are accepted in the exhilarated spirit in which they were written, and the effects of the metre are as great or greater than the influence of the literal meaning. It is a commonplace to call attention to the part which the melody of poetry or the rhythm of prose plays in the effect, but how to aid pupils to a responsiveness to this language of form is not the least of the problems of the teacher. The means by which an author establishes or communicates his mood do not always appeal to the young. Indeed, beyond a certain limited extent they appeal to most adults only after careful cultivation in the understanding of art-language. It is as idle to suppose that literature appeals to everybody and without æsthetic education as it is to suppose that sculpture or music will surely meet with a response everywhere. Nobody expects Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony" or Bach's "Passion Music" to arouse enthusiasm in accidentally assorted school-children, yet to all the pupils in a mixed public school are offered the parallel works of Shakespeare and Milton. Unless a class is made up of boys or girls with unusual aptitude or wisely and carefully trained to responsiveness to metrical effect, it seems hardly less idle to offer them "Comus" or "Lycidas" than it would be to expect them to enjoy a classic concert. The language of form in the higher range of literature is to them an unknown tongue.