NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19268, 24 March 1928, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH. Inspirational Teaching: A Record of Experimental Work In the Teaching of English. By George Mackaness, M.A., Senior Lecturer In English at the Teachers' College, Sydney. J. H. Dent and Sons.

It is not quite true that the man (or woman) who can teach English can touch anything, but it ought to bo. Jlost of those who have wrestled with the problem over a period of years have passed through every mood between elation and the deepest depression, and have ended where they began. If they were worth their salt they started with the eonvivction that their job was to create an interest in, and a love for, the best books, which of course means simply a desire to be in the company of tho world's wisest men. Then they discovered that they had not only underestimated their task, but made no real estimate of it at all, and tho second stage was a nagging suspicion that it was quite beyond them. The real problem, however, comes with the third stage, when it enters the teacher's head, and remains there in spite of everything lie does to drive it out, that English cannot be taught at all, except on the lowest levels where it is not English, but a mere technique or trick- And it is to teachers at this stage that Mr MacKaness's experiments will seem most _ valuable. The work of which his book is so careful a record was carried out in the Department of English at the Boys' High School, Fort street, Sydney, and was of course complicated l\v the fact that only a proportion of secondary pupils anywhere in the Dominions remain at school for the full secondary period. A teaoher has a five years' programme in his mind, but is lucky if at the end of five years he has 20 per cent, of his original material left. He must, therefore, continually adapt and compromise, and it is largely because Mr Mackaness carried out his experiments in this world of compromise that what he thinks he discovered is worth such careful reading by earnest teachers. There is a foreword, also* by Professor Mftoki?) holds the Chair of Education in Sydney University, but it is friendly rather than helpful.

CARLYLE. Carlyle: His Rise and Tall. By NorwoodYoung. Duckworth. This is a thoroughly disagreeable book, narrow, carping, cocksure, and pedantic, which will maka most worshippers of Carlyle feel murderous. Actually, if they can contain themselves long enough to read it, they will be sadder and wiser when they hav.o finished, and will admit that now and again Mr Young says things which are both penetrating and true, for all his malice and stupidity in general. His method in general is about as bad as anyone'? could be who knows history and literature well enough to write a book. Carlyle, when the author has finished with him, is a prig, a snob (social as well as literary), a hyppente, a second-rate thinker, a weak find spoiled egotist who yet is responsible for the Great War. When lie is young and obscure he writes a'bout humble people like Burns; when.the great ones of the earth begin to take notice of him he writes . about Cromwell and Frederick the Great. He makes mistakes in history,' he misquotes his authorities, misquotes even Burns, and supposes himself to be a philosopher when he hag merely filled his belly with the East wind of Annan. Sham heroes, if kings, are by Carlyle in the flunkey spirit." When Emerson arrives from America and is received at Cheyne Row, the visit is a failure "owing chiefly to the overbearing, domineering manner which Oarlyle now indulged" in." He behaves, in fact, like a ''licensed Th< only thing to be said for him is that he was born jn a brutal age, into a "backward society of poor and illiterate persons," who were bullies and fanatics, and was the son of a mother who was jealous of an earlier wife and of that earlier wife's son. He was sent to the University because his mother wanted to push him forward, and he returned in the vacations to find himself accepted in the domestic circle as a prodigy. If lie had not been educated out of his station, he would have been merely a garrulous, quarrelsome, village oracle, but his mother and his admiring friends made a world oracle of him, and, as Mr Young his researches into psychology, it is fatal to imjplant a superiority complex.

A WQM4N OF FORTY. Strange Woman, By Elmer Davis. Methuen. When the jacket warns ope that "this arresting ijovej deals with the problem of a woman of forty who has brought up her children and yet is npt old,'"one prepares for a serious psychological study, and is disappointed. The booji makes no attempt to deal with any prpblepi at all. It iB merely »• frothy, effervescent story qf a highminded American college president, who forsook the straight and narrow path to indulge in a love affair with a grand opera star, and of' the attitude his wife and others tqok up oiver the matter. The entire action occupies tayenty«hours. The dialogue is bright, and the various situations quite amusingly handled for sucli a light type pf novel.

ANOTHER «E. BARRINGTQN," Captain Java. $7 Louis Moresby. Harrap. This book, it is perhaps worth reminding some readers, is really by that tireless writer Mrs. L. Adams Beck, best known as "E- Bamngton." Most of the action takes place on a mythical South Sea Island, to which two retired and unwanted sea captains have emigrated, to enjoy a life of peace from nagging women. Their only companion is a beautiful adopted niece, who also wanted to escape rom a relation. But one day a handsome young shipwrecked Australian swims ashore and complicates matters. The rest is "Louis Moresby's" secret.

FATHER TO SON. Yoii'll $e a Man, My Son. By Jason Gurney. Thornton Butterwortli, It is sufficient to recall that the title is the last line of Kipling's "If" to realise what this book is about. In form it is a father's letter to his son. He begins by explaining that his object in writing instead of talking is to be * able to deal with matters about which people are usually shy and reserved. He traverses most problems which are likely to confront a young boy, and gives sound and sensible advice on most of the problems of morals and conduct. The letters ere written in the companionable style of an elder to a younger pal, and nre entirely free from any priggishness.

or patent torches or flashlights to guide the democracy to new .Terusalems. One trouble to-day in world affairs, when things are dark, is that too many persons rush about with all sorts of lights which make merely a confusing crisscrossing of the darkness,

"Let there be light" is a primal need in ail things, but people have to be ready for the light. Nothing could look more silly, more flustered, or more helpless than a roosted hen on which a light has suddenly flashed at night. It was a grievance of the old-fashioned missionary that 'the heathen liked to hug his darkness.