Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature

Metadata

Gutenberg ID

24974

Title

Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature

Language

en

Book source

Project Gutenberg

Description max 80 words

This 1916 manual offers a comprehensive guide to teaching literature in Ontario schools, blending pedagogical theory with practical lesson plans. It explores the emotional and artistic elements of literature, categorizing reading materials by age group and form. The text balances instructional methods with a rich collection of poems, fables, and prose selections designed to cultivate imagination, moral character, and an appreciation for beauty in language.

Summary up to 500 words

Authored by the Ontario Department of Education and authorized by the Minister of Education, the *Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature* (1916) serves as an official guide for instructing literature in both public and separate schools. The manual establishes literature not merely as a collection of texts, but as a medium that interprets human life, cultivates imagination, trains taste, and develops an appreciation for beauty and artistic form. It rigorously distinguishes between intensive study, which focuses on the emotional and artistic elements of specific selections, and extensive reading, which broadens the pupil's horizon through diverse literary experiences. The text addresses the psychological needs of children at different developmental stages. For junior forms, the manual emphasizes the activity of the imagination, recommending fairy tales, folk stories, and fables that are sincere, simple, and full of faith. It advises teachers to alternate imaginative stories with nature stories to prevent the child's interests from becoming either purely visionary or prosaic. For senior forms, the curriculum shifts toward more complex narratives, allegories, and longer character studies, acknowledging that while the imagination remains strong, it is now under better control. A central theme of the manual is the correlation of literature with nature study, geography, history, and art. It advocates for oral reading and memorization as essential tools for interpreting and appreciating literature. The manual provides detailed illustrative lessons for various forms, demonstrating methods for teaching specific texts such as Hawthorne's allegory *Little Daffydowndilly* and the story behind Beethoven's *Moonlight Sonata*. In *Little Daffydowndilly*, Hawthorne is used to teach the concept of work as an inescapable reality found even in leisure activities. The *Moonlight Sonata* lesson illustrates how time, place, and action combine to inspire great art, highlighting the musician's sensitivity to the blind girl's passion for music. Furthermore, the manual includes extensive lists of supplementary reading ranging from nursery rhymes to classic novels, alongside selections for memorization aimed at refining the mind and elevating character. It explicitly states that its purpose is not to provide a shortcut for teachers but to offer general principles that require the teacher's own thought, labor, and ingenuity. Ultimately, the manual seeks to create a curriculum where the emotional element predominates, teaching students to appreciate the music of language and the depth of human emotion through a carefully graded course of study.

LLM editorial rating

4.2/5

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Categories

• Literature
• Children's Books
• Reading