I like Schiller, myself.

But, what boy or girl can appreciate the poetry of his descriptions, and the grandeur of his verse, when every second word they meet with is a stumbling-block, that has to be sought out diligently in the lexicon ere they can understand the context?
Instead of this inculcating a love for what they read, it breeds disgust.

Even now, I confess, I cannot take an interest in _William Tell_, just because he, and his fellow Switzers, of Uri and elsewhere, will always be associated in my mind with so many lines of translation and repetition that I had to learn by heart at school." "But, what would you give your pupils to study in lieu of such works ?" she asked.
"Vividly interesting stories--novels, if you like--in the language they had to learn.

Not short pieces, or `elegant extracts;' but, good, long tales of thrilling adventure and well worked-up plots, whose interest, and the desire to know what was coming next, would make them read on and stammer out the sense, until they reached the denouement.

And, if it should be objected that German and French novels are not exactly what you would place before young children for study, I would retort, that, the majority of the works of our best authors are now translated into both those languages almost as soon as they are published over here; let them read those! However, you were saying that you did not think German poetry pleasing or euphonious ?" "No," she said, "I do not; although, it may be owing to what you have remarked, that school study has given me a distaste for it.