| Show STUDYING A few o ago 1111 the authorities of the Young University ar arranged u ranged to conduct t experimentally a class s In thc tho study of Orson Ol on 1 P Whit Whitneys ne s great entitled way ay of introducing tile the t Prof Nelson Nelsn who was chosen cho en to teach the class was Invited by the stake presidency dency to give an introductory lecture In tha tho State tabernacle He pointed painted out among other othel things that the study of or the poem would yield rich returns not from the side ot of literary embellishment hut but also alsofrom from irom the side of the deeper truths ot of philosophy ph and theology theolog that III every eV r classic ca Involving deep thought Its ts great truths lire are won only by the severest seerest mental exertion that In conse consequence consequence quence it must bo classed not among books to be tasted nor books to be swallowed whole but pre Jre among books to be Ix very carefully studied st Thirteen students entered on tho t ie opening of ot the class some on e of ot whom lasted only for two or three recitations The eight members now composing com the class are arc deeply in interested I As was to bo expected the thc attitude of the class cla s toward the tho poem Is frank franl frankly ly h critical crItIcal Every word phrase phra e and thought Is scrutinized with a view to tofe fe or 01 realizing Its truth Freo dis discussion CUS IOl pro and an con follows the tho reading of every vr couplet As yet tho class is only half way through tho canto In a Dream and tho th te bels are arc the i v oem eln bears analysis remarkably weil It it is now f I since s ll e Ellas Orson Orion 1 V Whitneys s masterly poem was published P bJ hed and nothing of or note has been heard of ot it sinco I Lo Iko Lost il It has been be u ul l some dark corner of ot the t lO family library As Intimated above ove a Ii similar fate ato overtook great gr epic For a quarter of ot a century t no great great thc tho literary World Wp It l 1 at once It blazed as IS the most I poem n In the l annals of at sacred sacred verse Shall great epic havo hn 0 a 11 similar awakening Or Is It doomed c to todie todie die and Its very grave IKS trampled out of nil all recognition by y tho ih ceaseless anil vulgar onrush ot modernism Prof f Nelson of tho ll Young is Js among amol s who that th t thu tho embodies me mAe to t mankind ono that tho Tu Saints Saint must themselves loam learn IJ they bc Saviors on II t tIou Iou to tho till the religious and till thu world Yet Yetto to tl reader tho reader trained only in thu range of u ideas found in h the tho lIL dally current tIl nt novel tho poem yields very eiT little hut but no also does Io s every ver other othol lassie lo In III the English language it Is the intellectual Inte vice of t the ago Il o to read t and amI with no grip of trie thought ti to guess at what does loes not yield to sur surface face e become bc olne bored at what demands intellectual effort Vp To leaders 1 with lIh such literary habits this splendid poem will lie Ill fallow ullo forever like good sued planted d In II parched and sterile soil soli Jut But the tho resolute study of or tho poem itself t elt word wor by word and phrase by phrase e with the tho same ame vigor of ot at attack tack that t mt Is given to a IL deop question of lf or 01 a problem In mathematics will do towards this very sharpening of or thu tho mental tooth this very velT promotion of or mental 1 mastication and ald digestion And that Is Js What h t Prof I and his class clas ate are trying tJ to do dl with Kliu in Inthe the Provo Pro school Sometimes the tho hour wo wu under understand stand is to tho thought in involved Involved in a dozen do cn lines Rarely does cloes thu class elu tako lak moro than one or 01 two pages a day du They y thus become In u a sanso seno With tho brilliant mind that ow conception ot ot tho tremendous forces making for fol eter CtOl eternal nal nul progress |
