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Thomas, Isaac . . . . . . . The Teaching of English.
- 2. Scott , F. N • • . . . . What the West Wants in Pre —
parat ory English.
Greenough, C. N. , Hersey, F. W. C. , Nutt. er, C. R.
• • . . . . A Report on the Examinations
in English for Admission to Harvard
College.
§«444* .... A Plea. For the Study or Hist, orical
English.
N. E. Assoc. of Teachers of English . . . . . . Report
on the Study of English Ijanguage
and Ijit, erature in Elementary and
Sec ondary Schools.
Gildersleeve, V. C. , &: Haskell . . . . . . Should the ,
Army Canteen be Restored. Gs\*•-•- ^^~|
Harris, J. H. . . . . . The Recent History and Present
Status of the English Curriculum.
Cooper, L. . . . . . . Methods and Aims in the Study
of Lit erature: Opinions from two
IPo et S.
Woodhull, J. F. . . . . . How the Public Will Solve
Our Problems of Scienc e Teaching.
Terry, H. I . . . . . . . The New Mov ement in Physics
Teaching.
Coult er, J. M. . . . . . . What the University Expects
of the Secondary chool.
_ Johnston, C. H. . . . . . The Social Significance of
Various Mov ement s for Industrial
Education.
Fultom, R. B. . . . . . The Cecil Rhodes Scholarships.
• • • • • • • • • • • • Vox Populi.
Wells, C. W. . . . . . . The Literary Scholar.



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\\o N. E. Assoc. of Teachers of English. ... Report
of the Standing Committ ee on
Entra,nc e Requirement s.
\\ Winkler, -M........... Geethe and Self-Culture.
\! Auerbach, J. S • • • • English Style.
\>\ Russell, I. 3- • . . . . Research in the Stat e
Universities.
%-C Kelsey, E'. W. . . . . The Cues of Caesar.
$ \ Report on Courses of Study in English for Public
, - Schools.
jv Russeli, E • H • • • • • • y&ater, IReading in Elementary
Schools.
2.3 Thurber, S • • • • • • vé tary Reading in the Classical
-- High School.
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-, % Buck, G. . . . . . Make-Believe Grammar.
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2o Scott, F. N. .... The Value Qf English to the
- , , Practicijg Engine er.
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2® Drown, T. M. . . . . . . The Educational Value of
- Engineering Studies.
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X."] Report, of Standing Committ ee of New England Assoc.
of Teachers of English on Aids in
Teaching English. . . . . Textbooks
in Rhetoric and in Composition.
30 van I)yke, H. . . . . . . Reading and Writ,ing in the
Teaching of English.
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3\ The Report, of the Standing Committ ee 'of the N. E.
Assoc. of Teachers of English on
Courses of Study: . . . The Course
of Study in English - The Call for
it , the character of it, and the
Construction of it .
°'\ Neilson, W. A. . . . . What the College Has a Right to
Expect of the Schools in English.
33Scott, F. N. ..... College Entrance Requirements
in English. -
3\alentine, R. G. . . . . . On Criticism of Temes by
g^ Student, s.
Mead, W. E. . . . . . The Undergraduat e Study of
English Composition.
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JShute, Katherine A. ..... The Teaching of English.
gra*e, J. H. . . . . . . Classical Conferenc e Pro-
£ a££% § ceedings.
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ASchlicher, J. J. ...... Background of Indirect
: I)iscourse. -
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, The N. E. Assoc. of Teachers of English. SA.
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A*. sta*-+eé4. 6…&.-t Q-a->-- Q-v-~~T
Mensel, E. H. . . . . . The Affiliat ed School in Theory
and Practice. - .-
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Jordam, Mary A. . . . . Fact s and Fictions in English.
, Ἀ. Y^;
^scott, IF. N . . . . . . . A Substitut e for the Classic s.
^Vaughan, V. C . . . . . . The Value of Greek and Latin
*\ - to the Medical Student. T
`Hinsdale, W. B. . . . . . The Value of Humanistic
Studies as a. Préparation for
f- the Study of Medicine.
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Sadler, H. C . . . . . . The Value of the Humanistic
studies as a. Preparation for the
Study of Engineering.
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Read at a meeting of the Rutland Teachers'
Association, March 16, 1909
ISAAC THOMAS …..
Primcipa/ Rut/ama High Schoo/ -&
RUTLAND, /T.
The teaching of English in the public schools. is considered the
most difficult, and the least satisfactory in its results, of all the many
- subjects of study. We have accomplished teachers of the various forms
of mathematics, of History, of the Sciences and of the Classics, teach-
ers who have satisfaction in the work of their several fields, but of
English, hardly ten of any reputation in the whole country. Talking
this matter over, during the Christmas holidays, with a man of very
wide and varied experience in educational matters, himself a teacher
and administrator of excellent ability, he said that he had never known
in all his experience, as many as six successful teachers of English, and
yet he had once had in one of his own schools a man of almost national
reputation as a teacher of English, and had intimate knowledge of
nearly all the best teachers in New England and the Middle States.
I believe his experience is not an isolated one and that his belief,
almost cynically expressed, that there were no successful teachers of
English, pr^vails almost universally. I am not yet prepared to say the
facts warrant such belief, but we all know that the results of our
teaching of English are satisfactory neither to us nor to our poor vic-
tims, the pupils. It may, therefore, be worth while to look into the
matter a few minutes to see if we may, at least, understand this prob-
lem a bit better and so, perhaps, get some fresh hint of its solution.
What is the problem of the schools in the teaching of English? How
are they to solve it? A problem and its solution, that is all. Let us
consider the two questions in the above order. *
What is the problem of the schools in the teaching of English?
Very briefly stated it consists of, at least, three elements: (I) the
interpretation of English as a mode of conveying thought; (2) the
right use of English, both oral, and written, as a means of expressimg
thought; (3) the appropriation, through the medium of the written
language, of the life that informs and makes potent all good literature.
The first is analytical and means that the schools are to teach their
pupils how to get at the thought of others expressed in the written
language. It includes a knowledge of the use and meaning of words
and of the elementary principles of the grammatical structure of sen-
tences. The Second is synthetical and means that the learner is to be
taught how to put his own thoughts into English, at once grammatic-
ally correct and. fitted to the thought to be expressed. It involves a
much more ca&fül and accurate knowledge of the meaning of words
and of the structure of the language than the first, viz. the interpre-
tation of the thoughts of others. The third is psychological, being a
matter not so much of the intellect and not at all of the mechanics of
language, but mo*re of the feelings and emotions; spiritually, rather
than intellectually discerned. The first element of the problem exer-
cises the intellect chiefly ; the second, both engages the intellect and
involves the mechanics of language, being almost wholly an art; the
third requires the exercise of the living spirit. Stated more succinctly,
and .more simply, the problem of the schools in the teaching of Eng-
lish is, (I) to teach how to get at the thought of others expressed in
the written language; (2) to show how to put into correct and suit-
able English one's own thoughts; and (3) to awaken an interest in
and arouse an appetite for literature that feeds and nourishes the life.
If this be a fair statement of the problem we are ready to take
up the second question: how are the schools to solve their problem?
And it will,be convenient for the sake of clearness to follow the analy-
sis above, taking each of the elements in order. I am well aware, of
course, that the problem cannot be and is not thus broken up into its
compotent parts and that, as a matter of fact, all three objects sought
are found to a greater or less degree in the solution of any one of the
elements. But they do nevertheless precede one another both in the
order of time and in the order of development.
The best and most valuable of the world's knowledge and
thought, lies stored away in books and the only justification for the
pain and labor of learning to read is to get at this knewledge and
thought. The solution of the problem, therefore, belongs to all teach-
ers, inasmuch as thought is to be dug out of all, sorts of books; every
teacher is, then, milly willy, a teacher of English under the first count
and one of the surprising things these latter days is that she does not
2
acknowledge her obligation even to herself, but makes the reading of
literature, the chief pack animal in bearing the burden of good Eng-
lish in the interpretation of language as a conveyer of thought. But
Geography and History and Arithmetic and Nature Work teem with
possibilities and opportunities for teaching the meaning of words and
the simple principles of the structure of language. Indeed, I have never
been able to see how the thought in any one of these subjects can be
got at clearly and exactly without such teaching as one result, a by-pro-
duct if you like, but extremely valuable nevertheless. And herein lies
one of the mistakes of our modern teaching, throwing upon department
teachers or upon one branch of insruction the burden of the teaching of
language. I wish not to be misunderstood here. When I say that a good
lesson in Geography e. g., well taught, is also an opportunity for a
lesson in good English, I mean that it is so from the mature of the
case and not that the teacher must turn aside from the main purpose
of her lesson, viz: the teaching of Geography, to grasp the opportunity.
I mean that it is impossible for her to secure a good, clear and accurate
lesson, in Geography and not at the same time teach a lesson in good,
clear, accurate English and that if she do not so teach, her Geography
will not be good, nor clear nor accurate. The one is bound up in the
bundle of life with the other and may not be thrown out from it.
This is true from the kindergarten to the college and beyond and
particularly so in the departmental teaching of the high schooi where
a teacher of a subject forgets, too often, not only that her text-book is
meant to be written in good, exact, precise English, but that her sub-
ject demands that the attention of her class is to be kept upon that
fact. I am strongly of the belief that much of the deficiency of our
pupils in any subject is due to our failure to help them to the right
meaning of the language of their text-books as examples of good
English. What does the language, the words of your text-book mean?
is a good question for us to keep repeating to our classes and it is good
for both them and us that we unceasingly insist on a satisfactory
answer thereto. •
The second element in the problem, i. e., the right use of good
English in the expression of our own thought is different from the first
only in the added notion of the art of using, and all that has been
said of the first is true of the second also. More than this, everything
done to secure the satisfactory solution of the first helps in the second,
if it be not a necessary prerequisite to it. But the added notion of use
is a very important one and is that which gives us much worry, may
3 *
sleepless nights, much fret and chafe of temper and great despair even,
at times. Here, too, as in the first, we throw away our most valuable
asset by not bearing in mind that every teacher is, most emphatically, a
teacher of the use of English and here, too, I must insist that no subject
be it Mathematics, Science, or Geography, what you will, can be wghl
taught unless unremitting pains are taken to secure as good, precise
and fitting English as possible under the circumstances and as ought
reasonably to be expected from the class of pupils in hand ; specially
is this true in History, and in foreign Languages both ancient and
modern, in which so fine an opportunity is given both to enlarge and
refine the English vocabulary of the student. Many times teachers
of other subjects feel, I do not know why, that the writing of themes
and Other forms involving the mechanics of the Language belongs
only to the teacher in English, and that the responsibility for the good
'use of the mother tongue by our pupils, particularly our graduates,
rests upon those who teach English literature and English compo-
sition. I do not believe this is a tenable position and I am sure we
shall never come to our best for our pupils in this matter until every
teacher fully realizes not only that she has personal responsibility for
the good English of her classes but that if she fails to discharge that
responsibility, as far as in her lies, that she fails in that degree to teach
her own special subject. Two things we must all do, then, give the
most painstaking care to see that our classes understand better, week
by week and month by month, the carefully written language of their
text-books and that the English in which they return to us the
result of their study and of our teaching is a bit better this month than
last and perceptibly better next year than this. Upon the teachers of
English, per se, there rest special responsibilities for the correctness,
precision, and fitness with which their pupils use the vernacular,—
and these need not be gone into here,—but their labor is, many times,
made null, almost, by the position their fellow teachers in other sub-
jects take on this matter, who forget not only their responsibilities for
the language of their pupils but the immense help their own work re- .
ceives from the work of the teachers of English, carefully done. For
it is only a truism in education to say that no work can be well done
in school anywhere without assisting all other effort to do good work
and vice versa.
In all this discussion thus far I have said nothing about the prep-
aration and fitness of the teacher, and purposely so. For I am sensible
of the. obstacles in the way of adequate preparation to teach the use
* 4
of good English successfully. I am acquainted with the long and
painful process some of us have to pass through to gain anything like
mastery Over our own speech and I know something of the difficulties,
—seeming sometimes insuperable—we all encounter because of the un-
toward home conditions of our pupils in this subject. I have therefore
been careful to make no unreasonable demands, asking only care and
mutual helpfulness. But suppose, for a moment, that we all used at
all times English that was correct in grammar and pronunciation and
well fitted to the subject in hand, and suppose, further, that all our
pupils were accustomed to hear at home the mother tongue well
spoken, and there would be, practically, no problem in English. To
be sure such a supposition is only a fond dream and yet a dream that
shows not only how far off we still are from our own ideals but also
how great a victory we achieve when we bring our pupils to the
habitual use of English that is not only fair but gives promise of some-
thing better continually. r. - -
Our achievement would be greater and more satisfactory if we did
not forget, so often, in both elements of the problem thus far dis-
cussed, that we are teaching immature, but growing boys and girls,
who need, not only that no tasks not suited to their advancement
should be set them, but also the clearest, most painstaking instruction
in the way to approach those tasks; and if. on the other hand, we did
not so many times miss the most important truth of all that they must
be directed and helped along their way, individually, and not be com-
pelled to be miniature copies of us, however admirable we may be.
I come now to the third and most difficult element of the prob-
lem: the right teaching of good English Literature. I confess at once
and without reserve that my heart always sinks within me when I
think of the sad mess the schools have made of this business in the past
twenty years, a “confusion worse confounded'' for which the colleges
are largely responsible. For they have set up as a standard by which
to judge successful work in the schools an examination that presup-
poses the critical faculty in “hobbledehoys", assumes that every appli-
cant for entrance is a future great writer in embryo, and presumes to
measure a spiritual thing with a carpenter's rule. And upon this
wheel the schools have been broken.
But an arraignment of the college, however just, will not help
the schools in the solution of their problem and I proceed at once
to some remarks and suggestions upon the right teaching of English
Literature. In the writing of English it must be evident that we can-
5
not teach the art to a higher degree of attainment than we ourselves
have reached, just as no artisan can teach to any apprentice what he
' himself cannot perform. Our task, like the artisan's is to take the
crude bungling work of the beginner, show him how it can be made
better, and to lead him, from our own actual knowledge of the craft,
to improve it. In this work there is needed only as close personal con-
tact with the learner as a sympathetic interest in his work will give,
and indeed there must be a certain aloofness, on the part of the
teacher, both from the pupil himself and from the work, in order to
secure perfect impartialty of judgment and bring to the highest per-
fection of which the pupil is capable the work under our direction.
In composition, so-called, we are dealing with the mechanics of the
language, a matter quite apart from literature which needs the inform-
ing spirit. The new discussions about preparatory College English
recognize this distinction and the new recommendations to go into
effect in I9 I 2 will look to the separation of the two kinds of work.
I, for one, hope that by that time both College and School will have
come to a realizing sense of the utter futility and cruel burdensomeness
of the present scheme of themes and empty rhetoric; will have decided
to turn their attention to plain excellence in English and will have
recognized the supreme importance, specially to future writers, of fill-
ing both head and heart of children, youth, and young men and -
women with the great pieces of English Literature, undissected.
In the teaching of literature one is not dealing with the mechanics
of language but with germinal forces and things of the spirit. The
first thing then for the teacher is the living absorption of the book to
be taught so that in the teaching it may come to his pupils fresh and
warm with his own life; the book must live- in him and he in the
book. All ofùs have seen, many a time, a boy over a book that inter-
ested him, lying upon the floor, with elbows on the carpet and head in
hands, or curled up in a chair, or crouched down in some corner, or
huddled beside the light which others were sharing with him, blind
and deaf to all around, absorbed in the pages before him. He was
living in the book not in the room about him ; was joining in the
breathless pursuit of Magua or killing pirates with Jim Hawkins, or
hurrying down to Rugby with Tom Brown or chanting the song of
the Clansmen on Loch Katrine. And if the book be a good one, the
work of a master, the boy will come back to it again and again till
it becomes part of him and its lessons are woven into the web and woof
of his life. He has lived in the book and the book lives in him as far
6
as the conditions of his advancement and growth permit and there is
in him a seed for future growth and blessed fruitage in the days to
COIY) €. - .
This living in a book by the teacher is an indispensable prere-
quisite to the teaching of it as literature, done, of Course, in a larger,
deeper and more complete way than the youth can do it. The teacher
must bring all his resources of imagination and receptivity, all his
powers of living absorption into play and set all his knowledge of in-
terpretation to work that the realization of the masterpiece may be
as vital as possible, the process being repeated every time the book is
taught that he may be saved from dead teaching. And let there be no
fear of exhausting a great book nor of its becoming tiresome if the
teacher be following his vocation. All good teaching is the awaken-
ing of life in the learner, by the touch of life from the teacher, and the
teaching of literature only affords a larger and finer opportunity to
the teacher because of the special nature of the subject.
I said a moment ago that all books of literature must be caught
up into the circuit of the teachers' life each time they are taught, that
they may be real and vital to him., Then he must live in the book
with his pupils, must love and hate, laugh and weep, must be glad
with them at the failure of evil and rejoice with them in the triumph
of the good. In this there must be no aloofness of the teacher, as in
composition work, but hand in hand and heart to heart the book must
be lived through together; in no other way can the touch of life be
given and at no less cost can a great opportunity be greatly seized.
But if the opportunities that lie in the teaching of literature are great
the perils are also great. There are two, in particular, that overtake
us and bring disaster upon us many, many times. The first is the dis-
position to Overrate ourselves in the teaching of a masterpiece, the fail-
ure to get and keep the right perspective between ourselves and the
author. We seem to fear the writer will not be able to maintain him-
self with his reader without our help and that, too, when many times
we have not allowed him to have his way with us, but have been con-
tent to know about him rather than to know him. I suppose more
pupils in literature have been broken on this rock of offence, particu-
larly in secondary schools and colleges, than upon any other and that
thousands turn away hating the very names of the great, because of
our impudent intrusion of ourselves between the author and the
reader. -*
The second peril arises from our failure to remember that in
7
literature-specially—we are sowers and that youth is the seed time.
“What fools we mortals be'' we might very properly make Puck say
as we look at the pitiful things we call results and pride ourselves
upon: a bit of meaningless criticism repeated, parrot-like, until the
pupils think it their own; a summary borrowed from some one else
without due credit; a few detached facts about a writer who is only
to them a name, and with all this worthless matter a smirking satis-
faotion, on the part of our pupils, over what we have allowed them to :
consider a knowledge of literature. The thing we teachers all ought
to be thankful for is that our pupils have such large, sane and whole-
some powers of forgetfulness. - -
The teacher of literature then must be able to enter into the life
of the masterpieces he.is to teach ; he ought to have faith enough in the
power of the author and his book to affect the life of the reader, to be-
willing to follow humbly the way the master has pointed out; and he
ought to be wise enough to believe that, if he can assist a little in pre-
paring the way for the entrance of that life, the fruit of the spirit will
not fail. This brings me to the mention of the last qualification of the
teacher of English Literature I shall at present consider: the ability to
read aloud well. I am aware that the mere mention of this qualifica-
tion brings up visions of what many of us have heard and wished we
could do, as well as what many of us have heard and have prayed
never to hear again. I mean by good reading something between
great reading which it is given only the few to attain, and that other
kind which has no counterpart “in the heavens above nor in the earth
beneath nor in the waters under the earth.'' It is something we can
all attain to, in varying degrees of excellence to be sure, by the appli-
cation of hard work good common sense and a few fundamental rules,
and the faithful, persistent practice of out-loud reading whehever and
wherever we can, with due observance to the rights of others. In the
house when'one is alone, in the woods or in the fields, and sometimes
in the presence of an indulgent friend, are all good and suitable places.
If one can get a few lessons and hints from a good teacher so much the
better. I know of nothing so helpful .and so valuable in literature
work as to be able to read well, nor of any test so good by which to
measure the appreciation and understanding of pupils of this work in
literature, be it novel, poem, or drama. Hard work, common sense, a
few fundamental rules and persistent practice. The hard work is to
be directed, first of all, to the mastery of the sense and is part of one's
right entrance into the spirit of the work in hand; and second, to as
8
full a realization as possible of all that goes to make up the effective-
ness of the part to be read. I know of no place where good sense is
not a suitable adjunct in any sort of work; it is specially suitable and
valuable in good reading. Somehow when the average person begins
to read aloud he seems to forget that it is his mother tongue he is read-
ing and at once puts on a literary stage tone and manner as far re-
moved as can be from his natural way and voice. What his good
sense would have told him to do is to use his own voice making it
express as best he can his own conception of the passage. It is as-
tonishing how large a part of all the books we read year by year needs
only a voice sufficiently loud to be heard, an enunciation clear enough
for easy hearing and such understanding of the thought as to
make it plain to the hearer. The two fundamental principles that
need most to be remembered are (I) that the unit of speech written
or oral, is the sentence and not the word, and if one keeps this in
mind and practices upon it half his troubles are over; (2) that stress
or emphasis—by which sense or otherwise is chiefly made—is to be
made in accordance with the first principle, viz: that the sentence is
the unit. After this, persistent practice is next, to see if by any means
we may bring our voices into subjection to our conceptions. 'Tis a
hard task for- some of us, and occasionally a voice is so inflexible, so
metallic, so unemotional that really the task seems quite hopeless. But
most of us can do much in bringing into harmony with the great music
of our English Literature the wonderful instrument God has given
us in the human voice.
Cui bono? you may say to all this labor and toil. It is easy to
see why we should insist on the right understanding of words, for we
must all study books, and it is just as easy to see that it is well to take
much pains that we and others may use the mother tongue with pre-
cision and grace. But why not let the boy and girl alone on the
masterpieces of English, and allow them to have their own way with
the yellow novel, the cheap story, and the doggerel poetry?
To begin with some very simple reasons, I may say first, that
there is no way quite so effective to help one's own English as to read
great pieces of English writing not only enlarging one's vocabulary
but adding to it flexibility, precision and felicity of expression. In the
second place the works of the masters are not only wells of English
undefiled, but mines of thought rich and inexhaustible, and it is good
for us all both to see and know what the great have written, to the
enrichment of our minds and the better direction of our lives. Third :
9
there is in every good and great book—as I have already suggested
more than once—a power to quicken the spirit of the reader, to lay
hold upon the motive forces of his life and bring him to good things in
love and service, making him purer, and sweeter, and more loving.
Fourth, good books are friends as close to our lives and as intimate as
we will have them. There is nothing we value so highly in life as a
true, heart-to-heart friend, but we are all so constituted and so cir-
cumstanced that the number of such must be very small and even these
the exigencies of life take away from us. But one's books look out
upon him with smiling faces from every side, and whisper enticing
words, and stretch out loving hands of persuasion, for Sweet com-
munion whenever one will. And they never fail us, refreshing our
weary bodies, healing our distracted minds, calming our troubled
spirits, and opening up to us the hidden and unsuspected ways of uni-
versal human life. •
Last of all, great books are a place of refuge and shelter, not
simply in the times of storm and stress, but from the fret and chafe,
the “eating cares,” of life. In our books, we may hide away for a
time from the strife of tongues and gather fresh Courage and poise,
and serenity of spirit, for the duties that daily await us. Will you
still say, cui bomo? - ,
10
Reprinted from THE SCHOOL REVIEw, Vol. XVII, No. 1, January, I9o9
WHAT THE WEST WANTs IN PREPARATORY ENGLISH
FRED NEWTON SCOTT
The University of Michigan
I have often wished that the term preparatory, together with the
ideas that cluster about it, might be dropped for a season from our
educational vocabulary. My aversion to the term arises from a
conviction that it is in part responsible for one of the móst serious
of educational fallacies, or if not directly responsible, serves at any
rate to keep the fallacy in countenance. The fallacy to which I refer
is the prevalent belief that the chief purpose of secondary English
is to prepare the student to enter the university.
I question whether any secondary study can be taught most
successfully when sit is pursued with that sole end in view, though in
' . • . , *? , • • • •. • ^ . ' . ^ . • «- ç
regard tö: históry, science, and foreign languages, I yield to the.
authority óf 'others." With reference to English, at any rate, I have
no doubts; I am sure that the mental attitude on the part of either
teacher or pupil which keeps the eye fixed on the university gate,
which leads the teacher to test his teaching and the pupil to test his
progress mainly by the question whether it meets the formal eritrance
requirements, is an unfortunate attitude which cannot fail to lower
the value of the study. It is akin to the religious doctrine that
entrance to Heaven can be gained by the performance of certain
stated ceremonies, no matter what one's behavior has been in other
regards.
In the West, where entrance is almost entirely upon certificate,
the evil is minimized to a considerable extent. If a student, destined
tO enter a state university, is in an approved high School, the ques-
tion of preparation need not be raised, except in a general way. In
our western state systems, as is well known, one broad highway
stretches from the kindergarten to the graduate school. All that is .
required for admission to the university is that the candidate keep in
the middle of the road. By following this simple injunction, he
finds himself in course of time on the university campus. But in
the East, where entrance requirements mean entrance examinations,
preparatory English is a different thing. It is the English which
will enable candidates to pass the examination. Its substance, its
IO
JVHAT THE WEST VVANTS IN PREPARATORY ENGLISH II
methods, and its arrangement in the curriculum are largely deter-
mined by the accidents, so to speak, of the entrance requirements.
Nor is this without its effect upon the West. There are in every
large western high school a few pupils who are being prepared
for eastern colleges. To meet the needs of these pupils the teacher
must to some extent conform to eastern methods. Κ
Still further, there has been an earnest attempt of late to bring
the East and the West together in the matter of requirements, in
order to secure essential uniformity of subject-matter and mode of
study. As a result of this movement the attitude of the western
teacher has either insensibly conformed to that of the eastern teacher,
or has come into more or less embarrassing conflict with it.
Thus the West has been compelled by the course of events to face
a problem which was not of its own creating, and from which,
following its own methods, it would naturally be exempt. Since,
however, the West has become thus involved, it is not improper for
a representative of that region to seek to analyze the peculiar situa-
tion, to point out its dangers, and to suggest a remedy.
The effects of what I have called the preparatory fallacy may be
distinguished as the effect upon the teacher, upon the pupil, and
upon the course of study. I will speak briefly of these in turn, not
attempting an exhaustive analysis, but rather singling out in each
case the most striking characteristics.
First, then, what is its effect upon the teacher? Out of a
variety of influences, I will mention but one, though an extremely
important one—its tendency to debase the teacher's standard of
values. Professor James has said recently that the highest reward
which modern education can bestow upon any individua1 is the
ability to estimate the worth of his fellow-men—the ability to detect
instantly, under whatever disguises, the useful citizen, the incorrupt-
ible politician, the efficient man of affairs. I would apply a similar
test to the equipment of the secondary teacher of English. I would
say that his most precious endowment as a teacher is his ability to
estimate the personal, intrinsic worth and promise of the students
under his direction. Valuable as this gift is to all teachers, it is of
peculiar value to the teacher of English, not only because through
this subject he comes into closer personal contact with his students
than can the teacher of any other subject, but because such personal
contact is the only means by which the subject can be taught at all.
His main business, we may say, is not simply to teach a language,
12 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
it is to develop human personality—to draw it out, to give it freedom ^
of expression, and, when it has thus been developed, to know it
through and through and to estimate it in and for itself. It is the
duty and privilege of the teacher of English, far beyond that of
any other teacher, to exercise the prophetic function, that is, to detect
|
;
!
]
|
!
in the feeble, straggling plant of the present the promise of the
bright consummate flower which is to unfold in later years in a
different environment. This, I say, is his function and his oppor-
tunity; but if, instead of keeping his eyes upon his students' progress
and estimating their worth by the growth of their personalities,
the teacher is compelled to keep one eye on his class and the other
on a set of examination questions, what will be the natural conse-
quence? Is he not likely to acquire a squint? Is not his sense of
personal values likely to be confused? I submit that such a result
is almost inevitable. With the best intentions in the world, he will
gradually cease to apply the standard of personal worth ; he will
learn to apply the standard of conformity to a more or less conven-
tiona1 requirement. As a result of this failure of the inward vision
he may give up educating; he may begin just tO prepare, even to .
coach.
I do not mean to bring this as a railing accusation against eastern
teachers of English. Doubtless the sense for personal value is on
the average as high in the East as it is in the West. But no one
can deny, I think, that certain eastern teachers are much more
preoccupied with the problem of getting particular boys into par-
ticular universities than are any western teachers. It is my observa-
tion that the burden of preparation weighs heavily upom them. And
why should it not when failure to get a candidate through the uni-
versity gate is accounted as little less than a crime? It would be
strange, indeed, if this continual pressure did not sooner or later
make crooked the teacher's standard of judgment.
If, now, we ask what secondary English means to the pupil,
especially to the pupil who is looking toward a university career,
we shal1 have no difficulty in tracing the baneful effect of the pre-
paratory idea. There is the phrase “required reading,” for example.
Is it well that young persons should be led to think of literary
appreciation as a “required” something? To my mind the very
Sound of the phrase is ominous and depressing, as if one should
say required wonder, required reverence, required enjoyment. If
I were asked to devise a method of quenching the proper interest
A.
JVHAT THE JV EST VVANTS IN PREPARATORY ENGLISH I3
of high-School pupils in their English work or of so transforming
their interest as to defeat the ends of sound education, I am sure
I could find no better plan than to convince them that the main
object of their study was to meet the entrance requirements. Such
a conviction often cuts the heart out of the work, as many a teacher
will testify. -
I shall not soon forget the pathetic remark of a very earnest
young candidate whom I met this summer and to whom I lent a
copy of Little Dorrit. He returned it next day with the remark
that he was afraid he would become interested in it. “You know,”
he added, rather sadly, “I am preparing for the entrance examina-
tions at — University, and Little Dorrit is not on the 1ist.”
There are persons to whom this will seem to be an extreme case,
yet I believe that it is fairly typical of a large body of secondary
pupils—and teachers as wel1—for whom “English A* and “English
B” have acquired the abstractness of algebraic symbols.
The effect of the preparatory fallacy upon the course of study
is no less obvious. It is exhibited in a variety of ways, but perhaps
the most serious aspect of it is the upsetting of the natural order of
studies in order to turn the senior year into a purely preparatory or
coaching period. Books which were read and, we may hope, en-
joyed in the Freshman and Sophomore years, and which now have
been properly forgotten, must be brought out and laboriously reread.
The answers to the old questions must be committed to memory:
Whether the Vicar preferred the blue bed to the brown, and why;
the numbers of the Spectator in which the Sir Roger de Coverly
papers appeared; the color of the gown worn by the cardinal in
Quentin Durward; Is a barbarous age more favorable to the produc-
tion of great poetry than an age of refinement?
It is a dreary process, but what else can be done? To attempt to
bring back the first fine careless rapture, if happily there was one,
would be absurd. Besides, the entrance requirements do not call
for it. They call for facts, or else for delicate critical discrimina-
tions, outlines of plots, and pallid little essays on the character of
Dunston Cass.
It is not uncommon, I believe, for the course of study to be so
arranged that the entire list of books called for by the entrance
requirements shal1 be either read or reviewed, and shall certainly be
written about, in the senior year—this, as it seems to me, in defiance
I4 - THE SCHOOL REVIEW
of accepted principles of education and the suggestions of common-
S€11S€. -
The same influence has been, at least in part, responsible for the
unfortunate entanglement, in the preparatory schedule, of literature
and composition. That any great gain comes to the student either
in literary appreciation or in the command of his mother-tongue
from the incessant writing of outlines of plots, critical estimates
which ape maturity, or characterless sketches of character, has not,
I believe, been demonstrated. On the other hand, it is the experience
of most teachers with whom I have discussed the question, that
such essays, especially as they appear in examination papers, are for
the most part the merest fluff and ravelings of the adolescent mind,
revealing neither the student's independent thought, nor, except
casually, his command of English. They came into existence, I have
been told, as a convenience for the examiner, who thus thought to
combine in one paper questions on both sides of the pupil's training.
The combination represents an accident of preparation, not an essen-
tial of secondary study.
Take the outlining of plots, for example. Valuable as is the
practice of retelling a story in one's own words, when there is some
object in it, as when it is directed to eager listeners or readers, there
is still reason to doubt whether the reduction of dramas, or of the
larger works of fiction, tO bare synopses, is a wholly profitable
exercise, especially where it is pursued systematically and mercilessly
as it is in some schools. The results of such work are 1ikely to be
either juiceless “chankings”—if I may use a provincialism—or lu-
dicrously inadequate attempts to hit off the style and spirit of the
original. Moreover the plots of Some of the best reading in the
world are such as nobody wants to outline. Did anyone, I wonder,
ever derive satisfaction from an outline of As You Like It? Not I,
at any rate. Some years ago I attempted to read a number of exer-
cises on that theme written by fairly able secondary students, but
after the first half-dozen I gave the task over, fearing that if I
continued I should lose all respect for the constructive art of
Shakespeare. Or, to take another example, a work which I read
with great enjoyment when I was young was the romance of Dom.
Quixote. It is a book which every boy delights in and eagerly
appropriates tO himself. But would anyone, except a hard-driven
teacher of English, expect profit to arise from outlining the plot of
that incomparable piece of fiction? To ask the question is to answer
JVHAT THE WEST VVANTS IN PREPARATORY ENGLISH I5
it. For my part, I am sure that I could no more outline the plot of
that book than I could manipulate an aeroplane; and if I could,
what good would it do? • •
But I will not prolong the enumeration of these evil conditions.
Let us look on the obverse of the medal. Assume for the moment
that the word preparatory has been dropped from the vocabulary .
of education. Suppose that instead of speaking of preparatory
English we are to speak of educative English, or gainful English,
or profitable English. Suppose, further, that the sole question
which secondary teachers of this subject are compelled to ask them-
selves is just this: What course of instruction in English will
contribute most to the pupil's mind and character, and to his powers
of appreciation, expression, and communication? What would be
the effect of so radical a change? -
Its most important result and the only one that I shall consider,
is that it would set the teacher free from prescription and routine.
It would grant to him Lehrfreiheit, and give him opportunity to
develop a more individual mode of teaching. It would enlarge his
resources. In his choice of books for reading and study he would
no longer be confined to a pitiful little list, selected often on grounds
of convenience, or copyright, by persons of tastes and inclinations
perhaps alien to his own; he could select at will out of the great
storehouse of English and American literature the books which
he had found by experience to be best fitted to his peculiar mode of
instruction and to the needs of his pupils. He could arrange this
reading in the order of chronology, or of relative difficulty, or in
any other way that he chose. He could follow the path of his own
interest and knowledge, and make his teaching contributory to his
scholarship. -
Such an emancipation of the teacher would throw upon him full
responsibility for the pupils' gain or loss. He could no longer take
refuge behind the entrance requirements and say, “I have been
bidden to do thus and so. I have done it. Here are the beggarly
results.” He would be his pupils' keeper, answerable to his own
conscience and to the world for the use he had made of his trustee-
ship. -
But it may be asked, and with reason, what rights the institution
of higher education retains when it has given up this prescription of
particular books and particular methods of preparing students for
examination. My answer is, that it would retain the privilege which
I6 - THE SCHOOL REVIEW
it has always had, of training secondary teachers for their duties,
of giving them high ideals, of co-operating with them in their plans,
of stimulating and encouraging them to do their utmost by reposing
confidence in them. It would also, I suppose, retain, or assume, the
privilege which we have long had in the West, of inspecting the
teacher's work, of making suggestions for the improvement of it,
and, perhaps most important of all, of testing the tree by its fruits as
they ripen in the university atmosphere.
I am aware that this proposal will be received in some quarters
with disapproval, not to say horror. The opinion is held by many
eastern teachers that the only conserving force in secondary educa-
tion, at least in the Néw England states, is the entrance examina-
tions at certain universities. Graduates of these universities have
said to me, with bated breath, that if the examinations were sus-
pended, the whole system of secondary education would collapse and
fall to the ground, like a bean-stalk when the pole is removed. For
my part, I should hesitate to bring so serious a charge against east-
ern secondary teachers. I should hesitate to say that they are so
lacking in conscience and independence of character that they can be
kept to their work only by the lash of the taskmaster. I am un-
willing to believe that this serfdom exists in the secondary schools
either in the East or in the West. It is another educational fallacy.
Some day somebody with a big ax will cut down the totem-pole
which now stands in front of the eastern university. When it falls,
there will be great consternation. The worshipers will cower and
hide in crevices of the rocks, and wait for the offended deities to
launch their thunderbolts. But. nothing will happen. The deities
will be on a journey, Or peradventure asleep. Secondary education,
after a little season of readjustment, will go on as usual. The good
schools and good teachers will turn out good material, the poor
schools and poor teachers will turn out poor material. About the
same proportion of each kind as at present will find its way into the
university. In course of time the poor schools will be discredited
and will be compelled to do better work or go out of business. The
good schools will be rewarded by increased confidence. I do not
pretend to know when this transformation will take place, but that
it will come in the fulness of time, I have not the slightest doubt.
- If, however, the change of front which I have suggested is for
the present impracticable, are there not some particulars in which the
uniform requirements can be so modified as at once to improve the
JVHAT THE WEST VVANTS IN PREPARATORY ENGLISH I7
instruction and to avoid a conflict between eastern and western ideals
and methods ? Since the problem is now being carefully studied by
a committee of the Joint Conference on Entrance Requirements, I
will not attempt to forestall their conclusions. But I will throw out
a few suggestions.
In the first place, as I have already hinted, I am sure there would.
be a great gain if a vertical line could be drawn through the sec-
ondary curriculum between literature on one side, and composition
on the other. Not that these two subjects fail in vital relationships
and points of contact, but that the artificial alliance enforced by the
terms of the entrance requirements and the character of the examina-
tions has resulted in the evil conditions pointed out before. What
I would suggest is that we put in one course of study literature and
so much of critical theory and literary history as the pupil must
have for the rational appreciation of what he reads; and that we put
in another course of study training in composition, and so much
grammatical and rhetorical theory as the pupil needs for the ration-
alizing of that discipline. Carry these two studies along side by
side, letting one touch the other only when it can give light and life
and stimulus. In the entrance examination apply two quite different
tests—one to determine how much the pupil has profited by his
enjoyment of literature and how much literary history he has
1earned; the other to determine how clearly he can express himself
on some subject in which he is undemiably interested and on which
he is sure to have some definite information to impart. Above all,
seek to invent a method of examination which will make unprofit-
able and ridiculous a process of coaching and cramming in the senior
year. Let us assume, once for all, that candidates will, must, and
should appear ignorant of much that they have read, digested, and
assimilated in the earlier years of the secondary course.
In the second place, 1et us try to imagine boys and girls as they
actually are, not as they pedagogically ought to be. One would
gather from the terms in which entrance requirements are often
phrased that the graduates of preparatory schools are candidates for
the doctor's degree. They are expected to be ripe scholars, exact
observers, skilled logicians, cultured critics, and masters of the
English language in all particulars.
I have phrased such requirements myself, and I therefore have
no hesitation in saying that the expectation of such results from the
years Of secondary schooling is the impossible dream of pedants.
I8 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
Not one in one hundred thousand, not one in a million, of those who
are entitled to begin their university career, could meet these exac-
tions. .
However we may phrase our entrance requirements, let us face
the actua1 conditions. The real boy at the conclusion of his prepara-
tory course is, and in most cases of a right ought to be, a com-
paratively unformed, wayward, impulsive young savage. He is a
divine savage, to be sure, often full of fine impulses, and always,
1et us hope, worth the labor which it will cost to educate him. But
he is without mature judgment, without settled purpose, without
exact knowledge, in many cases with a memory that is marble to
receive and wax to retain. To expect him to be Otherwise is to ex-
pect a miracle. If for the brief, spasmodic period of the entrance
examination he presents a semblance of maturity in mind or char-
acter, the appearance, in all but the rarest exceptions, is illusory.
It is a fragile vestment which will presently crackle and fall away
from him like a coating of paraffine. In his English, at any rate,
1et us take him as he really is; let us see if we cannot in this delect-
able study, whose very essence is sincerity and candor, do away
with all pretense, affectation, and artificiality. It will be better for
the teacher, and it will be infinitely better for the pupil.
I have recently been reading over again the reports of the Har-
vard Committee on English Composition, in which a number of
examination papers are reproduced in facsimile, and the distorted
English of the writers is almost indecently exposed. Upon this
same English there is much sarcastic comment in the committee's
report, and the exhibits seem to justify it; but for my part I could
not view these reelings and writhings of the adolescent mind with-
out a feeling of pity. It was all so unreal. Back of this mess and
confusion were genuine individuals with likes and dislikes, with
budding ambitions, with tingling senses, with impulses toward right
and wrong. Where did these individuals come in when judgment
was passed upon their faulty English? What were they trying to
do? What motives lay behind these queer antics of the pen? If
only one could tear away the swathings, set the imprisoned spirits
free, and interrogate them, a strange new light might be thrown
upon the causes of bad English.
Another thought occurred to me as I read the reports. Should
we not—at least those of us who are pragmatic philosophers—apply
to the young offenders the crucial test of pragmatism? Where are
JVHAT THE WEST VVANTS IN PREPARATORY ENGLISH I9
they now, the writers of these rejected addresses? Are they in jail?
Are they social outcasts? Are they editing yellow journals, or in
other ways defiling the well of English? Or are they eloquent
preachers, successful lawyers, persuasive insurance agents, leaders
of society ? I do not wish to pursue inquiries which may Overturn
the pedagogical foundations, but I am frankly curious to learn how
far the actual course of events will bear out judgments based upon
such evidence.
In the third place, the entrance requirements should throw the
emphasis upon the things which are of most importance. It is of
course necessary that our young people should spel1 and punctuate
properly, should make the verb agree with its subject, should use
words in their dictionary senses and write sentences that cam be read
aloud without causing unnecessary pain to the mandibles. They
should also know the meanings of the words in the poetry and prose
that they read, and understand the allusions to things ancient and
modern. But these matters, after al1, are subsidiary and must be
treated as such. They are means to an end. To treat themas an end in
and for themselves is to turn education in this subject upside down.
The main purpose of training in composition is free speech, direct .
and sincere communion with our fellows, that swift and untram-
meled exchange of opinion, feeling, and experience, which is the
working instrument of the social instinct and the motive power of
civilization. The teacher of composition who does not somehow
make his pupils realize this and feel that all of the verbal machinery
is but for the purpose of fulfilling this great end, is false to his trust.
Again, the end of reading is, I take it, the widening of the
mental, emotional, and imaginative horizon through contact with the
creations of great literary artists. The sudden happy glow of emo-
tion, the unbidden tear, the quick kindling of the young fancy, the
awakening to the loveliness of nature, the refining and purging of
the senses, the conviction of the validity of great principles of con-
duct, the realization of the inevitable tragedy of life—these are the
priceless rewards of the appreciative reading of great literature.
Whatever else is taught in the classes in literature, is subsidiary to
these ends. To allow other considerations to get in their way, to
obscure them, to take their place, is—I say it reverently—to commit
a sin against the Holy Ghost.
I would not have the smail things in secondary English over-
looked or despised, but I would not on the other hand have them
2o THE SCHOOL REVIEW
magnified into great things. And if it were necessary to choose
between the two—which fortunately it is not—I would myself much
prefer the blundering writer hungry for communion with his fel-
lows, or the blundering reader full of callow enthusiasms for Dickens
and Longfellow, to the facile cynic or the cock-sure criticaster.
Perhaps I can condense al1 that I have been trying to say into the
assertion that what the West wants in preparatory English is sym-
pathetic, broad-minded, well-trained teachers. If such teachers can
be secured, we are willing to trust them implicitly. We desire to
co-operate with them and to give them al1 possible help and en-
couragement, we wish to know what they are doing, and we expect
them to know what we are doing, and what are our needs and ideals.
But we do not wish to hamper them by petty dictation or impose
upon them conditions which will interfere with the development of
their individual methods Of instruction. We will leave to them the
working-out of the details of the curriculum. We will judge them
by the characters of the boys and girls whom they send to us. Give
us good teachers, and good students will follow as the night the day.
A REPORT
ON THE
EXAMINATIONS IN ENGLISH
HARVARD COLLEGE
JUNE 1906
BY
C. N. GREENOUGH
E. W. C. HERSEY
C. R. NUTTER
INSTRUCTORS IN ENGILISH AT HARVARD COLLEGE
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
INubIigbeò by tbe Ulmivergity

I9O 7
ΡREFATORY NOTE
Several years' experience in reading English entrance
examination books has impressed upon us the regularity
with which candidates repeat certain elementary errors. To
put into the hands of teachers a large number of these
errors and to make some suggestions for preventing them
are the objects of this report. Any questions or comments
from teachers will be welcome. They should be addressed
to C. N. Greenough, 20 Holworthy Hall, Cambridge.
Copies of this report (príce fifteem cents) may be obtained
from the Publication Agent, 2 University Hall, Cambridge.
CAMBRIDGE, February 22, 1907.
The entrance examination in Elementary English for June,
1906, was as follows :—
ELEMENTARY ENGLISH (a)
(Two HoURs)
The examiner expects you to plan each answer before writing,
to write meatly and legibly, to spell and punctuate correctly, and
to be accurate and intelligent in choosing words and in framing •
sentenoes and paragraphs.
I
(ONE HOUR)
Write carefully planned compositions on three of the
following subjects.
1. The good traits in Macbeth's character.
2. Antonio and Bassanio as gentlemen.
3. The scenes in The Merchant of Venice which excite sympathy
for Shylock.
4. Scott's poetry.
5. My first reading of The Lady of the Lake.
6. The best scene in The Lady of the Lake and my reasons for
liking it.
7. “I found Him in the shining of the stars,
I mark'd Him in the flowering of His fields,
But in His ways with men I find Him not.
I waged His wars, and now I pass and die.”
8. How Gareth became a knight.
9. Godfrey Cass.
10. My reading apart from the prescribed books.
II
(ONE HoUR)
The examiner expects answers not merely correet but also well
composed. Answer all the questioms.
1. What is the plot of Comus?
2. Are the characters in Comus as much like real persons as the
characters in Shakspere's plays? Give reasons for your answer.
3. Relate the early life of Addison up to the time when he
began to write for the Spectator. - .
4. Tell what you know about Johnson's Club.
A REPORT
O N THE
EXAMINATIONS IN ENGLISH
—*\
—~—
I. ELEMENTARY ENGLISH
No type is too large to print the statement that the examina-
tion in Elementary English for admission to Harvard College
is not, primarily a test of information, even though that infor-
mation concerns English literature, but a test in which ability
to write is indispensable and all but completely sufficient. That
this is not more fully realized may perhaps be due to the fact
that colleges have formed the habit of testing candidates in Eng-
lish by asking them questions on a fixed list of books. The
temptation is therefore very strong to teach merely the books
prescribed to illustrate the subject, instead of teaching the sub-
ject itself. The chief result of reading these prescribed books
should be an increase of ability to appreciate other books. The
examiner would gladly see if this result has been attained by
asking the candidate what he honestly thinks of certain passages
of prose or poetry which he is presumed not to have seen before.
Eut, except as optional questions, such tests can be given only
after due notice in advance. Again, the examiner feels that most
boys would be more themselves when explaining how to play
base-ball or hockey than when endeavoring to tell what they
think they ought to think about the character of Shylock. He
Would like also to take the measure of a boy from his answer to
such a question as “What were the causes of the Americam Revo-
lution?'' But he cannot confine himself to such questions, —
not because these matters are outside English literature, but be-
cause not all boys can be presumed to be informed about them.
Until one can get around the fact that the questions must be
explicit and that each boy must have an equal chance to furnish
6
himself with the subject-matter to answer them, it will be diffi-
cult not to base the examination chiefly upon topics drawn from
given books.
How, then, can teachers use these prescribed books and at the
same time pay due attention to the very important statements *
in the Harvard admission requirements in English that “no candi-
date will be accepted in English whose work is seriously faulty in
spelling, grammar, punctuation, or division into paragraphs,'' and
that “in every case the examiner will regard knowledge of the
books as less important than ability to write English''? The
Harvard examiners believe that at least one-half of the time
which the teacher of English has at his disposal should be spent
upon instruction in English Composition. This instruction, in-
stead of being limited to matters of grammar, punctuation, and
the like, should not only include, but should strongly emphasize,
those principles of composition which guide us in the construc-
tion of sentences, paragraphs, and short whole compositions.
GRAMMAR, ANI) RHETORIC
The statement in the Harvard University Catalogue (ed. 1906—07,
page 336) that, “no candidate will be accepted in English whose
work is seriously faulty in spelling, grammar, punctuation, or
division into paragraphs'' means more than that deficiency in all
of these points will prove fatal: it means that total ignorance of
any one of them will be sufficient reason for failure. First, there-
fore, let us try to sum up from the English examination books
written in June, 1906, the chief weaknesses which mark boys as
hopelessly inaccurate in grammar and rhetoric, and therefore,
whatever their information about the prescribed books, candi-
dates for the grade of E.*
The high school teacher no doubt feels that, he has every right
to take knowledge of English grammar for granted. But cer-
tainly he cannot take practical command of it for granted. His
pupils may know the difference between a phrase and a clause;
they may even be able to distinguish between complex sentences
* Harvard University Catalogue, 1906-07, p. 336.
* It is perhaps unnecessary to explain that books are graded A, B, C, D, or
E : E means failure; A or B means distinguished excellence.
7
and compound; but in actual practice they seem to feel that such
a topic as “The Character of Ivanhoe'' is a matter so essentially
important that it may be written about in sentences which are
not merely compound when they ought to be complex, but which
oftem lack that without, which no sentence cam ever satisfy the
fastidious, — a verb. A high school teacher who does not spend
a considerable part of the first year in reviewing, supplementing,
and enforcing the instruction already given in the grammar
schools may be sure that much of his more advanced instruction
will be misspent. The importance of this advice is sufficiently
illustrated by the following examples, which are so gross that
comment, upon them is unnecessary.*
1. “Then follows various scenes.”
2. “The most noted seems to have been Goldsmith, Garrick, Burke
and others.''
3. “ Addison wrote a description of his travels which we e freely
Criticised.”
4. “Even an uneducated person without reading any comments but
ju t depending on the play as they read it would brand both as the high-
est type of gentlemen.”
5. “Our first impression of Sylock, even after seeimg the play produced
seems to arouse our hatred towards him but when each of the Jew's
misfortunes are considered, we cannot avoid feeling a, spark of sypathy
for him.”
6. “The child who just able to creep was attracted by the fire within
whose glow reflected on the snow through the open door.”
7. “ Macbeth's bravery is seen in the way he defeated the Danes.
And again when we hear Duncan compare Macbeth to Bellona's bride-
groom. Then too in the respect which the other characters hold him.”
8. “Then too the way the murders which he has committed weigh on
him later.'
9. “In the scene where Shylock tells Antonio how he has treated him
on the Rialto and the answer which Antonio gives him shows plainly to
us that Antonio has forgotten himself.”
' All of the examples in this pamphlet were written in June, 1906, by
candidates for admission to Harvard College. Many of them, of course, con-
tain other defects than the one which they are selected to illustrate.
8
10. “Which showed that he still had some spark of manhood left;
within him.”
11. “When he tells graphicly how he is spurned by the vilest Chris-
tiam, his cloak is spit, upom, and he is called dog, knave and as many
other vile names as his Christian tormentors cam devise.”
12. “Whereas the shapes of the people in the plays of Shakespeare,
never loose their originality.” .
13. “Among whom were Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds and others.”
14. “Tennyson does not state who Gareth married.''
15. “He calls curses on the head of his daughter who he once loved
with all his heart.”
16. “He was too good to act as bad as his brother Dunstan.”
17. “At this time Antonio's ships were all at sea, and had no ready
money to give Bassanio.”
18. ' Her brothers, who were her companions meet a farmer he know-
ing where this Comus lives and leads them there.” -
19. “Antonio is direct, a little harsh, and yet his friendship for Bas-
sanio and Bassanio's love for him are characters that no one who has
read the play cannot help from recommending it with the highest praise.”
20. “ Gareth was the son of Lot, a most bitter antagonist of Arthur
and in the baron's war was killed leaving three sons the youngest of
whom was Gareth.”
21. “He cannot evem call his life his own, besides losing all his money,
does he not deserve pity?”
22. “I think the way that Antonio stood by his friend and was ready
to die if necessary for him, was a higher, nobler and greater man than
$ Comus.'''
23. “Johnson finally acquired enough money to keep the wolf from
his door, and to occasionally, if not often, lie in bed in the morning.”
Equally serious is the prevalent neglect of English idiom, which
is most frequently revealed in the ill-treatment of prepositions.
Sometimes this neglect seems traceable to the habit of translating
foreign languages word by word with no real effort to find the
corresponding English idiom.
24. “ Bassanio spent most of his time for the interest, of his business
and also for friends.”
9
25. “To one who is perhaps prejudiced, Sylock does not at any time
arouse any great, amount of simpathy.” -
26. “ For this manly act King Arthur bestowed Gareth with knight-
hood.''
27. “ One cannot help to be more or less interested in one of the char-
acters namely Shylock.”
28. “He succeeded to keep it secret.”
29. “This I think the principal reason to judge him courteous.”
30. “The motives which prompt him selfish though they are, are
done not to do any wrong but only to secure his own safety.”
31. “So after inviting Duncan to the castle to spend the night he
prepared to kill Duncan which was against his will.”
32. “The plot in the Comus is Vice and Temptation trying to best,
Chastity.''
33. “ Macbeth was an able general, and did not have any traits to kill
anyone.''
34. “The tables are turned, Antonio having the Jew at his complete
mercy.''
35. “ After a, while their judgment on a certain book having become
Known, it would either give unbounded popularity or condemnation to
the work."
36. “Comus, coming up, found her and enchanted her body, her
mind, being pure, remaining untouched.”
Boys whose command of grammar and idiom is so imperfeet
might be expected to be weak in spelling and in the use of capital
letters. They are. Their inability to spell has two disastrous
results: first, it cramps their vocabulary by limiting them to
words which they think they know how to spell'; secondly, it
causes positive errors which, if very frequent, are sufficient reason
for failure. Of the following examples of these errors the words
starred are altogether the most common.
accustumed. *altho.
aggreeableness. annimal.
alow. borroring (for borrowing).
*alright. G8,Te8|*.
1 An examiner often finds that a candidate has balked at a, hard word,
erossed it, out, and substituted an easy one.
10
*cheif.
cirtain.
coenside.
cralled (for crawled).
<cruilty.
debace.
*decission.
dept (for debt).
*dieing (for dying).
*differant.
discised (jor disguised).
*discribe.
*dissapeared.
*dissapoint.
draging.
drugery.
ducets.
duckets.
douchess.
enjure.
*exagerate.
excuisate (for exquisite).
fary (for fairy).
feal.
feaseability.
*finaly.
forfiture.
*french.
gauling taunts.
glommy (for gloomy).
*godess.
gost (for ghost).
*grammer.
graphicly.
hearafter.
hieiniousness.
*independant.
*infinate.
*insistant.
*interlectual.
intised.
Itally.
*it;'s.
knaw (for gnaw).
knight (for night).
Laten.
*latin.
Latten.
Lattin.
*lead (for led).
*litterary.
*loose (for lose).
louses (for loses).
messanger.
nave (for knave).
night (for knight).
*noticable.
noticible.
nympth.
ostricised.
overestamated.
permision.
permition.
*phamplet.
*planed (for planned).
populor.
*posess.
pray (for prey).
*predjudice.
prey (for pray).
*principal (for principle).
*principle (for principal).
*privelage. -
*proffession.
promiscous.
*prommissed.
prophasies.
propicies.
*recieve.
redeme.
repeatidly
*rythum (and various other 8ub-
stitutes for rhythm).
senes (for Scenes).
*sentance.
*seperate.
11
*shepard. - two (for to).
*shepheard. togeather.
shure. threshole (“the starry thres-
sirch. hole of Jove's court '').
Soliloquoy. *throughly.
Sollaquie. *thru.
sumed up. thruout.
*supprise. undoubtably.
suprise. villiage.
thier. *villian.
*tho. Veneciam.
*thot (for thought). warrier.
timerity. Wickid.
*to (for too). *Writter.
Our concern is not primarily with proper names, even if they
are improperly spelled. Therefore we shall not dwell upon the
Gaurdiam, Angle who revealed himself to one critic of Addison's
Campaign; nor shall we attempt to penetrate the disguise of
Addersom, Bamco, Bodswel, McCauley, or Sir Josuar Remals. Such
forms as Physche, Physh, Pyche, Syche, Physyce, Psyce, and Physic
betray ignorance of classical etymology, the significance of which
will be spoken of later.
From the list of misspellings it seems clear that: —
(a) Many errors in spelling occur because the boy attempts to
Write words as he mispronounces them. Graphicly, cruilty, coem-
side, ostrìcìsed, threshole, wickid, tìmerity, and sentance are exam-
ples of this. To remedy this kind of misspelling teachers must
encourage reading aloud and must insist that pupils give to each
syllable its proper value.
(b) To spell correctly a boy must know not merely the whole
word, but the separate syllables. If he knows Greek and Latin,
he must apply them; if he does not know Greek and Latin, his
English teacher will do well to write on the blackboard such words
as describe, Surprise, and separate, and to explain that discribe
would meam “to write to pieces,” supprise would be “to under-
take” instead of “to overtake,'' and seperate would lose its family
resemblance to prepare, parade, and the like. Before leaving
this point, we venture to remind teachers that even a slight
12
study of etymology will increase appreciation as well as accuracy,
for it will reveal the metaphor hidden in such words as attentìom,*
apprehend, ostracìsed, and will prevent, such expressions as,
“ Gareth was the most unique son of Lot and Bellicent,”
wherein the word unique is made false to its own etymology.
(c) Many misspellings, like many improprieties, result from the
confusion of similar words. These troublesome pairs of words,
such as loose and lose, prîncîpal and prìncìple, eaccept and accept,
should be learned as foreign paradigms are learned, — by exact
and insistent drill.
Another subject for exact and insistent drill is punctuation.
If boys cannot understand that marks of punctuation meam
almost as much as the words which they separate, and if they
cannot as yet feel on friendly terms with semicolons and colons,
they can at least avoid the following sins, both of omission and
of commission, in the use of the comma: —
(a) Many boys have been allowed to omit the comma after
the next to the last word in a series when ** and '' follows. At
EÌarvard it, is insisted that in such cases the comma shall be used.
37. “Macbeth was brave, daring and noble.”
38. “The careless, free and impulsive Bassanio.”
39. “ Four armed men who called themselves by the odd names of
Morning Star, Noon Sun, Evening Star and Night.”
(b) In dealing with words which are parenthetical or in appo-
sition candidates make such blunders as: —
40. “He was not however strong enough to ignore the prophecy.”
41. “In Comus the characters especially the Lady does not seem as
real.”
42. “Macbeth the villianous king of Scotland.”
43. “It was Lancelot the chief of knights who had followed Gareth.”
44. “The motives which prompt him selfish though they are, are,” etc.
1 Carlyle, Past and Present, Book ii, Chap. 17, quoted by A. S. Hill, Prin-
ciples of Rhetoric, p. 115. See also J. B. Greenough and G. L. Kittredge,
TVVords and thevr Ways in English Speech, pp. 9 ff.
13
45. “When Gareth, the son of Lot and Bellicent became of age, he,”
etc.
46. “Noble breeding one of the chief requisites of a gentlemam are
unquestionably possessed by both.”
47. “Shylock turns to leave the room a complete outcast penniless
and compelled to change his religion.”
(c) Candidates are so given to the indiscriminate use of com-
pound sentences that they should certainly learn how to punctu-
ate coördinate clauses; yet over and over again an examiner finds
such sentences as these: —
48. “He doesn't, weary one with useless descriptiom but nevertheless
his attention to detail is surprising when one looks especially for that
thing.”
49. “His best studies were the classics but in everything which he
undertook he was noted for his clearness.”
(d) Although an examiner is grateful for every complex sen-
tence he finds, his satisfaction is not complete unless the punctu-
ation of the subordinate clause is more intelligent, than this: —
50. “ After Gareth's first victory the maidem seemed a little more
pleased with her companion but even after he had conquered Noonday
Sun she declared she could still smell the odor of the kitchen.”
51. “This friendship though it is admirable in itself and one of the
marks of gentlemen is not the principal point which marks them as
such.” .
52. “Gareth claims the quest and quickly donning his armor he
gallops after Lynette who had fled from Arthur's court.”
53. “In despair they call upon the virgin Sabrina who rising from the
river gives them the herb by which the lady is restored to life.”
' 54. “When Clan Alpine's mem drive the Saxon light infantry before
them his face brightens and he wishes he had been there to share and
complete the victory.”
55. “Up to this time although he is conceded to be unfortunate in
' many respects real sympathy is not called forth.”
56. “They, however, need not worry Over her safty as her wisdom
and virtue protected her.”
14
(e) A particularly troublesome kind of complex sentence is that
which contains a relative clause. Few candidates understand the
difference between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses.
Hence the entrance examination books contain a great many such
sentences as: —
57. “He seems to change his very being and to commit crimes, which
he would have positively shuddered at, before.”
58. “No true gentleman could refuse to give so slight a reward to a.
person, who had so nobly served him, as the learned doctor has served
Bassanio.”
59. “The plot is entirely developed by the author himself who moves
his characters and causes them to speak at his pleasure.”
60. “He even goes so far as to say that, he would willingly sacrifice
Portia whom he has only just won if in doing so he might save Antonio.”
Errors such as these have brought down the grade of E upon
book after book. Let us now consider a few cases where the
choice of words makes the style harsh or slovenly. Such a style,
although it may not result in actual failure, can hardly rise to
the grade of C, which denotes satisfactory work.
61. “ Addison was a student-loving boy.”
62. “One brother is an optimus and the other a pessimus.”
63. “The proscribed books.” (A very common way of referring to
the books prescribed for entrance in English.)
64. “Now I was enthused by the pleasure I found in “The Lady of
the Lake.'”
65. “Imagine how severe a blow feels when your only amiability is
abducted in a manner as Jessica was taken.”
66. “I have read from several different, authors, fictional and other-
wise.” »
67. “Of the more technical books, I have read several editions on
Electricity and Engineering.”
68. “The * Autocrat' was full of fresh ideas, and, in the main, little
stunts of pleasant nonsense.”
69. “Although his bad points are showed up rather plainly, he has
some good ones.”
70. “His younger brother was kind of jealous of Godfrey's life.”
15
71. “There Shylock had come to get his forfeit of a pound of flesh
im perfectly good faith but got the raw end of the deal.”
72. *If any real good apology could be made for this first murder,
all the others would fall in line.”
73. “I got an outline of the story and saw the plot as big as a side of
a house.”
74. “In this way, while reading, I came to read merely to notice the
grammar.”
75. “The second time is at the time when he is standing before the
judge.” -
76. “Squire Cass was considered a man of considerable wealth.”
77. “Still one thing still disturbed him greatly. The Child was still
alive even if the mother was dead.”
78. “Truly it is a pitiful sight to hear the broken-hearted old father
repeat, to his dearest, friend the escapades of his trusted daughter Jessica.”
79. “Shylock whetted his revenge to the kindling point.”
80. “Shylock was so blinded by his thirst for revenge that he bit off
his own nose.” •
SENTENCES
First of all, a boy's command of grammar, punctuation, and
common sense must combine to tell him what a sentence is. He
will then see the absurdity of writing such inarticulate masses of
words as these: —
81. “ Gareth's duty was over he had won his knighthood and the
esteem and love of both Elaine and King Arthur.”
82. “His whole nature changed instead of the kind, good, and gener-
ous man, he became a harsh, tyranical and imperious ruler.' .
83. “ Addison was born in 1672 he went to college, graduated, traveled
over nearly all Europe, and engaged in politics.”
84. “That day a young lady asked a boon of the king, she desired
Lancelot to combat, for her and when Gareth asked permision for this
undertaking it was willingly granted much to the disgust of the maidem,
Laine.”
85. “ Perhaps my most gratifying result was the reading of several of
Edgar Allan Poe's works, Ilike his style, his clear and strong description.”
16
86. “ Addison was born in the year 1672, and at an early age entered
college, he immediately showed signs of being a scholar.”
87 “When Macbeth was sent to the frontier to fight with the Nor-
wegians, in absence of Duncan, he fought with the true spirit of patriot-
ism, though he could easily have sold the kingdom into the hands of
Norway, yet, he remained faithful.”
88. “ Macbeth was not weak minded, he made a hard struggle against
evil, but his ambition caused his ruin.”
89. “The bearing of Antonio in the Trial Scene, is so beautiful {hat it
seems rather above human, refusing to fawn and beg mercy of the re-
vengeful Jew, he prefers to take his punishment and take it like a man.”
90. “The characters in Comus are too affected, too wooden, they are
not natural, especially the brothers, to act as they do, would be impos-
sible in real life.”
91. “The Johnson Club was a club composed of such men as Johnson,
Steele, Boswell, Goldsmith, Reynolds and others, the purpose of it was
to get together at a quite social gathering and discuss literary topics,
and this kind of thing was in those days as beneficial as the great libra-
ries of today, because the best, wits of the day gathered there and talked
over the social conditions, that prevailed at that time, and the fact that,
Johnson was a member ought to be sufficient evidence for any one that
it was a success, for nowhere in the history of the world, was there ever
a greater conversationalist than he.”
Not only do the entrance examination books reveal little under-
standing of what a sentence is; they show also that few eandi-
dates know how to make their sentences units in thought, and
that fewer still know how to represent that unity in thought by
unity in form. More than for any other single fault boys who
take the Harvard entrance examinations in English suffer because
they do not see which of two ideas in a sentence deserves to be
made subordinate, and because they have little or no practical
command of such grammatical devices for expressing subordina-
tion as the parenthesis, the dependent clause, and the participial
phrase.
92. “ We ean see Portia represented in other people and I don't know
how many times I have seen Shylock's character unfurled in actual life.”
93. “Bassanio was the son of a gentleman and he was also om the
Rialto a great deal of the time.”
17
94. “ Addison was always remarkable for his wit and humor but he
never returned am insult.”
95. “There were two brothers and their sister walking through a wood
and in some way the sister became separated from her brothers and met
a man who offered to show her the way.”
96. “The Whigs again lost power and the *Tatler' had to be stopped
but it was quickly replaced by the 'Spectator,' which was even a greater
success.”
97. “ Addison was a stout Whig and he had an office, that netted him
about three hundred pounds a year, as secretary for Ireland and secre-
tary of State but when Queen Anne came into power she, being a, strong
Tory, threw out all the Whig members of the government.”
98. “Shylock did not show merey ; but we all know that he was no
gentleman, and because he did not, is it any reason why Antonio and
Bassanio should make themselves the cause of his destruction and finally
deat,h?”
99. “The natural desire is to despise the whole race of Jews and in so
qoing we are forced to see the evils of his nature, rather than the good
points, but there are many places where we must have the deepest feeling
for anyone of this outcast race.”
100. “The maiden wanders in the woods, and is tempted by the sur-
rounding evils, and is led astray from the enchantress Comus, who offers
her a drink, which if taken would change her into the form of an animal
like unto her many converts whom she had foiled by the deluding liquor.”
101. “He finds her lost in the forest so makes her think that he is a
shepherd thus bringing her to his palace where he tempts her in every
way possible but she always gives him an answer which he cannot over-
thrOW.”
102 “The youth followed her until they were lost in the Woods and
it was not long before they came upon six robbers, draging a, prisoner.”
One offence against Unity in form is common enough to deserve
special notice. The really well-planned answer is likely to con-
sist, of a general statement followed by a series of reasons for that;
statement. Answers thus constructed deserve so much credit;
that the examiners regret to see a boy mar his plan by including
in a single sentence both the general statement and the first
reason for it, and by phrasing the Other reasons in separate sen-
tences.*
* See p. 26 for an analogous error in paragraph structure.
18
103. “There are several reasons why Shakspere's characters are more
like real persons than Milton's: in the first place the characters in Comus
are meant, to resemble traits. In the second place,” etc.
To deal with Coherence is more difficult. Teachers of English
in colleges may well feel gratified if by the end of the Freshman
year their pupils are able to Write coherently. And yet an
examiner may reasonably withhold any grade above D from the
boy who does not show at least a groping sense of Coherence.
Hardly any teacher of English needs to be told that Professor
Wendell, whose treatment of this matter is decidedly the best,
has pointed out * that Coherence is to be attained by the proper
order of words, by the aTrangement of parallel ideas in parallel
constructions, and by the skilful use of connectives. To employ
the first of these devices is merely to arrange words and phrases
in the most natural Order; to neglect it results in sentences like
these: —
104. “Comus is about to force Some julep which he has in a glass on
their sister.”
105. “Godfrey Cass was called away from a nice time where his loved
Nancy was together with the doctor by Silas Marmer who had found
Godfrey's daughter in his home instead of his gold.”
106. “In the causes that Shylock gives for hating Antonio, just before
lending the money if all he said was true, some of the things that An-
tonio did was not quite like a gentleman, although he may have been
provoked to such an extent that no human being could have contained
himself.”
Everybody knows that the dangling participle is one of the-
commonest offences against Coherence. Probably there will
always be dangling participles, but We cannot help thinking that
there would be fewer had not the good old-fashioned drill of
“ parsing'' almost perished from the earth. The following exam-
ples more than sufficiently illustrate this fault:—
107. “ Hated and persecuted by the people of his time, one cannot
help sympathizing with Shylock.”
108. “While waiting in the court, a noble maidem named Lynette
entered and asked the king, to give her Sir Launcelot.”
* English Compositiom, Chapter 3.
19
109. “Although blest with a loving wife, she was too ambitious for
the welfare of her husband.”
110. “As a boy, the story is told of Addison that he omce participated
in a barring-out.”
111. “By drinking this, Comus can have no power over them.”
112. “Having reared his daughter and having tried to inculcate in
her, the loftiest ideals of his race, it is sad to gaze upon him after her
elopement.”
113. “ After serving as kitchen nave for a few months, his mother
relented and set him free from his promise.”
Few boys of eighteen can catch the trick of using those parallel
constructions which make the prose of Macaulay so satisfying to
read and so profitable to imitate; but every boy of eighteen ought
to be trained to avoid such ** defective double-harness'' * as
114. “Scott's poems appeal to me, because they are quite probable,
good rythum and sound plot.”
115. “The Club served to make them acquainted with one another
also knit them together closely and to punish each others faults.”
116. “They see ahead of them a woman whom Red Murdock says is
crazy ; that she wanders about through the forest; that, it would be
better for the neighborhood if she were killed.”
117. “In spite of Johnson's rough, rude ways and although, he ate
like a pig, he had many friends.”
118. “Our hatred is changed to compassion when we hear stern
Portia, as judge, declare that one-half his goods must, be surrendered
to the state the other half to Antonio and his life to lie on the mercy of
the mam against whom he has plotted.' »
119. “When Macbeth, valour's minion, was informed by the witches
of his being the future king and although the wording gladly struck
his ears, his first thought and pleasure was to write his wife, so that, she
might share the happiness of such a thought.”
The relation of the foregoing remarks about words and sen-
tences to the notes on paragraphs and whole compositions which
are to follow may best be summarized in Professor Wendell's
* The King's English, Oxford, 1906, pp. 311 ff.
20
generalization * that “ words and sentences are subjects of re-
vision; paragraphs and whole compositions are subjects of pre-
vision.” Revision, therefore, should have served to correct all
the blunders which we have so far discussed, unless those blunders
were inadvertent. We cannot, then, too strongly advise boys
who take the entrance examination not to spend the whole of the
allotted time in writing their answers, but to save at least one-
fifth of their time for a careful revision of their first draft. They
will perhaps make this revision more thorough if they realizethat
although examination books must be legible, they need not be
immaculate. They should remember that no careful writer con-
siders his first draft inviolable. If he does not rewrite entirely,
he is sure to strike out many words, to substitute some mew ones,
and to rearrange various phrases. This is precisely what candi-
dates in English Ought to do instead of writing to the very end
of the allotted time.
But even if he does save a little time to look Over his paper,
no boy can be expected to revise his own work successfully who
has not in school been made to rewrite manuscript in the light of
careful corrections. That school compositions are meagrely cor-
rected is supposed to be due to lack of time. In one direction at
least there is a remedy: the English teacher who is spending
more than half his time On the prescribed books ought to re-
adjust his programme so as to pay more attention to the study
of Composition. Otherwise he is letting the less important phase
of his subject encroach upom the more important, — in other
Words, he is so busy in drilling boys on the books which illustrate
the subject that, he has insufficient time to teach the subject
itself. We do not meam, of course, that boys should be sent up
for examination who do not know the books. What we do meam
is that English teachers who spend more than half their time om
the prescribed books are forgetting that although the boy who is
ignorant, of his books may have a very small chance, the boy
who cannot write has no chance at, all.
* English Composîtîom, p. 117.
21
PARAGRAPHS
We áre now ready to consider paragraphs and whole composi-
tions, which no writer, however skilful, cam properly construct
unless he first makes a careful plan. Yet the number of answers
which show careful planning is extremely small. It may be said
that boys of eighteen are incapable of doing much more than
Writing reasonably correct sentences one by one. This we deny.
We believe that any boy can acquire the unnatural habit of be-
ginning a paragraph with the transitional clause, “A second good
trait of Macbeth's character was,” just as he éan acquire the
unnatural habit of putting the verb at the end of a long sentence
when he writes Latin prose. In each case what is necessary is
merely drill and plenty of it.
To show how necessary it is to plan out paragraph structure in
advance, let us observe that as a rule examination questions are
of two types. Of the first an example is “How Gareth became
a Knight'' (June, 1906). Of the second an example is “The
IXnights of Tennyson and of Scott'' (September, 1906). The para-
graph structure of an answer to the first question is not difficult
to forecast, for the answer is a brief narrative, which maturally
follows the order of events in time. To answer the second ques-
tion, however, is an entirely different, matter. For here, instead
of following the natural sequence of events, we have to arrange
in their logical order various instances of a general truth. In-
asmuch as the paper in Elementary English for September, 1906,
had out of fifteen questions ten which are obviously of this ana-
lytic type, it is clearly necessary to know how answers to such
questions cam best be framed. Take the example already givem,
“The Knights of Tennyson and of Scott.*' Evidently there are
at least two possible ways of constructing a composition on this
subject. We may begin our outline thus:— -
I. The Knights of Tennyson.
A. Their organization.
1. The Round Table.
E. Their vOWS.
Etc., etc.
22
II. The Knights of Scott.
A. Their life as soldiers of fortune.
Etc., etc.
A two-page answer thus composed would consist of two para-
graphs, — one devoted to the knights of Tennyson, one to the
knights of Scott. Or the composition might be planned in this
way: —
I. The ideals
A. Of the Knights of Tennyson
B. Of the Knights of Scott,
and so on in a series of paragraphs each devoted to the discussion
of some One characteristic. For a short answer the first of these
plans Would probably be more effective; but our purpose is not
so much to consider the relative merits of these plans as to point
out that to follow either is altogether a different, matter from
“spinning a yarn,'' as one is asked to do in telling how Gareth
became a knight.
It is assumed that whenever a pupil composes a two-page
theme at school, he is required to precede it by a detailed
plan in Outline. Teachers who are not requiring such plans
should begin at once to do so. In the examination room as
well as in school, the pupil should make a plan before he writes
his composition. When we were discussing words and sen-
tences, we advised candidates to save at least one-fifth of their
time for revision. It is even more necessary to spend at least
another fifth in prevision. A boy may make his outline in his
examination book, or, if he desires it, he will be given extra, sheets
of paper to scribble plans om. We cannot too strongly urge the
candidate not to put pen to paper until he has thought out the
precise course which his answer is to take, and has jotted down
a heading or a sub-heading for each of his principal points. Mean-
while the boy in front of him may have written half a page; but
no matter: it is almost certainly a very incoherent half-page, and
its writer may very probably find that one may unload facts and
facts and still get, E. Let every teacher who sends up a boy to
the English examination in June, 1907, tell that, boy that in the
opinion of the men who will read his examination book nothing
23
is more important than this: to forget that the room is wnfamiliar
amd the occasiom momentous, to be unconcerned at the progress which,
others appear to be making, and to remember that they also write
vho only sit amd thìnk.
That, this advice is much needed will become clearer when we
have shown by examples how faulty paragraphing in examina-
tion books is at present. Many candidates have no clearer
notion of what a paragraph actually is than had the boy who
Wrote:—
120. “The Lady in “Comus* remains pure just as any virtuous woman
would.
“Comus, however, is not like a real person at all. No human being
has the power of changing mortals into the shape of an animal.
“The Spirit and Sabrina are mot like real persons in any respect.
“The witches in * Macbeth ' are not very much like human beings.”
Comment on such work is hardly necessary. It is precisely
the kind of writing that, under the rule that “no candidate will
be accepted in English whose work is seriously faulty in spelling,
grammar, punctuation, or division into paragraphs,'' merits the
grade of E. But paragraphing' need not be so grotesquely bad
as this to cause failure. Book after book is marked E because,
as in the instance which follows, the paragraphs rum three or four
to the page.*
121. “Two brothers traveling through a thick forest, with their sister
are overtaken by night.
“The brothers leave their sister and go seeking for help. While they
are gone the sister hears voices, and not knowing they are the voices of
Comus and his rout, she sets out to fimd them.
“To guide anyone who might hear, towards her, she sings a song.
Comus, a wickid enchanter, hears it and appears before her in the garb
of a shepherd.
“He offers to guide her to his lowly cottage and she follows him,
trustingly.
“He leads her to his enchanted hall and there tries, by threats, en-
treaties and flatteries, to make her drink a draught, which will turn her
"nto a beast. w
* The books in which Harvard emtrance examinations are written contain
fifteen lines to the page. A page, therefore, means about seventy-five words.
24
“The lady resists all his efforts and refutes all his arguments success-
fully.
“Then the brothers guided by an attendant spirit, who helps all good
people in distreSs, rush in and put Comus and his followers to rout.
“The attendant spirit calls up from her river, Sabrina, a nymph whose
pleasure it is to help maidens in distress.
“She instantly releases the Lady from the chair, to which Comus had
chained her with invisible bonds, and then the three go on their way
rejoicing.
“Comus was written to show how virtue, in the end, can overcome
vice.”
At the other extreme from the “sentence paragraph'' is the
unbroken composition of three or four pages.
122. “Many critics have toiled to give us an analysis of Macbeth's
character, but, to tell the truth, their work is practically umnecessary.
Eor the great Shakespeare himself has put into the mouth of Lady Mac-
beth words, which give us the key to his hero's inmost, soul. He is brave
and ambitious; but he is * without the illness,' which should attend his
ambition. In the eyes of Lady Macbeth, whose only thought is a passion-
ate desire for power and glory, this may seem false ambition; but, in
fact, it is the only true and noble one. When the temptation arises in
his mind, he puts it down at first. * Duncan is my liege and guest* he
says to himself, when the thought occurs to him, to kill his king; “I
ought to guard him, not to bear the knife myself.' And when the tempter
appears in the shape of his own wife, even then he nobly resists the force
of evil. 'I dare do all that may become a man, who dares do more is
none,' he exclaims, and at that moment, he stands before us as a truly
great and noble man. Alas! Had he but remained strong! But his next
question already indicates his downfall: *what, if it should be found
out? ' From now on we see the tragie downfall and ruin of an originally
noble soul; but great, though our sympathy is, we cannot justify any of
his acts; it is impossible to consider even his soliloquies in the latter
part of the play anything but empty sophistries.”
It is perfectly true that such a composition contains fewer
than three hundred words and that English literature abounds in
paragraphs of three hundred words or even more. But that
seems to us to be beside the point. Macaulay's paragraphs,
although they often run up to five hundred words, are fractions
of chapters which frequently contain a hundred pages. On the
25
other hand, the writer of an entrance examination book almost
never writes a composition longer than six pages. His composi-
tions, therefore, are really in miniature, and his paragraphs
should be in scale with his whole compositions. Consequently,
when a boy goes on for four pages in a single paragraph, the
examiner is tempted to think that if time permitted, he would
go on indefinitely.
That the writer of the preceding composition did not divide it
into paragraphs was probably because he wrote each sentence
without knowing the direction which the next one was to take.
This is only another way of saying that, not having made an out-
lime plan of his answer, he had no means of seeing that his whole
composition should not have consisted merely of sentences, but
of two or three divisions of his subject, longer than any single
sentence ought to be, which could only be indicated by para-
graphs. Yet occasional indentation will not transform into a
series of real paragraphs such masses of fact as we have been
discussing, because the boy has not thought out his answer in
terms of paragraphs.
In the next example the case is different: —
123. “There are two attributes of Scott's poetry which stand out
above all others. They are action and description. The firs: of these
is characteristic of his 'Marmion ' and * Lady of the Lake ' especially.
From the time one starts the “Lady of the Lake* there is something
happening all the time. The description of the stag hunt in the first
Canto presages great things and the rest of the poem fulfils all promises
in that, direction. To me poetry had always seemed dull and prosaic
until I read Scott. The young mind is full of action and demands some-
thing that, has active, virile life to it. I have read * Lady of the Lake'
more times than any other selection or book simply because it was stir-
ring and showed life. Second only in my estimation, and according to
some readers first, is the element of description. He doesm't weary one
with useless description but nevertheless his attention to detail is sur-
prising when one looks especially for that thing. However, with a great,
diversity of adjectives and his use of synonyms he so skilfully goes into
details that one does mot realize it unless looking for it particularly.
Although too strongly writtem for delicacy, it is refined, and even being
refined, it shows the martial spirit of war and the rough life of the High-
lander.”
26
Here the sub-structure of thought is such as to indicate clearly
the proper places to break the answer into paragraphs. The boy
virtually wrote from the following plan: —
I. The chief attributes of Scott's poetry.
A. Action.
B. Description.
If the sentences beginning “The first of these'' and ** Second
only in my estimation'' had each been made to begin a new
paragraph, the composition would have been in form as well as
in thought an organic series of paragraphs.
Let us now consider an error in paragraphing analogous to
the faulty division into sentences which we noted on page 17.
124. “Of the scenes in The Merchant, of Venice the ones which excite
the most sympathy for Shylock are those where Bassanio asks for the
loan, the scene where he bewails that even his daughter has left him, and
finally the Court scene. In the first of these three Shylock probably
makes his most famous plea, and trys to show Bassanio that he like
other men must eat to live, and has feelings, a heart and soul. His de-
fence of himself in this instance is strong and shows his good character.
“In the second scene Shakspeare makes the reader realize the agony
of Shylock, when even his daughter, Rebecca, runs away and leaves him
alone. The last scene in which Portia, acting as a judge, pronounces
to Shylock that he can have a pound a, flesh, and not an ounce more
nor a drop of blood. Poor Shylock sees right away that, he has lost all.
He can neither obtain his three thousand ducats or his pound of flesh.
This last scene probably excites more sorrow for him than any other,
because here even the learned judge turns against him.”
According to its plan, this answer should consist of four para-
graphs, for although these four paragraphs Would all be short,
the points are coördinate, and some of them have been developed
in more than one sentence.
From the fault illustrated by the last two examples the follow-
ing composition is free, for its writer has not only thought in
paragraphs, but has also indicated them to the eye.
125. “Our sympathy for Shylock is aroused in the scene where he
defends his religion and in the trial scene.
“Driven to passion and fury by persecution, and finding his reviler
within his power, Shylock delivers his famous justification of revenge,
27
beginning: “To bait fish withal* — At this point Shylock rises to his
greatest height. His defense of his religiom is noble and strong — his
justification of revenge we can not help admiring.
“The appeal to our sympathies in the trial scene is of a different;
nature. Misfortune after misfortune weighs him down. His life is in
danger, his property confiscated, his daughter married to a Christiam,
Shylock is compelled to change his faith. In this scene Mr. E. H.
Sothern, whose interpretation of the character throughout the play fills
us with a certain awe for Shylock's power, shows us a weak, broken old
man, who totters and falls as he leaves the room. We pity Shylock
here.”
WHOLE COMPOSITIONS
When we turn from paragraphs to whole compositions, we find
that in answers as short as those in examination books must be
the problem of structure is much the same as in the case of the
paragraph. Here, as there, excellence consists in the logical
coördination which can be made only by careful prevision. But
of course the candidate must answer the question accurately,
squarely, and at sufficient length. Failure to do one or amother
of these things, however, is so common that it will be worth our
while to consider certain types of answers the faults of which as
whole compositions are inseparably connected with the fact that
the information of the Writer was in one way or another defective.
First of all, there are a great many answers which have to be
graded E beeause they are too meagre. Such answers are most
likely to occur toward the end of the examination book and seem
to show either that the examination is too long or that candi-
dates spend too much time in answering the earlier questions.
With all due regard to the necessity of emphasizing quality rather
than quantity, and to the difficulty of knowing precisely how
much to require in a given time from a boy whom one has never
seen, it is certainly not tOO much to expect that in fifteen minutes
a candidate shall Write more than this: —
126. “The characters in Comus are very much unlike those in Shak-
spere's plays. The mask, Comus, is nothing but a beautiful myth, where
as Shakspere has plays which pertain to possible life, and the characters
are nearer life than those in Comus.”
28
It is to be observed that the boy was asked to give reasons for
his answer. Although he has presumably read Comus and three
plays of Shakspere, he Writes a composition which, inasmuch as
he fails to mention a single character or even a single play, has
really no more value than a, simple “yes'' or ** no.” ,
Another answer to the same question is worth reproducing, al-
though its faults are extremely obvious: —
127. “Some of the Characters in Comus are more like real characters
than those in Shakspere's plays. Others are not as real.
“The characters, The Lady and her too brothers are real; because
the mask was written so that these real people should be the same char-
acters both in life and the mask.
“ As for Comus and the Spirit there could not be more unreal char-
acters.”
This answer is slightly better tham the one before it, for the
writer attempts to illustrate his point. He illustrates only one-
half of the topic, however, and that very clumsily.
For the next answer twenty minutes were allowed. The result;
was a composition which, without regard to its other faults, de-
serves E for its substance.
128. “Macbeth the villianous king of Scotland had a number of good
traits, and often showed through his weak nature a rather tender heart.
“In battle Macbeth was indeed a brave man, and won great, distinc-
tion for himself.
“ Although a murderer he showed great, devotion toward his wife and
children.
“The good traits of a person who has comitted such crimes as Macbeth
did, are not likely to have their characters printed in a very pleasing
light, although Macbeth no doubt had numerous good traits that we do
not know about.” •
Inaccuracy is if anything more prevalent and more disastrous
than meagreness. From occasional errors of fact hardly any ex-
amination book is free; but occasional errorS of fact are not fatal.
Yet of course no candidate can afford to indulge more than once
or twice in such astonishing statements as these: —
129. “Gareth was the youngest son of King Lot and Queen Bella-
donna.”
29
130. “Pope as a dramatist in his Cato is not as good as Marvell in
Dr. Faustus.”
131. “Ilike Shakespeare very well, and have read most of his Waverley
INovels.” •'
132. “Addison's first work was a poem in which he compared Welling-
tom to the Gaurdian Angle, because of his ode on the Battle of Blenheim.”
133. “Comus is the story of a mam who was to be made Earl at Ludlow
Castle.”
134. “Addison's college life was very pleasant and his best friend
there was a Mr. King, upon whose death he wrote Lycidas.”
135. “Johnson's Club was a set of literary men, of which Johnson
was the leader. . . . Among those who were members, were Addison,
Steele, Swift, Pope, Spencer, and others.”
Persistent inaccuracy, however, is fatal, especially when, as is
usually the case, it is accompanied by bad Writing.
136. “Addison was in many respects similiar to other great writters,
such as Goldsmith Johnson amd Steel.
“He started poor and worked many years as a book-sellers hag. His
early life was a very wandering one such as that of Oliver Goldsmith
and Johnson. He travelled in Italy amd became an instructor in a
college there. He returned to England and attempted poloties, but was
not a success. He was given the honory position of concilor for Irland.
“His manner was a very quite and modest one, which commanded
the respect and love of all, even his opponents.”
137. “ Addison passed his early life in the place in which he was born.
It was situated a little way from Harvard College on what was then
called Tory's Row. He was educated by a private tutor, and, at the
age of sixteen entered Harvard College. He had no rooms at the Col-
lege, but lived at his own home. The beauty of the country around his
place afforded him many topics for his books.”
The examples above are comically obvious. Less entertaining,
but more useful, are the following instances of failure to meet the
question squarely. In the first, the boy professes to answer
this question: “ Are the characters in Comus as much like real
persons as the characters in Shakspere's plays? Give reasons for
your answer.” He writes as follows: —
138. “I do not think that the characters in “Comus' are much like
those in Shakspeare's plays. They do not seem to have the spirit, or do
30
they have the power of interesting the reader as any of Shakspeare's do.
Although the characters in “Comus' have not the opportunity to bring
out their spirit or power, in the opportunity that, is given them, they do
not interest the reader as Shakspeare's do.”
Such a topic as “Scott's Poetry'' is sufficiently liberal, but it
hardly includes the subject matter of this answer:—
139. “When one speaks of Scott's poetry one immediately thinks of
“The Lady of the Lake.' It is true that this is his greatest poem. When
we read his historical novels, such as Ivanhoe, we would not say if asked
that we were reading poetry. Yet such is the case. Scotts descriptions
in this, and other of his stories, are as near to being poetry as anything
can be. Thus we see that practically everything that Scott wrote was
poetry, and as such has been surpassed by very few writters up to the
present day.” -
Such discursiveness the examiner tries to check by framing a
question like this, “Relate the early life of Addison up to the
time when he began to write for the Spectator.” The following
answer is only one of many in which the candidate refused to
confine himself to the prescribed subject: —
140. “In Addeson's early life he was a great, scholar, and wrote Latin
poetry. He was a very smart mam, but was easily embarressed. He
was a whig. Being a, very able man, the Whig party when they came
in Power sent Addeson to france to study french. He stayed abrode
about three years, visiting Italy, Germany, Endland. While traverling
in Italy, it is supposed that, he conceived the Idea to put the play of
Cato upom the stage. At this period the plays were very Smutty, and
Addeson greatly improved them.
* Addeson when talking with his friends could speak eloquently but
when he once tried to make a speech in Parliment, he was unable to say
one word.
“Pope and Addeson were great friends, but they had a falling out,
om account, of Popes jealously. They never became intimate friends
again while they lived.”
Occasionally, as in the next extract, a boy evades the point;
by writing not a general answer, but a very specific answer
which, however, has little or nothing to do with the precise ques-
tion.
141. “ Addison was a great scholar for a certain period of Latin litera-
ture. While at college his latin verse was the envy of the whole college.
31
Later, Boileau the french critic who maintained that no modern could
possibly write good Latin verse said that Addison wrote the best imita-
tion latin verse that he had read. But though Addison knew one period
of Latin well he knew neither other periods of Latin literature nor any
Greek literature. This is shown in some of his writings where he de-
scribes places which are familiar to Greek literature or other periods of
Latin literature, yet we find no refrences in the notes or anywhere else
to these.”
In some compositions of this sort the attempt to evade the
question seems deliberate. In others the faulty emphasis is ob-
viously unintentional. Boys who really wish to meet the question
squarely may be helped to do so if they remember that
1. Before they begin to write they must read with the strict-
est attention every question, no matter how simple it seems.
The question on the plot of Comus, for example, tripped up a
great many boys who, failing to observe that Comus when primted
in italics means not the character but the masque itself, answered
the imaginary question, “What evil design had Comus?''
2. They must resist the temptation to over-emphasize any
points which stand out in their memory with undue prominence.
Suppose, for example, a boy is asked to discuss “Antonio and
Bassanio as Gentlemen.” He begins his composition by observ-
ing that the difference between these two characters may best
be shown in their treatment of Shylock. At this point, he un-
fortunately remembers that while at school he wrote a composi-
tion on “The Character of Shylock.” To write down what he
remembers of this is so much easier than to stick to what he was
asked to do that he cannot resist the temptation. The probable
result is that two-thirds of his answer is entirely beside the point.
Evasions like this are marked with particular severity, for they
always raise the presumption that the boy is using material
which represents not his unaided style, but the combined efforts
of himself and his teacher.
Akin to the fault of answering evasively any given question is
the error of throwing the whole examination book out of propor-
tion by Writing on One topic at inordinate length. For example,
one boy Wrote five and a, half pages (one-half of his entire book)
upon a single question. In answering this question he was asked
32
to spend twenty minutes. Apparently he spent a great deal
more, for to each of the other questions upon which twenty-
minute compositions were required he devoted one page. The
result was an injury to the two questions which were slighted
that far outweighed the advantage of answering one question
very fully. The upshot of all this is that candidates must read
carefully the directions at the top of the paper and must divide
their time equally, Or in such proportion as the examiner sug-
gests, among the questions. •
It is a pleasure to turn from answers in which, as Stevenson
says of Treasure Island, “the general coloring was uniform and
sad,'' to a few compositions which for their maturity of thought,
their fulness of information, their organic structure, and their
almost complete freedom from elementary blunders, clearly merit;
distinction.
142. “If, in Writing his admirable drama, “The Merchant, of Vemice,'
Shakepeare originally intended to paint Shylock, the Jew, as a mere villain
and object of scorn, the great dramatist must assuredly have changed
his purpose, in order to produce a character exciting such a variety of
emotions as Shylock invariably calls forth. For while, in portions of the
play, our feelings as regards this character are those of abhorrence, yet
there are nevertheless passages which bring forth strong and undisguised
commiseration, and even admiration.
“Of those passages which excite our sympathy for Shylock, there are
quite a goodly number. One of these is that part in which the Jew
makes that famous speech in which he asks, ' Hath not a Jew eyes?
Hath not a Jew ears?' Shylock renders here a well-deserved rebuke to
the haughty Antonio and his friends, who did not seem to realize that
Jews, like other people, have feelings and understandings.
“The scene wherein Shylock bewails the elopement, of Jessica is,
moreover, another portion exciting pity for the Jew; for even while we
laugh at the incongruous mixture of avarice and parental devotion here
displayed, we cannot but feel for him whose daughter and money have
both been taken from him. Whem, furthermore, Shylock hears of his
daughter's travels, and that she has sold the ring which was given him
by his departed wife, his grief cannot fail to awaken our sympathy.
“But most of all, we are compelled to sympathize with-Shylock at the
court scene. Then it is that we behold him not merely baffled and
defeated by a, trick of the law, but in addition completely ruined and
disgraced; and as he staggers forth, broken down, dishonored, insulted,
and undone, we are compelled to consider him an object of pity.
33
“In various scenes, then, we observe that we are forced to sympathize
with Shylock: when he is insulted, Wronged, robbed amd finally — amd
most, of all — when he is ruined by those professing to be Christians.”
143. “Little is known of Addison's boyhood, except that he seems to
have been full of mischief, which does not, seem consistent, with his later
life. He was sent, to Charter House, where he met Steele. He early
developed a fondness and am aptitude for Latin poetry, and spent much
of his leisure hours in reading Latin verse. He entered Queen's College,
Oxford, where he surprised all by his remarkable knowledge of Latin.
Because of this he was moved to Magdalene College, of which Dr.
Lancaster was master. He became a Demy and later a Fellow. He wrote
several Latin poems, which were pronounced almost as good as Vergil.
“His first attempts in English verse were of no particular value, but
they were received enthusiastically by the public. The reason of this
enthusiasm may be attributed to the fact that the heroic couplets were
not, so well known at that time. Among some of these verses, there was
a poem, written in praise of one of Congreve's works. There followed
an exchange of civilities, and through Congreve, Addison was introduced
to some of the great men of the time.
“ Among these was Lord Somers, at that time Chancellor. He proved
to be one of Addison's most, helpful friends. .
“It had always been supposed that Addison would take Orders, as his
college had many advantages to offer in that line, and as his father,
Lancelot Addison, was a prominent churchman. But, when the time
came for Addison to make his choice, he was influenced by Somers to
choose in favor of the diplomatic service. It was feared that the Col-
lege authorities would object, but the Minister wrote to Hough and
arranged matters.
“Addison was provided with a pension and went abroad to study
French. In Paris he met, Malbranche and Boileau, and several other
prominent men. Owing to the Duke of Anjou's inheriting the Kingdom
of Spain, he left for Italy where he visited the principle cities. He went,
to Geneva, and, owing to the loss of his pension, he became the tutor
to a young Englishman. He shortly returned to England, and for Some
time was in pecuniary need.
“After Blenheim, Godolphin, them Minister, following the advice of
Halifax, asked Addison to write a poem for this victory. The Campaign
was the result of this. Shortly after this poem's appearance, Addison
published his *Travels in Italy' and his opera, “Rosamund.'
“Owing to a partial change in the Ministry, Addison was appointed
Under-Secretary to Ireland, and he left England for Dublim. It was
from this city that, he send his first contribution to the *Tatler,' which
was afterwards revived in the immortal *Spectator.””
34
144. “Johnson was a man of great, ability, and of renowned taste for
talking. It is probable, them, that, it was Johnson's love for talking
which brought it into his mind to organize a club, destined to contain
the greatest authors, statesmen, and artists of the day. In this club we
find such men as Goldsmith, Burke, Sir Joshua, Reynolds, and other
lesser lights. The club met omce a week, or as often as there were three
members present, for that, constituted a meeting. Although Boswell
does not say so directly, we infer from a few things dropped by Gold-
Smith that every evening Johnson took a mortgage on the conversation,
and the other members were compelled to subside into their seats and
listen for hours to his never ending rotation of fifteen-letter words. Not-
withstanding this, we are sure that Johnson's Club did a great deal for
its members and for the world, in that each member was enlightened by
the others, and the world by the writings, speeches, and pictures of all.”
145. “ Whether or not we shall call Antonio and Bassanio gentlemen
depends much om the two conceptions of the word — that, is — the six-
teenth and twentieth century conceptions. In Shakespeare's day the
requisites of gentlemanliness were somewhat different than our own.
It was held that a day laborer could not possibly be a gentleman — his
rough life, low birth, lack of education, want, of so-called courtesy were
things that could not be passed over. On the other hand unless a man
were a sot, an utterly depraved rake, or an out-and-out criminal, suavity,
wealth, and a feeling and show of contempt and disgust for the masses
were the outward and visible signs of gentility. At that time too, morals
were at a, lower ebb. As in the case of D'Artagnam in the “Three Mus-
keteers' a mistress was a most legitimate and even honorable means of
support, and to recoup a lost fortune by marriage not only a common
but also the only sensible way. But to-day we feel different, about those
things. We know well clothes do not make the man, and that courtesy
— the true kind — is as often found in cottages as palaces. * He married
for money ' is not only a jest but a sneer and term of scorn.
“Antonio was a product of his time. His attitude towards Shylock,
even in seeking a, favor, was rude and discourteous in the extreme. Fur-
ther more, his attitude towards Bassanio's marriage was much like that
of the French syndicate that fianceers an international marrige. Bas-
sanio also makes no bones of saying that tho he loves Portia truly he
expects to restore his wasted patrimony by the * conquest.'
“I suppose, however, those things are non-essentials in this case at
least. Antonio is more than generous to Bassanio. Bassanio repays
with love, and is acceptable to Portia, a thing which most of us would
take as proof enough that he was a gentleman. It is certain that Shake-
speare considered them so. He was guided by his time of life. Judged
by his standards they were gentlemen. Let us so judge them.”
35
II. ENGLISH A
Inasmuch as the candidate who passes English A (the advanced
entrance examination) is exempt from the prescribed English
Composition of the Freshman year (also called English A), he
must, have done the equivalent of English A as it is given at Har-
vard College. It is clear from the phrasing of the Catalogue that
to read the prescribed books is not the chief part of the require-
ments. That the list is not intended to seem fixed appears from
the fact that certain selections from Tennyson and from Browning
are suggested rather than required; and that it is not Self-Suffi-
cient is obvious from the foot-note on page 336 of the Catalogue
for 1906-07: “In connection with the prescribed books, parallel
or subsidiary reading should be encouraged.'' Indeed, a boy who
reads these books ought to find them a Source of pleasure, and it
is believed that, he will if he follows the advice of the Catalogue
(page 336) that he “should read them as he reads other books, —
not, trying to remember them in detail, but regarding each work
as a whole and giving it such appreciation as shall enable him
to Write about it intelligently. In every case the examiner will
regard knowledge of the books as less important than ability to
write English.” - }
Inasmuch as ability to write English is the chief requisite, at
least one-half of the four years of preparation in English should
be devoted to Composition. What the earlier stages of this train-
ing in Composition should be is probably apparent from the first
part of this report. But since candidates for the advanced en-
trance examination are really expected to be one year more
mature than those candidates whose faults we have been dis-
cussing in Part I, it is clear that the final stage of preparation for
the advanced examination must closely correspond to the pro-
gramme of English A as it is given at, Harvard College.
In English A at Harvard College the theory of composition is
taught throughout the year, partly by lectures and recitations
based on Hill's Prìncìples of Rhetoric, Wendell's English Composì-
tîon, and other text-books, partly by oral and written exercises.
36
At the beginning of the year, each student, is given the following
syllabus: —
ENGLISH A SYLLABUS
I. WORDS.
A. Requirements of Good Use.
1. Reputable.
2. National.
3. Present.
E. Violations of Good Use.
1. Barbarisms.
2. Solecisms.
3. Improprieties.
C. Choice of Words.
1. Clearness.
2. Force.
3. Ease.
D. Number of Words.
1. Clearness.
2. Force.
3. Ease.
E. Words Misspelled.
E. New Words.
PEFERENCEs:' J. B. Greenough and G. L. Kittredge, Words and their
VVays in English Speech; *A. S. Hill, Principles of Rhetoric, Part i, Books
1 and 2; Arlo Bates, Talks on Wrîtîng English, I, iv, vii (Figures); Scott,
and Denny, Compositiom-Literature, v-vi; *Wendell, English Composition,
Chap. ii; Bates, II, iv (Participles and Gerunds), v (Particles), xi (Fig-
ures); Pearsom, Prìncìples of Composition, xii; Herrick and Damon,
Composìtìom and Rhetoric, pp. 241—281; H. Spencer, Philosophy of Style,
pp. 9—16, 27—34. -
II. SENTENCES.
A. Kinds.
1. Periodic.
2. Loose.
* Only those books marked with an asterisk are prescribed.
37
B. Principles of Composition.
1. Unity.
a. Of Substance.
b. Of Expression.
2. Mass (or Emphasis).
3. Coherence.
a. Order.
b. Grammatical Form.
c. Connectives.
C. Variety of Sentence to suit, Kind and Tone of
the Compositiom.
REFERENCEs: *Wendell, Chap. iii; Hill, Principles, Book 1, Chap. iii;
Bates, II, vi (Parallel Construction); Pearsom, ix-xi; Herrick and Damon,
pp. 283—340; H. Spencer, pp. 16—27; W. F. Webster, English: Composì-
tion and Literature, pp. 200—234.
III. PARAGRAPHs.
A. Principles of Composition.
1. Unity.
2. Mass.
3. Coherence.
REFERENCEs: *Wendell, Chap. iv; Bates, II, vii (The Topic Sen-
tence) ix; Hill, Prìncìples, pp. 230—238; Scott and Denny, Paragraph
Writìng; Scott, and Denny, Compositiom-Rhetoric, pp. 41—133; Pearsom,
Chaps. vi-viii; Herrick and Damon, pp. 347—363; Webster, Chap. vii.
IV. WHOLE COMPOSITIONS.
A. Kinds.
1. Exposition.
a. Pure Exposition.
b. Criticism.
c. Biography.
2. Argument.
a. Brief.
x. Introduction.
y. Brief Proper.
Z. Conclusion.
b. Forensic.
38
3. Description.
a. Kinds.
x. Scientific.
y. Artistic.
b. Principles.
w. Point, of View.
x. Dominant Tone.
y. Selection of Details.
Z. Arrangement of Details.
c. Description in the Service of Nar-
ration.
4. Narration.
a. Plot.
b. Setting (or Background).
c. Characterization.
5. Letter-Writing.
a. Formal.
b. Informal.
B. Principles of Composition.
1. Unity.
2. Mass.
3. Coherence.
GENERAL REFERENCEs: *Wendell, v; Bates, I, iii; *Hill, Prìncìples, pp.
239—246; Pearson, ii-v; Herrick and Damon, 375—387.
ExPosITION: Bates, I, x-xi; Bates, II, xii; Hill, Prìncìples, pp. 300—
326; Lamont, Specimens of Eaeposîtîon, Introduction; Webster, Chap. v.
CRITICISM : Bates, I, xxi.
ARGUMENT: *Baker and Huntington, Prìncìples of Argumentatîon, pp.
14—60, 64—77, 168—194, 205—257; Bates, II, xii, xiii.
DESCRIPTION: Bates, I, xiv, xv; Bates, II, x (Point of View), xiii;
Baldwin, Specimens of Descrîptîon, Introduction; Scott and Denny,
Compositiom-Literature, viii; Webster, iv.
NARRATION: Bliss Perry, A Study of Prose Fiction; Bates, I, xvi-xix;
Bates, II, xiv, xv (Dialogue), xvii (Letter-Writing); Brewster, Specimens
of Narration, Introduction; Webster, ii. -
V. PUNCTU ATION.
REFERENCEs: Bates, II, xvi; Herrick and Damon, pp. 96—109; Hill,
Gemeral Rule3 for Punctuatîom.
39
This syllabus serves both as the outline of the course and as
the table of contents of the student's note-book. In this note-
book he is expected not only to record the gist, of what his in-
structor tells him about such matters as Unity, Solecisms, or Ex-
position, but also to illustrate them by entering and correcting,
each under its proper heading, such errors in his compositions as
his instructor may indicate.
It is to be observed that this syllabus covers three subjects:
Rhetoric (I), Composition (II, III, IV B), and the Forms of Prose
Literature (IV A).
THEMES
Practice in the application of these principles of Rhetoric and
Composition to the various kinds of writing is obtained in one-
page da.ly themes, some of which are written in the class-room
on topies announced after the class has assembled, and in longer
themes prepared at intervals of about a fortnight. The long
themes are as follows: —
I. Who I am and why I came to Harvard (500—1000 words).
II. How to make or do something (500—1000 words).
III. A subject selected with the approval of the instructor
(500—1000 words). -
IV. An exposition of something learned in a College course
(500—1000 words).
V. An expression of opinion (500—1000 words).
VI. A biographical portrait (1500—2000 words).
VII. A brief of an argument (4 to 5 pages).
VIII. An argument (1000—1500 words).
IX. A description (500—1000 words).
X. A narrative (500—1000 words).
XI. A narrative (1000—2000 words).
Each of these themes is preceded by a plan in outline, is criticised
in detail by the instructor in a personal conference with the stu-
dent, and is then either revised or rewritten.
40
PRESCRIBEID READING
In addition to the study of Rhetoric and Composition, and to
the writing and rewriting of themes, certain reading is required.
This year the reading is as follows: —
EIRST HALF-YEAR
General. Shakspere, As You Like It; Othello; Henry IV, Part I;
Henry V.
Specimens of Prose Composîtîom, Part I.
Oct. Macaulay, History of England, Chapter iii.
Nov. L. B. R. Briggs, School, College, and Character.
Dec. J. R. Greem, A Short History of the English People, Part
III, Chapter vii, Section 3, “ Queen Elizabeth'*;
Macaulay, “Sir William Temple,” in Critical and His-
torical Essays.
Jan. Stevenson, Vìrgìnìbus Puerisque.
SECOND HALF-YEAR
General. The English Bible: Genesis, 1—8, 22, 37, 39—50; Deu-
teronomy, 1—11; 1 Samuel, 16—20; 2 Samuel, 18;
1 Kings, 17—22; Job; Psalms, 1—34, 37, 42, 46, 68, 84,
90, 91, 95, 96, 107, 115, 120—122, 127, 137, 139, 145—
150; Proverbs; Ecclesiastes; Isaiah, 1, 2, 6—11, 40, 41,
60; Ezekiel, 37; Revelatiom, 1—5, 21, 22.
Specimens of Prose Composîtîor, Part II.
Feb. Lincoln, Letters and Speeches (“Little Masterpieces'?
series).
Mar. Stevenson, “A Night, among the Pines,” from Travels
with a Domkey; Kipling, The Sprîng Running; Ruskin,
Selections (“Little Masterpieces'' series), pp. 1—100.
April. Kipling, William the Conqueror, The Man, Who would be
King, Without Benefit of Clergy; Poe, The Cask of
Amomtillado, The Gold- Bug; Stevenson, The Merry
Mem, A Lodging for the Night.
41
May. Two of the following novels: Thackeray, Henry Esmond;
George Eliot, Middlemarch; Jane Austen, Pride and
Prejudice; Kipling, Kìm; Stevenson, Treosure Islamd;
Dickens, David Copperfield; Trollope, The Prìme Mìn-
úster, Barchester Towers; Hardy, The Return of the
Native; Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feveril; Scott,
Kenilworth; Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn; Haw-
thorne, The Scarlet Letter.
These books are selected to illustrate the kind of writing which
the student, is practising at the time. The most explicit illustra-
tion of these kinds of writing is in the Specimens of Prose Compo-
sîtîom. The other prescribed books are merely read; the Specí-
mens of Prose Composition is very carefully studied. Selections
from it, each short enough to give at one reading a total im-
pression of its structure, are read in class and are so thoroughly
analyzed that each student is expected to become intimately
familiar with their craftsmanship.
In conclusion, it may be pointed out that the suggestions
made in this report should, if followed, tend to improve the
quality of the examination books in Other subjects as well as
in English.
U N I V E R S I T Y O R M O N T A N A
IBIUILI,IETIN No. 29.
A PL E A F O R T H E STUDY OF
HISTORICAL ENGLISH
BY
J. S. SNODIDY.
Department of English and Rhetoric,
University of Montana.
MISSOUILA, MONTANA

A PLEA FOR THE STUDY OF HISTORICAL
ENGLISH.
- - - - - -
In colleges or universities where full courses in English
are givem the subject naturally falls into three groups: Eng-
lish literature; English language; amd English composition
and rhetoric. The first, literature, is studied mainly on the .
art side, or aesthetic side; the appeal is made maimly to the
emotions; the primary object is pleasure. The second, lam-
guage, is studied om the fact side; the appeal is made maimly
to the intellect; the primary object is the seeking of informa-
tion. The third, composition and rhetoric, is, in many re-
spects, closely related to the other two; but so far as our
school work is concerned its primary object is the practice im
the writing of English.
In the teaching of English in our elementary schools, high
schools, amd normal schools, there are mamy fallacies in
vogue; but most of them are in the attempts to teach the
language. In this phase of the work the fallacies are due
mainly to two mistaken theories: one is the theory, held by
certain teachers and text-book makers, that English gram-
mar is based on Latin grammar; the other, is the theory held
by others that Englfsh grammar is based om logic.
That English grammaris based om Latim grammar is am old
theory which has beem held for several centuries. The rea-
sOm is mot far to seek. In the fifteenth and sixteemth cem-
turies, the boys, who attended the “grammar schools'? of Eng-
land, did not study English grammar; they studied Latin
grammar. English, at that time, was regarded as a, vulgar
tongue. Early in the sixteenth century Dr. John Colet wrote
an introduction to William Lily's Latin Grammar. This
Introductiom, is known as Paul's Accidemce, from the fact that
Dr. Colet was, at that time, deam of St. Paul's. The entire
book sometimes called King Henry's Grammar because it re-
ceived the king's sanction, was regarded as the standard of
grammatical reference in England unti] mear the close of the
eighteenth century. Dr. Colet did not intend his Introduc-
tìon as an English grammar; it was merely a translation of
Latin accidence, and was designed as am aid for pupils in
their study of Latin. But many of the texts that emanated
from it were intended as aids in the study of English ; notably
the text by Murray, published in 1795, and the one by Kirk-
ham, in 1823. Naturally these texts were absurdly artificial,
in that they were attempts to carry over into a praetically
uninflected language the grammatica! rules and definitions
of a highly inflected language. ` . -
Since the publication of these so-called English grammars,
a, number of book-makers have copied from them ; and a
majority of these book-makers make no pretentions what-
ever to amy knowledge of English in its historical develop-
memt. Men writing English grammars who do not know
English ! Think of it ! Their books, possibly, might be called
grammars; but they cam mot, in the true sense of the word,
be called English grammars. Yet we find some of these books
still On the market, and teachers are buying them and are
actually using them as texts in their class work. P. T.
Barnum was right when he said, “Americans will pay cash
to be humbugged.” –
Fortunately most of the recent makers of text books
have abandomed the theory that our grammar is based On
Latin grammar. Mamy teachers, however, still cling to the
old theory. They are deceived probably on account of two
reasons: one probable reason is the fact that our vocabulary
is based on Latin. About three-fourths of the Words found
in our larger modern English dictionaries come to us either
directly or indirectly from the Latin ; and the remaining one-
fourth from the Anglo-Saxon (Old English). The Other
probable reason is the fact that the terminology used in our
modern texts on English grammar is made up almost exclu-
■ sively of words derived from Latin. '
But the conditions of these two facts do mot make our
—5—
grammar Latin. It was English at the time of Alfred and
Aelfric (for they called themselves “Englisc'°) ; it was Eng-
lish at the time of Chaucer; it was English at the time of
Shakespeare; and it is English to-day. A casual glance at
a primted page of our modern English Ought to be sufficient
evidence to convince these teachers and text-book makers who
are still trying to make our inflections, idioms, and sentence-
structure to conform to the rules of Latin grammar, that
their theory is Wrong.
Although our inflectional endings have nearly all worm
away,* the few that do remain are Teutonie, not Romanic;
they belong to the English, not to the Latin. Take, for ex-
ample, the verb, transfer, a word derived from Ilatim, and
write it in its different inflectional forms in English sem-
tences, to express our thoughts in different number, person,
voice, tense, amd mood. In expressing different shades of
thought under these conditions, the same form is oftem re-
peated; but when changes of form are made, they are made
by means of the following endings:—
—s, —ed, —t, —em, —ing, —eth, —est;
and in verb-phrases, the auxiliaries that are used, are the
different, forms of be and have, together with shall, should,
will, would, cam, conuld, may, might, do, did, (mote), must,—
all English, not Latim.**
Another example; the word, telegraph, a word from the
Greek. In using it in our English sentences, as a verb, we
infiect it as we do the verb, transfer; in using it as a moum,
we add —s, to form the plural, telegrams, and —er, to form
the word for expressing ageney, telegrapher. In faet there
is a, tendency to inflect, all words that come to us from the
Latin, or from any other source, in accordance with the pecu-
liarities of our own grammar. Evem words that bring with
them, from the foreign languages, their inflected forms, are
often made to conform to our grammar. For the plural of
the noum, indeae, we sometimes use the I.atim form, indices,
* All of Our inflections now in use, with the exception of a few promouns,
can be printed in long primer type, in a, space about one inch square.
** In addition to these, there are a few instanees of verb-phrases formed
by combining get or become with other verbs—a, sort of middle voice. Ex. I
shall get used to the cold.
—6—
sometimes the English form, indeæes. (The latter is more
natural and would be used more regularly were inde® not a
bookish word). For the plural of cherub, we sometimes use
the Hebrew form, cherub-im, sometimes our own form,
cherub-8. The translators of the authorized version of the
Eible used a double plural form, ck erub-im-s.
Eut this doubling process in very frequent in the historical
development of our language. Take, for example, the word,
Somgstress. The Latin scholar who insists that English
grammar is based on Latin grammar, will point out, with
pride, the fact that the feminime ending, —ess, is due to the
Normam French, a direct descendant, of the Latin ; but the
student of historical English cam point out the fact that the
old English feminime emding, —ster, is still there.* Text-
book makers and other theorists may say that this doubling
process is not logical. Very true; but it must be remem-
bered that the English language, in its historical develop-
ment, has not always been logical. In fact, ours is a very
illogical language; and consequently has a, very illogical
grammar.
This brings me to my second point,—the theory held by
certain teachers and text-book makers that English grammar
is based on logic. But before leaving the subject of Latin,
I wish to say that I would not be understood as trying, in amy
way, to depreeate the study of Latin. No subject ean be
more helpful in the study of our vocabulary ; for the words in
our larger dictiomaries, as I have already pointed out, are
about seventy-five per cent Latin. Moreover, it must be
admitted that the study of Latin grammar does help the
student in his study of English grammar; but only as it
would help him in the study of the grammar of any other
language. The study of the grammar of any language is
helpful in the study of the grammars of all other languages;
for there is a, similarity in all languages that makes some
* Our ancestors back in Alfred's tinme used—er, as the regular masculine
ending, and—ster as the regular feminine ending; examples: vveaver, a man Who
did the weaving, and webster, a. woman who did that sort of Work. IBut in
modern English we have lost this distinction; examples: spInner nOW means
anyone who spins, either male or female; and tapster, anyone Who draWs ale,
either male Of female.
—7—
of the underlying principles of them all, so neariy the same,
that the study of the grammar of any one language may be
regarded as a sort of stepping-stone in the study of all other
grammars.
The fallacies arising from the theory that English gram-
mar is based on Latin, misleading as they are, are not as mis-
leading as the fallacies that have grown out of the more re-
cent theories, advocated by pedagogues, who maimtain that
English grammar is based on logic; and that the teaching of
the subject should be based upom what they call “the logic
of the English sentence,” or “the science of the English sem-
tence.” Now, it must be admitted, that, in accordance with
certain pedagogical principles, it may be the better plam, in
most instances, in the teaching of the subject to young pupils,
to begim with the simple sentence. This is the inductive
plam; and evidently is the more matural plan. But neither
the text-book maker nor the teacher should lose sight of the
fact that the changes in the forms of our words, and the pecu-
liarities of our idioms and of the structure of our sentences,
are results of the growth of our language—results of its de-
velopment as made manifest in the history of our civilization.
Our grammar is an evolutiom, not a revolution.
Eut some of the latter-day theorists seem to think that our
grammar is a, revolutiom,—that there has beem a recent revo-
lution in which the science of our grammar has passed over to
the science of logic. Note the following:—
“It is worth something to the pupil to be able to say that this is a
noum, that is a verb, etc., Worth something to be able to parse correctly
a complicated sentemce, but it is Worth more for him to understand that
grammar is the science of the sentence; that the sentemce is the expres-
siom of a, thought in Words; that a, thought consists of three elements; that
' about which something is thought, that which is thought about it, and the
kind Of relation which the mimd conceives to exist betweem the two; amd
that the sentence consists of three parts corresponding to the three ele-
ments of a thought.''*
EIere is amother example:
“A thought or judgmemt has three necessary elements,—a thought
* Extract from a. paper which was read before one of the sections of the
North Dakota, Educational Association, Dec. 30, 1902, by Joseph Carhart, Presi-
dent of the State Normal School, Mayville, North Dakota. Printed in the West-
land Educator, the state school journal of North Dakota, Feb., 1903.
—8—
subject, or that which the thought is about, a thought predicate, or that
which is thought concerning the thought subject, and a thought relation,
Or the connection between thought subject and thought predicate,*
This theory with regard to the “science of the sentence,”
coincides very closely with the theory advocated by Mr. J. B.
Wisely, author of a text-book entitled A New English, Gram-
mar.** Mr. Wisely maintains that,
“English grammar is a language study which has for its subject mat-
ter the sentence.” (P. 9), and that it is necessary that the sentemce have
“the triple form of thought: (1) a subject, expressing the thought sub-
ject of the judgment; ((2) a predicate, expressing the thought predicate.
Of the judgment; (3) a copula, expressing the thought relation of the
judgment.**. (P. 17).
This “logical* method of studying grammar, as contrasted
with other methods of studying the subject, is what Mr. Wise-
ly, on page thirty of his book, calls “an intelligent, healthful,
life-giving mental gymnastic.”
If it be true, as is maintained by these three mem, that every
sentence must have three parts, those of us, who have beem
taught from our childhood that “Jesus wept” is the shortest
sentence in the Bible, have been wrongly taught; it is not a
sentemce at all. The translators Of the Bible should have
expressed the thought “logically” by writing it in the **triple
form”—Jesus was weeping.
On the title page of Mr. Wisely's book, I notice that he is,
or has at one time been, a, teacher of English in a state normal
school in Indiama. When we take into consideratiom the
fact that these three normal school men are sending out over
the country, printed matter like this, and calling it English
grammar, we need not be surprised that we so oftem hear our
normal schools called “abnormal” sehools. *•
I would not be understood as saying anything against mor-
mal schools in general. Far from it. Many of the normal
schools are doing excellent work. There are, in my estima-
tiom, no professional graduates that have before them more
worthy tasks, or more responsible duties, tham have the grad-
uates of our normal schools. It is for this reason that I
„I;EFE;££';;,;;E;
terly Bulletin of that school, IDec., 1903.
** Published by The Infand Publish ing Co., Terre Haute, Indiana, 1898.
—9—
wish to give warning against the pernicious influence of the
theories advocated by these mem. •
But the theory with regard to the “science of the sentemce”
is not the worst feature of this printed matter, which is being
distributed among our young teachers. Mr. Wisely in the
preface of his book makes this statement:—
“All phases of historical grammar have been purposely omitted, be-
cause that view is not necessary in the organization of the subject; and
it is thought that the child, at this age, has mot a sufficient basis for such
a discussiom of the facts of grammar.”
EIere om the first page of his book, Mr. Wisely makes known
his purpose—his purpose to Write a, book, based, not on the
historical facts of our language, but on what he maintains is
a “scientific” or “logical'' basis. I suppose if he were writ-
ing a history of the United States, he would, in accordanee
with this theory, “purposely omit” all facts which in his esti-
mation are not “logical,” and write, in their stead, other
facts—“new” facts which might be more easily comprehended
by young pupils. The battle of Gettysburg, for example, he
might maintaim was mot logical because the Confederate
soldiers were umreasonable in venturing so far away from
their base of supplies, and marching so far into the territory
of the Union army. This application of the theory would evi-
dently be wrong. It is the duty of the historiam, in writing
a book, to record the facts of history just as he fimds them.
No matter whether they agree with his ideals or not, he cam
not change them. The battle of Gettysburg was fought, and
mone of his theories as to whether it was logical or illogical
will change the fact. {<•
In like manner, it is the duty of Mr. Wisely or of any other
book-maker in writing a text on English grammar to record
the facts Of our language just as he finds them. EIe has mo
right to make a “new” grammar ; in fact, he has no right to
make a grammar at all. The people who speak and write
our language are the makers of our grammar; and, as the
grammar of a, literary language, it has been a-making ever
simce the rise of the eastern divisiom of the midland dialect
in England. Of Course it has been changed from time to
—IO—•
time, and will continue to be changed; but it will be changed
by the people, and not by the grammarians. The grammar
Of our language is the law of our language; the people are
the legislators who make this law, and our best Writers are
Our higher courts of appeal. The grammariam may interpret
Or expound this law just as the lawyer interprets or expounds
the law of the state; but meither of them cam make new laws.
Moreover, Mr. Wisely in attempting to make a “new”
grammar has no right to define English grammar as simply
“the science of the sentence.” A writer in making a, text
book on botamy might just as appropriately define botamy as
the science of the flower, or the science of the fruit. Our
modern English sentence represents a, stage in the develop-
ment of our language, just as theflower or the fruit represents
a stage in the growth of the plant. The science of our gram-
mar includes more tham the modern English sentence, just
as the science of botamy includes more tham the flower or the
fruit.
Mr. Grosvenor, in his article in the State Normal School
Bulletim, to which reference has already beem made, comes out
more boldly in his opposition to historical English tham does
the author of the “new” grammar. On page elevem he says:—
“I contemd that the historical treatment Of the subject is out of place
in the commom schools, and that texts that are based om the historical
{levelopment of the language are not likely to be very helpful. . . . . . . . . . . .
The thing that the child studies grammar for is that through the knowl-
edge of the sentence he may become a master of it as it is used today in
expressimg thought. It is the *isness' of the sentence that is the import-
ant ithing and not the *wasness' nor the *becomimgness'. I hold this
]Knowledge cam be given by holding to the idea, that I have set forth. The
child is not going to talk or write Anglo-Saxon mor middle English, and
it is not necessary for him to know a thing about them in Order to be a
master of the English sentence of today. For this reasom I believe in
steerimg clear of the historical phase of the subject.”
In putting so much stress on what he calls the “isness” of
the sentence, the writer of this article takes a view that is
somewhat narrow. His view is about as narrow as that of a
young sentimental girl who, at the beginning of her story of,
botany, in gushing Over the fragrance and beauty of a rose,
fancies that she is studying the science of botany. Enjoying
— II—•
the flower is not studying the science of botany ; enjoying the
modern English sentence, is not studying the science of Eng-
lish grammar. We cam not teach the science of English
grammar, and at the same time steer clear of the historical
phase of the subject.
Again, the Writer of this article is wrong whem he says that
the “child is not going to talk or write Anglo-Saxon nor
middle English.” Many of our sentences that are in com-
mon use to-day have the same sentence-structure that they
had in the old Anglo-Saxon times. Illustrations givem be-
low, will verify this statement. •
But the theory with regard to the “science of the Englis
sentemce” is mot confined to mem commected with mormal
schools. It has become a fad so fashionable that some of our
prominent city superintendents and umiversity professors are
trying it as a short cut-off in the teaching of our language.
Former Superintendent of Schools George P. Brown of In-
άianapolis, and Professor Charles DeGarmo of the depart-
ment of education, Cornell University, in the prefaee to their
book, entitled Elements of English, Grammar,* define English
grammar as the “science of the English sentence.” They do
not, however, adhere so closely to the “triple form” theory as
do the other latter-day theorists to whom I have referred.
They admit that **two of these elements may be combined in
an attribute verb.” So, them, Jesus vept, they practically
admit, is an English sentence; yet if the pupils in the seventh
or eighth grades (the grades for which this book is intended),
who happen to be using this book, should be called upon to
analyze the sentence, Jesus vept, they would be required to
go through with a series of “mental gymnastic” perform-
ances, in order to be able to recognize the “double use” of the
verb in this sentence. Think of the absurdity of a, double
use of the verb in the sentence Jesus vept!* It must be ad-
* Published by the VVerner School Book Company, 1900. See the circular
used by the publishers in advertising this book. The circular contains the
na.mes of prominent superintendents of schools and professors of pedagogy,
who recommend the book; but not one name of a, specia1 teacher of English. A.
Book treatimg of a, special subject, dependimg upon teachers outside of its special
department for recommendations!
. É9;? discussion of this double use theory, see Brown & DeGarmo's Gram-
mar, p. b4.
— I2——-
«-*
mitted, however, that there are certaim verbs (non-finite)
Which do have double uses. The participle, for example, in
most English sentences in which it occurs, has a double use,
—it does the work of the verb and the adjective; and the
gerund has a double use,—it does the work of the verb and
the noum. These are double grammatical uses, which, of
course, should be taught to young pupils. But what Brown
and De Garmo meam is a double logical use—a, use which
does not necessarily have anything to do with grammar;
especially with English grammar. .
This mental gymnastic exercise in logic for young pupils,
if conducted by a, skilful teacher, who is versed in logic,
might, possibly, afford excellent training; but this training
whatever it may be called, certainly should not be called
training in English grammar. Brown and DeGarmo in
ignoring the historical phase of the subject cam not claim
that their book is historically correct; consequently it cam
not be scientifically correct.
To show that these theorists are wrong, take a few of our
everyday expressions (words, phrases, or sentences) and try
applying their so-called logic in the explanation of the forms
and usages of these expressions. Take, for example, the
verbs reach and teach. Why do we, in forming the past tense,
say reached and not raught? or why taught and not teached?
Brown and DeGarmo om the first page of their book say that
grammar teaches why certaim forms, and not others, must be
used; yet they can not show by any logical reason why these
verbs, which in the present tense, are similar in form amd pro-
nunciatiom, and in the past tense have forms and promuncia-
tions that are not similar. But the teacher who has studied
English in its historical development eam point out the fact
that Chaucer did use raught, and that Shakespeare sometimes
used the same form ; but soom after Shakespeare's time, it
went out of fashion. Logic had nothing more to do with the
change tham it has to do. with the change of fashion of our
dress, or of any other fashiom.
The principal parts of the verb, go, have different stem-
forms. Does logic explain why? Certainly not. But the
—I3—
facts with regard to this change are found in historical Eng-
lish grammar. In Chaucer's time, there were two verbs
which had practically the same, meaning: -
IPresent ' Past, IPerf. Part.
g0^, gO goom,
Qvemde - QUemte φύθη t,
Generally, in the growth of our language, when two words
happen, at the same time, to have the same meaming, one
crowds the other out, or the meaning of one becomes changed,
—a, sort Of survival Of the fittest. But in the case of these
two words a compromise was made, and we now have in our
modern English sentences, omly the forms:
90, vent, g0ne,
with an occasional use of wend in poetry.
Young pupils who know nothing about the science of logic
cam understand and appreciate these simple historical facts.
In fact, they oftem ask for am explanatiom of such peculiar
forms. Teachers who confine themselves to logic would
have a difficulty in explaining these forms. If one of these
theorists were teaching a, class of young pupils grammar, and
if one of the púpils should ask why he is required to say yow
vere instead of you was, I wonder what logical explanation
would be given? The pupil might insist that you is a singular
subject, and should be followed by a, singular verb. From
the point of view of the “isness” of the language, the pupil
would be right. His question could mot be answered by
logic. But a few facts with regard to the historical develop-
ment of this form, would make the matter clear: the para-
digm of the older form (early modern English) of our per-
sonal promoum, in the secomd persom, might be Written on the
blackboard, thus:
—I4—
NOm. thou. (vast), were.
Sing. Poss. thy, thime ! <------......
Obj. thee. \ ` `
- Nom. ye. <~._ ] _.A vere.
IPlUI y , ---------
Obj. yow, .......-~
After Writing this on the blackboard, an explanation might
be made with regard to a certain law, in the development of
Our language, which we may call the lanc of displacement.*
Tell the young pupils that oftentimes in the growth of our
language, one case displaces another, as is made manifest at
the present time, in the tendeney of the objective form, me,
tO displace the nominate form, I, in the sentence, It is me
(I). Throughout our middle English ye and you had dis-
tinctive uses; ye being nominative plural, and you being ob-
jective (dative and accusative) plural. In early modern
English a change begam to take place, and finally you dis-
placed ye and became nominative. Later, when the forms
in the singular became practically absolete, the plural forms
displaced them and became singular in use. The plural
forms, however, still retained their plural use. So, the
plural objective you, often having displaced the plural nomi-
native ye, became the subject of vere, and when later it dis-
placed thou, there was, of course, no further use for the old
predicating verb, wast. Were naturally became the predicat-
ing verb for the new nominative you, when used in the singu-
lar.
EIere is a sentence in common use: To-morrow is Friday.
Teachers who have not studied English in its historical de-
velopment—teachers who cam talk by the hour about the
“logic of grammar”, “psychology of grammar”, “science
of the sentence,” etc., oftem change the form of this sen-
tence. It happens to have the triple form all right; but the
copula, i8, they say, is not logical ; the sentence should be
changed so as to read, To-morrow will be Friday. They say
that the sentemce is intended to express future time, and
• See Emerson's History of the English Language, Sections 381, 396. (The
MacMillan Co.)
•—I 5—
should have the future form. EIow absurd! Our best Writers
do not follow this rule; magazine, and newspaper Writers do
not follow it ; business men do not follow it. In fact, the
Words, Shall and will, in this special use, are not found very
frequently in any of our vocabularies. I wonder how mamy
of these teachers, in conformity with their rule, say, I shall
go to the country to-morrow. Probably im mine cases out of
tem, they will say am, going instead of shall go.
Now, why do we use these illogical forms? The why which
Βrown and DeGarmo boast of om the first page of their book,
is mot made very clear in their logical explanations. There
is no logical reason; mor need there be any. It is simply a
matter of history—simply the spirit of our Teutonic ancestry
assertingitself. Our ancestors in the Old English times used
only two tenses in expressing their thoughts: the pres-
ent, and the past ; but as their civilization advanced, and
their desires and necessities increased, their thoughts be-
came more complicated, and maturally more complicated
sentences were needed to express their thoughts. Other
tense forms were developed; the present perfect and the
past perfect; later the future, and last of all the fu-
ture perfect. Indeed the future perfect is mot yet
fully established. How many people are there who
are logical enough to say, Whem, I shall have finished this tas];
I shall go home? Most people, whether logically educated or
not, uise the present tense form in both statements by saying,
VWhen I finish this task I am going home.
One of these theorists tells us that the “child” is mot going
to talk or write Anglo-Saxon. The latter example (Future,
and future perfect tenses expressed by present tense forms.)
is very much like the old Anglo-Saxon in its sentence struc-
ture; it represents, them, the **wasness” of our language. The
former sentence contains a form (the future perfect tense)
which is not yet fully established ; it, then, evidently repre-
sents the “becomingness” of our language. In accordance
with Mr. Grosvenor's theory about the “isness” of our lan-
guage, neither of these sentences is “logically” correct. I
—I6—
wonder where his poor “child” will fimd a sentence by means
of which it cam express this thought or “judgment.”
These are omly a few of the many examples that might be
profitably used in the teaching of English in the high school;
and, often incidentally, in the upper grades of the elementary
school; for young pupils, whoknow nothing about the abstrae-'
tions of logic, cam understand and appreciate these, and
many other facts connected with the historical development
of our language. In the application of historical English as
a basis for the teaching of our language, much effective work
cam be done, in the high school and normal school. Short
courses in modern German would furnish examples of inflec-
tions and other peculiarities which are found in English in
the different stages of its development. Chaucer's Knightes
Tale, or Spencer's Faery Queene, or a few of Shakespeare's
plays, studied in the class as literature would furmish, inci-
dentally, many interesting peculiarities that mark the growth
of our language. Work of this sort would lay a, foundation
for the formal study of old English and middle English in
the college or university. &
In conclusion, I maintain that teachers of English in all
preparatory schools should knowsomething of historical Eng-
lish. Especially is this true with regard to teachers of Eng-
Iish in normal schools ; they, above all others, should know
something about the historical development of our language
before they attempt to teach the subject; for it is in the mor-
mal school more than in any other school, that the elements of
our language should be taught on a scientific basis,—not om
the basis of some other science: the science of logic, psychol-
ogy, chemistry, or what not; but On the science of the English
language itself; and the only way to learn the facts of this
science is by studying the science itself. •
If any of these teachers, in their coIIege or university
courses, have not had am opportunity to study historical Eng-
lish, Or if they still cam mot find an opportunity to study the
subject in some university summer school, opportunities are
opem for private study: there are many elementary texts on
—I7—
the subjects that cam be procured at a very little cost.* Some
of these books are adapted to the elementary schools, some to
the secondary schools, but most of them are better adapted
for use in colleges and universities. But a text book on
modern English intended for class use in amy school, should
be one that, is made by an English scholar. An author of a
text book should be a specialist in the particular subject
about which he is writing. Specialists in pedagogy may
write valuable books om their own subject. Indeed, mamy
of them have written books in their special line, which, as
helps for teachers, are excellent. But when a specialist in
pedagogy writes a text on the English language, and, at the
same time, steers clear of the historical phase of the subject,
he certainly cannot call his book pedagogical.
* For class use in the sevemth or eighth grade, or for short review im the high
school, or for use in the normal school, as a basis for methods in grammar:—
Allen's A Grammar of the English Language, (D. C. Heath & Co.)
For advanced work in the high school or normal school, or for reference:—
Easkerville & Sewell's English Gramrmar, (Anmer. Book Co.)
Eor general reference:—
Morris' s EIementary Lessons in Historical English Grammar, (The Mac-
Milla.n Co.)
Earle's A Simple Grammar of English Now in Use, (G. P. Putnam's Soms)
Earle's Philology of the English Tongue, (Oxford).
Emersom's Históry of the English Language, (The MacMillam Co.)
Cook's First Book in Old English, (Ginn & Co.)
CONNECTICUT SCHOÖL DOCUMENT
No. 12— 1904
(WHOLE NUMBER — 252)
Report on the study of English language and
literature in elementary and
secondary schools
DISTRIBUTED BY PERMISSION AS THE
OCTOBER LEAFLET
OF THE
New England Association of Teachers of English

I 9O4
( 2 )
Π MEMBERS
OF THE
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
I9O 4
ABIRAM CHAMBERLAIN GOVERNOR ύ e. & ę Meridem
HENRY RoBERTs LIEUT-GovERNoR . * ¢ * Hartford
WILLIAM H PALMER JR ę v-* ę * s ę Norwich
Gronos M CARRINGTON & * » ę e ç Winsted
WILLIAM G SUMNER . ú * è ¢ • New Haven
EDWARD D RoBBINs . ę ę * ę ę w* Wethersfield
CHARLEs D HINE Secretary Hartford
A$AHEL J WRIGHT C/erÃ
OFFICE
RooM 42 CAPitoL Hartford
iii
CONTENTS
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
I
READING IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
i, PRIMARY GRADEs: What is meant by reading —
The importance of thought as a basis for the reading
process — Desirable conditions for teaching beginners to
read — Suggestions for method of teaching beginners to
read — Sources from which to obtain the subject-matter
for first reading 1essons — Plan for a first lesson in rote
Teading — A word study preparatory to reading — Sugges-
tions for conducting a silent reading lesson — Summary
of the essential characteristics of the preceding lessons —
Exercises for giving the pupils clear visual images of sen-
tences and words — Exercises for impressing the forms of
new sentences and words — Seat work related to primary
reading — Suggestions concerning the selection , of good
reading matter for beginners — Phonics
ii READING IN THE GRAMMAR GRADEs : What shall the
pupils of the grammar grades read — The use of literary
wholes in the grammar grades — The place of graded series
of readers — Information readers — Kinds of reading ex-
ercises — Amount of reading to be done — Suggestions for
treating directed reading lessons (assignment of work) —
A word study in detail — Speeches (plan of treatment) —
Suggestions for securing intelligent and intelligible ora1
reading d
iii LISTS OF BOOKS FOR SCHOOL READING BY GRADES
II
[ELEMENTARY COMPOSITION
GENERAL sUGGESTIONS : Intimate relation existing be-
tween language and thought — The main work of the
school (science, history, etc.) should furnish most of the
material that is to be talked about and writtem about —
Value of dictation, reproduction, and original composition
— Ways of overcoming bad habits of expression — Prep-
aration for writing — Spelling, punctuation, and other
conventionalities — Criticism and correction of writtem
work — Influence of good literature
DETAILED DIRECTIONs : First oral work — First written
work — Question and answer exercises based upon selec-
tions from reading matter — Composition based upon ma-
iterial furnished by the daily school Work
TOPICS FOR SPECIAL TREATMENT
¢
36
iv
III
SPELLING G* * ra g* qu * vs te
Pour habits the formation of which 1eads to correct
spelling— Emphasizing spelling — The distinct features
of spelling exercises — Study with teacher's aid — Dril1 —
Independent study — Work of the first school years —
Testing — Home work
IV
ENGLISH GRAMMAR et e ¢ s* «* ę
Why the study of English grammar should be pursued
— How the study of English grammar should be pre-
sented — When in the elementary schools the study of
formal grammar should be pursued — A course in gram-
mar outlined — Suggestions
V.
THE STUDY OF LITERATURE IN THE HIGH SCHOOL . £-
Purpose of a11 English study defined — Courses recom-
mended — Character of books to be read — Text-books —
General suggestions in regard to how to study literature —
- A plan for studying Silas Marner — A plam for studying
the De ' Coverley papers — A plan for studying Concilia-
tion Speech — A plan for studying a play — A few sug-
gestions regarding the study of poetry
VI
CoMPOSITION IN THE HIGH SCHOOL . * ę s. ¢
i GENERAL STATEMENT : The twofold nature of train-
ing in composition — Equipment and preparation of a
teacher of composition
ii ORAL COMPOSITION : Inmportance of dril1 in oral
composition — The teacher's influence — Training in oral
expression belongs to no one. department — Training
through study of literature — Special exercises.
iii WRITTEN COMPOSITION : Limits of the secondary
course — Preliminary suggestions — Various exercises
available for training in composition — Criticism and com-
ment — Coöperation with other studies — Opportunities
of the small high school
«*•
VII
SUGGESTIONS FOR CoURSEs IN LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION
i REGULAR COURSE (THREE RECITATIONS A WEEK
THROUGHOUT THE FOUR YEARS)
ii ELECTIvE COURSE (FIVE RECITATIONS A WEEK DURING
THE LAST TWO YEARS)
iii LISTS FOR SUPPLEMENTARY READING
IBIBLIOGRAPHY «• * • * £* ę «p ę
53
58
7I
93
IO4
VIII
(s)
Report on the Study of English Language
and Literature in Elementary and
Secondary Schools
At a meeting of the Connecticut Counci1 of Education held
October, I9O2, the president of the Council was empowered
to appoint a committee to prepare a report which should ** de-
velop a consistent and symmetrical course of study in English
language and literature from the beginning of instruction in
reading to the most advanced work of the high schools, duly
regarding both the grammatica1 and linguistic and the literary
side Of the work.”
The committee originally appointed consisted of the follow-
ing: Rev. Huber G. Buehler, The Hotchkiss School, Lake-
ville; Mr. W. B. Ferguson, Superintendent of Schools, Mid-
dletown ; Mr. Wilbur F. Gordy, Principa1 of Second North
Grammar SchOO1, Hartford ; Miss Caroline M. Hewins, Hart-
ford Public Library ; Mr. Alfred M. Hitchcock, Hartford
Public High Schoo1; Mr. Stuart H. Rowe, Ph.D., Supervising
Principal of Love11 School District, New Haven; Miss Sarah
J. Walter, State Normal School, Willimantic; Mr. Marcus
White, Principal of State Normal School, New Britain ; Pro-
fessor C. T. Winchester, Wesleyan University. Soon after
the committee begam its vork, Mr. Gordy and Mr. Buehler
were forced by pressure. of other duties to resign. Their
places were taken by Mr. Charles G. Osgood, Ph.D., Yale
University, and Mr. J. C. Knowlton, Supervising Principal of
Winchester School District, New Haven. Professor Win-
chester has been able to attend but few meetings of the com-
mittee, yet he has been consulted from time to time and has
rendered valuable service. •
The committee presents herewith the results of its labor
in the form of a number of reports on the various branches of
English study. No attempt has been made to fuse these re-
4
ports into a single harmonious statement, nor to prescribe, in
any hard and fast manner, precisely what the work of each
year should be. The final task of formulating a course of
study in English — it may be different with other studies —
must, after all, be done by the teacher himself, not by any com-
mittee unacquainted with local conditions. It is hoped, how-
ever, that in the following pages will be found ideals suffi-
ciently high yet attainable, principles of pedagogy that are
sound, and profitable suggestions in regard to ways and means
of accomplishing desired results ; material, in short, that will
help the teacher who is trying to plan a simple, definite, closely
interrelated course of English study. That the course should
be simple, definite, and closely interrelated the committee
wishes particularly to emphasize. A final word of caution
may be necessary. While the substance of each separate re-
port has been discussed by the entire committee änd meets with
its general approval, no doubt ttndue emphasis may have been
placed unintentionally on this or that branch of English study,
and a separateness indicated which does not exist. This was
inevitable in a long report prepared not by a single person but
by a number of individuals. .
I
READING IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
�
I
PRIMARY GRADES
WIHAT IS MEANT BY READING
Reading in the true sense of the term is a mental process. .
It is gaining thought from written or printed characters.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THOUGHT AS A BASIS FOR THE READING PROCESS
The first school work usually done by the child is learning
to read. This is the beginning of his formal education and is
most important, because through it the child is forming his
5
intellectual habits. No other agency employed by the teacher
for instructing and training the pupil will prove so effective in
arousing and promoting good thought as the intelligent teach-
ing of reading. -
The true teaching of reading should begin with thinking on
the part of the child, and his attitude from the first should be
to look for thought when the printed page is placed before him.
“ If this habit fail of initiation in the first year there is, for the
average child, but slender chance of its afterward being in-
duced with real vigor and power.” — Laing. -
IDESIIRABILE CONIDITIONS FOR TEACHING BEGIN NERS TO READ
a The possession upon the part of the children of clear
thought based upon experiences to associate with the words.
- b Interest. Interest is the only true condition for atten-
tion, and interest is dependent upon a clear understanding of
the thought. -
SUGGESTIONS FOR METHOD OF TEACHING BEGININERS TO READ
By method of teaching reading is meant the whole manner
of directing the child's activity in the process of learning to
read. -
It is not the intention to discuss in detail the so-called sys-
tems of teaching reading, viz : the phonic, word, sentence,
word and sentence, and sentence and word. The teacher of
little children should be familiar with al1 of these methods of
teaching reading so that she may be able to take the essential
truth that underlies each of these methods and give it due prac-
tical definition in her work. She will then be able tO make
adequate provision for meeting in a natural way the difficulties
Of teaching beginners to read. •
From a study of the several methods an individual method
`should be evolved — a method comprehensive enough to reach
the varying types of mind. -
SOURCES FROM WHICH TO OBTAIN THE SUBJECT-MATTER FOR FIRST READ-
ING LESSONS -
The ora1 story work, science lessons, poems, Mother Goose
melodies, children's toys and pets, and the first reading book
to be used may form the basis for the early reading lessons.
There is no question but that the story or poem furnishes
the most interesting matter for the early lessons. Children are
6
interested in the story, in rhythm, and in their toys and pets.
The oral story and poem have the advantage of being interest-
ing in themselves, and that which is familiar to the ear is more
easily learned through the eye.*
Many primary teachers make little or no use of poetry;
Others pass it by. A small number have found that the short
poem or jingle is a fascinating kind of reading for beginners.
This committee would emphasize a generous use of poetry in
the elementary grades. The writer of the preface in Book II
of the Heart of Oak Series says: “ His very first reading
should mainly consist in what may cultivate his ear for the
music of verse, and may rouse his fancy. And to this end
there is nothing better than the rhymes and jingles which have
sung themselves, generation after generation, in the nursery
or on the playground.”
EIRST READING LESSONS
The following plans are suggestive of what may be done
by way of teaching little children to read:
I PLAN FOR A FIRST LESSON IN ROTE READING
Aim To accustom the ear to the sounds, the eye to the
word forms, and the voice to the oral expression of the Mother
Goose rhyme of “ Little Boy Blue.”
Reading matter
Little Boy B1ue, come blow your horn;
The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn.
Plan Interest is gained by having pictures of sheep and
cows in a meadow (this is not necessary in the country), accom-
panied by a short conversation about these animals.
The teacher will then recite the entire rhyme of “ Little
Boy Blue.'' After this she will repeat somewhat slowly and
with good expression the first verse of the lesson, and tell the
children that she wi11 show them how that looks on the black-
board. The teacher then prints on the board “ Little Boy Blue,
come blow your horn,” saying the words as she prints them.
A child is now called upon to read, the teacher showing with
the pointer the whole of what has been printed. If the child
* When reading lessons are taken from the oral story work care
should be given to form and presentation of the oral story ; the story
must precede the reading and stand out clearly in the child's mind.
7
hesitates, the teacher will read it for him, passing the pointer
along the entire expression as she reads. The child will then
try. This exercise, varied in form, is continued until the chil-
dren have gained a visual image of the parts that make the
whole.
The teacher may emphasize the parts by calling upon dif-
ferent children to find the parts as she names them, as Find
“ Little Boy B1ue.” Which part is “ Come blow your horn ”?
Similar work is done with other parts.
* In the next reading lesson the same verse is printed on the
hoard and the next verse added if the children are ready for it.
The seat work should be related to the reading lesson printed
on the board. The words of which the lesson consists (and
only these) are in envelopes or boxes, a box or envelope for
each child. The children arrange the words in the right order
to form the rhyme. The children's work should be seen by
the teacher and some questioning done to find out how man
of the word forms are known. ■
In the early lessons, word studies to teach the words should
follow and not precede the reading lesson.
Print is recommended unti1 children take the book to read.
Experience leads the writer of this report to believe that print
more economically fits the child for a book than script, although
children readily learn to read script. -
The following lesson suggests a plan for using the chil-
dren's toys as a basis for the first reading lessons. .-
The lessons related to the toys should generally prepare
directly for the book subsequently to be used. The teacher
should keep a record, in a notebook, of all words taught, and
arrange the same in alphabetical order. This record enables
her to keep before her for review the printed vocabulary given
to the children and to combine the words she is teaching into
many sentences.
Aim To acquaint the children with the printed form and
ora1 expression of each of the following sentences:
This is a ball. This is a horn.
This is a top. This is a dol1.
Lessom plam The objects named in the sentences should be
upon a table near the children. -
The objects are given to the children; a child is called upon
to show what he has and tell what it is — giving the form
8
“ This is,” etc. The statement made by the child is printed
upon the board. This statement is now read by the child who
made it. Similar work is done until the four statements are
prínted upon the board.
The objects are placed in the hands of different childrem
and they each read the appropriate sentences. If a child hesi-
tates, the teacher should show him the right sentence (pointing
to the entire sentence). - •
The objects are exchanged several times and the reading
continued as before.
The sentences relating to the objects should now be printed
several times on the board (the first series to remain) arranged
in different order. The children find sentences that are simi-
lar to those to which the teacher points. t
The teacher may point to a sentence and ask the child to
find the toy about which that sentence tells (use sentence not
“ story **). The teacher may take the ba11 and say, ** This is
a ball.” A child will find that sentence as many times as it is
printed on the board. The sentences may be printed on slips
of paper and distributed. Each child will find the object
named in his sentence and read the sentence. These slips may
be matched with the blackboard sentences and they may also
be exchanged severa1 times during the lesson. *.
Use objects unti1 the printed sentences stand for real ex-
periences.
2 A WORD STUDY PREPARATORY TO READING
Aim To teach the recognition of the printed forms and
Oral expression of
a ball a do11
The ball is placed in a child's hand and he is asked what
it is. The teacher will now say the words ** a bal1 * as she
prints them on the board. The same kind of work is done for
“ a doll.” “ A ball * and/* a doll *° are printed in many places
on the board and the children te11 what is printed. Many
words unknown to the children are printed with these and the
children select the words “ a ball * and ** a do11.” Many drills
should be used to impress the forms. See suggestive dril1
exercises 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, II, I5, and Note.
The seat work should be related tO this 1esson.
The leading aim in al1 of the preceding exercises has been
to train the child to look for something in the lesson and ex-
9 -
pect to find it. The attention is centered on thought-getting.
A great deal may be taught by what may be called an incidental
or rote method. (See first exercise Little Boy Blue.) Poems
memorized by the children may be printed upon the board or
a manila chart; the names of the children may be printed upon
the board, indicating in this way who are tO read ; directions
may be written, the new names in the number lesson, the name
of the story told, etc. A11 of these exercises, if followed up,
lead the children to be alert and responsive concerning printed
and written matter. g*
SUGGESTIONS FOR CONDUCTING A SILENT READING LESSON
The children are directed to open their books to a certaim
page indicated by the teacher. It is a good plan tO express the
figures representing the number of the page upon the board.
The children should now read silently, without interruptiom
by questions from the teacher. At the close of the silent read-
ing the books should be closed and the children given an
opportunity to tel1 in a connected way what they have read.
At first the lesson may consist of only one sentence, then sev-
eral sentences grouped according to thought. Unrelated sen-
tences should be avoided in an exercise of this kind. Later a
longer selection may be used. When children are able to
write, the written expression of the, silent reading may some-
times be used instead of the oral.
At first the children may be inclined to give the exact words
of the author in their reproduction. This need not give the
teacher any uneasiness. By selecting a new lesson and direct-
ing the children to read it silently and then look on their books
while she tells what she has read, the teacher may in a short
time help the children to reproduce fluently and partly in their
Own language the story read. •,•
sUMMARY OF THE EssENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRECEDING READING
LESSONS
The sentence is used from the beginning.
The thought of the sentence is made clear by the use of
suitable objects or by appealing to the experiences of the
children. \
Clear, distinct oral expression of a sentence is secured be-
fore any attempt is made by the teacher to write that sentence.
The oral expression is associated with the written expres-
S1O11.
IO
The eye is trained to look through the parts of the sentence.
No attempt should be made to read orally unti1 the word rec-
ognition of the sentence is complete. This forms the habit of
fluent utterance.
The symbol or written form suggests the thought. To
secure fluent oral expression the eye must be trained to 1ook
ahead of the word utterance.
After a few lessons in reading the sentence as a sentence
whole, the children recognize the parts of which it is com-
posed, viz: the words and letters. Advantage is taken of this
analysis to introduce into the daily program word and phonic
exercises. In the word studies the new words of the reading
lesson are taught in their form and significance. The word
study is not a part of the reading lesson and should not be
given in connection with it. After the first lessons it should
precede the reading lesson and not follow it.
In phonics such aid is given as will enable children to dis-
cOver and pronounce new words at sight. Not a few of the
difficulties met by the child in mastering the mechanics of
reading will be removed when his ear is trained to hear the
correct sound.
Letters are taught at the proper time for use in spelling and
dictionary work. - «* -
The great need in the early work of reading is not elabo-
ration of method, but rather an abundant supply of suitable
reading matter and many opportunities to use it.
TEXERCISES FOR GIVING TO PUPILS CLEAR VISUAL IMAGES OF SENTENCES AND
WORDS , -
In order that the mind may be able to give itself to the
author's thought in reading, it must be as nearly as possible
unconscious of the visual perception of words. Complete and
instant word recognition alone makes this possible. Daily ex-
ercises of a rapid, decided, vigorous character should be car-
ried on to train the child in quick recognition of words and
SentenCeS. -
“ A reader has at each. moment but a limited amount of
mental power available. To recognize and interpret the sym-
NOTE — In teaching beginners to read a11 the essentia1 truths of
each partial method are needed. It makes 1ittle difference which is
taken first, the word or the sentence, if the teacher's method is dom-
inated by the idea that the child is working with thought and the sen-
tence is the unit of expression. •
I I
bols presented to him requires part of this power; to arrange
and combine the images suggested requires a further part; and
only that part which remains can be tised for realizing the
thought conveyed. Hence, the more time and attention it
takes to receive and understand each sentence, the less time
and attention can be given to the contained idea ; and the less
vividly will that idea be conceived. ” — Herbert Spencer.
The word and sentence drills should aim to give pupils
power to do the best of which they are capable in
quick, accurate recognition of printed form
quick, accurate sound imaging
quick recognition of the parts of the sentence and of
the sentence as a whole.
ExERCISES FOR IMPRESSING THE FORMS OF NEW SENTENCES AND WORDS
GRADE I •
I The teacher selects an object and a child finds the sen-
tence upon the blackboard about that object and reads it orally.
2 The teacher points to a sentence on the blackboard and
a child finds the objects and reads the sentence orally.
3 The teacher reads a sentence from the blackboard (not
pointing) and a child finds the sentence. -
4 The teacher says, “I am thinking of a sentence on the
blackboard. You may try to find the sentence of which I am
thinking, May.” May takes the pointer and pointing to each
sentence in turn says, “ Is it ?” (reading the sentence).
The teacher says, “ No, it is not , until the sentence of
which she has thought has been found and read. The work
must be rapid and without hesitation upon the part of the child.
5 The same as “ 4,'' children taking the place of the
teacher. *
6 Sentences corresponding to those upon the board are
printed on strips of paper. The strips of paper are distributed
to the children. As the teacher points to a sentence on the
board the child who has the sentence corresponding to it rises
and reads from his strip of paper. :
7 The same sentence is printed or written on the black-
board severa1 times. A child finds and reads the sentence as
many times as it occurs on the board.
8 A sentence on a strip of paper is held before the chil-
dren for a few moments. A child is called upon to read. If
he reads correctly, the paper is givem to him. This is con-
\
I2
tinued unti1 all the strips are given out. Each child retains
all the strips on which he knows the sentences. The children
exchange with each other and read the sentences on the strips.
9 A sentence is erased from the board. A child tells the
sentence erased.
IO Sentences expressing action are printed or written
upon the board. As the teacher points to a sentence, the child
will do what it directs.
Sentence: I can run. The child rttns. ,
I I Sentences upon cards are distributed to the children.
As the teacher prints a sentence upon the board the child who
has the sentence corresponding to it rises and reads from his
card. - • - -
I2 Words printed on cards are distributed to the children.
The teacher prints or writes a sentence upon the board. The
children build that sentence with the words. Care must be
used to see that capitalization and punctuation are properly
used upon the children's cards. -
I3 Children recall from memory the sentences taught.
I4 Two sentences very nearly alike are placed before the
children. The teacher reads one and a child finds the one read.
I 5 Arrange words in two duplicate columns, except that
the order of words is changed. Two children, each having a
pointer, shall see which can first point to a word pronounced
by the teacher. • •
I6 The teacher has the words: taught written or printed
(large letters) on cards. Show the cards for the rapid pro-
nunciation of words, each child in turn responding. The cards
may be given to the childrem as they recite. A.
I7 The teacher arranges the words on a ladder. Each
child tries to climb the ladder without falling. This is done
by naming al1 the words without a mistake.
I8 The teacher writes a list of words forming a sentence
on the board. The children then point to one word after an-
Other tO form the sentence.* .
I9 The words on the board are erased, one by one, and
the child tells what word is erased. .
2o . A child finds and pronounces all the words on the
board containing a given letter, as e, h, etc.
* Be careful of capitalization and punctuation in each drill.
©*
I3
2I The teacher gives orally a short sentence, using words
that are on the board. Children find the words.
22 The teacher points rapidly to words on the board that
make a sentence. A child gives the sentence.
GRADE II
, I Have pupils 1ook through a paragraph and tell what
Has been read.
2 Have pupils 1ook through a sentence or paragraph and
act out the meaning.
3 Have pupils read a paragraph silently and illustrate the
nmeaning by drawings or a series of drawings.
4 Arrange words in two duplicate columns, except that
the order of the words is changed. Two children, each having
a pointer, shall see which can first point to a word pronounced
by the teacher.
5 The teacher writes a list of words forming a sentence
on the board. The children then point to one. word after an-
other to form the sentence. -
6 The words on the board are erased, one by one, and the
' child tells what word was erased.
7 Words are grouped in columns alphabetica11y. The
children find a given group, the teacher naming the ietter.
8 A child finds and pronounces al1 the words on the board
containing a given letter, as e, h, etc.
9 A child finds all words with a given ending or begin-
ning. This is an excellent drill for prefixes and suffixes.
Io The teacher points to a word. The child gives ' an
original sentence containing that word. The child may write
his sentence. - -
II The teacher gives a short sentence orally, using words
that are on the board. Children find the words. z.
I2 The teacher points rapidly to words on the board that
make a sentence. A child gives the sentence. /
13 The teacher gives the meaning of a word on the board.
A child finds and pronounces the word of which the teacher
gave the meaning. .
GRA DE III
I Let the pupils find words containing the same sound and
pronounce each one. This exercise is to be used with board
work or book.
I4
2 The teacher asks a child to pronounce a word on the
board and tell him if she erased the word pronounced. • The
teacher will erase words other than the one pronounced by the
child. Each time the wrong word is erased the child will say,
“ That is nOt You erased 3.
3 A child finds and pronounces all the words on the board
containing a given letter, as e, h, etc.
4. A child finds all words with a given beginning or end-
ing. This is an excellent drill for prefixes and suffixes.
5 The teacher points to a word. The child gives an orig-
inal sentence containing that word. The child may write his
SentenCe.
6 The teacher gives the meaning of a word on the board.
A child finds and pronounces the word of which the teacher
gave the meaning.
7 The teacher points to a word on the board ; a child finds
the word in his book and reads the sentence containing the
word to which the teacher pointed.
SIEAT WORI< RELATED TO PRIMI ARY READING
GRADE I
I Prepare sets of hektographed pictures with the name of
the object printed plainly beneath the picture. Each set should
contain twice as many cards as there are pupils in the class.
Take half of each set and cut off the name. Now 1et the chil-
dren with the uncut cards before them match the separated
pictures with their appropriate names.
2 Hektograph sentences on strips of cardboard. Cut
these sentences into words or phrases and put each sentence into
its own envelope. Write or print the sentence on the board
and 1et the children bt1i1d. .
3 Provide worn-Ottt books, magazines, advertisements,
etc. which cam be cut up. Provide blank-books, one for each
child. Print the 1etters of the alphabet on the board. Let the
children find them, cut them out, and paste them neatly in
Order, A at top of page I, B at top of page 2, etc. to Z.
New words occurring in the reading lesson may be printed
or written on the board ; the children may find these words, cut
them out, and paste them on the proper page. This will give
each child the printed vocabulary of his grade.
4 Hektograph sets of poems and jingles on cards — twice
as many as there are children. Cut half these cards into lines.
, I 5
Put a whole card and a dissected card into the same envelope.
Let the children build the poem. -
Sometimes the poem may be cut into words or phrases.
5 Print plainly the letters of the alphabet, making more
of those letters that are oftenest used. Hektograph a large
number of copies. Cut the letters apart. Put severa1 alpha-
hets in the same bOx. From the letters in the boxes 1et the
children build words that the teacher writes on the board.
6 The teacher may write a sentence on the board with one
word omitted. The children may build the sentence from hek-
tographed words given them, supplying the missing word.
7 Words on the board may be copied by the children.
This form of seat work should not be used very often.
8 Send children to the board to copy words or sentences
On the board. -
9 Sentences related in thought but on separate slips may
be built so as to form a short story.
Io From material in the word-boxes build sentences from
the reader, using the reader. . -
II The singular form of nouns whose plurals are formed
by adding s may be written upon the board ; let the children
build the plural form by adding s. -
GRAIDE II
I Write On the blackboard or on paper al1 the words of
the reading lesson beginning with a certain letter.
Instead of writing on the board, the material in the boxes
may be used. .
^2 Build sentences from words that are on the blackboard.
The teacher must be, careful concerning capitalization and
punctuation. v
3 The children may make dictionaries or word books as
in Grade I, “ 3,” writing the words instead of cutting and
pasting. -
4 Arrange the words of a paragraph in alphabetical order.
5 Build or write in columns all the words containing a
given Sound. -
6 Illustrate the reading lesson by means of drawing.
GRA DE III
-*
I Let the childrem make dictionaries as in Grade II.
2 Illustrate reading lessons by means of drawings.
I6
3 Words written upon the board promiscuously, so far as
the initial letter is concerned, are to be grouped alphabetically
in columns, each group with the initial letter at its head.
4 Write words on the board, each word to be written in a
sentence by the pupils.
5 The reading lesson may be written in the child's own
words, the book to be used. • »
6 Arrange the words of a paragraph in alphabetical order.
7 Construct a story from words On the board. The words
on the board should be taken from some short story.
8 Copy from the reader for form and punctuation. '
9 Make words from a given word, as use — used — uses
— use less — use ful, etc.
IO Write in columns all words containing a given phono-
gram. •
II Select words that are names from the reading lesson.
Write each name in an original sentence.
I2 Write sentences about the picture related to the read-
ing lesson. e ei
I3 Copy the picture of the reading lesson.
SUGGESTIONS CONCERNING THE SELECTION OF GOOD READING MATTER FOR
I3EGIN NERS
As many books intended for use in the primary Schools are
examples of bad workmanship, it is worth while to call atten-
tion to a few points in connection with the mechanical and
1iterary features of the reading book to be put into the hands
of little children.
The binding should be firm and the covers not inartistically
colored and decorated.
The paper should be of good quality and not tOO highly
glazed.
The illustrations should not interfere with the text either
as to arrangement or number. Sentences broken by pictures
interfere with smooth ora1 expression.
The sentences should be short and grouped according to
literary thought. The child enjoys a whole as much as the
adult. The unit or whole at first may not include more than
two Or three sentences.
The new words occurring in 1essons should be alphabet-
ically arranged at the head of the printed lessons.
The print should be clear. &
ù
.*
17
The lines should be generously leaded.
The reading matter should be adapted to the child's intelli-
gence, tastes, interests, and the needs of his emotional nature.
So far as possible, the matter selected for the reading hour
should be drawn froim writings that by virtue of their beauty,
strength, and purity of thought have become classic.
In the reading course outlined by grades no attempt has
been made to relate the reading work to Other subjects of study,
e. g., science and history. The reading course is presented
solely on its own merits as literature. Information readers in
geography, botany, literature, etc. have not been placed in the
courses suggested for the grades. The place for the history
reader is in connection with history. The place for the science
reader is in the science class after an objective study of the
subjects treated in the science reader.
JPEHONICS
The phonic method of teaching reading places emphasis
upon “ The sounds of the letters.” By a careful, discriminat-
ing use of phonic exercises a child is enabled to accumulate
quite readily a large' number of words. It is important in
phonics to give attention to some organized plan of constructive
work. The words taught should be for use in reading.
Attention should be given to the habits of enunciation and
pronunciation that children are forming. Defects in enun-
ciation and pronunciation may be due to defects of vocal
organs, imitation of incorrect sounds, failure of a chiid to use
lips and jaws, or defective hearing.
The sooner children are taught to discriminate and make
the sounds of the language correctly, Other things being equal,
the sooner they will begin to show discrimination in their oral
reading.
Many children do not articulate words with care, and the
result is slovenly speech. To be assured of the accuracy of
the foregoing statement, listen (without a book) to the reading
of pupils in many grammar grades, to the speech in ordinary
conversation, and to the everyday recitation. There should be
a time in our schools when attention is given to the correction
of faulty articulation, nasal tones, and the monotone. The force
of habit should be in the right direction in matters of voice
and entinciation. Correct vocalization should be automatic.
2
I8
This report gives emphasis to the use of phonics as an aid
to correct faulty articulation.
In a plan for teaching phonics the following kinds of work
should be considered: -*
a Exercises for training the ear to discriminate sounds.
b Exercises for training the voice to reproduce sounds cor-
rectly. -
c Exercises for giving children representations of sounds
and of associating the same with known sounds in words.
d Exercises in blending. Through these the child learns
tO discover words. Phonic work. fails as an aid to word dis-
cOvery if this part of the work is weak. B1ending has but one
object, viz: to lead to the discovery of words.
e The phonograms to be taught and the sources from
which to obtain them.
Suggestions for a, b, c, d, e:
a Exercises for training the ear to discriminate sounds.
I The teacher may pronounce a word, emphasizing the
final sound. The child imitates. This same exercise may be
modified and made more difficult by the use of a sentence in-
stead of a word. The sentence should be given in moderate
time and with good inflection. Great care must be used by the
teacher in insisting upon the child's giving clear, decided enun-
ciation.
2 The teacher may give a sentence, spelling one or more
words by sound, as L-i-t-tle boy, come, b1-ow your h-orn. The
child will tell the teacher what she has said.
3 Consonant and vowel sounds are given (no representa-
tion on the board) by the teacher; the child imitates.
4 Singing exercises are especially valuable for sound
work.*
b Same as a, using longer selections.
c, d When the children know that spoken words consist
of sounds and are able to imitate with a fair degree of accuracy
the exercises given by the teacher in a and b they are ready to
associate the representation (letter or 1etters) with the sound
or sounds. +
The following exercise is suggestive of what may be done
111 C.
* In al1 of this work the children should be shown how to correctly
place and use the speech organs. ]
19
The teacher tells the children to watch her mouth ; she
will then give very clearly the sound of t. The children are
called upon individually (not in concert) to imitate the sound.
The teacher wi11 then tell the children that she is making the
letter on the board that stands for t (sound). The children
give the sound of t as the teacher points to the letter t.
The sounds and representations of the following should be
taught before there is any attempt to blend sounds into words:
m, n, f, v, t, d, p, b, 1, r, k, h. •
When the children can reproduce the above by letter on the
board as the teacher gives the sound, or can give the sound for
which the letters stand as the teacher writes the letters on the
board, they are ready for the next step, viz: to 1earn the com-
mon phonograms occurring in their reading lessons.
Oy may be taught in the same way as t. The teacher will
then write t before the oy and join the t to the oy and have
the child give the blending or uniting of the sounds.*
Teach the child to think the sounds and pronounce the
word as a whole.
The reading material in use is the source from which to
obtain the phonograms to be taught. The teacher should go
through the first reading material and make an alphabetical
list of the phonograms that offer opportunity for grouping
words, as ould, would, should, could ; Oy, boy, toy; en, men,
pen, ten, when. j'
The teacher should give attention to the discovery of new
words. After a phonogram has been taught, children should
search through their reading lessons for words containing this
phonogram. The following exercise illustrates what may be
done in a ten-minute phonic lesson. -»
I The teacher gives the consonant sounds and the .chil-
dren individually reproduce these sounds orally. Sounds
which are difficult' for the children to give well should receive
attention.
2 The teacher gives with animation and good inflection
several sentences. The children repeat the same. Tbe- sen-
tence should be given but once. Train children to listen and
reproduce with accuracy. These sentences offer an excellent
opportunity for the teacher to give correct language forms for
those incorrect forms in use by children.
* Do not permit pauses after individual sounds or groups. Do not
sound for the child unless he is helpless.
2O
]
3 The teacher will write from twenty to forty (review)-
phonograms upon the blackboard. The children quickly rise
and pronounce. - • '
4 The teacher will give to each child of a group sent to
the board a phonogram for a heading, as eam (name the let-
ters), ear. The children are then told to write the words they
have learned which contain that phonogram. No guessing is
allowed. The words formed from the phonogram are the
words that have been taught. The result will be
€a1} - €2.1*
b ean lh ear
1 ean - h ear s
1 ean s y ear
m eam ing d ear
5 The new phonogram is sounded by the teacher and re-
produced orally by the children. The representation of the
new phonogram is then written on the board. The children
pronounce. -
The teacher writes the same phonogram with the letters
necessary to form the new word occurring in the reading
lesson. It is pronounced by the children after thinking the
sounds. If the word is not gained from the silent sounding
then the work of blending is performed orally.*
The results to be gained from a course in phonics are:
a Clear, correct enunciation of consonant and vowel
sounds. ' -. -
b Correction of bad habits of speech, such as the nasal
tones, drawling, dropping final sounds, mumbling, talking with
neither lip nor jaw movement, etc.
c Power upon the part of pupils to gain printed words
for themselves.
II . ©
READING IN THE GRAMMAR GRADES
By the time pupils have reached the fifth year in school
they should have acquired the power to read ordinary matter
suited to their experience with a fair degree of intelligence and
* Do not call on children to give words containing the same sounds
as the new phonogram. This wi11 lead to poor spelling. They may
profitably take their bookS and make a 1ist of a11 the words in which the
given phonogram occurs.
2 I
with considerable fluency. Assuming that the art of reàding
has been fairly acquired, the chief concern of the teacher should
now center upon what to give them to read. The teacher is
now to engage in the work of literary training and its main
purpose is to arouse in the pupils a genuine love for good liter-
ature, good in the sense that it awakens in pupils an emotional
response and quickens their ideals. The grammar school
years mark the period for opening wide many gateways for
inspiration. Ideals, it is true, change fast, but the whole future
life will in all probability never pass beyond the infiuence of
these youthful ideals.
WIHAT SEIALI, TIHIE PUIPILS OF GRAIM MAR GRADES READ
The grammar grades present the greatest diversity in the
interests of their pupils. In choosing reading matter, the
nature and development of the pupil should be kept in mind.
In what is the average pupil interested ? How long is this
interest maintained ? What healthfully stimulates the imag-
ination? In what kind of reading does the pupil find a sym-
pathetic response? What are the ideals ? Who are the heroes
in this “ age of loyalty * ? The answers to these questions,
combined with a somewhat extensive knowledge of the world's.
best literature in the form of adventure, heroism, exploration,
humor, and romance, will give to the teacher or parent the clue
as to what kind of literature tO select. That course in 1itera-
ture which presents through literary masterpieces ideal types
of heroic men and women cannot fail of its purpose. “ The
literature of action, of character manifested through action, of
virtue attested through deed, is what we want.” — Chubb.
THE USE OF LITERARY WEIOLES IN GRAMMAR GRADES
The value of carefully reading a few literary wholes cannot
be overestimated in the effect upon the pupil's literary training.
Generally, considered, more power is required to construct
mentally the scenes and characters and to follow in an orderly
way, the sequence and relationship of characters and events
of a “ One story *' book than of a short selection. To construct
mentally the scenes and characters and to hold the sequence of
events in their right order and relationship means mental
grasp, and one cannot truly read until he has this power.
Again, the author of a book of merit has some particular
message Or thought to convey through that book, and as a rule
22
a chapter or fragment of a chapter, dissociated from other
parts which may be vitally related to it, cannot give that thought
in its beauty and entirety. -
Pupils in the grammar grades should study with some care
several standard works of worth. Before a great deal of ex-
tensive reading is done, the pupils should be taught how to
interpret their daily reading. This reading under wise direc-
tion is very important. The teacher by well-directed questions
and suggestions should help the pupil to interpret and associate
the plot.
Reading a large number of books for the sake of passing
Over a great deal of material to gain fluency fosters superfi-
ciality and cannot produce real menta1 culture. Time is
needed for healthy growth.
THE PLACE OF GRADED SERIES OF READERS
The graded reader has a place in our schools and is valuable
for the kind of work that it makes possible through the silent
or oral reading of the short selection. The short selection
gives opportunity for rapid sight reading and interpretation —
to seize the thought quickly. The mechanics of oral reading
can be more profitably and suitably taught through the variety
of short selections offered in the graded reader than through
the ** one story book.” • ^
INIFORIMATION READERS
The information reader has a worthy position and is neces-
sary in our schools, but it has no place in a course in reading
or literature. It is to be used as supplementary to the subjects
taught, to enlarge and enrich specific topics, to apply the power
to read to a well-defined end in the acquisition of information.
It furnishes reading with a direct motive and close association
with the subject it supplements.
IXINDS OF READING EXERCISES
In a well-ordered course in reading, opportunity is offered
for extensive and intensive reading, for ora1 and silent read-
ing. Each kind of reading should receive attention.
In the higher grammar grades the ora1 expression in read-
ing is usually very poor — the readers fail to make their voices
convey either thought or sentiment. The cause for the de-
fective and monotonous oral expression may be attributed in
23
part to the custom of setting aside the reading in favor of the
information studies which become more and more assertive as
the pupils advance in the grades. Another cause for the
poor oral reading may be found in the absence of a motive
for oral reading. Reading silently and reading aloud are
entirely different acts. The motive is different. Silent reading
is individual. Ora1 reading is social. To read aloud is to read
and at the same time give voice to the message received from
the printed page for the sake of sharing something with others.
Ora1 reading demands a listener.
In order that pupils may be able to read orally, time must
be given in the daily program for a daily exercise in oral ex-
pression accompanied by a motive for the expression. At
1east thirty minutes each day should be given to oral reading
by the pupils.
THE AMOUNT OF READING TO BE DONE
The pupils should be encouraged to read books in addition
to those studied in class. The time offered in school for read-
ing is too limited for the amount of reading that ought to be
accomplished by the pupils. Indeed the design of the directed
reading is tO give pupils a desire tO read good literature from
choice. - s*
SUGGESTIONS FOR TREATING DIRECTED READING LESSONS — ASSIGN MENT OF
WORK
The assignment of a lesson requires preparation upon the
part of the teacher. The work should be assigned in such a
way as to make clear what is to be accomplished by the pupils:
(I) words to be defined; (2) allusions, historical, mythical, or
otherwise, to be explained; (3) questions to be answered con-
cerning thought Or purpose ; (4) suggestion Of what pleasure
awaits them.
A WORD STUDY IN DETAIL
The word study is not a part of the reading lesson, but a
preparation for it. This work does not in any way discourage
the excellent plan of having pupils find the meaning of a word
or phrase by reading and rereading the sentence or paragraph
in order to find the meaning of the word in its relation to the
cOntext. -
24.
In the preparation of a word study the pupil's work is first
to read the lesson with care, then give his attention to the
words which have been selected by the teacher and written on
the board.
I Each word is to be defined, the pupil choosing the syn-
Onym best expressing, according to his understanding, the
meaning of the author. «
2 The pupil's definition is substituted in the author's sen-
tenCe. • -
3 : An original sentence is given by the pupil using the
word defined. • i '
The following word studies were selected from papers pre-
pared by pupils of Grades V and VI and indicate the manner
in which the unknown words in the reading lessons are pre-
pared :
Book — Mopsa the Fairy — Jean I ngelow. Grade V.
Lesson, p. I33-I4I. - Age II.
odious
Definition — hateful
Author's use and substitution — “ Odious!” exclaimed
• (hateful)
Jack, sneezing.. “ What terrible creatures these are!”
Original sentence — It was odious of Alexander to butcher
the Tyrians so.
€11O1TÍÍ1O11S
Definition — huge
Author's use and substitution — “ like one ring or coil of
an enormous serpent.” *
(huge) f
Origina1 sentence — Xerxes had an enormous army when
he conquered Greece or tried to. .
1ithe
Definition — limber .
Author's use and substitution — * and the first thing the
Craken did was to stoop its lithe neck.”
(limber)
Original sentence — A Snake is the most lithe creature in
the jungle.
- formidable
Definition — tremendous
Author's use and substitution — * Jack knew it was of no
use saying anything to this formidable creature.”
(tremendous)
25
Original sentence — Theseus did not think Procrustes a
formidable giant.
Book — The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood — Pyle.
•, , Grade VI.
Lesson, p. I2I-I27. Age IO.
mollified - st
Definition — pacified, appeased, calmed, quieted
Author's use and substitution — “ “ Truly, friend,' quoth
the other, mollified by Robin's peaceful words.”
(pacified) 1 • •
Original sentence — June was somewhat mollified by
Dick's excuse and told him that Chester Arlington was in
Papdale.
. aught
Definition — anything .
Author's use and substitution — “ I would not burden thee
with aught of mine.”
(anything)
Original sentence — Butterworth took aught that was of
any value, from strangers who were lost in the forest.
reverent Q•
Definition — humble, respectful
Author's use and substitution — “ thou are most reverent
• (humble)
tO the cloth.” ,^ -
Origina1 sentence — The Athenians were very reverent in
the presence of King Minos, because they realized that he could
make them do as he pleased.
SPEECHES — PLAN OF TREATMENT
In the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades, a considerable
amount of dignified matter of high literary merit in the form
of the world's great speeches may be used as supplementary to
the history work. It is suggested that the speeches studied
may be given with the appropriate setting of chairman, speaker,
audience, etc.
SUGGESTIONS FOR SECURING INTELLIGENT AND INTELLIGIBLE ORAL READING
Be sure that the thought of what is presented for reading
is clear.
Take pains to have the vocabulary known so that pupils
can pronounce the words correctly. .
26
Arrange the program so as to have oral reading in some
form daily throughout the grammar grades. •
Give some practice in dramatic expression.
Have some part of an appropriate selection read, memo-
rized, and rendered orally as a quotation.
Train the pupils to read to an audience (the school and
teacher) instead of into a book.
The teacher should follow the reader with the ear instead
of following the text with the eye. ». *
The teacher must be able to read well orally if she would
teach pupils to express well.
Read and reread until the meaning is clearly interpreted.
The right atmosphere must be created.
Have exercises in reading for thought interpretation, the
same selection to be read by different pupils, each rendering it
according to his interpretation of the thought.
III
LISTS OF BOOKS FOR SCHOOL READING BY GRADES
Three lists of bpoks are presented. The first 1ist comprises
selections to be mémorized by the children.
In the second list are included books, poems, and selections
to be recited or read to the children by the teacher.
Reading for the first two or three years is necessarily at-
tended with many mechanical difficulties. The child is acquir-
ing the art of reading, but while acquiring the art he should be
emotionally stimulated by good literature — literature good
from the child's standpoint, in that it finds within him an emo-
tional response.
The story, poem, or prose selection should be told, recited,
or read to the children by the teacher.
“ As for the manner in which a11 this is to be done, there
should be no discounting by husky, rasping voice. The teacher
ought"to know how to beautify the spoken word by clear, rich
intonation ; by delicate variations of expression; by faultless
pronunciation and clear cut enunciation.” — Chubb.
To this may be added the almost universal fault of the
mOnOtOne. -
Readings by a teacher with a cultivated voice and an appre-
ciation of good literature are invaluable in awakening and
cultivating in the children a taste for good reading. With the
27
primary teacher rests to a considerable degree the success of
oral expression. -
The third list includes books and selections to be read by
the children in the reading hour. In this third list, “ Books
to be read by the children,” no attempt has been made to rec-
ommend reading text-books for the grades. There are many
first readers in the market with little but illustration and adver-
tisement to commend their use in the schoolroom. The
grading is uneven and the selections are often weak in content.*
An appreciation of the beauty of literature is the first essen-
tia1 of a truly successful teacher of reading. One writer has
asserted that “ thousands of children would be better readers,
even with the present methods, if their teachers had a higher
interest in the best literature.” It certainly will be of little
avail to put good literature into the schools, if its truth and
beauty do not appea1 strongly to the teacher.
GRADE I
To be memorized
Esa1m XXIII
Rossetti C Who has seen the wind
Watts How doth the 1ittle busy bee Coates
Children's book of poetry
Sleep, sleep, sleep — From Ger-
111a.11
Tennyson What does 1ittle birdie say Houghton
Taylor Twinkle, twinkle, 1ittle star
To be read or told to the children
EOEMIS
Tennyson The ow1 Houghton
Moore A visit from St. Nicholas —
• Williams' choice 1it — int I
Ingelow Seven times one Coates
Children's book of poetry
Coleridge Answer to a child's question Coates
Children's book of poetry
Child L M Thanksgiving day
Eunner H C One, two, three
Longfellow Birds of Killingworth Houghton
Luther Martim Christmas hymn to children
Cary Legend of St. Peter
Stevenson The sun's travels Scribner
—i—
* See suggestions concerning the selection of good reading matter
for beginners, p. I6. •
28
Browning The pied piper Coates
Children's book of poetry
Longfellow Selections from Hiawatha Houghton
Kingsley The 1ost doll Coates
Children's book of poetry
Van Dyke The song sparrow Scribner
Allingham Wishing Coates
Children's book of poetry
JKrout Little brown hands
lBurroughs Songs from nature McC1ure
STORIES
Stockton Old Pipes and the Dryad. Scribner
Eanciful tales
Eulfinch Philemon and Baucis
Ripling Rikki-tikki-tavi Century
Jungle book
■ Story of Joseph,
Andersen The pea blossom Ginn
IMulock Cinderella Harper
Andersen The snow queen Houghton
• To be read by the children
Longman Fairy tale of a fox, etc
Norton Heart of oak books — I Heath
Scudder Verse and prose for beginners Houghton
Mother Goose Once I saw a little bird Houghton
Girls and boys come out to
play
Goosey, goosey, gander
Old Mother Hubbard
Little Boy Blue
Little Bo-peep
Jack Sprat
Jack and Jil1
Dance, Thumbkim, dance
Baa, baa, black sheep
Old King Cole \
Little Robin Redbreast sat
upon a tree
Little Robin Redbreast sat
upon a rail
I had a little pony
Rain, rain, go away
Simple Simon met a pieman
One, two, buckle my shoe
This pig went to market
What are little boys made of
Stevenson My shadow Scribner
Stevenson The Wind Scribner
Stevenson My bed is a boat Scribner
Stevenson The swing Scribner
Stevenson Poreign children Scribner
Stevenson The cOW r Scribner
Lear Alphabet rhymes Little
Lear The ow1 and the pussy cat Little
Riley » Sea-song from the shore Century
Poems at home
Smith Arabella and Araminta Copeland & Day
Eirst readers -
GRADE II
To be memorized
Psalm XXIV
Coleridge Answer to a child's question Coates
N Children's book of poetry •
Ringsley Chas * A farewell Coates
Children's book of poetry.
Ingelow - Seven times one Coates
Children's book of poetry
Emerson The mountain and the squirrel
Rossetti C The rainbow
To be read to the children
• POEMS
Stevenson The little land of story-books Scribner
Child's garden of verses
Longfellow Eirds of Killingworth (selec-
a tions) Houghton
Kipling Road song of the bandar log Macmillam
Stevenson Block City Scribner
Child's garden of verses
Stevenson The lamplighter -. Scribner
Child's garden of verses
Sangster Eeads for a name
Eryant Robert of Lincoln * Coates
Children's book of poetry
Van Dyke Song sparrow Scribner
STORIES
IXipling Her majesty's servants
Luther Martin Letter to his little son
Eu1finch Arachne
Andersen The 1ast dream of the old oak Ginn
IPairy tales -
Andersen Buckwheat Ginn
Eairy tales
Andersen The flax Ginn
Pairy tales &
Andersen The ugly dutckling Gimn
Eairy tales
Gatty Mrs *A The general thaw
Story of Moses
Little black Sambo
3O
JKeble
Children's
Craik
Stickney
Long
We1ch
Smythe
Wi1tse
EIe11er
Field Eugene
Eield
EHOWitt
Children's
Wadsworth
Children's
Cary
Larcom -
Sangster
Lear
Lear
Ingelow
Children's
Kingsley
Children's
Cary
Cary P
Wi11iams
Mother Goose
Lear
Scott
All things beautifu1 Coates
hook of poetry
To be read by the childrem
Bow-wow and mew-mew
AEsop's fables
Cinderella and other stories
Nursery rhymes
Old time stories
Grimm's fairy tales — I Ginn
Jack and the beanstalk Longmans
POEMS
Eugene Field book Scribner
The rock-a-by lady
Japanese lullaby
Child and mother
Norse 1u11aby
Dutch 1ul1aby Scribner
The spider and the fly Coates
hook of poetry
Over in the meadow 1 Coates
hook of poetry
They didn't think Houghton
Sir Robin
A drummer
Calico pie Little
Mr and Mrs Spikky Sparrow Little
Seven times one Coates
pook of poetry
The 1ost do11 Coates
book of poetry -
Three bugs Houghton
Suppose Houghton
The children in the wood —
Old Eng ballad Choice lit
Int I
Sing a Song of sixpence Houghton
If all the seas were one sea
This is the house that Jack
bui1t
Who ki11ed Cock Robin
I had four brothers over sea
I saw a ship a-sailing
Where are you going
Second readers
The Jumblico
GRADE III
To be memorized
Psalm CXXI
Luflaby of an infant chief
31 ` .
Tennyson
Fandi W B
Moultrie John.
Jackson H H
Hogg
The oak
The child's world
Violets
September
A boy's song
Children's book of poetry
Longfellow
Larcom
Payne
Longfellow
Larcom
Wordsworth
To be read to the children
POEMIS
The emperor's bird's nest
The merry brown thrush
Home, sweet home
The bel1 of Atri
A surprise
Lucy Gray
Children's book of poetry
Thaxter
Aldrich
Wordsworth
The sandpiper
The bluebird
We are seven
Children's book of poetry
Mather W E
Hawthorne
Harper
IHarris
Hawthorne
Thaxter
INorton
Andersen
Scudéder
Wiltse
Stevenson
Shute
Carro11
Ealdwin
Carroll
Worúsworth
Cary
Hemans
Coasting
STORIES
The great stone face
Adventures of a brownie
Mr. Thimble Finger (selec-
tions)
The golden touch
Peggy's garden
Stories of Samuel and David
told
To be read by the childrem
Heart of oak books
Danish fairy tales
Fables and folk stories
Grimm's fairy tales, II
• Child's garden of verse
Land öf song, I
Alice in wonderland
Fifty famous stories
Through the looking glass
POEMIS
IM[arch
The leak in the dike
Casabianca
Children's book of poetry
Stedman
Aldrich
Wordsworth D
What the winds bring
The Arab welcome
The cottager and her infant
Houghton
Coates
Houghton
Houghton
Coates
Houghton
Coates
Houghton
Houghton
Houghton
EHeath
Maynard & Merri11
Houghton
Ginn
Scribner
Silver
Rand, McN.
Coates
32
Hood
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Jackson H H
Jonson
Hemans
Children*s
Thiaxter
Stevenson
Tennyson
Southey
Southey Caroline
Ewiing
Harris
Ripling
Stockton
Swift
Ripling
Longfellow
Thaxter
Scudder
Wi11iams
Pratt
INorton
Segur Madame de
Erowne
White
Shute
Payne
Scott
Aldrich
Aldrich
Longfellow
GRADE IV
To be memorized
I remember, I remember
Hark, hark the 1ark
Winter
October
The noble 1nature
Casabianca
pook of poetry
Esalm XXXVII
The sandpiper
The lamplighter
The oak
To be read to the children
Eishop Hatto
To the ladybird
Story of a short life
Uncle Remus stories
Selections
book
Fanciful tales
Gulliver's trave1s
The just so stories
Hiawatha
Piccola
Story of Daniel to1d
To be read by the children
READERS
Eook of 1egends
Arabiam nights
Choice literature — Int I
Legends of the red children
Heart of oak, III (selections)
The donkey
The wonderfu1 chair
When Mo11y was six
POEMS
The 1and of song, II
GRADE V
To be memorized
Home, sweet home
Christmas time — Marmion
Beforé the rain
After the rain
The village blacksmith
from first Jungle
Coates
Houghton
Scribner
Houghton
Crowel1
Houghton
Century
Scribner
Ed Pub co
Doubleday
Houghton
Houghton
Houghton
Sheldon & Co
Werner Schoo1 Book
CO -
Heath
Heath
EIeath
Houghton
Silver
Houghton
Houghton
Houghton
33
Tennyson
Thaxter
Wordsworth
IHerrick Robert
Longfellow
Longfellow
Doane
IKipling
EHarris J C
Erowning
Dodge
IBrooks E S
Longfellow
IBryant
Erooks P
'Carro11 Lewis
Scott
Lowell
Ealdwin
Pyle
INorton
Shute
Montgomery
Stockton
EXipling
Ruskin
E1iot
Ingelow
Mulock
Baldwin
Βaldwin
Hawthorne
Whitman
Browning
Mackay
The Ow1 Houghton
The new year Houghton
March
The successio11 of the four
sweet months
The builders Houghton
Paul Revere's ride Houghton
The sculptor boy
Psa1m C
To be read to the pupils es
Jungle books (selections) Century
lUncle Remus stories (selec-
tions) - Houghton
The boy and the angel Houghton
Hans Brinker Scribner
Life of Lincoln (selections) Lothrop
Story of Elijah told
Hiawatha Houghton
Ulysses among the Phaeacians
Letters of trave1 (selections) Dutton
Letters of Lewis Carro11 (se-
lections) Century
Christmas in olden time—Mar-
mion
The Chippewa legend Houghton
The Eugene Field book Scribner
To be read by the pupils
Old Greek stories ' Am Bk co
Robin Hood (school ed) : Scribner
Heart of oak, III (selections) Heath
Land of song, II Si1ver
Heroic ballads (selections) Gimn
Fanciful tales Scribner
Just so stories - Doubleday
IXing of the Goldem river Ginn
Arabian nights entertaimments Houghton
Mopsa, the fairy Roberts Bros
Adventures of a brownie Harper
Old stories of the East Am Bk co
Old Greek stories Am Bk co
Grandfather's chair Houghton
GRADE VI
To be memorized
Psa1m XCI
Oh, captain, my captain
The boy and the angel
Under the holly bough
Small, Maynard
Houghton
3
34
Wordsworth
Field Eugene
Ewing
Diaz A M
Carro11
Erooks
Longfellow
Longfellow
I wandéred lonely as a cloud Crowell
'. The duel — Eugene Field bk Scribner
To be read to the pupils
Jackanapes Little
William Henry letters (selec-
tions) Lothrop
Letters of Lewis Carro11 (se-
lections) Century
Letters of travel Dutton
Legemd beautiful , Houghton
The be11 Of Atri Houghton
Hunt Leigh & Keats The grasshopper and the
Church
cricket
To be read by the pupils
Stories of the Old World Ginn
Classics for children
Shute
Haarem
INorton
IPrice
Pa1grave
Scudder
EHughes
Irving
Dodge
Longfellow
Spyri
IHawthorne
Longfellow
EHawthorne
Shakespeare
Macaulay
Tennyson
Scott
Smith
Pierpont
Ho11and
Mackay
Waterloo
Land of song, III (selections) Silver
Ballads and tales Univ Pub co
Heart of oak, III (selections) Heath
Wandering heroes * Silver
Children's treasury of English
song Macmillan
George Washington Houghton
Tom Brown's schoo1 days Houghton
Sketch book Gimn
Hans Brinker Scribner
Evangeline Houghton
Heidi Ginn
Little Daffydowndil1y and bio-
graphica1 stories Houghton
Miles Standish Houghton
The great stone face Houghton
Robinson Crusoe
GRADE VII
To be memorized
Psa1m CI (i •
Morning (Cymbeline) Harper
Ivry Houghton
Sir Galahad Macmillan
The lady of the 1ake, canto I Ginn
America
Warren's address
The way to Heaven
Clear the way
To be read to the pupils
Story of Ab Doubleday
Selections from Job
35
Lanier
Alexander Mrs
Lowe11
Longfellow
Kipling
Van Dyke
Prost
Dickens
INorton
Martineau
Church
Longfellow
Lanier
Pyle
Baldwin
Lanier
Hamertom
Greene
McMurry
Doyle
Scott.
EÌolmes
Lowel1
Hunt Leigh
Emerson '
Tennyson
Wordsworth
Lowe11
Gras
Burns
Whittier
Brooks E S
Miller Joaquin
Holmes
Clarke
Brown
Thoreau
The boy's King Arthur Scribner
The iron star
Buria1 of Moses
Columbus
Tales of a wayside inn
The coastwise lights
The first Christmas tree
Houghton
Houghton
To be read by the pupils
Court of King Arthur
Old curiosity shop
Heart of oak, IV (selections) Heath
Scribner
Peasant and prince Ginn
Odyssey
Miles Standish Houghton
Boy's Froissart Scribner
Men of iron Harper
The story of Roland Scribner,
Eob Scribner
Chapter on animals Heath
JKing Arthur and his court Ginn
Wi11iam Te11 Silver
GRAIDE VIII
To be memorized
The red thread of honor
IPsa1m CIII
Ereathes there the man with
soul so dead — Lay of last
\ minstrel Houghton
Old Ironsides Houghton
Aladdim Houghton
Abou Ben Adhem -
Forbearance Houghton
To be read to the pupils
Crossing the bar Macmillari
Character of the happy war-
rior Gimn
Biglow papers (selections)
Solomon's prayer for wisdom
The Reds of the Midi Appieton
Prayer for Scotland *
Abraham Davenport Houghton
Life of Lincoln Lothrop
Columbus
Bill and Joe Houghton
Story of Cæsar
Rab and his friends Houghton
Succession of forest trees Houghton
36
� To be read by the pupils
GREAT SPEECEIES ' ' ' * <
' Everett Character of Washington
Everett Reception of the Sauks and
Roxes
Lincoln Gettysburg speech
Ehillips W The murder of Lovejoy
Prentiss S S New England * Forefathers'
Day yy
Webster D Eloquence of John Adams
Webster The Bunker Hill monument
Curtis GeO Wm Centennial celebration of Con-
ę cord fight
Ehi11ips W Daniel O'Connell
Indian — Red Jacket
- Logan
Tecumseh
Old Tassel's plea for
Home
Montgomery Heroic ballads Ginn
Warner . IBeing a boy Houghton
Whittier Snowbound ι Houghton
Ripling Captains courageous Century
Eurroughs Birds and bees Houghton
Shakespeare Julius Cæsar Harper
Warner A-hunting of the deer Houghton
Shakespeare Merchant of Venice * Harper
IMotley IPeter the Great
Lossing Two spies, Hale and André
Washington Booker Up from slavery
II
ELEMENTARY COMPOSITION
GENERAL SUGGESTIONS
While it may be said in a general way that the aim of
English composition in the elementary schools is to train the
pupils to speak well and to write well, especia1 emphasis is laid
ip this paper on the intimate relation that exists between lan-
guage and thought. It is hardly too much to say that it is
37
language which makes thinking possible. Most text-books on
English in the primary and grammar schools, whatever their
merits in other directions, tend to make the subject of language
something apart from the other school work. This is a great
defect. Language is the medium by which most school in-
struction is given, and language is also the medium by which
the pupil gives expression to his own ideas. His expression
indicates, in a large measure, the clearness with which he
understands and the intensity with which he feels the various
ideas and emotions with which his mind is active. Every
teacher, therefore, of no matter what subject, should feel the
dependence of his work upon the language spoken and written
by the pupil. The science, history, literature, geography, etc.
which make uip the main work of the school should furnish most
of the material that is to be talked about and written about. It
must be talked about and written about to be understood, and
the clearness of the conceptions obtained depends upon the
clearness and definiteness of the language with which the pupil's
thoughts are finally clothed. ,
The teacher must not forget that müch of the talking and
writing should be connected with the regular work of the
school. From time to time, however, exercises in dictation,
reproduction, and original composition may be profitably given.
Short exercises in dictation, in addition to affording practice in
spelling and punctuation, cannot fail, if properly selected, to aid
in developing a sense of literary form and may well be con-
tinued throughout the elementary school course. They can be
easily Overworked, however, and this danger is still greater in
the case of reproduction, one of the most lifeless forms of lan-
guage exercise.
More attention might well be paid to original composition.
Not only might the child's own experiences be made use of in
letter writing and Other forms of original composition, but
Occasionally opportunity should be given for the play of inven-
tion and fancy in story telling and even versification.
We learn to speak through imitation, and habits are formed
lby repetition. It is desirable that all teachers, but especially
the teacher of the very young, be able to speak correctly, with
clear enunciation and pleasant tone. Much attention should be
paid to formation of distinct utterance, pleasant tone, and appro-
priate expression in the speech of little children, that they may
early form good habits of speech and early be impressed by the
38
dignity of länguage. Most teachers have to deal, to a greater
or less degree, with bad habits of speech already acquired.
These bad habits, whether in tone, enunciation, pronunciation,
or grammar, indicate a nervous machinery trained to turn out
just such products. This nervous machinery must be changed
if Other results are desired. New pathways of nervous dis-
charge must be opened up and old ones closed, or, in other
words, new reflexes must take the place of old. Incessant dri11
On right ways of expression is the only remedy. It is recom-
mended that a list of correct expressions be made out as sub-
stitutes of the incorrect expressions prevalent in the school and
that a rehearsal Of such a list of expressions be a part of each
day's program until further drill is unnecessary. I did it is
substituted for I dome it; I sazv it for I seem it, etc. Lists of
words might also be made, a drill on the pronunciation of
which would give the proper value of vowels and consonants.*
The growth of the mind is an evolution not only from the
simple to the complex, but also from the vague and indefinite
to the clear and well defined.' To demand perfection from the
start is therefore unnatural. Yet this is what most courses in
English do. In the beginning the young pupil is put to writing
simple statements for the purpose of practice in the use of
capital letters, periods, etc. Step by step new rules are added
and new exercises given, the pupil in each case thinking more
of how he is going to say something than of what he is to say.
The ideal seems to be that each exercise shall be correct in
English and that the successive exercises shall gradually in-
clude the various technical points in English composition until
the pupil is a master of English form.
Btit as the thoughts of children are more or less confused,
unorganized, and detached, the natura1 expression of the
thoughts whether oral or written will also be confused, un-
organized, and detached. The more important part, there-
fore, in every exercise in written English with young children
should be the preparation for writing rather than the writing
itself. The subject-matter should be made familiar and clear,
and it should be organized in the mind of the child by wise ,
questioning till relative parts hang together and a certain
amount of order is brought out of confusion natura1 to young
minds. When this preparation has been given, the pupil can
* Suggestive lists wi11 be given at the end of the paper.
39
express himself freely. He will not be hampered by a lack of
thought, and the abundance of his material will drive him on,
regardless of punctuation marks, spelling, and the various
Other conventionalities. •
These conventionalities, however, should not be ignored.
They have their use, but they should not be allowed to fetter the
flow of ideas. , Correct form is not always a matter of rule or
definition ; it is sometimes a matter of feeling. Children are
willing enough to begin sentences with capital letters and end
them with periods, but the trouble is they don't know where
the sentences begin and where they end. And they never will
know from studying definitions, but as their thinking becomes
clearer a feeling will be born that this is the end of one state-
ment and this the beginning of another. The need for commas
and the other marks of punctuation will arise in a similar way,
though a few definite rules may be of some use.
When it comes to the criticism and correction of the writing
of young people, great care should be taken. Of course the
natural expression of a child upon some subject which he is
interested in and can talk about will be full of mistakes. What
he writes should be criticised from the standpoint of what a
child might be expected to do, and not from what might be
expected of a Macaulay or James Russel1 Lowell. Succeed-
ing tasks should aim to secure an ever-increasing definiteness
of the thought and its expression, and the elimination of mis-
takes in spelling, punctuation, and syntax. As a rule, criticise
only so far as the pupil is able to profit by the criticisms. Let
the pupils do their own criticising as far as possible. In the
ardor of creation the critica1 faculty may not be very active.
Wait a day or two and then hand back the tincorrected papers
for revision. As has been said before, it.is unwise to attempt
to correct all the mistakes that a child may make, especially in
the earlier years of the school course. What should be sought
is freedom in expression, and this freedom is frequently the
cause of errors in form. It might thus happen that the paper
that ought to be most commended is the one most criticised.
If the teacher always keeps clearly in mind that thought, in-
vention, and originality are more to be desired than correct
punctuation, correct spelling, and correct syntax, he can then
give attention to the elimination of errors in form without de-
stroying the interest of the pupil in composition.
4O
It is needless to say that the influence of good literature in
developing taste and in furnishing models of form cannot be
Overestimated. It is through literature more than anything
else that we get our feeling for form, and a course in English
composition would not amount to much if it could not make
use of those best examples of composition which we call
literature. ,
DETAILED DIRECTIONS
During the first year of school the work in English must
be largely oral. This must be so in the first year ; it should
be so throughout the school course. The importance of ex-
pressing oneself in oral language has, of late, been under-
estimated. Little children should be encouraged to enter per-
sonally and enthusiastically into the work of the school. The
reading should be in clear, pleasant tones. The reading les-
sons should be the subject of conversation between teacher and
pupil, and the matter of the lessons should be connected with,
and illustrated by, the child's own experiences. Stories apart
from the reading lesson should be told and talked about, and
when familiar to the children they may be retold by them.
Lessons on the life of plants and animals and upon the char-
acteristics of the changing seasons will be of great use in
broadening the experiences and strengthening the understand-
ing. Language, however, should not be the only form of ex-
pression. Pupils should draw and paint, cut and measure,
mode1 and construct, for by all these means will their thinking
become clearer and their talking and writing gain thereby.
The first work in written English might well be taken in
connection with penmanship, and should consist in copying
simple sentences. A little later interrogative sentences may be
used. As the pupil becomes a little older, and acquires a little
more skill in spelling, very short dictation exercises may be
given, and the pupil may also write whatever he has memorized.
During the earlier years of the school course, exercises
consisting of questions and answers based upon selections from
the reading matter will be found of some value. The difficul-
ties of the exercises should, of course, be graded to fit the
attainments of the pupils. The following selection from
Andersen's “ The Ugly Duckling ” will illustrate the method
with a third grade class. “ It was beautiful in the country.
It was summer time. The corn was yellow, the oats were
4 I
green. The hay in the green meadows had been piled up in
stacks, and the stork walked about on his long red legs and
chattered Egyptian, for this is the language he had learned
from his mother. Round about the fields and meadows were
great forests, and in the forests deep lakes.”
Questions «
What season was it in the country?
What color were the corn and oats?
What had been done to the hay?
What did the stork do?
How can he talk Egyptian?
What was about the fields and meadows?
What was in the forests?
The books should be in the hands of the children and they
should be encouraged to give complete and well-formed sen-
tences, using the words of the book as far as possible. If a
selection has been memorized or is very familiar, similar ques-
tions may be asked and the pupil may answer them without
reference to the book. It will, however, be necessary to preface
this kind of written work with much ora1 work in order that
the pupil may be taught to make clear and definite ora1 sen-
tences before he be required to write them.
- If the general suggestions of this paper are carried out,
most of the subject-matter for composition, both oral and
written, will be taken from the daily school work. The method
of treatment and the demands- made upom the pupils will of
course depend upon the subject and upon the pupil's age and
ability. As has been said before, the preparation for writing
is al1-important. That which is taught or learned should be
thoroughly assimilated by the pupil before he is asked to write
about it. Writing then becomes a natural means of self-
expression. The ideas here expressed will be made clear by
the following illustration :
Let us suppose that the children of Grade III or IV have
for a general topic of study the people of the earth. The spe-
cial topic is the Esquimaux. Books are read, stories are told,
pictures are shown, and the child in daily recitation talks about
the many points of interest that are brought out. It should
be the purpose of these recitations to make the pupils familiar
with the Esquimaux and with life in the Arctic regions, famil-
iar in the sense that the information from all the various
42
sources has rum together, so to speak, and has been assimilated
as a part of the child's own mental possessions. Let the
teacher assist the pupil in arranging the material which he
now has. It should be arranged under different heads, e. g.,
the dress of the Esquimaux, their huts, how they get their
food, the games of the children, etc. The pupil will thus see
the necessity of grouping related parts, and he will get an idea
of the paragraph and will learn to fee1 its force.
When such preparation has been given, the pupil can then
be called upon to write and he will have something to say. He
will usually have so much to say that as a rule he wili have to
be limited to some special topic. But there wi11 be freedom and
individuality, and the child will feel that he is doing something
far more worth while than the ordinary exercises in reproduc-
tion that are so greatly overworked in most schools.
- Pupils should be trained as they become older to select
topics not previously treated in the class, to work them out in
an honest and thorough-going way, and to read to thg class or
the school the papers that they write. The great danger here,
as all teachers know, is the tendency of young people to make
a patchwork of quotations and fail to assimilate properly the
material about which they write. .
TOPICS FOR SPECIAL TREAT MIENT •
I Capitalization and punctuation
2 Letter forms ¢
3 Drill in the correct use of certain troublesome words
1ie Set raise can ^ shall
lay sit rise may , will
Abbreviations ά
Drill in use of dictionary
Choice of words*
slang
colloquialisms
I'm I've it's isn't can't
doesn't don't won't shan't
7 Proper use of words*
Do not use
any for at all
among for betweem
learn for teach
like for as -
either for both, etc.
;
. *. 43
8 Dri11 in correct syntax*
I did it for I dome it
I saw it for I seem it
I ought for I had ought
It is I for it is me
It is they for it is them, etc.
9 Quotation marks
As a rule too much time is wasted in schools upom quo-
tation marks
Io Lists of words for practice in pronunciatior*
.•°
i
(a-ah) (att-ah) (ar—sound the r) (oa)
calf . at11mt a re boat
half tat111t . ' 2L1T1T1 • COat
laugh - haunt art •
calm launch bard
palm staunch car' '
psalm 1au1ndry card
path - • far
raft •
past j* : - - `
staff* <:, •
(oo) (ow) (nd) (sk) (s)
rOOt borrow and ask (s)
SOOfT. tOmOrrOw Band bask (s)
rOOf window sand task (s)
winnow grand mask (s)
- SO1rrOW
(sp) (s) (st) (s) (sped) (sked)
clasp (s) cast (s) • clasped asked
gasp (s) mast (s) grasped basked
grasp (s) boast (s) rasped masked
rasp (s) roast (s) »
ghost (s)
post (s)
- past (s)
(fth) (s) - . . . .
fifth (s) - ' -
sixth (s) .
tenth (s)
twelfth (s)
C2.11 had catch every 1ittle
* The foregoing 1ists of words and phrases are by no means complete. The
teacher can add to them as he sees fit.
44
III
SPELLING
Correct spelling on the part of any writer usually implies
the formation of four important habits: (I) the habit of criti-
cally observing the spelling of new words as he comes upon
them in his reading, (2) the allied habit of noticing where ,
words differ slightly from his image or his expectation of them,
(3) the habit of hesitating to write a word whenever the spel1-
ing of it may be in doubt, and (4) the habit of taking a final
glance at the word just written to see that it conforms to the
intention of the writer and seems correct.
New geographical, botanical, or Other common words which
seem new, illustrate the need of establishing this first habit so
that the child will stop long enough in his reading to make
sure that he sees every letter in the new word and- fixes it in his
mind as a word he now knows and can spell.
When, however, a person who has known only the word
peddler runs across the word pedler, he has discovered no new
word but only an old friend in a new guise ; but, if in this case
and in Other similar ones he does not recognize this new word
as different from his image and the way he would naturally
write the word, he has failed to form a habit invaluable in cor-
recting wrong first impressions, or, as in the illustration, in
adding a second way of spelling the word.
If pupils get in the habit of making some kind of guess
when they know they are not sure of a word and so act without
stopping to look it up or consult any one, a carelessness
most detrimenta1 to good spelling is developed ; while if the
final glance is not taken to make sure that the word represents
that intended, it may easily be wrong in any part, the possibili-
ties of slipping up after consent has been given the muscles to
' write the word being innumerable. -*
While no theoretical attempt wi11 be made here to apply the
three important principles in the formation of habits, namely,
getting a strong initiative, allowing no exceptions, and seeking
Occasion for acting in accordance with the habit, they have
contributed much to the practical suggestions offered below.
Aside from these general principles it must be borne in mind
that nothing will help the spelling like emphasizing it and
45
insisting upon it. This emphasis must pervade all the work
in all branches, if it is to create a habit. Every word entering
into the child's experience with books or written language
should be noted and become a part of the child's written
vocabulary, with the possible exception of the most uncommon
words such as scientific, geographical, historical, etc. which
may be copied from the blackboard, if needed in written exer-
cises. A definite attempt should be made to appeal to the chil-
dren's pride and shame, that they may the stronger desire the
greatest accuracy, but in the way of quiet and not public appeal.
The extension of time for spelling is no solution of the ques-
tion of emphasis. On the contrary it leads to a reduction in
the emphasis possible and defeats itself. Certain recent tests ^
seem to' indicate that schools spending an inordinate time on
spelling fail to accomplish more than Other schools spending
much less, while the best results are secured where the spel1-
ingis emphasized in all the work.
The distinct features of the spelling exercises (apart from
the work of the first two years, which will be discussed later)
should be the period when the children study with the teacher,
the period when they study by themselves, the period when
they are drilled, and the period when they are tested. These
periods might well be combined in certain ways, but should
represent four distinct kinds of work. . Your committee rec-
ommends that, above the third grade at least, there is a dis-
tinct advantage in having the regular formal written test exer-
cise held the day following that of the periods in which the
words were studied both with and without the teacher's aid.
This does not-hinder the assignment and study of a new lesson
from following directly the test of that assigned the day before.
So that a twenty minute spelling period might be divided be-
tween a five minute written test and a fifteen minute study and
drill on the next day's lesson with the teacher's aid, while the
children could study it themselves at any seat-work period
desired. This is considered a very desirable arrangement. It
discourages the cramming often done for a written test which
is to follow in a few minutes, and keeps the words before the
childrenºfor a much longer period. It also gives them a chance
to find out which words tend to slip away from them, while
they know they must work harder to keep a word over night.
It also gives opportunity for additional tests in school and at
à»
46
home, where some decided assistance may more easily be ren-
dered than on any other subject. This plan is somewhat revo-
lutionary but has been tried with good results.
Throughout the grades about twenty minutes each day
should be given to study under the teacher's guidance, to
drill, and to test work. Conditions will vary so much that it
may be unwise to recommend any specific amount of work, but
as a general statement fifteen words per lesson is recommended
for third and fotirth grades, twenty to twenty-five for fifth and
sixth, and about twenty-five for seventh and eighth grades.
Reviews and tests should be frequent. -.
STUDY WITH TEACHER's AID
The general nature of the period in which the teacher helps
the children in their study of the words should be such that theº
study period which follows it when the teacher cannot aid may
imitate it both in method and in spirit. -
The teacher should anticipate errors the child may make,
calling attention to the peculiarity of the word and not to the
possible error. For example, in teaching the word early the
teacher should call attention not to the regular mode of spelling
ur but to the e and the a, as though it were ear-ly.
Silent letters should mot be crossed out, — which causes
them to be neglected, — but should be indicated prominently
by colored crayon, by underlining, by arrows pointing to them,
etc. They are the very ones needing every possible emphasis.
The children should 1earn to expect of the teacher help and
interesting turns of the thought in the study period. Connec-
tions, associations, and applications they could never think of
spontaneously should be put within their reach. The more
useful associations the teacher can bring to bear on a word or
get the child to bring to bear upon it, the more likely is it to
become properly fixed. One of the most useful classes of these
associations is that in which the new relates itself in whole
or in part to words already known. The unfortunate child
' who starts out learning to spel1 pem manship as an entirely
unknown word of ten letters will have trouble, while the child,
who sees in it three simple words will spel1 it any time after he
has made the discovery. Similarly the word each is seldom
incorrectly spelled; but the word teacher often is, though
almost as easy. ep
47
Sometimes an association with the sound we should expect
of a given association of letters wi11 help in spelling a word
which otherwise is spelled very differently from what would
be expected of its sound. The word Wednesday illustrates the •
kind of word referred to here. If its pronunciation were not
known we should make it three syllables, Wed-nes-day. Any-
hody who had once pronounced it that way would be slow to
spel1 it W-e-n-d-s-d-a-y, as he might otherwise quite forgivably.
If he cal1s s-h-O-u-1-d what it spells, and s-O-m-e söm, he will
get an association that may be all that is necessary to fix the
word.
The most fundamental associations are those which relate
to the eye, ear, and hand, al1 of which should be united closely
in each letter and word, so that the sight of a letter or word
alone tends to produce the sound image and the writing of the
word, while stil1 more important is it that the sound of a word
or letter ca11 up the image of it, with the tendency to write it.
From this last it follows that each of these sounds should be
enunciated clearly and fully, not in a tone heard only by a
quarter of the room but distinctly all over the room. More-
over the child should vocalize every word. This can be most
readily done in concert, but if the enunciation becomes unnat-
ural, sluggish, or ineffective at points, either the concert work
should be given up or the individual children doing poorly
drilled separately. The child should get a clear auditory or
sound image and should gain the habit of expressing it clearly,
both in writing and in speaking.
Another mode of associating words SO as to aid in their spel1-
ing may be illustrated in the teaching of homonyms. Your
committee agrees that they should never be taught together
below the seventh grade. One should be taught One week (or
better month) and the other 1ater. The word t-h-e-r-e, for
example, should not be taught with t-h-e-i-r. It would only
confuse young children and they would finally be driven to a
guess, in which case half of them will get it right. The word
there should be associated with zwhere and here and the mean-
ings of each, while t-h-e-i-r, at another time altogether, should
lbe brought into relations with her, your, and our, with their
meanings. The words sight, site and cite should also be dis-
tinguished and taught by their associations mot with each other,
but with other ideas. Sight may be connected with night and
light, site with situation, cite with recite, etc.
48
Often two or more words may be brought together by their
common use and fixed as a phrase. ' Examples of such are
“ there are,” “ he doesn't,” “ for conscience sake,” “you were,”
“ he would have done it,” etc. Sentences may also be studied
in the same way. -.
, Common suffixes and prefixes should be taught practically,
and associations made much as in the cases where words are
found within words. s.
Syllabication is useful in aiding the child to see that he has
spelled the whole word and not left out a syllable; but in cor-
recting words not toO great accuracy should be insisted upon
in this particular, provided the division of the word is not ,
absurd. It should be borne in mind that there are very few
Occasions for syllabication where a prefix or suffix is not in-
volved. The ability to syllabicate accurately in al1 cases is
possessed by few and is a practically useless accomplishment.
The child easily becomes discouraged by his inability to cope
with the difficulty and may lose because of it what interest he
may have had in spelling. *. * -
Younger pupils and all poor spellers should be taught to
1ook at any strange word, whether in spelling or in silent read-
ing, until they can get a clear visual image of it with all its let-
ters clearly marked. They should 1ook at the word carefully
unti1 they can close their eyes and stil1 seem to see it just as it
looked on the blackboard or in the book. If they cannot seem
to see the word, they should look sharply at it again.
Words should as a rule be drawm from the vocabulary the
child is anxious to use in his expression all through the earlier
grades. This would not debar the use of a spelling book, if
one could be found so attractive in its form that the children
were anxious to avail themselves of the opportunities it might
afford for study and expression. In the intermediate and upper
grades words which are regular in form might be included
whether belonging to the vocabulary or not, it being the hope
in that case that the spelling may enlarge the vocabulary. The
same might be said of common words even if the spelling did
not correspond exactly with the sound. This distinction be-
tween regular and irregular words is drawn more closely and
illustrated under the section on drill.
Common forms, such as prepositions, conjunctions, pro-
nouns, the forms of the verbs be and have, and so forth, should
early be disposed of, whether regular or irregular.
t
49
/
DRILL
Practically all the suggestions made under the head of
“ study with the teacher's, help ” admit of application in drill
exercises. But the chief feature of the drill exercise should
be first of a11 in the primary grades to get the child in the habit
of expecting words to conform in their spelling to the sound.
'Fortunately most of the short vowel sounds in combination
with consonants admit of only one spelling and some of the
long vowel sounds have a usual mode of representation. Con-
sequently children can soon expect to know that the sound at
is almost invariably expressed by a with t, and so with a hun-
dred Other common combinations. But, in order tO get this
expectation of regularity, children must be drilled on words
and syllables admittihg of only one possible regular spelling
until they know how to spell any such words or syllables with-
out studying them. This work should be begun as early as the
second year and continued for Some months, and in all the
intermediate grades at the beginning of the year, stress should
be laid on such work until children cam spell such words readily
and would expect the imaginary words, ret, feltot, dobnit, etc.,
to be spelled r-e-t, f-e-l-t-o-t, d-o-b-m-i-t respectively, whether
they had ever seen or heard of them before or not. They
should learn to separate these words as ** easy *' from those
words that admit of a choice of letters for the sound or that
seem to depart from the sound. These “ queer '° words are
the Ones needing study by visualizing them, seeking new asso-
ciations, noticing peculiarities, etc. Children should point out
the parts of the words that they are afraid they may get wrong.
It may be desirable that they classify all the words on given
pages of their spellers or readers according to a twofold classi-
fication, consisting (I) of the easy or regular words and (2)
Of those which contain silent letters and otherwise depart from
ordinary mode of representing the sound. Each teacher or
even pupil can make his own classification according to his own
point of view. Examples of regular words would be revel,
wnfinish, viplift, skilful, threshing, credit, chammel, etc. Irregu-
lar or more difficult words include such as fiemd, guy, feature,
death, iron, lemew, lettuce, etc. which would be spelled very
differently if one judged from the sound alone; and a class illus-
trated by such words as bowl which we might expect to be
spelled b-o-l-e, amuse where we might expect a g instead of the
4.
5O
s, maiden where the i could be left out, hair, loiter, promise,
recent, refusal, practice, Swarm, steel, tassel, etc. -
In grades above the fifth the very limited number of rules
having few exceptions should be taught inductively, the whole
class helping, and considerable practice in applying them. should
be given. The exceptions should have been learned as Other
words and long before the rules are developed, that they may
not become obstacles to the rule itself. .
Children should also be drilled in catching words and even
short sentences only submitted to their glance for a moment
and then erased. This is to get the habit of rapid analysis
and of instant searching for the difficult or irregular point in
the word.
INDEPENDENT STUDY
Although the child's study with the teacher may best be
done from the blackboard there is no question that his study
by himself may very much better be done from a speller or
even a reader. If the child studies the words from the black-
board his attention is distracted by every incident of the school-
room, while no such distraction will be so insistent if he is
intent on his book. If he copies the words from the black-
board he is likely in many instances through poor copy, defect-
ive eyesight, or carelessness to make errors and 1earn them
instead of the correct form. Even when he copies them cor-
rectly he often misreads his own writing. The argument that
it involves the motor centers and so adds further associations
does not amount to much because so often the child has no idea
whatever of what he is writing, but copies mechanically the
1etters in their order. Perhaps once a week such an exercise
carefully supervised might be beneficial; but the words copied
should be known, they should be compared every time with the
copy, and failure to note discrepancies should be regarded very
seriously. Children should have words they are to copy writ-
ten, not printed for them, ör at least should not be allowed to
print them themselves, when at other times they are to be
written, as the motor processes then become a hindrance rather
than a help. «•
The whole endeavor should be gradually to give the child
the power to do by himself what he does when the teacher
studies with him. The child should never consider his 1esson
5 I
learned tintil he has tested himself on all the words he can
remember of the lesson, and has discovered whether he is abso-
lutely certain or not of each. If not certain of some, those
words should receive further attention. In a similar way chil-
dren may test each other at the close of a study period and see
if they cam catch one another on any of the words of the day's
lesson. •
The studying up of words previously found to give trouble
and perhaps kept in notebooks, the making of dictionaries of all
the words they know, cutting out of newspapers words that
they can spe11, the underlining hard points in words, the writ-
ing of words they know, etc. are a11 examples of various forms
of seat work advisable in lower grades.
THE FIRST SCHOOL YEARS
The work of the first two years should follow closely the
reading and desire of the child to express himself. The
phonics should deal with regular words and be accompanied
with spelling. The child should learn to visualize words in
connection with his reading. His powers Of expression should
be called into play early by giving him the aid of words written
on the blackboard. Abundant tise of pictures and objects
should be made with words to be written or copied under them.
But al1 written work is to be spontaneous expression with the
spelling of the words furnished as needed. Hence they will
fal1 within the understanding of the child. Great care should
be taken to keep before the child at first words and phonograms
spelled regularly, though he may take or copy others if he needs
them in his spontaneotts expression. He should learn early
as as matter Of convenience the names of the letters.
TESTING
A separate period of about five minutes should be devoted
regularly to the written test, which should be given almost
daily, with a review test each week. A word should be given
with clear enunciation and often followed by a sentence show-
ing its use. . -
Before the lists have been handed in, or preferably just
after a word has been written, each word should be glanced at
to see, first, that no slip of the pem has occurred, and second,
that the word represents its full number of syllables and
52
sounds. This implies, of course, a clear auditory image such
as the study with the teacher should provide. It will remove
a very large percentage of the errors if effectively done. Such
spelling of superfluous, as superflus, suprefalous, surfluous (all
taken from test papers) would then be eliminated.
Sentences should occasionally be dictated in the tests. At
Other times children should be asked to spell any words they
Ca11.
In lower grades the lists of words written should seldom be
corrected by the same pupils who wrote them or by other
pupils, as they often make mistakes or fail to see errors, and
again children who see words incorrectly spelled become more
liable tO error themselves. -
A11 of the numerotis devices for emphasizing the importance
of spelling words correctly should be made use of as they seem
most effective. Writing the words in books which record the
successes and failures, starring perfect papers, posting on the
blackboard or elsewhere names of those having one or more
perfect papers are all useful. However, those who cannot
take as many words as the Others should be provided some
encouragement by a modification of this method and by a
reduction in the number of words until some ability to cope
with them successfully has been developed. -
An attempt should always be made to determine the cause
of wretched spelling. It is as often due to poor eyesight and
defective hearing as to bad habits of work.
IEIO MIE WORK
Spelling is one of the few subjects where the ordinary
parent can render efficient aid to the pupil. The children who
take home fifteen or twenty-five (or in case of reviews a hun-
dred) words to spe11 can first be tested to see how many they
know and are sure of, the others being noted for further study.
After these have been thoroughly studied the test can be given
again until al1 are recited correctly.
Word-games, logomachy, anagrams, and spelling matches
should be brought to the attention of pupils by having them
tried in the schoolroom. Many children will secure the neces-
sary material and play the games at home, while al1 poor
spellers should be urged to do so. -
53
IV
ENGLISH GRAMMAR
WHY SHOULD THIE STUDY OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR BE PURSUED?
I For the knowledge to be acquired. “ English Gram-
mar puts the pupil in possession of much interesting knowledge
pertaining to the vernacular. That would be a mistaken
education which, while furnishing the mind with a store of
facts concerning materia1 things, human life, history, and the
like, should wholly neglect the vesture in which these facts are
clothed. Grammatical facts are mental facts, and it is cer-
tainly as well worth one's while to know that he expresses his
thoughts in nouns, verbs, etc. as it is to know the names and
properties of strange plants and animals.” — Himsdale.
“ In one who claims to be a scholar, ignorance of history
and structure of his language is no more excusable than igno-
rance in any other department of knowledge.” — Metcalf.
II For the preparation it gives for advanced work in
English, and for the help it gives students intending to pursue
the study of other languages, as Latin and Greek.
III For its disciplinary value. “ The study of Grammar
involves a peculiar exercise of the powers of observation —
the forms of words, idioms, sentences, and of the realities that
are behind them, distinctions, meanings, and relations. These
forms and relations develop a kind of sense or perception that
éxterna1 objects do not develop. The study involves also a
vigorous exercise of the logical powers — analysis, abstraction,
comparison, inference. Grammar is the application of logic to
a large and important class of facts. The powers of thought
are developed by studying the relations of objects, external
and internal. The first rank far below the second in educa-
tional value. It is only when we can employ thought upon
general relations, which are always abstract, that we begin to
unsensè or dematerialize the mind, and so introduce it to the
sphere of scientific thinking.” — Hinsdale. «
“ Power of abstract thought is promoted directly and
effectively by formal or abstract studies, such as arithmetic,
mathematics, grammar, and logic; and this because the occu-
pation of the mind with the abstract is the nearest approach to
54
the Occupation Of the mind with itself as an organism of think-
ing.” — Laurie. {
IV For its bearing on the art of expression. “ No matter
hOW good one's opportunities to acquire the vernacular in
childhood days may be, he is almost certain to form some
erroneous habits. These originate partly in imitations and
partly in the nature of our language. In household and in
primary Schools such errors will disappear in great part under
the discipline of correction, but not wholly so. Few persons
cam be found who do not need that discipline of self-criticism
which accompanies the study of Grammar when properly
taught.” — Himsdale.
HOW SHOULD THE STUDY OF ENGLISEI GRAMMAR BE PRESENTED ?
The subject of English grammar should be presented in-
ductively to the pupil by an analysis of the language itself and
not by definitions committed to memory from books. The
classifications made and the definitions taught should be con-
structed by pupils upon facts which they themselves have ob-
served. »
“ English Grammar may be defined as a description of
those usages of the English language which are now approved
by the best writers and speakers.” — Whitney.
“ To be of any utility, either as a discipline, or as a train-
ing, or as a knowledge, grammar must be studied through ex-
amples. It must be studied in and through sentences and
must be extracted from sentences by the pupil.” — Laurie.
WHEN IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS SHOULD THE STUDY OF
FORMAL GRAMMAR BE PURSUED ?
As far as the elementary schools are concerned, the study
of formal grammar should not be pursued previous to the
last two grammar grades. It is suggested that topics IV and
v in the outline below be taken in the last year of the ele-
mentary school course, and that topics I, II, and III be taken
in the year previous. •
“ A successful study of the science of language requires a
subtlety of the judgment, and a maturity of the reason pos-
sessed by few pupils under fourteen years of age. Trench
says that * Grammar is the logic of speech as logic is the
55
Grammar of reason,' and both philosophy and experience show
that neither logic nor Grammar is a child's study. Technical
Grammar clearly belongs to as high a period of menta1 train-
ing as algebra. The most important reform in the study of
language that has received attention within the past thirty
years is the postponement of Grammar to a later period in the
course; and in most schools it is stil1 undertaken full two years
tOO early. The time thus well nigh wasted on the analytic
study of language should be given to a more thorough and
progressive training in the use of language.*' — White.
A COURSE IN GRAMIIMAR OUTLINED
• I The Sentence ì
Kinds according to Use: Declarative, Interrogative,
Imperative, Exclamatory. «
Parts: Subject, Predicate, Complements, Modifiers.
II The Sentence • -
Elements : Words, Phrases, Clauses.
III The Sentence
Kinds according to Structure: Simple, Complex,
Compound.
IV Parts of Speech and Grammatical Forms
Nouns
Classes: Common, Proper.
Grammatical Forms: Number, Relation (Case).*
Pronouns •
Classes: Personal, Relative, Interrogative, Ad-
jective.
Grammatical Forms: Person, Number, Gender,
Case. •
Adjectives
Grammatical Forms : Comparison.
Verbs
Classes: Auxiliary, Copulative, Transitive and
Intransitive, Regular and Irregular.
Grammatical Forms
Voice: Active, Passive.
Mode: Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative.
* Call attention to the fact that only a very few grammatical forms
exist for the gender of nouns, as nouns ending in or, ess, iae.
56
Tense: Present, Past, Future, Present Perfect,
Past Perfect, Future' Perfect.
Number: Singular, Plural.
Person : First, Second, Third.
The Participle
Tense.
The Infinitive*
Tense.
Principal Parts
- The conjugation of the auxiliary verbs, of One
regular verb, and of one irregular verb should
be learned thoroughly. Pupils should be able
to give synopses in different persons and
numbers.
Adverbs • • -
Classes: Degree, Time, Place, Manner, Causal.
Grammatical Forms: Comparison.
Conjunctions • -
Classes: Coördinate, Subordinate, Correlative.
V Construction* •
p. The work should be confined to teaching only the
most important rules. The following rules should
be taught inductively :
A noun or pronoun used as the subject of a verb
is in the nominative case. -
The subject of an infinitive is in the objective case.
The object of a verb is in the objective case. -
The object of a preposition is in the objective case.
A predicate noun or pronoun (predicate nominative
or predicate accusative) agrees in case with the
subject whose meaning it describes or defines.
A verb agrees with its subject in number and person.
7 A pronoun agrees with its antecedent in number.
8 A verb having two or more subjects, or a pronoun
lhaving two or more antecedents, connected by or
or mor, agrees with the nearest. .'
1
:
* The infinitive in ing should not be confused with the participle in
áng.
* Exercises in the correction of false syntax should be used sparingly
and should be confined to the errors to which the child is addicted or
exposed.
57
SUGGESTIONS
I None of the time allotted to the study of technical gram-
mar in the grammar grades should be used to present abstruse
or really difficult points.
2 Pupils should be required to construct many sentences
to apply and test the grammatical knowledge which they have
acquired. This work should be práctica1, and should endeavor
to disclose to the pupil situations where he by actual necessity
must fall back on his grammar to enable him to decide what
usage demands.
3 The fóllowing lesson plan, taken from MacCabe's
“ Language and Grammar Lessons,” is suggestive:
The topic of lesson • *-
The introduction
The development
The generalization
The technica1 term
The definition
Practical exercises
It is recommended that teachers consult MacCabe's “ Lan-
guage and Grammar Lessons * for a full discussion of the
above lesson plan, and its application in teaching the different
subjects in grammar.
4 In teaching the kinds of sentences according to use, the
parts of speech, etc. lead pupils to analyze the subject-matter
by means of the question “ How is it (i. e., the sentence, the
word, etc.) used?” The plan of attack suggested by this
question will insure right thinking, encourage self-reliance,
and decrease guessing. - •
5 Give sueh exercises as will impress on pupils that the
same word may be now one part of speech and now another,
according to use.
6. A careful study should be made of elliptical sentences.
Pupils should be required to complete many sentences lacking
grammatical completeness, and to construct elliptical sentences.
7 Analysis should be cònfined at first to isolated and easy
sentences. Later, pupils should be required to analyze such
divisions of literature as the paragraph of prose and the stanza
of verse. -
8 Pupils should be required at first to parse and analyze
according to definite models. As soon as possible, however,
I
58
only the more essentia1 points, as classification and relation,
should be considered.
9 In order that pupils may be impressed with the fact that
their language has a history, and in order that they may see
some reason and hence gain some incentive for the study of
English grammar, a brief study of the history of our language,
preliminary to the study of grammar, is desirable. For ex-
ample, see Introduction to “ A Modern English Grammar ”
by Buehler. •
V.
THE STUDY OF LITERATURE IN THE HIGH
SCHOOL
Without attempting precise definition we may say that the
purpose of a11 instruction in English, whether in the lower
grades or in the high School, is to teach the pupil how and what
tO read, how to talk and write; to cultivate in him a desire to
read widely and wisely, a desire to talk and write effectively.
In Other words, English study has to do with getting and
giving through the medium of oral and written expression.
The supreme end of all study is, presumably, character devel-
opment, but the study of literature, dealing as it does with
truths artistically expressed rather than with facts plainly
stated, and appealing constantly to the emotions, offers unusual
opportunities for developing judgment and taste, and for.
quickening the moral nature. . í -
The committee believes that, to accomplish the desired re-
sults as indicated above, all high School pupils should have at
1east three recitations a week in English throughout the four
years, with the privilege of increasing the number of recita-
tions a week to five, if they so desire, during the last two years.
The following courses are therefore recommended :
I A Regular Course calling for three recitations
a week throughout the four years, the time being de-
voted to oral and written composition, and to the read-
59
ing and study of masterpieces, these to include the co1-
lege requirements. -
2 An Elective Course calling for five recitations
a week during the last two years, a wider field being
covered here than in the Regular Course, and more
attention paid to the history of language and literature.
It is hardly necessary to say that the works read should be
clean in tone, within comprehension, of reasonable interest,
and of real literary value; that short selections should, usually,
come before long ones, the near in time and interest before the
remote and strange; that the program for each year should
present a variety of literary forms, narratiom, however, receiv-
ing prominence during the first part of the course, lyrical
poetry and argumentative prose for the most part being' re-
served for the later years. Perhaps it is equally obvious that
the few works studied in school should, so far as possible, be
of a “gateway " character, leading naturally to further reading
of a desirable kind. To this end there should be, paralle1 to
the regular program of each year, a supplementary list of
masterpieces, some to be read to the class by pupil or teacher,
Others to be recommended for voluntary reading outside of
school hours and after school days are Over.
A simple text-book in composition providing a review of
grammatical principles and abundant drill in sentence, para-
graph, and short theme structure, is desirable for the first two
years. For the last year of the Elective Course a simple text-
book on the history of English literature and language is rec-
ommended; elsewhere a history seems unnecessary. The
biographical and historica1 matter furnished by the editors of
the various classics, occasional talks by the teacher, and fre-
quent reference to carefully constructed blackboard charts
should be sufficient to show the relationship of one masterpiece
to another, and fix in a general way the chronological sequence.
No text-book in formal rhetoric seems necessary. The intelli-
gent teacher will have a sufficient vocabulary of technica1 and
semi-technical terms commonly employed in talking about
literature. This vocabulary he will by degrees impart to his
pupils as occasion demands, and they in turn will learn to use
terms correctly. That this vocabulary may be imparted some-
what systematically, perhaps it is well to arrange to give prom-
inence to certain terms each year. Great care should be taken
€O
in selecting editions of the works to be read. The editorial
matter— biographical sketch, notes, etc. — should be clear and
simple, giving what the pupil needs and can comprehend.
IHOW TO STUDY LITERATURE
The following suggestions are of a simple character,
Offered in the hope that teachers who have had little experience
may find in them something of value.
' The teacher's preparation. A thorough appreciation of
the classic in hand — the author's purpose in writing it, the
class of readers for whom he wrote it, the thoughts and emo-
tions it contains, the means employed to make the work effect-
ive — is of course essential. It is equally essentia1 that the
teâcher bear in mind that most masterpieces studied have been
written for mature readers of other generations, and that con-
sequently some things, to be seen and appreciated by young
minds Of this generation, must be pointed out and explained,
while many other things, no matter how simple the classic,
cannot be fully appreciated even when pointed out and ex-
plained. He must therefore determine with considerable defi-
niteness what he will attempt to make the masterpiece accom-
plish, adapting the study to the capacity and needs of his pupils.
The study of a classic need not be exhaustive.
Ways of studying a classic. Not only must there be an
intimate knowledge of the classic and a clear idea of what the
study of it should accomplish, but a definite plan of action,
some part of which should be apparent to the pupils that they
may enter into the work intelligently. The following are
obvious ways of studying: .
Reading aloud. The simplest way, most effective,
yet requiring the highest degree of skill on the part of
the instructor, is to have the masterpiece read aloud,
the voice interpreting the author's thought and emotion.
Some masterpieces are better adapted to this method
than are Others, and it must be recognized that some
individuals are nervously or Otherwise so constituted
that they can never become good readers; yet with these
reasonable limitations reading as an art should receive
constant attention throughout the course. The teacher
should be able to read well, that he may set a good ex-
ample. He should be shrewd in discovering and using
6 I
the two or three good readers found in nearly every
class. But there must be, certainly during the first two
years, considerable drill, much of it mechanical, for the
entire class. -
Memoriging. This should not be done for the sole
purpose of training the memory to be exact, though
such a motive is worthy, but with a view to storing the
mind with choice passages which may serve to extend
the author's influence indefinitely. Possibly didactic or
moral extracts are best for this purpose, yet passages
that are particularly melodious, or dramatic in quality,
exert unconsciously a refining influence. Lines which ,
appeal but faintly to the pupil now may reveal their full
beauty and force of meaning in coming years.
Reproducing in one's owm language. This may be
oral or written, a simple retelling of what the author
says. ' Exercises of this character are of value, since
they train the mind to discover logical sequences, and
to separate the vital from the less important. They also
train the literary sense somewhat, no doubt, through
imitation. A modified form of this kind of dri11 con-
sists in condensing one or more paragraphs into smaller
compass, or expanding a compact statement into a
longer one easier to comprehend.
Talkimg about the masterpiece. The simple question
and answer method is as good as it is ancient, provided
the questions are asked not for the purpose of exposing
ignorance but to stimulate thought and to invite the
pupils to exercise judgment and taste. Question * and
answer should gradually give place, as the course pro-
gresses, to free, informal discussion, the teacher by de-
grees retiring till, in the last year, he becomes little
more than a listener, directing without seeming to do
so, the class assuming somewhat the nature of a club.
The advantages of this “ club *' method are obvious.
Sentimentality, the bane of English study, will not
flourish under it. The pupils themselves determine
what is within range. Through general coöperation,
many minds focusing attention On the same point and
giving free expression to ideas, more is brought to light
than by a dialogue between teacher and pupil. Above
62
all, experience proves that through general discussion
genuine interest is created. The interchange of views
may have to do with the truths of the masterpiece, or
with its art; it may involve a comparison of two master-
pieces. It may at times take the form of debate, or a
report, oral or written, submitted by some member of
the class, or a talk by the teacher.
Imitatimg. Seldom does a pupil gain a full apprecia-
tion of poetry till he has tried to write verses expressing
his Own emotions. He cannot appreciate the story-
teller's art till in some simple way he has attempted to
write a brief narrative in which he puts himself in an-
Other's place, or imagines what he would do and how
he would feel under given circumstances. He wi11 not
appreciate argument till he has tried to prove some
simple proposition and enforce conviction through elo-
quence. Such drill may easily be made unreasonable .
and therefore unprofitable; carefully managed, it be-
comes a great aid in arousing an appreciation of artful
expression.
It would be unwise to attempt to determine which one of
the five methods mentioned should predominate at any given
point in the course. All five are needed throughout the four
years. -
Simplicity and definiteness. It is exceedingly important
that the plan of work be simple and definite. Too often the
study of literature becomes a burden to teacher and pupil be-
cause the work attempted is, too difficult for immature minds,
or because the pupil fails to see what is expected of him. He
does not know how to study. He really needs a teacher when
preparing a lesson, some one to put him in the way of discover-
ing things, quite as much as he needs a teacher to recite to.
Perhaps a part of each period assigned for recitation should be
t1sed for study under direction, particularly during the first two
years. Throughout the four years it is well to devote the 1ast
few minutes of each period to talking about the next day's
work — pointing out hard places, indicating where time may
with profit be spent. Unexpected questions soon disheartem
and are apt to produce dumbness. Many teachers advocate
placing in the hands of the pupils printed questions indicating
in a general way what the preparation should be. After al1
63
has been done that can be done tQ make the work simple and
definite, it must stil1 be borne in mind that there are pupils who
cannot read aloud intelligibly, Others who cannot talk freely
about what they read, still others who cannot express them-
selves in writing, and not a few whose aesthetic natures are
incapable of high development. Nothing is gained by tortur-
ing such unfortunates. The teacher must have patience, be
reasonable in requirements, and never forget that making
pupils work is not the supreme end.
Approaching and leaving a classic. The effectiveness of
literary study may be marred by approaching and leaving a
masterpiece too abruptly, or by failing to place emphasis where
it belongs. Sometimes a few introductory words are enough
to give the play, the essay, or whatever the classic may be, its,
proper setting. Usually a brief account of the author and his
times, a simple statement of what gives the selection value,
etc. should precede the study proper. In leaving a classic,
pains should be taken to return to these preliminary statements
and to fix in the mind the vital points brought out in study.
Since it is impracticable, as a rule, to use a text-book on the
history of literature, care should be taken to relate the master-
piece under consideration to others previously read. Equally
important is it to suggest Other works by the same author, or
of a similar character, that will make pleasant and profitable
reading. ¢ -
Works of reference. It is often possible to get the drift of
a passage without knowing the meaning of every word or
understanding every allusiom. Important as it is that the
child's vocabulary should grow, and that he overcome shiftless
feading habits, many things may well go unchallenged, par-
ticularly in the earlier years, lest interest be deadened. A
lazy teacher can save himself labor by making the study of
literature consist largely in looking up things ; an enthusiastic
teacher may so overestimate the value of class enthusiasm as
to cultivate in his pupils the lazy habit of guessing at every-
thing. There is a sensible meam. Such words as are vital to
the understanding of a passage, and such allusions as are of
real importance must be looked up, reference to dictionary and
encyclopedia becoming more and more frequent during the
later years.
The moral. Even though the author's purpose be simply
to " hold the mirror up to nature,” he cannot help imparting
64
his ideas of what in life is noble and what is meam. Every
masterpiece is an appeal to our better nature. There is danger,
however, in calling attention too frequently to underlying truth,
wresting the moral from its artistic setting and attempting to
define it in hard and fast terms. Usually the teacher should
be content if he can make the pupil feel intensely the master-
piece as a whole. If the truth in its artistic form is not suffi-
ciently impressive to exert an influence, it will succeed no better
when reduced to abstract form.
Voluntary reading. There are many ways of interesting
pupils in voluntary reading. Lists of appropriate books may
be posted in conspicuous places. Leaflets containing attractive
lists, each title followed by a few words of description, may
be distributed. Perhaps the best results are obtained when a
“ book talk * grows naturally out of the work in hand, the
classic under consideration suggesting others that are allied
in theme. Whatever the methods employed, the matter should
receive careful attention. Few things in present-day life are
more alarming than the growing practice of hurried, promis-
cuous reading. A vigorous protest often repeated will accom-
plish something ; yet one should show dt1e respect to the tastes
of young readers, leading them to better things not by sneering
at their honest likes and dislikes, but by making the better
things seem attractive. Perhaps the gradual influence coming
from careful, attractive study in classroom is, after al1, the
most effectual force in breaking up bad reading habits.
A PLAN FOR STUDYING SILAS MARNER
Two months before the romance is to be taken up in class,
assign it for home reading — to be read in a natural manner,
for pleasure. This allows time for assimilation ; gives the
author a fair chance to exert her influence upon the mind when
it is in a normal, not toO critical, state.
Immediately prior to the more careful study, distribute
leaflets containing a few — at most half a dozen — simple
questions on each chapter, designed to uncover here and there
things which might otherwise be overlooked: bits of beauty or
strength, a simple problem in ethics or in the art of story-tell-
ing, a parallel between Silas Marner and somé dther work pre- `
viously read. The questions should be prefaced with a few
general suggestions concerning how the romance should be
65
studied. Urge the class to try to find in each chapter some-
thing to admire, either in the author's views or in her art; deter-
mine what each chapter does toward making the story com-
plete.
Read at the rate of three chapters a day, letting the average
recitation take the following form: To each of three members,
selected by the class as leaders, assign a chapter for special
study. Number one, being called upon, sketches the contents
Of his chapter and adds whatever he pleases concerning what
lie has observed during his study. He is guided in this some-
what by the questions, but is at liberty to disregard them. Fol-
1owing his recitation, which has taken perhaps five minutes,
comes general discussion by the class, different members having
noted things which have escaped their 1eader, or perhaps de-
clining to accept statements he has made. The teacher re-
mains in the background, Occasionally checking unprofitable
lines of discussion, drawing the inert into action by throwing
out an opportune question, and seeing that chapters two and
three receive their share Of time. *
Here is what one class made out of chapter xvi, the first
in Part Two: The chapter bridges a gap of sixteen years,
gives Dolly Winthrop's final dictum in regard to why God per-
mits the innocent to suffer, tells of a wonderful little garden at
Marner's cottage, and ends with Eppie's confession of love for
Aaron. It begins with a church scene, the peaceful Sunday
perhaps intended as a promise of a happy conclusion after the
storm of Part One; possibly designed to show that Marner,
through Eppie, has been brought back into fellowship with
others. At any rate, it is a clever device for bringing all the
characters together and making them pass in review before the
reader, after a lapse of many years. For this reason it was
hetter to opem Part Two at the church than at the tavern, or
the Red House, or the Stone-pit. No decision reached as to
whether Dolly's solution is correct; probably it voices George
Eliot's own views; perhaps too clever for an ignorant woman.
Author fond, perhaps inordinately, of weaving mighty truths
into simple tales. Scene at Eppie's garden closely related to
the churchyard scene; supplements it. Action of the story not
advanced by it, though coming happiness is perhaps suggested.
It is another device for refreshing the reader's memory, since
it symbolizes the entire story, showing how many influences
5
66
have been at work. The furze bush stands for Eppie's mother,
lavender from the Red House suggests Eppie's proud father
and Nancy. The Other flowers, simple things, typify the
wholesome influence of Dolly and Aaron, perhaps. The stone
wall about it comes from the stone-pits, at the bottom of which
is Marner's lost wealth. The author's skill in handling con-
versation is noted, particularly the talk of women; also her
custom of warning the reader of impending disaster, rousing
curiosity yet preventing too sudden surprises. .
The printed questions On this chapter were as follows:
What advantage in opening Part Second with a church scene?
Give Dolly's way of justifying the outcome of the “ tria1 by
lot.” Show that in Eppie's garden the entire story is sym-
bolized. Find one Or two good memory passages.
The story gone through in this fashion, the program being
varied Occasionally by introducing written work and oral read-
ing, take an hour Or two for considering the romance as a
whole, reviewing it under the general heads setting, characters,
plot, underlying truths, etc. Associate the name George Eliot
with the names Scott, Thackeray, and Dickens. Suggest lines
of profitable reading. -
A PLAN FOR STUDYING THE DE COVERLEY PAPERS
To understand and appreciate the De Coverley Papers, the
pupil should have first of all a somewhat definite picture of
England as it was in Addison's day — the social and political
conditions, the state of literature, etc. Without this aid, which
must come from editor and teacher, he will hardly be able to
get away from the present and transform himself, for the time
being, into a contemporary of Addison, a preliminary step quite
necessary in order to enter fully into the spirit of the essays.
This transformation accomplished, the papers should be
read leisurely and talked about in class, much as we may fancy
they were talked about when they first appeared, the theories
advanced in them discussed, the character sketches enjoyed,
the humor pointed out, the style admired, — never forgetting
that the Spectator's purpose was to amuse, as well as to reform,
his readers. -
After this first informal reading, certain lines of study of a
more difficult character follow naturally. The pupil may try to
supplement his scanty knowledge of Queen Anne days by hunt-
67
ing down all the information the essays contain that would aid
a historian in an attempt to reconstruct the times, perhaps
embodying the results of some part of his investigation in an
oral or written report. He may try to find the two men Addi-
son and Steele as revealed in their writings — their views, their
personality, their character. He may with profit study Addi-
son's art, discovering a few things about his vocabulary, his
ways of putting words together, of building paragraphs, and
of constructing essays; his method of transmitting ideas in a
pleasing, effective way. ' It is a mistake, however, to insist that
a topical analysis be made of many of the essays, unless it
seems best to sacrifice the spirit in an attempt to impress the
somewhat erroneous idea that every essay must have a rigid
framework. If occasional attention be paid to structure, one
or two of the more formal papers analyzed, that is enough. A
better way to accomplish the same result is to ask the pupil to
play the Spectator himself, selecting appropriate themes of
to-day and imitating Addison in giving them attractive literary
form. Few masterpieces lend themselves so easily to drill in
oral and written expression.
Here, as in the study of prose fiction, question leaflets of a
simple character are recommended. The following questions
are from a leaflet used in one of Connecticut's schools :
Paper No. II2. Could Steele have written this paper?
What makes it one of the best in the series? Give substance
and state purpose. Has the paper a clearly defined plan? Re-
ligion aside, what are the advantages of Sunday and church-
going? ; -
Paper No. I 13. Try to imagine — take ten minutes for
it — how this paper was received by Spectator readers. Would
such an article be appreciated by readers of the present day?
Is the purpose of the paper to instruct, reform, or amuse?
Give stibstance of the Knight's narrative. Why is the Widow's
hand mentioned so often ? Explain ** assizes,” “ murrain,”
“ confidante,” “tansy.” – Show that the quotation from Mar-
tial is apt. - -
A few review qucstioms to follow the study of the Spectator.
Purpose of the Spectator? What good did it do in Addison's
day and what has beem its influence since then? What value
, has it today? Relationship to the novel, and to the modern
newspaper? Sum up Addison's character and art as revealed
68
in the Spectator. Pick out two or three of the best papers and
tell why you like them. Name ten reforms advocated in the
Spectator. Mention ten important things you have learned
concerning the times of Addison. What have you learned
from Addison of the art of composition that will help you in
your writing?
A PLAN FOR STUDYING CONCILIATION SPEECH
The study of this classic can be made interesting and ex-
ceedingly profitable. To do this, however, the teacher should
know the speech almost by heart, and be thoroughly acquainted
with its historical setting. More than this, he must know,
through much experimenting, how to present it to the class.
First, the pupils should be told, clearly, the political condi-
tions of Burke's day — the national issues, the party issues.
Little can be accomplished unless the teacher has the power to
carry her pupils back to Colonia1 times and make them see the
old House of Commons, see Edmund Burke and the men whom
he addressed ; make them enter into the spirit of the times.
The class should be told before reading the speech the motives
which prompted it, the purpose which runs through it. Unless
this preliminary work receives careful attention, failure to in-
terest is pretty sure to follow.
The next step, equally important, is to point out — here
the blackboard is almost a necessity — the general plan of the :
speech, that, as each part is read and studied, its relationship to
the whole may be apparent. High school seniors are too
young to do without this aid. -
The lessons should be short, at first, gradually lengthening,
however, as study progresses; yet it should be remembered
that some parts are far more difficult than Others and that
there can be no fixed scale. Rather than divide a unit it is
sometimes better to assign ten pages for a lesson and then
repeat than to assign five pages one day and five more the next.
The first reading should be mainly for the purpose of master-
ing the facts and discovering the structure. If while the pupil
recites the teacher stands at the board recording in topical
form the facts as given, the class coöperating in determining
what is vita1, what the relation of part to part, till a synopsis
grows before them, a kind of drill in logic is given which is
exceedingly valuable and not toO difficult. If each pupil is
69 .*
forced to make an analysis independently,. the task becomes
unreasonable.
This study of the speech as an intricate mechanism, as a
piece of logic, is most valuable. Moral as well as menta1 tissue
is strengthened when the pupil is brought face to face with a
difficult piece of argumentative prose and is made to feel that
he must master it. There are, however, at least two Other lines
of profitable study. First, it should be remembered that im-
bedded ia the speech are many mora1 and political maxims
which should become the property of the pupil. Second, the
speech is something more than cold logic; it is literature, with
emotional qualities. Unless the pupil can be made to feel
Burke's fiery eloquence, the teacher has failed. It is impossible
to prescribe any specific way of accomplishing this, but One
thing is evident: an oration should be read aloud. Practically
all of the speech should be ** delivered '° in class. •
A PLAN FOR STUDYING A PLAY
Plays have beem read in school for so many years that it
seems hardly necessary to indicate how they should be studied.
The following plan is by no means the only one that succeeds.
First, read the play rapidly, assigning an act a day and
discussing it informally in class. The story, the characters,
the moral problems here and there, provide material for lively
discussion. Encourage the pupils to look upon the play as a
problem which the dramatist has worked out step by step, in-
troducing each scene, each character, for a definite purpose.
In Other words, call their attention to the art of play-writing.
Second, give the play a more careful reading, searching out
the precise meaming of difficult passages, noting the metrical
scheme, and considering more carefully the characters as they
appear in the light of the entire play. Sensible questions are
to be found in the Globe School Book Company's edition of
Macbeth, edited by Wilbur L. Cross. Sensible ways of look-
ing-at a play are to be found in the editorial matter of Heath's
Ardem Edition Of Merchant Of Venice.
Third, have parts of the play read in class, to bring out the
force and beauty of passages through Oral interpretation.
Many teachers approve of having entire scenes memorized and
given with definite attempt to act the parts.
V ,
7o .
Fourth, assign written work, the matter suggested by the
play. The following subjects are doubtless commonly used:
The character of Banquo, An apology for Lady Macbeth, A
soliloquy by Lady Macbeth after the banquet, The story 6f the
play, beginning with Once upon a time.
The Second, third, and fourth lines of work as indicated
above may with profit be carried on together; that is, reading
and composition should be used to relieve the tedittm of the
careful study of difficult passages. *
A FEW SUGGESTIONS REGARDING THE STUDY OF POETRY
I TO fully appreciate poetry one must hear it read aloud ;
and since few young people are able to enter fully into the
emotion of strong poetry, few have an ear sensitive to melody,
a voice that can interpret nicely, frequently this reading must
pe by the teacher. The melody and the emotiona1 qualities
must be brought out. •
2 The beauty and force of a poem often lie in its figur-
ative expressions, the poet conveying his thought and emotion
more perfectly by means of associated ideas. Rhetorical fig-
ures should therefore be studied, yet to simply locate and name
them is of little value. Their force and beauty must be felt.
3 The simpler mechanics of versification present few diffi-
culties. The names of metrical feet and lines, the terms ap-
plied to rhyming schemes, etc. may well be taught during the
first two years. No doubt increasing attention should be paid
to such matters as the course progresses; yet here again the
mere ability to name a metrica1 scheme is of secondary im-
portance, and there is danger of deadening interest through
putting too much stress upon such matters.
4 Wherever possible, an entire poem should be considered
in a single recitation. It is better to return many times, letting
a week or even a month intervene between readings, than to
give a single, intensive reading. This is especially true of
lyrics, which, like songs set to music, grow in beauty through
frequent repetition.
5 The average youth does not know how to talk about
poetry. Even though it appea1 to him, he does not enjoy
making known his emotions. To insist too severely upon the
pupil's pointing out what in a poem he likes, what he dislikes,
7I
giving in each case a reason for his preference, is unwise.
Silence is sometimes a good sign, volubility a bad sign. In-
sincerity is easily encouraged. This is particularly true in
large, mixed classes. -
6 Memorizing passages is one of the very best methods
of getting poetry to sing its way into the reader's heart. It
should usually follow a brief study of the poem, but it is by no
means a foolish thing to occasionally 1et a poem take its chances
without the teacher's intermeddling. Plant the seed and trust
tO nature to take care of it.*
VI
COMPOSITION IN THE HIGH SCHOOL
I
GENERAL STATEM ENT
Success in the teaching of composition depends chiefly upon
the extent to which the teacher appreciates the twofold nature
of the object of sttch training. This object may be stated as
follows :
I To increase and correct the mental and spiritual
activities of the pupil.
II To train the pupil into habits of correct, clear,
and truthful expression, both in speech and in writing.
The fulfillment of the second part of this object depends
upon the fulfillment of the first. The successful teacher of
composition is one who has realized that the quality of a pupil's
expression depends upon the sources of that expression much
more than upon its merely external correctness. His chief
concern is therefore With these sources. It is these which he
must develop and train. He must enlarge, purify, and reform
them. In order to do this he must in some measure define
them tO himself. He wi11 discover them tO be the sum Of a
pupil's impressions, emotions, preferences, and convictions —
in short, his entire spiritual being. He must endeavor to make
* For outlined course of study in literature see section VII
72
a pupil more observant and sensitive, and to increase, in a right
sense, his emotions, both in number and degree. He must
help to develop a pupil's sense of values and his power of dis-
crimination in all matters, especially between things good and
bad. This implies some increase of a pupil's power in coherent
and sequentia1 thinking. For the character of the thought
largely determines the nature of the language. If the thinking
takes wide range, and is clear, direct, and vigorous, the lan-
guage is likely to possess the same qualities. If the thinking
is narrow, confused, hesitating, and feeble, these qualities will
appear in the language. The teacher must try further to cor-
rect a pupil's likes and dislikes, and to encourage in him a
hearty allegiance to good things, and a hearty hatred of that
which is bad.
The proper teaching of literature has been found to be one
of the best means of developing these sources of expression.
But they may be manipulated and modified by a good teachér
of any subject, by al1 personal relations of teacher to pupil, .
within school and without; they may also be developed by the
exercise in composition itself, for the effort to express thought
or feelings reacts powerfully upon the mental fa@ulties, calling
them into vigorous activity and subjecting them to discipline.
It is clear that if the teacher is to inspire and stimulate the
pupil's expression by the means here suggested, the relation
between the teacher and pupil must be a personal one. The
teacher must study the individual, learn his peculiarities, and
adapt himself to the pupil as far as circumstances will permit.
He must remember that while many of the more external mat-
ters. of composition may be taught to his pupils collectively,
yet the best of his teaching will be done through the appeal
that he makes to the individual.
The task thus far described is a difficult one. No teacher
can accomplish it fully with any pupil during the high school
course. These, however, are the lines along which it is neces-
sary to work for right results, and any success in this direction
will appear not only in the pupil's menta1 and spiritual improve-
ment, but in his readiness to learn to express himself clearly,
accurately, and appropriately. This sort of training will in-
crease freedom and facility in expression of his thought, and
improve his language. In ora1 composition it will be easier
to teach him clearness of enunciation and accuracy of pronun-
73.
• ciation. In written composition he will the more readily and
easily 1earn the correct use of capitals, correct punctuation,
spelling, framing of sentences, and organization of discourse.
EQUIPMENT AND PREPARATION OF A TEACHER OF COMPOSITION
A good teacher of composition is probably rarer than a �
good teacher of any other subject. His equipment and prep- .
aration are therefore of great importance. Natural gifts for
such work count for much, but a teacher who feels that he
does not possess them should not despair. Certain personal
qualities indispensable for a teacher of composition in second-
ary grades may be cultivated. Such are delicacy, insight into
character, adaptability to divers natures, sympathy — every-
thing, in short, which is implied in tact — firmnesS and strict-
ness in disciplinary matters of composition, lightness and de-
tachment of spirit without actual levity ; to these should be
added graces of manner and personality. The spring cannot
rise higher than its source. It is therefore clear that the teacher
should exceed the pupil in all those powers which constitute
the sources of expression; that is, he should surpass him in the
range and depth of his sympathies, should be more delicately
susceptible to al1 impressions, should be capable of making
truer and broader distinctions, of perceiving more essential
resemblances and contrasts, and he should be preéminently a
person devoted without compromise to that which is good.
The means of grace are manifold and, for most part, easy.
Some of these may be suggested.
I One of the best is to see other teachers at work, and to
talk over problems and difficulties with them privately. Servile
and strict imitation of another's procedure is fatal in teaching
composition, as in anything else. But the spirit of good teach-
ing may most easily be caught in this way. Even the spectacle
Of bad teaching may be edifying. One may learn by it what
mot to do, or may have revealed to him, with startling vivid-
ness, defects Of his own work which had hitherto escaped his
motice. � -.
II Advanced training in literature and language is con-
tinually becoming more desirable. This does not mean neces-
sarily that the teacher of English in the secondary school should
be a doctor of philosophy or an investigator. The important
object is twofold : (I) That the teacher of composition may
74
have a better sense than at present of the historical development
of the language, especially as exhibited in the best literature.
This seems necessary to reliable and sound judgment in mat-
ters of usage, and basic to such sense of style as a teacher of
English should possess. (2) That the literary judgment in
the larger sense may be corrected and fortified. This implies
such advanced work as involves the Overhauling, revising, read-
jttstment of one's standards of judgment in so far as they
1meed it. In short, advanced work should be primarily acquisi-
tive of power, and should tend to an expansiom of the teacher's
whole nature. »
III The teacher's spirit may be refreshed and liberalized,
and his sense of values qttickened, by frequent resort to the best
literature, especially such as he does not happen to be teach-
ing. In general, poetry will be found more efficient for this
purpose than prose. One teacher, in moments of depression
and weariness, refreshes himself from such sources as The
Grammariam's Funeral, Ulysses, The Lotos EaterS, and Sir.
Galahad. No prescription can be given, however. The teacher
of composition at times feels his critical sense blunted by con-
tinuous rubbing on the grosser matter of exercises and themes.
There is no means of sharpening it better than to turn to prose
which represents not only rare and exquisite style, but, what
is better, rea1 sincerity and freshness of utterance, and strong
1) ut well-disciplined and well-Ordered passion. Bacon, Milton,
Addison, Johnson, Burke, Boswell, N ewman, Ruskin, are
some of the more obvious possibilities. This expedient is rec-
ommended not with the expectation that the teacher who adopts
it shall try to make his pupils' performance measure up to the
standard represented by these writers, or force upon them the
attempt to imitate these masters in their style. Nothing could
be more futile and discouraging than that. Rather should the
practice help the teacher to get out of his rut, to stop picking
altogether at minor faults while he allows the major faults to
escape, tO give vital criticism and really helpful suggestion
where it is most needed ; in short, to do the 1egitimate wor of a
teacher in a freer, easier, and better way. *
But contact with the best literature — “ the literature of a11
time” — should be not merely occasional, but continual.
Many teachers, even some who deplore the taste of their pupils,
depend for their own reading almost entirely upon current
75
fiction and periodicals. No sign should be more alarming to
the teacher than to find that great literature can no longer com-
pete successfully with the ephemeral output of the present for
1his interest and sympathy, and that he turns to a perusal of it
as to a disagreeable task. Nothing will undermine his stand-
ards or dissipate his strength as a teacher more certainly than
this. Immediate and decisive steps should be taken by him to
correct any such tendency in himself, and the task will not be
an easy one in this day of indifference to the classics and of
popular demand for acquaintance with current literature at
any cost. The reading of the best current literature is not
inconsistent with the best taste, but its place should at al1 times
be a secondary one; and, with al1 allowance for its cleverness
and power to entertain, it should be judged by the same abso-
111te standards which have determined the creation and preser-
vation of the classics of literatttre.
$ - II
ORAL COMPOSITION
Of the two kinds of composition, oral and written, the
latter receives, in most schools, far more attention than the
former. That the reverse of this should be the case is now
coming to be quite generally held. To most people, ability to
talk well is of much greater value than ability to write well.
People speak many times for every time they write ; and a
faultless enunciation and accurate pronunciation, a wide range
and richness of yocabulary, the power of clear and concise
statement, of graphic description and racy narration, of con-
vincing argument and persuasive appeal, are evidences of re-
finement, culture, and talent, and are potent aids to success in
almost every ca11ing.
Moreover, ability to write well can best be acquired through
mastery of the spoken language. Says Professor Palmer,
“ Through speech it is usually decided whether a man is to
have command of his language or not. If he is slovenly in his
ninety-nine cases of talking he can seldom pull himself up to
strength and exactitude in his hundredth case of writing.”
Again, “ Since the opportunities for oral practice enormously
outbalance those for writing, it is the oral which is chiefly
significant in the development of literary power.”
a
76
The following excerpts from “ The Teaching of English,”
by Principal Percival Chubb, enforce this same thought:
“ Oral composition, being so intangible and unmeasurable,
goes for little, although it is, in fact, the crucial, fundamental
matter.” “ The basis of all literary training is oral. The ear
is the arbiter of speech ; the mouth, not the pen, its greatest
instrument.” “ Of ora1 composition there should be much
more than is ordinarily done in our schools, and it should be
done more systematically and deliberately.”
The training given by the school in oral language should
seek to stimulate and guide those intellectual, emotiona], and
volitional activities that are the true Sources of al1 expression,
to cultivate in pupils correct habits in the use of their mother
tongue, and to help them acquire those pleasant tones, that
nicety of enunciation, and that accuracy of pronunciation
which are such valuable assets in after life. To accomplish
these important objects, teachers must look well to the char-
acter of their influence and instruction. -
The mastery of a spoken language is acquired largely
through imitation. The most effective means of cultivating in
children accuracy of speech is to place models of such speech
before them. Of a11 such models the most influential, outside
of the home, are those presented by the teacher. It is im-
portant, therefore, that while teachers should avoid falling into
the habit of using stilted and pedantic forms of expression they
should as carefully shun the other extreme and rigorously
exclude from their language al1 coarse slang, incorrect idioms,
' provincia1 phrases, and ungrammatical expressions. They
should assiduously cultivate habits of simple and direct speech,
seeking that perfect pronunciation, that pleasing enunciation,
and that flexibility of tone which distinguish the cultivated
person.
Since, as has already been observed, the most intimate and
vita1 connection exists between the character of thought and
the expression of it, and since each powerfully reacts upon the
Other, the training of pupils in oral expression can belong ex-
clusively to no one department, bttt must belong to al1 depart-
ments of a school. Clearness and truthfulness in the expres-
sion of thought, in proper voice, enunciation, and pronuncia-
tion, should be as carefully exemplified and as strenuot1sly
insisted upön by the teacher of history, chemistry, physics,
?7 . *
mathematics, or a foreign language as by the teacher of Eng-
lish ; and the success of the teacher of any subject should be
estimated, in no small measure, by the perfection he secures in
the form as well as the substance of his pupils' recitations.
There is no subject in the curriculum the teaching of which
does not offer abundant opportunity for effective training in
oral expression. The recitation in history affords an excel-
lent opportunity for training in graphic narration ; the recita-
tion in natural science for training in vivid description ; the
recitation in physical science and mathematics for training in
clear, concise exposition ; while the recitation in an ancient or
modern language affords unequaled opportunities for increas-
ing the pupil's vocabulary, leading him to use words with dis-
crimination, training him in the use of correct idioms, and culti-
vating habits of clear, direct, forceful speech.
It should be borne in mind, however, that every subject has
a nomenclature that is peculiar to itself, and that it requires
considerable time for some pupils to master a nomenclature
sufficiently to recall readily the appropriate word while reciting.
In beginning a new subject, therefore, the teacher should give
considerable attention to unfamiliar terms, making sure that
their precise meanings are clearly understood. Fluency in
reciting should not be expected from the first, especially from
those pupils whose linguistic talents and aptitudes are limited.
A certain degree of hesitation, stumbling, and circumlocution
must be patiently endured for a time. The aim should be to
help the pupil gradually to Overcome the cause of his diffi-
culty in reciting, and thus to enable him to talk with readiness
and precision. At the same time that the speech is being made
more exact and direct the thought is made clearer, more defi-
nite, and critical.
Unless every department of the school places emphasis
upon the form as well as the substance of the pupil's recita-
tions and thus helps to keep his linguistic consciemce sensitive
and make every effort his best, the department of English
can accomplish comparatively little in its endeavors to improve
the speaking manners of the school. If the incomplete or in-
coherent statement, the awkward or ungrammatical sentence,
or the inappropriate word be invariably allowed to pass uncor-
rected by the teachers of other subjects, the teacher of English,
however well equipped for his work, can make little headway
in supplanting the slouchy, slovenly, incoherent language into
which many pupils are so likely to fall unless continually
braced up to their best effort, with language that shall have
precision, directness, and range. •
It is not meant that the pupil shall invariably or often be
stopped in the midst of his recitation to correct the form of any
statement, nor that after the recitation considerable time sha11
be devoted to pointing out errors in the construction of sen-
tences or in the use of words. The former should rarely occur,
and the latter not too frequently. All that is suggested here is
that in the teacher's own way he keep his pupils sensitive to
errors of speech and desirous of making every effort their best.
If stich a condition be present, an occasional correction, sug-
gestion, and commendation will insure constant improvement.
High School pupils repeatedly use highly involved sentences
and loose constructions instead of short sentences and simple
constructions; they use ** and '' and ** but *' tens of times when
they should use them only once; they misplace adverbs, espe-
cially such adverbs as “ Only * and ** alone *; they use ad-
jectives for adverbs, and, less commonly, adverbs for adjec-
tives; they mix the auxiliaries “ can *' and ** may,” “ will* and
“ shall,” “ could '' and ** should ”; they use wrong forms of
many verbs; they use wrong cases of personal pronouns, Wrong
relatives, and make numerous Other errors. Every teacher,
whatever the subject he is teaching, can, by right methods in
conjunction with other teachers, without the expenditure of
considerable time, do much to correct all such errors and to
improve the pupil's power to express himself. .
But while every teacher should thus be a teacher of Eng-
lish, it is the special work of the English department of a
school to train the pupils in facility and accuracy of speech. It
is to this department that other departments should look for
such suggestions and plans as will unify and make effective
this common work of all. Frequent conferences should, of
course, be held between the English teacher and the other
teachers, that observations may be compared, suggestions
offered, and plans formulated. ά •
Not only should the English department thus direct, in a
sense and measure, this common work of all departments, but
its special instruction should, by the subjects presented, the
methods employed, and the spirit pervading it, be a powerful
79
influence in favor of clear, simple, and apt expression in al1 the
exercises of the school and in the social intercourse of pupils.
To become familiar with Shakespeare and Milton, Words- .
worth and Tennyson, Irving and Longfellow, to become ac-
quainted with the people so vividly portrayed by them, is, for
some, to pass through character-forming experiences, to have
the springs of their being, their loves and hates, their ideals
and aspirations, set powerfully in motion and in the right di-
1rection. It may also cause one's spiritua1 discernment to be
quickened and clarified, and his emotional apprehension stimu-
lated and sensitized. Thus the sources of a11 expression, the
inner life of thought, emotion, and volition, are called into
vigorous activity in harmony with truth and goodness. More-
over, to become familiar with models of the purest English, as
they exist in the masterpieces of English and American litera-
ture, is one of the best means of enlarging one's vocabulary,
and of understanding how to use language with propriety,
precision, clearness, and force. -
But the efficient. teacher of English will not confine his
efforts to the mere teaching of English literature. Many ex-
ercises will be given for the direct purpose of cultivating
facility, correctness, and aptness of oral expression. The plot
of some novel or of some narrative poem will be called for.
Some humorous, tragic, or Otherwise interesting incident, re-
corded in some book, will be told. Some historica1 event may
be recited. A scene or character from a novel or poem may be
reproduced. A country scene — a village, building, typical
country character, a mountain, lake, or brook, a country fair
or picnic — may be described. Some street, park, building, or
other object may be described. A sunset or sunrise, a thunder
storm or snow storm, or some Other phenomenon of nature
may be portrayed as vividly as possible. Pupils may be called
iipon to express their opinions of a book or any character in a
book ; to state why they like this character and dislike that
one ; what value the book has, and why ; what the author's
apparent purpose was in writing the book ; to what extent he
succeeded or failed, and why. Much of the regular recitation
work in literature affords practice in exposition, in analyzing
and stating motives, explaining the conduct of characters, de-
fending or condemning the same, tracing cause to effect and
effect to cause. Occasionally questions may be debated in the
8O
class. The questions should relate, for the most part, to the
work in literature. The relative merits Of two writers or of
the writers of two periods, the comparative merits of two books
Or of two characters, and similar questions may be discussed.
In all this work, pupils should be encouraged to talk in a
connected, logical way, in complete sentences, in a well-modu-
lated voice, with clear articulation, and not in disconnected
and fragmentary sentences, in a stified voice with a mumbling,
inarticulate utterance, They should be made to feel that every
oral recitation is a composition just as truly a§ if it were writ-
ten, and that care should be taken to make it as perfect as
possible.
Of course, much instruction should be given in the art of
good story-telling, of vivid description, of lucid exposition, and
of convincing argument. Ability to select the maim points of
a story or the characteristic features of an object, to cause
these to stand out in clear relief by a judicious selection and an
artistic arrangement of details, to explain briefly and clearly
so that Others can understand, to argue with cogency and yet
with dtte deference to an opponent, can ordinarily be acquired
only through much instruction and practice.
Not infrequently inability to talk well is due quite as much
to paucity of words as to poverty of ideas. Special effort
should, therefore, be made to extend the pupil's vocabulary.
True, as Professor Laurie says, “ The growth of mind and the
growth of language go together.” It is largely for this reason
that the teacher of any subject must be, in some meastire, a
teacher of language. But to teach the meaning and use of a
new word is to contribute to the possessions and possible
growth of the mind. Says Professor Palmer, “ Each word
presents its own point of view, discloses a special aspect öf
things, reports some little importance not otherwise conveyed,
and so contributes its small emancipation to our tied-up minds
and tongues.” Among the methods that may be employed for
enlarging the vocabulary are the following: The study of
synonyms and antonyms; the building tip of lists of such words
as they occur in the literature; their precise differences in
meaning discovered, and practice in using them given. For
instance, lists \of words that name human emotions may be
made and classified. Words that express the feelings toward
God, man, country, dangers, etc. will appear, such as love,
8 I
reverence, humility, meekness, lowliness, submissiveness; kind-
ness, sympathy, generosity, tolerance, magnanimity; patriot-
ism, philanthropy, public spirit; courage, fearlessness, valor,
intrepidity, heroism ; their antonyms and many synonyms.
Lists of the corresponding adjectives may be made ; their pre-
cise meanings ascertained, and applied in ora1 discourse. The
reading of English masterpieces, especially prose, observing
the language' employed, noting the appropriateness of each
important word and the effect of changing any one, is helpful.
Freedom and ease in speaking before an audience may be
cultivated by having pupils make brief addresses before the
school or class on subjects ordinarily of their own choosing.
Such an address may relate some historica1 incident, describe
some personal experience, or explain some discovery or inven-
tion; or it may be in the nature of a résumé of Some book, an
estimate of some person, a criticism or defense of some political
policy, an exposition of the rules governing some athletic con-
test, an account of Some game; or it may relate to anything in
which the person appointed to give the address is interested.
Debating societies may be made potent agencies for culti-
vating ability to think and speak on one's feet. Pupils should
be led to regard the form of an argument important as well as
the substance, to see that the same ideas may be expressed
forcibly or feebly, and that the impression produced depends
no less upon the arrangement of the ideas and the language in
which they are clothed than upon their pertinency to the points :
at issue. Instruction should be given the members of debating
societies on the nature of argumentative discourse, the prepara-
tion of briefs, and the most effective methods of presentation.
Reporting the news of the day affords practice in concise,
lucid statement in sufficient voice to be heard and in sufficiently
clear enunciation to be understood. It provides, therefore,
valuable practice in some elements of oral discourse in which
pupils are commonly most deficient. In some schools a board
of editors has entire charge of such reports. They determine
what kind of news shall be reported, what classifications shall
De made, what pupils shall serve from day to day, and offer all
criticisms upon each report.
82
III
WRITTEN COMEOSITION
LIMITS OF THE SECONDARY COURSE
At the end of the high school course every pupil should be
able to punctuate correctly, and to use capitals correctly ; he
should have a sense of the divisions of a discourse, and of the
nature of a paragraph ; he should be able to analyze and digest
the simple ora1 or written discourse of others; he should be able
to arrange simple matter with a view to intelligent presenta-
tion ; he should have caught a habit of expressing himself on
the whole in sentences of simple form, even at the risk of
monotony. This seems a fair minimum. The teacher should
not make the frequent mistake of trying to accomplish too
much. It is better to set a low minimum object which he aims
to accomplish with every pupil. Yet a formal prescription in
matters of composition is generally impracticable. More than
this may be accomplished by perhaps the majority of pupils,
certainly by many. The teaching must, as far as possible, be
adapted to the proficiency of each individual, but with the inten-
tion that in four years he shall have accomplished at least as
much as is here described. - ' . . . +
The point of departure is next to be considered. What
degree of proficiency may the secondary school assume in its
pupils at the start? There will always be wide discrepancy
in this matter, for, however definite the plan for training in
composition in the grammar school, pupils on entering the high
school will vary greatly in proficiency, as they vary in ability,
or as the quality of their previous training has varied. Ac-
cording to one teacher who speaks with authority, “ The
teacher who has the pupils in his presence soon feels his way.
He grades his instruction as an opportunist, takes his ground
on actual conditions, and will advance from the little that is
known, no matter how little that is, to the next conquest in the
unknown.” - •
ERELIMINARY SUGGESTIONS
Definiteness and simplicity, not merely of aim, but of pro-
cedure, is imperative. Not only should certain definite things
have been accomplished by the end of each year, but the
teacher should have a definite understanding with his class as
'83
to what he expects of them in each exercise. When the exer-
cise which he is about to prescribe involves some new element
or principle, he should find time in a previous recitation to
work out such an exercise in outline with the help of the class,
confining his own part as much as possible to question and sug-
gestion. This will prevent much unnecessary blundering, and
the exercise will be prepared with more spirit and profit than
if. the pupil were left entirely to his own resources.
Besides the manual of composition used in the class (see p.
93), the teacher should either own or have access to a little
library of text-books as a Source of suggestions, devices, sub-
jects for written- exercises, and expedients for tèaching. An-
other source of suggestion — the educational journals —
should not be overlooked. They contain from time to time
articles from the best teachers of composition which reveal
more of the secret of their art than can be got in any ©ther way
except by personal interview, or the opportunity to watch them
actually at work. -
The closest alliance should be maintained at al1 points be-
tween the study of literature and the study of composition,
between the instruction in the practice of getting and in the art
of giving. While attempting to satisfy the claims of the one,
the claims of the other should not be forgotten. A well-
taught lesson in literature should add something to the pupil's
art of expression in writing, just as a well-conducted exercise
in composition should add something to his appreciation of
literature. .
In order that the work may not become retrograde, and that
actual progress may to some extent be watched and measured,
the use of a convenient exercise book for exercises and short
themes is desirable. The practice of one teacher in this matter
is described as follows, and may be taken as a model: “ Each
pupil in school has a college-binder theme-book, narrow enough
for the book-strap. The lines run the long way of the page as
in the old-time song-book, the front cover so hinged that it
may be turned underneath. The paper may be removed or
renewed from time to time. This style of composition-book
I have used for ten years or more, and have found it satisfac-
tory. No doubt there are other kinds equally good ; but of one
thing I feel sure — a cömposition-book of some sort is neces-
sary. It saves time and energy. To keep in mind week after
•
week the needs of one hundred fifty individuals is a difficult
matter. But if the exercises of each are preserved in a binder
the instructor can turn back from time to time and note what
criticism has been made. . . . It may be the exercise of
to-day is very faulty, and the critic is tempted to be severe; but
by referring to the work of the week previous he notes that
there has been an unmistakable effort to improve, attended by
some small degree of success. Praise is a stronger incentive.
than censure. Or it may be that the theme is good, yet refer-
ence to previous work shows that the writer is becoming care-
less. This tendency must be checked at once. Or it is found
that the same correction is being made over and over again
without effect. This shows that the boy does not understand,
or is indifferent, and in either case needs to be interviewed.
In many ways, them, by having befóre him a history of the
pupil's erìdeavor the instructor is able to comment with greater
wisdom, and may save labor by saying the right thing at the
right time.”
VARIOUS EXERCISES AVAILABLE FOR TRAINING IN COMPOSITION
I Drill in grammar, sentence-structure, and the external
matters of compositiom. As shown in the Course of Study,
this work belongs to the training of the first year, and should
constitute one of its most important elements. It should be the
aim of this work to confirm the pupil in a knowledge of the
principal grammatical relations, especially such as pertain to
the commonest errors of speech, to fortify him against the com-
mon errors of spelling, to train him in observing the principles
of punctuation and capitalization, to insure his ability to dis-
tinguish a sentence and its parts. The training of the first year
should be such that afterwards the pupil's errors in these
respects shall be errors of carelessness, not ignorance, and
that he may with justice be held responsible for them.'
Allowance for the individual plays a less important part in
teaching these matters than in more advanced work in compo- '
sition. The best method is wel1-illustrated, simple demonstra-
tion in class, supplemented by an exercise assigned for prepara-
tion outside. The nature of the text-book to be used is dis-
cussed elsewhere (see p. 93). The blackboard, well-chosen
examples, judiciously scattered questions to insure the coöp-
eration of the whole class, are the best means of demonstration.
ę
85
One teacher writes that “ the blackboard is a most effective
agent in dispelling ignorance; it saves hours of time by head-
ing off errors before they can occur. It is not easy to estimate
how very much may be accomplished in a few minutes when
every eye is focused upon one thing, and that something of
importance.” A good example of a common error in the
papers, or an illustration of an important principle, may be
selected and written on the board. The class should do most
of the criticising, and, if a principle is involved with which
the class should be more familiar, 1et them together formulate
a statement of it, perhaps on the basis of a number of examples,
, and copy it down.
But even in the matter of drill the individual cannot be over-
looked altogether. The teacher should, throughout the whole
four years, have an eye for persistent weakness or neglect on
the part of the single pupil, and use the most vigorous and
direct means he possesses of overcoming them.
It has been customary to begin the high school course with
a review of grammar. Such a review may perhaps be con-
ducted with better results if the lessons are distributed here
and there throughout the first or even the second year, and
their topics are such as the work of the pupils shows to be
necessary. Similarly a necessary principle in spelling or punc-
tuation may be enforced as it is needed by lessons and exercises.
Such exercises may be occasionally desirable in the second, or
even the third year, and time should be taken for them promptly
as soon as the teacher is convinced of the need for them.
II Unwrittem exercises in the manipulatiom of matter in
the recitatiom in literature. The recitation in literature,
especially as conducted in the last two years, offers frequent
opportunity for menta1 exercise of the very best kind for devel-
oping skill in composition, even if such exercise seldom reaches
the point of written expression. Such are analyses of narra-
tive, exposition, or argument (see p. 68 for suggestions On this
point), studies of contrast and resemblance, of cause and effect,
of distinctions, motives, and the like. Care should be taken,
however, not to allow the spirit and matter of the literature
studied to be dominated or overcome by making such exercises
toO formal and difficult.
III Memoriging. Intelligent memorizing of good pas-
sages has not only its value as a help to appreciation of litera-
86
ture, but has been found to act as a subtle, but most effective,
purifier of style.
IV Written exercises in composition. Every art and de-
vice of the teacher should be employed that every exercise in
writing should originate as far as possible in a pupil's inter-
ests, sympathies, purposes, or convictions. No formal pre-
scription can be given as a guide in this matter, since the
teacher's spiritual equipment plays so large a part in it. A
little success in it, even if won at first only by patience and
long endeavor, leads tO more rapid acquisition of skill, and
manifold increase in profit to the pupil and delight to the
teacher. It is an ideal worth trying for, whether it is wholly
attainable or not, that every pupil should be brought to feel the .
same pleasure in a good piece of his own writing that a girl
sometimes takes in a fine piece of embroidery or a water-color
drawing from her own hand, or the boy in a we11-wrought
device in iron or wood, the fruit of his best skill.
The written work should never exceed in amount what the
teacher can criticise with the spirit and freshness of judgment.
Exclusive practice for an extended period in description,
Or in narration, exposition, or argument, seems unadvisable.
In his conversation a pupil uses all these forms of discourse
many times in the course of a day. To exclude all but one
from his written work for periods of a whole year, or even half
a year, seems not the most economical method of utilizing his
powers in training him in expression. Tasks in description,
narration, and the rest, in the form of short themes, may indeed
be made to predominate through a short period of the course.
During the first and second years, exercises in narration
should far otttnumber the others, though a well-planned and
simple exercise in any of the Other forms should occasionally
he given — more frequently in the second year than in the first.
The emphasis may be laid upon exposition and description in
the third year; in the fourth year, in connection with the study
of Burke and Macaulay, upon argumentation. But in the last
year girls may perhaps work more profitably in other forms
than in argumentation. Exercises in all the forms should be
continued to the end of the course. .-~
I Short exercises to be prepared out of class.
a Reproduction. ' Such exercises are most useful for
short themes. They may range from tasks of most simple
87 -
nature to those of great difficulty, and may be used to good
advantage throughout the course. Simple reproduction
should be a frequent exercise in the first year. In the second
year, or as soon as the pupil is ready, it may be varied in char-
acter with increasing opportunity for use of the imagination.
A list of subjects used in connection with The Lady of the
Lake in the second year will illustrate what may be done fur-
ther in connection with the study of that and Other texts :
A leaf from the diary of Ellem Douglas
A letter from Ellen to Lady Margaret, written at Stirling
A 1etter from E1len to Rose, daughter of John of Brent
The King tells Douglas of his combat with Roderick
E1len Douglas as I see her when I shut my eyes
Ellen's island home, as described by King James to a friend
A follower of Mar tells, in the guardroom, of the battle
A spectator tells of the Stirling games
The good and the bad in Roderick's character
The story of Alice Brand, told in prose
The story of Blanche of Devan
The magic ring: how É1len came by it, and what it brought her
In the third and fourth years more difficult exercises may be
devised in the manipulation of subject-matter in forms of
various length. The matter of a story, a play, a discussion, a
hiography, an argument, may be presented in fifty, one hun-
dred, or two hundred words by each member of the class, with
comparison of results, and urging of reasons for various in-
clusions and exclusions.
b Discussions in the class during the third and fourth
years may furnish material for short themes. Care should be
taken not to let the pupil feel that the discussion is being car-
ried on chiefly with such an end in view. The discussions thus
converted into writing should be the liveliest ones, and those in
which the most general interest is taken. In assigning the
task, some room should be left for the personal variation and
interest of the pupil. He may choose to defend some point
which he has made, or set forth his opinion more deliberately
than in class. Themes may also consist of illustrations of some
trait of character or some principle of art or style, these illus-
trations being collected from reading, experience, or observa-
tion, and carefully presented. Simple résumés of the important
points in a discussion in class may sometimes be called for.
The plans given in this report for the study of Silas Marmer,
88
the De Coverley Papers, Burke's Speech. om Conciliation, and
a play suggest methods of study which could often be turned
with no little advantage into written exercises.
c Imitation (see p. 62) is another expedient well adapted
to later years.
d Reference books may be used as the source of materia1
explaining allusions, custOms, Or the setting of narratives, pro-
vided such precautions are taken as are mentioned elsewhere
(see p. 63). The danger of such work is that it may become
perfunctory, but if the pupil is really interested in the pointior
subject to be explained there can be no reasonable objection
tO it. -
e Many of the short exercises in composition may depend
for Other material on sources extraneous to the recitation in
literature. One of the most useful of these is letter-writing.
In the first and second years this exercise should be used most
frequently, care being taken that the letters, as far as possible,
be addressed tO actual correspondents. In one instance a
number of letters were written to the teacher during a short ,
vacation — the exercise being, of course, entirely voluntary.
Brief narratives of actual experiences, holidays, school
events, and the like are common devices. •
The teacher should watch for a chance for interesting di-
gression, in the course of which many diverse opinions, ex-
periences, or observations may be drawn from members of the
class. Besides its incidental value in- expression, pupils may
often return from such an excursus to a more vivid perception
of values in the literature which they are studying. Occa-
sionally a happily chosen topic, quite apart from the literature
in hand, may be suggested early in the period, perhaps in the
artful form of a quest for information, the class lured into a
discussion, and out of it may grow in a few minutes varied
opportunities for exercise in all the categories of discourse.
The earlier exercises in exposition and description should
draw upon the simplest and most familiar experiences or ac-
complishments of the pupil, and in argument upon events or
issues in which he is concerned. The following is an example
of an exercise in description in a first-year class:
The teacher asked whether it was easier to describe an
object from real life or from a picture. The class had tried
both and were of various opinions and reasons which they were
89 ,
eager to express. The teacher then handed around Cosmos
copies of a simple subject and the class entered upon an equally
animated discussion of how one would proceed to get this scene
before a listener without showing him the picture. When the
discussion had run the profitable length, the results were sum-
marized with the help of the class ; different pictures were then
handed to each pupil, with some thought of adapting the sub-
ject to the individual, and the task of writing a description of
this picture assigned for the next time. In the few remaining
minutes, descriptions previously written were read by their
writers and the corresponding picture then handed about, fol-
lowed by such critical comment as the comparison inspired.
2 Long themes at least omce a term.
The sources of materia1 for short exercises may sometimes
serve as sources for the longer themes. In the case of the
latter more freedom may be allowed in the choice of a subject.
Since the effort in longer themes is more sustained and the
work more independent of the restrictions of the classwork, it
is the more desirable that subject and writer should be con-
genial. A personal conference of pupil with teacher in this
matter would often be desirable, but in most cases time for it
is not to be found. Many well-adapted subjects may be turned
up by rummaging lists in text-books and elsewhere. More
may be accomplished by developing a little alertness — what
may be called a sense for subjects — so that with a little prac-
tice and no appreciable loss of time or expense of energy the
life of the street, the country, the school, the household will
reveal undreamed possibilities and become prolific with topics
where hitherto they were barren. An intelligent and curious
pupil will catch the spirit of this practice. In, one instance
where they did, the teacher ventured to call for lists of sub-
jects which the class thought would be suitable. He confessed
that those submitted were better than any he could get for
them. This class was in its third year. What has already
been said of the use of material found in reference books and
magazines is equally applicable to the preparation of a long
theme. -
It is sometimes insisted that the pupil should write with a
definite audience in mind. An imaginary definite audience,
however, proves to be as bad as none at all. If the pupil may
write to a real audience, very well. Such an audience may be
9O
his teacher, or, better still, the little community of class and
teacher. It may require the utmost skill and patience to culti-
vate the spirit of an interested audience in his class, to make
them eager to listen while one of the number is eager to speak
or read, but it has been done, and that, too, with a somewhat
incongruous gathering of pupils.
CRITICISMI AND COMMENT
In his critical comment, a teacher should in general measure
a theme by a standard slightly above the best of which the
pupil is capable. The usual error, even among some experi-
enced teachers, is to expect too much. Great models whose
excellence is unattainable may often inspire a humbler workman
with enthusiasm and new energy. They may be a continual
tonic and corrective to the teacher in his work of criticism, and
exert an unconsciously purifying effect upon the pupil's mode
of expression. But to expect mature thought from an im-
mature mind, or elegance, grace, wealth of vocabulary, variety
of sentence structure, or anything that is called style according
to the more exact use of the word, from any but most excep-
tional students in any year of the secondary school — to expect
all this will yield a futile criticism of themes, and result in
failure and disgust for the teacher and discouraged indiffer-
ence for the pupil. A tactful teacher will quickly 1earn the
needs of the individua1 pupil and discover how far it is worth
while to go. He will learn the use of positive criticism, sug-
gesting, on the basis of present failure or defect, what it would
he better to do another time. Let the teacher beware of hobbies
in the matter of usage, especially where authorities disagree.
Criticism must aim at something greater than merely the elim-
ination of the split infinitive or such expressions as “ it's me,”
“ he don't,'° or the perfectly idiomatic and correct “ had better.”
Details cannot be neglected, especially in the first year, but they
should not be allowed to swamp considerations of general
nature, such as Order, simplicity, and clearness.
The criticism of written work should be as prompt as
possible. One teacher writes that he makes it a point to come
to class fresh from the reading of themes, with each theme and
its virtues and defects distinctly in mind.
Obvious and careless errors in punctuation, spelling, gram-
mar — where they involve principles already taught and re-
9 I
iterated — and al1 slovenliness, should be treated without
mercy, The blackboard, as already indicated, is often useful in
this matter.
A pupil should make his own corrections of detail as much
as possible. As he gains proficiency, more and more of the
task of correction should be 1eft tO him. This, of course, does
not excuse the teacher from inspection of themes. In the
earlier work the teacher may indicate exactly the place in the
theme and the nature of the necessary correction. Later he
may indicate the line and partially define the nature of the
error, leaving the pupil to discover and correct it. One teacher
says, “ I have simplified the work of correcting long themes
by applying the principle that if the first page is poorly spelled
and punctuated it is morally certain that the second page will
illustrate the same faults. I therefore refuse to read further
until the pupil has revised his whole paper in the light of my
corrections on the first page. This lightens my own labor and
stimulates the careless pupil.” The same teacher describes the
cheap device of stamps for marking the commonest faults.
“ I find,” he says, “ that they save nerve force. Early in the
year I stamp beneath the offending word ; later in the margin
opposite thè word ; later, still at the top of the paper, leaving
the pupil to locate his error.” -
COOPERATION WITH OTHER STUDIES
Much has been said at various times concerning the coöp-
eration of all departments of instruction in the campaign
against illiteracy and the effort to improve expression. This
is most reasonable in theory, since expression is a matter of
the pupil's whole life and experience, and any improvement
therein involves continuous exertion of influences for the bet-
ter, against the continuous influences upon him for the worse.
The endeavor of a brief period three or four times a week is not
likely to win sudden and brilliant victories in this struggle, be
the teacher never so skillful. But the greatest difficulty is usu-
ally met in any attempt to bring about such coöperation.
Teachers of other subjects, though vociferous in their com-
plaints of bad English from their pupils, and in their criticism
of the instruction in English, seem quite imperturbed when a
pupil commits ora1 or written outrage in their classes, and suffer
it to pass without comment. The pupil will therefore use his
92
best English only for his teacher of English, and will even ques-
tion the right of a teacher of Latin or science to interfere with
his irregular practice at other times. To say nothing of the
opportunities in the study of science and history for improve-
ment in expression, what splendid training a student might de- .
rive in the use of English idiom from exercises in translation.
One experienced teacher of secondary English complains that
those of his pupils who study the classics become actually retro-
grade in writing English, and fall far behind those who are free
from this influence. Another teacher of literature in one of
the larger colleges is greeted with incredulous laughter if he
dares to cite Xenophon's Anabasis or Cæsar's Commentaries
as examples of great literature. One may profitably wonder
what comment Milton, Addison, Johnson, Macaulay, or New-
man would have to make upon this. We must do the best we
can with these conditions, not expecting to change them greatly,
but exerting every legitimate means to make matters better in
this respect in the long run. If the character of the teacher
is right, and such as dominates the lives of his pupils, his
influence will extend into Other classrooms, into the home, even
into the more thoughtless and careless region of the play-
ground, and perhaps it is best for him to be content to work
in this way. '-
OPPORTUINITIES . IN THE SIM ALL HIGH SCHOOL
It remains to mention the exceptional opportunity for the
teaching of composition which is open to teachers in a small
high School. Work in composition at its best is largely a
matter between teacher and individua1 pupil. The teacher of
a Small number of pupils has in this one respect at least a
great advantage over his fellow craftsmen in the larger schools
of the cities. Furthermore, the teacher who instructs in Other
subjects besides composition has it within his power to extend
his line of guard against illiteracy and enforce more contin-
uously the natural discipline of composition. If he happens
to be directing the pupil's work in other subjects besides Eng-
lish, his chance is by so much increased to observe the various
directions of his interests, to encourage them, broaden them,
refine them, discipline them; in short, to know him better, to
draw him out more successfully, and to render him the best
services which lie within a teacher's power. &
93 ; &*
VII
SUGGESTIONS FOR COURSES IN LITERATURE
- AND COMPOSITION
I j
EREGULAR COURSE
FIRST YEAR
(Three recitations a week)
An old-fashioned ** reader ” or volume of selections
A manual of composition
Time should be divided between practice in plain oral read-
ing and practice in simple ora1 and written composition, the
immediate purpose being to cultivate in the pupil, through
arousing his interest and through abundant drill, the habit of
taking pains. This painstaking embraces silent reading, read-
ing aloud for the pleasure of others, and expressing one's self
orally and in writing. Much of the drill must necessarily be
of. a mechanical nature. -
The manual of composition should be simple, paying little
attention to theory, but furnishing äbundant material for prac-
tice in easy narration, description, exposition, and argument.
It may well contain chapters on spelling, punctuation, gram-
matical purity, the effective use of connectives and introductory
words in sentence building, correct form in letter^writing, etc.
By the end of the year the pupil should be able to write a letter
correct in form, and do Other tasks in simple composition.
The ** reader '' should contain many short selections, prose
and poetry, interesting in character and appropriate for drill
in oral interpretation. Of the few books now on the market,
none is ideal; perhaps Heart of Oak VI Or VII comes nearest tO
what the committee has in mind. Whatever the book selected,
it should be freely supplemented, the teacher reading to the
class at least once a week. Suggestions for supplementary
reading for this and succeeding years will be found on page IOI.
Memorizing should receive attention throughout the course.
By the close of the year the pupil should be able to use
intelligently the following terms: narration, exposition, de-
scription, argument. To these may be added simile, metaphor,
personification, and, unless the teacher prefers to delay a year,
the simpler terms of versification.
94
SECOND YEAR
(Three recitations a week)
Twice Told Tales
Pime of the Ancient Mariner
Ivanhoe
Merchant of Venice
Lady of the Lake
• A manual of composition (continued)
Practice in oral and written composition continues, the
text-book still in the hands of the pupils. The drill should be
similar in character to that recommended for the first year,
departing from it in difficulty rather than in kind. There
should be ten-minute drill in class, short exercises calling for
the writing of two or three paragraphs at home, and at least
once a term an old-fashioned composition of perhaps six hun-
dred words. Here, as in the first year, the subject-matter
should be suggested, for the most part, by actua1 experience,
and call for all four kinds of compositiom : narration, descrip-
tion, exposition, and argument. -
Not al1 of every masterpiece assigned for study need be ,
read in class, Ivanhoe in particular being much too long for
this purpose; nevertheless, systematic attention should be paid •
to oral interpretation. This should be supplemented by in-
formal classroom discussion, the pupils being encouraged to
talk freely about what they read. This talk should be almost
too simple to be called literary criticism ; yet the class should
by degrees be led to 1ook upon each masterpiece as a work of
art and to talk about it as such. -
The following terms may well be added to the pupil's vocab-
ulary : climax, catastrophe, contrast, suspense, surprise ; a11it-
eration, Onomatopoeia, assonance ; ballad, lyric, drama ; alle-
gory, parable, fable.
TIHIRD YEAR
(Three recitations a week)
De Coverley Papers
Macbeth
Silas Marner
Life of Goldsmith
Idylls of the King (selections)
Vision of Sir Launfal
Practice in compósition continues, subjects being taken
freely from the works read. Special attention should be paid
95
throughout the year to skilful paragraph building, and to Oral
discourse. This latter may take the form of forma1 discus-
sion, or of reports on matters of general interest. At least
once a term a carefully prepared composition of about eight
hundred words should be called for. Perhaps it would be well
if each pupil were asked to present an ora1 report of some sort
each term. .
The masterpieces assigned for this year should be read
somewhat critically, definite attention being paid to certain
simple laws governing the essay, the novel, and the drama.
There is danger, however, in giving the work toO technical a
character. Increasing attention should be paid to the history
of literature, the teacher losing no opportunity to point out the
relationship of masterpiece to masterpiece, thereby fixing in
mind the chronological sequence.
The following terms are suggested for the pupil's working
vocabulary: clearness, force, beauty ; unity, mass, coherence;
periodic, loose, balanced ; epigram, epithet. Probably a11 these
terms are needed earlier in the course. They are placed here
because it is thought that by the third year they should be so
very familiar that pupils may be expected to use them freely.
IROURTHI YEAR
(Three recitations a week)
Julius Caesar
L'Allegro, I1 Penseroso
Comus, Lycidas
Macaulay's Essay on Johnson
Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies
Macaulay's Essay on Addison
Exposition and argument should be given prominence in
the written work of the year. There should be fewer short
written exercises, attention being centered in theme construc-
tion. At least once a term a composition of about eight hun-
dred words should be called for. In addition to this, the class
working in coöperation with the teacher should plan many
compositions. Oral work, too, should receive definite atten-
tion, a debate or a report frequently forming a part of the
recitation.
An important part of the work should consist in gathering
up and organizing the scraps of information acquired during
96
previous years concerning the history of literature and the laws
that have governed its developnrent. Were there an appro-
priate history of literature available, the committee would
recommend its use as a work of reference during the third
and fourth years. Perhaps here better than at any other time
during the four years helpful suggestions can be offered in
regard to what the pupils may with profit read after their
school days are`over. -
The pupil's vocabulary may be increased by adding the
terms used in argumentation, and a few terms descriptive of
style. , a
II.
ELECTIVE COURSE FOR LAST Two YEARS
'THIRD YEAR
(Five recitations a week)
Julius Caesar
Silas Marner
De Coverley Papers -
Tennyson's Poems (selections)
Vicar of Wakefield
Palmer's Self-Cultivation in English
As You Like It
A Tale of Two Cities
The Elective Course^ for the third year need differ in char-
acter but little from the General, except that the two additiona1
recitations a week make it possible to cover a wider field and
give more attention to ora1 and written composition.
FOURTH YEAR
(Five recitations a week)
The work of this year calls for a general survey of all Eng-
lish literature, with a manual as guide book. The manual
should be a simple one, and be used sparingly, most of the time
being devoted to the masterpieces themselves. Of these master-
piecès, a few should be studied with care, Others simply read
by the class or to the class, still others talked about and re-
served. for future reading. Palgrave's Golden Treasury, now
issued by Macmillan in twenty-five cent edition, is recom-
mended as a necessary companion to the text-book on the his-
97
tory of English literature. The following course is purely
suggestive, and needs modification to meet the wants of any
given class. It is based upon a recent experiment.
I BEFORE THE CONQUEST
Eeowulf •
Tell the story to the class, and read selections from some good
translation. Perhaps Tinker's prose rendering is best. See
Brooke's History of Early English literature.
The Seafarer -
Read to the class. See Cook's Translations from Early Eng-
1ish Poetry. .
Eede's account of Caedmon
Read to the class. See Cook's Translations from Early Eng-
lish Poetry.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
3) Read brief selections to the class from any good translation.
II FROM THE CONQUEST TO SPENSER
VVic1if's Bible
Read a chapter to the class. To show the peculiarities in spell-
ing, print a few 1ines on the blackboard.
Chaucer's Prologue and the Nonnes Preestes Tale
. Do not attempt close linguistic study, but try to captivate the
class through Chaucer's skill as a story-teller and through the
melody of his verse. To do this well one must be fond of Chau-
cer, and able to read his verse melodiously and with approxi-
mately correct pronunciation. Pupils memorize Chaucer's lines
with 1ittle difficulty, apparently attracted by their quaintness.
Malory's Morte d'Arthur
Show the class, if possible, a facsimile of a page from the
Caxton editiom. Read a little to the class, and have one or two
of the tales retold by special assignment.
- III FROM SPENSER TO DRYDEN
Spenser's Faerie Queene
Tell the story of the twelve books as planned by the author,
read selections to the class from the first two books, and assign
a stanza to be memorized. -
Shakespeare's Macbeth
Study thoroughly.
7
98
Bacon's Essays
Study two or three in class. Recommend others for volun-
tary reading. Have one pupil report on the titles of all the es-
says, for the purpose of showing Bacon's range. Have another
report on all the opening sentences, for the purpose of showing
Bacon's method of starting an essay. Make frequent comparison
hetween Addison and Bacon.
Elizabethan Lyrics
Select a few from those found in Palgrave's Golden Treasury.
Read some to the class, have others read by the class, and talk
about them informally, comparing them with the songs of the
present day. One or two recitations only.
¥
Milton's Minor Poems and Paradise Lost
Tel1 to the class the story of the twelve books of Paradise
Lost, and read a few selections from the first two books. Have
the class read, perhaps study, the Lyrics. Comus should be read
aloud, much of it by the teacher.
Carolinian Lyrics
Take a single hour for a consideration of a few of the best.
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress
Have a member of the class read it and offer a report.
IV FROM DRYDEN TO JOHNSON
Dryden's Alexander's Feast
Study.
Addison and Steele's Spectator Papers
Previously studied.
Swift's Gulliver's Travels ,
Have a member of the class read perhaps half of the book,
and give a report thereon, reading a few passages aloud.
Defoe's Robinson Crusoe
Treat as Gulliver's Travels.
Pope's Rape of the Lock
Read al1 of it, or parts, to the class, pointing out the qualities
which make it characteristic of the early eighteenth century.
Pupils enjoy this.
V FROM JOHNSON TO SCOTT
Johnson's Rasselas
Report by member of the class.
Gray's Elegy - -
To be read by the class and studied, but not too savagely.
99
Goldsmith's Deserted Village, Vicar of Wakefield, and She Stoops
to Conquer
Vicar of Wakefield previously read. Have report on She
Stoops to Conquer. Read aloud, earnestly, to the class, Deserted
Village.
Burns's Lyrics
Read a few in class. Have one or two memorized. They
cannot with profit be “ studied.”
VI FROM SCOTT TO TENINYSOSN
Scott's Ivanhoe and 'Lady of the Lake
Ereviously studied.
Wordsworth's Poems
Read in class selections from the poems found in the Golden
Treasury. Have one or two of the shorter poems memorized.
Experience shows that if the Ode on Immortality is read feel-
ingly by the teacher, an interpretation accompanying the reading,
pupils like it, and think that they comprehend it.
Byron's Poems
Study a few of the selections found in the Golden Treasury.
Pupils listen intently to a reading of Mazeppa's Ride, Prisoner
of Chillon, and certain selections from Childe Harold, IV.
Coleridge's Ancient Mariner
Previously studied.
Shelley's Shorter Poems
Select from the Golden Treasury. Study one or two in class.
JKeats's Shorter Poems as found in Golden Treasury
Pupils listen attentively to a reading of Lamia and Eve of St.
Agnes.
Lamb's Essays of Elia
Read and study — not too closely — some of the simpler es-
says. Compare with Bacon and Addison.
VII FROM TENNYSON TO STEVENSON
Dickens's Tale of Two Cities
Previously read.
George Eliot's Silas Marner
Previously read.
Thackeray
Perhaps too difficult for high school age, though some enjoy
English Humorists. Reserved for future reading.
IOO
Macaulay's Life of Johnson
Read in class, somewhat rapidly.
Carlyle
Too difficult for high School age; reserved for future reading.
Ruskin
Read selections to the class. It is extremely difficult to make
boys and girls like Ruskin, especially his Sesame and Lilies.
Tennyson's Poems
Previously studied.
Arnold's Balder Dead
Read to the class. Recommend Sohrab and Rustum.
Browning's Poems
Study somewhat thoroughly a few of the simpler ones fotimd
in any of the many editions prepared for high school use.
VIII AMERICAN LITERATURE
Familiar selections
Many of the American classics are read in the Grammar
Grades. It seems wise, however, to give the pupils, just before
they leave school, a superficial review, with generous sugges-
tions regarding what they may well read in coming years.
Perhaps this is best accomplished through informal talks, ac-
companied by the reading of a few of the old familiar pieces.
A volume issued by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. contains selections
from thirteen American authors. The writer of this section of
the report has found that House of Seven Gables is an ad-
mirable work for classroom study. Most pupils can be intérested
in Thoreau through hearing selections from Waldem read aloud.
From Beowulf to Browning is a long journey, and the
teacher must be content with what, looked at in one way, may
be called grossly superficial work. And yet, since most of
those who elect this course do not intend to go to college, there
seems to be sufficient reason for making it a nibbling course
calculated to tempt the pupils to continue profitable reading
after school days are over. A more difficult course can easily
be made by cutting out'all but a few of the masterpieces men-
tioned above, and studying these few closely. The work as
planned need not, however, encourage habits of shiftlessness.
The composition work of the year should not differ ma-
terially from that prescribed for the Regular Course, except
as it takes color from the character of the masterpieces studied.
IOI
IIII
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
No matter how great the masterpiece, its success depends
upon the power of the reader to receive its message. A teacher
soon learns how greatly individuals differ in this respect, and
how a given individualis now impressionable, now immovable,
according to the mood he is in. There is, therefore, in teach-
ing English, no certainty of getting results commensurate with
the amount of energy expended ; and it is this element of un-
certainty which makes the work at once fascinating and ex-
asperating. Because of this element of uncertainty there is a
reasonable excuse for what may be called gambling, or, if the
term offends, angling. By this we mean turning aside from
the work in hand, now and them, to spend a few minutes, or
even an hour, in reading to the class or in talking to them
about books with a view to encouraging voluntary reading.
We may imagine that the teacher often performs his highest
duty in just such random efforts. It is hoped that the follow-
ing lists will prove suggestive to some, though of course it is
true that each instructor knows better than anyone else what
he can with profit offer his pupils. The works assigned for
study in the courses outlined above are purposely few in num-
ber that time may remain for this supplementary reading.
IFIRST YEAR
Inchcape Rock . ę ę <• & si Southey
After Blenheim . * * . • • ę Southey
Herve Rie1 . . q. * • . * Browning
How they brought the good news . e Browning
Incident of the French camp » * £e Browning
The burial of Sir John Moore . e » Wolfe
Great expectations '. ę ę ¢ ¢ Dickens
The talisman ■ <e ę [… ¢ ¢ Scott
Treasure island . . e • . «-* e Stevenson
King of the goldem river . & * • Ruskin
Adventures of Ulysses è & s & Lamb
The jungle books . se • è ę ę EXipling
The great carbuncle . «* &* ę «e Hawthorne
Pepacton * * e* es ©* , Burroughs
An idyl of the honey-bee . ę • � Burroughs
Conspiracy of Pontiac . • e* * … Parkman
IO2
\
SECOND YEAR
Abou Ben Adhem .
The sands of Dee -
The loss of the Birkenhead . •
Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doom .
Three fishers • . •
The death of the flowers
To a waterfowl
'Oliver Twist
Kenilworth
Kidnapped
The Greek heroes
'The bottle imp �
Rappaccini's daughter .
Montcalm and Wolfe .
Conquest of Granada . ..
The Oregon trai1 .
Birds and bees
Life of Dickens
TEIIRD YEAR
Heather ale: a Galloway legend
The private of the Buffs
Helvellyn •
The forsakem merman .
Highland Mary
The humble bee
The Revenge
The 1ost 1eader
Twelfth night
The taming of the shrew
She stoops to conquer .
The rivals . * •
A New England girlhood
The story of my 1ife
The story of my life *
A 1ife of Wi1liam Shakespeare
An inland voyage - -.
A leaf of spearmint (Little rivers)
Love's meinie ©» - • •
A bunch of herbs (A year in the field)
My summer in a garden &
Gray days and gold • .
English lands, letters, and kings .
The Odyssey (translation)
David Copperfield
The monastery
IIunt
Kingsley
Doyle
Burns
Kingsley
Bryant
Eryant
Dickens
Scott
Stevenson
Ringsley
Stevensom
PHawthorne
Parkman
Irving
Parkmam
Eurroughs
Eorster
Stevenson
Doyle
Scott
Arnold
Eurns
Emerson
Tennyson
Browning
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Goldsmith
Sheridan
Lucy Larcom
PHelen Keller
Andersen
Lee
Stevenson
Van Dyke
Ruskin
Burroughs
Warner
Winter
Mitche11
Palmer
Dickens
Scott
IO3
The abbot •
Mi11 on the Floss .
The Merry Men . '
Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde
Gulliver's travels .
Pilgrim's progress
Don Quixote • •
Scott
George Eliot
Stevenson
Stevenson
Swift
|Bunyan
Cervantes
Æsop and Rhodope (Imaginary conversations) Landor
Eicciola
Fanciful tales ę
Masque of the red death
Jean-ah Poquelin .
Tales of New England
A doctor of the o1d schoo1 . ,
EOURTEI YEAR
McAndrew's hymn
Muleykeh s.
Ozymandias of Egypt .
I wandered lonely as a cloud
The world is too much with us . -
Methought I saw the footsteps of a throne
The lost duchess .
Eve of St. Agnes .
Lamia •
Ode to duty .
Cyrano de Bergerac
Herodi
Hamlet *
Dombey and som .
Pride and prejudice
Evelina
Wi11 o' the mi11
The birth mark � •
The man who would be king
The procession of life .
Adam Bede . -
PHeart of Midlothiam
The Iliad (translation)
A Christmas sermon
The Silverado squatters
Self-reliance .
Prue and I
Utopia ę te
Harbours of England .
Modern painters .
Queen of the air .
Reply to Hayne
Saintine
Stockton
IPoe
Cable
Jewett
Watson
Kipling
Erowning
Shelley
Wordsworth
Wordsworth
WordswQrth.
Browning
JXeats
EXeats
Wordsworth
Rostand
Phillips
Shakespeare
Dickens
Austen
Burney
Stevenson
EHawthorne
Ripling
Hawthorne
George Eliot
Scott
Lang, Leaf, and Meyer
Stevenson
Stevenson
Emerson
Curtis
More
Ruskin
Ruskin
Ruskin
Webster
IO4
The White murder tria1 . «e ę ę Webster
IEssay on Burns . *-» * ę ę ¢ Carlyle
Conquest of England , . s � ę è Green
Questions of empire . o. * ¢ r* Rosebery
Rise of the Dutch republic . ę «. e Motley
Essay on Swift . * w* -! e* v Johnson
Life of Henry Clay . &-* ¢ � • Schurz
Essays in idleness i* ¢ • � ę Repplier
English humorists es es e* q. &- Thackeray
Literary ethics . * • &* «s ę Emerson
Walden ¢ ę * � ę ¢ *-* Thoreau
Our best society . * ¢ -* ¢ s. Curtis
The gentle reader . * se e * ę CrOthers
Margaret Ogilvy . * ę ę ά G* Barrie
On a pea1 of be11s . � * & � ¢ Thackeray
Hard fare . τ* *s ę s. ¢ ; Eurroughs
A good word for winter . ę ę e Lowell
Life of Fannie Burney ê ¢ £- • Dobson
On friendship * � ¢ s * Cicero
Autocrat of the breakfast table . ` . ¢ EIo1mes
Calvin . e &e [… l* ¢ ¢ ® Warner
Life of Scott (passim) * * ç ę Lockhart
Life and letters of Lord Macaula ę * Trevelyan
Life of Samuel Johnson (passim) . «* IBoswell
American men of letters series
English men of letters series
American statesmen series
VIII
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following works have been found helpful by variotis
members of the committee. A much longer list appears in
The teaching of English in the elementary and the secondary
school, mentioned below. Teachers having access to Academy,
Atlantic Monthly, Educatiom, Educational Reziezv, Jourmal of
Educatiom, Journial of Pedagogy, and School Reviczw will find
in these magazines occasional articles of value. The leafets
issued monthly during the school year by the New England
IO5
Association of English Teachers, and the annual reports of the
State Board of Education contain many helpful suggestions.
Sentence method of teaching
reading, writing, and spel1-
ing Farnham Geo L Eardeen, Syracuse,
IN Y
A good manual for teachers. The author advocates the sentence
ÉÉÉÉ but the principles may be applied to either word or sentence
method.
Reading: a manual for teach-
erS Laing M E D C Heath
. An excellent presentation of principles. Many practical illustra-
tions are given.
Special method in the reading
of complete English classics
in the common schools McMurray Chas Pub sch pub co
, Presents a method of teaching reading and suggests books to be read
in the several grades of schools. Helpful to inexperienced teachers.
Educational law of reading and
writing Scudder H E Atlantic Monthly
i (I894), vo1 73
p 252
A good article dealing with just what the title states. Method is
not presented.
Teaching the language arts Hinsda1e D Appleton & Co
. Chapters 9, Io, II, I2, I3 contain little 9f method, but explain the-
principles upon which the art of reading is based and what reading
ought to mean to the teacher.
Introduction to Heart of oak
books Books II, III, IV, V,
VI Norton C E D C Heath
This introduction (the introduction is the same in al1 of the books)
presents in a clear, consise manner_ the function of good reading and
what it ought to do for the child. Nothing of method is suggested.
Talks to teachers Chap 9 —
The association of ideas
Chap Io — Interest James EIenry Holt & Co
These chapters do not give a method of teaching reading, but a
teacher who understands what is presented in these chapters can devise
a method of her own. They contain strong, helpful suggestions.
The aims of literary study Corson Macmillan & Co
A book in which the distinction is clearly made between 1iterary
Κnowledge and literary culture. A good book for teachers who are
working with advanced pupils.
The voice and spiritual educa-
tion Corson Macmillam Co
This book emphasizes the importance of vocal culture in its relation
to literary culture.
Talks on pedagogics Parker E L Kellogg & Co,
p I88-223
The different systems of teaching reading are explained and sug-
gestions are made to the teacher as to manner of teaching reading.
The teaching of English in the
elementary and the second-
ary school Chubb Macmillan Co
^
IO6
Literature in schools N. Scttdder Houghton, Mifflin
& Co
A helpful book for teachers of al1 grades.
How to teach reading in the
public schools C1ark S H Scott, Foresman
& Co
The book 1over Ealdwin McClurg & Co
The teaching of English in the
elementary and the secondary
school Carpenter, Baker, Longmans, Green
& Scott & Co
The last thirty pages of this book are devoted to a bibliography of
the subject.
Elementary guide to literary
criticism Painter Gimn & Co
Self-cultivation in English Palmer T Y Crowe|1
The conduct of compositiom
work in grammar schools Clapp & Huston D C Heath
Some principles of literary
criticism Winchester Macmillam Co
Should the Army Canteen
be ReStOred P
A BRIEF
VIRGINIA C. GILDERSLEEVE, A.M.
Tutor in English in Barnard College
AND
ALICE HASKELL
Published solely for the use of students in English
Courses in Columbia College and
Barnard College
NEW YORK
Printed for the Department of English of Columbia University
19 O 4
PRICE 25 CENTS
Copyright, I9o4
by Virginia C. Gildersleeve
This pamphlet is published, not as a contribution to the canteen controversy,
but merely tò serve as an example of the form of brief used at present in certain
. courses in Argumentation in Columbia University, and as a basis for clasS-room
discussion. •
SHOULD THE ARMY CANTEEN BE RESTORED?
I. INTRODUCTION.
A. The question whether the Canteen should be restored to the
Army is of general importance and interest, because
I. In the opinion of many people, the decision of this matter
will vitally affect the health and morals of the United States
Army.*
2. The question is closely related to the discussion of methods
of promoting temperance in the use of alcoholic liquors, and
of the value of “ Prohibition.”
B. The question is of especial interest at the present time, because
I. Ever since the Canteen was abolished, on February 3, I9OI,
there has been much discussion as to the wisdom of its
abolition.*
2. Since the United States Army has now (December, I9o3)
been without the Canteen for more than two and a half years,
it is alleged that the experiment of doing without it has had a
fair tria1.°
3. Efforts have been made, and are still being made, by army
officers and Others approving of the Canteen, to have it re-
stored by legislation.*
4. On the other hand, the Women's Christian Temperance
Union, and various Prohibition advocates, are working to
prevent such legislation.° -. -
* e. g. Secretary Root, in Repor£ oft/ae Secretary of War /or r9o2, p. 52; the President of the
Women's Christian Temperance Union, in the Vort}. A mericam Reziew, Vol. r76, pp. 2r4 ff.
(February. I9o3).
? See, for example, the Vort/. A mzericam Rez/zew, Vol. I76, pp. 214 ff. (February, rgo3), and
House Documemzs, 57t/. Comgress, 2d Sessiom, (τ9o2-I9o3), No. 252. This latter document is a
g£££; of 525 pages, further described on its title page as follows: “A letter from the Acting
ecretary of Wartransmitting, in response to the inquiry of the House, various reports relating to
the practica! operation of the law prohibiting the sale of beer and light wines in Post Exchanges.
January 9, Igo3—Referred to the Committee on Military Affairs and ordered to be primted.”
8 Report of General Young, Chiefof Staff, to the Secretary of War. Extract printed in the AVezv
Vork Times, November 3o, rgo3.
4 Ibid., and Hozzse Docw7mzemts, 57t/. Comgress, 2d Sessiom, No. 252.
° President W, C. T. U. in Vort/. A mericay, Rez/ieav, Vol. 176, pp. 2r4 ff. (February, rgo3).
The Wew Voice (Prohibition Weekly), Vol. XIX, Nos. 48 and 49, (November 27 ând DecëmbérT4,
x9O2).
3
4
II. STATEMENT OF FACTS.
A. The Canteen system of regulating the drinking of alcoholic
liquors by the enlisted men of the army was first instituted in
I889, as a substitute for the selling of liquors by the so-called
sutler's or post-trader's store.*
B. The avowed purpose of establishing the Canteen was to pro-
mote temperance and discipline among the enlisted men.*
C. The Canteen system was generally in force at al1 army posts
from I89I until February 3, I9OI, when it was abolished by
Act of Congress.*
D. The nature of the Canteen system, as provided by the Regula-
tions for the United States Army, was as follows:
I. The Canteen was that part of the Post Exchange in which
beer and light wines were sold.
2. The Post Exchange is a sort of enlisted men's club on mili-
tary posts, organized as follows:'
a. “ It is composed of reading and recreation rooms, a co-
operative store and a restaurant.” *
b. “ Its primary purpose is to supply the troops at reasonable
prices with the articles of ordinary use, wear and consump-
tion, not supplied by the Government, and to afford them
means of rational recreation and amusement. Its second-
ary purpose is, through exchange profits, to provide the
means for improving the messes.” “ •
c. The Post Exchange is managed by an officer of the Uni-
ted States Army, under the supervision of a board of
Officers.“ .
d, The profits of the exchange are expended on regimental
bands, gardens, libraries, gymnasiums, sports, etc., and on
improving the messes."
3. The regulations governing the Canteen were these:
a. “The sale or use of ardent spirits in any branch of the ex-
change was strictly prohibited.” *
1 ReguJatioms /or t/ae Army o/^z/ae Jmzzea Szates, I889, p. 32, Art. XXXIX. Army ama, AVazy
Journa?, November 28, I9o3, p. 825.
2 “ Post Exchange Regulations,” reprinted in Report oy^ the Secretary o^ War /o^ r&99,
Appendix, p. 85, § Io. .
8 Repoort o/^z/ze Secretary of War /or r899, Appendix, p. 277, /or r9or, p. 15.
4 “ Post Exchange Regulations,” Report oy^the Secretary oy^ War /or /&99, Appendix, p. 83, §r.
5 752a'. •
° Jòid., pp. 83 and 84, §§ 3, 4 and 6.
7 Iόid., pp. 83, 86 and 87, §§ 1 and 17.
° /&zd., p. 85, § Io.
5
b. The commanding officer of the post was authorized to
permit the sale of beer and light wines in the Canteen,
“ when he was satisfied that such sale would prevent the
men from resorting to outside saloons for strong intoxi-
cants, and would tend to promote temperance and disci-
pline among them.” * &
c. The Regulations required that the Canteen should be
“ in a room used for no other purpose, and when practica-
ble in a building apart from that in which the recreation
and reading rooms were located.''*
d. The beer and wine were sold only by the drink.*
e. The practice known as “treating " was not permitted.*
f. Beer or wine could not be purchased and carried away
from the premises.*
g. Soldiers in good standing were allowed credit, but only to
an amount not exceeding one-fifth of their monthly pay.*
E. The reasons given for the abolition of the Canteen, and still
urged by its opponents, especially the Women's Christian Tem-
perance Union, are these: * -
I. The Canteen was (and would be, if reëstablished) directly
harmful to the enlisted men, in that it increased among them
Drunkenness.
Insanity.
Disease.
Courts-martial.
Dishonorable discharges.
Desertions.
2. Whether the Canteen increased intemperance or not, the
sanction by the Government of liquor-selling in the Canteen
was, and would be, morally wrong * in that
a. All use or sale of intoxicating liquor is morally wrong.
1 “ Post Exchange Regulations,” Report o/ the Secretary oy^War /orr&o, Appendix, p. 85, § ro.
3 Vöäd., p. 86, § I 5. va
s The Camteem, Pamphlet by Mrs. Margaret D. Ellis, Superintendent of Legislation for the
National W. C. T. U. _Testimaomy of Military Ojícers agazmst t/ie A ro/zy Camzeem, (Pamphlet).
7}.e Vew Voice (Prohibition Weekly), Vol. XIX, No. 48, p. r, (November 27, xqo2), and Vol. XIX,
INo. 49, p. I, (December 4, I9o2). Ou£?ooÂ, Vol. 67, p. 148, (January 19, Igor).
4 Report o/ Comzmittee om M22#tary A ffazors, Hozzse Report Wo. r7or, 56*/, Comgress, zsz Sessiom,
p. I, (May 24, I9oo).
6
F. The reasons advanced by the advocates of the Canteen, who
urge its restoration, are these: .
I. The Canteen was (and would be, if re-established) directly
beneficial to the enlisted men * in that &.
a. It promoted temperance among them — as it was designed
to do* — in that
(I) By furnishing mild liquors in moderation, it pre-
vented the men from resorting to outside saloons for
unlimited strong liquors.
b. It improved the health of the men.
c. It improved discipline among them.
d. It promoted morality among them.
e. It increased their contentment.
f. It decreased desertions.
§. It decreased courts-martial.
h. It decreased absences without leave.
2. In that the Canteen accomplished good, it was morally jus-
tified. 8 -
3. The theoretical morality of the liquor traffic is not a ques-
tion at issue here.* -
III. DEFINITION.
A. From the foregoing Statement of Facts it is evident that the
term “ Army Canteen ” of the proposition, as used by both
sides in this controversy, means the institution described in sec-
tion II, D, above, as it existed in the army from I89I until
I9OI.
B. Since the Canteen was abolished by Act of Congress,* it could
be restored only by Act of Congress. It is evident, then, that
the term * should be restored,” as used by both sides in this
controversy, means “ should be reëstablished, by Act of Con-
gress, in the form in which it (the Canteen) existed from I89I
to I9OI.”
1 Repozz oy^z/ze Secretazyoy^ War /o^ r9o2, p. 52. Refiorf oy^z/ae A a27aztamt-Gemera/oy^ the Army
/or r9o2, quoted in House Documemts, 57t/. Congress, 2d. Sesszomz, No. 252, p. 4. Reports of other
officers, Ibid., pp. I5 ff.
2 See above, II, B.
8 Secretary Root, in Repor? o^z4e Secretary oy^ War /or r899, pp. 43-44.
4 /3jja'. -
6 See above, II, C.
;
IV. ANALYSIS.
A. In the account given above, in sections E and F of the State-
ment of Facts, of the reasons urged by both sides in this con-
troversy, it will be seen that one of the reasons why the
opponents of the Canteen object to its restoration is because
they think it would cause intemperance among the men ; *
whereas the advocates of the Canteen urge that it be reéstab-
lished because, they say, it would promote temperance.* Both
sides evidently agree, then, that temperance among the enlisted
men is an end to be desired. The desirability of temperance,
therefore, is not a question at issue in the present controversy,
but may be regarded as established.
B. It is evident, also, in the statement of the claims made by
Loth sides, that they differ on two main points: *
I. Whether the Canteen was, and would be, if restored, directly
beneficial to the enlisted men.
2. Whether the sanction by the government of liquor-selling
in the Canteen was, and would be, morally wrong.
C. In considering the direct effects and the moral justification
of the Canteen, we are evidently concerned not chiefly with
what these were in the past — though in forming our opinion
we shall certainly have to consider this aspect — but especially
with what they would be, in the future, if the Canteen were
restored. »
D. In Order, therefore, to come to any definite conclusion in this
matter, it will be necessary for us to ascertain, first, whether the
effects Of the Canteen, if it were restored, would be directly
beneficial to the enlisted men in the following ways:
I. Since the Canteen was established to promote temperance
among the men * — an end which its advocates assert that
it can achieve; ° and since one of the main charges against
it is that it would not promote temperance, but, on the
contrary, increase drunkenness among the soldiers,* it is
evident that one of the most important questions for us to
answer is,
“ Would the Canteen, if restored, promote temperance —
i.e., 1essen drunkenness — among the enlisted men?”
2. The Canteen was established to promote discipline, as well
as temperance, among the enlisted men." Under the heading
1 See above, II, E, r, a. 3 See above, II, A7, I, a. 8 See above, II, Æ and Æ.
4 See above, II, B. 5 See above, II, F, r, a. 8 See above, II, Æ, I, a. 7 See above, II, B.
8
“ discipline * we may conveniently include many of the points
in which the Canteen has been said to affect the men — the
number of courts-martial, absences without leave, dishonor-
able discharges and desertions, the general morals, and the
contentment of the men — all that goes to make up the gen-
eral morale of the troops. The opponents of the Canteen
assert that its effect in many of these ways would be harm-
fu1; * its advocates, that its effect would be good.* Covering
al1 this ground with the word “ discipline,” we must, in Order
to settle this disputed point, answer the question,
“ Would the Canteen promote good discipline among the
enlisted men ? ”
3. The only other important points in which the Canteen has
been said to affect directly the enlisted men, are in the
amount of sickness and of insanity.* • The opponents assert
that the Canteen would increase these. The advocates do
not admit this; but assert that the Canteen would lessen the
sick-rate among the men. Both disease and insanity may be
considered under the general term “ health,” and we may
settle this disputed point by answering the question,
“ Would the Canteen improve the health of the enlisted
men ? **
E. After having ascertained, by answering the questions sug-
gested above, the probable effect of the Canteen on the temper-
ance, the discipline, and the health of the enlisted men, we can,
since these three terms cover all the points in which the Canteen
has been said to affect them, decide whether, if restored, it
would be, in genera1, directly beneficial or directly harmful to
the soldiers. If we find that it would be, on the whole, directly
lnarmful, or even if we find that it would be merely not directly
beneficia1 to them, there is no need of further argument; for
in either of these cases the Canteen should certainly not be
restored, since no reason for its reéstablishment is suggested,
except its good effect on the men.
F. If, however, we find that the Canteen would be, in general,
directly beneficia1 to the enlisted men — that their condition
would be distinctly better with it than without it — then it
should be restored, unless the only other reason urged against
it * be found sound and of predominating weight. This other
reason — viz., that the sanction by the government of liquor-
selling in the Canteen would be morally wrong, — we must
next consider. The advocates of the Canteen, declaring that
its good effects would make it morally justifiable, refuse to
1 See above, II, E, I, a, e ama, /. ' 2 II, A7, r, &-/z.
8 See above, II, E, I, δ and c, and II, F, I, δ. 4 See above, II, E, 2,
9
consider the theoretical morality of liquor-selling a question
involved in this controversy.* But since the opponents of the
Canteen go so far as to say that, evem ìf it lessemed the amount
of drunkenmess among the mem, it should not be restored, be-
cause it is morally wrong for the government to sanction, i. e.,
permit and thus lend approval to the sale of liquor — since
they would even rest their case solely on this point, it is evident
that we shall not have fairly settled the controversy unless we
deal definitely with the question,
“ Would the sanction by the government of liquor-selling in
the Canteen be morally wrong? ”
G. If we find that the sanction by the government of liquor-
selling in the Canteen would not be morally wrong, then assur-
edly the Canteem, if already proved to be directly beneficial to
the men, should be restored. If we decide, however, that it
would be morally wrong, then we must judge whether the gov-
ernment would be justified in committing the moral wrong of
sanctioning liquor-selling, in order to produce the demonstrated
beneficial effects on the enlisted men — î. e.,
“ Would the beneficial results of the Canteen justify the moral
wrong of sanctioning liquor-selling? ”
V. ISSUES.
A. From the foregoing Analysis it is evident that the following
questions cover all the essential points at issue in this contro-
versy, and that by answering them we can arrive at a decision
in the matter: -
I. Would the Canteen, if restored, promote temperance among
the enlisted men ?
2. Would it promote good discipline among them?
3. Would it improve their health?
4. Would the sanction by the government of liquor-selling in
the Canteen be morally wrong?
5. Would the . beneficia1 results of the Canteen justify the
moral wrong of sanctioning liquor-selling?
VI. DISCUSSION.
4. The Canteen, if restored, would promote temperance among
the enlisted men, for
I. There would be less temptation to intemperance with the
Canteen than there is without it, for
* See above, II, A7, 2 and 3.
10
a. The large majority of the men would drink to some extent
whether the Canteen existed or not, for
(I) The large majority of the men, when they enlist, al-
ready use stimulants, for
.(a) Of. 342 companies of the army it was found, in
I9OI, that in 6o companies every enlisted man used
vinous, malt or spirituous liquors at the date of en-
listment; in I3O companies, between 9o and IOO per
cent; in 58 companies, between 8o and 9o per cent;
in 26 companies, between 7o and 8o per cent; in 2o
companies, between 6o and 7o per cent; in I2 com-
panies, between 2O and 6o per cent. Concerning 46
companies no data were available.*
(b) These 342 companies represented nearly half o
the army, which consisted of 7o8 companies.* -
(c) It is fair to conclude from analogy that similar con-
ditions prevail in the remainder of the army.
b. There would be less temptation to excessive drinking with
the Canteen than without it, for -
(I) Most of the men are moderate drinkers, for
(a) Of the 342 companies mentioned above, reported
on in I9OI, though the large majority of the enlisted
men used stimulants, in only 7I companies were as
many as from IO to 35 per cent of the men habitual
and excessive drinkers ; and in II2 companies none
of the men were habitual and excessive drinkers.*
(2) With the Canteen in operation the moderate drinkers
would be more likely to get beer there than to go to
outside saloons, for -^
(a) The Canteen is more convenient than the outside
saloons.
(b) The Post Exchange, of which the Canteen is a
part, Offers attractions that the saloons do not — viz.,
reading and recreation rooms.* -
(3) Without the Canteen, the moderate drinkers resort
to outside saloons for liquor, for
(a) The number of saloons in the immediate vicinity
of army-posts increased greatly after the abolition of
the Canteen, for
1 A rmy amd Vazz/y /ozrma?, November 29, 19o2. Hozse Documzemts, 57t/. Comgress, 2d Sessiom,
No. 252, p. 2I.
* House Documemts, 37t/. Comgress, 2d Sessiom. No. 252, p. 21.
8 V52a. 4 See above, II, D, 2.
11
i. Within about six months after the abolition of the
Canteen, 34I new saloons were opened within the
one-mile limit of the I 26 army-posts within the
United States ; * and
ii. Three hundred and seventy one new places for
the sale of intoxicants within the one-mile limit of
the I 39 posts in the Philippines.*
(b) The increase in the patronage of saloons by en-
listed men must be from the class of moderate drink-
ers, for -
i. The saloons had the patronage of the hard drinkers
before the abolition of the Canteen as well as after,
for
ae. The hard drinkers could not get strong liquor
in the Canteen, and they could get mild liquors
there only in limited quantities.*
(4) There is more temptation to excessive drinking in
the saloons than in the Canteen, for
(a) In the saloons strong liquor can be obtained in
unlimited quantity.
(b) In the Canteen only beer and light wines, in limited
quantities, could be obtained. *
(c) In the Canteen “treating” was not permitted.*
(5) Secretary of War Root, in his Report for I9O2,°
states that his opinion, acquired from reading the reports
of the officers of the army, is that the prohibition of the
Canteen leads the men to frequent vile resorts which
cluster in the neighborhood of the army-posts, and drink
bad whisky to excess.
c. The harm done by the Canteen in tempting total ab-
stainers to drink would be small, for
(I) The number of men who are total abstainers at the
date of enlistment is very small, for
(a) Out of 328 companies of the army reported on in
I9OI, in Only I 2 companies was the number of men
who were total abstainers at the date of enlistment as
great as from 4o to 8o per cent; whereas in I9O com-
panies the number was less than Io per cent.“
* House Documemts, 57t/. Comgress, 2d Sessiom, No. 252, p. 15.
3 Józd., p. 18.
8 See above, II, D, 3. 4 See above, II, D, 3. ° p. 52.
° Hozzse Documents, 57t/. Comgress, 2d Sessiom, No. 252, p. 2r.
12
(2) The temptation to these men would not be great, for
(a) They need not enter the Canteen, for
i. It would be in a room by itself, separate from all
the other features of the Exchange, and sometimes
in a separate building.*
(3) Without the Canteen, these men may be led by their
comrades who are moderate drinkers to the far greater
temptations of the outside saloons.
d. The cases cited by the opponents of the Canteen of men
who have been led to intemperance by this institution * are
of very little weight here, for
(I) They prove nothing about the effect of the Canteen
on the army as a whole, for -
(a) They are merely a few individual cases:
(2) We must consider the effect of the Canteen on the
army as a whole. -
2. The Canteen, while it existed, did actually promote temper-
ance among the enlisted men, for
a. There was less drunkenness in the army after the estab-
lishment of the Canteen than before, for
(I) During the six years immediately after the complete
adoption of the Canteen, I892-1897, as compared with
the six years preceding it, the average yearly number of
trials and convictions in the army for drunkenness and
for offenses originating from drunkenness, decreased
57 per cent.*
(2) During the six years immediately after the complete
adoption of the Canteen, as compared with the seven
years preceding it, the average yearly number of cases
of delirium tremens decreased 3 I.3 per cent.*
(3) During the same period the average yearly number
of cases of hospital treatment for alcoholism decreased
23.6 per cent.“
b. This decrease in the amount of drunkenness was due
largely to the establishment of the Canteen, for
1 See above, II, D, 3, c.
° The President of the W. C. T. U., in the Wort/, Amer. Rez., Vol. 176, pp. 2r8-2rg (Feb., ioo3).
77. e Camteem, Pamphlet published by the National W. C. T. U.
* Report o^z/ae Secretary o/ War/or r§99, Appendix, p. 279.
4 Jázd., p. 278. ° Józd., p. 277.
13
(I) The testimony of authorities on this question has
peen that the decrease was due largely to the establish-
ment of the Canteen, for
(a) When, in I899, officers and non-commissioned
officers of the army were asked by the Secretary of
War their opinion as to the value of the Canteen in
diminishing drunkenness, out of about I,OOO replies,
over 9oo declared a belief in the marked value of the
Canteen for this purpose.*
(b) Capt. Edward L. Munson, Ass't Surgeon, U. S. A.,
author of Military Hygiene and Camp Sanitation, who
has treated the subject with considerable thorough-
ness, asserts that the decrease was due largely to the
Canteen.*
(2) There was, during this period, no other important
change in army regulations or conditions likely to affect
the temperance of the men, for
(a) None has been mentioned by the opponents of the
Canteen.°
c. There has been more drunkenness among the men since
the abolition of the Canteen than while it existed, for
(I) When, on the issuance of the order abolishing the
Canteen, the commanding Officers of the army-posts
were requested by the War Department to “ Observe
whether drunkenness among the enlisted men increases
or decreases as a consequence of the abolishment of the
Canteen ; whether the percentage of trials by summary
or Other courts for drunkenness or offenses caused by
drunkenness for the coming six months are greater or
less than for the past six months,''* the resulting re-
ports were as follows : Out of I9O army-post com-
manders reporting, I5O reported that drunkenness had
increased, II that it had decreased, and 29 were doubt-
ft11. 5
d. This increase in drunkenness was due chiefly to the abo-
lition of the Canteem, for
(I) It was reported by the commanding officers of the
posts as “ a consequence of the abolishment of the
Canteen.'' °
1 Reports of the officers, in Report o/ the Secretary o^ War for r&o9, Appendix, pp. 96 ff.
2 /öza., p. 28o. •
8 See references for II, E, above.
4 Copy of the Adjutant-General's order, in House. Doczzmzemzs, 57*}. Comgress, 2d Sessiom, No.
252, p. 7.
5 House Doczzmemts, 57t/. Comgress, 2a. Sessiom, No. 252, pp. I5 and 18.
0 See above VI, A, 2, c, (I).
14
(2) No other cause for this increase seemed to exist. On
the contrary, the general condition of the army was ap-
parently improving somewhat during this period, recov-
ering after the partia1 demoralization caused by the large
influx of raw recruits during and after the Spanish
War.1
e. The arguments advanced by the opponents of the Can-
teen to prove that it caused intemperance * are of compara-
tively little weight, for -
(I) They prove nothing about the effect of the Canteen
On the army as a whole, for r
(a) They are merely individual cases of drunkenness
caused by the Canteen.
(2) We must consider the effect of the Canteen on the
army as a whole.
(3) The effect of the Canteen on the army as a whole was
to diminish intemperance.*
3. The Canteen, if restored, would have the same effect upon
the temperance of the men in the future that it had in the
past, for
a. There have been no changes in army conditions which
would materially affect the influence of the Canteen, for
(I) No such change has been suggested by the opponents
Of the Canteen.*
b. The opinion of competent and reliable authorities is that
the Canteen would produce the same beneficial results in
the future that it did in the past, for
(I) A very large majority of the officers of the army so
testify, for
(a) In his Report for I9O2, Adjutant-General Corbin
stated that a large majority of the army officers were
of this opinion.°
» (b) In a Report to the Secretary of War, in November,
I9o3, General Young, Chief of Staff, stated that this
1 Col. W. C. Church, Editor of the A rm y azmzd Wazzyy /oaarmaz, in the Vort/. A mzer. Rez/., Vol.
177, p. 865 (December, rgo3). See also statistics of the strength of the army during these years, in
Æozzse Doczzmzemts, 57ę/z Congress, 2a. Sessiope, No. 252, p. 22, and Reports oy^t/ae Secretary o/ War
for this period, passzmz.
2 The President of the W. C. T. U., in Wort/. A mzer. Rezz., Vol. 176, pp. 218-219, (Feb., I9o3).
ZZe Cazmzeem, Pamphlet published by the National W. C. T. ü. -
8 See above, VI, A, 2, a, ö, c, and d.
4 See references under II, E, above.
6 Quoted in Hozzse Documaemts, 57t/. Congress, 2d Sesszomz, No. 252, p. 4.
15
was the opinion held, with “ practical unanimity,” by
the Officers.*
(2) The opinions of army officers on this subject are
trustworthy, for
(a) They obviously know the conditions in the army
better than any one else.
(b) The charge that they are restrained from expressing
their true opinion on the subject by reason of the be-
lief that the War Department is in favor of the Can-
teen, is of no weight, for
i. In the official order issued in I899 by the Adju-
tant-General, transmitting to the officers the request
of Secretary of War Root for their opinions On the
effects of the Canteen, Adjutant-General Corbin
stated, “ It has been publicly asserted by the oppo-
nents of the exchange system that officers of the
Army are restrained from expressing their true
opinion on the subject by reason of the belief that
the War Department has determined to maintain
the exchange in spite of opposition. The Secretary
[of War] desires that such an impression be at once
dispelled. In these reports, so long as they do not
violate good taste and official decorum, the utmost
latitude of opinion is invited, in order that the Secre-
tary may be in a position to place before Congress
at the next session a correct report of the merits
and defects of the exchange system, as seen by those
who are best qualified to judge.*
(c) The charge that officers, because of prejudice in
favor of the Canteen, encourage intemperance among
their men,* is of no weight, for
i. Intemperance among his men is greatly to an of-
ficer's disadvantage, for
ar. It is of the utmost importance to an officer to
preserve good discipline and health among his
men,* because
(i) He is held strictly responsible for their con-
dition and discipline.
i Extract printed in the Wew York Times, November 3o, rqo3.
3 Copy of Order, in Repor? ay^z/ae Secretary o/ War /or r899, Appendix, p. 95.
s The Wew Voice, (Prohibition Weekly), Vol. XIX, No. 49, p. r, (Dec. 4, rgo2).
4 Hozzse Doczemzemzs, 57t/. Comgress, 2d Sessiom, No. 252, p. 393.
16
(ii) His military reputation and the retention of
his commission depend upon his preserving dis-
cipline among them and keeping them in good
condition.
3). Intemperance is evidently subversive of disci-
pline and good health.*
ii. The officers desire the Canteen because they favor
temperance, for
ar. In a letter to the Secretary of War, in I9Oo, ob-
jecting to the proposed bill abolishing the Can-
teen, Adjutant-General Corbin said, “ If the
prohibition of the sale of beer at military posts,
as contemplated by this bill, could be effective in
bringing about a destruction of the drink habit
among the soldiers, the Adjutant-General would
unhesitatingly urge its adoption, and in so doing
he believes he would voice the practically unani-
mous sentiment of the officers of the army.” *
3). In his Report for I9O2, the Adjutant-General
says that the restoration of the Canteen ** is de-
sired and urged by the great majority of officers
and men, and by none more than those of pro-
nounced temperance views.” *
(d) The charge that the officers of the army favor the
Canteen because they are bribed by the liquor-dealers,*
is of no weight, for
i. It is supported by no evidence.
ii. It is obviously highly improbable, for
Ar. The Canteen would injure the interests of the
liquor-dealers, for
(i) It would diminish the consumption of
liquor."
3). It is unlikely that the large majority Of the
army officers are liars and open to bribery.
1 And see VI, B and C.
a Letter printed in Report o/ the Committee om M??itary A ffairs, House Report Wo. 17or, 56t/.
Congress, rst Sessione, p. 3.
8 Quoted in Hozzse Documemts, 57t/. Congress, 2a. Sessiom, No. 252, p. 4. See also the individual
reports of officers, zbzd., pp. 24-394.
4 Vezv Vozce Lea/Zezs, Vol. I, No. 28, (Sept. I, rgoo). The charge seems to be hinted at also by
Mrs. L. M. V. Stevens, National President, W. C. T. U., quoted in House Docta memts, 57t/. Con-
gress, 2d Sessiom, No. 252, p. 275.
5 See above, VI, A, I, 2 and 3.
17
B. The Canteen, if restored, would promote good discipline
among the enlisted men, for
I. The Canteen, while it existed, did promote good discipline
among them, for
a. It tended to diminish the number of trials by court-mar-
tial, for
(I) During the six years following the establishment of
the Canteen, as compared with the six years preceding
its establishment, the average yearly number of trials
and convictions decreased I3 per cent.*
(2) The Canteen was one of the principal causes of this
decrease, for
(a) Very many officers of the army so testified.*
(3) The Canteen greatly diminished the number of cases
of drunkenness and offenses originating from drunken-
mess.*
(4) The effect of the abolition of the Canteen was to in-
crease the number of courts-martial, for
(a) Out of I9o army-posts in the United States and the
Philippines reporting the results of the abolition of the
Canteen, I27 reported that courts-martial had in-
creased, Io that they had diminished, and 53 were
doubtful.*
b. The Canteen tended to diminish the amount of fines and
forfeitures imposed on the men, for
(I) The fines and forfeitures imposed on enlisted men
were largely increased during the year after the abolition
of the, Canteen, for
(a) During the last year the Canteen was in force, from
about 75,OOO enlisted men (Regulars), §462,698 was
collected in fines and forfeitures.“
(b) During the fiscal year I9O2, after the abolition of
the Canteen, from about 7O,OOO enlisted men (Regu-
lars), §632, I25 was collected in fines and forfeitures.“
(2) The Paymaster-General said that this increase could
not be well attributed to any other cause than the aboli-
tion of the Canteen.°
1 Report oy^ z/ze Secretary oy^ War /or r899, Appendix, p, 279.
3 See Reports of army officers, zôzd., pp. g6-276.
8 See above, VI, A, 2.
4 House Docu»zemzzs, 57t}. Congress, 2d Sessiom, No. 252, pp. r5 and r8.
5 Report of the Paymaster-General, quoted in Hozzse Documemts, 57t/. Comgress, 2d Sessiome, No.
252, p. 522.
18
c. The Canteen tended to diminish the number of absences
without leave, for
(I) Out of 98 army-posts in the United States reporting
the results of the abolition of the Canteen, 74 reported
that absences without leave had increased, 6 that they
had decreased, and I8 were doubtful.*
(2) Though out of 92 army-posts in the Philippines re-
porting results of the abolition of the Canteen only 38
reported an increase of absences without leave,* this fact
should not outweigh the preceding one, for
(a) At many of the Philippine posts, unless he becomes
an outlaw, there is no place for a man to go if he de-
serts or absents himself without 1eave.*
d. The argument of the opponents of the Canteen that a
decrease in the number of dishonorable discharges from the
army after the abolition of the Canteen was the result of
the abolition, and therefore shows that the effect of the
Canteen on the discipline of the men was bad,* is of no
weight, for
(I) The statistics they cite do not prove their assertion,
for
(a) The statistics are these:
Dishonorable Discharges
Year. per I, OOO stremgth.
(b) Though these figures show a decrease in I9OI, the
year during which the Canteen was abolished, yet it is
not likely that this decrease was a result of the aboli-
tion, for
i. This decrease was to be expected as a part of the
general improvement in the discipline of the army,
after the brief demoralization caused by the large
influx of raw recruits during and after the Spanish
War.5
i Hozzse Doczmzemzzs, 57t/. Congress, 2d Sesszo/2, No. 252, p. 15.
2 Ibid., p. 18.
8 Jöid., Vote.
4 The Wew Voice, (Prohibition Weekly), Vol. XIX, No. 48, p. r, (Nov. 27, rgo2).
&
5 See above, VI, A, 2, a), (2).
19
ii. In I9o2, the first complete year without the Can-
teen, there was a marked increase in the number of
dishonorable discharges.
iii. In I898, when the Canteen was in operation, the
number of dishonorable discharges was very small.
e. The morals of the men were better with the Canteen than
without it, for
(I) The facts cited above show that there was less
drunkenness and crime among them with the Canteen
than Without it.*
(2) The Canteen did not, as has been alleged, lead the
men to squander their money, for
(a) During the year 1892-97 inclusive, as compared
with the years I885-9I, before the complete adoption
of the Canteen, the number of men making savings-
deposits with army paymasters increased Over I3 per
cent.*
(b) The average deposit per man in I9OO was $49.49;
in I9OI, the year of the abolition of the Canteen,
$53.05; in I9O2, §37.62; in I9o3, §3I.54.°
(3) The lack of the Canteen causes the men to frequent
outside saloons.* -
(4) In these saloons their morals are often corrupted by
association with abandoned men and women.°
(5) A large majority of the army officers have testified
that the morals of the men were better with the Canteen
than without it, for
(a) In I899, out of IO65 commanding officers and non-
commissioned officers of long service reporting, 892
testified that the effect of the Canteen on the morality
of the men had been beneficia!, 4o that it had been
detrimenta1, 7I that it had no effect, and 46 were
doubtful.°
1 See above, VI, A, 2 and VI, B, I, a.
? Report of the Paymaster-General for 1899, quoted in Report o/^z/e Secretary o^ War /or
r899, Appendix, p. 28o.
* Army amd Vazy Jourmal, Nov. 28, 1903, p. 825.
* See above, VI. A, I, δ, (I), (2) and (3).
'° Secretary Root, in Report o/ t/.e Secretary oy* War /om^ xqo2, p. 52; and Report of the Sur-
Ę for the fiscal year ending Jume 3o, I9o3 ; quoted in the Vezw York Æzwenzvog Post,
ctober 7, I9o3.
° Report oy* the Secretary oy^ War /or r899, Appendix, p. 96. '
20
(b) In I9O2, out of I9o commanders of army-posts re-
porting the results of the abolition of the Canteen, II4
reported that the morality of their men was lower, 2 :
that it was higher, and 74 were doubtful.*
f. The Canteen promoted contentment among the enlisted
men, for
(I) It improved the table-fare at mess, for
(a) Part of the profits of the Exchange is expended
on the mess.* -
(b) Most of the profits came from the Canteen portion
of the Exchange.* •
(c) The effect on the table-fare of the abolition of the
Canteen has been bad, for -
i. Out of I79 army-post commanders reporting on the
results of the abolition of the Canteen, I 53 reported
that the effect On the table-fare had been bad.*
(2) The profits from the Canteen enabled the soldiers to
have Other small luxuries, such as magazines, books,
gymnastic apparatus, etc.°
(3) The record of desertions from the army indicates that
that the men were more contented while the Canteen
existed than without it, for
(a) Desertions from the army diminished from II per
cent in I889, the year of the first establishment of the
Canteen, to 2.9 in I897, the year before the Spanish
War.6
(b) There was, during this period, no other important
change in army regulations likely to exert a great in-
fluence on the contentment of the enlisted men.
(c) After the abolition of the Canteen the percentage
of desertions increased, for
i. Though it decreased from 4.4 in I9OO to 4. I2 in
I9OI, the year during which the Canteen was abol-
ished, in I9O2, the first complete year without the
Canteen, the percentage increased to 7.3."
1 House Doczzmzemzs, 57th Comgress, 2d Sesszomz, No. 252, pp. I5 and 18.
2 § Post Exchange Regulations,'' in Reporz oy^ z/ae Secretary oy^ War /o^ r&99, Appendix, p.
83, § I.
8 A regular army officer, in The Ozt/ook, Vol. 67, p. 344, (Feb. 9, Igor).
4 House Doczzmzemzts, 57t/. Congress, 2d Sessiom, No. 252, pp. I6-21.
5 Report oy^ z/ae Secretary oy* War /o^ r899, pp. 41-42.
* House Documemts, 57t/. Comgress, 2d Sessiom, No. 252, p. 22.
7 /5;a7,
21
(d) According to the Report of the Adjutant-General
for I9O2, this increase of desertions is, “ by those best
informed, attributed to the abolition of the former
privileges of the Exchange.” * »
g. A very large majority of the officers of the army upheld
the Canteen as a promoter of temperance and discipline,
for
(I) At the hearing before the Committee on Military
Affairs of the Senate, in December, I9oo, the War De-
partment submitted a statement showing that among the
supporters of the Canteen were all the Generals then in
the Service except two, all the ten Colonels of Cavalry,
all the seven Colonels of Artillery, all the forty-nine
Colonels of Infantry except one, and 504 out of the 5I6
commanding officers of companies, batteries and troops.*
(2) Secretary of War Root asserted, in his Report for
I9O2, that the reports of the army officers on the effect
Of the abolition Of the Canteen convinced him “ that the
general effect of prohibiting the use of beer and light
wines within the limited area of the army post is to lead
the enlisted men to go out of post, to frequent vile re-
sorts which cluster in the neighborhood, to drink bad
whisky to excess, and to associate intimately with aban-
doned men and women; and that the operation of the
law is to increase drunkenness, disease, insubordination
and desertion, and moral and physical degeneration.” *
h. The opinions of army officers on this subject are trust-
worthy.4
2. The Canteen, if restored, would have the same effect upon
discipline in the future that it had in the past, for
a. There have been no changes in army conditions which
would materially affect the influence of the Canteen.*
b. The opinion of competent and reliable authorities is that
the Canteen would produce the same beneficial results in
the future that it did in the past,° for
(I) A very large majority of army officers so testify.
C. The Canteen, if restored, would improve the health of the
enlisted men, for
I. The Canteen, while it existed, did improve the health of the
enlisted men, for
* Quoted House Documemts, 57th Congress, 2d Sessiom, No. 252, p. 4. ? Outlook, Vol. 67, p. 343,
(Feb. 9, rgor).
8 Report oy^ z/ae Secretary oy^ Wa»- /o^ r9o2, p. 52. * See above, VI, A, 3, 5, (2).
“ See above, VI, A, 3, a. ° See above, VI, A, 3, δ.
22
a. During the six years after the introduction of the Can-
teen, as compared with the seven years preceding its estab-
lishment, the rate of admission to hospitals for alcoholism
decreased 23.6 per cent.*
b. During the same period the cases of delirium tremens
diminished 3 I.3 per cent.*
c. During the same period the cases of insanity diminished
3I.7 per cent.*
d. No other change in army conditions, besides the introduo-
tion of the Canteen, is suggested as an important cause of
this improvement.*
e. Out of I9o army-post commanders in the United States
and the Philippines reporting the effect of the abolition
of the Canteen on the health of the men, II9 reported that
the health of the men was worse, 3 that it was better, and
68 were doubtful.°
f. Though the admission rate to the hospitals and the num-
ber of cases of insanity have decreased somewhat since
the abolition of the Canteen, this decrease was probably
not caused by the abolition, for
(I) Since the abolition there have been Other changes in
the condition of the army that affected favorably the
health of the enlisted men, for
(a) Since I898 a large proportion of the troops — most
of the time more than half the army — has been
stationed in the unhealthy climate of the Philippines.“
(b) During the last two years hostilities in the Philip-
pines have greatly lessened,”
(c) And sanitary conditions there have greatly im-
proved."
(d) During I9O2, there was a great reduction in the
number of troops stationed in the Philippines.*
(2) The admissions to sick report from alcoholism — the
cases most likely to be affected by the presence or ab-
sence of the Canteen — were slightly more numerous in
I9O2 than in I9OI.°
1 Report oy^ the Secretary oy* War /o^ r899, Appendix, p. 277.
? /&id., p. 278. 8 /δza. 4 See references under II, E, I.
° House Doczzmzemzts, 57t/. Congress, 2d Sessione, No. 252, pp. I 5 and 18.
° Report oy* the Secretary of War /or r899, p. 6; Igoo, p. 4; Igor, p. 9 ; I9o2, p. 2.
7 /özd., I9oI, p. 15 ; I9o2, pp. 5-6. ° /özd., rgo2, p. 2.
° Report of the Surgeon General for the fiscal year ending June 3o, I9o3. Quoted in the Wew
Por Æzemzmg Aosz, δέ 7, I9o3.
23
(3) Though the amount of insanity in the army dimin-
ished somewhat during I9O2, the hospital admission rate
for this trouble during this year was almost identical
with the rate for the decade I89I-I9OO, when the Can-
teen was in operation.*
(4) According to the testimony of a large majority of
the commanders of the army posts, the effect of the
abolition on the health of the troops was bad.*
2. The Canteen, if restored, would have the same effect upon
the health of the enlisted men in the future that it had in the
past, for
a. There have been no changes in army conditions which
would materially affect the influence of the Canteen.*
b. The opinion of competent and reliable authorities is that
the Canteen would have the same beneficial effect On the
health of the men in the future, for
(I) The Association of Military Surgeons of the United
States, whose membership consists of about 6OO medical
officers of the regular and State forces, adopted resolu-
tions recommending the restoration of the Canteen.*
(2) The American. Medical Association, representing
I2,OOO physicians, adopted a resolution recommending
the restoration of the Canteen.*
(3) The opinion of these Associations is trustworthy, for
(a) The professional training of these men qualifies
them to judge intelligently in questions of this sort.
(b) , There is no apparent reason why they should be
prejudiced or dishonest in giving their opinion in this
C2) S€. •
D. The sanction by the government of liquor-selling in the Can-
teen would not be morally wrong, for
I. The charge made by the opponents of the Canteen that this
sanction would be morally wrong, whatever the direct effects
of the Canteen on the men might be, has not been proved, for
a. Though they assert, in support of this charge, that all
sale and use of spirituous liquors is morally wrong, this
assertion is of little weight here, for
1 Report of the Surgeon General for the fiscal year ending June 3o, I9o3. Quoted in the Vezo
J^or/. Ezemzmg. Post, October 7, τgo3. 3 See above, VI, C, I, e. 8 See above, VI, A, 3, a.
* Copy of Resolutions, in House Doczmtemts, 57t/. Congress, 2a. Sessiom, No. 252, pp. 5I4-5I5.
24.
(I) The argument that it is wrong because the effect of
the use of liquor is to produce crime and suffering, is of
little force here, for
(a) It does not properly apply at this point, for
i. At this point, we are considering the essential
morality of liquor-selling, apart from its direct
effects.4
(b) Even if we admit this argument at this point it is of
little weight, for
i. Under the circumstances of this case, the sanction
of liquor-selling would lessen the amount of liquor-
drinking, and thereby diminish crime and suf-
fering.*
(2) They advance no other argument to support this
assertion.
(3) By the very standard of morality recognized by the
opponents of the Canteen, all sale and use of liquor is
not morally wrong, for
(a) The Christian religion does not forbid all sale and
use of liquor.
b. The opponents of the Canteen advance no other argument
in support of this charge.
2. The sanction by the government of liquor-selling in the Can-
teen would result in moral good, for
a. It would diminish drunkenness and immorality.*
3. Though total abstinence may be morally much more desira-
ble than any use of liquor, yet to have the government sanc-
tion — î. e., permit and thus lend approva1 to — the sale of
liquor so far as it does in the Canteen, is not morally wrong,
for
a. The government sanctions the sale of liquor in this way
only in order to diminish the use of liquor.*
b. Total abstinence among the soldiers is, under present
conditions, an unattainable ideal, for
(I) The desire to drink spirituous liquors is deep-rooted
in the human race.
(2) Soldiers are no exception to this rule.
1 See above, VI, D, r. 2 See àbove, VI, A, B and C.
8 See above, VI, A and VI, B, I, e. 4 See above, II, B and II, D, 3, δ.
25
(3) Laws which have been passed to suppress drinking
have been unsuccessful, for
(a) They have been flagrantly violated, — e. g., in
Maine.*
(4) When the Canteen was abolished, the soldiers went
elsewhere for more noxious liquors.*
c. It is morally better to recognize the fact that men will
drink, and allow them to drink under government restric-
tions, thereby diminishing intemperance and immorality,
than to strive after the unattainable ideal of total abstinence
and thereby drive them to unrestricted drinking in saloons.
d. Though it is said that compromise of any sort with evil
is never wise, that it is never right to choose a lesser evil,
yet this principle is constantly gainsaid in what is regarded
as wise and moral practice in human affairs, for
(I) Governments must make the best of imperfect con-
ditions and use them as stepping stones to more perfect
O11€S.
(2) Governments regulate by excise laws, and thus sanc-
tion, the general liquor traffic.
(3) The criminal law inflicts evil on criminals as the
` means of preventing greater evils to society.*
(4) Nations frequently choose the great evil of war in
order to avoid some more terrible evil, such as tyranny
and oppression.
(5) The practical necessity of compromise is admitted by
philosophers and statesmen of high principles and
ideals, e. g.
(a) Burke fully appreciated the frequent impossibility
of attaining the end theoretically the most desirable,
and often urged the necessity of recognizing the actual
existence of imperfect human conditions, using them,
and compromising with them so far as may be neces-
ā in Order to gain the best end practically attain-
able.*
i See F. H. Wines and J. Koren, 7Âe Liquor Proòìem fm its Legis?azzzve Aspeczs.
2 See above, VI, A, r and 2.
8 Daniel Webster, Works, Vol. VI, p. 59. (Bostom, 1857).
4 WorÂs, Vol. I, pp. 527, ff., Vol. II, pp. r6 ff., I27, 227 ff. (Bostom, r87r).
26
(b) Mr. John Morley, though he preaches the duty of
ceaseless striving towards greater good, says, “ To
hurry on after logical perfection, is to show one's self
ignorant of the material of that social structure with
which the politician has to deal.**
e. It has never been demonstrated that, under present con-
ditions, there can be found any more effective way of
diminishing drunkenness than by the establishment of the
Canteen. •
VII. CONCLUSION.
A. We have now seen that, if the Canteen were restored, its
direct effect on the enlisted men would be, beyond reasonable
doubt, a beneficial one, in that it would promote among them
temperance, good discipline and good health, as it did in the
past.
B. We have seen that the sanction by the government of liquor-
selling in the Canteen would not be morally wrong.
C. We must conclude, therefore, that the Canteen should be re-
stored to the army.
* Om. Compromise, p. 229, (London, x89I).
v Reprinted from THE School R Evrew, Vol. X, No. 7, September, 1902.
•
THE RECENT HISTORY AND PRESENT STATUS OF
THE ENGLISH CURRICULUM.
TO ONE who has read, even cursorily, the exhaustive amount
of material which has been read before educational gatherings
or has appeared in educational journals, on the subject of English
in the secondary school, in the past four or five years, it becomes
no easy task to find some new and untouched problem, or to ,
attack the old problems from any fresh point of view. It is not
my purpose, therefore, to discuss any particular phase of the
teaching of English, nor to make any original contribution either
to the matter or the method of the subject, but rather, from the
history of the growth and development of the English curricu-
lum during the past decade, to bring into clearer light both what
we have done and what still remains to be done. If, out of an
analysis of the conditions operating to enlarge and strengthen
the work in English ; and if, out of a review of the steps whereby
that curriculum has emerged, so to speak, into self-conscious-
ness ; and if, further, out of an analysis of the deluge of material
with which we have been well-nigh submerged, I shall bring to
the light of day something //o// so/um ad intue/idu//t, as Cicero puts
it, verum etiam ad imitandum, I shal] have done all that is in my
thought to do. $&
A retrospect of the course in English during the past ten or
fifteen years reveals a progress that is as revolutionary as it is
encouraging. 'Tis a far throw from the narrow, scanty, circum-
scribed character Of the work in English as it existed ten years
ago in our secondary schools, to the broad, rich, generous, and
vitalizing curriculum which we see today. Its growth has been
an essentially organic one and has followed with striking and
scrupulous fidelity the general laws of organic development
From a state of almost pure potentiality, we have seen it emerge
into a separate and distinctive entity, gradually but steadily dis-
sociating itself from the other subjects, and slowly but irresist-
ibly gaining recognition for itself and for its right to a place in
the hierarchy of studies.

566
567 HISTORY AVD S7A7'US OA, THÆ ÆAVGZ/SA CURRICULUM
To the pessimist, perhaps, this view of the situation may seem
unwarrantably optimistic, and he may be tempted to call atten-
tion to the fact that, out of all the discussion and experimenta-
tion of the past decade, there is comparatively little upon which
we are yet agreed. The situation apparently, in many respects,
is as chaotic as ever. As one reads article after article on this
and that phase of the English work, it may seem that we are as far
at sea as we ever were, and that there is nothing definite yet
attained upon which there is anything like agreement among
authorities. One favors the use of the books set for college
entrance requirements, another would reject them im parte or im
toto. One believes that these books should be read in one order,
another in another; one claims they should all be read in the
senior year, another that they should be scattered through
the entire four years ; one believes that grammar should be
taught in the high schools, another thinks it has no right there
and should be completed in the grades ; one is an earnest advocate
of the claims of rhetoric to a place in the curriculum ; another is
equally insistent that these claims are irrational and ridiculous;
one believes in much composition, and another in little, and so on,
ad infinitum, ad mauseam. And, looking at the number of vexa-
tious problems that still call for settlement, there may be a slight
temptation to discouragement, and some mild justification for at
least a tinge of pessimism. And yet this is but the natural note
oí occasional despondency which inevitably attends all growth
and progress, and cannot possibly be regarded as a permanent
or final attitude. -
Evidences of an undeniable growth in both the social and
educational interest in the subject of English are so numerous
and convincing as tO give abundant warrant to that attitude of
modest optimism which, while admitting defects, and acknowl-
edging imperfection, yet has faith in the higher tendency of
events and the ultimate triumph of the best.
In the first place, English has, practically, in that period, come
to assume a distinctive and individual place in the program of
studies, and is rated on the same footing as Latin, German, His-
tory, and Physics. This alone is a progressive step of the first
7ÄÄ? SCAVOO/, RÆ VVÆ VV 568
rank, and indicates a growth in the appreciation and recognition
of our mother tongue which may well call for felicitation.
In the second place, as a corollary of its recognition as a
study of distinct cultural and disciplinary value, has come a
time-apportionment adjusted to its merits. Instead of one period
or occasionally two periods per week, we are now seldom con-
tent with less than four, and the growing tendency is toward
five. This is but the outward expression of our feeling that
English has claims of its own to all the rights and emoluments
granted to other studies whose traditional aristocracy has hith-
erto given them undisputed Sway over our course of study. We
have come to some genuine appreciation of our own literature
and to some active conception of the vital importance of culti-
vating in our young people a love for the true, the beautiful, and
the good, which in such glittering store await the diligent delver
after hidden treasure in the mine of English literature. “The
course of study in English," says the committee on college
entrance requirements, “ should include two elements, the study
of English literature and the cultivation of the art of expres-
sion;'' and, further, it says:
English offers all, or nearly ali, the opportunities for mental training
afforded by the study of any language, and introduces the pupil to the litera-
ture of his own tongue, which must always be the chief source of his own
inspirations, ideals, and æsthetic enjoyment, and must also be the vehicle of
his communication with his fellow-men.
Upon the importance, then, of cultivating in our pupils a love
for the noblest and best in English literature, we have come to
unanimous and hearty agreement in the past ten years. In say-
ing this I do not mean that there did not exist a keen and lively
appreciation of English literature in the minds of teachers and
parents previous to that time. Abundant evidencé would con-
tradict any such view. I would say, however, that the obliga-
tion to place it systematically before our young people, to guide
and direct their steps in the bewildering and tortuous paths of
iiterature, to vitalize their whole character and life with its
truths, its inspirations, its ideals, its beauties, was not consciously
present; and only as they came to it through the guidance of
569 ARISTORY A/VD STA 7'US OAf 7AZ ÆΛ/GZ/SÆ CURAEZCUZUM
cultivated and intelligent parents, or through the accidental and
incidental interest of some inspiring teacher, did they come to
know the glories of that literature to which the words of the
most eloquent of Roman orators may well be transferred: “ It
nourishes youth, delights old age, adds honor to prosperity, is a
refuge and a solace in adversity, is a source of delight at home
and abroad, is with us in the night watches, in our wanderings,
and at our rustic seats.'' .
And so, through the agitation and discussion of recent years,
we have come to recognize our obligations in this matter, and,
whatever differences of opinion may exist regarding the particu-
lar bits of literature that should be read, we are all agreed that,
to the extent to which time allows, a few at least of those noble
works of English literature which have shed immortal luster on the
English race and have bathed us all in something of the reflected
glory and brilliance of their radiance, enlightening our minds,
subduing our hearts, vivifying our wills, should be brought under
the careful and thoughtful study of our young people. Upon
this, I may say confidently, we are all agreed, and no more
important development has taken place in the past ten years in
educational activity than this same sense of obligation and
responsibility for the cultivation of right tastes, of inspiring
ideals, of enriching sentiments in our young men and women.
The effect of this upon the social fabric, while not perhaps
appreciable in the immediate present, cannot be otherwise than
stimulating and suggestive to the coming generation. The gen-
eral average of literary standards and taste will be raised, and
the time cannot be far distant when the results of this cumula-
tive work on the part of the educational forces of the country
must be felt from the most populous cities to the most isolated
farms. ę - - -
Another point in which great gain is noticeable is in the
matter of composition. The time dates not so far back when
one or two essays a term was deemed adeqüate, or if not ade-
quate, it was at least all that was demanded. Gradually there
came to consciousness the feeling that composition as a vital
mode of social communication — one of the essential ways
7//£ scAooz R£v/£w 57o
by which we impart our thought to others and receive their
thought to ourselves — must be taught more extensively,
systematically, and continuously. As this thought became
dynamic, more and more consideration, a larger measure of time,
and wider and more scientific training in the art of expression
became manifest. Composition—the art of expressing one's self
accurately, forcefully, felicitously, with the design of influencing
or delighting our fellow—came more and more to assume its
rightful place and value, and we now concede to no exercise a
higher importance, either from a disciplinary or utilitarian point
of view. When we compare the meager attention given to com-
position in our school days with that which is now bestowed
upon it, we come to some realization of the almost revolution-
ary character of the attitude — social and educational— toward
composition.
Another evidence of the enhanced importance of English
lies in the increased teaching force. Not so many years ago
teachers whose time was entirely devoted to the work in
English, save in the largest high schools, where there were so
many pupils that even one or two recitations a week would con-
sume the entire time of one teacher— save in such schools and
under such circumstances, I say, special teachers in English
were an unknown feature in secondary work. English teaching,
such as it was, was done by anybody and everybody, anyhow
and everyhow, in the interstices of other duties. Now how dif-
ferent! Teachers especially equipped and trained in English
are as much in demand as are teachers trained in the classics and
in science. Every secondary school worthy of the name has its
one, two, three, or more, teachers whose whole time is devoted to
instruction in English language and literature in some one or
more of its phases; and, save in incidental ways like grammati-
cal errors, oral discourse, or mistakes in spelling, capitalization,
punctuation, etc., the other teachers are rightly not held to
accountability for the work in English. This fact is another
indication of the higher responsibility and obligation which we
have come to feel toward instruction in English. Society is
willing, nay anxious, to expend its mqney ; and men and women
57 I HISTORY AND STATUS OA^ 7 AVE ÆAVG L/SA CURRICULUM
are willing to devote their life efforts and energies to improving
the medium of communication and to enriching the intellectual
treasures of the oncoming generation. That is a marvelous
advance in thought from a generation ago and well deserves our
thoughtful pride.
In the number, the character, and the content of our text-
books, we find still another evidence of the increased interest,
the productive thought, and the improved tools whereby our
English instruction is given. We may feel that we are well-
nigh submerged with new texts, but the multiplicity of them is
proof of a certain demand far in advance of other days, and the
strenuous attempts at originality, whether in form or content, are
equal proof that, like the Athenians of old, we are ever seeking
after something new, and are so interested in the subject that
we are devouring all sorts of patent nostrums for accomplishing
the desired end. \
And so, whether they are heavy or light, whether they are as
bare of illustrations as a bodkin, or whether they are mere picture
books ; whether they advocate this mode of approach and this
course of treatment, or whether, for novelty's sake, they advo-
cate directly the opposite, at all events they are catering to a live
and active interest and are appealing to a teaching constituency
which is as thirsty for some new idea in methods of teaching as
the Ancient Mariner was for water. And it is all the manifestation,
whether viewed from the standing point of demand or supply,
whether exercised rationaliy or irrationally, of that lively inter-
est which will in time, through many an error and much of
stumbling, work such desirable good to English and American
life — active and passive.
And now as to the unsettled problems. We are agreed on
the main lines of our English instruction — literature, composi-
tion, grammar, familiarity with at least the fundamental princi-
ples of rhetoric. It is on the details only, I think I may safely
say, that we find differences of opinion, inevitable in the con-
structive process of any work, whether material or spiritual.
It is doubtful whether the English curriculum can ever become
as fixed and determinate a$ the curriculum in Latin or mathe-
7TÆVÆ SCÆVOOÆ Â® Æ VVÆ VV - 572
matics. There are inherent difficulties in the subject which
make that improbable, if not impossible — and doubtless undesir-
able even if possible. We have been, however, working toward
definiteness and some degree of unity, and, while the time will
never come, I fancy, when the courses in different schools will
agree, there will soon, if there has not already, come a time
when we shall be in substantial agreement on the essential
features of such a curriculum.
The unsolved problems are the problems which logically grow
out of progress and it will be an unfortunate day when they
shall all be solved. New problems in English, as in other parts
of the program of studies, must arise with changing conditions
in the social organism, and only as it ceases to grow will prob-
lems cease to arise. Shall we or shall we not accept and use
the books recommended for college entrance requirements?
That is a question which the test of experiment will settle for us
within a few years. We have no need to hurry the process by
a priori arguments pro or con, or by premature analogies with
the feudal system or the human organism. If it is found.
not to adjust itself closely and logically to the needs of life and
society, it will be banished to the limbo of discarded absurdities;
but, if it does, it will live. AS an effort after unity and definite-
ness, it is wholly to be commended ; and attacking it on the
ground of something imposed from without, as a phase of a sort
of feudal conception of the relation of college to secondary
school, as Professor Scott has done, is neither warranted by the
motives which inspired it nor by the necessities which occasioned
it. Whether the list of books selected is a permanent and final
one, or whether it is but a step in the evolution of the English
curriculum, is a question for the future historian of educational
progress to determine ; but at present the list is serving a most
useful and commendable purpose in giving concreteness, defi-
niteness, and unity to what was in danger of becoming a most
chaotic and hopeless mess.
The evolution of the English curriculum, on its philosophic
side, is but the outward manifestation of an inner striving after
a closer and finer identification of the parts of the social organ-
573 HISTORY AAVID S747'US OA7 7THÆ ÆΛVG/LVSÆ CURAEZCULUM
ism with one another. In the unity of thought, feeling, and will
created by the study of the masterpieces of the human mind, we
find the ground for a higher social life. In the centering of
interest on the art of expression, we find the search after a better
understanding and a closer identification of ourselves with our
fellow-men, wherein less offriction, of misunderstanding, of mal-
adjustment, shall be found, because of the misuse and abuse of
language.
And so today the teachers of English par excellemce may feel
thât, in the process òf social evolution and in the work which they
do in elevating the tastes, stimulating the ideals, ennobling the
feelings of the younger generation through English literature, and
likewise in binding society more closely and more intelligently
together by a more exact and scientific use of the art of expression
— oral and written— they are playing a part second to none,
whether considered from the view-point of society as a whole, or
from that of the individual.
JAMES H. HARRIs.
MICHIGAN MILITARY ACADEMY, „.. • •*•*******
Orchard Lake, Michigan. _.~~
From LANE COOPER,
Corneli University,
Ithaca, N, Y,
[Retain all leaflets handed to you, amd eonsult them at intervals through-
out the eourse.]
METHODs AND AIMS IN THE STUDY OF LITERATURE: OPINIONS FROM
TWO POETS.
In the study of literature—in all study—there are two, fundamental
processes: Observation and Comparison. The mecessity of Observatiom
in the study of poetry may be gathered from the following utteranees of
WordsWOrth :
“I have at all times endeavored to look steadily at my subjeet; con-
sequently, there is, I hope, in [my] poems little falsehood of description,
and my ideas are expressed in language fitted.to their respective impor-
tance. Something must have been gained by this practice, as it is friendly
to one property of all good poetry, namely, good sense.* (Wordsworth's
Literary Criticism, ed. Nowell Smith, p. 18.)
Again, in censuring certain literature of am inferior sort, Wordsworth
maintains: -
“The poetry of the period intervenimg between the publication of
the Paradise Lost and the Seasons . . . scarcely presents a familiar
[image] from which it eam be inferred that the eye of the Poet had beem
steadily fixed upom his object. . . . A blind mam, in the habit of
attending accurately to descriptions easually dropped from the lips of
those around him, might easily depict these appearances with more
truth.* (P. 185.) •
The eye of the student must be steadily fixed upon his object; that)
is, first upOn each detail of the poem he is studying, and then upom the
poem as a Whole. His first business is to see things in the poem precisely
as they are ; in Other Words, his first business is exact observatiom.
Next, he must compare:
“At School (Christ's Hospital),” says Coleridge, “I enjoyed the
inestimable advantage of a very sensible, though at the same time, a
very severe master, the Reverend James Bowyer. He early moulded my
taste to the preference of Demosthenes to Cicero, of Homer and Theocri-
tus to Virgil, and again of Virgil to Ovid. He habituated mé to compare
Lucretius (in such extracts as I then read), Terence, and above all the
chaster poems of Catullus, not only with the poets of the, so-ealled,
silver and brazen ages; but with even those of the Augustam era; and on
grounds of plain sense and universal logic to see and assert the superiority
of the former in the truth and mativeness both of their thoughts and
diction. At the same time that we were studying the Greek tragic poets,
he made us read Shakespeare and Milton as lessons; and they were the
lessons, too, which required most time and trouble to bring up, so as to
escape his censure. I learned from him that poetry, evem that of the
loftiest, and, seemingly, that of the wildest Odes, had a logie of its own,
as severe as that of science; and more difficult, beeause more subtle, more
complex,and dependent on more, and more fugitive eauses. In the truly
great poets, he would say, there is a reasom assignable, not only for every
word, but for the position of every word.* (Biographia Literaria, p. 14?.)
In addition to perfect Observation, and strict Comparison, the
student must cultivate the habit of illustrating every General Statement
he makes, by one or more Specific Examples. In the discussion of
literature, this involves familiarity with a number of the best models.
Observatiom, Comparison, and Specific Illustration are the means through
which one may ultimately arrive at certitude of literary judgment. Sueh
certitude, however, is ordinarily a matter of slow attaimment. On this
head, listem to Wordsworth :
“An accurate taste in poetry, and in all the other arts, . . . is
am acquired talent, which can Only be produced by severe thought, and
a long continued intereourse with the best models of composition. This
is mentioned, not with so ridiculous a purpose as to prevent the most
inexperienced reader from judging for himself; but merely to temper
the rashness of decision, and to suggest that if poetry be a subject om
which much time has not been bestowed, the judgment may be erroneous,
and that in many cases it necessarily will be so.* (Literary Criticism,
pp. 2, 39.) •
So much for Method. What, now, is the Aim of literary study ?
Since literature is a liberal art, its function must be in some way con-
nected with liberty ; and since the study of literature belongs among the
humanities, it must, if properly pursued, tend to make the student more
humane; that is, more thoughtful, more reverent, and more fearless—
more wise, sympathetie, and just. As a liberal art, poetry helps to free
us from the slavery of fear ; as a humane art, it disentangles us from the
bestial part of our natures, and remdersus more like the best and hap-
piest, the most typical, mem. The destiny of his poems, declares Words-
worth, is “to console the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight, by making
the happy happier ; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to
see, to think and feel, and therefore, to become more aetively amd securely
virtuous.” (P. 48.) Or, what amounts to the same thing, the end of
his poetry, as Of all good poetry, is to arouse, and make lasting, a pleasure
that is not servile, that only a free and humane, or civilized, mam can
enjoy. Thus he writes to a friend: “It is plain from your letter that the
pleasure which I have given you has mot been blind or unthinking ; you
have studied the poems, and prove that you have entered into the spirit
of them. They have not given you a cheap or vulgar pleasure. . '.
You have given me praise for having reflected in my Poems the feelings
of humam mature. I would faim hope that I have done so. But a great
Poet ought to do more than this; he ought, to a.certain degree, to rectify
mem's feelings, to give them new compositions of feeling, to render their
feelings more sane, pure, and permanent, in short, more consonant to
nature, that is, to eternal nature, and the great moving spirit of things.”
(Pp. 3, ?.)
HOW THE PUBLIC WILL SOLVE
OUR PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE
TEACHING
by
JOHN F, WOODHULL, Ph.D.
Professor of Physical Scfence
Columbfa University
PREPRINTED
FROM THE MARCH, 1909, ISSUE OF
SCHOOL SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS
CHICAGO

How THE PUBLIC WILL SOLVE OUR, PROBLEMS OF
SCIENCE TEACHING,
EY JOHN F. WOODHULL, PH.D.,
Professor of Physical Science, Columbia University.
In this prognostication I have thought it necessary to rein-
force my views with the testimony of a score of witnesses, I beg ,
leave therefore to act as the editor rather than the sole author
of this paper. Its composite authorship will be found duly set
forth in the various footnotes.
In this country we need not fear a revolution in matters of
education both because democracies are proverbially conserva-
tive and because educational administration is now well organ-
ized. Changes are therefore sure to be a matter of development
and growth and he who would work most effectively may pre-
pare for what is before him by studying the history of the past
and the trend of the present. -
A very casual survey of history reveals the fact that educa-
tion in this country has always been an exponent of the times.
When one considers the changes that have come Over all edu-
cational institutions in the past generation, it is impossible to
escape the conclusion that the public determines what shall be
the nature of education. And this seems to be equally true
whether we consider the SO-called private or public institutions,
and whether we consider elementary, high School or university
education. Al1 must be largely conventional and partake of the
character of the times. This fact has been often recognized and
commented upon both by those who regret it and by those who
take satisfaction in it.
It should be noted that the college community is a part of the
public and not apart from it. -
I. THE PUBLIC WILL TAKE GREATER CONTROL OF EDUCA-
TioNAL INSTITUTIONS AND THE NUMBER OF PUPILS WILL
GREATLY INCREASE.
Fifty years ago there were only forty high Schools in the
United States. Now there are about twelve thousand. Ten
years ago there were. about half a million high School pupils and
now there are about twice that number. The rate of increase
in the number of pupils naturally is mu1ch greater than that of
a.
buildingS or of teachers. A similar state of affairs exists in the
colleges, universities and technical schools. All this has oc-
curred in spite of the attempts of Some of the colleges to “put up
the bars'' and deny education to all but a relatively few. .The
methods of selecting those upon whom the fruits of education
may fall are likely to be revised by the public who feel that the
money spent upon education shoiild make better citizens rather
than a proletariat.
It has been shown that the academic methods do not select
the most efficient candidates.
It has also been shown that of those who enter the high school
two thirds drop out chiefly because the instruction is not adapted
to their needs*.
“The real difficulty lies in the lack of adaptation of the in-
struction in the high Schools to the need and opportunities of
the pupils." * * * “The instruction should be made as far
as possible to serve the needs of the great mass of the pupils.”
* * * “The high school (as now administered) is essentially
a 'select' school * * * the real and imperative needs of the
many are sacrificed to the doubtful satisfaction of the needs of
the few * * * what the whole system requires is the skill-
ful provision for the real good of the greatest number.” *
Dr. Edward J. Goodwin, president of Packer Institute and
recently Assistant Commissicner of Education of the State of
New York, as quoted in the New York Times for October 25,
19o8, says: “We are gradually coming to recognize the injus-
tice of organizing our high Schools in the interests of the few
alone. Our high schools contribute in New York State for ex-
ample less than two per cent of the men who yearly enter the
so-called 'ttnlearned' professions."
It is inevitable that all educational institutions will become
much more crowded in the near future for the public is moving
toward a grêater contro1 of the schools and colleges ; and a still
further increase of attendance t1pon our schools and colleges
will forthwith compel us to make some modifications in our
methods of instruction, SO as to deal with larger numbers of
pupils. For instance, it will make it difficult to seriously talk
of “laboratory divisions limited to twelve.”
1 Professor E. I,. Thorndike, Columbia. The future of the ' College F. intrance Board.
Ed. Rev., May 1906. Also, The elimination of pupils from school. Bulletin of the Bureau
of Inf.
\ 2The New York Times in a recent editorial.
“The real voice of the voters who have lately so multiplied
high schools has not yet been clearly heard, and their unformu-
lated purpose has not yet been accomplished. * * . * The
evils of college dominance are now so great and manifest that
they must be transient.” * -
“The people know what they mean by education after all really
quite as accurately as we do, whose peculiar business it is to
define the term.” *
The conditions of our modern life are driving everyone to
the study of science. Evening classes, extension classes, corre-
spondence classes are multiplying. Books and periodicals give
increasing space to scientific subjects. The development of ma-
chinery has made the study of physics not only a matter of in-
terest but a necessity to all persons.
The automobile, the motor boat and the like are not only rivals
of the schools in the teaching of physics but they are at the same
time the most potent cause for the reform in that teaching.
From Sir Humphrey Davy, whose inaugural address at the -
Royal Institution sets forth the services of science to humanity
and science as an agent in the improvement of Society, through
the long line of masters down to the present, there comes a com-
plete and overwhelming condemnation of Cavendish exclusive-
mess in science.
“The subject matter of physics is far more closely connected
than that of any other science with daily life * * * the
things we need to know most are the physical things * * *
there is no other science except chemistry which touches com-
mon life at so many points.” “
II. THE PUBLIC WILL NO DOUBT REQUIRE THAT SCIENCE
INSTRUCTION SHALL BE PRACTICAL, OR AS PROFESSOR BAILEY
PUTS IT—APPLICABLE. *
Unless it is applicable it can neither be scientifiè nor human-
istic. - -.
The high schools of the future will without doubt be more.
closely allied to schools of applied science than to those of pure
science. There will be more of the study of processes than of
principles; more of physiology than of anatomy ; more of agri-
3 President G. Stanley Ha11, Clark. Adolescence, Vo1. 11, p. 515.
4State Supt. Henry C. Morrison, New Hampshire. Educational Review, October 1908.
p. 247 -
5 Professor Wi11iam F. Magie, Princeton. Boyle and Townley or Observation and Re-
flection. Proc. Physics Club of New York, January 29, 1904.
N
culture, nature study, natural philosophy as Faraday understood
it, than of physics and chemistry, as the terms are now some-
times understood.
Faraday thought that physical science was a most appropriate
study for children and mentioned light as a particularly good
subject for that purpose. He who thinks that it requires a
“heaven-sent gift" to study physics probably thinks of a very
pure science.” “
Professor William Conger Morgan of the University of Cali-
. fornia has an article in SCHOOL SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICs for
November, I9o8, on the “Relation of the Technica1 World to
School Chemistry,” in which he shows admirably how the high
school course in chemistry might be enriched and he completely
justifies the substitution of “practica1'' illustrations for the usual
academic treatment when he says “the best reason for introduc-
ing experiments from the industria1 world is to illustrate the
general principles of chemistry.”
Thi§ is not materializing or commercializing; it is the most
effective way of tèaching science for its own sake.
But let us put special emphasis upon the next division of our
subject.
III. SCIENCE TEACHING WILL BE MORE HUMANIZED.
“Nothing is of real worth unless it can be directly connected
with some result of conspicuous benefit to mankind.
“This attitude has profoundly influenced educational theory.
This is a change of attitude of the world at large.
“Society wants the things of practical moment taught and it is
the task of education tO do it.
“Science has the confidence of the people before whose court
it must justify itself. Science teaching has every natural ad-
vantage in its favor, including the keen interest of the pupil and
no excuse will be accepted for its failure.
“Science teaching has its mission in general education. It
may be taught so that it throws light on almost every phase of
human interest.
“The lives of the great scientists are just as significant for
education as the things which they stand for. The more students
learn about personality the larger men they become.” '
6 Professor Perkins, Trinity. The Present Status of Physics Teaching in Secondary
Schools. Proc. Eastern Assn. of Physics Teachers, 1905.
? Dr. A, S. Dewing, Harvard. School Science, Oct. and Nov. 1908,
“It is gradually becoming clear that for purposes of teaching,
science must be treated as a part of human experience. It must
be so closely linked with the interests and problems of the daily
life as to become part of it. It must be shown to have arisen for
the purpose of meeting human needs and to have played a very
important part in 'the development of our present social life.'*
“The cal1 to life, and to life in this world is the first and funda-
mental call of the scientific age, it is a call to sacrifice and to
service and the call to service has been the deepening undertone
of the call to humanism.''*
*.
IV. THE STATUS OF THE HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER WILL BE
GREATLY IMPROVED AND WE MAY HoPE THAT GREAT TEACHERs
WILL ARISE AS OF YORE. «*
If we are to meet the needs of the public we must again have
great teachers. v.
“The great teacher is the man of great personality, in whom
nobility means more than attainments, and therefore the man
whose personal touch upon the student is sure to be quickening
and ennobling. He must know surely and clearly the subject
he is teaching, but he must know even more profoundly and sym-
pathetically the object he is teaching, namely, the other human
beings, his pupils for whom he is guide and leader.
“The greatest students of this world have been formed one
by one by great masters.
“Give me a good teacher, of noble nature, and I am compara-
tively indifferent to his or her scholarly attainments. The at-
tainments will follow. Of what use for educating our boys and
girls would it be to have the most gifted if that teacher is him-
self a sma11-natured, mean-natured, close-natured, little-natured
soti1?” *° -
“The educational process is not the mechanical impact of text-
book or even of ideas upon the intellect, but the impact between
living beings ; and in the interaction of these vastly more is given
and received than is ever formulated. What the teacher is ex-
presses itself; and always the teacher's personality is the great-
est educational influence.” “
The high school age is the most important for education, and
8 Professor c. R. Mann, Chicago.. Ed. Rev. June 1907.
9 Professor W. T^. Sedgwick, Mass. Institute of Science of Teach. Science, Aug. 14, 1908
10 Professor Andrew F. West, Princeton. Ed Rev, Sept. 1908,
1 1 F ducationa1 Review, October 1908, p, 295.
#
the public will there place its greatest teachers. They cannot
be specialists for as intelligence increases in one direction ig-
norance becomes more dense in Other directions. The specialist
seldom measures up to the average intelligence of his own pupils.
The greatest teachers of the future like the great teachers of
the past will teach not one but many sciences and these with
reference to their applications.
“A generation ago * * * the work was usually in the
hands of one of those admirable all-round pedagogues who were
capable of teaching with equal facility every subject in the cur-
riculum and it may be said in homage to their talent that the
best of them taught every subject as well perhaps as Some of
the specialists of to-day teach the one subject to which all thei
time is given.''* ¢
“And we all praise famOus men—
Ancients Of the College ;
For they taught us commom sense—
Tried to teach us COmmOm sense
Truth and GOd's OWm COmmOm Sense
Which is more than knowledge.*'**
“A well rounded mind rather than the mind of one idea is the
general purpose of teaching.” “
Teaching is a “high and sacred calling'' and we might expect
it to react upon the personality of the teacher.
An Englishman writing of his visits to American schools says,
“I have found teachers the most attractive class in the nation,
because more than any other class, not excepting the clergy,
they are free from sordid aims.''*
We may expect that such teachers will maintain sympathetic
relations with their pupils.
At present teachers appear to be divided into two camps with
reference to their mode of treating the pupils. One party feels
that there can be no education without coercion, the Other feels
that it is possible to win students to voluntary efforts which shall
count for more. The first party accuses the second of using
“kindergarten methods” and of entertaining and interesting
pupils until they lose the capacity for work. Work, they claim,
is their watchword, and play, they claim, is the watchword of the
18 Professor Nichols, Corne11. Proc. Eastern Association Physics Teachers. Dec. 1905.
1 8 Sta1ky and Co., Kipling.
1 4 Dr. Dewing. School Science, November 1908.
1 5 Educational Review, Qctober 1908, p. 295,
second party. But the second party has never agreed to this
claim. On the other hand it says to the first party, you boast
of work but you really administer sedatives. Your quantitative
laboratory exercises and your mathematical treatment of physics
is not hard, it is stupid. Its only justification is that it is the
easiest thing for an Overworked teacher to administer, particu-
larly if he be a teacher who lacks the power to hold the attention
of a class and therefore dreads qualitative experiments. Fur-
thermore the second party claims that it secures a compelling
interest in the subject which insures voluntary effort not only
in school but out of school, and through life. These two parties
have never been able to get together by argument and I take it
that it is a hopeless case of lack of affinity. Unless I am greatly
mistaken, these two parties in education would also be found to
be two opposite sects in religion ahd for similar reasons. The
first requisite of a great teacher is that he retain a vivid recollec-
tion of himself as a child, that he may be able to fully appre-
ciate the pupil's point of view.
V. As THE HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER INCREASES IN DIGNITY
THE DOMINATION OF THE COLLEGE WILL CEASE AND THE EVILS
OF UNIFORMITY WILL DISAPPEAR.
“High school physics has problems al1 its own to which its
representatives should address themselves with courage, resolu-
tion and above al1 with independence or else the present de-
cadent tendencies due to college control will contintte.
“College entrance requirements as now enforced are almost
an unmitigated curse to the high schools, exploiting them against
their norma1 interests and the purpose of the people who support
them. ·
“The high school should be master not servant.
“Perhaps no institution in modern times needs inspection, vis-
itation and scrutiny so mtich as the private endowed American
colleges themselves.” “
We can never have a truly educational treatment of any sub-
ject so long as it is studied solely with college entrance exam-
inations in view.
In England and on the continent entrance examinations have
been abolished on the grotund that they are no test for power.
1 6 President Ha11, Adolescence, Vol. II, pp. 157, 510, 520 and 527.
“The function of secondary schools is distinct in itself and
will one day establish its independent right when it has rid itself
of the vicious term and stil1 more vicious idea of college prep-
aration.” “
The high school teachers of this country have their subject
matter and method of treatment minutely prescribed for them
by those who understand neither the subject nor the pupils as
well as they do.
Some persons unconscious that physics is a living subject, that
every man, woman and child has his own physical world to study,
varying-with persons and with localities, demand that these high
school pupils shall be fitted to the Procrustean bed.
They assert that physics is a quantitative subject; that it pre-
sents the greatest difficulty to al1 except those few who have
special gifts. They say that this is predetermined in the nature
of the subject. All this, however, has been explicitly denied by
some of the greatest natural philosophers and the greatest edu-
cational philosophers. In the hands of great teachers few sub-
jects are difficult; in the hands of Some teachers all subjects are
not only difficult but utterly incomprehensible. »
“Any of the sciences can be made impressive if taught by a
full mind which alone can elementarize,” * and the ability to sim-
plify is one of the marks of true greatness.
“We must distinguish between the teaching function and the
research function. It is our business as teachers to open the
minds of the young to the facts of science. * * * Nature
study is not a new subject, it is a new mode of teaching and is
just as applicable to the college as to the common school.” “
“The craze for uniformity more than any other one thing has
1ed to the great success of our schools in the development of
mediocrity.''*
“Even more harmful than overcrowding is the oversystem-
atizing which characterizes our present day methods. The tend-
ency nearly everywhere is to reduce teaching to a routine and
thus to deprive both teacher and pupil of the chance to do and
think for themselves. A committee is appointed to draw up a
syllabus and to outline the physics teaching for a whole state
1 7 F. Whitton, School Review, 1900, p. 261.
1 8 Ha11's Adolescence, Vol. II, p. 202.
*' 9 Professor L. H. Bailey, Cornell. Proc. N. Y. Science Teächers Association, Albany,
1907. •
30 Professor Stanley Coulter, Purdue University. Nature Study Review, January 1908.
or `for the entire country. Every school equips itself to follow
this program and every physics teacher goes through the pre-
scribed course in the prescribed manner with section after sec-
tion, day after day and year after year, until physics to him,
instead of being the world-wide glorious science that it really is,
is comprised within the scanty pages of the syllabus. Some spirits
there are that refuse to be thus confined, but the tendency to uni-
formity levels down as well as up and the hilltops from which one
may look out and view the true beauties of sciences are cut down
in Order that we may have a plain, easily traversed and easily
cultivated.''*
“The interests and needs of the pupils should be the deter-
mining factor in the arrangement of courses and the choice of
methods.
“It follows that a high degree of uniformity in teaching
physics is neither practicable nor desirable.
“Physics should be taught not as a preparation for college but
as preparation for life.''*
The Physics Club of New York, before whom Mr. Spaulding's
paper was read on March 7, I908, adopted the following recom-
mendations:
“College entrance examinations as now conducted upon the
broad and indefinite subject, physics, compel high school teachers
to give their entire energies to cramming and drilling. In this
matter experienced and efficient teachers have no advantage over
inferior ones.
“It is manifest that a very definite and complete topical syllabus
upon which examinations should be based would be one step to-
ward the alleviation of this situation, but nevertheless such an in-
strument would constitute a galling yoke, forcing well equipped
teachers to keep step with their inexperienced fellows.
“It seems probable that a very definite but incomplete syllabus
by securing a certain amount of freedom in teaching, would
enable the best teachers to do their best. Inexperienced teachers
1may be helped and guided by a Teachers' Manual, which should
be much richer in suggestion than any syllabus can be.
Therefore, resolved that a uniform course in physics . for all
schools is both undesirable and unattainable. We recommend:
1. That syllabuses should deal with the barest Outline of general
21 Professor E. L. Nichols, Corne11. Proc. Eastern Ass11. Physics Teachers, Bostom, 1905
22 Mr. F. B. Spaulding, Boys* High School, Brooklyn. School Science, 1908, p. 674,
principles, leaving each teacher free to fill up the Course according to
his best judgment.
2. That examinations for College Entrance should be confined to
the general principles specified in the syllabus and that a teacher's
certificate should be accepted for Other material—this might well take
the form of a rather full statement Of the Work done.”
lt has been asserted that what the colleges want for prepara-
tion in science is very defimite and perfectly well understood but
this may be doubted when so many divergent opinions are ex-
pressed in print by college men.
In spite of the fact that the best high school teachers of to-day
have become experts in their profession, the latest commission
charged by the college entrance board to plan the work for high
school physics contains not a single person actively engaged in
teaching high school physics. A situation which would be im-
possible in any other country in the world now exists, tempo-
rarily I believe, in representative America.
VI. As ATTENDANCE UPON THE HIGH SCHOOL CLASSES IN
SCIENCE INCREASEs, INDIVIDUAL LABORATORY WORK WILL OF
NECESSITY BE SOMEWHAT CURTAILED AND MORE IMPORTANCE
WILL BE ATTACHED TO THE LECTURE.
To begin with, the so-called inductive work will be eliminated
from the laboratory.
High school pupils are sometimes taught to “test'' and to
“verify,” in short, to learn things “first hand'' when they have
neither capacity for nor ground upon which to draw conclusions.
“I am an enemy of the inductive method in the school course.
It is utterly absurd to expect an immature boy of fifteen or six-
teen to perform that intellectual feat of generalization that is
considered the most 1mature effort of the human mind. * * *
It is supposing a mental endowment that only comes late in life
to most Of us and Often 1never at al1. * * * Bad as this
method is in the 11ands of an experienced teacher it is confusion
worse confounded when a novice attempts it.''*
The laboratory at best is a very artificial means of supplying
experiences upon which to build physical concepts. While it is
useful and needful it cannot take the place of an appeal to life's
experiences and the phenomena of nature. The charge that
pupils may read about nature in books and not recognize her
2 8 Professor Perkins, Trinity. Proc. Eastern Association. Physics Teachers, Decem-
ber 1905, p. 25.
out of doors is quite as applicable to laboratory work. In physics
it is tOO unreal; too much devoted to statics—too many things
are presented which are never found outside of a laboratory and
which are not parallel to or explanatory of anything found in
ordinary human experience.
Professor Mann, Chicago, says that “for the general student
college laboratory work is neither essential nor desirable.''*
“ToO much time is given to so-called laboratory work with
elaborate and expensive apparatus. Too little attention is paid
to simple and effective illustrations of physica1 phenomena and
simple applications of fundamental principles to be found in
levery school room and its immediate environments.” *
Professor W. S. Franklin, Lehigh, “My experience. is most
emphatically, that a student may measure a thing and know
nothing at all about it, and I believe that the present high school
courses in elementary physics in which quantitatve laboratory
work is so strongly emphsized, are altogether bad.” * * *
“I believe that the physical sciences should be taught in the
secondary schools with reference to their practical applications.
I cannot endure a so-called knowledge of elementary science
which does not relate to Some actual physical condition or thing,
and I believe that the only physical things that are sufficiently
prominent in a young man's mind to be brought into the field of
his science study are the things which have been impressed upon
him in everyday life. Say what you will, you must do one of
two things to be able to teach physics in any school; either you
must create an actua1 world of the ttnust1a1 phenomena of nature
by purchasing an elaborate and expensive equipment of scientific
apparatus or you must make use of the boy's everyday world of
actua1 conditions and things.” “
The public has expended 1avishly for laboratory equipment
in physics, doubtless in the expectation that their children will
be better instructed thereby to cope with the new conditions of
modern 1fe. There is no department of education which the
people have more at heart and there are abundant signs that
they will not long permit their purposes to be thwarted.
Education is not wholly a process of training. It is in con-
siderable measure a matter of acquiring the mass Of information
whch it is conventiona1 to have at any particular age.
2 4 Education, December 1906.
2 5 Mr. J. W. MacDonald, Agent Massachusetts State Board, Report for 1907.
26 Professor W. S. Franklin, Lehigh. Proc. 12th Annual Meeting N. Y. State Science
Teachers* Association, Albany, 1907.
The lecture is the only means by which we may bring in al1
the good things that we feel moved to introduce. The great
teachers of the future will be able to instruct large classes by
“talks, which is the method of the rea1 teacher.”
This is to-day the method of the German teachers who are
notoriously the best teachers in the world.
Large portions of science should be merely touched upon;
made understandable for a brief moment and then forgotten, not
even retained for recitation, much less for examination.
“Curiosity and interest are generally the first outcrop of intel-
lectua1 ability. Youth is normally greedy for knowledge and
that, not in one but in many directions.
“Never is the power to appreciate so far ahead of the power
to express and never does understanding so outstrip ability to
explain. Overaccuracy is atrophy. Mental acquisition sinks
tOO deep to be reproduced by examination. With pedagogic tact
we can teach about everything we know that is really worth
knowing, but if we amplify and morselize instead of giving great
wholes—if we wait before each methodic step till the pupil has
reproduced all the last we starve and retard the soul.
“The nature of youth demands that science should be taught
- in a large all-comprehensive way. We must have an introduc-
tion to science that touches rather lightly on nearly all the great
hypotheses over the whole field.
“The boy in his teens needs great wholes, facts in profusion,
but few formulæ. He has a native gravity toward those frontier
questions where even the great masters know as little as he.
“The college should stand for extensive more than for inten-
sive study.
“It should- stand with doors hospitably open to those who
have time to pause for it On the road to a profession, or to spend
a period of culture and acquire an avocation before entering a
career. It should let teaching have its perfect work.
“The teacher should forage widely and incessantly, and bring
everything within reach in his field to his class. The lecture
method should be made the most Of, being conversational and
designed to provoke reactions. He should teach every topic
broadly and comprehensively, and instead of disparaging mere
information, it should ooze from his every pore.
“Every great expert should fee1 it his duty to put the best that
is in him in a form most interesting and profitable to a cultured
lay audience.” “
8 7 Ha11's Adolescence, Vol. II, pp. 85, 453, 151, 156, 528, 548.
The lecture room is the place for presenting the history of
science and the biography of scientists; the story of inventions
and how they have transformed society ; the rise and develop-
ment of modern scientific theories, e. g., the slow progress of
thought concerning combustion through the phlogistic up to the
Oxidation theory ; the linking of the history of science with gen-
eral history showing how the evolution of science was both
helped and handicapped; the contributions of science to our com-
fort, Our health and our general happiness.
Mr. B. M. Jaquish of Erasmus Hall High School, Brooklyn,
N. Y., in an unpublished paper has very effectively shown that
countless references in all our literature require for their inter-
pretation a general knowledge of science and this is rapidly be-
coming a sine qua non for current literature.
The lecture should show the application of science in the oc-
cupations of the particular community in which the school hap-
pens to be located.
Hence no syllabus can be made to fit the whole country. If
the school is in a large city and is located in one of our most
modernly equipped buildings the lecture in physics will often be
devoted to an explanation of that equipment which will be found
to illustrate every chapter in physics far better than any labora-
tory can.
VII. WE MAY UNDERTAKE TO FRAME A PLATFORM FOR FU-
TURE SCIENCE TEACHING AS FOLLOWs:
I. Science for high Schools consists of a well organized mass
of useful information.
2. In order that the amount of informatioh may be consider-
able it is given for the most part “second hand.”
3. The three means for giving this information, stating the
more important first, are: (a) Illustrated lectures. (b) Study
of text-book with recitations, and reading many references in
books and magazines with written and oral reports. (c) Lab-
oratory work—a small portion of which consists of exact meas-
t1rennentS.
4. This mass of useful information being acquired at the
hand of a competent teacher involves discipline and training.
5. While the science teacher has a peculiar part to perform
in the processes of education which the teacher of no other sub-
ject can do so well, his task is not absolutely unique and the
methods of instruction which are best in the treatment of Other
subjects are for the most part best for science.
6. A quantitative treatment with whole numbers, SO to speak,
runs through much of the instruction in lectures, recitations and
laboratory work—giving concreteness and therefore interest to
the subject—but this is only incidental and of minor importance.
7. Science is not presented as a catalogue of principles, but
rather as history, biography and the evolution of changing ideas.
The topics for study are phenomena rather than laws, and prin-
ciples are presented only for the purpose of explaining Some
definite problems in life.
8. Since all this applies equally to all general or first courses
whether given in high schools or colleges, it follows that college
admission tests are the same as high School graduation tests.*
The forcgoing paper was presented before the Science Conference
Of the Wisconsim State Teachers' Associatiom at its meeting in Mil-
Waukee On November 12. After the reading of the paper there was a
spirited discussion of it, resulting in `the appointment of a committee
of five to draw up resolutions expressing the sentiment of the meeting.
The following are the resolutions, which were umamimously passed by
the conference the mext day:
WHEREAS : The present methods of teaching physics in secondary
schools do not yield as satisfactory results as we desire to get; and,
WEIEREAs : We believe this to be due to the fact that far too great
emphasis is now placed om accurate quantitative work; and,
WEIEREAs : This overemphasis of the importance of quantitative work
is due to the fact that some colleges take the position that physies is
by mature a quantitative science, that it is the only such subject in
the high SchOOl curriculum, and that it must therefore be so taught,
irrespective of the needs and abilities of the pupils; and
WHEREAS : We believe that physics for high Schools Should consist
of a study of the processes and principles of phenomena of the daily
life of the student; therefore be it
RESOLVED : That We, members of the 'Science Conference of the
Wisconsim State Teachers' Associatiom, in conventiom assembled, do
hereby agree to change the methods of teaching physics by abandoming
as far as may be found desirable the exact quantitative work, amd
. by substituting therefor a more living treatment of the subject based
On the daily experiences of the pupils.
*°I haye discussed rather fully this platform in four pnpers alread ublished as fol-
1ows: 1. “The Enrichment of the High School Course in physic§ 35 É? Eastern ;£ •
Physics Teachers, BQston, Noyember 5, 1904. 2. “Modern Trend of Physics and chernistry
Teaching.” Educational Review, March 1906. 3. “The Intensive Meíhóìïíï Chemistry.''
School Science, Vol. VI, n. 585. 4. “Science for Culture.** School Revie…,. §61. XV, p. 123.
Reprinted from the EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, New York, January, I9o9.
Copyright, igoo, by EDUCATIONAL REVIEW PUBLISHING CO.
II
THE NEW MOVEMENT IN PHYSICS TEACHING
The introduction of the study of physics to any extent into
our schools is nearly, if not quite, within the recollection of
men still young. Those old text-books with their rude cuts and
quaint illustrations and terms seem odd enough today. Their
subject-matter represented a distinct effort to lead the students
tO an understanding of various natural phenomena as far as
it could be givem at that time. The work was largely confined
to a study of the text, and what few experiments there were
were performed mainly by the teacher with crude and insuffi-
cient apparatus. There was that in the subject, however, which
made for growth. It satisfied in a way a natural and legitimate
curiosity, and it gave valuable material for advancement to-
ward better conditions of life, and a better understanding to
combat old superstitions and false ideas; it had an end in itself,
and was not distinctly an effort to prepare for subsequent
higher work. The conditions were right for a natural evolu-
tionary growth, and the newer books and treatment were better
than the old. Soon we reached the stage indicated by that
much derided book, Steele's Fourteem zweeks, imperfect in
many particulars, and decidedly misnamed in that a year was
probably more often given than fourteen weeks; but marking
a distinct advance, since it urged more strongly the experi-
mental side with adequate apparatus.
Then came the decree from above that the work was un-
satisfactory and must be changed to meet college entrance re-
quirements. We all know the immediate result. We entered
upon the era of original investigation and discovery with all
its attendant evils of work utterly beyond the ability of the
pupils, both in quality and quantity. This extreme is now
freely admitted to have been a great mistake. Nevertheless,
/Ò
I 2
77ìe mezw movemzent in physics teacλέng I 3
much of benefit resulted. The need of an adequate equip-
ment and of intelligent experimentation by the pupil became
fully realized and our best schools are now equipped accord-
ingly, tho in many cases there has been a lavish waste of money
in the purchase of high-priced and utterly unsuitable apparatus.
The greatest harm, in my judgment, growing out of the
period, and the real cause of the dissatisfaction which has
since existed was due to the fact that the natural development
or evolution taking place was arbitrarily checked, and a natu-
ral growth was supplanted by an artificial one directed by
college (not high School) specialists, men very able, no doubt,
in their own lines but with the usual and almost inevitable in-
ability to deal with the presentation of subjects in a way suited
tO secondary pupils. This college specialist influence, acting
thru college entrance requirements and thru text-books pre-
pared in accordance with these requirements, dominates the
teaching of physics in our secondary schools today.
Naturally, two oppOsing schools have grown up, each with
its more or less distinctly defined idea of the purpose of the
work to be undertaken. The term ** New Movement *' has
been applied to the efforts of those who are protesting against
the present influences, methods, and tendencies. The name is
a misnomer; the movement is not new except that it is a fresh,
vigorous effort to get back to the original purpose and work
it out, making full use of the many advantages and of the
many new and clearer ideas which have been gained in the
great experiment which has been going on.
There cam be no doubt Of the existence of this new move-
ment toward the old. Its purpose is to secure the general
adoption of what in the absence of better langttage may be
stated as follows as the fundamental aim of the work in
physics in the secondary schools: To bring the pupil to under-
stand as fully as possible the processes and principles under-
1ying the natura1 phenomena taking place about him. He
should first of all be taught how physical phenomena take
place and the principles which seem to be manifested in the
phenomena.
The extent and present condition of this movement are
shown by the vigorous protests against the prevailing ideas,
I 4 Æa///catzo/za/ Revzezw [January
coming from all parts of the country. These protests come
from large numbers of the most successful teachers and prin-
cipals in our high Schools, from organized societies state and
interstate, and even from many college specialists who realize
the dangers of the standards dominating at present.
The aim which the new movement seeks to combat and
which is distinctly opposed to that exprest above may be stated
in language essentially as given by one of its strong advocates.
Physics is in its nature an exact quantitative science; it is the
only such science in our high school course and should, there-
fore, be treated quantitatively in order to train pupils in ac-
curate and exact thinking.
This conception of the purpose of physics has, as might be
expected, resulted in the present undue emphasis upon the
manipulation of complicated apparatus, exact measurement,
work with abstract or (to the pupil) vague units, application
of imperfectly understood mathematical formulas, with a cor-
responding lack of emphasis on the underlying laws and prin-
ciples, a clear understanding of which is absolutely essential in
securing both a practical every-day application and the culture
value which comes from an intelligent comprehension of what
is going on in the world about us. I make this statement not as
a theoretical one, but as one based upon observations of work
in hundreds of classes, including my own.
I have generally found very simple questioning to be suffi-
cient to show the exceedingly vague ideas of the meaning
of the results, both mathematical and experimental, of a large
part of what is presented in the texts and laboratory manuals
now in use. Anxiety to secure the accurate results demanded
in experimentation leads to the use of such complicated and
delicate apparatus that the underlying principle is utterly
lost sight of in the confusion resulting from the manipulation
of the instrument. A typical case is one in which the
pupils were unable to point out the spo61 of wire the resistance
of which they were measuring with the Wheatstone bridge,
and which they had placed in position. The mathematics, too,
is so encumbered with operations and extended fractions that
there is no meaning to the answer. Repeatedly, when pupils
have been working problems using, for instance, such frac-
. * * . *• -. . . * • - - -
I9o9] 7T/ae mezJ movememt zn p/yszcs Zeacλέng I 5
tions as .OOOOI7 to express a coefficient of expansion, I have
asked for a plain English statement of the meaning of the
fraction either used in the solution or obtained as a result, and
I have invariably found the greatest difficulty in securing a
satisfactory answer from even a small minority of the class,
altho at the same time the majority had quite easily solved the
problem. When mathematical formulas are used the matter
is still worse; they serve to complicate rather than to simplify,
and their use becomes a mere mechanica1 operation, meaning-
less and so injurious rather than beneficial. As one of the
many illustrations which I might give I recall an experience
within the last few weeks. A class which I judged to be at
least up to the average was reviewing the formulas of ac-
celerated motion preparatory to the study of falling bodies. I
asked for a translation of S = I-2 a t*. It was readily given
as “ The distance equals one-half the acceleration multiplied
by the square of the time.” Further questioning, however,
developed the fact that no one really knew what distance was
meant, a few being of the opinion that it was the distance past
Over the first unit of time, others agreeing that it was the dis-
tance past Over in any unit, while one lone student thought that
it was the distance in any number of units. The opinion was
nearly unanimous that S in S = vt had a quite different mean-
ing from the S in S = I-2 a t*. Questioning in regard to the
meaning of a in the same equation generally shows still
greater confusion. This may fairly be considered one of the
easier formulas made use of in the texts. I do not mean to
say that I would use no formulas whatever or that I would
insist that a formula should never be used as a factor in the
solution of a problem unless it is understood ; but the explana-
tion of the above, and Others more difficult, is demanded in
our modern texts with the result that unless an unjustifiable
amount of time and effort is expended the pupil's mind is
left befogged and uncertain while the fundamentals are neg-
lected. The plea is made that physics is a hard study and is
valuable on that account. I grant this; but a mere manipula-
tion of apparatus, . or an insertion of numbers in a mathe-
matical formula unaccompanied by an intelligent appreciation
of the why can not be called rea1 work. Such exercises to be
I 6 Eazzcatzoma/ Revzezw [January
profitable in physics must be preceded by a careful study of the
phenomena involved, a study which can be made profitable and
attractive to high School students, girls as well as boys, and at
the same time give abundant opportunity for Solid thinking. I
'believe, too, that this would be found to be the best prepara-
tion for the higher institutions. The accurate quantitative
work, generally speaking, belongs to the college. More than
once I have heard college professors say that they should hesi-
tate to offer their sophomores much of what is included in our
high school texts. * •
I might give illustrations of failures almost indefinitely,
some of which would be ridiculous were they not such a
revelation of the imposition upon pupils of work utterly be-
yond their experience, maturity, and ability, at least under our
present conditions. For instance, I was told in a large school
by two young ladies watching a pendulum vibrate thatthey were
trying to find the specific gravity of the city. After this
error was partly corrected they were uncertain whether the
answer would be in grams, meters, pounds, or inches. In
another school a number of pupils, after a somewhat ex-
tended study of the primary and secondary coils, were very
willing to search for the contacts of the outer and inner coils.
It was a Canadiam examiner and teacher who, in speaking
strongly on this subject, gave as a somewhat typical illustration
the definition of an erg as he found it in an examination paper,
“ An erg is the smallest possible amount of work a man can
do.” •
Now, these last may be somewhat extreme instances, but
as my observation goes they may be taken in a modified form
as fairly illustrative of the results of a great deal of our work
in even the best of our non-technical schools.
As I understand the new movement, it would not deny that
physics is a quantitative study and that quantitative work must
enter largely into the high school treatment of the subject, but
it should be illustrative of phenomena, and this would imply
simple and plainly understood units with a very careful intro-
duction of technical terms, accompanied by reiterated state-
ments of the meaning in every-day language. A large block
of iron, a simple spring balance, and a pail of water are much
I9O9] 7/ae mew movememz zm /)/yszcs zeachzmg I 7
more valuable for the high school student in work in density
than the fine balance and weights with a minute bit of a sub-
stance. An abundance of practical mathematical problems,
too, should certainly be given, but when teachers with all their
training and experience confess the amount of time and work
they are obliged to give in mastering the pages of exercises, so
that they may present them to their pupils, we do not wonder
at the meager results.
Neither would the followers of the new movement neces-
sarily limit the extent of the work to what I have indicated.
They would, however, allow the teacher freedom to adapt the
work both to the capacity of his class as a whole and to its
individual members, and they protest against what they con-
sider a wrong fundamental conception of the purpose of the
study and against a standard which is fitted to a few only and
is far above the average ability.
And now what of the future? There are several possible
outcomes of the present agitation. If the colleges continue
their present attitude and the high schools accede to it, the
study will probably be made universally elective and will be
taken only by boys who are preparing for the engineering
courses. It will become, what was stated to me some time
since by the principal of one of the large high School of
the United States it had already become in his school, a mere
study in applied mathematics. Certainly a deplorable outcome
for a study of so great possibilities in practical information
and disciplinary and culture value for all classes of people.
It may be that in the large schools special classes will be
formed for students preparing for college and others for those
who do not intend to study further, a course opposed by many
as being contrary to the spirit of American institutions.
A third possibility, and the one earnestly advocated by Some
of the highest educational authorities in the country, is that
of changing the college entrance requirements to conform to
the ideas of the new movement or to abolish specifications of
definite subject-matter altogether and to accept properly certi-
fied work as entitled to credit for admission. And why should
there be definite entrance requirements? A somewhat exten-
sive inquiry not only in regard to physics, but in Other studies
I 8 A'a/ucazzo/2a/ /?ewzezw [January
as well, has failed to establish the fact that college work is
directly based upon what has been done in the high school in
any studies except mathematics and the languages. The
strongest statement made has been that the work is somewhat
easier for those who have had work in the high school. Only
very lately the head of one of the largest departments of
chemistry in the country made this statement to me and it was
only a repetition of what I had heard many times. What
possible reason them can there be for dictating the high School
work? Certainly it is very little to ask that the large number
of able high school teachers who are protesting against the
present restrictions may be given freedom to administer such
of their work as is not directly basal for college in their own
way.
When college entrance requirements in physics are so modi-
fied that authors may be able to secure the publication of books
not exactly in harmony in extent and nature of work with
certain fixt ideas, and when teachers may feel free to adopt
books suited to the needs and abilities of their pupils, we may
hope to see the much-needed improvement in results.
This may take time, but vigorous, earnest efforts of inde-
pendent associations will bring it to pass. -
H. L. TERRY
STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
MADISON, WIS.
The EDUCATIONAL REVIEW is glad to print
in this issue an article in which the State In-
spector of High Schools in Wisconsin, Mr.
Terry, discusses the significance of a movement which has now
obtained considerable headway, to improve and develop the
teaching of physics in secondary schools. We cam not help
thinking that superintendents and principals of secondary
schools the country over will welcome this article, because we
feel that they are in substantial agreement in holding that the
subject of physics as at present taught yields very meager
educational results, when the time, the energy, and the money
expended On this subject and its equipment are considered.
For three years past a carefully organized investigation has
The Status of
Physics Teaching
I909] 7}e new movement 27 physzcs teachimg I 9
been in progress to ascertain the cause of this failure of the
physics teaching in secondary Schools. No fewer than six-
teen different educational associations are coöperating thru
committees or individuals in this inquiry. The work of in-
Vestigation has advanced to a stage which seems to us to
diagnose, with reasonable clearness and certainty, the funda-
mental trouble in the matter. For a long time past it has been
more or less definitely asserted that the physics taught in the
secondary schools is too abstract and too mathematical; but
these terms have not been apprehended with sufficient clear-
ness or definiteness by the teachers of physics to enable them
to reorganize their work intelligently.
While not a few experienced teachers of physics hold that
the simple arithmetical operations involved in many of the
problems set in high school physics are well within the power
of pupils to understand, yet we find ourselves in agreement
with those critics who ascribe the failure of physics teaching
in the secondary schools to the abstract and mathematical char-
acter of much of the instruction given. -
What is meant by saying that secondary School physics as
now taught is too mathematical, is that the student never gets
clear and concrete concepts either of the physical quantities
involved in his operations, or of the physical relations between
those quantities. Therefore it is that he can not use his mathe-
matics, however well he understands the subject, in stating
these physical relations and in solving the physical problems
put before him.
In Other words, the trouble with secondary school physics
is a trouble of the same kind as that which afflicts secondary
school Latin, algebra, and English. No one of these subjects
is properly presented as an element of human interest. It is
at this point that the secondary school teachers most largely
fail. As they grow in scholarship they seem tO grow in power
and in capacity to dissociate the subject-matter of their teach-
ing from the pupil's intellectual interests. In Other words,
physics teaching must be humanized if it is to be vital, and if
it is to be successful it must be taken out of the hands of
pedants and pedagogs and put into the hands of persons who
can and will teach.
REPRINTED FROM
T H E SCHOO L R EVIEW
A JOURNAL OF SECONDARY EDUCATION
VOLUME XVII • • r--a WHOLE
NUMIBER 2 FEBRUARY, I QOQ NUMBER J62
WHAT THE UNIVERSITY EXPECTS OF THE
SECONDARY SCHOOL1
JOHN M. COULTER
The University of Chicago
The high school exists primarily for its own sake; and
secondarily as a preparatory school for college. This means
that when the high-school interest and the college interest come
into conflict, the college interest must yield. It also means that
the function of a preparatory school must be performed Only in
so far as it does not interfere with the more fundamental purpose
of the high school itself. It also means that independent dicta-
tion by colleges, either directly or indirectly, must be changed to
adaptation to what the high schools can do and ought to do, as
determined by the high schools themselves. The high school must
be regarded as an autonomous, not a subordinate, institution.
Therefore, my real mission today is not so much to tell high
schools what the university expects, as to ask from them what
the university ought to expect. Any suggestion that I may
make must be regarded as raising the question whether in your
judgment it is reasonable. Two co-ordinate bodies are repre-
sented here, and they have met, not for mutua1 dictation, but for
mutual agreement.
Since leaving a state institution fifteen years ago, I have had
little occasion to visit high schools; but in the last few months
* Read at the Twenty-first Educational Conference of the Academies and
High Schools in Relations with the University of Chicago, November, I 9o8.
73
74 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
I have had opportunity to renew my first-hand acquaintance
with some of them. I recognized that during this interval we
have been making tremendous progress in educational ideals and
technique, and that in this general progress the high schools must
have shared. I was not disappointed in this belief, for I dis-
covered that in material equipment, in greater freedom and
variety of work, in the closer articulation of work to the neces-
sities and obligations of life, there has been very great progress.
No student of education can fail to see in all this a genuine and
most gratifying progress.
To formulate what the college expects from the high school,
under these conditions of healthy growth, is as difficult as to
formulate what one expects of a vigorous boy who is making
a splendid record of physical, and intellectual, and spiritual
progress. The expectation is simply that the same gratifying
progress will continue.
Nevertheless, I shall speak to three topics, and the first is:
I. THE HISTORICAL SETTING
Why have we come together, and why do our interests ever
conflict? Questions of entrance requirements, of examination or
certificate, represent the historical tension line; to this may be
added the advice freely given by university instructors to high-
school instructors as to what they shall teach and how they shall
teach it. The entrance requirements have constituted what uni-
versities call their “standards,” concerning which I shall have
something to say later. AS a rule, the state universities have set
these standards for the high Schools; and, as a rule, the other
universities, in self-defense, have followed them.
Universities, as a rule, are great store-houses of educational
precedents, which have descended from mediaeval times, when
there were very few subjects organized for study, and these few
held little or no relation to the problems of intelligent living.
They were the possession and pastime of a favored few. He-
redity has filled the blood of most universities with this so-called
scholastic spirit, so that they find it hard to adapt themselves to
the new conditions. It should be remembered that the old selec-
THE UNIVERSITY AND THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 75
tion of subjects was a matter of necessity rather than of choice;
but since the opportunity for ample choice has come, the old
necessity no longer exists, although it is the tendency of most
universities to regard the older subjects and the older methods
as possessing a peculiar relation to education. -
On the other hand, the American school system is peculiarly
a modern institution, developed out of the necessities of our own
civilization, and seeking to meet the demands Of the time. The
schools are handicapped by no precedents, and have no heirloom
rubbish to interpolate among their modern furniture. To the
thoughtful student of education it is intensely interesting to
watch the progress of the effort to articulate the very old, as
represented by the universities, with the very new, as represented
by the schools. It was necessary that it should lead to clashing
opinions, and that the old and the new should scoff at one
another. The old had the advantage of that dignity and influence
vwhich belongs to years and an honorable history; the new had
the advantage of numbers and of public opinion. Neither could
dictate to the other, although both wanted to. It is really quite
remarkable that the two have gotten along so well together, and
this argues well for the deep-rooted belief of each that it must
have the other. In the main, however, the universities have im-
posed more upon the schools than they have conceded, as is.
very apt to be the case when the weight of educational authority
is largely upon one side.
It is hard for the universities to lay aside the thought that
the high schools are primarily preparatory schools. If this be
conceded, then the universities must be permitted to dictate the
courses of study. But it is not conceded, and still the universities
have in effect dictated the courses. They have done it by making
the entrance requirements so specific and so numerous that the
four years of high school are absolutely filled with them. If
there is anything for a high School to do beside preparing stu-
dents for college, it either has no time for it or it is compelled to
organize a separate and independent curriculum which does not
lead to college. Most schools are so situated that they cannot
do both. The colleges are honest in their opinion that their
76 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
entrance requirements represent the very best education for a
student of that grade, whether he is to enter college or not. I
have helped express and enforce this opinion, and so cannot be
accused of any prejudice if I now venture to dissent from it.
I still think that a large part of the university entrance require-
ment represents the very wisest subjects that can enter into the
curriculum of the high school; but when these requirements
become so large and so specific that they destroy the educational
autonomy of the high school, and convert it into a university
appendage, then I am constrained to dissent.
The increasing standards are to permit more advanced work
in the university, and this is a magnificent purpose, to be encour-
aged by every true lover of education; but it must not be done
at the expense of the schools, the great mass of whose students
never enter the university. It is wise to introduce into the high
school studies which may be of no special benefit to the pupil
preparing for college, for they are of great benefit to the lives
of those whose educational career must end with the high school.
As I understand it, the high school is intended to train for better
citizenship, to enlarge the opportunity for obtaining a better
livelihood, to open broader views of life and its duties. In order
to be of the greatest benefit to the greatest number, its course of
study must be constructed as though there were to be no further
formal education for the pupil. Subjects must be related to the
needs of life and of society, but this need not and should not
exclude those subjects orthose methods which prepare and stimu-
late for further study; for there should be constant recognition
of the fact that the secondary school is but an intermediate stage
in educational progress.
II. THE UNIVERSITY EXPECTS GOOD TEACHING IN THE
SECONIDARY SCHOOIL
There seems to be still a great deal of ineffective teaching in
the secondary schools. That there may be no misunderstanding,
I hasten to say that there is more poor teaching in universities
than in secondary schools; and the 1arger the university, the
larger does the percentage of poor teaching become. This would
THE UNIVERSITY AND THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 77
be disastrous in higher education, were it not compensated for
by the secondary schools, which turn Over to the universities
material that can stand the shock of a certain amount of poor
teaching. There is an excuse for this in the universities which
does not obtain in the high schools, and it is SO evident that I
do not need to specify it. There is all the more reason, therefore,
that the high schools should bring the technique of teaching to
its greatest efficiency. -
I do not refer to the subject-matter or to the equipment of
the school in material things, but simply to the contact of teacher
and pupil in the act of teaching. We construct a well-Ordered
machine that runs smoothly, and then at the point of application
often get no power, and the trouble is so subtle that correction
seems almost impossible. To catch by observation the qualities
of an effective teacher is like trying to catch a personality. For
such a one no rules can be formulated. He is like the real artist,
born with a feeling for his work. And yet there are certain
obvious things that can be observed, and these ought to be helpful.
Perhaps the most difficult work of the teacher is to appreciate
the exact mental condition of the pupil in reference to any subject.
Unless there is complete adaptation in this regard, the contact
is a failure, leading to mutual disgust and distrust.
In much of the teaching I have observed in the schools, the
impression left upon me has been one of astonishing lack of
simplicity and directness in the presentation of subjects, resulting
in utter confusion. My own conclusion has been that this in-
dicates either ignorance of the subject, or lack of teaching ability,
Or a wooden application of Some pedagogical refinement which
has been learned somewhere, and which is either not worth apply-
ing in any case, or is woefully misplaced. Hardly can there be
imagined a worse combination than wooden teaching by one
ignorant of the subject. In a great mass of teaching, instead of
using clear expression and a direct presentation, the effort seems
to be tO use most unusual phrases, as far from an ordinary vo-
cabulary as possible, and to approach the subject in such a devious
way that its significance is in danger of being missed. The
philosophy of teaching is well enough as a background, but
78 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
philosophical teaching is usually out of place. To inject the
abstractions and phrase-making of normal training into the
schoolroom is to dismiss clearness and al1 intellectual contact
with pupils. This is no criticism of pedagogical training, for I
would be the last to suggest that any profession should be
attempted without professional training; but it is a criticism of
those teachers who do not know how to apply their training, and
follow what they regard to be rules, rather than principles.
Probably the greatest factor in this result is the fact that far
too many teachers have learned more of the form of teaching
than of the subject-matter to be taught. There is no flexibility,
no power of adaptation, no ability to depart from a fixed routine,
and hence no adjustment to the very diverse mental conditions
they must meet and are expected to stimulate. Necessary flexi-
bility in methods is impossible without a broad grasp of the sub-
ject to be presented. The amount of meaningless drudgery that
this senseless formalism has forced upon pupils has long been
recognized by parents, whose indignation occasionally breaks out
in condemnation of the schools as places where method has rum
to seed.
It is very fortunate that the human mind is so tough a
structure that it will develop in spite of teachers, and al1 of our
educational experiments have not succeeded in sensibly stunting
it. I have about concluded that the great problem in the act of
teaching is not how to impart instruction, but how to oppose
the fewest obstacles to mental development. The human mind
has a mighty way of overcoming obstacles, but, as teachers, we
have no right to attempt to make them insurmountable. I have
almost cried out in indignation when witnessing some pupil
whose quick mind has discovered short cuts to results, ruthlessly
forced upon the procrustean bed of method by some teacher who
knows only one way. It is such things that bring the profession
into deserved contempt, as one that has not yet emerged from
blind empiricism.
'Iknow that this is imposing a tremendous burden of prepara-
tion upon teachers, but how is it to be avoided? In no part of
educational work is flexibility in presentation and in material so
THE UNIVERSITY AND THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 79
necessary as at its beginning. Truth is many-sided, and it is
always a question as to which side shall be presented. The
teacher who knows only one side is hopelessly lost, and hence
becomes dogmatic and useless.
The whole situation results in a kind of paradox. If teachers
develop such a grasp of the subject as to handle it with the
greatest flexibility, will ordinary school positions content them?
The question can be answered in only one way, and therefore we
must come to this way sooner or later. The Schools must be
recognized as the greatest opportunity for teaching, as the
universities are recognized as the greatest opportunity for re-
search; and positions in the two must become equal in public
esteem, in scholarly esteem, and in income. •
The high schools have developed to the point where not only
university training but often graduate training is demanded of
the teachers. This is inevitable and desirable, for it will secure
that grasp of the subject and facility in using it that has just been
spoken of. It is to become increasingly true that the great field
of our university masters and doctors is the high school; for
they are becoming too numerous to provide for in any other way.
Comparatively few of them can find places in universities and
colleges; and most of those who do would be better off in good
high schools. The lot of an assistant in a university or even of
a professor in a small college is not so happy as it may look from
the outside. In the former position, promotion is apt to be
exasperatingly slow; while in the latter position it is impossible.
All this means that there is to be an increasingly large injec-
tion of university-trained men and women into the high schools,
and on account of this we are confronted by a distinct educational
danger. I have noticed a distinct tendency on the part of teach-
ers so trained to transfer the methods of the university into the
high Schools, which goes so far, in some cases, as to duplicate
the elementary courses of universities. In my judgment nothing
could be more out of place in a high school, where the university
atmosphere is a distinct disadvantage. There must be developed
a clear understanding that the university training is to give to
the high-school teacher a grasp of the subject, but not at all a
8o - THE SCHOOL REVIEW
method of presentation. Such factors as the maturity of the
pupil, the time at command, the size of classes, the purpose, all
differ in the two cases, and presentation becomes a totally differ-
ent problem.
I grant that it is easier to repeat a course than tO construct
one; but the teacher's problem is a constructive one, for it in-
volves the power to initiate rather than the ability to imitate.
It seems to be a hard lesson for university graduates to learn that
a high School is not a college, and that it demands its own peculiar
kind of teaching.
Naturally my attention has been directed especially to the
instruction in science, and I have been amazed to see the large
number of miniature college laboratories organized in high
schools. The laboratories are well enough, but the courses given
in them are toO often college courses.
I recognize that probably no subject has been more discussed
than science in secondary schools. School teachers and university
teachers, in committees and conventions and addresses and peri-
odicals, have wrestled with this problem. The school teachers
knew their pupils and their facilities, but not too much about the
subjects. The university teachers knew the subjects, but very
little about the pupils, and still less about the facilities. It was
hard for both to occupy the same standpoint, and both were
inclined to be somewhat dogmatic, the university teacher perhaps
a little the more so. School patrons, with their demands, have
been a factor also.
The sciences are all in a state of extremely rapid evolution,
and the schools are often finding themselves strangely at variance
with the universities, and are plainly and repeatedly told that
their science is an absurdity. These unpleasant statements are
usually received with becoming meekness, as coming from those
who are supposed to know, but they have led to nothing or to
chaos. -
This situation has been intensified by the numerous textbooks
and laboratory guides, bearing the favorite legend “for high
schools and colleges,” and written by college men, from the
college standpoint, which calculates upon time and equipment
THE UNIVERSITY AND THE SECONDARY SCHOOL . 8I
and a reasonable amount of intellectual maturity. I must not be
misunderstood, for I believe that these books are immensely use-
ful, as keeping current the material and the point of view. My
criticism is directed against the too slavish use of them. They
are designed, or they ought to be designed, to simplify the prob-
lem of materia1 for the teacher, but beyond that lies the teacher's
own problem of presentation, which no one else can assume to
solve. - - +
In my judgment, therefore, there should be included in the
preparation of the university graduate, who proposes tO teach
in the high schools, a study of the conditions and purposes of
these schools, especially with reference to the difference in the
factors entering into the educational ideals of high schools and
of universities. Unless this is done, the majority of university
graduates will attempt to repeat their university courses in the
high schools. The minority are the born teachers, who adapt
instruction to pupil and material instinctively, but they will
always be in the minority.
The problem is in the hands of the secondary school teachers,
for it cannot be solved by any schemes imposed upon them from
the outside. They may look elsewhere for material and for
suggestions; but the important features of the problem do- not
enter into the experience of the university instructor.
III. THE UNIVERSITY EXPECTs WELL-PREPARED STUDENTs
I have referred to the recent tendency among universities to
increase their demands upon the schools; and this tendency, in my
judgment, is full of danger for the schools.
It has long been my theory that the specific demands may be
very few, and these so self-evident that a school would not be
likely to omit them. What the universities need is not a specific
kind of preparation, but a certain degree of intellectual develop-
ment, a development which is usually much broader than that
obtained from the average college preparation. I may be allowed
to say, as the result of many years of experience, that this average
college preparation presents to the universities the most narrow
and unevenly trained material that can be imagined. Nowhere
82 • THE SCHOOL REVIEW
are the evils of specialization so apparent as in the entrance
preparation demanded by many colleges. If this specialization
results in comparatively poor college material, its results may be
regarded as simply disastrous to the high school in its primary
purpose. This is not a plea for the multiplication of studies in •
the high schools, for one of their great weaknesses today is
their tremendously congested condition. It is a plea for the
relief of this congestion by reducing the university demands, not
in quantity, but in specific assignment, leaving the schools freer
to exercise their own judgment in the selection of specia1 subjects.
The time has long passed when any aristocracy of subjects
has any right to claim the privilege of standing guard over every
avenue leading to a higher education. Any student who has
successfully pursued a well-organized and coherent course for
four years in a high school should be able to continue his work
in the universities. There are differences of opinion as to what
constitutes a well-organized and coherent course, but it could
be outlined by principles rather than in detail, and the schools
themselves should be responsible for its construction. A mini-
mum of subjects and a maximum of time, continuous rather
than scattered work, a range broad enough to touch upon all
of the fundamental regions of work, methods that will secure
precision in thought and expression, contact with the life and
work of the times in which we are destined to live, are certainly
principles that are sufficient, but concerning whose details none
should dogmatize, for they may well vary with the teachers and
with the local conditions.
The university should always be called upon for advice as
to courses and methods, but it should be from the standpoint best
determined by the schools themselves. For instance, I would not
presume to dictate to any school the way in which botany must
be taught; but I would count it a privilege, upon being made
acquainted with the preparation of the teacher, and the facilities
at command, to suggest certain lines of work from which, as a
rational being knowing the conditions better than any one else,
he could make his choice. I would regard it as my chief function
to guard inexperience against waste Of time and energy, rather
THE UNIVERSITY AND THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 83
than to direct specifically. If the teacher does not know enough
to make a choice in such matters, I would advise the selection of
some other means of making a living. I must confess to being a
great stickler for individual independence and responsibility, and
that school or that teacher which is held in the dictatorial grasp
of some higher authority that permits no expression of indi-
vidualism in methods, which sternly represses all spontaneity
and originality, which demands an automaton-like service, is
pedagogically blighted. The vast machinery of the schools,
which enters into every petty detail, rides them like the Old man
of the sea, and is converting schools into factories, and teachers
into drudges.
And how shall well-prepared material be recognized at the '
university? Lately the entrance examination system has now
and then thrust itself upon my attention afresh. I do not know
whether this ghost of a dead past stalks into your educational
banquets or not, but it is rampant in certain universities that
rather pride themselves upon being haunted. A better scheme to
show how not to do it was never devised. At the present day
it is peculiar to the Chinese theory of education, and that nation
should be allowed its exclusive use. It is both barbarous and
unscientific. I would make no serious objection to its barbarity,
if it were scientific, that is, if it obtained the information it seeks.
What teacher does not recognize that the estimate of the ordinary
examination must be tempered by knowledge of the daily work,
or grave injustice may be done? How much greater the need
of this tempering in the extraordinary entrance examination! If
the tempering is necessary to obtain the facts, why not substi-
tute the tempering entirely for the examination? Which means,
of course, the substitution of the daily knowledge of the teacher
for the ignorance of the university examiner. I wish no better
evidence concerning the intellectual equipment of a candidate
for entrance into a university than the judgment of the teachers
with whom he has worked, for I can get no better, nor any other
half so good.
It is strange that the universities are more concerned about
their raw material than about their finished product. If they
84 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
would be a little less sensitive concerning entrance requirements,
and a little more particular concerning graduation requirements,
it might be a better expenditure of energy. It has always
seemed to me that the fine-meshed sieve is set at the wrong end
of the university.
I seem to have spoken for both the high school and the uni-
versity. I feel that in spirit I belong to both. It may be that
I am tempted to scold the university a little the more, because I
know it better. It is the older brother, and it always irritates me
to see it trying to impose upon the younger one. But together
we are to establish an Americam system of education, not copied'
from ancient times or from other countries; but drawing from
them all that is appropriate, and adding our Own ideals, we are
to meet conditions for which we find no precedent.
Reprinted from the EDUCATIONAL REVIEw, New York, February, I9o9.
Copyright, Igog, by EducatioNAL RhvIEw PUBLISHING Co.
IV
THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF VARIOUS MOVE-
MENTS FOR INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 1
The term Education has a connotation today unthinkable
at any other age. Kinds Of educational institutions exist for
almost every profession, religious belief, or social tenet. No
one has had the temerity to suggest a classification nor to
analyze the vague social consciousness which calls them into
existence. Research, religious, ethical, commercial, industrial,
vocational, supervisional, reformatory, cultural, disciplinary,
avOwedly professional, purely charitable, propagandish, and
freakish types may be partially characteristic of the many
phases of conscious mental activity called, nowadays, educa-
tional. All these social experiments have their effects upon
prevailing educational opinion and practise. Em masse they
constitute our educational era. The extension of university
i The data here presented were gathered chiefly from the work of Pro-
fessor M. E. Sadler and his collaborators; and for the perspective offered
the following treatises are in the main responsible ;
Comtzmuatzom schoo/s zm Æng?amd ama' e/sezw/tere : edited by M. E.
Sadler ; University of Manchester Press, I9o7. 7/ie co/z/z/z/za/zom, scλοο/
zm z/ae Umzfed Szafes : A. J. Jones, Bulletin No. I, I go7 ; Government
Printing Office, Washington. Repo7rz of Massac/a/zsezzs Co//?//?zsszo/, op,
/7tdteszprza? Ædazcazzo/2 : Wright and Polter Printing Co., Boston, tgo6.
Agricaz/z/z/ra/ educatzom, z7/c?/zdzyag 7ta/tzre 'study a/ed scλοο/ g'aprdems :
J. R. Jewell, Bulletin No. 2, I9o7 ; Government Printing Office, Wash-
ington. Industria? educatzom : P. H. Hanus, Az?amzzc momz//y, January,
Igo8. 77/ae re?atzom Qf rece/zz zndzzszprza/ a/za educatzoma / ad zwamce : F. T.
Carltom, Po////a^ Sdze/zce //lon ?/2/y, June, I9o8. /mdazszprzaZ educazzo,,
from a fiuó /zc sc/ioo? man's Zoznz of vzezv : Wm. McAndrew, EDUCATIoNAL
REVIEW, February, I9o8. Fro//? mamtza? frazning to /ec/i/tzca/ a/za zrade
sa/.oo/s : A. S. Draper, EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, April, Igo8. Op, z/;e
frazmzmg of ffersoms zo zeac/, ag?r/c///////re / m //ae pub/ic sc/oo/s, L. H.
Bailey : Bulletin No. I, I9o8; Government Printing Office, Washington.
Germam views of Amerzcam educazzo/z, zvz?/, //a/r/zc///ap- preferemce zo z/,-
dazszprza? de?/e/o///ze/2? : W. N. Hailman, Bulletin No. 2 ; Government
Printing Office, Washington.
I6O

Varzous movemzemts for zmdustrza/ educatzom I 61
privileges at all times to teachers of both sexes at the Uni-
versities of London, Harvard, Pennsylvania, etc., the National
University (suggested), numerous new institutions for re-
search, evening Y. M. C. A. universities, international con-
gresses, national exchanges of professors and middle school -
teachers, parents' coöperative associations, an international r
academy as an authority on language reform (suggested), ex-
clusive Catholic and Jewish schools, national and state schools
for grown immigrants, schools for health instruction of sol-
diers (England), state schools for veterinary surgery (sug-
gested), Farmers' Experimental College on Wheels (Booker
Washington), army cooking schools, special schools for
ophthalmology, Otology, rhinology, laryngology, etc. (sug-
gested in lieu of recent organized agitation for adequate med-
ical supervision for school children), constitute an arbitrary
choice from our long list. Extending further the connota-
tion of education, aiid enormously increasing our perpiexity,
we may note many less comprehensive phases, some genuine,
some abortive, all characteristic of our age and exigencies of
our growth. We note further schools for religious ped-
agogy, schools for deaconesses, the great evening trade schools
of Boston, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, Southern
industrial Schools for negroes, evening high Schools, agricul-
tural high schools, high Schools of commerce, manual training
schools, Lyman and Other city reform schools, the George
Junior Republic, the Rand and Other schools of social science,
schools for socialism, breadwinners' colleges, home schools for
Jewish girls, truant schools for girls, schools for incorrigible
boys, schools for crippled and deformed children, schools for
old people, Schools for training in prevalent ailments of low
humanity (Washington Booth's suggestion), the Department
of Humanity in Columbia University, and even schools for
anarchy. And if this be not enough, our list runs on freely
with various struggling attempts at vocational Schools for
journalists, for librarians, for Salesmen and saleswomen, for
judges (Paris), for cashboys, for nursemaids (London), for
policemen (Russia), for grave-diggers (Belgium), for house-
wifery (England), for prospective wives and husbands (sug-
I 62 Æducatzoma/ Æewzezw [February
gested), for washerwomen, and even for chimney-sweeps
(Prussia), for croupiers (Monte Carlo), and for aëro-
nauts (Boston). By continuing such a survey we may get
an appalling picture of actuality, a semi-civilized situation re-
plete with suggestions, whose ultimate résumé will be im-
possible until philosophy is as broad as life, and until edu-
cational endeavors can more successfully cope with genuine
social imperfections. One great philosopher has said that con-
fusion, tantalizing and agonizing very Often, is the price we
pay for subsequent clarity. The pansophic ideals Of Luther,
or Bacon, or Comenius, will not avail us here. What Edu-
cation is Iam not rash enough to say. That the term connotes
more than it has for any other age is assuredly evident.
Neither Plato, nor Quintilian, nor Locke, nor Spencer, nor
even Rousseau, faced, much less solved, our present-day prob-
lems. Their simple naive devices were meant for an earlier
time and a simpler civilization.
Of all the problems pressing upon schoolmen in actual
service, perhaps the one of Industrial Training is the most
urgent. The bare list of the vocational schools in the city of
Munich will sufficiently emphasize the probable complexity of
our educational future in this respect. This one city assumes
responsibility for its citizens by directing forty-two vocational
schools with organized instruction relating to the trades in
question. I think that we can fairly assume that the importance
to a commonwealth of industrial intelligence has so suddenly
loomed into public conscious significance that it has percipitated
drastic, if not possibly wholly warranted, criticism of our ex-
isting school system, chiefly because it is failing to recognize
and to give what is so evidently in demand.
For recently we are being told by Dr. Edward Everett Hale
that our public school system almost fails in instilling morality,
by President Eliot that the intelligence produced is ineffective
and not worth the money spent, by Admiral Evans that its
product is contemptible, by Fisk that it is useless for business,
by Edison that it has no profitable relation to Applied Science,
by A. C. Benson and Sir Frederic Harrison that it is emi-
nently successful in turning out uniformly stupid types, void
I9O9] Various movements for zndustria / educatzom I 63
of originality, by Rabbi Hirsch that it is the biggest failure of
modern times.* If one were to collate other characteristic fea-
tures the list of failures would be appalling. These criticisms
have their good as well as ill flavor. Some big ideal will some
day be stated for the public school. If, further, we should col-
lect statements, as one writer has done, of the different views
of the functions of the public school we should find that, it
is supposed to be the cure for all ills, the preparation for all
life; it must stand in loco parentis to the child; it must
anticipate his future vocation; it must safely orient him in
reproduced miniature civic society; and it must, with delicate
discernment, initiate him into the sane religious life, caring
the while, and teaching him to care scientifically for the health
and normal development of his physical and esthetic endow-
ments. In this present confused state of laudable but con-
flicting ideals, there can not yet eventuate a simple universally
satisfactory guiding principle. For the very reason that the
situation is acute and critical, and for the reason that fads in
the name of panaceas have already in our short history been
numerous, a revolutionary measure not well founded in psy-
chological and sociological principles can not greatly upset
what measure of stability our present development has attained.
One can not get a fair perspective of the movement for in-
dustria1 education unti1 he examines the criticisms offered of
the systems now in vogue, the spontaneous private agencies
indicative of the earnestness and extent of the new directions
of educational activities, the social and administrative obstacles
1ikely to be encountered, and the likelihood of permanency at-
taching to the rather new policy or guiding principle proposed.
In the first place, much is made by De Garmo and Others,
and vaguely embodied in our own half-formed convictions, that
somehow democracy, whatever it is, will land us safely. Noth-
ing but democracy could have made possible our unique school
system. Nothing but democracy can direct such a ponderous af-
fair as a general school system. We are told that this democ-
racy has caused to be constructed for us the ideal educational
1adder, stretching from the kindergarten to the university and
2 Partia11y adapted from an address by Mr. Wi11iam McAndrew.
I 64 Æducational Review [February
professional school, whose rounds are long enough to ac-
commodate the demands of eighty million people, and where
any one can be and all should hope to be president of the
United States, if he will but climb. With some tone of sarcasm
the proponents of another kind of education insinuate that
the above ideal is not only Platonic and chimerical, but sub-
versive of public utility, and tho theoretically attractive, is, as
a working principle, unfair and impracticable. It is not only
planned for a handful, but really works against the interests
of the vast majority. Altho one-half the children in the
United States are instructed in the country schools, the public
instruction imposed not only has no bearing on their inevitable
life-work, but lures them away from such pursuits and tends tO
belittle labor itself. Lethargy toward and opposition to the
support of public education is due to the failure of the system
either to attract, or to show incontrovertible good results.
Business and life standards long ago broke away from ecclesi-
astical and scholastic control, but the public course of study
lives yet as a tradition, not built as it should be upon the
social and economic necessities of the people. Social and
industrial changes of the last few decades have made new
demands on our educational system, but thus far additions to
the curriculum have been haphazard ones. Our physical, in-
dustria1, and social environment is unique, but definable. Pre-
sumably the school must adapt itself to the changed state of
society. Not psychological needs of individuals so much as
the sociological needs must furnish the school the clue in this
process of dovetailing individual ambitions into the new needs
of society. Minute subdivision of labor more and more char-
acterizes our industry, and will be the permanent factor. The
unskilled laborer is no more than his part of the machine. Yet
the future of the country is bound up in the welfare of the
artizans and rural classes. How not only to see, but to utilize
this situation constitutes a supreme test for the school.
As it is both an unsolved and a common problem, the pre-
vailing attitudes of different peoples may prove suggestive.
It should be kept in mind that industria1 education then in-
cludes the whole problem of furthering the education of the
I9O9] Varzozzs movements /or industria/ educatzom 165
great mass of the people. It should serve to furnish a new
perspective for the student of education.
LOoking at the situation in England we will discover that
Englishmen have reluctantly conceded since 1876 that govern-
mental compulsion must modify spontaneous educational ac-
tivity. Modern deeply rooted social needs indicate, particu-
larly in “ squalidly populous *' industria1 districts, this ne-
cessity. One-half million children in England drop out of the
elementary school, and two-thirds of these never have further
systematic training of any kind. Recent economic changes
1make it possible to lure these adolescents, or educational out-
casts, into temporary positions which almost inevitably leave
the lads out of line for any future skilled employment. Such
forms of industry, parasitic in character, constitute a lasting
menace tO national progress. The modern industrial revolu-
tion creates an acute crisis.
How to meet these needs thus becomes more than a mere
technical question of educational administration. It is a grave
aspect of world concern, a problem urgent in almost every
national system of education. No measure, however, will ever
be adopted merely to conserve the nation's industrial or com-
mercial interests. This practical concern must be interpreted
as contributing to the nation's moral welfare, if the required
modification of educationa1 ideals is to meet with universal
adoption.
Three general conclusions are common to most thinkers
on this subject:
I. Further 1imitation of juvenile labor.
2. A11 employers to be placed under statutory obligation to
enable employees under seventeen years of age to continue
their education at favorable periods of the day. (A law now
in Switzerland.)
3. State aid and encouragement to local authorities in or-
ganizing courses of study suitable to the needs of pupils.
All this means great extension of state authority, new leg-
islation, the curtailment of certain privately profitable enter-
prises, almost a new curriculum, new teaching requirements,
and a restatement of educational ideals. The promoters of
I 66 Æducational Revzew [February
this movement must show how it gives promise of being
morally helpful, socially expedient, administratively feasible,
and, possibly, in the long rum, economically profitable.
The term ** further education ** : conveniently embraces a
wide range of educational agencies which, more or less di-
rectly, furnish the sort of training to be discust. For Over
one hundred years these agencies have been significant in Eng-
lish social history. Such voluntarily supported agencies con-
tribute immensely to the intellectual, moral, and economic na-
tional interest. Signal as has been their service such work
could have been better done in the public schools, particularly
in helping the less strenuous majority. Free and vigorous,
they have, at the same time, proved to be unsystematic and
ill-adapted to the needs of the rank and file. Evening classes
owe their origin hence to inadequate public elementary schools,
to the industrial revolution which brought to the front the
vigorous native talent of certain workmen who desired scien-
tific information, and also to the fact that further adult edu-
cation on social and other matters, aside from the few uni-
versities, could only thus be diffused. In the order of their
origin such agencies for instruction are as follows: Sunday
schools, adult schools, mechanics' institutions, working men's
colleges, working men's coöperating unions, Y. M. C. A., night
and evening schools under government inspection, university
extension, free public libraries, and National Home Reading
Union, with numerous indirectly important agencies. The
press and popular literature have caused this evident demand
to greatly multiply. These activities, together with the pop-
ularization of scientific knowledge, have reacted greatly upom
public educational systems. From I 78o to I833 the main
influences in England reflecting similar stimulating movements
in Other countries, were religious and political. Lack of day
schools and long work hours for children made evening schools
the only recourse for philanthropic education for the poor.
The instruction under such conditions amounted to little, tho
the inventor Stephenson proved to be one of the exceptional
pupils thus discovered.
During the next period from I833 to I848 (French Revolu-
I9O9] Varzous movements for industria/ educatzon I 67
tion), as in France and Germany, the new tendency toward
better technical instruction is much in evidence. Tho this
economic aim is the strongest, political and social aims helped
make the notion a sort of propaganda. From I 848 to I87O,
evidences of persona1 interest in collective welfare, democratic
reforms in Oxford and Cambridge, new state attitude toward
education, together with the writings of Maurice, Carlyle,
Ruskin, Spencer, Huxley, and Darwin, made the greater spread
of the movement inevitable and tremendous. From I87o on,
the growing sense of state authority in education, the educa-
tion of womam, development of universities, advance in tech-
nical education, in conscious imitation of Germany and the
United States, indicate a striking convergence of thought upon
the problems of the continuation schools.
Numerically and otherwise the Sunday school movement
is most far-reaching and probably most promising. The
twelve thousand adult schools in England alone, an offshoot
from this, are significant. The working men's colleges and
allied movements express profound underlying educational
principles and exhibit keen sense of practical and broader
social equipment for life. The Y. M. C. A. touches now
every phase of cultura1 and specialized training demanded in
any civilization. Progressive and continual legislative steps in
subsidizing evening schools illustrate both their growing im-
portance and their fortunate reactionary effect On the im-
provement of day elementary schools. Another “ further edu-
cation ” agency is the university extension movement, tak-
ing the university to the people, the women, and the workers.
Summer schools or sessions, the duty of keeping opem educa-
tional plants, represent a phase of this movement spreading
in America. Physical education as a national, state, or munici-
pa1 duty, distinctly reënforces the whole tendency, both as a
protective and as a humanitarian duty. A.
In England there are about seven hundred and nineteen
thousand in attendance at evening schools now ; the number is
increasing, and the teachers are mostly men. Public opinion
is being educated to see the social and economic values of
education. With a11 its fatilts this movement reveals the abso-
I 68 - Æducatzo/2a/ /&evzezJ [February
lute necessity of fundamental reform in all elementary edu-
cation. It must result in closer linkage to whole state systems
of education in dispelling the educational apathy of the poor
and hopeless, in a better kind of teacher, and in possible good
school hours for young employees. Adolescence is a poor
age for beginning a life-work, but a crucial stage in education.
In England alone Over two million, in Massachusetts Over
forty thousand, between twelve and seventeen years of age,
have no educational care, even of the above provisional sort.
The ordinary education in the rura1 districts, impractical and
leading directly away from home pursuits, the apathy, or even
hostility of farmers to education, especially the sort that looks
to the alleviating of crystallized conditions, together with their
disbelief in compulsory attendance, present tremendous ob-
stacles. The majority of employers of youth in country or
town do not recognize their personal responsibility for the
education of the employed, tho this condition is improving.
The day teachers are not prepared, or else are too much
Overworked, to do service. One type of elementary school in
London, as elsewhere, catches the good droppings of the day
school, but misses the three-fourths that need help most.
Another type is designed to give more definite trade and
cultural help to those of the young in permanent employment,
a better but still smaller class. The choicest and smallest class
who aspire to university instruction are, in the main, barred
and discouraged by petty academic requirements. In general,
the humaner studies are conspicuious by their absence, offset
somewhat by increasing instruction in hygiene and domestic
science. Lack of clear ideas of the function of this sort of
education makes still for this whole uncrystallized but per-
vasive movement, a plan of coördination premature.
The common problem of these schools, in both large cities
and small towns, is: organizing studies into a correlated sys-
tem, and choosing subjects adapted to needs of pupils. Fa-
tigued teachers and pupils, unsympathetic employers of youth,
lack of articulation with day schools, and the danger of an
illiberal atmosphere, are the great obstacles.
Another direction of work has proved to be the Catholic
I9O9] Varzozzs movememts /om^ zndustria/ educatzom 169
evening schools and the lads' clubs, which, like the Y. M.
C. A., tend to become largely educational in character. In
Manchester, as in the Other cities, evening schools, both in-
dustrial and commercial, to have their usefulness increased,
. must be recognized as an integral part of the social system,
not as superfluous excrescences. In rural schools consolida-
tion in central villages, working in the light of local knowl-
edge and coöperation with local leaders, will be necessary.
The general purposes of continuation schools are, then, to
make better citizens out of the class that most needs educa-
tion, and to make them skilled artizans, if possible. So far,
these institutions have, despite obstacles, had a qualified suc-
cess. On the whole, their socializing function is more marked
than the purely intellectual function. Employers are becoming
alive to the problem, tho not ready yet to allow any changes
in their business routine. Working men are generally adverse
to the movement. Parents are growing slowly more sympa-
thetic. The rising generation seems likely to expect more help
from sttch Sources. The attitude of the day school-teachers,
tho important, is too frequently contemptuous. Various plans,
as yet not very successful, are being tried to increase the at-
tendance, and to keep it regular. The further plan has been
suggested that this type of school aim to prepare definitely by
a more systematic course of study for technical schools, and,
where feasible, to put itself under their general direction. The
prevailing sentiment, perhaps, is that attendance be made com-
pulsory for both boys and girls, tho weighty adverse consid-
erations to such a measure exist. The probable tendency of
adults to avai1 themselves of such educational advantages can
not be predicted. Practically all favor popular educational
evening lectures aimed directly at the adult class. There is
little cheeriness in these evening schools at present, complexity
of registration cuts out many, day school methods won't work
in this sort of instruction, and the curriculums at present show
little possibility of broadening the general outlook of the
student.
Suggestions of Rev. S. T. Gibb for continuation schools
a1re :
(
.
-
).
-
-
1 7o Æducatzoma/ Revzew [February
I. Radical reform in elementary education, by smattering
Over everything less, and teaching something definitely.
2. Stern protection of the young and poor by child-labor
laws.
3. Discerning teachers who can more skilfully detect in-
dividual possibilities in different trades, by themselves knowing
something of the practical world (cf. President Eliot's sug-
gestion). »
Of employers and continuation education we find that seven
out of sixteen railroad companies excuse day work for
further education of employees; fourteen out of sixteen aid
financially such educational agencies and encourage their em-
ployees in such improvement. Out of thirty-four big firms
(shipbuilders, etc.), eighteen excuse day work as above; ten
grant even special facilities, bonus for classes attended, etc.
Twenty-four of these thirty-four help financially. One firm
for thirty-two years has enforced such attendance. Similar
attitudes are shown by stil1 other firms examined.
Elaborate statistical investigations into textile trades in
England show a pathetic educational situation. Half-timers
are children who, by law, after twelve years of age,
may claim partial exemption from school in order to work
in cotton, wool, and other textile industries. Keen local op-
position meets any attempt at legislative interference. Chil-
dren of the working-class themselves choose this and prefer
it to the schools. Yet “ results show that a distinct physical
deterioration sets in immediately a child goes to work half-
time.” Additional carefully made statistics show that their
labor is not economically necessary. Germany and Switzer-
land at present make possible more stringent application by
•ncouraging further action by local option.
As to the working men, artizans, clerks, and Others, who
are engaged commercially on salary, compulsory education will
not yet be possible for above reasons. The rank and file of
the unions must be educated up to the needs of education
first Of all.
Another phase of the problem almost demands an attack
upon the public school's former ideal of an educational ladder
I9O9] Varzous movements for industria/ educatzom I 7 I
to the university. This present “ capacity-catching ” scheme
exists in England as in America for the five per cent. The
national problem is with the other ninety-five per cent., the
“ nobody's children *; not only the main, but, in Mr. O'Brien,
Harris' opinion, the only work of the primary school. Here
we find, and naturally enough, almost all the admitted failures,
social menaces in every case. The school is not responsible for
it all. “ It is rather the crushing influence of the machinery
of industry and commerce, and the deadening environment
of lower and middle-class city life.” To meet this great situa-
tion Some school system suitable to the probable future of those
who do not show high school and university caliber must be
devised. It would be more logical to devise a special system for
the exceptional few who hope to be scholars of the professions,
and to adapt the great school system to the eighty per cent.
of average children, with possibly another type for the ten per
cent. of defectives, thereby approximating a genuine democratic
system. The economic value and humane function of trade
schools, Organized and equipped so that they may be a recog-
nized element incorporated in a national system of education,
should be a paramount issue in modern educational advance.
Humane and utilitarian functions must not be conceived as
inherently antagonistic. The old apprenticeship has gone with
old types of industry. The unemployed ranks are yearly in-
creasing, and skill in life, created by commercial demands,
constitutes the concrete goal for the school. The highly special-
ized trade schools for girls in London are weakened by the
fact that the fourteen-year-old girls come with no preliminary
training. The day technical Schools for boys in the same city
deal with only a tiny fraction of the best youth, catering to a
class, and are dangerously exclusive for the mass of aspirants
for skilled labor occupations. The preparatory trade schools,
for which there is a great need, are too few in number.
Scotland is seeking in two important directions to encour-
age this “ further education ” movement: by modifying the last
years of elementary education, and by regrouping and sys-
tematizing evening classes so that both may bear more directly
upon industrial and commercial callings. Legislation and pub-
I 72 Æducationa/ Aeeview [February
lic opinion support these reforms. As yet these measures are
limited to the larger towns. Much freedom is allowed differ-
ent localities carrying out plans adapted to local needs. In
general, continued educational opportunities for those who
have early left school fall under the four types below: prepara-
tory classes for completing elementary education, elementary
specialized instruction, advanced specialized instruction, and
auxiliary classes in special subjects approved by the Depart-
ment. The greatest problem seems to be how to incorpo-
rate the literary element in the curriculums in the limited
time. -
Denmark has reached the high-water mark in her success
in people's high schools, continuation education chiefly for
grown-up people, and chiefly in agriculture and the trades,
preserving, the while, liberal elements in the curriculum, which,
to a remarkable extent, have fostered and intensified a unique
patriotism. Grünberg, in I844, started the movement, found-
ing a school which is the alma mater of such types, both in
Denmark and in all Other 1ands. Kristen Kold furthered this
direction of education, made the woman's high School a liv-
ing success, and stimulated the interest of the ordinary day
school in the same direction of practical preparation. In I864
there were only seven pupils' high schools; in I892 the
State doubled the appropriation. In I905 there were sixty-
nine such schools, with technical interest centered chiefly in
agriculture and carpentering. One hundred and fifty thousand
men and women, sixteen per cent. of all between twenty and
fifty years of age, have thus been educated. The State makes
this possible by helping both the schools and the needy pupils.
The towns furnish scarcely one per cent. of the pupils. These
Schools constitute a mark of general civic development, an
agency powerful in industrial progressiveness, in religious
freedom, and in coöperative interest in popular government.
It is said that character is, after all, the finest result attained.
It is a free and elastic system, and some think that to it is
due the small rura1 exodus in Denmark, as well as its commer-
cial achievements in cheese, butter, cream, eggs, etc. The
remarkable thing is that they are entirely private, yet thirty
I909] Varzous movemaemts for industria/ educatzom I 73
per cent. of the members of the Danish Parliament have past
thru such schools.
Another continuation agency is the Free Kirk movement,
organizations in conjunction with church, laying stress on
' high School work, and reaching to the number of thirty in
Denmark. Since I864 this work has spread perceptibly thr
Norway and Sweden. *
One must, however, examine the situation in Germany to
realize the extent to which the idea of collective responsibility
for Social and individual welfare has grown in power. Here
educational care is gradually extending beyond the limits of
compulsory elementary education. In twenty-one out of
twenty-five states of the empire, compulsory attendance at the
continuation schools obtains for all or a part of the younger
generation during the critical age of adolescence. It is said
that economic and moral considerations combined determine
such a policy. Together with the social fact that state com-
pulsion is more congenial to the German mind, it has come
about that the employers and work-people alike more generally
favor such an idea than is the case in England or in the United
States. In six states attendance is compulsory for girls also.
Where exigencies of trade allow continuation classes are gen-
eral in the daytime, and on Sundays, where there is no conflict
with divine service. Country districts, as well as city, are
thus affected, tho not as yet to the same extent. The age
limit is from sixteen to eighteen years, for about forty-two
weeks of the year, hours per week varying with the locality.
The German continuation school has developed from the
Sunday school, dating as far back as I 569. Compulsory at-
tendance was instituted by Wurtemberg in I 739. The more
modern technical aspect of instruction in continuation schools
springs from Saxony. In I87O-7I, nationa1 feeling being ir-
resistible, education being recognized as the recent past salva-
tion of the nation, and its future basis for hope, schools must
hence be improved by state direction. Direct responses from
al1 classes, Saxony leading, brought into being the new con-
tinuation era for Germany, growing now more rapidly than
ever, due, besides the above-mentioned considerations, to the
I 74 „ Æducatioma/ Review _ [February
.,•• . A«a.
number of skilled teachers Germany could supply to the ieid
of technically applied science. The dangerous aspect of this
national wave of enthusiasm was seen by Germans early ; the
danger, namely, that education lose its ideal character by be-
coming narrowly utilitarian. Dr. Kerschensteiner struck the
needed note. The good elements of the movement must be
popularized, incorporated in sound educational theory, and
justified on psychological and sociological principles. This
writer's pamphlet, widely read in all countries, sought to do
this. The ordinary high School and elementary education,
it was claimed, was abstract, remote from reality, unrelated to
life, the children's life-work casually or blindly chosen, and
at an age unsuited to work of any kind, but keenly critical for
education. Industry has no right to juvenile labor when the
individual is thus warped for life. Economically, the con-
tinuation school must prevent this waste of possible skilled
labor, morally it must create for the nation a better type of
social class by utilizing that vast material beyond the reach of
the exclusively literary or classical school. Workmen have
acquiesced readily, labor or trades unions have not sought to
direct the school policy, social and Other evils of the factory
system are less prevalent there, representatives of employed
workmen are not on school boards, etc. But the main im-
pulse for technical instruction has come from small towns
where Small workshops continue to hold their own against the
factory system, a characteristic of German industry. State-
aided secondary schools thus put Germany ahead of England
in this respect. The continuation school possibility existed
just because the employing class was sufficiently educated gen-
erally to secure the adoption of this social and industrial
educational measure.
The eyes of the world are upon Munich at present. Here,
ttnder the efficient direction of Dr. Kerschensteiner, in a city
about the size of Boston without her suburbs, two types of
schools for further education of the working-classes are or-
ganized, one compulsory, eight hours per week, day work
mostly, for apprentices from fourteen to eighteen years of
age, and the Other voluntary, for journeymen and master-
I909] Varzous movememts for industria/ educatiom 175
workmen, both of which show large enrollments. Girls are
also liberally provided for in different types of . technical
schools, and attendance for them is likewise compulsory up to
fifteen years of age. Dr. Kerschensteiner thinks that at-
tendance should be compulsory for boys up to eighteen; for
girls up to sixteen, even for domestic servants; that favorable
sentimentis greatest and still growing among employers, work-
men, and apprentices; that attendance is becoming more reg-
ular, with little need ever of enforcing regulations, and that,
as no instruction is given after seven p. m., there is no
extra strain upon the adolescent boys and girls.
In Switzerland, Cantonal freedom is the general educational
policy, the Federal Government making certain general re-
quirements concerning compulsory education, and exercising
indirect supervision, aiding localities financially and otherwise,
especially in their continuation schools, of which there are
relatively a good number. Besides their schools for recruits
and their elementary continuation schools, the specialized tech-
nical instruction agencies are comprised under the following
types: commercial continuation schools, technical continuation
schools, and continuation schools for girls. In the commer-
cial schools the work is generally done in the evening, busi-
ness houses urging their clerks and other employees to attend.
In Zürich, the largest city, one-half the apprentices attend such
institutions, which are partly supported by the state and partly
by the city. Here the attendance is not compulsory as it is
in some Other districts.
The continuation school for girls is doing much toward
equipping them for needlework, cookery, and household man-
agement. Public funds aid private effort here also. In only
One Canton, Freiburg, is attendance for girls compulsory.
Mr. A. T. Pressland thinks Switzerland the ** educational
laboratory of Europe,'' with its great freedom under con-
stitution, its absence of large external interests, its willing-
ness to spend money and effort in perfecting schools, and
the coöperation of the state, the employer, the trade union,
and the teacher. The problems here are, in the main, those for
other countries.
Y
(
-.-
I 76 Æducatzoma/ Revzezw [February
In France free public compulsory education ends at about
the age of thirteen, so that continuation schools may be here
taken to mean al1 further instruction for adults and for those
above the compulsory school age. The public elementary
school proving insufficient, in I9O4-o5, there were in France
about fifty-two thousand courses for further instruction, with
an enrollment of about one million. At present these con-
tinuation agencies for the people enjoy practically no state
support, and can depend upon no separate corps of teachers.
Its future at present seems to lie in the hands of voluntary
associations. The professional Schools, SO-called, appeal tO
few, and have succeeded in few instances in giving even
fairly good industria1 training for the actual callings. The
large percentage of illiterates retards the progress of this edu-
cational departure.
Very inadequate library facilities still further retard the
movement. Organized public lectures and readings, planned
to be progressive and to function somewhat as elementary
courses, would have had a measure of success. Naturally,
industrial efficiency is not much affected by such temporizing
methods. The societies for the education of the people, over
two thousand in number, especially numerous in Paris, con-
stitute a general educational propaganda, and have done good
work, but they have as yet failed, due to lack of coöperation,
to bear directly upon the education of the artizan. The total
failure of the university extension movement imported from
England suggests that France must work out its own system
from local clues. The mutua1 school societies aid indirectly.
The so-called Universités Populaires, of which there are varied
types, function to discriminate social and art. knowledge, and
tO foster coöperative associations. Their entertainments, in-
formal lectures, musical and dramatic performances, etc., are
directed toward raising the public taste of the future. In
suburban towns the workmen take to this idea more than
they do in Paris.
In continuation schools, as well as in schools in general,
among religious bodies, the Catholics have been first in the
field. In their patronage societies the distinguishing features
I9O9] Various movememts for zradustrza/ educatzom I 77
are physical training, gymnastics, technical training, and li-
brary work for the people. Backed financially, strong in
discipline, knowing how to deal with adults, this agency has
also had the foresight to adapt methods to localities. In con-,
tinuation work statistically France stands high, one million
in attendance, fifty-two thousand courses, with more than
forty thousand popular libraries, one hundred and ten thousand
organized lectures, a three million audience, two thousand and
twenty-eight societies for the people, etc. But with all this
attempt at secular and social education, the work is by many
considered a failure. The Government can not enforce day
attendance, hence it can scarcely do much for attendance at
continuation Schools. The day teachers can not do good work
because they are Overworked as it is. Again, the young
people could not well be forced until laws regulating employ-
ment of juvenile labor are changed. It seems probable that
public opinion may, in the future, see more clearly the nation's
need for after-school education, and eventually provide for it
as for primary education. Artizans are beginning to make
themselves felt in the field of education, and this French pe-
riod, tho critical, may very possibly eventuate in a move-
ment toward something less showy and vague, and hence more
solid and practical. The hopeful issue would seem to be the
development and better organization of continuation schools,
affecting directly the artizan intelligence, incorporated, if pos-
sible, into the public school system, and protected by laws
regulating juvenile employment.
In the United States, according to foreign critics, such as
Messrs. Sadler and Moses, or the Royal Prussian Committee,
courage, enterprize, and ingenuity characterize educational
movement. They see merits and demerits in our attempts to
cope with a unique and tremendous situation. A polyglot pop-
ulation, keen progressive commercial communities, and huge
industria1 bodies are claiming for our important artizan class
broader instruction. The evening classes are not well or-
ganized, nor regularly attended. Even in New York and
Springfield they are almost all free, but no adequate system
exists to prevent constant evasion of the attendance law. The
]
f^
>-_.
I 78 Æa/ucatzoma/ A&evzezv [February
three types of schools are: (a) The elementary evening schools,
to care for the droppings from the elementary day schools,
to assimilate the foreigners, and to Offer Some special tech-
nical instruction, chiefly commercial, for adults not qualified
for any other higher school. In New York City alone, there
are one thousand, three hundred and twenty-one teachers li-
censed to teach in evening schools only. (b) The evening
high Schools, which are on a high plane of excellence, and
largely attended by married men and women, as well as boys
and girls. (c) The third type, technical and trade schools,
constitute our highest branch of evening school work. These,
at present in the elementary stage, are not nearly so numerous
as our intense industrial competition would seem to warrant.
. Promising ambitious immigrants eagerly take to these schools.
Those at Springfield, Buffalo, Boston, and New York are very
successful. The teachers are practically men. Shop-mathe-
matics, mechanica1 and architectural drawing, industrial chem-
istry, applied physics, electricity, wood and iron work, printing,
etc., represent the typical subjects in these curriculums. Y. M.
C. A.'s, the Cooper Institute, and other such institutions, for-
ward the same line of work. Massachusetts and New York
Show vigor of purpose in this direction. The attendance must
be improved and the school must become closer to the trades.
This accomplished, their spread in other states effected, their
future would seem bright.
As regards purely industrial training, Massachusetts seems
to be anxious for legislative treatment of the problem. A
Commission for Industria1 Education was created by the
Massachusetts legislature in June, I9o5. Professor Paul H.
Hanus, who has been greatly imprest with Dr. Kerschen-
steiner's work at Munich, is chairman. This Commission
has carefully investigated local and foreign methods, has
sought to coöperate with localities in establishing public in-
dustrial Schools, coördinate, where possible, with existing day
high Schools, with a plan for incorporating in the curriculum
the special industrial education locally in demand, and making
annual reports to the legislature. They have reached the fol-
lowing conclusions: That there is a strong interest among the
sociologists and educational experts; that there is a general
I909] Various movememts for zndustria/ educatiom I 79
lack of definite ideas on industrial education; that there is
a growing feeling that our present school system does not
meet the exact needs of the great body of children of the state;
and that both wage-earners and manufacturers are practically
and specifically interested in the furthering of “ industrial ,
intelligence.” Furthermore, that the state should aid the
locality financially in the matter; that children should not be
driven directly by public education out of the trades; that
such Schools should accept none under fourteen years of age;
that industry will not suffer when these adolescents are re-
cruited for Schools; that manual training at present can not
fill the demand; and that, in consideration of the fact that
there are in Massachusetts alone Over twenty-five thousand
boys of adolescent age under no educational tutelage what-
ever, and many more who could be best helped by this
type of education, these schools should be an independent
part of our public school system, and that the fundamental
ideas underlying the movement be part of the governmental
educational policy.
The chief and direct bearing of this whole movement is
thus directed at the high School's remodeling, changing, or
supplementing its traditional functions. Some, President Eliot,
C. H. Morse, Hanus, and other prominent leaders of opinion,
favor an independent and coördinate institution, furnishing
the needed training for the great mass of the population whose
destiny is decided at the high school age, and whose civic
function is in making the tone of the great artizan class bet-
ter thru skill. Others, fearing that nearness to trade ideals
and methods endangers the idealizing function of our present
democratically planned high School, propose that it should
adopt a six-year course plan, with many electives, preserving
the national unit idea of organization, and gradually becoming
better adapted in a conservative way to the concrete needs of
modern industria1 and social life.
Far-reaching, also, must be the effects of this wave of edu-
cational influence upon the whole policy of elementary instruc-
tion. Draper, Eliot, Hanus, Sadler, and Others unite in urg-
ing that somehow the new type of elementary school be far
more practical and constructive in its curriculum, pay much
I 8o Æduca/zoma/ RevzezJ
more attention to physical training. and to active corporate
life, and adopt simpler aims as to the more literary studies.
As regards the effect desired upon the colleges and uni-
versities, such men, or some of them, feel that, as at present
administered, these institutions are not sufficiently democratic;
that their restrictions in the way of admission requirements
tend too much to become petty and academic, forcing the lower
educational institutions to mold their policy for the few, rather
than the many. This is, of course, no criticism of the unique
function of universities, but more in the nature of a plea that
all such higher educationa1 institutions encourage, rather than
discourage, the secondary school in its broad but necessarily
more superficial work of adapting itself to a larger con-
stituency, cut off, for the most part, in the nature of the case
from legitimate college aspirations. Those teaching and ad-
ministering systems of secondary grade feel the various pres-
sures, the call to develop personality and economic independ-
ence, to produce for the state an output of students economi-
cally and socially safe, and to preserve, too, the humane ele-
ments. Clearly, in all countries with urbanized population
and a highly developed industrial system, the further education
above described, continuing elementary work, bids fair to be-
come one of the chief educational problems. For the success
of this far-reaching movement an active propaganda in-
spiring the industrial classes with humane industrial intelli-
gence as a social ideal, generally improved conditions in the
elementary school, and further limitation of employment of
young people thru the pubescent period, are absolute essentials.
This applies, naturally, to both industrial and agricultural com-
munities. The systematization of the training called for, and
provision for properly equipping a corps of teachers for this
work are equally essential, and also possible future develop-
ments. The opinion of many is that to protect industrial
training from extreme measures, the safest way is not to
house it in independent school plants, but have it organically
affiliated with the present system.
CHARLES HUGHES JOHNSTON
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
\ 3
BULLETTN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI.
SUPPLEMENT TO
SERIES II. AUGUST, 1903, NUMBER 3.
(Bu11etins issued Quarterly. App1ication made for entry as
second-class mai1 matter.) - -
»-
$
2^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^
p*
-^ -
THE CECIL RHODES SCHOLARSHIPS
No bequest for education made in m, odern times
has attracted such world-wide attention as have the -
provisions in the testamentary dispositions of the late
Right Honorable Cecil John Rhodes relatjng to the es-
tablishment of scholarships in the University of Oxford,
for students from the Colonies and the United .
States of North America. The entire wi11 of Mr. Rhodes
is one of the most extraordinary testam entary docu-
ments ever placed upon record, and it is a worthy pro-
duct of the mind of this most remarkable mam, who
planned an empire, and makes bequests in a manner
worthy of an emperor.
The execution of the will, and in fact the entire
management of the estate of Mr. Rhodes, is left in
charge of his friends, Lord Milner, Lord Rosebery, Mr.
N-
Lewis Loyd Miche11, Lord Grey, Mr. A1fred Beit, Mr.
Bourchier Francis Hawksley, and Dr. Leander Starr
Jamesom, who as trustees have the largest discretion in
carrying out the general purpose of the testator.
Impressive as are the magnificent donations made
to other public interests, the provisions relating to the
scholarships are of the largest interest, not only to the
individuals who may be concerned with them, but to the
institutions of 1earning and to the several countries
which are interested. Following is the litera1 text of
the provisions relating to these scholarships, as stated
in the will of Mr. Rhodes and the codicils :
“Whereas I consider that the education of young
Colonists at one of the Universities in the United King-
dom is of great, ad vantage to them for giving breadth
to their views for their instruction in 11fe and manners
and for instilling into their minds the ad vantage to the
Colonies as well as to the United Kingdom of the reten-
tion of the unity of the Empire And whereas in the
case of young Colonists studying at a University in the
United Kingdom I attach very great importance to the
University having a residentia1 system such as is in
force at the Universities of Oxford ahd Cambridge for
without it those students are at the most critical period
of their lives left without any supervision And whereas
there are at the present time 50 or more students from
South Africa studying at the University, of Edinburgh
many of whom are attracted there by its excellent med-
(
2
ica1 school and I should like to establish some of the
Scholarships hereinafter mentioned in that University
hut owing to its not having such a residentia1 system as
aforesaid I feel obliged to refrain from dqing so And
Whereas my own University the University of Oxford
has such a system and I suggest that it should try and
extend its scope so as if possible to make its medical
school at least as good as that at the University of Edin-
tourgh And whereas I also desire to encourage and
foster an appreciation of the advantages which I implic-
itly believe will result from the union of the English-
speaking peoples throughout the world anâ to encourage
in the students from the United States of North Ameri-
ca who will benefit from the American Scholarships to
be established for the reason above given at the Uni-
versity of Oxford under this my Wil1 an attachment to
the country from which they have sprung but without
I hope withdrawing them or their sympathies from the
1and of their adoption or birth Now therefore I direct
my Trustees as soon as may be after my death and
either simultaneously or gradually as they shal1 find
convenient and if gradually then in such order as they
shall think fit to establish for male students the scholar-
ships hereinafter directed to be established each of
which shall be of yearly value of £300 and be tenable at
any College in the University of Oxford for three con-
secutive academica1 years.
“I direct my Trustees to establish certain Scholar-
ships and these Scholarships I sometimes hereinafter
refer to as *the Colonial Scholarships.*
3
(
“The appropriation of the Colonia1Scholarships and
the numbers to be annually filled up shall be in accor-
dance with the following table:——
Tota 1
No. ap-
propri-
ated.
No. Of Scho1ar-
ships to be fi11ed
each year.
To be tenable by Students of or from
PRhodesia. 3 and no more
The South African Co11ege Schoo1 in the
Colony of Cape of Good Eope...... 1
, The Ste11enbosch Co11ege Schoo1 in the
same Colony.. , .................... 1
The Diocesan Co11ege School of Ronde-
toosch in the same Colony , ...
* ® • & è û © © • e • * e £• ® • • • * & s e s ® e s e
and no more.
:
and mo more.
3
1 and, no more.
3 [St. Andrews Co11ege Schoo1 Grahams-
town in the same Colony........... 1 and no more.
3 The Colony of Natal................ . . 1 and no more.
3 The Colony of New South Wales....... 1 and no more.
3 [The Colony of Victoria...... .. ,....... 1 and no more.
3 [The Colony of South Australia........ 1 and no more.
3 [The Colony of Queens1and. ............ 1 and no more.
3 The Colony of Western Austra1ia...... 1 and no more.
3 [The Colony of Tasmania................ 1 and no more.
3 The Colony of New Zealand........... 1 and no more.
3 The Province of Ontario in the Domin-
ion of Canada...................... 1 and no more.
3 [The Province of Quebec in the Domin- \.
ion of Canada......... ............ 1 and no more.
3 [The Colony or Is1and of Newfoundland
and its Dependencies..... ......... 1 and no more.
3 [The Colony or Is1ands of the Bermudas.] 1 and no more.
3 [The Colony or Island of Jamaica....... 1 and no more.
“I further direct my Trustees to establish addi-
tiona1 Scholarships sufficient in number for the appro-
priation in the next following clause hereof directed
and those Scholarships I sometimes here1nafter refer
to as *the Americam Scholarships.'
(
4
“I appropriate two of the American Scholarships
to each of the present States and Territories of the
United States of North America Provided that if any
of the said Territories shall in my lifetime be admitted
as a State the Scholarships appropriated to such Terri-
tory shall be appropriated to such State and that my
Trustees may in their uncontrol1ed discretion withold
for sucb time as they shall think fit the appropriation
of Scholarships to any Territory.
“I direct that of the two Scholarships appropriated
to a State or Territory not more than one shall be filled
up in any year so that at no time sha11 more than two
Scholarships be- held for the same State or Territory.
“The Scholarships shal1 be paid only out of income
and in the event at any time of income being insuffi-
cient for payment in ful1 of all the Scholarships for the
time being payable I direct that (without prejudice to
the vested interests of holders for the time being of
Scholarships) the following order of priority shall reg-
ulate the payment of Scholarships.
“(i) First the Scholarships of Students of or from
Rhodesia shall be paid. •
“(ii) Secondly the Scholarships of students from
the said South Africam Stellenbosch Rondebosch and
St. Andrews Schools sha11 be paid.
“(iii) Thirdly the remainder of the Colonia1 Scho1-
arships shall be paid and if there shall not be sufficient
income for the purpose such Scholarships shal1 abate
proportionately ; and
“(iv) Fourthly the American Scholarships sha11 be
v 5
5
paid and if there sha11 not be sufficient income for the
purpose sucb Sholarships shal1 abate proportionately,
“My desire being that the students who shall be
elected to the Scholarships shall not be merely book-
Worms I direct that in the election of a student to a
Scholarship regard shall be had to (i) his literary and
scholastic attainments (ii) his fondness of and success
in manly outdoor sports such as crjcket footbal1 and
the like (iii) his qualities of manhood truth courage
devotion to duty sympathy for the protection of the
weak kindliness unselfishness and fellowship and (iv)
his exhibition during school days of moral force of
character and of instincts to 1ead and to take an inter-
est in his schoolmates for those latter attributes will be
likely in afterlife to guide him to esteem the perfor-
mance of public duties as his highest aim As mere
suggestions for the guidance of those who will have
the choice of students for the Scholarships I record
that (i) my idea1 qualified student would combine these
four qualifications in the proportions of 3-10ths for the
first 2-10ths for the second 3-10th s for the third and
2-10thsfor the fourth qualification so tnat according to
my ideas if the maximum number of marks for any
Scholarship were 200 they would be apportioned as fol-
1ows—60 to each of the first and third qualifications and
40 to each of the second and fourth qualifications (ii)
the marks for the severa1 qualifications wou1d be
awarded independently as follows (that is to say) fhe
marks for the first qualification by examination for the
second and third qualifications respectively by ballot by
the felloW-students of the candidates and for the fourth
6
qualification by the head master of the candidate's
schoo1 and (iii) the results of the awards (thatis to say
the marks obtained by each candidate for each qualifi-
cation) would be sent as soon as possible for considera-
tiom to the Trustees or to some person or persoms ap-
pointed to receive the same and the person or persons
so appointed would ascertain by averaging the marks
in blocks of 20 marks each of a11 candidates the best
ideal qualified students.
“No student shall be qualified or disqualified for
e1ection to a Scholarship on account of his race or re-
ligious opinions.
“Except in the cases of the four schools hereinbefore
mentioned the election to Scholarships shal1 be by the
Trustees after such (if any) consultation as they sha11
think fit with the Minister having the contro1 of educa-
tion in such Colony Province State or Territory.
“A qualified student who has been elected as afore-
said shal1 within six calendar months after his election
or as soom thereafter as he can be admitted into resi-
dence or within such extended time as my Trustees
shall allow commence residence as an undergraduate at
some co11ege in the University of Oxford.
“The Scholarships shal1 be payable to him from the
time when he sha11 commence such residence.
“28. I desire that the Scholars holding the schol-
arships shal1 be distributed amongst the Colleges of
the University of Oxford and not resort in undue num-
bers to one or more Colleges only.
“29. Nothwithstanding anything hereinbefore con-
tained my Trustees may in their uncontro11ed discre-
7
$
\
tiom suspend for such time as they shall think fit or
remove any Scholar from his scholarship.
“30. My Trustees may from time to time make
vary and repeal regulations either general or affecting
specified Scholarships only with regard to al1 or any
of the following matters that is to say:
**(i) The election whether after examination or
otherwise of qualified Students to the Scholarships or
any of them and the method whether by examination or
otherwise in which their qualifications are to be ascer-
tained.
“(ii) The tenure of the Scholarships by scholars.
“(iii) The suspension and remova1 of scholars from
their Scholarships.
“(iv) The method and times of payment of the
Scholarships.
“(v) The method of giving effect to my wish ex-
pressed in clause 28 hereof and
“(vi) Any and every other matter with regard to
the Scholarships or any of them with regard to which
they shall consider regulations necessary or desirable.
“31. My Trustees may from time to time authorize
regulations with regard to the election whether after
examination or otherwise of qualified students for
Scholarships and to the method whether by examina-
tion or otherwise in which their qualifications are to be
ascertained to be made—
“(i) By a school in respect of the Scholarships
tenable by its students and—
**(ii) By the Minister aforesaid of a Colony Prov-
8
ince State or Territory in respect of the Scholarships
tenable by students from such Colony Province State or
Territory.
“32. Regulations made under the last preceding
clause hereof if and when approved of and not before
by my Trustees shall be equivalent in all respects to
regulations made by my Trustees.
“No regulations made under clause 30 or made and
approved of under clauses 31 and 32 hereof shall be in-
consistent with any of the provisions herein conta1ned.
“In order that the scholars past and present may
have opportunities of meeting and discussing their ex-
periences and prospects I desire that my Trustees shal1
annually give a dinner to the past and present scholars
able and willing to attend at which I hope my Trustees
or some of them will be able to be present and to which
they will I hope from time to time invite as guests per-
sons who have shown sympathy with the views express-
ed by me in this my Will.**
In accomplishing the purpose of Mr. Rhodes the
Trustees very wisely decided to have made a careful
investigation of the the educational' conditions existing
in the several states provinces and countries in which
scholars are to be appointed. They selected
for their agent Dr. George R. Parkin, Presi-
dent of Upper Canada College, Toronto, whose large
experience in educationa1 matters and whose wide
knowledge of men and affairs give him a peculiar fit-
ness for this work. Dr. Parkin has devoted more than
9
.-«
twelve ruonths to a carefu1 study of the matter in a11 of
its phases in a11 countries interested. In the fall of
1902 he spent several months in Oxford, studying the
conditions in the severa1 colleges of the University and
making arrangement with the authorities for the ad-
missiom of as many scholars as each college might be
able to receive. The conservatism with which en-
tramce to the colleges has so long been guarded was
fully satisfied by Dr. Parkin's good judgment and know-
ledge of conditions there and elsewhere, and he suc-
ceeded in making such arrangements as will enable the
scholars who may be appointed to undertake their
work in one or other of the col1eges included in the
University of Oxford. In December last Dr. Parkin re-
turmed to America and conferred with 1eaders of
education in a11 sections of the Union. In January he
met by invitation with the Nationa1 Association of
State Universities, in Washington, when he made ar-
rangements to confer with the representatives of the
1eading co11eges in different parts of the country in
groups. He met representatives from the Southern
States east of the Mississippi in Atlanta in February,
1903. The purpose in these meetings was to formulate
such modes of procedure in the selection of scholars as
would best meet the educational conditions in different
parts of the United States.
(
Q
)
10
Following the report made by Dr. Parkin to the
Trustees of the Cecil Rhodes bequest there was issued
by them a Memorandum2 forthe information of persons in
the United States who may be interested in the appoint-
ment of scholars, a copy of which memorandum is here
shown.
MEMORANDUM.
The Rhodes Scholarships in the
United States.
THE Trustees Of the Will of the late Mr. C. J. Rhodes
have prepared the following Memorandum for the
information of College Authorities and intending cam-
d dates for scholarships in the United States:—
The first election of scholars in the United States
under the Rhodes bequest Will be made between Febru-
ary and May, 1904. The elected Scholars Willcommence
residence in October, 1904.
A qualifying examination will be held withim this
period in each state and territory, or at centres which
*-.
11
cam be easily reached. This examination is not com-
petitive, but is intended to give assurance that all
candidates are fully qualified to enter om a course of
study at Oxford University.
It will therefore be based om the requirementis for
Responsions—the first public examination exacted by
the university from each candidate for a, degree.
The Rhodes scholars will be selected from candidates
who have successfully passed this examination. One
scholar will be chosen for each state and territory to
which scholarships are assigned.
The requirements of the Responsions examination,
as stated in the Statutes of the University of Oxford,
a re as follows:—
Candidates must offer the fo11owing :—
(1) Arithmetic—the whole. 1
(2) Either Algebra.
Addition, Subtraction, Multip1ication, Diyision, Greatest
Common Measure, Least Common Multiple, Fractions, Extrac-
tion of Square Root, Simple Equations containing one or two
unknown quantities, and problems producing such equations.
Or Geometry.
Euclid's Elements, Books I, II. 2 Euclid's axioms wi11 be
required, and no proof of any proposition wi11 be admitted
————~s
'Candidates alre expected to be able to do correctly sums in
Vu1gar and Decima1 Fractions, Practice, Proportion and its ap-
plications, Interest (Simp1e and Compound), Square Measure and
Square Root.
2Candidates should be careful to answer questions in both
books.
12
which assumes the proof of anything not proved in preceeding
propositions of Euclid,
(3) Greek and Latin Grammar.
(4) Trans1ation from English into Latin Prose.
(5) Greek and Latin Authors.
Candidates must offer two books, óne Greek and one Latin, or
Unseen Trans1ation. The fo11owing portions of the under-men-
tioned authors wi11 be accepted :—
DEMosTHENEs : (1) Philippics 1-3, and O1ynthiacs 1-3, or
(2) De Corona.
EURIPIDEs, any two of the fo11owing plays : EHecuba, Medea,
Alcestis, Bacchae.
HoMER (1) I1iad 1-5, or 2-6 ; or (2) Odyssey 1-5, or 2-6.
PLATO, Apology and Crito.
SoPHOCLEs, Antigone and Ajax.
XENOPHON, Anabasis 1-4, or 2-5.
CAESAR, De Be11o Ga11ico 1-4.
CIcERo : (1) the first two Phi1ippic Orations ; or (2) the four
Catiline Orations, and In Verrem, Act I ; or (3) the
Orations Pro Murena and Pro Lege Manilia ; or (4)
the treatises De Senectute and De Amicitia.
HoRAcE : (1) Odes 1-4 ; or (2) Satires ; or (3) Epistles.
LIvy, Books 21 and 22. (After Michaelmas, 1903, Books V.
and VI.)
VIRGIL : (1) the Bucolics, with Books 1-3 of the Aeneid ; or
(2) the Georgics ; or (3) the Aeneid, Books 1-5, or 2-6.
Papers covering this range of study will be prepar-
ed by examiners appointed by the Trustees, and will be
sent to each centre, where, at a, date publicly announced
the examination will beheld under proper supervision,
and the papers returned to the examiners.
)
A lust, of those who have successfully passedthis test
wjl] as soon as possible be furnished to the chairmam of
the committee of selection in each state or province, Or
to the university making the appointment, and from
this list the committee or university will proceed to
elect the scholars.
The committees and the universities making ap-
pointments will be furnished with a statement of the
qualifications which Mr. Rhodes desired in the holders
of his scholarships, and they will be asked in exercisimg
their right of selection to comply as mearly as circum-
stances will permit with the spirit of the testator's
Wishes.
They will also be asked to furnish to the Trustees
as full a, statemem t as possible of the school and col-
lege career of each elected scholar, with the special
grounds of his appointment, together with suggestioms,
if desired, as to the course of study for which hejs best
fitted. *•
It has been decided that all scholars shal1 have
reached at least the end of their Sophomore or second
year work at some recognised degree-granting univer-
sity or college of the United States.
Scholars must be unmarried, must be citizens oí
the United States, and must be between mimeteen and
twenty-five years of age.
Where several candidates present themselves from
a single college or uliiversity, the committees of selee-
14
tion will request the Faculty of the college tO decide
between their claims on the basis of Mr. Rhodes' sug-
gestions, and present to the committee the name of
the candidate chosen by that college as its representa-
tive in the final elect1on.
Candidates may elect whether they will apply for
the scholarship of the state in which they have ac-
quired the above-mentioned educational qualification,
Or for that of the state in which they have their Ordi-
nary private domicile, home Or residence. They must
be prepared to present themselves for examination in
the state they select. No candidate may compete in
more than One state.
Candidates for scholarships should, during the
month of January, 1904, notify the chairmam of the
committee of selection in the state or territory for
which they apply, Or the head of the university ap-
pointing to the scholarship, of their intention to pre-
sent themselves for examination. The decision of the
committee of selection or of the university making ap-
pointment shall be final as regards eligibility. A list;
of the chairmen of state committees is appended, and
of the universities which make appointments.
Any inquiries about Oxford, its colleges and the
cóurses of study there, should be addressed tO F. J.
Wylie, Esq., the Oxford agent of the Rhodes Trustees.
The presidents Of Americam colleges are requested to
send to Mr. Wylie, for the information of the Trustees
15
S.
copies of their ammual calendar, and such other college
literature as they may think useful.
Copies of Oxford Responsiom papers for past years
can be obtained from the Oxford University Press, 91
and 95, Fifth Avemue, New York. The Students?
Handbook of Oxford cam be ordered at the same ad-
dress. It gives full information about the examinations
of the university, subject to changes made since thelast
edition was issued.
“Oxford As It Is,” a small pamphlet prepared by
Mr. Louis Dyer, of Harvard and Balliol Colleges, for
the use of Americam candidates, gives all essential in-
formatiom in a, condensed form. It cam be Ordered from
Macmillam & Co., Fifth Avemue, New York.
“Oxford and its Colleges,” written by Mr. J. Wells,
of Wadham College, and “Oxford and Oxford Life,**
edited by the same gentleman, may be recommended
for those who wish to gain fuller information about;
the university and its colleges.
The president of the state university or college is
in each of the following states chairmam of the commit-
tee of selection for that state—Alabama, Arizona,
Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia,
Idaho, Iridiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigam,
Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Monfana, Nabraska,
Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Noith Dakota,
Ohio,Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina,
16
South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West
Virginia, Wisconsim, Wyoming.
The following ehairmem have been mamed for Other
states:—
CONNEcTIcUT.—President ARTHUR T. HADLEY, LL. D., Ya!e
University.
ILLINOIs.—President W. R. HARPER, Ph.D., D. D,, Univer-
sity of Chicago.
PKENTUcKv.—President D. B. Gray, D. D., Georgetowm Col-
1ege.
MARVLAND, — President IRA REMSEN, LL.D., Johns Hop-
kins University.
MASSACHUSETTs.—President Charles W. E1iot, LL.ID.,
Harvard University.
NEW HAMPSEIIRE.—President Wm. J. Tucker, D.D., Dart-
mouth Co11ege.
NEW JERSEy.—President Woodrow Wi1son, LL.D., Princeton
lU niversity.
NEw YoRK STATE.—President NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER,
LL.D., Columbia University.
RHODE ISLAND.—President W. H. P. FAUNCE, D.D., Brown
lUniversity.
In the following states appointments will be made
by the chartered colleges and universitiés, in rota-
tion:—
CALIFORNIA, —University of California.
Leland Stanford University.
Sma11er co11eges every seventh year.
17
-.
)
MAINE.—(The order of rotation yet to be fixed.)
VERMON T.—University of Vermont.
Middlebury Co11ege.
WASHINGTON.—(The order of rotation yet to be fixed.)
LONDON,
/une, 1903.
This Memorandum is published with the consent of
Dr. Parkin in order that wide publicity may be given to
the mode of procedure in the selection of scholars.
The names of the members of the committees who
will supervise examinations and make appointments
in the several states and districts may be learned by
applying to the chairmen above indicated. Dr. Parkim
expects to return to America, early im 1904 to com-
plete arrangements for the first election of scholars,
which will be based upon examinations to be held
between February and May, 1904.
Very respectfully,
ROBERT B. FULTON.
CHANCELLOR?s OFFICE,
UNIVERSITY OF MIssIssIPPI,
Oct. 20, 1903.
18
(^a-e«e/e/ ¢r¢
&*a-a-/- //«?

VOX POPULI
Vol. I. Kal. NOv.
Brewero Bradstreeto
consulibus.
IRENE S. BEIR * — «-*
JULIA L. SAUER
ERIC ALLING - s- e- -
MARGUERITE REED - • s-s
RUTH CRAMER
DAVID OGDEN e-* e- -
Scriptor IPrimus
Scriptor Secundus
& Scriptor
Scriptor ¥
Scriptor
Scriptor
SCIENTIA DAT LUCEM
Quisque in schola felix de mutatione in Vox
Populi audiet: Id iam dudum pars Clarionis
est et in eodem libello cum Clarione sed iam
solum est sine necessitudine cum hoc libello.
Hoc consilium captum est postquam multum
cogitatum erat et optamus omnes iuturum esse
et secundum futurum esse. Multo meliorem
vox Populi faciet et ei opportunitatem cres-
cendi dabit ut proximo anno Latina signa
Edictum consulis de comitiis centuriatis
habendis. Quod bonum felixque sit populo
Romano.
Ego, Willis Bradstreet, consul rei publicae
Romanae edico ante diem tertiutm Nonas
Novembris quae dies comitiis centuriatis futura
sit. Ea die omnes cives Romanos omnium
Ce11tar-
His
ordinum, omnium classium, omnium
similia clarioneis signis dentur,
Magnum discrimen in vita civitatis Romanae
praeterivit et omnes laeti videntur civitatem
iam stare. Plurimi boni cives se cupientes
civitati auxilis esse declaraverunt et pripcipibus
subsidio esse. Tale tempus numquam redeat
et omnes pro i1lis rebus quae civitas perfecerit
gratiam 11abeant et eam ad altiorem locum in
vita nostrae scholae tollant quam ante umquam
occupaverit.
comitiis creabuntur centuriatium duo consules,
iarum in campulum martium convoco.
duo censores, octo praetores. Consul qui haec
edicit, cum populo agit.
Actum ad. undecimum Kal. Nov., Bradstreeto
et Brewero consulibus.
J%
FABULA
Quondam erant duo parvi tirones * qui simul
in locum qui nomine '' altus ludus '' appellatus
iniverunt.
est, Primus tiro semper diligens
fuerat et nunc omnes dies et omnes noctes
*•
studluit. Aliquando voluit aliquid praeter
pensa sua facere posse sed hoc nuinquam
perfecit. Alter tiro numquam diligens fuerat
et nunc omnia praeter ea quae magister ei daret,
egit, Ut primum hic tiro in a1tum ludum
venit, primus erat in omnibus rebus, qui in
1udo suscipiendis erant. Numquam pensum
suum cognovit sed cuique ordini se coniunxit
et otnnibus athleticis. Ita duo tirones quattuor
annos vixit et cum finis venisset, ecce, secundus
tiro gradum suscepit sed primus relictus est!
“ Quo modo id fecisti?” rogavit primus tiro
1n aeste, '* operatus sum diligens qauttuor annos
dum panlum studuisti, tamen non arbitrantur
me satis intellgere ut gradum suscipiam. Cuius
est culpa?''
“ Illud est simplex,'' respondit amicus cum
misericordia.'' Es non idoneus qui gradum
suscipiat. Es solus pensis eruditus. Ego sum
prin1us omnibus athleticis, ego dare oratiouem
possum, drama etiam ego primus sum. Num
potes facere haec omnia? Incipe iterum, mi
care amice, 1mibi crede et fortasse quattuor
annis gradum suscipias.''
Alter dixit 1maeste, '' Fortasse non erras ! '' et
secundus tiro ex alto ludo in perpetuum abivit.
Haec fabula significat non semper eurn tardum
im motumque esse qui certamen vincit.
* Freshmen.
J%
sCHOLAE ARDOR
Ante scholam in conventu omnes qui scholae
Hic
ardorem habeant, cantant et clamitant.
magnissimus labor est et O1nnes miserissimi
sunt quod libellis studere non possunt. H.
Nortonus dux clamoris est laetus vidlens
ferociter gesticulatur. Clamore finito, hic dicit,
“ Facite magniorem clamorem !''
Omnes boni pecuniam donant ut manum
tubarum, tympaniorum et cornum habeant.
Tandem
East High
Scholae cum hominibus Syracusarum in pila
Hae res horribilem strepitum faciunt.
dies venit, quo die undecim viri.
cum pedibus 1usa contendant.
Omnes qui scholae ardorem habeant, ante
scholam congregant et ambulant ad locum ubi
bellum gesturum sit.
Cum unus hominum East High Scholae per
hostem perambulat, H. Nortonus saltat et
clamitat. Omnes cantant.
“ Per campum incedete,
Pugnantes pro East High Schola,
Frangete antiquam Syracusas
Eius roborem contemnete,
Pro viris Sullyae clamabimus
Hic sutnus vincere iterum
Syracusae ad finem pugnent
Sed homines nostri vincent.
Operae pretium est te considerare Popularem
partem. Potestis facile videre omnes eorum
civis de amore rei publicae certare. Nostra
pars habet omnes suos summo loco natos;
omnes oratores, omnes cognitione dignos,
omnes qui in re publica magni habentur.
Denique nostri omnes condidati sunt cives
summo ingenio, scientia, copia. Vobis affirmo
te alias partes fallere, eas bene res gerere non
posse, eas suam fidem et religionem pecunia
commutare. Eorum casum dolemus sed eorum
ammentiam videmus. Nolite eis credere ; sunt
enim homines non vera re sed nomine solo.
DICTA CARA NOSTRIS MAGISTRIS
E. R. C—k. Paululo plus vocis, te amabo.
M. D. G—y.
errores iterum et iterum faciatis.
Non comprehendo cur eosdem
E. M. T—z. Non possum invenire viam qua
haec classis catchupere potest.
W. B—z. Cur est later *?
A. H. W. Primae quattuor partes diei erint
aequa longitudine.
H. F—y. Est clarum non bene
paratum esse.
pensum
E. R. P—e. Est magna res posse stare in
vestris pedibus et dicere quod vultis.
D. M. R —s.
torcm Anglicum in schola hodie esse???! ! !
Nonne audivi te dicere inspec-
R. B—s. Optima Anglica omnium gentium
in Dublino dicitur.
A. McM. Cum ego in Europa essem.
J. M. H. Paulo minor clamor et vos amabo!
O tempora ! O mores ! Syracusae haec
intellexerunt; eorum viri intellexerunt. Ei
tamen venerunt ! Ad nostram urbem venerunt,
ad ruinam nos designaverunt. Ei autem quam-
quam fortes viri fuerunt satis facere scholae
suae visi sunt, si ex nostra urbe cum vitis suis
effugerunt. Ad ruinam Syracusas duci; a
nostris viris duobus annis oportebat. In
Syracusas ruinam contulerunt quam Syracusae
in nos iam diu machimantur.
Cives, velim commemorare rem quae vobis
recordanda est. Libellus, quem duos annos
habimus et qui nos adjuvit ut mores Romanos
melius cognosceremus, paratus est et editus est
parte Equestri. Quod comitia adpropinquant,
multum ardoris se jactat in tribus partibus.
Est certe iustum ut partem adjuvemus qui
plurimum rei publicae causa facit. Postremo
anno Equestris pars vicit. Candidati huius
partis fuerunt nobiles et fide certaverunt ut ad
adeuntia comitia se pararent, principes Equestris
partis fecerunt et agunt omnia quae hoc annum
optimum factura sunt.
Nonne laborabitis civitatis Romanae causa
atque confirmabitis? Tum adjuingate vos
parti Equestri quae honestatem, victoriam et
* Brick.
progressum promovet.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
TIf IE LITERARY SCIf IOLAR
CHAUNCEY WETMORE WELLS
[Reprimted from the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA CHRONicLE, Vol. IX, No. 2]
BERKELEY
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1907
THE LITERARY SCHOLAR.*
CHAUNCEY WETMORE WELLS.
Mr. President, Members amd Friemds of Phi Beta Kappa:
In the most noteworthy address ever delivered to this
society of scholars Emersom defined the scholar as ** mam
thinking.'' This definition took little or mo account of
laboratories and microscopes, to this present age the sym-
bols of scholarship in its most special sense of research and
discovery. It contemplated rather the emlarging amd the
forming of the mind ; neither learning alone, even if stored,
pigeon-holed and labeled, say in a mind like Macaulay's;
nor investigation alone; but a synthesis of these in the ex-
tent and quality of mind in the individual scholar, and in
the use he makes of his acquirements by virtue of these at-
tributes. But it is seventy years since Emersom's promum-
ciamento. And now the natural scienees have eome into
vogue and dominanee, and the ideals and methods of the
natural sciences have invaded evem the field of literaturç
which, in its widest significance, of writtem humam expe.
rience, was the field of Emersom's regard. Accordingly
his definition may seem outworn. To me, On the contrary,
Emerson's utteranee comes with the thrill of very prophecy.
I have an assured belief that one day his idea will goverm
throughout the whole domain of inquiry, because in his
view of it alone is scholarship of any great worth. Now
* Phi Beta Kappa address, delivered at the annual meeting of the
society, in Hearst Hall, October 16, 1906.
4
because I wish to bear witness to this faith I have chosem
my subject from the only quarter in whieh I eam command °,
evidence. And also beeause my strong persuasion is that \
not only are the fairer meadows and the sweeter uplamds in
this regiom, but favored lookouts from which, perhaps best
of all, Emerson's visiom may be realized, I shall speak to
you upon The Literary Scholar.
I.
But yesterday his seemed a lost cause. He was not for-
tified against the scientifie invasiom. He seemed, at least,
to be occupied with elegances and superfluities, and so he
could not well eseape the discredit which Herbert Spenger
in 1860 sought to throw upom the seriousness of his pursuit.
Of belles lettres and of other fine arts Spencer declared
that: “ As they occupy the leisure part of life, so should
they occupy the leisure part of education.'' To the scholar
castimg about in consternatiom for means to Spenger's in-
junctiom, that he make his study scientific, came the anti-
quariam. **Dom't you see,** he said, “that to put your sub-
ject om a dignified basis you must find some way of investi-
gating its phenomena and a rule of classification for them ?
Literature has long been known to be a treasure-house of
curios; let me show you that these have a relation and or-
der. Have you never notieed, for instanee, the expressiom,
frequent in our older literature, ** *ods bodykins'* ? I will
roar you a full lecture hour upom ** 'ods bodykins.'' You
shall see in this poor compound a meacus of Kulturgeschichte
linguistic, artistic, ecclesiastical, social. Furthermore, you'
should begim researches upom origins and sources, the plot
of The Tempest, e.g. What Shakspere did with the plot ?
Oh, yes. But leave that to the dilletante; you are to build
your house of more solid stuff. ** Why, it hath bay-windows
transparemt as barricadoes, amd the clere-stories to the
south- morth, are lustrous as ebony ; amd yet complaînest thont
of obstructiom?”
Eut if his foes are of his own household, the Literary
Scholar is wounded also in the house of his friends. There
are gultivated gentlemen in plenty and of a serious turn,
who drudge at office amd bank and laboratory, to whom .
literature is the sweet of seanty leisure. They are of no
mind to be robbed of it. ** See,*° they say ; ** you have made
a task of what used to be a privilege. The scientists are
right; if you. make a discipline of literature, you make a
treadmill of it; if you study it as matter of research, you
consign your spiritual portion to dictionaries and files, and
* man thinking' is just mam counting. Like Macbeth, you
have “filed* your mimd for an alien's issue.*' Says Mr.
Crothers, that quaint and delieate Ariel, and a Puek for
misehief : ** To seek to understand poetry is a vain ambi-
tion. The part you fully understand is mot poetry.'' And
of course the eorollary is that if we would enjoy poetry, we
should waste no pains upom the study of it. We cam only
reply who believe that in poetry is the chief of all disci-
plines because it is the summit of spiritual endeavors that
we **think nobly of the soul and in no way approve his
opinion.''
Happily, though he has fallem into bad eompamy and
has suffered battery, the Literary Scholar is in a fair way
of rescue in spite of the Levites. He has takem refuge, some-
what tardily, with the historiam and is mow devoting him-
self to tracing literary influences and tendencies. Not that
literary history in the more old-fashioned and conventional
sense has ever been neglected; e.g., the record of literary
periods, the Elizabetham, that of Queen Anne; nor that liter-
ary history in the modern or evolutionary sense is wholly a
discOvery of our own times. But umtil recently we have beem
tOO much concerned with fixing and maintaining standards
Of literary taste,—standards too oftem arbitrary, whimsieal,
of the passing fashion. And we have not been aware of the
Working of literary forces such as gave rise to the pseudo-
classic style in the eighteemth century and the romantie
6.
revolt from it, or such as have produced gemres like the
drama, the novel, the modern lyric. But now to this meW
scent harks all the younger ery. Their chief is Brumetière,
their method is historieal in the most modern sense.
So we have stolem a shaft from Spenger's own quiver.
We have shown that literary remains are true documents of
the humam spirit and the intimate history of mankind, to
trace which is by no meams am amusement for retirèd leisure.
And because the matter is of so delicate a web and the pat-
tern oftem intricate and elusive, we have come to need more
tham ever before men of fine perceptiom, eritical acumen,
and the formative mind.
Still, to regard books as documents is to estimate them
below their real worth. For what is the total value of liter-
ature ? It is its umequaled power to integrate the mimd;
and to be a literary scholar it is more important to know
books and what books are best tham to know how certain
books have come to be. Moreover, the literary scholar is an
appreciator in the noblest sense; and for his discipline one
mode is evem more necessary tham the exercise of eritical
judgment. It should be plain, for the formula is trite,
though it seems not to be understood, that literature is
art. It follows that literary appreciation has two compo-
nents: artistie realizatiom, and the appraisal of values;
and that without the former the latter is but rooted in
barrem soil. Yet we go about our training and research as
if literary realization were to be come at indirectly and inci-
dentally. And so where our study is not historical or anti-
quariam, but in any degree aesthetic, it is a setting up of
literary canons and a eriticism by the use of them, and not
what it should be—growth in the knowledge that literature
is matter of the mind born into form. Sueh growth is
the true integration of the literary scholar. This alone cam
give amy value, or bearing evem, to literary Criticism. Nay,
to foster this growth to its fruitiom is verily to produce
** mam thinking.?” Therefore it is my thesis: that the true
;7
mode of the literary scholar is artistie realizatiom, the true
end of his discipline and the right and imclusive object of
his researéhes. -
II.
To come at the subject roundabout, we are all familiar
with De Quincey's famous distinction between books of
knowledge or instructiom, and books of power, or literature
—books in which ** we are made to feel vividly and with a
vital consciousness emotions which Ordinary life rarely or
never supplies occasiom for exciting.''*
Or in more modern terms, literature like the kindred
arts has for its object the expression of **emotional ideas'';
not in determined proportioms either fixed or in regular
variety, intellectiom so much and emotion so much ; not in
separable parts of emotiom amd intellection ; but emotion
and intellection commingled at the very dawm of the idea in
the artist's mind, mingled as the life of conscious being is
mingled, truly mingled and mot composite. But let us state
the idea, since it is fundamental, in still a third way.
**Poetry,” says Mr. George Woodberry, in a flash of in-
sight, **is all history could never be.** And it is not illog-
ical to add—literature is all experience would attain to.
Literature is everywhere a concentration, in some degree,
of experience; in its highest it is a sublimatiom. Of course
not every concentration of experience into words is litera-
ture, yet when experience which is in itself am unclarified
content of thoughts, feelings and choices is clarified by
means of words and coined into phrases, them literature has
its beginnings. To determine, therefore, what is needed im-
order to an artistie realizatiom of literature, we must
first determine in what degrees this concentration of expe-
rience, this eoimage into phrase, takes place. These I be-
lieve to be three: (1) the proverbial, (2) the eloquent, amd
(3) the imaginative.
* Letters to a Young Man.
To be sure, these degrees are not historical. Historically
literature really begins with the episode or a spam of hu-
mam action seem in its entirety from beginning to end. It
passes to anecdote and fable and parable, to some moral
use, in short, or guide for conduct in happenings real or
feigned. And so by one more step in the same series arises
imaginative literature, the illusion of reality, of the sup-
posed actual, in which the moral is present by inference.
Historically literature begins rather with saga than with
saw. Yet not, I think, consciously so. Consciously what
was Smelted in experience is first minted in phrase by the
common mind in the form of adage and maxim. This is
eopper eoimage. ** Fair and softly goes far,'' says Saneho
Panza, who stands for the rude intellect with its half
childish turn for generalizing. So speaks Mrs. Poyser, so
Hardy's peasants when they would add a cubit to their
mental stature, so the grave digger in Hamlet, and so in
topsy-turvy speaks Dogberry. Proverb, it would seem, is
thus below the level De Quineey fixes for literature.
But though 'tis literary pence, it bears the superscrip-
tion of kings: ** A soft answer turneth away wrath, but
grievous words stir up anger,'' says the Hebrew wisdom.
And Burns:
Oh, wad sae power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
And Shakspere:
To thine owm self be true;
And it must follow as the might the day
Thou camst not them be false to amy mam.
This “wisdom,'* incidental in Shakspere, yet detaehable
and quotable, is the least of Shakspere; yet by it he shows
kinship with the common mind; and no mam may : deny it
to be literature.
Still the Shaksperean wisdom is generally set in an
imaginative frame; so with exceptions and in its own way
is the Goetheam. Proverb, however, has a literature of its
9
owm, both prose and verse, of whieh Baeon and Pope are
the great exemplars in English. Now the very heart of
proverb, thät by which it concentrates experienee, is pru-
dential wisdom. It has a wider compass than prudence, but
prudence is its centre, as furnishing am immediate and prae-
tical rule for every-day conduct. That is why Baeon's
Essays seem umemotional ideas, to read which is as purely
an intellectual exercise as anything in literature eam be.
Yet the Essays do not lack a very delicate emotiom not to
be graduated by scale yet traceable by the measured footing
in the exact economies of the style, as certainly as the flinty
heat of Pope's mind is traceable in his couplets. Let Bacom
speak first :
** He that is only real had need have exceeding great
parts of virtue, as the stome had need to be rich that is set
without foil. But if a mam mark it well, it is in praise and
commendation of men as it is in gettings and gains; for the
proverb is true, That light gaims make heavy purses, for
light gains come thick, whereas great come but now and
then ; so it is true that small matters win great eommenda-
tion because they are continually in use and mote, whereas
the occasiom of any great virtue cometh but om festivals.
Therefore it doth much add to a man's reputatiom, and is
(as Queem Isabella said) like perpetual letters commenda-
tory to have good forms.''*
Bacon is capable of higher matters, yet this represents
mot unfairly his proverbial style, founded im prudential
wisdom and so of am intellectual sequence, but varied and
exquisitely heightened by a severe, an almost unapparent
emotion. And Pope's style also is founded in prudential
wisdom and every-day philosophy:
* * Am honest man's the noblest work of God. ? ? . . . .
** Be mot the first by whom the mew is tried ,
Nor yet the last to east the old aside.??
* Of Ceremonies and Respects.
10
** Nothing so true as what you omce let fall,
* Most women have mo charaeters at all. ? ? ? . . . .
**Ladies like variegated tulips show;
'Tis to their changes half their eharms we owe;
Eine by defect amd delicately weak,
Their happy spots the mice admirer take;
*Twas thus Calypso onee each heart alarmed,
Awed without virtue; without beauty charmed.''
Only the emotional heightenimg if not the varying is more
apparent in Pope tham in Bacon because his is a mimd more
heated, more caustic and virulent, shrewd, even shrewish.
So in Pope, the archetype, did adage become didactie poem
as in the archetype, Bacon, adage became essay ; and these
forms, let the pattern have continuity and trend, are the
typical prose concentrations of experience.
They are typically prose because their way is to draw
inferences from experience, to generalize, amd again, the
emotional infusiom is too slight to be registered by any
quickening of pulses. Yet prose allows such an intensify-
ing, if only the fundamental sequence be one of thought
and not of feeling, and if only the feeling be in the
right proportion. This kind is the eloquent. Its charac-
teristie office is to persuade and its special provinee is ora-
tory ; but eloquence overpasses the boundaries of oratory
and quite without trespass occupies wide borders in essay
and novel amd even in poem and play. Its recognized fune-
tiom, I said, is to persuade. Primarily it moves to action,
and in orations, and in certaim poems, of which ** Scots wha
hae wi Wallace bled** is the example, an immediate action
is almost certainly in view. But in a secondary form elo-
quence purposes mo definite action ; resultant action is either
distant by one or more removes, and so mediated and ob-
scure; or the desired action is seem to be impossible and
eloquenee becomes pathetie, plaintive with regret. But al-
ways some persuasion elings about eloquence even if it in-
tends no specifie action. It is in this second form the more
diffused and pervasive as a literary energy and takes On
11
the forms of prose or poetry mainly in the measure of emo-
tional intemsity. In this guise eloquence is am attaching to
general truth or proverb a recognized emotion or fusiom of
emotions—let it be joy, sorrow, love, hate, hope, regret—
whose presence in a given passage is first known by verse
rhythm or prose rhythm, a registered quickening of the
literary pulse. Hear the prudent Bacon, his voice lifted by
his emotion into lovely eademce:
“Why should a mam be im love with his fetters, though
of gold ? Art thou drowned in security ? Them I say that
thou art perfectly dead. For though thou movest, yet thy
soul is buried withim thee, and thy good angel either for-
sakes his guard or sleeps. There is nothing under heavem,
savimg a true friend (who cammot be counted withim the
mumber of moveables), unto which my heart doth leam.
And this dear freedom hath begottem in me this peaee, that I
mourn not for that end which must be, mor spemd one wish
to have one minute added to the uncertain date of my
years.*** -
Burns is the typical poet in this sort :
Them let us pray that come it may,
As eome it will for a? that,
That sense and worth o'er a? the earth
Shall bear the gree, for a? that.
Eor a? that and a? that,
It's eomim? yet for a? that,
That mam to mam the world o°er
Shall brothers be, for a? that.
Indeed, what marks Burns most surely as a poet of the
second rank is that the eloquent, not the imaginative, pre-
dominates in his verse. Typieally by eloquenee speak Ar-
nold and Clough. So speak Tennyson and Browning, but
not at their greatest, not charaeteristically. So at times
speak all poets even of the first order, Chaucer perhaps
more tham any of his equals.
* Of Death, Second Essay.
12
Wel cam the Wyse poete of Floremee
That highte Dant, spekem in this sentemce;
Lo in swich maner rym is Dante's tale—
** Ful selde upriseth by his branches smale
Prowesse of mam; for God of his goodnesse,
Wol that of him we clayme our gemtellesse.'*
And I know mot in what single verse we shall fimd more of
pathetie eloquence, a more movimg ** complaint unto pity,''
tham in this from the Wife of Bath's Prologue:
Allas, allas, that ever love was simne.
Shakspere and : Milton, though their preference is for the
imaginative, are full of persuasive passages and speeial
pleadings, and Shakspere as full of eloquence as of proverb.
But imaginative writing is as different as possible from
the proverbial and the eloquent. We saw how the eloquent
differed from the proverbial by excess of emotiom, and that
both were grounded in generalization, as if the essence of
life were to be got by distillation. The imaginatiom never
eoneentrates experienee in this way. Its way is to merge
am uncounted multitude of experienees into one experienee.
Further, it marks that experience as representative, for
every unit of the merged multitude is present in the one
experience, without loss but of umprofitable details. Still
further is the one experience marked as signifieant, for it
contains the gist, the upshot of the entire multitude. Thus
imaginative truth, like proverbial truth, is general; but it
is a chief glory of the imaginative that it saves the actual
and humam in experienee, whereas the proverbial, be it a
sermon or system, no matter how eloquent, wastes it, ter-
ribly and inevitably. Imaginative concentration is a real
eoneentration—it is a synthesis, a sublimation.
In this way the imaginative presents us the illusiom of
the world as perceived, a world apparently of desires and
volitions; yet a World reasoned from cause to consequence,
as strictly eonceived as perceived. In a strict sense, it deals
with emotional ideas. Intellect completely transfused with
* Tale of the Wyf of Bath.
13
emotiom, but never blurred by it; intellect obedient to the
impulses of emotion and prompt to its occasions, but never
led astray by it, neverthwarted in its view of the beginning
and the emd, the compass of the experience—that is the
imagination, that is the attitude of mimd creating. It fol-
lows that imaginative constructions though based in the
pure intellect, spring into air, take shape, at the eall of the
emotions; the sequences, the constructive lines are percept-
ual and not intellectual.
Let me mow exhibit the progress of an idea at first al-
most purely intellectual, its change amd final transformation
by degrees of emotional infusiom, then of transfusiom and
eontrol. Let Baeon speak, again proverbially :
“Mem fear death as childrem fear to go into the dark—
but the fear of it as a tribute due unto nature is weak.''°
This idea has a pure intellectual content mot greatly
different from the familiar stanza of Gray :
IFor who to dumb forgetfulness a prey
This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor east one longing, lingering look behimd?
Truly eloquent, truly persuasive, the abstract idea warmed
by a rich emotional infusion, in particular by the image in
the last two lines. Indeed, it is this image which finally
holds the attention beeause it almost absorbs the idea. So
We have the eloquent just upon the point of passing over
into the imaginative. But let us hear the great passage
which probably lay near the surfaee of Gray's memory
when he wrote the lines I have quoted from the Elegy.
** For who,'' pleads Belial, in the great debate in Pande-
monium :
. . . . For who would lose
Though full of pain this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that Wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide Womb of umereated night,
Devoid of sense and motiom?
* Of Death, First Essay.
14
Truly imaginative, the idea now become image, from which,
if the lines be taken by themselves and apart from their
argumentative context, persuasiom, special pleading, has all
but fallem away. There sweeps a great imagination upom
strong, level wings. But let us see the greatest of the great-
est mount circle above circle of victorious flight:
Isabella: What says my brother?
Claudio: Death is a fearful thing.
Isabella : Amd shamèd life a hateful.
Claudio : Ay, but to die amd go we kmow not where:
To lie in gold obstructiom and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to beeome
A kmeaded clod: and the delighted spirit
To bathe im fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regioms of thick ribbèd ice;
To be imprisomed im the viewless Wimds,
And blowm with restless violemce round about
The pendent world.
I close this review with the famous passage from Meas-
wre for Measure, the most splendid I know, partly because
it shows how the imaginative both includes the proverbia]
and transcends the eloquent. But the whole excursus shows
what are the constructive processes or sequences of mimd
in the making of literature in any of its degrees. I wish
to emphasize what scholarship seems careful to neglect,
that literature is ultimately not the product of forees his-
torical or linguistie, forees that build blindly as a coral reef
is builded, without dominant purpose. But literature is the
fashioming of the making mind in which the whole was be-
fore the parts, the whole of which the parts are but deriva-
tives. The supreme task of the Literary Scholar is, there-
fore, mot the scientifie investigation of the parts, but the
artistic realization of the whole. And I say again that
artistic realization is the true emd of literary discipline and
the right and inclusive object of literary research.
15
III.
What, them, is literary realization ; what discipline does
it imply ; what special knowledge and what synthesis of
knowledge does it command; and finally, what importance
has it for mam thinking?
To realize literature is, in the first place, to see it **in
its habit as it lived'' in the maker's mimd, to trace pari
passw with the maker the constructive process—the lines of
sequence and the proportions. In essay and argument, as
we saw, the type of concentration is abstract; the sequence
is therefore intellectual, and so must the realization of that
sequence be an intellectual process. Not so the realization
of proportions. This is more oftem emotional, the perception
of the maker's personality in circumambient flame about
the bare idea, heightening or restraiming its appeal, lending
to the bare idea its distinetive worth. In epie, drama, and
novél, in lyrie poem, the type of eoneentration is imagina-
tive, and the realizatiom both of sequence and of proportiom
is perceptive; or, stated more liberally, imaginative, since
in this form the idea becomes clearer to the understanding
as it grows more and more apparent to the perceptions. But
there is no way to understand play, poem, or novel but to
perceive it as a cumulative series in place and time building
the maker's conceptiom, a series fashiomed of happenings
and images and varied by proportiomate quantities of these
even more tham by the infused emotion of the writer.
In this way poetry may be understood, fully understood
(pace Mr. Crothers), but poetic meaming may never be ade-
quately stated in abstract because poetic structure, par eac-
cellence, is imaginative structure and sequence. Nay, the
poetie idea of which the poetic structure is derived, that,
too, is imaginative and so cannot in the proverbial way be
generalized. How the conceptiom lay in the maker's mind
is seem in what mold he cast it.
Implicit at least in literary realization is the appraisal
16
of value both technical and moral, the eonformity to canon
and decalogue; literary judgment arises spontameously in
the mind along with literary perception and understanding,
is a part, indeed, of literary understanding. Now in this
we have erred,—that we have preoccupied our minds too
exclusively with rules of art and of eonduct, forgetful that
rules of art, amd in a measure of eonduct too, suffer repeated
revisiom with the accumulating experiemce of mamkind. If
**the tem commandments do mot budge,'' the three unities,
at least, have all but moved off the ground ; and whether
im technique or in conduct the presumptiom is that the artist
by so mueh as he is am artist, and not merely a eraftsmam,
has something new to say. Be sure that we shall mot come
at his message by definitions, but by following the lines of
his construction. Judgment shall command learming and
the higher categories, as in Coleridge and Lessing, but it
shall wait upon realization as in Sainte Beuve.
So we eannot altogether separate realization of form
from judgment of worth, since judgment of worth concerns
the thing to be realized and the realization itself. To state
it at last in firm definition, the realization of literature is
the perception of form as the revelation of meaning: The
meaming is revealed mot through the form, but ίη the form;
the meaming informns. Otherwise literature is mot literature,
but dexterity and technique, amd evem as technique is but
shadowy and shifting: one builds of stone and girder, not
of vapor. No, the meaming of the book is the motif of the
book, the moving and efficient cause of it. By force of this
the Writer lays hold upom experiemce, concentrates it and
fashions it to the mold of his mimd, in the way of his gifts,
his preferenees and habits, and aecording to the prevailing
modes of his time and country. But always he does con-
centrate experience amd fashion his concentration, really
creates it a living meaming with members, features amd mo-
tions. How, them, may we come to know it or to judge it
but as fashioned and artieulate?
17
Such is the artistie value of literature, not its technical
value, mor, again, its abstraet value; for the meaning or
moral of any book is the significance of life to the artist at
the creative moment. We demand that the significance
shall be mormal, shall eonform to eanon and deealogue, and
we eall the art great as it is significant of great ideas, but
always we test the significamce not as cold abstract but as
realized im art. That is why it oftem happens that a book
whose moral hypothesis is relatively low rises to a moral
issue relatively high. Thus Tam. O 'Shanter and The Jolly
Beggars, eæ©ewlywkwlweldwg-) are better poetry
tham ** For a* that amd a? that**; they are more powerful
concentrations of experience, they have a more abundant
and various emergy, their reach is farther; in a word, they
are more greatly realized. Now the power to know litera-
ture after this way is meither the power to abstract litera-
ture, mor skill in the eunning of technique; but it is the
power to perceive literature in its form as a meaming re-
vealed, as experience significant to the artist at the creative
moment; it is artistie realizatiom.
If, them, the sequences of mimd, the constructive pro-
cesses, of Writer and of reader are exactly similar, I say
that the ehief discipline of a Literary Scholar is artistie
discipline. And by artistie discipline I meam, first of all,
literary training both in original and in critical Writing.
The Literary Scholar is in his degree a mam of letters. His
mind seeks always to express itself either imaginatively or
by what I have defined as the proverbial and eloquent. To
him the first prompting of literary knowledge is always a
sort of literary activity or reactivity. How shall he wim to
know literature as it is, I meam as concentrated experience,
if he have neither wit mor art to concentrate his own expe-
rience? Books, it is a solemn truth, have no value for us but
as related to our own experience, and he relates them best
who knows how to value his oWm experience at the summit
of its possibilities; and who but the artist knows this? Still
TN


18
the Literary Scholar is not always ereative, not certaim to
express himself im poem or appreciative essay ; but at the
lowest he is re-creative. As he reads he builds again the
Dîvîne Comedy, Hamlet, Paradise Lost, rearing the arches
upom lines the master builders laid, and thus he builds
Dante and Shakspere and Milton into his mind. By in-
stinet and by habit his characteristie effort is synthetie and
artistic ; and such should be his discipline. He is to be
taught to make the most of what literary faculty he pos-
sesses; he isto be taught to view literature not as documents,
not as forms, not assphilosophies,-but-as structures of the
shaping mind.
But he has Other and tributary disciplimes, he com-
mands other knowledge tham artistie knowledge. For to
know Hamlet from its centre to its limits is to know Shak-
spere's imaginative bent, his distinctive way of concen-
tratimg experiemce ; it is also to know all that fed his
poetic emergies; it is to know all contemporary influence,
the intellectual and social mîlîew; it is to know all history
of mem, of thought and of art and of language that fell
withim his scope, as well as that forgottem history that
stirred in him as instinct; it is to know, in sum, all that
Shakspere's mimd subdued; yes, it is even to know ** 'ods
bodykins.'' But see how we blunder when we make this
sort of knowledge not tributary but primary, when we set
as the great task and test of a scholar that he shall know
Shakspeream bricks and mortar, stresses and strains, and mot
Shakspere the artificer of cloud-eapped towers and gorgeous
palaces.
Yet, thus it is that literature resolves all knowledges,
subdues them as gross materials to the structures of the
mind; all knowledges and all experiences it renders subject
and subservient to its revelations. Revelation ! The imag-
ination alone is truly apocalyptie, and to convince the
imagination truly and profoundly is the great achievement.
Let be the ** argument about it and about''; save by elo-

4
quemce it lends meither impulse nor effective guidamce to
Gonduct. We aet, we must aet, in •eeewdewesmwię oup^
imaginative grasp of the world—we hope and fear, „®;.
lieve and love by the imaginatiom, and we will to attaim
mainly im the degree that imagination lifts into view the
objects of our desires. Thus does literature liberate the
mam from the clay, that it sets his imagination free, gives
it poise and ramge; thus in the supreme sense is the Literary
Scholar ** mam thinking.”
19 μ}*^
l 'o
[Preprinted from the School Review, November, I9o8, and distributed as the October
leaflet of the New England Association of Teachers of English.]
NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS OF
ENGLISH
REPORT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON ENTRANCE
REQUIREMENTS
PROFESSOR H. G. PEARSON, M.I.T., Chaîrmam
MARTHA T. BENNETT, Dana Hall, Wellesley
ANDREW H. WARD, Milton Academy
Committee
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE JOINT OR NATIONAL CONFERENCE
ON ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS IN ENGLISHI, WITH ESPECIAL
REFERENCE TO THE CONFERENCE OF I9o8
Any fair-minded teacher who has considered at all carefully
the development of the study of English in the past twenty years
must admit at the outset of any discussion that our present
troubles, however difficult to meet, are far less complicated than
those overcome. The distracting conditions incident to a lack
of uniformity in college entrance requirements, conditions which
seriously hampered effective class work in secondary schools,
have been greatly improved by the establishment of a uniform
entrance requirement. Moreover, the uncertainty attending the
varying interpretation of this uniform requirement by the eX2l1I1-
iners of individual colleges has been practically obviated by the
establishment of the College Entrance Examination Board. By
these means much of the lack of definition which formerly made
our teaching difficult has been remedied.
For these improved conditions, thanks are due principally to
three agencies: the New England Commission of Colleges on
Entrance Requirements, the National Education Association, and
the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the
Middle States and Maryland. In 1888 the New England Com-
mission of Colleges, in its work of establishing some degree of
I
2 NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH
uniformity in entrance requirements, set a list of books for read-
ing as the preparation for the examination in English. In going
about this work, the commission used the method of investigation
since employed in every important handling of entrance require-
ments—the now familiar “conference'' made up of representa-
tives from colleges and preparatory schools.
The plan finally adopted in I892 by the National Education
Association, after wide discussion of the whole confused subject
of entrance requirements, was based upon this New England
plan. This association appointed the now memorable Committee
of Ten, to which it gave power to call conferences of persons
whose position and reputation entitled them to be called experts
in some one study in the preparatory schools, every section,
interest, and school of thought to be represented. It was this
method of inquiry which gave lasting value to the work of the
committee. •
The Conference on English met at Vassar College in De-
cember, I892, and organized with Mr. Samuel Thurber as chair-
man, and Professor George L. Kittredge as secretary. Upon the
principles laid down in the report of this conference have been
based practically all subsequent efforts to systematize and unify
work in English. Yet as we study the wise and far-reaching
suggestions there embodied, the high standards erected, and con-
trast them with the results attained after fifteen years of con-
scientious effort to live up to these ideals, we wonder whether,
by emphasizing tOO much certain suggestions, we have not
blurred the intention of the whole. The conference, in deliver-
ing its report, must have wished to add, in self-defense, the words
of Captain Cuttle: “The bearings of these remarks lies in the
applications of 'em.” It may be worth while, at the outset of an
effort to see clearly present conditions, to summarize at length
the conclusions embodied in the report before passing to our
“applications” of them.*
* The order of this summary does not accord with that of the report ;
separated suggestions have been brought together, and the language is only in
part that of the original. Nevertheless, it is believed that the changes made in
arrangement and phrasing in no way misrepresent the position of the conference.
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS 3
The main objects of the teaching of English in schools seem
to be two: (I) to enable the pupil to understand the expressed
thoughts of others and to give expression to thoughts of
his own; (2) to cultivate a taste for reading, to give the
pupil some acquaintance with good literature, and to furnish
him with the means of extending that acquaintance. In
composition work the pupil should from the earliest years be
encouraged to furnish his own material, expressing his own
thoughts in a natural way, the exercises to be practical rather
than technical. As early as possible material for narration and
description should be suggested by the pupil's observation or
personal experience. Throughout the school course composi-
tion should be taught by unremitting practice accompanied by
careful and appropriate criticism. Every thought which the
pupil expresses, whether orally or on paper, should be regarded
as a proper subject for criticism as to language. Thus every
lesson in geography or mathematics may and should become a
part of the pupil's training in English. There can be no more
appropriate moment for a brief lesson in expression than the
moment when the pupil has something which he is trying to ex-
press. Grammar and rhetoric should both be taught, but in the
main incidentally and in close relation with the work of the
pupil himself and the works he reads. Formal grammar should
not be taught before the thirteenth year of the pupil's life; the
main principles should then be laid down in a year's course of
three hours a week. Formal rhetoric should be presented in a
one-year elementary course in the third year of the high school,
but the work done beforehand in composition should have been
such as to make such a course a codification of principles already
supplied in practice. Especial care should be taken that rhetoric
is not studied by itself and for itself. The conference “does
not contemplate an examination in formal rhetoric for admission
to college.”
In the high-school work in literature the pupil should read
certain masterpieces not fewer in number than the list set by the
New England Commission; such books each to represent so far
as possible some period, tendency, or type of literature, the whole
4 NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH
number to represent with as few gaps as possible the course of
English literature from the Elizabethan to the present day; of
these a considerable number to be of a kind to be read by the
student cursorily and by himself; a limited number may be read
in the classroom under the direction of the teacher. Parallel
and subsidiary reading is to be encouraged, and the investigation
of pertinent questions in literary history and criticism. Frequent
tests should be given upon the books read alone and upon the
parallel reading and the investigation above mentioned, the
objects being threefold: (I) to bring out the pupil's knowledge;
(2) to test his ability to methodize his knowledge; (3) to test
his ability to write clearly and concisely. The conference “doubts
the wisdom of requiring for admission to colleges set essays
(e. g., on the books prescribed)—essays the chief purpose of
which is to test the pupil's ability to write English. It believes
there are serious theoretical and practical objections to estimat-
ing a student's power to write a language On the basis of a theme
composed not for the sake of expounding something that he
knows or thinks, but merely for the sake of showing his ability
to write.” The alternative suggested is questions upon subsidiary
reading in literary history or upon definite passages taken from
the books read.
History of English literature is to be taught incidentally ;
mechanical use of manuals of literature is to be avoided. In
the fourth year of the high school an attempt may be made to
give the pupil a view of our literature as a whole, but this
instruction should accompany a chronologically arranged se-
quence of authors. The history of the English language cannOt
perhaps at present (I893) be taught extensively in the high
schools, but the conference recommends (I) a study of the
history and geography of the English race so far as these
illustrate the development of the language; (2) phonetics, tO
give a clear idea of the general causes giving English the
peculiar value of its vowel symbols; (3) word-composition;
(4) elements of English vocabulary to illustrate the political,
social, intellectual, and religious development of the race;
(5) changes in the meaning of words, to be taught incidentally.
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS 5
The high School may deal with dialects and literary language and
with decay of inflections. ,
Perhaps, to emphasize the wisdom of the conference it would
have been well to put the last group of recommendations in a
less conspicuous position. To those of us who have wrestled
with the problem of imparting knowledge of the most rudi-
mentary kind to the average high-school pupil, the ideal suggested
in the above list makes us long for the official recognition of
what Lord Acton calls, “a rational possible end, limited by many
antagonistic claims, and confined to what is reasonable, practi-
cable, and just.” Yet it is surely clear that the intention visible
everywhere in the report is that teaching should not be divorced
from common-sense, that the teacher should be the judge of
what is possible under existing conditions. One may add, more-
over, that branches called by even such high-sounding names may
be bent down by a helpful hand until even a very small person
may gather the fruit. •
It was clearly intended that the pupil should learn to read
books primarily because a reading habit is a pleasant and profit-
able thing. This fact is apparent in spite of the suggestion not
summarized, that references should be traced and difficult pass-
ages understood. It was as evidently intended that composition
.should be a natural expression of the pupil's thought, not a
rehash of the books read. It was nowhere assumed or set down
that examinations should be confined to a printed list of books,
or that proficiency to express himself on the subject-matter of
these books should be the test of the pupil's skill in composition.
It is a consideration of these things which leads one to wonder
whether in a search for a “rational possible end,” certain sug-
gestions of the committee have not been overemphasized, with
a result quite different from that which was designed.
Such were the principles laid down by the report of the
Vassar Conference of the Committee of Ten; it remained for
sOme agency to put these ideals into operation, or, at least, to
make choice among them, to hit upon some plan which should
offer a definite working basis for uniformity. Such action was
taken in I893 by the Association of the Colleges and Preparatory
6 NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS OF. ENGLISH
Schools of the Middle States and Maryland, the third agency to
which teachers of English are indebted. This association, at
the suggestion of President Seth Low, appointed a committee
to investigate the question of uniform entrance requirements
in English. This committee, composed of five college and five
preparatory school representatives, met in New York in Febru-
ary, 1894, and sent out circulars of inquiry to about one hundred
colleges and four hundred preparatory schools in New England
and the middle states. The answers brought out the facts that
the schools demanded a substantially uniform standard, and
declared that, whatever course the middle states adopted, it
must at least not conflict with the procedure in New England.
As a result of the desire for co-operation with New England,
the first joint conference on entrance requirements in English,
which met in Philadelphia in May, I894, was composed of the
committee of the Middle States Association, of delegates from
the New England Commission of Colleges (Professor Win-
chester, Professor Cook, and Deam Briggs), and of delegates
from the New England Association of Colleges and Preparatory
Schools (Mr. Tetlow and Mr. Collar). This Conference of I894
and the succeeding Conference of I895 prepared the way for the
adoption of the uniform requirements which, with slight varia-
tions, have since been retained. The action taken, which was
based on the suggestions of the Vassar Conference of the Com-
mittee of Ten, was conservative, practical, and definite. The list
of books required by the New England Commission of Colleges
was adopted, but the books were arranged in two groups, one for
reading, one for study and practice. In accordance with the
demand of the schools for a stable requirement, the list was
fixed for three years. Rhetoric was pronounced “useful, but
too hard and inflexible for a good examination test;'' correction
of “bad English,” it was voted, should be excluded from the
examinations. -
It will be noted that the work of this conference and of suc-
ceeding conferences is based upon one assumption, the use of a
fixed list of English masterpieces as a basis of the work in
literature and composition. No matter what the changes in the
STANDING COMMITTEE ON EN TRANCE REQUIREMENTS 7
makeup of the conferences, no matter how diverse, in the course
of years, were the interests represented, this assumption remained
the same. It dominated the entire treatment of the study of
English and brought forth a distinct method both of study and of
examination. This method possessed conveniences that for some
years showed as real advantages. The merits of system, of a
fixed quantity of work, of a task which, in one aspect, at least,
was perfectly definite,- the advantages of giving a student a first-
hand acquaintance with literature, of a clearly recognized bOdy
of subjects for theme work, of convenient texts to work with—
all these were apparent at the first. Nevertheless, as the years
went on and divergent interests were represented in the con-
ferences, the difficulties of adjustment under the system became
onerous. In I895 a third section of the country was represented
by a delegate from the Conference of the Teachers of English
of the north-centra1 states; in I897 delegates from the Associa-
tion of Colleges and Preparatory Schools in the southern states
were admitted. The conference at that time consisted of the
delegates from the middle states and Maryland, from the South-
ern Association of Schools and Colleges, from the North
Central Association of Teachers of English, and of delegates
from two New England bodies—the New England Association
of Colleges and Preparatory Schools, and the New England
Commission of Colleges on Entrance Examinations. This constit-
uency maintained itself in all the conferences up to I905, except
that in I9O2 the delegates from the north-central section were sent
by the recently formed Association of Colleges and Preparatory
Schools. In all the conferences up to I9o5 action was directed
mainly toward clearer definition of requirements and careful
revision of the lists for required reading. Even a casual glance
through the list from I895 to I9o5 will show how steadily the
sorting-out process went om, and will suggest how consistently the
objections of teachers resulted in the dropping of certain books.
In looking back Over these years, one sees clearly the value
of these conferences. The unifying force, the responsibility
voluntarily assumed by the men who composed them, the high
character of the delegates, the dignity of the interests represented
8 NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH
—all these things make of great importance this movement
started by the foresight and energy of the Association of Col-
leges and Preparatory Schools of the Middle States and Mary-
land. In a time of confusion and inaction this association acted,
and acted with promptness and high intelligence, an intelligence
in nothing more conspicuously shown than in securing the co-
operation of other bodies important in the educational interests of
the country. «
In I9o5, however, the conference lost something of its rep-
resentative character by the absence of the delegates from the
New England Commission on Entrance Examinations, this com-
mission having, since the successful organization of the College
Entrance Examination Board, suspended its work. The repre-
sentatives from the Commission of Colleges had from the first
been a constituent part of the conferences and had brought to
the movement the high dignity of the colleges represented by
them. It was this Conference of I9o5 that adopted the elastic
“open list” of forty books for reading in place of the definite
ten of the former requirements. This change and the resulting
action in New England merely emphasize the difficulties of
reconciling the conflicting interests heretofore represented.
Those parts of the country where examinations were of little
importance had raised a cry of relief from the restricted list of
books; it was they who had asked for an “open'' list that should
provide a greater range of books for the jaded teacher to choose
from. The examining colleges, on the other hand, had found
that the system had a deadly effect on the training in composition,
and on the ability of students to understand and appreciate litera-
ture. In their judgment the “open list'' merely increased the
difficulties of examination without in any way remedying the
fundamental objection. This change, then, made in I9o5, to
satisfy the demands of the non-examining constituency, made the
discontent of the other constituency still more active, especially
since the important examining interests had had no part in bring-
ing about the change. t
The dissatisfaction that was felt in this part of the country at
the modifications made by the National Conference of I9o5 soon
STANDING COMMITTEE ON EN TRANCE REQUIREMENTS 9
took form in the organization of a Conference of the New Eng-
land Colleges on Entrance Requirements in English. This body
was the legitimate successor of the Commission of New England
Colleges on Entrance Examinations, which had suspended its
activities, and it represented as authoritatively the interests of
the examining colleges. The immediate result of this action
was that most of the colleges made important modifications in
the list presented by the National Conference of I9o5, and the
long-desired uniformity became, as far as New England was
concerned, a thing of the past. This body prepared recommenda-
tions of a radical character to be presented to the Conference
of I9o8, the general tenor of which was that less emphasis
should be put on minute study of texts and more emphasis on
composition. Further evidence of dissatisfaction was given by
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which threw over
altogether the list of books and adopted a requirement of work
in composition on non-literary subjects, with “sight questions''
to test a student's power of understanding and appreciating
literature. The final expression of the desire of New England
that its peculiar needs have more effective representation in the
National Conference was the action of the New England Asso-
ciation of Teachers of English, which appointed delegates to go
to New York at the time of the meeting of the Conference of
I9o8, and to make application for membership on behalf of this
association.
The presence at this Conference of I9o8, which was held in
New York on February 2I and 22, of delegates from these two
new bodies from New England, in addition to the regular dele-
gates from the New England Association of Colleges and Prep-
aratory Schools, and the application for membership made by
these two bodies brought out strikingly the peculiarities of
organization that have been inherent in the Joint or National
Conference from the beginning. It is a voluntary association
composed of delegates from associations which are themselves
voluntary, and which, moreover, concern themselves with English
only as it is one of many matters that come under their care.
It has therefore no constitution, no permanent officers or organi-
IO NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH
zation, and no authority. The result of its deliberations is
expressed in a vote that a certain requirement “be recommended
to the constituent bodies for adoption.” This is the extent of its
power. So long, however, as the New England colleges were
represented on the conference through delegates from their
Commission on Entrance Examinations, they accepted its report
at once, and confirmed its action as substantially their require-
ment. Naturally, therefore, in this part of the country, if not
elsewhere, the action of the conference had weight. The
Organization representing the New England colleges at New
York last February was, as has just been noted, to al1 intents and
purposes the legitimate successor of the Commission of Colleges
on Entrance Examinations; yet it had to appear as an outsider,
and to ask for admission as if the institutions that it represented
had never had any standing in the conference. After consider-
able discussion the delegates representing the New England
colleges were admitted—or re-admitted. As for the delegates
from the New England Association of Teachers of English, they
were invited to take part in the deliberations, but were not given
the right to vote. (It is hardly necessary to add that your
delegates were made heartily welcome and treated with the
utmost courtesy.) These instances are cited to show that owing
to the intermittent organization which the conference maintains,
its composition when it meets must be more or less subject to
temporary questions of expediency. It is true that, with three
delegations from New England on its hands, the Conference of
I9o8 had had a perplexing problem to deal with. That, however,
is not the point. The significant thing is that, in such circum-
stances it had absolutely no guidance from established and
recognized principles. By way of making a good end to this
aspect of the conference, let it be noted that at this meeting the
necessary preliminary steps were taken for remedying this un-
certain condition of affairs.
From the beginning of the sessions of this conference, it was
manifest that a desire for change was in the air. The individual
members in their daily experience as teachers had already been
brought face to face with the fact that the system was not work-
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS I I
ing itself out in the way designed by its initiators, and they
believed that the time had come to make a new statement as to
what constitute the fundamentals in the study and teaching of
English. It very naturally came to pass, therefore, that an
agreement was made to fix a list of books for only one year
(I9I2), to adjourn for a year, and to appoint a committee of
five which should investigate the whole question of the entrance
requirement in English and report to the individual members of
the conference before the adjourned meeting. This action, it is
hardly necessary to say, is of the greatest possible importance.
Of this committee of five Professor Cross of Yale is chairman.
With regard to the list of books selected for I9I2, the only points
worth noting are that the number of books to be read is reduced
from ten to nine, and that three of the Idylls of the King are
introduced as a welcome alternative to the group of Milton's
shorter poems in the list of books for study and practice. Also,
from this group “Lycidas” is omitted.
This, however, is merely a record of the votes passed. The
value of the meetings was in the frank expression of opinion
from men in different parts of the country as to the present condi-
tion of things. The belief that the time had come when the con-
ference might propose to its constituent bodies a step greatly in
advance of its former action was put with most weight by
Professor Scott of the University of Michigan. Thanks to his
initiative, the conference discussed with entire candor two propo-
sitions—the complete separation of literature and composition,
the framing of a requirement in literature which should do away
with a fixed list of books. The purpose of the discussion was
not so much to reach a result as to indicate the line which the
investigatións of its committee might profitably take. In other
words, from the work of this committee the conference should be
able to decide whether the time has come when the old assump-
tion of a list of required books may be dropped and a new
requirement worked out based on the principle that composition
and literature are distinct things, and that in the study of litera-
ture the storing up for examination purposes of information
concerning certain books should be minimized, if not altogether
I2 NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH -
done away with. In the opinion of one of your delegates, the
informal views of the members of the conference were favorable
to some such a new basis. Further than this they did not commit
themselves; it was necessary first to know that such a basis is
practical and that it will commend itself as logical and necessary
to the teachers of English throughout the country. That infor-
mation it is the work of the committee of the conference to ,
supply.
The significant thing about the National Conference of I9o8,
then, is this. It has opened the door for change, and has appealed.
to the country to find out whether change is desirable, and if so,
what change is desirable. Our New England Association of
Teachers of English represents a body of opinion characteristic
of a community that lives—for better or for worse—under the
examination system. Any expression of opinion which those
here present may give today will be of value to that committee
and to the conference. Here wisdom will be heard and heeded,
and it need not cry aloud.
One point remains to be made. Any new scheme that may be
adopted must be, like the old scheme, a working agreement that
will satisfy the two diverse interests that are represented in the
conference. If, however, the new agreement is not to share the
fate of the old, it must have some Other justification than that of
being principally a convenient method of securing uniformity.
To endure, it must be grounded on solid educational principles.
Whatever merits the old system had as a suggested course of
reading, those advantages were largely lost in this part of the
country because the examining colleges found it difficult to adjust
to their examination system. We all realized the unsatisfactory
condition of things, and uttered protests whenever opportunity
offered. The guidance given by the Vassar Conference of the
Committee of Ten had proved inadequate to our needs, and had
been 1ost sight of. We were in deep woods, bewildered by the
crisscrossing of individual blazed trails. Under such circum-
stances progress was nearly impossible. Here at last, however,
is the opportunity for re-orientation. It is our own fault if we
do not make the most of it. What we teachers in school and
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS 13
college, working together, must now do is to frame a new state-
ment of the ideals that should be the basis of preparatory work
in English. Such a statement should be inclusive enough to serve
as a standard to the men who set examination papers, to the men
who edit texts, to the men who fix courses of study, and to all
of us in our daily work in the classroom. It should serve as a
standard but it should not go so far as to concern itself with
details. If some such statement of ideals can be made, it will
mean that the colleges, On the one hand, are willing to give up
some points on which hitherto they have insisted; and that the
Schools, on the Other hand, accept the responsibilities of a higher
standard of work. With a common understanding as to what
things are fundamental, the delegates representing New England
colleges and schools can, at the meeting of the conference next
year, stand unitedly for a requirement that, besides being prac-
tical, squares with what is sound in principle.
Plainly, within the next twelvemonth there is much work to
be done. Setting aside such important questions as what consti-
tutes a fair examination paper and what constitutes a good
edition of a text—and as regards both examination papers and
annotated texts of the last fifteen years perhaps the safest word
of characterization is the epithet experimental—setting these
aside, we find ourselves called to the large task of formulating
our ideals with a view to action. To take part in such work is
in accord with the traditions of the New England Association of
Teachers of English. Your Executive Committee, therefore,
proposes that one of its standing committees take up a single
aspect of the large question, and report to you on it next Novem-
ber. As the Standing Committee of last year indicated in its
report, it is obviously inexpedient for this association, a body
with no official effective authority, to plan a course of study for
either elementary or secondary schools. Work of that sort has
already been undertaken in many places by the proper bodies.
It has appeared, however, that we might do what no such body
with a special task before it is required to do—that is to say,
frame a general statement of the principles on which any second-
ary course of study should be based. By so doing, we should be
I4 NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH
performing that part in the larger task for which we are especially
suited. Such a report from the association will be a fitting
contribution to the work that must be done, if the conference
that meets in I9O9 is to act wisely and well.
The New England Association of Teachers of English was formed
February 23, I9oI, to advance the study and the teaching of the English
language and literature. Membership is open to persons living in New
England, who are teachers of English in schools or colleges; principals of
elementary, secondary, or normal schools ; superintendents or supervisors of
schools ; or presidents or deans of colleges or scientific schools. Applicants
for membership from outside New England, and applicants from New
England not teachers of English, duly approved, may be elected associate
members with all the privileges of active members except the right to vote.
Applications for membership, endorsed by a member of the Association,
may be submitted in writing to the Secretary, and will be acted upon by
the Executive Committee at the meeting following the receipt of the appli-
cation. Application may be made on the back of the envelope containing
the annual fee of one dollar, due at the annual meeting, the third Saturday
in March. Envelopes are provided by the Secretary or the Treasurer.
Monthly leaflets (except in July, August, and September) are sent to
members. Back numbers and extra copies of the leaflets may be obtained
toy members of the Secretary, at five cents each ; reprints and double num-
bers, ten cents.
ExECUTIVE COMMITTEE I907—8
Professor H. G. Pearson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology—President
Professor J. A. Tufts, Phillips Exeter Academy—Vice-President
George H. Browne, The Brown & Nichols School, Cambridge, Mass.—
- Secretary -
Samuel Thurber, Jr., Newton High School, Newtonville, Mass.—Treasurer
Miss Ella Sweeny, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Providence, R. I.
Mr. F. W. C. Hersey, Instructor in English, Harvard College.
Miss Josephine Hammond, High School of Practical Arts, Dorchester, Mass.
Mr. Oscar Gallagher, High Schoo1 of Commerce, Boston.
The next meeting of the association will be at Springfield, Mass.,
Saturday, November I4. The general topic will be: “Co-ordination and
Co-operation in English': PROFESSOR JoHN HAYs GARDINER, Harvard; Mr.
CHARLES SWAIN THOMAs, Newton High School ; MR. ALBERT CANDLIN,
Principa1 Chestnut St. School, Springfield. Luncheon—REV. SAMUEL M.
CROTTERS, D.D. (“The Gentle Reader''), Cambridge.
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[Reprinted from the Graduate Magazine of the University of
Kansas, Volume VI, Number 4, January, 1908.]
GOETHE AND SELF-CULTURE*
T was with a deep sense of pleasure that I accepted the
invitation to address this year your chapter of the Phi
Beta Kappa Society. For the first and most fruitful year
of my teaching was spent in the University of Kansas. Here
I was introduced to the difficult and complex problems of the
life of a state university. Here I received through the kind-
ness and sympathy of my colleagues, and the forbearance of
my students, my strongest encouragement to persist in the
career of a teacher. I sha11 therefore always feel bound to
the University of Kansas by ties of sincerest gratitude and
by feelings of deepest appreciation for the solidity and dignity
of its work and its ideals.
While reflecting upon a suitable subject for my address it
occurred to me that few men in recent times realized so fully
in their life and work the idea1 of the Phi Beta Kappa Society
as the greatest of German poets, Goethe. Of him it may in
truth be said that philosophy, in the broadest sense of the
term, in the sense in which the founders of the Phi Beta
Kappa Society used the word, was the guide of his life.
Therefore I decided to choose as the theme of my address
this evening the central principle of Goethe's practical
philosophy, the principle which this society has always
*Address delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of the University of Kansas, June 3, 19o7, by Max
Winklér, Ph. D., Professor of the German Lànguage and Literature, University of Michigam.
represented and which, I believe, is of the greatest concern
to us al1: the principle of self-culture in Goethe's life and
thought and its application to our present conditions.
The trend of modern education is unfavorable to a large
comprehensive culture. The enormous extension of the
modern field of knowledge, the severe demands made upon
scholarship in every domain of thought, the refinement and
accuracy of the new methods of research have made early
specialization seem to many a necessity. The modern de-
mands of professional and business 1ife are equally high and
exacting, and require a long period of careful training. In
view of these conditions, the education now most favored is
one which wi11 prepare a man as directly as possible for some
useful and profitable ca11ing. It is distinctly felt today that
only by the most strenuouis application to one line of work, .
chosen early in life, can a man of earnest endeavor hope to
attain that high degree of efficiency which is required for
success. In a period 1ike ours when the principle of
specialization is so clearly understood and so consistently
applied to every province of our inte11ectual, professional,
and industria1 1ife, when in our desire to achieve excel1ence
in our chosen occupation we are in danger of neglecting or
ignoring the cultivation of the fundamental faculties of our
lbeing, it is stimulating and helpful to turn our attention to
Goethe, who in an eminent degree succeeded in combining
the largest culture with the highest efficiency in the many
practica1 activities of his 1ife. Although he lived in an age
when the conflict of culture and specialization had not yet
assumed its present acute form, he clearly understood and
appreciated the problem in its many bearings, grappled with
it, solved it for himself, and expressed in unequivocal terms
fnis solution for the guidance of coming generations. -
Goethe, the man, is in the judgment of many more remark-
able than any of his most finished creations. Among his
many noteworthy achievements none is more characteristic
than his determination and power to develop the many forces
of his nature and organize them to nob1e artistic proportions.
He was keemly alive and delicately sensitive to every touch
of httman sympathy, and it was this quick and ready sensi-
bility of his that formed the most important factor in the
development of his character. It was a sensibility not only
on the emotiona1 side, expanding into loves and friendships
of the most rich and varied kind, but also on the intellectual
side, stretching forth feelers in eyery direction of human in-
quiry. His was a nature to learn from everybody and be
touched by everything. He had great zest to live and to en-
joy, and put forth 1oving arms in a11 directions to live large-
ly. His many-sided spiritua1 receptiveness repeatedly
attracted him to men of the most varied characters, men
whose whole trend of thought seemed opposed to his own,
who, however, oftentimes stimulated and awakened some
latent forces of his nature. This large capacity for com-
panionship and friendship and this wi1ling and grateful
recognition of everything good and genuine in his fellow
beings distinguished him throughout life, and made him, as
he advanced in years, the natural center toward which the
best intellects and the moblest characters in Germany and in
Europe gravitated. Superficia1 critics have often accused
Goethe of cold pride, self-sufficiency, and lack of sympathy.
A careful study of Goethe's life wi11 convince you that all
such accusations are baseless. The vitality and practical
wisdom of his teachings are derived from close human
relationships and 1arge-hearted experience. The adverse
judgments upon his character and aims you will find especial-
ly among the older and inadequately informed biographers
who were offended at his unwillingness to take part in any of
the heated controversies of his time. The fact is that his
temperament and menta1 constitution made it impossible for
him to become a blind partisan of any religious, philosophical,
social or political creed.
His philosophy is preeminently practical and lays no claims
to systematic completeness. In fact al1 systems of philosophy
seemed to him meager, inadequate, andunsatisfactory in view
of life's great mystery. However, he always showed a broad
tolerance toward the thought of others; but rather than sur-
render himself to any system of thought, he continued
throughout life to study with clear vision reality and derive
principles of practical wisdom from his 1arge storehouse of
personal observation and knowledge. He 1ived broad1y and
intensely, and tried to grasp and give expression to the
meaning of his experience. The convincing character of his
poetry is due to the fact that it is basedupon fresh and deep-
1y felt experience. Poetry is to him but the highest form of
self-expression. He is a man of the most delicate sensibili-
ties, the whole wide range of human experience affects him,
hut he firmly rejects everything which is foreign to his nature,
to his manner of thinking and feeling, everything, in short,
which he cannot use. As a poet and thinker he shows the
highest integrity, strictly refusing to yield to any fashion of
the hour, and expressing nothing which does not represent
his innermost conviction. He is a foe of a11 affectation,
vagueness, and indecision, and in comparing his countrymen
with the English, he admires the 1atter express1y because
they know their own minds. He is ever ready to study and
analyze the thoughts and opinions of others, but he can never
lblindly fo11ow any authority, however revered. And so,
a1though his ideas show traces of manifold influence, they
everywhere bear the stamp of an independent and original
personality.
His philosophical and religious interests were most compre-
hensive. He read the skeptics and the mystics, he studied
P1ato, Leibnitz, Kant and especia11y Spinoza, but it is con-
trary to the spirit of his life and character to claim that he
accepted the system of any one thinker. It is true that as
a student of Nature he derived more inspiration and help from
Spinoza than from any other philosopher, but it is doubtful
whether he ever understood or cared to understand the subt1e-
ties and the rigid logic of Spinoza's system of philosophy.
The fact is that he extracted from Spinoza and other philoso-
phers such thoughts as he could use, as were of value to him,
and reinterpreted them in terms of his own inner needs,
everything else he rejected. His attitude here can best be
stated in his own words: “For my part”, he says, “with the .
manifold directions in which my nature moves, I cannot be
satisfied with any single mode of thought. As a poet and
artist I am a polytheist, on the other hand as a student of
Nature I am a pantheist, and both with equa1 positiveness.
When I need a God for my personal nature as a moral and
spiritual being, He also exists for me. The heavenly and
earthly things are such an immense realm that it can only be
grasped by the collective intelligence of all beings.” As far,
then, as the sources of his thought are concerned, we may
say that he is a great eclectic, but when we examine the
contents of his ideas we find that they are not merely an
aggregate of keen observations or detached bits of wisdom,
but have rather the coherence and organization of a practical
philosophy based upon the character of his personality. The
thoughts are fresh and vital because they are deeply rooted
in the experiences of a great genius who grappled with the
problems of life with the utmost seriousness, and solved
them with the strong practical sense of a man of business.
The nature of man, man's relation to society, these eterna1
questions of poet and philosopher, are naturally the central
problems which Goethe also tries to solve. In his answer to
these problems, Goethe stands Out as the most convincing
and helpful of optimists in the history of modern thought.
His optimismis nota matter of speculation but of experience,—
and his experience 1eads him to the firm belief in the essentia1
goodness and reasonableness of the human wi11. The idea
that the rational will of men is ever realizing ideals and that
it is ever strong enough to combat successfully the forces of
evil is fundamental with Goethe, and is the underlying theme
of his Faust drama. He finds that Nature has implanted in
us desires, aspirations, and ideals, and believes that it is
Nature's purpose that all these sensuous and spiritual forces
be developed and satisfied. Over against all ascetic doctrines
of human nature and conduct, Goethe asserts repeatedly and
most impressively the doctrine of self-realization as the
centra1 principle of his attitude toward life. The mediaeval
doctrine of useless self-mortification which sti11 in one form
or amother lingers about us, Goethe utterly rejects as most
inimical to any sound system of education and of morals.
The teachings grounded on the maxim that “all is vanity” he
regards as fundamentally false and blasphemous. That all
is mot vanity, that the world is full of interest and meaning
and presents to us endless tasks which require our largest
effort, is almost the substance of his practical philosophy.
The doctrine of pessimism had not yet been organized into a
philosophical system in Goethe's time; but several decades
lbefore Schopenhauer had formulated his doctrine, a strong
spirit of pessimism had passed Over Germany and had cast
its deepest shadows upon the youthful Goethe, as we see in
the first scenes of his Faust drama. Goethe struggled man-
fu11y with this disease, conquered it and devoted his best
emergies to combating this hostile attitude toward life. To
him human life is precious, and he repeatedly impresses upon
us the great responsibilities which it involves.
Goethe's doctrine of self-realization as our prime. duty, has
often been interpreted by adverse critics as a form of selfish-
ness, in view of the umdoubted fact that all virtue requires
self-denia1. Goethe recognized this principle of self-denial
as clearly as any moralist and gave noble expression to it in
many of his poetical and prose writings, but what he combated
was the doctrine of aimless and senseless self-denial as the
content of virtue. He is not opposed to abstinence when
practised in order to obtain some great and useful end. It is
abstinence practised for its own sake, abstinence based upon
a skeptical attitude toward life, abstinence that leads to noth-
ing and aims at nothing that arouses his anger. More-
over, he protests not on1y against al1 useless asceticism,
but also against a11 omission to satisfy our natura1 desires
and aspirations, against a11 s1uggishness and apathy in thought
and enjoyment. In short, Goethe with his firm belief in the
goodness of human nature, emphatica11y teaches the doctrine
that courageous assertion of self is an indispensable con- '
dition of our happiness, for, according to his view of life,
human happiness is not a fixed state to be attained by fo11owing
certain definite precepts, but the heightened feeling of
satisfaction resulting from the application of strenuous
energy first to the unfolding of our inborn powers and
then to productive activity in some definite calling. Goethe
is the classical exponent of the philosophy of action.
Action in a pursuit best adapted to man's spiritual and
physica1 nature is, according to Goethe, the chief con-
dition of happiness. But how can man wisely decide upom a
ca11ing which will be in conformity with his deepest nature
and in which he wi11, therefore, achieve his best work? Goethe
answers: tbrough the 1argest self-culture. Thus among the
many values of self-culture Goethe emphasizes its eminently
practical value. True culture leads to a just knowledge of
self and thus wi11 directly aid man in his just choice of an
occupation. Here Goethe gives importance to a doctrine
which is obvious enough, but which acquires fresh meaning
through the persistent energy with which he teaches and
applies it, and through the all-important position which he
gives to it in his philosophy of life. He had himself been
bewildered by the multiplicity of his tastes and talents, he
had wished to do many things and in turn had found himself
to a certain degree capable of doing many things. For many
years he was in serious doubt whether he should devote him-
self to art, poetry or the work of practical administration.
Hence the question how he was to arrive at a knowledge of
his real vocation proved an exceptionally difficult one for
him. In studying this question he observed the many illusions
and misconceptions which men so often entertain in regard
to their true nature and talents, and the misery which is thus
engendered through the false choice of an occupation. The
prevailing systems of education he found mechanical and
superficial because they but too frequently aroused unreal
ambitions and semblances of aptitudes which must inevitably
lead to an unwholesome activity. «
The relation of self-culture to the just choice of a vocation
is the centra1 theme of Goethe's far-famed work, “Wilhelm
Meister,'' which may be regarded as the text book of Goethe's
practical philosophy. Few books have had a deeper influence
on educationa1 ideals. It is almost the first instance of a
novel that deals in a large way with the most serious ques-
tions of life and especially of education. How Wilhelm
Meister mistook his true vocations, how this radica} error led
to many serious complications, how a secret society brought
the hero to a knowledge of the true doctrine on the subject
of vocations, how through this insight he finally gained self-
mastery and entered upon his real life-work, a11 this is sug-
gested or developed in this greatest of educational novels.
The book is a rich store-house of practical wisdom. Indeed,
its wealth of ideas and its many digressions and reflections
on almost every typical phase of life obscure for us at first
its fundamental theme. But repeated readings of the work
wi11 disc1ose the fact that its chief interest is centred about
the subject of the just choice of vocation.
In considering how human life should be organized, Goethe
singles out the a11 important fact that each man must finally
choose an occupation that will fill out the best part of his
1ife. The principa1 problem is therefore to see that the
occupation chosen should not only be worthy, but also most
thoroughly suited to the capacity of the individual. What
can be more simple and obvious? And yet upon reflection
we find that with most moralists this a11 important question
is but inadequately considered. Accepted morality considers
duties to this person and to that, to our dependents, to the
poor, to the family, to the state, but the greatest and most
practical of duties, that of choosing our occupation rightly is.
generally overlooked or, at best, but superficia11y treated.
Our occupation is but too frequently regarded as a matter of
necessary routine about which little can be said. Many feel
that true life begins when work is over, that only in 1eisure
moments they can be most truly themselves. Such a view
of life which surrenders to du11ness the larger and most im-
portant part of our existence Goethe emphatically condemns.
Now “Wilhelm Meister” is a novel about business as such,
an attempt to show that an occupation to which we give the
largest part of our lives is a most fitting subject for philosophy
and poetry. Goethe's centra1 thought is that instead of 1ook-
ing for happiness outside of our vocation, we must find it
primarily in the serious practical work of our life,-and this
is possible only if on the basis of self-knowledge our vocation
is rightly chosen. He would impress upon us that we must
give unity to our lives by devoting ourselves with hearty
enthusiasm to a pursuit which is assigned to us by Nature
through the capacities with which she has endowed ' us. In
this connection, the teachings of Hamann, a profound but
eccentric writer of Goethe's youth, impressed him most deep-
ly. Discussing these teachings in his autobiography, Goethe
says: “The principle to which all his utterances may be
referred is this: whatever man undertakes to do, whether by
way of deed or word or otherwise, must spring from a11 his
united powers; whatever is isolated is objectionable.'' Com-
menting on this principle Goethe says: “A glorious maxim,
but difficult to carry into effect.” And in his brilliant essay
on Winckelmann, Goethe says: “We can do much by a
judicious use of single powers, extraordinary things by the
combination of several powers, but supreme and wholly un-
expected things by a harmonious union of all our powers.”
This “harmonious union of al1 our powers'' Goethe would
have us apply to our life work, and believes that only in so
doing can the 1argest measure of happiness be attained.
From Goethe's point of view every man should be treated as
a, genius, for he has his own unique individuality which re-
quires the same sort of tender consideration that is accorded
to genius. Goethe insists, therefore, that it is our prime duty
to develop most fully our individuality and them surrender it
to some form of social service best adapted to our native
capacity. Happiness can result only when our whole person-
ality can fully realize itself in a congenial vocation.
Goethe is generally acknowledged as the greatest apostle
of self-culture, but the practical purpose which he assigns to
self-culture is overlooked by many. The statement is, indeed,
often made that Goethe regarded self-culture as the highest
aim in life. This misinterpretation of Goethe's doctrine is
largely due to the romanticists. Goethe's doctrine of self-
culture especially appealed to them, and so they developed
and popularized it and made it the basis of their view of life.
The other and more essential part of Goethe's doctrine con-
cerning the purpose of self-culture they would not or could
not understand, and those who understood its full meaning,
rejected it as too prosaic and practical. It is owing to this
misinterpretation of Goethe that he has so often been accused
of cold pride, self-sufficiency, and lack of sympathy, and that
his doctrine of self-culture has been regarded by many as a
refined form of selfishness. But an unprejudiced study of his
writings will convince you that this view is fundamenta11y
false. Goethe never regarded self-culture as an end in itself,
but as the most effective means for a larger and nobler end.
His real doctrine is that the end of self-culture is social ser-
vice. Nowhere does Goethe develop this social ideal more
convincingly than in his Faust drama. Faust, the typical mam
of serious endeavor, after years of severe and fruitless scholar-
ship, abandons his career as university teacher and surrenders
himself to the 1argest experience. He yields to the impulse
of unbridled passion and becomes the cause of the deepest
sorrow. He lives for a time at a splendid but corrupt court
and becomes acquainted with the vapid pleasures and intrigues
of a life of self-indulgence. But ever striving onward, he
devotes himself with the whole ardor of his nature to the
appreciation of Hellenic life and art. All these experiences
develop his 1argest and fu11est humanity. But how does he
end life? Wherein does he find his deepest satisfaction? In
social service. A11 his rich experience, his culture, his wis-
dom, his deeper insight into the meaning of life he places at
the service of humanity. He obtains from the emperor a
grant of a large piece of a submerged sea-coast and converts
it to a seat of prosperous cultivation. With practical benefi-
cent energy he makes it the habitation of a happy busy life
for multitudes of men. To stand on a free soil and to labor
zwith and for a free people is his highest idea1. In the midst
of his gigantic social work he is overtaken by death, but in
the last moment of his life there rises before him the vision
of a perfect social organism the realization of which will re-
quire endless generations of incessant toil. This inspiring
vision of the most strenuous social action gives him the
highest moment of satisfaction. And so he says:
“Ja! diesem Sinne bin ich ganz ergeben,
Das ist der Weisheit letzter Schluss:
Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben,
Der täglich sie erobern muss.''
And in a later scene, when after a struggle between angels
and devils Faust's soul has been carried aloft to Heaven, the
angels, reaffirming the religion of the deed, sing:
'' Gerettet ist das edle Glied
Der Geisterwelt vom Bösen:
Wer immer strebend sich bemüht
Den können wir erlösen.''
The application of Goethe's practical philosophy to our
modern educational life in Europe and more especially in
this country, is not far to see. The trend of Goethe's most
mature thought leads us to believe that, if he were among us
today, he would raise a voice of warning against the general
danger of our rushing too early into any specialized form of
activity in business or scholarship. This overhaste in the
choice of our life work arising from the natural desire of our
vigorous and ambitious youth to get an early start in the race
for success may after a11 involve us in the serious danger of
defeating our own ends. For how is our fullest self-realiza-
tion possible except in an activity that stands in some organic
relation to our rea1 capacity, to our deepest personality? And
lnow are we to know what this rea1 capacity of ours is except
through a 1arge process of education that leads to self-know-
ledge? Life is precious, and yet with a11 our improved
methods of education we find everywhere about us wasted
energies, men and women who after years of strenuous work
discover that their efforts have been misdirected, that the
results of their 1abor have been meager or fruitless, that, in
short, they have missed their calling. Unfortunately the
realization of this sad fact comes often too 1ate in life to make
a change of occupation practicable, and so these persons feel
constrained to continue to drag out their existence in uncon-
genia1 labors, and are deprived of that highest happiness
which can only come from a whole-hearted devotion to one's
1ife work. It is not surprisingthat many people of this class,
after their day's work is done, try to find some satisfaction
in various kinds of distraction or excitement, a11 in the vain
effort to fi11 out the spiritual void of their being. The
popularity and financial success of our degenerate stage and
the other forms of vapid amusement in which our cities and
towns abound and which are so 1argely patronized not only
by the masses but also by the so-called respectable educated
class, can, in my judgment, be explained in part by the fact
that the people in search for such enjoyment are utterly de-
void of inner resources, that they regard their occupation as
a drudgery and a burden, and that their famished souls,
vaguely craving for a larger life, eagerly seize in their leisure
moments upon any form of pleasure that seems to promise
temporary physica1 and menta1 excitement. Unfortunately
it is generally a pleasure which, instead of upbuilding,
emervates and weakens. This state of affairs is very old.
Philosophers, moralizers, satirists in a11 stages of human his-
tory utter complaints of the shallowness and vulgarity of the
tastes and pleasures of the public and offer diverse remedies.
Goethe meets this problem in his practical way by emphasiz-
ing the prime importance of sound culture as an essentia1
prerequisite for a wise choice of occupation. Thus, instead
of making our life-work a drudgery, we can and should make
it a source of ever growing satisfaction. In this way he
would give wholeness, organic unity to our lives.
It is this teaching of Goethe which seems to me to have
the most vita1 application to our modern educational con-
ditions. It is an indisputable fact that the present tendency
of educationa1 ideals is toward the direct1y practica1. In our
co11eges and even high schools such course or courses of
study are today preferred and emphasized as wi11 furnish the
student immediately upon his leaving the school with direct
financia1 returns. Education is nowadays often spoken of as
a good financia1 investment. Now, I believe that I am speak-
ing in the spirit of Goethe when I say that he, the most
practica1 of poets, would have declared this whole present
tendency in education as decidedly unpractica1 from the
point of view of the efficient performance of our duties to
ourselves and to society. I duly appreciate the sad and un-
doubted fact that in many cases the untoward circumstances
of life make the mercantile view of education seem a neces-
sity. However, I would maintain that in the 1ight of reason
and actual experience this view as an zdea/ of education is
faulty and misleading, and I believe that Goethe's idea of the
necessity of the fu11 and harmonious development of our per-
sonality as a basis for our practical work and as a source of
our truest happiness is vastly nearer the truth.
The educationa1 task that Goethe sets before us is indeed
most difficult and is probably rarely, if ever, fully realized.
However, if his principle be true, it must ever serve as our
ideal in our educational reforms. The difficulty of the task
seems to have been much increased by the vast extension of
knowledge in recent times. In Goethe's and Herder's time,
with its comparatively restricted field of knowledge, the task
of establishing a satisfactory system of education with a
view to general culture was certainly much simpler. As is
well known, the German gymnasium, the true child of the
Renaissance, received under the influence of the Neo-Hellenic
movement at the end of the eighteenth century its definite
form and, until comparatively recent times, has been general-
ly acknowledged as a source of the best discipline and cul-
ture. Our own older system of higher education, although
somewhat different in origin, was in its aims and ideals
essentially quite similar to that of the German gymnasium.
A generation or two ago, the long supremacy of the ancient
classics as the best means of culture was questioned and at-
tacked, and, after much heated controversy, Overthrown,—
whether with justice or not, only a larger experience than we
can now command, will prove. The elective system is the
inevitable result of the great extension of organized human
knowledge developed in the nineteenth century. The new
branches of thought with their vast and valuable contribu-
tions to human knowledge, with the great change they have
wrought in our view of life and with theirundoubted practical
benefits to humanity, were entitled to fu11 and equal recogni-
tion in the curriculum of our schools and higher institutions
of 1earning. But this extension of knowledge has by no
means invalidated Goethe's idea of culture. For, if we in-
terpret his ideal correctly, we find that it does not primarily
imply a vast accumulation of facts, however important and
useful. If this were so, we should have to pronounce Goethe's
Wagner a man of large culture, which he certainly is not.
Culture with Goethe means spiritual insight and power,
ca11ed forth by an awakening, a development and an organiza-
tion of a11 the facu1ties of our being. It means an enlarge-
ment, a heightening and a harmonization of our personality,
with a view to the most efficient work in our chosen vocation.
The mu1tiplicity of subjects introduced into our schools has
simply zm2creased the possible means or tools for realizing
Goethe's ideal. We are today really better equipped for the
great task of culture than previous generations. Henceforth
we shall expect of the educator greater discrimination and
ski11 in the wise selection of such typica/ subjects as wi11 de-
velop most fu11y and effectively the intel1ectual and spiritua1
powers of our youth. In view of the present situation it
seems doubtful whether the educational world will soon agree
again upon that exact selection and organization of courses
best adapted to the end of culture which formerly existed.
In the very nature of the case dogmatic procedure is here
very dangerous and agreement almost impossible. The best
we cam hope for is that we may gradually arrive at some
consensus of opinion as to the general principles to be fol-
1owed in the selection of subjects with high cultura1 values.
The dislodgment of the old curriculum from its long in-
trenched position and the introduction of free competition of
a11 subjects that possess strong educational possibilities,
wi11, in my judgment, prove of the greatest benefit to the ends
of culture. For any subject, whatever be its cultura1 value,
if it be safely protected by school or academic regulations in
its position of influence, is in danger of degenerating into
stagnant and pedantic formalism; whereas in an atmosphere
of free competition every subject wi11 have to fi7rozye its claims
to a position of influence by the actual results attained, and
this will be possible only if it be presented from its most
vital aspect and taught in the most effective manner. There-
fore the new conditions of education cannot but be full of
the keenest interest and promise to the emergetic teacher and
scholar who is devoted to his work and has faith in its educa-
tiona1 value. Free competition wi11 put every such teacher
upon his mettle and give new zest to his labors. The self-
complacent pedagogue must go and make room for the teacher
with love and enthusiasm for his calling.
We have seen that Goethe's idea1 of culture is eminently
practica1 and is as vital today as it was in the eighteenth
century. I wish now to touch upon severa1 other values of
culture which are but too often overlooked in this age of
specialization. Very important is its social quality. True
culture develops in us a just appreciation of our own work
in its organic relation to the larger activities of society. It
serves as the surest corrective against an overestimation of
the work in our own calling and against an oftentimes con-
temptuous depreciation of the work of others. The latter is
the almost inevitable deleterious result of early specializa-
tion. Specialization without the broad basis of a liberal cul-
ture must eventually 1ead to a life of spiritual isolation with
its natural concomitants of misanthropy and pessimism. It
is, moreover, in constant danger of losing sight of vital issues
and of degenerating into pedantic and useless 1earning.
Nowhere is the just appreciation of the various typical
values of life so important as in a democratic community like
ours. In a bureaucratic country like Prussia, a11 the larger ,
interests of the state, the interests of religion, literature, art,
education, social and industria1 betterment generally eman-
ate from or are encouraged by the central government. If
that government be in strong and competent hands, these
vita1 interests may receive fu11 recognition. In our country
these highly important social activities must be given over
to the people themselves. Hence the greatest demands are
and must be made upon the individual citizen. The very
idea of our government presupposes a large and intelligent
sympathy of the average citizen for the many varied problems,
social and political, of a democratic community. It is only
through our developed powers of mind and heart to get into
close touch with the great questions that agitate our country
that we can encourage every generous effort for strengthen-
ing and elevating our nationa1 life, and help to destroy the
forces that make for disorder and lawlessness. In short, it
is only through a broad and sympathetic culture that the
citizens of a democratic state can help to arouse and develop
in a11 relations of their nationa1 life that healthy public senti-
ment which is the very 1ife-breath of democracy and which
must find its- final expression in just action.
ft was hot ihy purposè to attemipt to §ketch for you here
the whole 6f Göetiié's practical philosophy. What I wished
ab6vé ali to emphasize wäs the importafice of Goethe's fünäa-
rhehtal téaching for tis that aii fruitfui actiori must spring
from the füliest development of our personality. Work,
always with love, never with hatred, was Goethe's grand text
and rtile 6f life. He who worked in a different spirit was to
him a diiettarite atiâ ah impeáiment to trtie progress. No man
assertéd more erhphatically thät energy of action shoüld be
åécorhpänied by energy of feéling. ft was the consistent
prihcipie of his life that the whole imian should act together.
He rêveréâ the Greeks ariâ tried to emulate them because he
believed that iii their classió period they lived and worked in
accordahce with this principiè. &
It is because Goethe hirhself worked with a “harmoniotis
union of all his powers* that his poetic creätions have süch
vitality and truth. His authority is one of the most potent
courts of appeal in modern times. His influence is stronger
today than ever before, his fame is as international as that of
Shakspeare. His poetry and philosophy are so he1pfu1 to us
because they are based upon intense and wide experience.
In his great poetical productions the ideal and the real are
organica11y related, the former growing by natura1 necessity
out ofthe latter and developing into blossom and fruitage by a
beautiful process of metamorphosis. So it was no doubt with
many of the greatest poets and thinkers, only that in Goethe's
case the process seems to have been more thoroughly worked
out; at least we can trace it biographically with instructive
minuteness. To yield freely to all natura] influences and
socia1 relations and then to retire into himself and express
in suitable and pure forms whatever great and typical impres-
sions his experiences had communicated to him, was the
process of his poetic art. Hence his poems, however1ight and
airy they may seem, are firmly rooted in reality and are astrue
in their sphere as the solid and flesh-like portraits of a Titian
or a Rembrandt are in theirs. When he writes, he scorns
working for effect; he is simply living out his life, he is merely
achieying the Bildumg, the culture, which Nature intended
for his life task, he is doing with the totality of his powers
what he would have every man do in his chosen field of work.
You see how utterly erroneous it is to accuse Goethe of
intellectual idolatry or self-worship. His nature was keenly
sympathetic and broadly social. His ideal of culture was
that it is every man's sacred duty to make the most of him-
self that he can with the faculties he possesses and the cir-
cumstances in which he is placed, and then surrender this
largest self to social service. Whoever does this may retire
from the scene of life with the consoling consciousness that
he has led a full and true life. Such a life Goethe led, and
so he deserves to be revered by succeeding generations not
only as a poet of supreme power, but also as a mam of the
noblest and soundest practical wisdom.
v. •—_—_
7ΤΓΟΓΟΤΓΕγΛΤξΤΓsEIA V. 305
sceptigism, its profound social and religious umrest. The relent-
less thinking, the large perception of the comie, which stamp thj
mam, are interpenetrated with “the ironic consciousness 4*
strates him to be a Becquè
a Gilbert. In the limming of
strokes of a Hogarth, shaded by
% the mordantly revelative
lighter pencil of a Gavarni,
tions and electric contPasts, is united With thèsexquisite effrontery
of a Whistler, withyhis devastating jeua; d'esprit.
dicere verum.^f he is a Celtic Molière de nos jwrs, it is a
Molière into^whom has passed the insouciant spirit o
If Bernard Shaw is the Irish Ibsen, it is, as Eduard B
has said a laughing Ibsen—looking out upon a half-mad wò d
with the riant eyes of a Heine, a Chamfort, or a Sheridan.
ARCHIBALD HENDERsoN.
voL. CLXXXVI.—NO. 616. 90 : ■ '








ENGLISH STYLE.
EY JOSEPHI S. AUERI3AC H.
“ Well do they play the careful critic's part,
Instructing doubly by their matchless art;
Pules for good verse they first with pains indite,
Them show us what are bad, by what they write.”
IT is idle to ignore the deep, far-reaching significance of the
fact that to-day mamy even well-educated persons indicate by
their speech and writing an increasing indifference to anything
approaching a due regard for English style. Such indifference
is by no means a trivial or negligible matter, since, as a rule, a
feeble, faulty style is associated not only with platitude, but fre-
quently with intellectual error, as well as with a disregard, if not
contempt, for true culture. As Mr. Benson says:
“ Very few people are om the lookout for style nowadays. The ordinary
reader is quite indifferent to it, and the ordinary eritie is quite um-
aware what it is. . . . The mistake is to think that there is much in-
tellectual or artistic feeling abroad. . . . Indeed, the appreciation of im-
tellectual and artistic excellence has distinctly decreased in the last fifty
years; and probably the reason why there is a, lack of great Writers is
that we do not at the present time want them. We want a, sparkling,
heady beverage; not an old, fragrant, mellow vintage. It is an age of
cigarettes, champagne, golf, motors,—brisk, active, lively, brief things ;
not an age of reflection or repose.”
Matthew Arnold says, in speaking of our intolerance of any
supervisory body like the French Academy:
“ We like to be suffered to lie comfortably in the old straw of our
habits, particularly of intellectual habits, even though the straw may
mot be very clean and fine.”
If we are mindful of our duty and even of our interest, We must
not be content until we have done What lies in our power to corrcct
ENGLISHI STYLE. 30
such deplorable conditions. Especially in America are we charged
with this responsibility.
We have many magazines which provide entertainment along
with their pages of advertisements of wares and nostrums;
and we give inadequate support to Only ome Or two publica-
tions of a high order of literary excellemce; and articles of distinct
merit evem in these are not by any means the rule. We can
measure the extent of such a loss when we consider that volumes
and volumes om our library shelves, constituting a priceless part of
our literature, represent merely contributions to the magazines
of the authors* day now boumd together as books. It is a long
Catalogue of splendid names, among which are to be numbered
those of Carlyle, Macaulay, Addison, Arnold, Stevens and John-
son. * There were giants in the earth in those days.”
It is at best doubtful whether our universities are doing
their share of the work of correction. From the curriculums of
some of them the classies, with all their qualifications for intel-
lectual training and for the inculcation of an understanding and
love of what is true style, have been largely omitted. Our uni-
versities are teaching many things ; just how much of what they
are teaching eam be fairly regarded as a substitute, if there be
amy substitute, for that which has been thus omitted is quite
amother questiom. .
Apparently, a special department for the teaching of English
will not suffice. President Thwing of the Westerm Reserve Univer-
sity says, in a late mumber of THE NORTII AMERICAN REVIEW :
“ Oxford has mo special chair devoted to the training of students in
the art of English composition. For thirty years amd more, the Ameri-
eam College has been emphasizing this department and form of instructiom.
The Oxford system presupposes that the writimg of English is an art and
a science in which it is a duty of every instructor to give tuition. The
department is not a department. It does not represent segregations. It
must be confessed that the results of the two systems seem to favor the
Oxford interpretation and method. One comprehensive deficiency of the
Americam system is found in the lack of a sense of style which most of
the writing done by Americam students shows.”
So keem an observer as Mr. Howells, in One of his recent books,
contrasts the * slovemliness ** of speech of the best type of the
Americam undergraduate with “ the beauty of utterance * of the
Oxford student.
While it is true that to our over-devotion to the exacting de-
308 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
A.
mands of trade and commerce, and to neglect in the home circle
and in the preparatory school, is to be traced much of our indiffer-
ence to English style, and therefore to culture; yet, in the
opiniom of those qualified to speak authoritatively on the subject,
some of our great educational institutions are blameworthy and
must accept their share of the responsibility.
It is not presumptuous, therefore, for One with only such in-
formation om the subject as is possessed by persons of ordinary
education, to call attention to existing methods which neither
meet, with the approwal of the observant scholar nor accomplish
the desired results. i '
Moreover, not only does the Oxford student speak the English
language better tham the Americam student, but the graduate of
our best universities not a score of years ago spoke it with a
grace and precision compared with which the conversation of
many a graduate of the present day is a close approach to a kind
of jargom. There has been of late years a distinct decadence
in literary expression. With our umdue strivimg after * prac-
tical* things and results, we have established in some of our
universities the form of a drill or routine instruction for the
Writing of correct English, but apparently we are content with
the form. It would seem, at best, doubtful whether appropriate
prominence has been given to the development of a love for
English literature.
It is not meant by this statement to suggest that, text-books
on rhetorie can be dispensed with. Quite the contrary. They
are essential to the mastery of the art of Writing, though the
knowledge. acquired from a study of them should not be displayed
offensively, amy more than need the decalogue be referred to with
Ostentation by the man of honor as his guide to right conduct.
The text-books, however, should be those which, both by pre-
cept and example, teach the principles of English composition, and
not merely a series of ungraceful, though correct, directions strung
together as rigid rules. They must be books which are the prod-
uct of the scholar's effort, and which will persuade the student, to
turn to the open page of literature, whence will come the incentive
and inspiration to grace and vigor of expression. The standard
works on rhetorie accomplish this result and are not lightly to be
cast aside; if any new treatise is to be written, it must supplement
these Works, and not attempt to supplant them.
ENGLISH STYLE. - 309
The whole subject receives a fresh interest by reason of the issue
from the publication office of Harvard University of a pamphlet
containing among other things illustrations of errors in the Writ-
ing of English by students applying for admission to Harvard Col-
lege. Many of the sentences, it is true, are sorry exhibitions of
a total lack of a knowledge of English style On the part of the ordi-
nary Americam student, though some of them, it may be suggested,
do not deserve the censure they receive. But, while it is made
abundantly clear that there are students incapable of Writing
anything approaching graceful, forceful English, a cursory ex-
amination of the pamphlet discloses the fact that more than One
sentence of its authors cannot be said to be above reproach.
The chief significance of the pamphlet, however, lies in the fact
that it goes out of its way to commend a Work on “ English
Composition,” by the Professor of English Literature in Harward
lUniversity, considered sufficiently meritorious to justify its re-
cent republication by the Messrs. Charles Scribners' Sons of New
York City, and its use as a text-book for Harward students.
It is of deep import, not only to the instructor and the
student, but also to the general reader, to know whether this
book, by the Professor of English Literature in our representative
university—who is himself sufficiently prominent to have been
selected to deliver a course of lectures on literary subjects at
Oxford and Paris—is entitled to be regarded as an authority on
English composition. If it ought not to be so regarded, them we ,
should endeavor to arrive at a correct estimate of the merits of
such a book, uninfluenced in our judgment by its authorship,
its commendation, or the use to which it is devoted.
Por, as has been Said by Mr. Moon in his masterpiece of criti-
cism, “The Dean's English * :
“ By influential example it is that languages are moulded into what-
ever form they take; therefore, according as example is for good or for
evil, so Will a language gain in strength, sweetness, precision and elegance,
or will become weak, harsh, unmeaning and barbarous.”
And Maeaulay says, in defence of his rather merciless re-
view of Robert Montgomery's poems, that
“The opinion of the great body of the reading public is very ma-
terially influenced even by the unsupported assertions of those who
a8sume the right to eriticise.” -
It would be reasonable to expect that, under the conditions
310 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIE]W.
stated, this work on “ English Composition * would be a Worthy
publicatiom, and compare favorably with the standard books on
rhetorie, amd evem with treatises on style by such distinguished
men of letters as Arnold and Pater and Hazlitt and De Quincey.
Yet it cam be confidently asserted that this reasonable expecta-
tion is not realized; that meither for its precept mor forits example
is the book justly entitled to be commended ; and that im it are
found emphasized mamy objectionable methods of imparting im-
struction in English Writing.
Some new definitioms are attempted, but these are neither par-
ticularly happy mor comprehensive. Along with some rather
solemn insistence upom principles the correctness of which is
generally conceded, we fimd a certain finality in statements con-
cerning things about which mem have agreed there may be a
justifiable difference of opinion, while many obvious facts are de-
scribed in detail as if the author were annoumcing to the World
some great intellectual discovery. We find crudities, imaccuracies,
mistakes of grammar and exhibitioms of at least questionable
scholarship. There are also some enigmatical observations as to
the art of Writing; but, as Mr. John Morley has said, “ a platitude
is not turmed into a profundity by being dressed up as a comun-
drum.” -
There is little in the book indicating am abounding charity, Or
even a fair consideratiom, for the views of others; mem and things
unwelcome to the author are treated with scant courtesy.
The author says that particularly journalists, along ** with most
of us, generally speak or Write hastily, without leisure to consider
details of style.” There are, however, in the city of New York
several newspapers in which no editorial so loosely and so in-
artistically put together as the greater part of this book, is ever
primted. Legal language is referred to as associated with ** be-
wildering, slovenly masses of words.* Yet, the brief of mamy a
trained advocate at the Bar of New York is Writtem With more idio-
matic, graceful, forceful English than is characteristic of this book.
Wendell Phillips, whose name is found high On the roll of
great orators, is called ** the cleverest of our oratorical tricksters.”
Of EmersOn the author says, “ Emerson's indubitable obscurity
to ordinary readers Itake to be a matter of actual thought.” The
sentence which the author quotes in illustration of his asser-
tion is the following, which he ** fails to understand at all*:
ENGLISH STYLE. - 311
“The simplest persom who in his integrity worships God becomes God;
yet forever and ever the influx of this better and universal self is new and
umsearchable.” -
As we read on in “ English Composition * We shall have cause
to Wonder what Would have been the result if the author had
undertaken to restate the great spiritual truth expressed by
Emerson in such simple, impressive Words.
There are long rambling references to things which are at least
trivial. On pages 35, 36 and 37, in the discussiom of the sentences
“ Nero killed Agrippina,* and “ Nero interfecit Agrippinam,”—
. with the commentary, among other things, that itis the eonvenient
final * m * which * does Agrippina's business,”—as in the dis-
* cussion on pages 107, 108 and 109 of the sentence, ** I started up,
and a seream was heard,** with its variations ** I started up and
sCreamed * and ** I started up with a scream,” it is made clear
ad mauseam, that the most obvious conclusions are defensible.
Much of the treatment of the subject cannot be said to be on
a very elevated plane. We are told about “ our present business,”
“ our next business,” “ the Chief part of our business * ; ** the mat-
ter in hand,” “ the chief matter in hand * and ** the real matter
im hand.*' Things “ at bottom * are of this or that character ;
the writer's art is a “trade with tricks * ; we have * pieces of
style * as well as * pieces of Writimg * amd * pieces of literature ”;
“ clauses are thrown into grammatical form * ; words are * pitched
upon,” and ideas are referred to as “ packed,” mot only within
prose sentences, but into exquisite limes of verse.
Even in quotations by the author we find inaecuraey and loose-
Il€SS. - ^.
On page 295 We read: “ No mam is great to his body-servant,
you remember.” No one remembers this. What we do remember
is that “ No mam is a hero to his valet,” a fairly accurate trans-
lation of a French line.
In speaking of Emerson, the author says, on page 208: “ Con-
sistency, if I remember aright, he somewhere declares to be the
chief vice of little minds.* The author did not remember aright.
What Emerson Wrote was that * A foolish consistency is the
hobgoblin of little minds.”
The following statement is fairly typical of some of the at-
tempts to deal with the subject after a scholarly method (pages
56 and 58): -
312 THE} NORTH AMERICAN REJVIEW.
“ Etymology, in short, is a most interesting study or pastime; and the
history of this potpourri of am English of ours makes the fit words for
simple ideas—ideas of fighting, for example, or of spontaneous aspira-
tion—chiefly Saxom in their origin; but the same history makes the fit
words for more contemplative ideas—ideas of literary criticism, for
example, or of deliberate meditation—chiefly Latin. . . . Big words are
apt to be Latin, and little to be Saxom ; acknowledge and dam^ to the
contrary notwithstanding.” -
To condemn any such statement we do not need to contrast
it with the language of the scholar, as found in books like
“ Words and Their Ways in English Speech,” by Professors
Greenough and Kittredge of Harvard. In comparison With even
the common knowledge possessed by all persons reasonably well
informed as to the gemesis of English speech, the statement quoted
lacks seriousness.
Again, On pages 282 and 283, there is a discussion as to the
choice of the word ** Elegance * for the title of one of the chapters
of the book. The use of this obvious Word needed no defemce,
and as matter of fact the author admits he adopted the three
divisions of his subject, ** Clearness, Force and Elegance,” from
Professor Adams S. Hill's book. The author, however, insists om
justifying his choice of the word by a reference to what is termed
its derivation from ** ea: * and ** lego,” which he says * meam
literally to pick out, to choose from among some great mass of
things the one thing that shall best serve our purpose, etc.” The
author by such a method could have justified for the title of his
chapter the use of “ Electiom,* which much more directly tham
“ elegance * is derived from “ ea: * and “lego.” The fact is that
our word ** elegance * is probably traceable directly or indirectly
to the Latin ** elegans,” to which was already attached its figura-
tive meaning before it was adopted into our language; and ** ele-
gans ” was not derived from the verb “ lego ” of Latin literature,
but from am obsolete verb of the first conjugation. The whole
discussion absolutely and relatively is misleading.
Such resort to etymology is, as a rule, of little aid im determin-
ing the precise meaming which usage attaches to Words. Mr.
Marsh in his “ I.ectures On the English Language,” and Mr.
Greenough and Mr. Kittredge, in their book above referred to,
have am emphatie condemnatiom of “ Such false linguistic doc-
trine.” -
On page 46 there is this sentence:
ENGLISH STYLE].' 313
** And I know that there are few more unidiomatic absurdities tham
those of the gentlemen who insist on spelling Alfred Aelfred, and Virgil
with an e, and otherwise on impairing that irrational, spontaneous va-
riety which people who love English know to be one of its most subtile
charms.”
That such a peculiarity in spelling has anything to do with an
idiomatic absurdity will be news to most persons; and, in the
thoughts of some unamiable reader, the author's rather flippant
assumption of superiority to the scholars who insist that “ Vergil*
is a correct spelling may well seem to border On a kind of arro-
gance.
The expressiom * it is me * is defended as idiomatic for the rea-
son that “ it is I° is conceived to be pedantic. The distinction
in the use of the auxiliary verbs shall and will is by no means
forcibly or fully stated.
While it is true that some accepted rules of writing are correctly
set forth, they are found as well if mot better expressed by other
authors; and perhaps it may not be unfair to say, as to this part
of the book, What Webster said of the Free-soil party:
“ I have read their platform, and though I think there are some um-
sound places in it, I cam stand upon it pretty well ; but I see nothing in
it both new and valuable: what is valuable is not mew, and what is mew
is not, valuable.”
Whem, however, We consider the style of the book, it is ex-
ceptional to find sentences which are not censurable for their
feeble or ungraceful structure; and the quotations which follow
-—reproduced as printed, except that words are italicized in order
to emphasize errors—are selected from among similar sentences
almost at random.
The methods which, after a reflection of ten years, the author
adopts and recommends for intellectual production are, to say the
least, novel; some persons might pronoTlnce them not serious.
“ On separate bits of paper—cards, if they be at hand— I write down
the separate headings that occur to me, in what seems to me the natural
order. Them, whem my little pack of cards is complete—in other words,
when I have a card for every heading which I think of—I study them
and sort them almost as deliberately as I should sort a hand at whist;
and it has very rarely been my experience to find that a shift of arrange-
ment will not decidedly improve the original order. . . . A few minutes?
shuffling of these little cards has oftem revealed to me more tham I should
have learned by hours of unaided pondering.”
i
314 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
There are, however, other methods, for on page 211 we read:
“ My method of clearing my ideas is by mo means the only one. I
have known people who could do it best by talking ; by putting some-
body in [sic] a comfortable chair and making him listem to their efforts to
discover what they really think.*
Certainly the listener undergoing such an ordeal is entitled to a
comfortable chair ; for the people intent om clarifying their ideas
might all talk at omce.
The author of this book has shown by some of his literary work
that he is not Without the ability to present a subject attractively.
The most indifferent Writing, however, seems to be good enough
for this book.
On page 120 we have am example of what is considered good
English:
“ A sentence which on analysis proves sensible is generally good Eng-
lish. By the same token, a paragraph sensibly composed is beyond cavil
a, good paragraph.”
To it, however, should be added this sentence from page 35:
“ A style that stick$ together is coherent; a style whose parts hang
loose is mot ”; -
and also the following intellectual nugget from page 193:
“In the first place, any piece of style appeals to the understanding;
we understand it, or we do not understand it, or we are doubtful whether
we wmderstand it or mot; in other words, it has an intellectual quality.”
Sentence after sentence will be found ending with “ what
not* and * and so on,” long before the expression of the thought
has approached completion. For instance, om page 112 We read:
“ As I utter these words in combination, the pronoum calls up certain
individualities of face and form amd manmer and dress, and what mot.”.
On page 16? we read:
“ There may be living occasional individuals who have resisted the im-
pulse to skip the emdless lucubrations of Dryasdust and what not;
but I do not remember having met one.”
On page 89 we read:
“I have said enough, I hope, to show that the fundamental difference
between periodie sentences and loose is about the same as the funda-
mental difference8 we discussed between different kinds of words,—Latim
amd Saxon, big and little, and so on ; it is a difference of effeet.”
ENGLISH STYLE. 315
On pages 76, 125, 128 and 190 we have more of these “ and
SC ons.”
Clearly, the reader is entitled to know the author's mean-
ing, and to insist that he be not foreclosed of information by
these meaningless * what nots* and * and so Ons.” There is about
as much propriety in this kind of writimg as there Was in the
conduct of the country minister who, after reading in Genesis
of the genealogy of the patriarchs, how Adam begat Seth and
Seth begat sons and daughters, summed up the remainder of the
chapter by the rather movel and yet comprehensive assertion:
“ And so they kept on begetting to the end of the chapter.”
Here are illustrations of favorite but quite indefensible ex-
pressions distributed throughout the book:
“ Are not short, sentences preferable to long? What long semtences
are, and short, I leave to your common sense ; what anybody cam per-
ceive needs no definition ” (page 89).
“ From this, two or three conclusioms follow, sometimes laid down as
distinet rules. Obviously a short sentence is less apt to stray out of
unity than a, long; a, periodie than a, loose * (page 98). -
“ If our object be to ramble, them mot to ramble were to blunder; but
in general our object is to produce a definite effect and not a nebulous ”
(page 162).
“ Perhaps the simplest way to show the superiority of carefully planned
work to carelessly, is to compare,” etc. (page 181).
Repetition of the same words is persisted im, as in one of the
sentences just quoted, whem its avoidamce is required by euphony
and the rules of graceful Writing. We read:
“ And the more you analyze your impressioms of style the more you
will find, unless your experience differs surprisingly from most, that,” ete.
(page 8).
“ In a book on rhetoric I lately read is a long quotation from some
respectable man of letters concerning what the career of a mam of letters
ought to be ; and at the end of the quotation, he who quotes writes thus ”.
(page 205).
The following quotation is from the chapter on “ Elegance *:
“ And whoever should say that passiomate writing cannot have the trait
before us noW—the quality that pleases the taste—as well, as the in-
tellectual quality clearmess, and the emotional quality force, would ob-
viously say something that would make his notion of the quality very
different from the notion I am trying to lay before you.”
316 THE NORTH AMERIOAN REVIEW.
Perhaps a frivolous and provincial persom might say by way of
paradox, that this sentence lacks * quality.” -
On page 71, there is this sentence:
“ It is not what it, seemed at first,—simply to pitch upon a word by
which good use has agreed with reasonable approximation to name the
idea, he wishes to arouse. It is equally, if mot more, to make sure that
the word he chooses shall not only name the idea distinctly enough to
identify it, but also name it by a name—if such a, name is to be found—
which shall arouse,” etc.
• • •*• • . • a • *• «** ■***•***••
We cam all Tecall from the great books of literature the im-
pressive and often electric effect of judicious repetitiom, but it.is
of a different quality from that so lavishly displayed in “ English
Composition.” .
Throughout the book the relative pronoun * that* is over and
over again used to excess where the employment of “ which * is
demanded by good usage or euphony. Evidently the author has
determined to deny * The humble petition of wHo and WHICH ”
against being supplanted by the * jack sprat THAT,” as playfully
submitted by Steele in “The Spectator.”
There are attempts like the following to contribute to the sum
Of our knowledge. Om page 32 is this sentence: -
“ What distinguishes written, words from spoken, literature from the
colloquial language that precedes it, is that written words address them-
selves to the eye and spoken words to the ear. Though this fundamental
physical fact has been neglected by the makers of text-books, I know
few more important.”
It may be said that the fact referred to has not been neglected
by the makers of text-books, if by the * makers of text-books * we
are warranted in guessing that the author meant to describe the
Writers of books on Rhetoric and Composition ; and having in
mind the well-known lines of Ars Poetica, we may add that the
oft-pointed-out distinction is as old as Horace amd the hills.
On page 209 we have the following:
“ To be clear in narrative, or in exposition, or in argument, or in amy
kind of discourse whatever, we must evidently proceed from what is
known to what is unknown; and if at any point in this process we per-
mit our style to become vague or ambiguous or obscure,—in other words,
so to ea press ourselves either that our meaning may rationally be mis-
takem or that we may rationally be supposed to have no meaning at all,—
we may resign ourselves,” etc.
EJNGLISH STYLEJ. • * 317
Aside from the characteristie faults of the author, it may be
stated that the * so to express ourselves* is inadmissible. The
context requires the expression * if we so express ourselves,” etc.;
or the ** to *° before * express* must be omitted.
There are many sentences exhibiting an ingenious variety of
infelicities in the choice and use of words fatal to a correct and
pleasing style; but lack of space forbids more than this passing
reference to them. -
Then, too, an indefensible order of words produces at times an
effect almost grotesque.
On page 94 We read: -
“ Of course, these few examples indicate the development of style in
a very rough way.” -
On page 23, the italics being the author's, we read:
* * I moticed a dirty gamin,' writes a student; and amother, using a
word now confined at Harvard College to street urchim, deseribes the
same small boy as a mucker.” -
Perhaps one may suggest that the confinement had not been wery
rigorous; for clearly the word has broken jail and is emjoyimg
its liberty in street talk and sometimes elsewhere.
On page 33 we are edified with this rather Surprising statement:
“ Or agaim, remark a fact that is becoming in my literary studies
comically general: familiar quotations from celebrated books are almost
always to be found at the begimming or the emd. * Music hath charms * are
the opening words of Congreve's * Mourning Bride.' Don Quixote fights
with the wimdmill very early im the first volume; he dies with the re-
mark that there are no birds in last year's nests mear the end of the last.”
The advice to the shoemaker to ** stick to his last * does not
work well when applied literally in authorship.
On page 183 we are regaled with this utterance:
“ Perhaps the eleverest variation of all is that by which such treason
to a friend as makes Proteus odious is made, simply by attributing it to
Helena, a woman, a very vemial matter.”
Mr. Choate, with his inimitable humor, dismissed the claim of
the equality of WOman to man by the statement that Woman at
best was but a “ side issue.* It was reserved for the author of
“ English Composition,” however, to assert that Woman is * a
very venial matter.”
With the following sentences, which embody much that is
typical of the author's style, together with what may not im-
318 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
properly be regarded as a fìtting commentary on “ English
Compositiom,*° the limit of quotations for a magazine article will
have been reached.
“ All the carelessmess of habitual speech and writimg rarely suffices
to make a mote of something recent by any means as indistinct as a mote
of the same thing after am interval. While sometimes a mere matter of
style, vagueness is oftener an actual matter of thought. In a general
way, a, vague writer does not know what he wants to say, and so generally
says something that may meam a great many different things.”
The author properly enough, as ome will see who inspects the two
books, has acknowledged his obligations to the text-book of Pro-
fessor Hill, im which are printed side by side many examples of
incorrect and correct sentences. To Professor Hill's Work could
be added no meam supplement devoted entirely to the reconstruc-
tion of faulty sentences from ** English Compositiom.* For such
use the author may properly claim he has Written am acceptable
text-book emtitled to am extended circulation ;
Ergo fungar vice cotis, acutum,
Reddere quae ferrum, valet eæors ipsa secandi.
It cam be said without exaggeratiom that the foregoing semtemces
are fairly illustrative of the unfortunate methods employed in
this book. In the true sense it eammot be said to have amy style
at all. Errors in scores of its sentences are apparent even to
the most inexperieneed writer; and it is the exception to find
thoughts expressed with either grace or vigor. Even in the quality
of clearness, the book is full of transgressions, while to the
precision and niceties and beauty of the English language it seems
quite oblivious. Yet at Harvard University, which prides itself
upon its method of instruction in the study of our language,
“ English Composition * is commended by its faculty and used
as a text-book. In one of our great institutions of learning, there.
fore, the judgment Of Addison that mo critical writer ** has ever
pleased or been looked upom as authentie who did not show by
his practice that he was master of the theory * seems obsolete.
And the pity of it all is the author has made it clear by his
other publications that he could have writtem a worthy book on
English compositiom.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes ?
Assuredly the time has come for the educated people of the
community to express in no uncertain voice their disapprowal of
ENGLISH STYLE. 319
gae], conditions. In the possessiom of what Emerson terms our
great metropolitam English speech and of our English literature,
\e are the frustees of a splendid and priceless treasure. It is our
duty and our privilege to transmit it at least undisfigured and
unimpaired to succeeding generations; While the few who are
fitted for the task are bound to do what lies in their power tO
increase that possessiom in volume and in charm.
It is to be feared, however, that we are umable to render a Very.
creditable account of our stewardship, and that our indifference
to literary expression and to culture is but a symptom of much
that is of evil import.
As we have been directing our restless emergy towards com-
mercial supremacy, made possible by laws which have perhaps beem
too prodigal in their promotion and protection of industry, We
have, in order to insure our success, east out of our life much
of its composure and its true rewards; we have failed often to
discerm the relative importance of things, or to appraise
them at their real value; we have evem fallem short of mamy
duties we owe to our meighbor and the State. As we have
growm fat with material prosperity, we have starved ourselves
spiritually. It will profit us much to exchange some of our
“ praetical* aims and results for a few old-fashiomed standards
of ideals and of conduct.
Them, too, if it be not yet taught from the pulpit, it is be-
gimming to be recognized that in the divine Order of the world
there mever has been amd mever will be a place for the intervention
of miracle or accident, amd it is reasonably certain that new be-
liefs and readjustmemts will enter into our religious faith. We
must seek out some compensatiom for the consequent loss.
More and more, as these thoughts are brought home to us, the
great books of literature, of which the Bible is supreme,—whether
we regard their mever-failimg springs of intellectual joy, their
lofty aspirations after truth and beauty, their deep insight into
the perpleximg problems of the world Or their conception of right-
eousmess—should come to occupy a revered place and assert a com-
trolling influence in the lives of men.
Nor ought we to consider our higher educatiom complete until
a just appreciation of what is best in the classic authors has be-
come part of it. As Mr. Woodrow Wilson said, in his inaugural
address as President of Princetom University:
- 320 THE NORTH AMBRIOAN REVIEW.
“The classical literatures give us, in tomes and with an authentic
accent we cam nowhere else hear, the thoughts of an age we cannot visit.
They contain airs of a time mot our owm, umlike our own, and yet its
foster parent. To these things was the modern thinking world first bred.
In them speaks a time maîve, pagan, an early morning day when men
looked upon the earth while it was fresh, untrodden by crowding thought,
am age when the mind moved as it were without prepossessions and with
an umsophisticated, childlike curiosity, a season apart during which those
seats upon the Mediterraneam seem the first seats of thoughtful mem.
We shall mot anywhere else get a substitute for it. The modern mind
has beem built upom that culture and there is no authentie equivalent.”
We must promote these, tendencies unless We are prepared to
witness consequences that are for the benefit neither of ourselves
nor of the Republie ; and to promote them we must be intolerant
of such books as “ English Composition,* which with their con-
fusion of expression persuade no one to a love and a reverence
for letters. -
For that which distinguishes great authors above their con-
temporaries is the style of their work. That which gives even to
Shakespeare his surpassing excellence is not only that intellectu-
ally he was more perfectly equipped than all the goodly company
of which he was a part, but also that he wrote with a nobility
and splendor of expression which made him * not of am age, but
for all time.”
Great thoughts and great emotions find their true interpretation
and are made manifest in the imfimite variety of the style of
illustrious, creative minds, as the several strings of a musical in-
strument are waked to harmony by the touch of genius. There
is the Leit-Motif in letters as there is in music. Style is not
Something separate and apart from literature, amy more tham,
in the conception of the devout Worshipper, is God Himself a beimg
outside of and aloof from the throbbing life of His universe.
Style is not a mere ornamentation and adornment of the Writtem
word, but its very soul; and it will find eloquent and persuasive
utterance when, as though within a great temple, men shall have
consecrated themselves anew to the spirit of culture.
- JOSEPH S. AUERBACH.
RESEARCH IN STATE UNIVERSITIES*
B y I S R A E L C. R U S S E L L
P R O F ES S O R OF G E O L O G Y IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
The word research, as used by scientific men, signifies
study systematically carried on for the purpose of dis-
covering that which is unknown. lt is the Seeking for
new facts, new forces, new laws, and new ideas Without
direct reference to their utility.
The word re-Search has been chosen tO express this
high aim, rather than the same root without the prefix,
because in most instances explorations have to be repeat-
ed, experiments performed again and again, and the ad-
vances made in any direction scrutinized from many
points of view before the conclusions reached are deemed
Worthy of acceptance.
The field of research is not restricted to the laboratory
or the library, but is as wide as the universe. lt includes
the Study of man as well as his environment. lt is es-
sential alike to the growth of industries and the develop-
ment of philosophies. ę
Research, then, is the painstaking endeavor to increase
the world's store of knowledge in any department of
human thought.
The Scope of Research: One of the most important re-
sults of the modern development of industries, is the
recognition of the fact that discovery is the main spring
Of progress. This conclusion, although self- evident, does
not seem tO have received the recognition it deserves.
The Creed which needs to be repeated Over and Over again
in the hearing of every intelligant human being, in order
that still greater achievements may be accomplished, is
that all man has gained which makes him the superior of
the beasts Of the fields, has come aS a reward for in-
creasing his knowledge of the Cosmos in which his lot is
cast. The fact that progress depends on and is an out-
come of human exertion, slhould stimulate and encourage
*Read before the Research Club of the University of Michigan, January 20, 1904.
2 University of Michigam
all mankind to strive to reach a higher plane. The end
in view is the attainment of all possible knowledge, and
the application of that knowledge to the increase of
man's happiness, the lessening of his burdens, and the
decrease of his sufferings. The goal on reaching
Which man can say: The bounds of the knowable
have been attained. and all possible wisdom is mine! is
not in sight. So vast and intricate are the laws and pro-
cesses of nature and of mind, that the Ultima Thule Of
human endeavor will never be reached. But to approach
and make nearer and nearer approximations to the mag-
nificent ideal, like the alpine climber who seeks tO scale
some cloud-encompassed peak, we need no other guide
than the assurance that all ascending paths lead towardit.
The uplifting of man by providing him with additional
powers through research, may, as just suggested, be il-
lustrated by the tasks that mountaineers set for them-
selves. It is true that on a mountain's side all ascending
paths Iead toward its summit, but some are impassable,
others beset with extreme difficulties, and only one per-
haps is practicable. The discovery of that way is the
mountaineer's hope. Many fruitless efforts must be
made, but at last some one climber, more skilled, stead -
ier of nerve, or Stronger and more enduring than his
companions, discovers the right way and others follow,
guided and encouraged by his example and counsel
The foremost mountaineer is an explorer. Following in
his foot-steps but improving the path he has made and
discovering side excursions from it, Others gain glorious
alpine gardens, and traverse shimmering snow-fields
never before pressed by human foot. In a similar manner
among those who strive to make advances into the realm
Of the unknown in other directions, some one investigator
gifted beyond his fellows, inspired by a new idea, or
discovering a new meaning in some well known fact,
like the successfnl mountaineer, leads the way. When
such an advance is made, Others are encouraged to fol-
lOw and a new and wider view of nature is obtained.
ReSearch im State Universities 3
The all important fact is that some one shall lead. Lead-
ers in research have appeared from time to time and in
increasing numbers as the importance of their services to ,
mankind have become more and more appreciated and
the demand for an increase of knowledge more gen-
eral. Some of the pioneers in research have been great-
er than in others, but all alike have assisted in the
great work of extending the boundaries of the known.
The recognition of the fundamental importance of re-
search has been slow, and resulted from the observed
increase with its advance in material gains, enhanced
comforts, greater effectiveness of labor, better health, and
greater average length of life. As these and other
similar results have been recognized, the demand for
more knowledge, in order that still other forces might be
utilized, has steadily increased, and never before in the
world's history has this demand been greater than now.
In a large view of human advancement research work
in pure philosophy from which but little direct aid to in-
dustry is perhaps furnished, must be reckoned fully as
important as the discoveries of the chemist, the physicist
and others, which are widely utilized in enhancing man's
material welfare. The discoveries in relation to the flow
of electricity, or the studies which furnished a
knowledge of the properties of steam, great as have been
the results of their application, it is safe to say, have
been no more beneficial to the human race than the re-
searches which made known the mode of development
of plants and animals. Electricity and steam have fur-
nished power for the moving of ponderous matter, but
evolution has given a mental force which has profoundly
modified the philosophies of all civilized peoples, and as
there is no doubt will be a means of discovering many
new truths in the future. Advance in philosophy, ethics,
etc. is no less dependent on research than is the growth
of manufacture or commerce. But no separation of purely
intellectual and purely industrial development is permis-
sible, since, as there is abundant evidence for proving,
-4 University of Michigam
progress in any department of human activity is followed
by gains at Other pointS along the frontier of the domain
of the known. - ■
The bounds of the knowable not yet reached: The in-
centive which leads men to devote their time and energy
to research is an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.
The unknown has facinations which in all ages have
awakened a response in the human breast. In the earlier
stages of intellectual development, the mountains, the
ocean, the caverns and Other but little known portions of
the earth were peopled in imagination with gods, genii,
and fairies, both genial and malign. When reason sup-
plantS fancy and experiment undermines credulity, the
Voices from the unknown becomestiIl more alluring. They
lead the astronomer to explore distant space where he
finds no limit; the geologist to trace backward the hist-
ory of the earth without discovering a beginning; the
chemist and physicist to scrutinize the laws governing
matter and force without untangling all of their complex-
ities; the archæologist, the historian, the philosopher,
the socialist and Others to investigate man's estate and
development only to find the records failing before the
beginning of thought is discernable; the biologist to
describe and classify the manifold ways in which life is
encased and study the functions of bone, muscle, and
nerve, only to learn that the longed for insight as to
What life really is, recedes farther and farther as he ad-
vances. Along these and many other tributaries of the
river of knowledge explanations have been carried with-
out reaching their Sources. On every hand and at no
great distance, as shown by the explorations that have
been made, the known merges with the unknown.
This same conclusion can be indicated in another way:
The rate and character of a change that is taking place
is frequently indicated by means of a curved line,
which shows graphically, perhaps an increase, a culmina-
tion and a decline. By this means the rate at which hu-
man knowledge has increased might be plotted but the
ReSearch im Stafe UniversifieS 5
curve would fail to indicate a maximum and give no
suggestion of a decline. The nineteenth century has
been termed the “Wonderful Century”, and why? Be-
cause during that century scientific discovery followed by
invention, was carried on more systematically, more
enthusiastically and by a larger number of skilled inves-
tigators than during any previous century. The tide of
discovery and invention which made itself prominent
during the century recently closed, and increased in force
as the years of that century increased in number, is still
advancing and, aS it seems, with continuous acceleration.
The intellectual tide- gauges of the world give no sug-
gestion that the nineteenth-century wave of discovery
has culminated. On the contrary, there is abundant
evidence to show that the rate of intellectual develop-
ment is still on the increase, and that yet more import-
ant conquests in the domain of the unknown than have
illuminated the past will be made in the future. On our
graphic illustration of the world's progress, each year ex- .
tends the curve upward.
The Conclusion that the known is but a Small fraction
in comparison with the unknown is perhaps startling,
yet in view of the recency of numerous discoveries, and
the increasing rate of the returns from more and more
careful investigation, such seems to be the ratio of the
sum total of man's knowledge to the possible discoveries
of the future. To demonstrate this broad proposition,
which iftrue is most stimulatingto human endeavor, facts
might be presented from any department of knowledge.
We are Saved the trouble of compilation in this connec-
tion, however, by the timely appearance of Year Book
No. 1 of the Carnegie Institution.
The officers of the Carnegie Institution in seeking to
learn how they may best apply the money placed attheir
disposal, obtained assistance from various Advisory Com-
mittees, Consisting of from one to six scientific ex-
perts, and in several instances the committees themselves
sought counsel from other leaders in research both in the
6 Universify of Michigam
United States and foreign countries. The reports of the
committees referred to, Cover 284 Octavo pages, and deal
in a broad way with the problems awaiting investigation
in several but by no means all departments of learning.
Some of the directions in which, in the opinion of the
members of the committees, profitable research work
can be done, are enumerated below, but it is not
practical to review the entire category at this time, and,
besides in several important divisions the precise
questions to be asked of nature are not formulated.
From the reports mentioned, we learn that botanists
are desirous of broadening their science in at least two
directions:
The first pertains to the relation of vegetation to envir-
onment in the United States. ' In this connection, studies
are suggested as to the function and effect of the forest
in humid regions in reference to the influence of trees on
atmospheric moisture, precipitation and run- off, and the
converse effect On the forest; and also similar studies
respecting the plants of arid regions, for which purpose
the establishment and maintenance of a desert* botanical
laboratory is advocated. -
The Second recommendation of the Advisory Commit-
tee on Botany is in referance to the carrying on of exten-
sive botanical explorations in Central America and the
West Indies for which Outline plans are presented.
These are the only ways in which the Committee
seems to have thought it expedient tO recommend the
undertaking of research work by the Carnegie Institu-
tion, but even a novice in the science of plantS can read-
ily see that there are promising lines of work in many
Other directions.
The Advisory Committee on Physics outlines a broad
plan for establishing a well equipped physical laboratory
tO be devoted to research work in pure physics, With a
corps of investigators, together with recommendations in
reference to grants of money to be made to persons
Research im State Universities 7
societies, etc. engaged in physical research, but does not
outline the problems to be attacked.
In reference to investigations pertaining to the earth,
which are of mutual interest to both physicists and geolo-
gists, the Advisory Committee on Geopysics, outlines
some of the more prominent problems which demand
immediate attention. .
Among the salient questions pertaining to the earth's
gaseous envelope or the atmosphere, are those of its ori-
gin, its mass, mass-limitations, and its mass- distribu-
tion, the potential atmosphere absorbed in the Ocean and
in the body of the earth, its sources of depletion and en-
richment, its function as a thermal blanket Over the sea
and land, the possible changes in its diathermacy and
the relations of these to great climatic changes togéther
with many related problems that enter profoundly into
the interpretation of the earth's past, and seem to have
immense importance to the future ot the human race.
In reference to the waters of the earth or the hydro-
Sphere, the geophysicists desire an opportunity to inves-
tigate its origin, mass and mass distribution ; the Con-
stancy or variations in the volume of the ocean and
changes in its level in relation to the land; the part
which the water- mass plays in the changes ofthe form
of the earth ; the origin, constancy, or variation of the
Ocean's salinity and many other questions.
Concerning the rigid outer portion of the earth or the
lithosphere, the geophysicists would seek for information
relating to the origin and maintenance of the continental
platforms with their superposed mountains and plateaus,
and of the Oceanic basins, involving questions of rigidity,
distribution of pressures etc.; the agencies and condi-
tions that make possible the prolonged periods of crustal
quiescence recorded on the earth's surface by extensive
plains produced by erosion; the nature and causes of the
movements in the earth's crust which have produced
crumplings and breaks or faults, and upraised mountains
and plateaus, and are indicated also in a large way by
8 University of Michigam
continentS and Oceanic basins; the breaking, shearing
and folding of the rocks leading on to the general prob-
lems of rock metamorphism, and a great group of intri-
cate questions of a chemical and chemico-physical na-
ture,including the flow of rocks, the destruction and gen-
esis of minerals, the functions of included Water and
gases, the flow of material within the earth, the origin of
ore deposits, the evolution and absorption of heat, and
other phenomena that involve the effects of temperature,
pressure, tension and resultant distortion on chemical
changes and mineralogical aggregations.
Within the earth's Outer CruSt lies What is termed the
cemfrosphere, concerning which the Advisory Committee
on Geophysics state their desires as follows: The themes
here are the kinds and distribution Of the lithic and me-
tallic materials in the deep interior; the states of the
matter; the distribution of mass and of density and the
consequent distribution of pressure; the origin and dis-
tribution of heat; the conductivities of the interior ma-
terial under the pressure and heat to which it is subject-
ed; the heat possibilities arising from supposed original
gaseous condensation, or alternately from initial impact
of aggregation; the heat of subsequent attractional con-
densation ; the secular redistribution of heat within the
earth, amd its loss from the surface; the possible rela-
tions Of redistribution Of internal heat tO VOlcanism and
tO deformation , and similar profound problems.
Long as the above category of as yet unSolved prob-
lems may seem, it by, no means exhaustS the lines of
earth Study suggested to the Carnegie Institution as
awaiting elucidation. Laboratory experiments are Outlin-
ed in reference to the effect of pressure on the melting
point of rocks carried on at high temperatures and pres-
sures, and through a wide range of material; the effect
of temperature and pressure on thermal conductivity and
on elasticity, with reference especially to the transmis-
sion through the earth of seismic tremors. Nor is this
all; geophysical questions in reference to the relation of
ReSearch im Sfate Universifies 9
of the earth to Other bodies in the solar system, such as
the deformation Of the earth Owing to the attraction of
the sun and moon, thus furnishing a means for testing
its rigidity, the history of Oceanic tides and their influ-
ence on the earth's rotation. These and other questions
lead to still greater problems such as the origin of the
solar system and even the genesis ot the stars.
It is not desirable to weary my readers with a more
extended exposition of our ignorance concerning the
earth on which we live, as Outlined in the Year Book
from which citatons have just been made, but I may
perhaps be pardoned for mentioning that following the
presentation of the larger problems referred to, comes a
list of sixteen extensive groups of specific questions
Which demand for their SoIutiOn the establishment and
maintainance for a series of years of an extensive and
well equipped geophysical laboratory.
The immediate lesson illustrated by this catalogue of
wants is: great as are the results of the geological studies
already made, several chapters of the earth's history have
yetto be written and nearly all of the chapters already in
print need thorough revision. .
ln the Year Book cited above, the desire for further
knowledge on the part of geographers, meteorologists,
chemists, paleontologists, Zoologists, psychologists, an-
thropologists, bibliographers, engineers, physiologists, his-
torians, mathematicians, etc., are outlined and in each de-
partment the importance of pressing on with discovery is
clearly and earnestly expressed.
It will perhaps be a surprise to many persons, that in
the recommendations for research work made to the Car-
negie Institution, astronomy occupies more space than is
assigned to any other science. Seventy-three pages are
devoted to Outline plans of some of the ways in which
the study of the heavens can be continued with the
promise Of valuable returns. If the oldest of the Sciences
has Such hopes for the future, su rely the outer boundary
Of the knowable is far distant.
10 University of Michigam
There is another point of view from which the magni-
tude of the research work brought to the attention of the
Trustees Of the Carnegie Institution, may be estimated.
About one-half of the plans suggested by advisory com-
mittees, are accompanied by estimates of Cost. This
category— including estimates in several instances for
laboratories, observatories, biological stations, endow-
ments, etc. and running expenses for a period of five
years—calls for an expenditure of about $16,000,000.
The expense of all the investigations Outlined for a
period of five years, may safely be placed at $30,000,-
000 or three times the present capital of the Carnegie
Institution. In this connection it is to be remembered
that the Institution does not propose to undertake any
research already provided for by individuals, universities,
societies, etc., but to supplement such work or cooperate
in carrying it on. The plans to which attention have
been directed are for investigations Over and above those
already initiated or likely to be made without the aid Of
the Carnegie Institution. And again, to some extent the
work outlined is circumscribed by political limits and
pertains to the United States.
This brief showing of the problem already in view,
will I think serve to sustain the statement made above,
in reference to the Vastness of the realm Of the unknown
which surrounds us on every side. To extend the limitS
of the known in all the directions in which Scientific men
are looking, would certainly require the resources of many
Carnegie institutions, and the time and energy of many
generations of investigators.
ImcreaSimg difficulty of reSearch: In considering the
aims of research and the means available for its en-
couragement, the increasing difficulties in the way of
discovery as knowledge increases, should be clearly rec-
ognized. Not only this, but the tendency to feel that
enough has been accomplished, or in other words, self-
satisfaction, needs to be combatted. Contentmentis not
the motto of the enquiring mind.
ReSearch in State UniverSities 11
The close scrutiny, the hard and long continued work
and the careful mental training required to continue
making discoveries in an old field, is seemingly self-
evident. In geographical explorations, the disCoverer of
a new land has a virgin field before him, concerning
which the most trivial notes are of value. As exploration
progresses, however, and more and more is known con-
cerning a newly discovered ]and, the problems to be
attacked become more and more difficult, require deeper
thought, better equipment and broader preparation on
the part of the would-be discoverer. But old fields yield
rich returns, even to the geographer, as is shown by the
conspicuous advances made in physiograhic studies in the
Older portion of America during the past decade.
The increased difficulties Of discOvery as advances are
made might be emphatically illustrated by any one of the
older sciences. In astronomy, for examle, as every one
knows, greater precision has demanded better instru-
ments. While the moon yielded abundant returns when
observed with the small telescope of Galileo; to resolve
the distant nebulæ, measure the motions Of double stSrS
and map the heavens, requires instruments of vastly
greater power. To the work of observing and measur-
ing, the astronomer has added the study of the physical
condition and chemical composition of the matter compos-
ing the heavenly bodies, measurements Ofthe heat emit-
ted by the stars, etc., and in several divisions of his taSk
assistance is had from photography. The increased ac-
curaCy demanded and the broadening of the scope of
astronomy, particularly by the addition to it Of
spectroscopic work, has vastly augmented the expense of
equipping and maintaining observatories, and also
demanded greater and more varied preparation On the
part of the men who explore the realm of distant space.
The increase in the size and excellence Of the instru-
ments required by astronomers, is well known. The
great observatories are in sight and open to the public.
The beauty and costliness of the modern telescope, So
12 University of Michigam
complex with its many attachments that it might well be
termed an astronomical engine, is apparent even to the
casual observer. Both the interesting methods of obser-
vation and the startling results of astronomical study, are
described from time to time in newspapers and popular
magazines. From these and Other Sources the growing
needs of the astronomer as his work progresses, are at
least recognized, and to a great extent appreciated by
the public, and broad- minded citizens have in many in-
stances contributed money freely for the betterment Of
the tOOlS With which he workS. -
The increase in size and in costliness of astronomical
instruments and the broadening of the scope of astrono-
my, are but an illustration of what has taken place and
is increasing from day to day, in every department of
human thought. The Chemist, physicist, biologist, mete-
orologist, geologist, amd explorers who are following other
paths of learning, are meeting with greater and greater
difficulties and are demanding better facilities, in the way
Of laboratories. collections, libraries, etc., as their work
advances. These demands, although in many instances
less obvious to the public than those of the astronomer,
are none the less pressing, and fully as important. In
each of these departments of research, and, as has been
stated, in all branches Of knowledge, as advances have
been made, greater and greater skill and more and more
thorough preparation is necessary on the part of the per-
Sons engaged in the work. To continue research and
place in the hands of inventors, manufacturers, teachers
and others still more efficient means for conducting their
tasks, it is evident that communities in order to reap
still greater harvests, must supply better and more ex-
pensive equipmnet, and furnish still more efficient means
for the training of the persons who do research work
for them. •
Recognitiom of the Imporfamce of ReSearch: In America
three important steps in the recognition of research are
marked by enduring movementS. These are: the Amer-
ReSearch im Stafe ' Universities 13
ican Journal of Science, the first volume of which ap-
peared in 1818, and which has continued to be a record
of investigation to the present day ; the Smithsonian In-
stitution, organized in 1846, which has for its motto,
“The increase and diffusion of knowledge among men'';
and the Carnegie Institution, established in 1902, which
in the words of its generous founder has for its aim, “the
securing for the United States leadership in the domain
Of discOvery and the utilization of new forces for the ben-
efit Of man.?'
These three monuments mark not only the road of
Scientific but of industrial advance in America, since the
latter follows in the footsteps of the former. The aims
df the Carnegie Institution, in particular, should arrest
the attention of every so- called practical man, since they
recognize a principle that is invading and revolutionizing
industry in all of its many branches; namely, the sub-
stitution of precise or scientific methods in place of “rule
of thumb,'' and the seeking for Iegitimate gains by the
application of original studies to the arts. In brief, it is
becoming noised abroad that there is money in research.
In referance to the growing appreciation of the value of
research, a few illustrations may not be amiss.
The recognition of the importance of research to the
farmer is indicated by the work carried on at public ex-
pense by the Department of Agriculture at Washington.
Although the so- called practical and the application of
discoveries already available, is the avowed aim of this
well organized department by the government, yet (many
contributions to pure science have been made in its
eighteen sub-departments or bureaus, and at the fifty-
six experiment stations under its general supervision and
located in nearly every state of the Union. Research in
pure science is a part of the work of the Weather Bur-
eau, and of the Divisions of Chemistry, Entomology,
Botany, Biology, Forestry, Soils, Public Roads, Animal
Industry, etc., of the Department of Agriculture and
supplemented by experiments in agriculture by nearly 700
14 Universify of Michigam
men in the many Agricultural Experiment Stations. The
results of the investigations carried on in these many re-
lated fields of study, not only furnish direct aid to farmers
throughout our broad land, but establish safeguards and
quarantines about their pursuits, the money value of
which can only be reckoned in millions of dollars
annually. •
The term “Chemical Industries'* applied to a large
group of manufactures such as beet sugar, soda ash,
Portland cement, etc., is a recognition ofthe factthat they
are based On the research Work Of the Chemical labora-
tory. But capitalists are no longer content tO await re-
turns from the investigator who may chance to devote
his time and energies to the special field in which their
money is invested, but establish laboratories of their own
and employ research workers who can point out ways of
improving processes and enlarging factories. So great is
this demand that our universities are being called upon
to supply trained men by the score, who are able to orig-
inate new methods as well as superintend work already
in process. The recognition of the value of research in
the factory is even more pronounced in Germany than
On this side of the Atlantic, as is indicated by the fact
that in that country a single chemical establishment
employs continuously more than thirty doctors of sci-
ence, the best the universities there can turn out, who
devote their entire time to original investigations. As is
frankly conceded in England and other Countries which
are the industrial rivals of Germany, the marked en-
largmentof her manufacturing industries in the past dec-
ade, is directly due, as may be said for the sake of em-
phasis, to her including brains among the raw materials
used.
Research in pure physics, as is well known, has led
to the mobilization and training of industrial armies,
which have built railroads, telegraph and telephone lines,
laid Ocean cables, and erected wireless telegraphy sta-
tions, and in numerous other ways aided transportation
ReSearch im Sfafe UniversifieS 15
and intercommunication, and enhanced the comfortS and
conveniences of everyday life.
The direct economic value of research work in geology,
is shown by the fact that nearly every civilized country,
and many states and provinces within the limits of lar-
ger political organizations, carry on geological surveys.
The principal object of such surveys is to furnish assist-
ance in the discovery of materials of economic importance
such as building stone, coal, petroleum, iron, etc., but
while this is largely routine work and the application Of
knowledge already acquired, research work is necessary.
at almost every step. To discover mineral substances of
commercial value the far reaching laws governing the
many ways in which such substances have been concen-
trated, recrystallized, etc., so as to be available for man's
use, have to be investigated. In recognition of the fact
that the geologist has but entered on the exploration of
the treasures of the earth, every national and state geo-
logical survey favors research work in a high degree.
A moment's thought will suffice to show that the few
instances just mentioned in which research is fostered,
do not stand alone. In medicine, hygiene, engineering,
economics, and many other broad fields of activity the
direct utility of seeking for more knowledge is appar-
ent and widely recognized.
These brief statements in reference to the growing
recognition of the value of scientific discoveries, have
been selected from a great number that might be
presented, with the hope of making it clear that there is
a demamd for reSearch me/7. Men are wanted who can
not only conduct industries on long established methods,
but who have the ability to originate new methods and
discover and apply new principles, particularly in the
way of doing cheaper and better that what is now being
done and of utilizing that Which is now being wasted.
Never before in the history of the world has the de-
mand for intellectual leaders of industry been greater
than at present. The direct material benefits to be de-
16 Universify of Michigam
rived from the application of the forces Of nature tO
human ends, are now more widely appreciated than ever
before. With this appreciation goes a demand for fresh
explorations and a thirst for the results of research that
is most Stimulating and encouraging. To persons engaged
in the business of education, these considerations must
awaken the enquiry : How is this great and growing de-
mand to be met? . -
Preparatiom for research work. To a large extent, the
men who have enlarged human knowledge have been
men of genius— with a mental grasp stronger tham their
fellows. Thousands of people saw apples fall to the
ground before Newton formulated the law of gravity, but
lacked the ability to deduct the cause from the effect. SO
in all branches of learning some one man more gifted
than his Contemporaries, has led the way into the un-
known. Although genius is all important, even the man
of genius must have training for his work, in order to
make the best use of his exceptional endowments. Just
what training is necessary is a difficult question to de-
cide, especially for One who is not a genius, and not a
specialist in the line of work for which a student is to be
prepared. To a large extent the specially qualified or
exceptional man, must decide for himself as to the mental
equipment required for his individual work. The educa-
tion of the exceptional man is a delicate task. ToO much
training in the methods Others have followed may make
him an imitator instead of a leader; toO little training,
and he may fail to acquire the mental tools necessary
in his particular line of work. The best that can be done
by universities desirous of encouraging their sons and
daughters of exceptional ability to make the most of their
mental gifts, is seemingly, to furnish them with oppor-
tunities to develop; to endeavor to train the body as
well as the mind, to educate the hand as well as the
head, to supply libraries, laboratories, and gymnasiums,
to all who may be inclined to cultivate and develop the
higher strains of inheritance or the special variations
ReSearch im State Universities 17
latent in them. From the thousands who present them-
selves for this arduous work, it is the duty of the univer-
sity to select the few of exceptional ability and encour-
age them to devote their lives to the task of carrying on
research in the direction in which they are especially
qualified. . -
Once the exceptional man is discovered, the purely
economic interests Of the community, if no higher prin-
ciple, demand that he be assisted in every practicable
way in carrying on his great work. Here again, the en-
couragment of genius is a delicate task. Discovery
means close application and long Continued and pains-
taking work. The discoverer, as previously suggested,
may be likened to a mountain climber. He must put
forth his best efforts, deny himself many of the pleasures of
life, and toil on for the most part alone, so far as intel-
lectual companionship is concerned. He is but a man,
however, and lavish emoluments may lure him to Walk
in the customary paths leading through bowers of pleas-
ure, to the neglect of the more rugged ways tending up-
ward; toO little aid may leave his task so difficult that a
great part of his energy will be Consumed in overcoming
the difficulties Of mere existenCe.
Both in the education of the thousands in Order that
the exceptional man may be found, and in the assistance
the university may in its Own interest extend to hiim as
a research worker, the persons best qualified to act as
trustees for the community are the men with sufficiently
wide training and at least an appreciation of the higher
and more enobling aims of discovery who are interested
in similar lines of work. Such men are to a great extent
included in the faculties of the higher institutions of
learning. Committees from several such faculties, it is
to be presumed, would be best^able to decide aS to what
extent the men with new ideas or of exceptional ability,
should receive financial assistance.
The place of rcSearch in the university. In view of the
several Considerations touched upon in the preceding
18 - University of Michigam
pages—namely: the catholic aims of research; the nar-
row bounds of the known; the fact that discovery is the
all important initial step in applying the materials and
forces of nature to man's use; the convincing evidence
aS to the general and widely spread awakening among
the leaders of industry in reference to the economic im-
portance of fresh discoveries; and the growing recogni-
tion of the fact that not only skill but originality pays—
the question presents itself: What should be the attitude
of communities and institutions of learning towards re-
Search ? ln this connection communities and institutions
of learning may be considered together, since many
Schools, colleges and universities are supported by pub-
lic taxation.
Public schools, state colleges and state universitiés,
SO far as is declared in the laws creating *them, are
maintained for two principal reasons: first because edu-
cation tends in a conspicuOus manner tO promote integ-
rity, refinement, and all that speaks for good citizenship;
and, second, to train students in various arts and profes-
sions in such a way that they will be enabled to serve
effeciently the communities in which they live.
The recognized method of attaining these ends, to
use a part of the motto of the Smithsonian Institution,
is to diffuse hnowledge among mem. The frequently
quoted ordinance passed by the Confederate Con-
gress, in 1787, which records the planting of the seed
from which the public school system of the United States
has grown, reads:
“Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to
good government and the happiness of mankind, Schools
and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.''
In this and, so far as I have been able tO learn, in all
subsequent legistation bearing on public education, there
is no direct recognition of the fundamental principle ex-
pressed in the first clause of the Smithsonian's motto,
namely, the increase of hnowledge, and found in the first
of the declared aims of the Carnegie Institution, which
Research in State Universities 19
reads, To promote origimal research, payimg greaf aftentiom
thereto aS ome of the moSt importamf of all deparfmemfs.
The proclaimed purpose of education has been and to
a paramount degree still is, the transmission of know-
ledge, without endeavoring to add to the assets of the
bank on which drafts are made, or striving to train the
student tO discover new truths for , himself. Teachers
and professors in state schools, colleges and universities,
so far as indicated by their contracts with the institutions
they serve, are simply conveyors of knowledge previous-
ly gained. In a few universities in America, it is true,
chairs of research have been endowed by individuals, and
in two notable instances, namely, Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity and Clark University, institutions having research
as their primary aim, have been founded by broad- mind-
ed citizens. In the main and almost entirely, however,
Such additions as have been made to the world's store of
knowledge by teachers and professors, are due to their
individual zeal and industry during hours not occu-
pied by routine work in the lecture room or the
laboratory.
Admitting the argument sometimes advanced in justifi-
cation of the neglect of research in state universities,
namely, that the duties of such institutions are purely
educational, and that they are not supported for the pur-
pose of fostering research, the fact still remains that
research is in itself a method of mental training of a
high order and demands a place in our institutions of
learning on account of its exceptional educational value.
As stated by Sir Norman Lockyer in his recent Presiden-
tial Address before the British ASSOciation for the
Advancement of Science, reSearch is mow gemerally ac-
hnowledged fo be the moSf powerful emgime of educafion
that we poSSeSS. The inquiry into the secrets of the un-
known necessitates not only rigid mental discipline on
the part of its votaries, but is an incentive to exertion
to a degree that no Other phase of education presents.
Not even the desise for technical training in order that
20 University of Michigam
pecuniary returns may be had, awakens such an ernest
desire to know, or stimulates the student to such untiring
diligence aS exploration in a chosen field. And, besides, in
the present stage of the growth of knowledge in order
to make fresh conquests, the investigator must become
familiar with that which has already been accomplished
along the path he is to follow, and at least have a work-
ing knowledge of the languages in which the results
reached by his predecessors are recorded, aS Well aS Some
understanding of the departments of learning closely re-
lated to his spedialty. The lesson to be read between
the lines in these statements, is that research does not
supplant Other means of education but supplements them
and give them vitality.
If the primary object of public education is the develop-
ment of character and the making of good citizens, re-
searce must from this point of view also be given a
higher place than the mere following in the footsteps of
others, since its sole aim is the discovery of truth.
The inquiry for truth implies painstaking accuracy,
the Searching criticism of one's own work and the
seeking of criticism from others, the dissipation
of false hypotheses, the cultivation of logical methods,
fearless abandonment of long established prejudices, the
acceptance of Conclusions based on oft-repeated ex-
periments no matter how disturbing to former opinions,
the discounting of mere authority, and Other ennobling
attributes Of the mind. .
In the several particulars just mentioned and more be-
sides, the superior educational value of research over the
mere acquiring of knowledge already formulated and re-
corded in books, seem Self-evident.
From the considerations briefly and inadequately pre-
Sented on the preceding pages, at least two important
conclusions may be drawn : one is, that research fur-
nishes the only means man has of increasing his control
over nature; and the other, that. in thus enlarging his
sway he cultivates his own powers and enhances his
ReSearch im State UniversifieS 2 1
chances of still greater advancement: Or stated in Other
words: an increase in knowledge adds tO man's ecO-
nomic resources and at the same time is an educational
exercise which develops the higher faculties of the mind.
The attitude that the state should hold toward research
isthustwo fold ; firstto secure for her citizens a knowledge
of the materials and forces of nature which can be utilized
for increasing their comforts and enhancing their happi-
ness; and second, to supply her students with an effi-
cient means for developing their mental powers and
awakening in them a consuming desire for the truth.
This claim for the educational value of research, as
already stated, does not imply the abandonment of pres-
ent methods of education, but simply the adoption of
another means Of attaining the desired end. While ob-
servation should be encouraged at all stages of School
and college life, Owing to the broad preparation necessary
for true research, it cannot be expected that the student
unless a genius, will be able to make independent in-
vestigations before completing his college studies. The
place for definite and final training in research must
necessarily be in the university. Such training furnish-
es the keystone which completes the arch of public edu-
cation and finishes the structure begun in the grade
schools, and must of necessity be fashioned and put in
place in the university. Itis not until this is done that
the university ceases to be a high school of larger
growth. In each college of a university a few students
are usually graduated each year who desire to Continue
their studies and earn a master? S and later a doctor's de-
gree. These few by a process akin to natural selection
or the survival of the fittest, form a class by themselves
and in general, owing to exceptional mental endowments,
or more than ordinary diligence, are best qualified of all
the sons and daughters of a university to become con-
tributors to the world's store of knowledge, to enter the
ranks of teachers, or to assume the duties of the learned
professions. It is to the lives of these few that the
22 University of Michigam
university looks for her greatest share of reflected honor,
and the state for her highest grade of professional men.
It is for the encouragement and advancement of these
exceptional students who are to be intellectual leaders in
after life, that the university may reasonably be asked
to extend special consideration and assistance during
the continuance of their graduate studies.
This would seem to be the highest function of the uni-
versity, not only because it encourages her best students
to strive to attain the higher walks of intellectual life,
but because in the process of discovering the man or
woman of exceptional ability, all her sons and daughters
are encouraged to advance to the highest plane their
mental endowments permit them tO reach.
The place for research work in the university is, then,
at the close of the Courses of study pursued in her
several colleges; that is, in the Graduate School
to which only those students who have successfully
passed their final college examinations and re-
ceived the bachelor's degree, are admitted. The
Graduate School might well be named and made in
fact the School of ReSearch. Without such a School a
group of colleges should not be classed as a university.
As expressed by Hon. Seth Low, in an article on “Higher
Education in the United States,** published in the
Educational Review, “The work of the college isto teach
that which is already known—the work of the university
is, in addition to this, to enquire, to ascertain what lies
beyond the line that marks the limit of the known.** In
the School of Research, the leading idea being the de-
velopment of originality, it is evident that the professors
should be chosen from the ranks of those who have won
distinction on account of their original contributions to
the branch of knowledge in which they presume to serve
as guides. In the School of Research, also, professor and
student should be co-workers and mutually assist each
Other. From such Comradeship, that intangible some-
thing which is transmitted fröm person to person by
ReSearch im State Universifies 29
association and contact, but cannot be written or spoken
— we mayterm itinspiration, or personal magnetism, or per-
haps the radium of the soul—is acquired by the student in
a greater degree than at any previous time in his life
after leaving the caressing arms of his mother. In the
School of Research professor and student should have the
time and facilities their work demands. From such
schools, as may reasonably be expected, will come in the
future the best trained men and women and the greatest
contributions to human knowledge.
Seemingly, all college bred men must recognize the
demands of higher education, every captain of industry
appreciate the commercial benefits flowing from an in-
crease in knowledge, and every citizen see that the
search for truth is the best method of enhancing morality
and integrity and of elevating the human race. The in-
terests of all . branches of society are thus primarily
centered on research. There is a demamd that progress
be made and that the utmost attainable bounds Of the
knowable be reached.
Demands of men trained in the law, in medicine, in
engineering, etc., have led the trustees and regents of
universities to establish and maintain professional schools,
and not only the number of men entering the learned
professions but their efficiency, has been increased there-
by. As I have endeavored to make clear, there is also a
demand which is urgent and pressing, for men who can
carry on research work in pure science, and who are
qualified to discover new facts, new laws, and new
forces to be utilized in industry. This demand also de-
serves to be met by our state universities, in order that
the best possible returns may be made to the citizens Of
a state who by taxing themselves support such institu-
tions. While the direct economic returns to be expected
from the establishment and adequate maintenance of re-
search Schools at public expense, would amply justify
such a course, such promises do not stand alone, as
24 UniverSify of Michigam
research, to use the words of Lockyer quoted above,
is the most powerful engine of education known.
The undertakings of communities as is well understood,
are formulated and guided by a comparatively few indi-
viduals who see not only the immediate and tangible
ends to be gained but the far- reaching influences that
folkow. It is from these few informally appointed direc-
tors of communities, that l venture to ask for due recog-
nition of the fundamental importance of research, both
as a means for- securing greater , eturns from commercial
pursuitS and higher educational training in Our universi-
ties. When these truths are fully appreciated and
clearly expressed by the leaders of communities, the
keystone will be placed in the educational arches states
have erected, and the continued advance of our country
and the attainment of a still greater degree of human '
happiness be assured.
THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL
VOLUME II DECEMBER 1906 NUMBER 2
THE CUES OF CAESAR
IBy FRANCIS W. KELSEY
University of Michigam
In the last volume of the transactions of the American Philological
Association* I presented Some consideratioms which seemed to
warra,mt the conclusion that Caesar wrote the seven books of the
Gallic War in the winter of 52—5I B. C., and gave to them, not the
title familiar to us, but the title C. Iuli Caesaris commentarii rerum
gestarum; that he composed rapidly, arranging the material by
years, and referred back when necessary to preceding portions of the
work by memory, for this reasom using “indefinite references (as
ut, or ut ante, or ut supra demonstravimus; ut, or ut supra demon-
stratum est) instead of the more definite references Ordinarily used by
Writers who make a greater labor of composition and write more
deliberately.” Since he avoided exact citation, he had no occasion
to employ in his text a word referring to a book; in neither the
Gallic nor the Civil War do we find liber or commentarius, though the
latter word is used by Hirtius in his supplement to the Gallic War,
which is printed in the editions as Book viii. The origina] title
can be restored Only with the help of external evidence; but if
Caesar's manner of composition was such as I have stated, some
indications should appear in the text besides the indefiniteness of
the references to earlier portions of the narrative. Such indications
are to be found, I believe, in the cues by which the transitions are
made from one book to another.
* Vol. XXXVI (I9o5), pp. 2 II-38.
49
5o THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL
All teachers of Caesar have probably noticed the mode of expres-
sion by which, with sufficient variation of language to avoid the
monotony of repetition, the opening sentences of the Second and
following books of the Gallic War are so framed as to contain a
distinct reminiscence of the last sentences of the preceding books.
In order to make the matter more clear to ourselves, however, let
us arrange the corresponding portions of the text in parallel columns,
indicating the cues by means of italics.
CAESAR'S GALLIC WAR
IEND OF BOOK I
Caesar una aestate duobus maximis
bellis confectis . . . . in hiberna in
Sequanos exercitum deduxit; hibernis
Labienum praeposuit; ipse in citeri-
orem Galliam ad conventus agendos
profectus est.
END OF BOOK II
Quas legationes Caesar, quod in Ita-
liam Illyricumque properabat, inita
proxima aestate ad se reverti iussit;
ipse . . . . legionibus in hiberna de-
ductis in Italiam profectus est. Ob
easque res ex litteris Caesaris dierum
XV supplicatio decreta est, quod ante
id tempus accidit nulli.
IEND OF BOOK III
Itaque vastatis omnibus eorum agris,
vicis aedificiisque incensis Caesar exer-
citum reduxit et in Aulercis Lexoviis-
que, reliquis item in civitatibus, quae
proxime bellum fecerant, in hibernis
conlocavit.
END OF BOOK IV
Caesar in Belgis omnium legionum
hiberna constituit; eo duae omnino
civitates ex Britannia obsides miserunt,
reliquae neglexerunt. His rebus gestis
ex litteris Caesaris dierum XX suppli-
catio ab senatu decreta est.
EEGINNING OF BOOK II
Cum esset Caesar in citeriore Gallia
[in hibernis], ita uti supra demonstra-
vimus, crebri ad eum rumores adfere-
bantur, litterisque item Labieni certior
fiebat omnes Belgas . . . . contra po-
pulum Romanum coniurare obsidesque
inter se dare.
EEGINNING OF BOOK III
Cum in Italiam proficisceretur Cae-
sar, Ser. Galbam cum legione duodeci-
ma et parte equitatus in Nantuatis,
Varagros Sedunosque misit, qui a
finibus Allobrogum et lacu Lemanno
et flumine Rhodano ad summas Alpes
pertinent.
EEGINNING OF BOOK IV
Ea, quae secuta est, hieme, qui fuit
annus Cn. Pompeio M. Crasso consuli-
bus, Usipetes Germani et item Tenc-
teri magna cum multitudine hominum
flumen Rhenum transierunt non longe
a mari, quo Rhenus influit.
IBEGINNING OIF BOOK V
L. Domitio Ap. Claudio consulibus
discedens ab hibernis Caesar in Italiam,
ut quotannis facere consuerat, legatis
imperat, quos legionibus praefecerat,
uti, quam plurimas possent, hieme
naves aedificandas veteresque refici-
endas curarent.
THE CUES OF CAESAR 5I
IEND OF BOO]K V
Hac re cognita omnes Eburonum et
Nerviorum, quae convenerant, copiae
discedunt pauloque habuit post id fac-
tum Caesar quietiorem Galliam.
IEND OF BOOK VI
Quibus cum aqua atque igni inter-
dixisset, duas legiones ad fines Tre-
verorum, duas in Lingonibus, sex reli-
quas in Senonum finibus Agedinci in
hibernis conlocavit frumentoque exer-
citui proviso, ut instituerat, in Italiam
ad conventus agendos projectus est.
IBEGINNING OF BOOK VI
Multis de causis Caesar maiorem
Galliae motum exspectans per M. Si-
lanum, C. Antistium Reginum, T. Sexti-
um legatos dilectum habere instituit.
IBEGINNING OF BOOK VII
Quieta Gallia Caesar, ut consti-
tuerat, in Italiam ad conventus agendos
proficiscitur. Ibi cognoscit de Clodii
caede; de senatusque consulto certior
factus, ut omnes iuniores Italiae con-
iurarent, dilectum tota provincia habere
instituit.
In the first place, we observe that Caesar appears as the subject,
expressed or understood, of the last or the next to the last sentence
of each book; and Caesar is expressed as the subject of the first
sentence of every book except the fourth, which has a special intro-
duction on the Usipetes and Tencteri.
Generally, moreover, the end of a book locates Caesar more or
less definitely, and the following book opens with a corresponding
reference to the location or situation. Thus the first book ends with
Caesar On the way to Hither Gaul, the second begins with the time
of his sojourn in Hither Gaul; the phrase in hibernis, which in the
majority of the better manuscripts appears in the first sentence of
Book ii, is apparently a scribe's careless repetition from hibernis in
the last sentence of Book i, hence is bracketed in critical texts and
usually omitted in school editions. The second book takes leave of
Caesar as he is starting for Italy; the third resumes the narrative at
the same point. The last chapter of Book iv represents him as just
having established winter quarters in Belgium; in the opening sen-
tence of Book v he is leaving the winter quarters for Italy. At the
end of Book vi and the beginning of Book vii substantially the same
words are found, referring to Caesar's trip to North Italy at the close
of 53 B. C. in orderto hold Court. And in the transitions of the remain-
ing books, though the local relations are less clearly indicated, we
find cues that are almost as easily recognized. At the end of Book
iii Caesar has placed his army “in winter camps,'° the context show-
ing that more than one camp is meant; the narrative of Book iv
begins by defining the time as “the winter which followed.” Equally
52 . THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL
subtle, yet obvious, is the association of cues in the transition from
Book v to Book vi; at the end of the fifth book Caesar found “ Gaul
more quiet;” at the beginning of the sixth he is “expecting a greater
agitation in Gaul.”
In three of the six instances of transition between books, further-
more, the opening sentence contains a reference which is understood
Only when the context is read in connection with the closing words
of the preceding book: ii, ita uti supra demonstravimus; iv, quae
secuta est; and vii, ut constituerat. But it is not necessary to carry
further the analysis of details, or to institute a comparison of the
transition cues between books with the turns of expression by means
of which Caesar maintains the connection between the smaller
sections of his narrative, the parts of books. We have no reason to
doubt that the division of the Gallic War into the seven books goes
back to Caesar; and while we expect to find in all literary works of
size, modern as well as ancient, a more or less graceful bridging of
the gaps between the main parts, Caesar's transitions from book to
book of the Gallic War are so characteristic that we may think our-
selves justified in considering them a feature of his literary style.
We may proceed, then, to use this stylistic peculiarity as a test or
standard in examining the transitions of the books of the Civil War,
in order to ascertain, first, whether similar cues are to be found,
and, in the second place, whether their presence or absence throws
any light upon the question of the division of this work into books.
Leaving out of consideration the Alexandrian, Ajrican, and
Spanish Wars, it will be convenient to place side by side, for purposes
of comparison, the text of the end of Books i and ii, and the beginning
of Books ii and iii, of the Civil War as this is divided in the editions.
CAESAR'S CIVIL WAR
IENID OF BOOK I
Parte circiter tertia exercitus eo biduo
dimissa duas legiones suas antecedere,
reliquas subsequi iussit, ut non longo
inter se spatio castra facerent, eique
negotio Q. Fufium Calenum legatum
praefecit. Hoc eius praescripto ex His-
pania ad Varum flumen est iter factum,
atque ibi reliqua pars exercitus dimissa
est.
EEGINNING OF BOOK II
Dum haec in Hispania geruntur, C.
Trebonius legatus, qui ad oppugnati-
onem Massiliae relictus erat, duabus
ex partibus aggerem, vineas turresque
ad oppidum agere instituit.
THE CUES OF CAESAR - 53
IEND OF BOOK II
Quorum cohortes militum ante oppi-
dum Iuba conspicatus, suam esse
praedicans praedam, magnam partem
eorum interfici iussit, paucos electos in
regnum remisit, cum Varus suam fidem
ab eo laedi quereretur neque resistere
EEGINNING OF BOOK III
Dictatore habente comitia Caesare
consules creantur Iulius Caesar et P.
Servilius; is enim erat annus, quo per
leges ei consulem fieri liceret. His rebus
confectis, cum fides tota Italia esset
angustior neque creditae pecuniae sol-
auderet. Ipse equo in oppidum vectus verentur, constituit, ut arbitri darentur.
prosequentibus compluribus senatori-
bus, quo in numero erat Ser. Sulpicius
et Licinius Damasippus, paucis [die-
bus], quae fieri vellet, Uticae constituit
atque imperavit diebusque post paucis
se in regnum cum omnibus copiis
recepit.
That the transition from Book i to ii of the Civil War has nothing
in common with the manner of transition between the books of the
Gallic War may be seen at a glance. Even the appearance of His-
pania at the end of Book i and the beginning of Book ii forms an
apparent, not a real, exception, for the use of haec in the first sentence
of Book ii, referring to events narrated at the end of Booki, indicates
a much closer connection of thought than appears in the relation
between the corresponding parts of any other two books. The form
of expression adopted in Dum haec in Hispania geruntur is in
Caesar's writings typical, if not stereotyped, and is invariably used
to effect a transition between the minor Sections of the narrative,
hence in the best editions generally marks the beginning of a para-
graph; examples are B. G. iii. I7. I, Dum haec in Venetis geruntur;
vii. 37. and 42. I, Dum haec ad Gergoviam geruntur; vii. 75. I, Dum
haec ad Alesiam geruntur; B. C. i. 56. I, Dum haec ad Ilerdam ge-
runtur. In the last case the connection between the end of chap. 55,
and the beginning of chap. 56, is no closer than that between the
last sentence of Book i and the opening sentence of Book ii; on
grounds of style and connection it is not easy to see why the end of
Book i may not just as well be at the end of chap. 56 as of chap. 87.
But we shall return to this topic later.
The transition from Book ii to Book iii is of an altogether different
character. Book ii ends with the disastrous campaign of Curio in
Africa, and the closing sentences with consummate literary art, by
54 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL
means of a few bold touches, show how the victory over Caesar's
hapless lieutenant meant the temporary ascendancy of the arrogant
and vindictive Juba, with the shedding of Roman blood ruthlessly
by barbarian bands. With the opening of the third book the scene
changes. There is a brief introduction of five chapters outlining
the military situation at the end of the year 49 as a prelude to the
account of the campaign of 48 to which the rest of the book, Io7
chapters, is devoted. In this introduction we have in chaps. I and 2
a statement in regard to the actions and plans of Caesar, in chaps. 3
to 5, a summary of the preparations of Pompey for the final struggle;
chap. 6 begins the narrative of the campaign with Caesar's ad-
dress to his soldiers at Brundisium and his setting sail for Epirus
“on the day before the nones of January” 48 B. C. That the real
or solar date of the departure for Epirus was in the first week of
November, 49, according to the corrected calendar, has no bearing
upon Our inquiry; for, in arranging his material by years, Caesar
naturally adopted the official, not the solar, year as his chronological
unit. .
At the beginning of this special introduction to Book iii we find
the names of the consuls for the year 48; for that is the year desig-
nated as is annus, ten years having elapsed since Caesar's first
consulship in 59, SO that his secOnd consulship to this extent had the
sanction of the old law by which (Liv. vii. 42. I) cautum ne quis
eundem magistratum intra decem annos caperet; and his name is
given as Iulius Caesar instead of Caesar because it is mentioned in
an official connection. While we discern no cue to bridge the gap
between Books ii and iii, we nevertheless observe a generic resem-
blance between the special introduction at the beginning of Book iii
and that which is prefixed to Book iv of the Gallic War. The two
introductions are of about the same length; the latter contains 79 .
lines, the former 89, in the text of Kuebler. Both begin with the
names of the consuls of the year in which the events of the following
narrative fall; and while the totally different character of the subject-
matter necessitated a different treatment, so that a detailed com-
parison of the two introductions would be barren of results, it is easy
to recognize in them a similarity in respect to point of view, grasp,
and perspective. Both impress one as Caesariam, and as designed
THE CUES OF CAESAR 55
for precisely the places which they occupy, at the beginning of
books.
There is then no good reason to doubt that the third book of the
Civil War retains its original compass; at any rate we may rest
secure in the belief that the division between it and the preceding
book has from Caesar's time been where it appears in the editions.
The character of the transition from Book i to Book ii, however, when
contrasted with the other transitions between books, may well pro-
voke inquiry as to whether there is other evidence bearing upon
the division between these two books; and such evidence is not
lacking.
Students of Caesar have frequently remarked that Books i and
ii of the Cavil War differ from all the other “commentaries” in this,
that the two together cover the events of a year. But Hirtius expressly
tells us that Caesar wrote a separate “commentary” for each year
(B. G. viii. 48. Io, Scio Caesarem singulorum annorum singulos
commentarios conjecisse); and he feels called upon to explain why he
includes the events of two years (5I and 5o B. C.) in a single “com-
mentary.*' When he was writing this book he had not only Caesar's
Gallic War, but also the Civil War, before him; in his prefatory
letter to Balbus he says, in effect, that he has filled in the gap in
Caesar's writings; that is, the gap between the “commentaries” of
the Gallic and those of the Civil War.* Had Caesar himself split
up the narrative of the events of the year 49 into two books, it is
reasonable to suppose that Hirtius would either have modified the
statement just quoted, or would have put somewhat differently his
apology for departing from a plan of Caesar's which Caesar himself
On this supposition had disregarded.
But again, the narrative of Books i and ii is continuous, and
curiously interlocked, in a manner corresponding with the wide
range and complication of the military operations described, which
were in part synchronous. It is not worth while to give here an
outline of the events of the two books in their order of narration;
let us rather group the military operations and note the chapters in
which they are treated.
I Cf. ** Hirtius' Letter to Balbus and the Commentaries of Caesar,'° in Classical
Philology, Vol. II, No. I.
56 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL
CONTENTS OF CAESAR'S CIVIL WAR, BOOKS I AND II
Introduction: Outbreak of the Civil. War
Book i, chaps. I-7
I. The Campaign in Italy: Ariminum to Brundisium, Rome
i. 8-33
2. Siege of Massilia
i. 34—36, 56—58
ii. I-I6, 22
3. Operations in Spain
i, 37-55, 59-87
11. I7-2I
4. The Campaign of Curio in Africa
ii. 23-44
If Caesar had resolved to abandom his plan, elsewhere consistently
carried out, of devoting a single “commentary” to the events of
each year, and to set forth the events of the year 49 in two books, it
is not easy to see why he should not have brought Book i to a close
at the end of chap. 33, SO as to include the interlocked narrative
of the operations in Spain and about Massilia all in Book ii, which
with the campaign of Curio would still have been considerably
shorter than Book iii. From the point of view of the contents, the
division of matter between Books i and ii seems singularly infelici-
tous, and inconsistent with Caesar's standard of literary workman-
ship. •
As Birt has shown, in his monograph Das antike Buchwesen, in
antiquity the size of the books of a work was governed by certain
conventions and in the same work, unless there were good reasons to
the contrary, the books were of approximately the same length. In the
Gallic War the books vary greatly in length, because Caesar adhered
rigidly to the annalistic principle of arrangement and the events of
some years required fuller treatment than those of others. Assuming
that he discarded this principle of arrangement whem he wrote the
earlier part of the Civil War, we should expect to find him so dis-
tributing his matter that the books, in accordance with the current
convention, would be of nearly the same size. The lengths of the
three books as given by Birt (op. cit., p. 329) in standard lines
are as follows: i, 1,913; ii, I, II6; iii, 2,7Io. The irregularity in
respect to size is noteworthy. But assuming that the usual division
THE CUES OF CAESAR 57
of the matter of Books i and ii is Wrong and that originally these were
one, we see that the single “commentary” thus composed would
contain 3,o29 lines, Only about 3oo lines more than the present
Book iii; the former as well as the latter would fall within the norm
designated by Birt as “grösseres Format.”
In view of the character of the transition from one book to the
other, the close relation of the contents, and the size, it is hard to
avoid the inference that Caesar wrote what are now Books i and ii
of the Civil War as a single “commentary.*' But there is also
external evidence. In one of the best manuscripts of Caesar, Codex
Ashburnhamianus, now in Florence, while the seven books of the
Gallic War are numbered i to vii, and the “commentary” of Hirtius
is numbered viii, liber nonus* appears at the beginning of the Civil
VVar and the text continues without a break to the end of what is now
Book ii, Book iii of the editions being numbered x. Since this
manuscript was described by Stangl in Philologus in I886 (Vol.
XLV, pp. 2I3-2o) the view has been maintained that this numbering
of books, of which traces appear also in a couple of inferior manu-
scripts, reflects an early arrangement of the Caesarian corpus. It
confirms the conclusion that the Civil War as left by Caesar consisted
of two “commentaries,” of which the first contained Books i and ii
of the editions, and the second corresponded with our Book iii.*
This conclusion is by no means inconsistent with the view held by
many that the “commentaries” of the Civil War were unpublished
at the time of Caesar's death; but it cannot be reconciled with the
opinion that the manuscript as he left it contained no division into
books, the division into two as into three books being later and
entirely arbitrary.3 The manuscript of the Civil War was incom-
plete and had not received its final revisiom; it may have been a
I Cf. Chatelain, Pal. des class. lat., I, pl. 5o A. 2.
2 The limits of this paper do not permit us to discuss here the transition from the
end of the second “ Commentary” (now Book iii) of the Civil War to the Alexan-
driam War in the light of the hypothesis advanced by Zingerle (Wiener Studiem,
XIV, pp. 75—II9) that the first twenty-one chapters of this work are from the hand
of Caesar. It is obvious, however, that this transition conforms in type to those of
the Gallic War (end of Book iii, Haec initia belli Alexandrini fuerunt; beginning of
Alexandrian War, Bello Alexandrino conflato), and so far may be reckoned as evidence
in favor of Zingerle's view.
3 Cf. Schanz, Gesch. der röm. Lit. I2, p. 2o4.
58 *. THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL
draft prepared by an amanuensis from dictation. But the mind of
Caesar was marvelously keen and logical; and a fuller analysis
of the two “commentaries” of the Civil War, divided in the manner
indicated, will only confirm the impression that, whether they were
committed to writing by the dictator himself or by an amanuensis,
they were thought out and composed as separate units, cast in the
same mold as the “commentaries” of the Gallic War.
The cues of the Gallic War are significant as heightening the
impression of the unity of the work. They are a natural form of
transition between books for one who writes rapidly and consecu-
tively; had the books of the Gallic War been composed in different
years and published separately, it is inconceivable that they should
have been so artfully joined. It is not impossible that the less care-
ful joining of the beginning of Book iii of the Civil War with the end
of the preceding book may reflect haste and the interruptions in the
midst of which those books must have been composed.
% \
Report on
Courses of Study in English
for Public Schools
Reprinted from the ScHooL REVIEW for November, 1 9o3
REPORT ON COURSES OF STUDY IN ENGLISH
FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.*
I. THE PRIMARY AND THE LOWER GRAMMAR GRADES.
IN preparation for the reports that we are about to prcsent, it
was necessary to obtain from superintendents of schools and
school boards much help in the way of printed directions for the
teachers under their supervision. Mr. Horne, therefore, wrote .
to a great many officials for the needed assistance, which, when
able to do so, they very kindly gave. We are glad at this time
to acknowledge our indebtedness to them and to thank all who
have responded in any way to our request for courses of study
in English. *
Applications for such courses for elementary schools were met
in various ways; sometimes they were granted with the state-
ment that they were not wholly satisfactory ; sometimes they
were in process of revision ; often there were none available.
The following report is based upon the study of seventeen
courses in English which came from cities or large towns repre-
senting four of the New England states. Three — A, B, and C
— gave time schedules for the work in English.
A allows per week:
Hours Minutes Grade
I O 4O I
I 2 I O - II (with I hour for geography)
I I I O III (with 2 hours for geography)
I I 2O IV, V, VI (with 2 hours for geography,
I hour for history)
B allows per week:
Hours Minutes Grade
I 5 2O I
I 3 25 II
I3 . . . III
9 es ę IV, V
8 3O VI
* Read at the annual meeting of the New England Association of Teachers of
English, Boston Latin School, I9o3.
746
ÆÆÆORT ON COURSÆS OA7 S7TUDY VAV AENGLISH 747
In Grades I, II, III English includes elementary science and
geography ; in IV, V, and VI it includes history.
C allows per week: *.
IHours Mimutes Grade
I I 3O I, II
I I e ę III
I O • • IV, V, VI
History does not appear as a separate study until Grade VII.
C gives five fifteen-minute periods a week each to writing and
spelling till Grade VIII; in VIII, two; in IX, one. -
Any of the schedules quoted might satisfy the demands of a
good course. Perhaps the best is B, the one that gives I 5, I 3,
and I 3 hours, respectively, to grades I, II, and III, even though
the average for all the grades is less than that of, A; since the
large proportion of time given to the primary classes tends to a
thorough foundation upon which to build later, and thus brings
about a saving of time in the lower grammar grades.
All courses examined provide for oral expression: in the
reproduction of stories told by the teacher, of lessons upon all
subjects, and of pärts of the literature read to the children or
read by them ; in conversations conducted by the teacher; in
original statements of truth discerned by the children through
the senses ; in the relation of their own experiences. They
provide for the correction of mistakes, whether of enunciation,
pronunciation, misuse of words, or false syntax. They pre-
scribe, also, written expression, which demands: learning to
write (in one instance the “medial" hand is required), to spell,
to syllabicate, to use capitals and marks of punctuation, to indi-
cate the beginning of a new paragraph; the learning of many
abbreviations is advocated, and also of many contractions.
Copying and writing from dictation are generally regarded as
important exercises. Lessons are to be reproduced in writing;
also stories told or read by the teacher. Letters are to be
written, and sometimes themes.
Thirteen of the seventeen courses prescribe grammar, but
there is a diversity of opinion as to when work in grammar shall
begin. Two say “parse" in the seventh grade (this implies an
748 7 AVÆ SCÆVOO /, K Æ VVÆ VV
earlier study of the subject); one, “ formal grammar in the
• higher grammar grades.” One would begin the study in the
latter half of the fifth grade ; two, in Grade VI; one, in Grade
VII. Three advocate the introduction of The Mother 7omgue,
Part I, by Miss Arnold and Professor Kittredge in Grade IV;
another delays its use till Grade VII (apparently demanding a
mastery of the book in that grade), and orders the beginning of
formal grammar in Grade VIII. -
With regard to reading matter judgments differ. *' Readers''
are always recommended for primary grades, generally in fairly
good variety. One course that is strong in literature discards
*' readers'' after Grade III; another, after Grade IV; a third,
after Grade VII. Miss Cyr's Readers are favorites ; a few
courses are not afraid to include The Heart of Oak books edited
by Professor Norton. Supplementary reading is usually good,
so far as it goes, but often narrow, being too exclusively Ameri-
can. One course, however, mentions Shakespeare for the eighth
grade. Another, still bolder, prescribes A Midsummer Vight's
Dream and As You Like It for the seventh. In most cases part
of the reading is done by the teacher ; this is highly com-
mendable, but in one place, where pupils “begin to parse'' in
Grade VII, the teacher is to read books that the children ought
easily to read themselves. In another town, where parsing is
in vogue, literature takes less time than so-called language.
Several courses require some study of the lives of authors even
in primary grades. All courses provide for the learning of
poetry, some, however, going so far as to prescribe exactly
what poem shall be learned in each grade.
The generous allowance for English in the time schedules
quoted is gratifying; moreover, it certainly is wise to regard the
beginnings of elementary science, geography, and history as part
of the work in English, if for no other reason than that they give
occasion for conversation, the natural means by which we learn
to speak a language.
Little children come to our schools at five years of age (most
of them ought not to come before they are seven) with vocabu-
laries appropriate to their home life; Some with very queer
ÆÆAPORT OAV COURSES OÆ STUDY /ΛV ÆAVG LVSÆ. 749
vocabularies, others with very good ones. In most cases no one
has taken pains to teach the children; they have learned by imita-
tion. They will cofitinue to learn in the same way; hence the
new surroundings of the school, with its ordinary routine, will
present ample occasion for development in oral language, if only
the teacher, herself worthy of imitation, has the happy gift of
inspiring confidence, and wisdom enough not to repress thought
and feeling for the sake of form. If thought and feeling become
beautiful, some day they will find adequate expression. It is,
however, quite necessary not to put stumbling-blocks in the way
of the little ones. The teacher serves as her pupils' model dur-
ing school hours, and is quoted as an infallible authority after-
wards; yet in, primary grades stereotyped forms of expression
known only in the schoolroom are in too constant use. Nowhere
else would you hear, “Tell me the story of five birds and three
birds," with the hope of getting “ Five birds and three birds are
eight birds” for the response. “What is busy work ?” asks the
uninitiated. “ What do you mean by gems?” Plans to secure
free, idiomatic English will not avail while the school weekly
gives its sanction to such misuse of words. . -
Again, the school offers models to children in the little books
they read; yet how few lessons in “ First Readers" are excellent
in unity and sentence structure, to say nothing of vivacity ! The
Heart of Oa books, containing the foundations of literature, are
not as widely used as they deserve to be, even though there is
no better way of learning pronunciation and idiom than through
good old nursery rhymes and tales, not twice-told, but told again
and again for years, yes for generations. In early stages of the
studies of geography and history there comes a time when books
of information are read in class. Unfortunately, these books are
too seldom written by men of such literary ability as Professor
Tarr and the late beloved master, John Fiske. Hence, in plan-
ning our courses we must guard with jealous care the periods that
belong to literature. No book that may not claim its place
among works of art should be read during the reading hour on
any pretext whatever. - -
On the principle made , popular by Froebel, “learning by
75o - 7THÆ SCHOOL Æ Æ VVÆ PV
doing," letter-writing deserves more attention than it receives in
many courses. One goes through the tedious process of learning
to write, to spell, and to punctuate that he may communicate d
with some friend beyond the reach of his voice. Here is an
honest incentive to careful written work; moreover, the personal
element gives life to composition. Partly for this • reason we
would begin the simplest letters in the last term of even the first
year; partly because so many children never go beyond the sixth
grade that it is unsafe to delay teaching simple business forms in
that grade, and there should be plentiful opportunity for writing
letters of friendship before business forms are taught. A large
proportion of the work in composition may well be carried on in
the form of letters throughout both elementary and grammar
courses for training in honest authorship, which training must by
all means be thorough from the beginning. To enforce the
principle just stated, themes in all grades should be based upon
the observation, or experience of the writer. A sharp distinction
must always be made between a mere reproduction and an
original piece of composition. - •
There appears to. be a tendency to teach English grammar
but usually of a very rational kind. The diversity of opinion
as to when it should be taught seems to indicate the necessity
for discussion. No one doubts the educational value of the
study of grammar. The questions concerning the matter that
one would like to answer wisely are: (I) When is it needful
from a practical point of view? (2) When does it become advis-
able in the development of mind and character? (3) How does
it compare with composition and reading in fitting boys and girls
for life? The mere getting ready for the high school, and event-
ually for college, is not to be considered, first, because the many
must not be sacrificed to the few; secondly, because (despite the
complaints) it is quite fair that the teacher of Latin should have
virgin soil. Surely his subject is far easier from the point of
view of grammar than is English. Instead, then, of teaching
English grammar that Latin may be more readily understood,
would it not be wiser to teach Latin, thoroughly so far as it goes,
in the sixth or seventh year, as the source of the classical ele-
A ZAOR 7 OAV COURSES OA STUDY /Λ/ ÆΛ/GZ/SA/ 75 I
ment in English, as well as to give some training in the science
' of language? The knowledge of even a little Latin may become
' useful in working out the meaning of a large number of com-
monly used words, literary rather than colloquial, and thus may
help to make reading more enjoyable. -
We omit formal English grammar from our list of studies, not
from any lack of respect for the science of language, but because
we feel that it should come later in life, and because the teach-
ing of grammar, necessarily decreasing the amount of time to be
given to literature, defrauds the vast majority of the most impor-
tant part of their training in English. .
When Helen Keller was still without language, she was almost
unmanageable; with language came the sweetness of spirit which
in childhood was her greatest charm. The explanation, I think,
is this: an adequate means of expression, and the ability to enter
into the life around her, set her soul free. . The freeing of the
spirit—this always is the high function of language. Says
Wordsworth of a sad thought that oppressed him : -
. A timely utterance gave that thought relief and I again am strong.
But, as in all phases of life the few find freedom in leading, the
multitude in following, so it is with language. The few say great
'things in a great way ; the many hear; in each case the spirit
may enter into a larger life and find nobler expressión. Since
we deal with the multitude in our elementary schools, the empha-
sis of our training in language should be put upon that part of
the work which tends to make appreciative followers of great
leaders ; in other words, upon the reading of good literature.
To teach the child of ignorant or illiterate parents to read, and
not to give him good taste in literature, is to give that “little
knowledge'' which “is a dangerous thing.” -
• A good course in English, then, will provide time and oppor-
tunity for learning to enjoy good books. To this end, not less
than half an hour every day in the week, every week in the year,
every year in the course, should be faithfully devoted to reading
aloud for pleasure. In the primary and lower grammar grades,
the teacher must always do this reading ; in the upper grades,
the better readers among the pupils may take their part. Pos-
752 • • . • . 7THÆ SCHOOL AREVIAE VV .
sibly now and then a question may arise, as it will when friends
read together some delightful book; but in no respect is the reading
to be regarded as a task. There is to be no reproducing of what
is read, unless a voluntary one, as when a child has been absent
and another tells him what has happened meanwhile in the story.
During this period sometimes it would be well for the chil-
dren to have books, that they might follow with both ear and
eye; at other times - it would be better if their hands were
employed with some easy work, as sewing, knitting, making
hammocks, basket-weaving, or whatever may be done quietly
and almost automatically. - - •
A generous list 6f books must be provided from which the
teacher may select what at any time may best meet the needs of
her class. - -
In several of the courses examined, a study of the author's
life is prescribed. But little time should be thus spent— only
enough to establish the idea that what gives us pleasure has cost
abstinence from self-seeking and honest labor, and therefore
inspires grateful affection. - «
Concerning the learning of poetry by heart, a word of caution
seems necessary. From the language used in speaking of this
work, one is not always quite sure what is to be learned, whether
mere scraps of verse or whole poems as artistic unities. If the
former, it is worth very little ; if the latter, its value cannot be
overestimated. In connection with this work, properly con-
ducted, the power of choice should be trained; hence prescrib-
ing exactly what shall be taught in each grade is a grave mistake
—a mistake so serious as to tend to defeat the end for which the
work is done. We must have such teachers as we can trust to
introduce the children to such masters as they may follow.
Our courses in English generally are so planned as to devote
more time to artificial striving after form than to the presenting of
the only sure means by which good form will come. “ Reading
maketh a full man, writing an exact man.'' I wonder when the
Greeks began to study their language as such. Certainly not
before the age of mythology ; certainly not before Homer's day.
- MARY C. MooRE.
A AeAORT ON COURSES OF STUDY IN EAWGLISH 753
II. THE UPPER GRAMMAR AND THE HIGH-SCHOOL GRADES.
I wish to add my thanks to Miss Moore's for the many
responses received in answer to the request for copies of “courses
of study.” In all over one hundred requests were sent out.
From the literature received, many valuable suggestions have
CO me tO uS. *
In considering the grammar and the high-school courses of
study, I wish to: say, first of all, that I heartily indorse Miss
Moore's suggestion and recommendation for the work prepara-
tory to the grammar courses. Undoubtedly all schools cannot
send pupils to the grammar grades with the same preparation.
But to enter the grammar grade the pupil should be fairly well
equipped with vocabulary, and with the elementary principles of
sentence structure, of paragraphing, punctuating, and capitalizing.
The grammar courses submitted for consideration all provide
for oral expression, written work, grammar study, memorizing
selections, and a varying range of reading in literature, “ Read-
ers'' as such, with few exceptions, seem no longer to be used.
I question if many of the books put down by Some schools for
class study ought not to be put in the list of books to be read
outside of the class. Tanglezwood 7ales, Little Mem, Little VVomem,
Æab amd His Friends, Through the Looking' Glass, etc., seem to me
better adapted for the fireside than for the school. The reading
aloud spoken of by Miss Moore for the lower grades should be
continued throughout the course. Only in the grammar and
high schools the reading can more frequently be done by the
pupil. The ability to stand upon one's feet and to read well is
an accomplishment all schools should strive hard to teach.
Pupils should be encouraged to read aloud at home. In no
better way can clear enunciation and pronunciation be effected.
Then, too, I wish to emphasize again Miss Moore's statement
that in no respect must the reading be regarded as a task, but
cultivated as a pleasure. To this end the suggestion that during
the reading aloud the hands of the listeners be employed with
some easy work, deserves adoption in the higher schools as well
as in the lower grades. -
754 7THVÆ SCAHVOO Z ARÆ VVÆ VV
In the earlier grades of the grammar school various con-
clusions are suggested from the circulars received. I quote a
a few: Constant attention should be given to form. Careless or
loose writing must be discouraged. A few clear sentences, well .
written, punctuated, capitalized, and well paragraphed, are better
than many pages carelessly composed or poorly written. Each
pupil should be required to look over and correct his work before
handing in his paper. No other way of helping develop correct
forms of writing is better than dictation. But in this scheme the
teacher must prepare carefully the exercise and follow out a gen-
eral plan for the whole. The parts to be emphasized must be
determined. Sentences illustrating the principles can be studied.
Then the dictation can follow, and, by comparison, errors in capi-
talization, punctuation, and paragraphing can be corrected and
the general principles easily mastered.
Equally true is the value of letter-writing. As soon as the
child can form letters, either print or written, he is advanced
enough to take his first lesson in letter-writing. And letter-
writing should be carefully kept before the pupil each year,
beginning with Grade I and ending only with graduation from
the high school.
In the eighth and ninth grades, and in some cases in the
seventh, the study of words and sentences with parsing and
analysis is taken up. This is commendable, provided not too
much importance is placed upon the dry bones of grammar.
The very best teachers of the school should be the teachers of
English, and they alone can determine whether the study of
English be a pleasure or a nightmare. The good teacher in
English grammar makes the study pleasant and profitable for
the class. The poor teacher wearies himself and does not aid
his pupils. -
While no absolute rule can be laid down, many schools have
found the interests of their classes best served in the seventh
grade in emphasizing, with some text-book as a basis of sugges-
tion, the following points : conversation on many subjects ethical
and literary, together with current events and current topics;
dictation to test all technical work taught; letter- writing; repro-
a.
A ZAOR 7 ON COURSES OF STUDY /w EAVGZ/SA 755
duction of stories read, also of geography, history, nature work,
and literature studies; the principles of narration and description
emphasized by written and oral work ; committing to memory
choice selections, both prose and poetry; the study of words and
of sentences. In Grade VIII the same work developed, together
with the study of word-building, inflection, synonyms, and anto-
nyms; an outline taught for the development of the subject;
business forms and correspondence in connection with the arith-
metic. In Grade IX, besides the above, greater discrimination
in the choice of material; special attention to the construction
of sentences and to analysis; constant practice in narrative and
descriptive writing.
I wish here to emphasize the importance of the early study
of Latin. The grammar grades ought to take up this work and
English grammar taught largely through the medium of the
Latin. The study of English grammar as such is often irksome,
but under the guise of Latin it is pursued with increased interest.
If the study of Latin could be introduced into the seventh grade
and treated as a study of grammar, much valuable time would be
saved, a deeper interest would be aroused and maintained; the
pupil would have a more exact and comprehensive view of
English grammar when he entered the high school or academy,
and the efficiency of the high-school work in the first year would
be greatly increased. For the large number of pupils whose
school days end with the grammar school this preliminary train-
ing in Latin would be exceptional. But if ILatin cannot be
studied in the grammar school, the outline of work already pre-
sented can be used with profit. Moreover, the teacher of English
can emphasize word-building, roots, prefixes, and suffixes, the
Latin element in the language, and the simpler constructions of
the Latin sentence.
I wish to emphasize the statement that the study of grammar
— the different parts of speech, sentence structure, use of capi-
tals, punctuation, etc.— does not belong to the high school.
Many of the schools do have this work in the first year of the
high school, but I think that it belongs to the grammar grades.
But literature and composition have equal importance in the
756 7THÆ SCHOOL ÆÆ VVÆ VV
schedules. As much time should be spent upon these three—
grammar, literature, and composition —as the courses of study
in the schools will admit. In general, the schools have made
liberal time provision for this work. The amount of time varies
greatly in the different schools. •
The transition from the grammar to the high school ought to
be less abrupt than it is. Ordinarily, from the course of study
prescribed, it would seem that the high school makes a sudden
change. Algebra, a new subject, takes the place of arithmetic;
ancient history supersedes United States history and geography.
Latin comes in as a new subject. The course in English alone
is familiar ground. But the work of the high school should be
“shaped by the mere momentum of the lower grades.'' But
this is rarely so. While a few schools teach a little algebra,
descriptive geometry, and the beginnings of Latin in the grammar
grades, thus making the transition to the high school easy, by
far the greater number make the abrupt change. The pupil is
not only ushered into a new life, but he takes up work as unfa-
miliar as his surroundings, and often spends a large part of the
first term in finding himself. Consider briefly the Latin which
as a language study deserves mention in connection with the
English. Seventy-five lessons, nearly all of them emphasizing
important principles, have to be mastered so that the pupil can
take up the study of Caesar or other translation at the end of
I 25, or at the most of I 5o, days of study. This ought not so to
be. If Latin formed part of the study of English in the gram-
mar grades, its study in the high school could be taken up with
greater benefit and the course in Latin be completed satisfacto-
rily in four years. So much for the Latin.
The courses in English follow along fairly defined lines in the
first nine grades. The same course is required of all. But in
the high school and academy the problem becomes more com-
plicated. A few of the pupils are preparing for college. The
larger proportion will finish its education in the high school. Is
the same course of English study to be required of all? So
important is the study of English that I believe that all pupils
in the high Schools, no matter what courses they are pursuing,
Æ ÆAOR 7 OAV COURSES OA S7'UD Y ZAV ÆAVGZ/SA 757
should take the same general work in English. . This would be
more economical for the schools, and a uniform plan would
enable the teachers to develop one course stronger than two
parallel courses. If the same work could be required of all, the
problem of the courses of study in English would be easier.
The absolute definition of requirements in English is not one
' I can recommend for those who are to enter college, and cer-
tainly is not one for those who are not to go beyond the high
school. Not but what every book in the list of requirements is
well worth study; but if these books alone are to be. studied,
other books are better both for those who are to go to college
and for those who are not. Some schools have adopted the list
of college requirements, with a few slight additions in the first
year, skipping English entirely the second year, and spending
the last two years wholly upon the college requirements. Some
follow the English requirements wholly. Some give a very
broad and comprehensive course. Let us glance at the college
requirements: three plays of Shakespeare, one for careful study;
four of Milton's shorter poems, a careful argument, two critical
essays. These books, with Macbeth, are for careful study. Then
follow some of Addison's Daily Themes, three English novels,
three poems (two of them very short), and one critical essay;
These books are to be read so as to keep “freshly in mind their
most important parts.”
In this list there is but one short poem by an American
writer. These books are excellent, in themselves, but I think
that our American children, and those we are trying to make
Americam, should have different—or, if not different, at least
additional—books to read and study. The trouble is not with
the books, but with the small number of books and the way in
which they are prescribed. The list is too one-sided. There is
too little that is American. True, the lower schools have proba-
bly studied more American than English authors, but the fact
that a pupil enters the high school does not seem to me to be
reason why he should drop American writers. If argument is to
be studied, let us have a book that speaks of America by an
American. The oratory of Burke could well be supplemented
758 • 7TÆ Æ SCHWOO/ Æ Æ VVÆ VV
by that of Webster, Everett, or Choate. If essays and philoso-
phy are needed, let our pupils study Emerson as well as Addi-
son. Why not have novels of Hawthorne, of Poe, or retain one
of Cooper's, as well as have only Silas Mamer, The Vicar of
Wakefield, and Ivanhoe? In other words, let us have in our
American schools a goodly proportion of American thought. Is
the English better ? No matter. The sweet song of Hiawatha, , ,
the rugged verse of the Quaker poet, the vivid imagination of
Poe, the humor of Holmes, the purity of the thoughts of Emer-
son, are American, and because they are American their study
would touch a responsive chord in the hearts of American chil-
dren. An additional reason why the high-school children who
are going to college should study American literature in the
public schools: Very little, if any, can be studied at the col-
leges. Look over the catalogues of the universities and the
colleges, and almost no provision is made for the study of
American literature. Harvard offers. a half course, which is
occasionally omitted. In addition, there is a course for graduate
study. In Yale, one course meeting one hour a week. In
Wellesley, one course one hour a week for a year. Another
course touches a little upon America. In Princeton, one course
—a senior elective. In Dartmouth, one-half course given in
the second semester three times a week. Is not this abundant
reason why American literature should be studied in the schools?
The plan for work adapted to the program of the Committee
of Ten published in 1897 presents an admirable selection of
books to be read in the high Schools. This list emphasizes the
importance of American authors. Irving, Longfellow, Haw-
thorne, Professor Norton, Cooper, Dana, Lowell, Dr. Hale, and
Emerson are studied together with England's best. Some of
the books should be studied carefully, but not toO critically;
others should be read intelligently in the class, and still others
required for home reading. • •
No absolute list of books should be prescribed for all schools.
Each school should have its own comprehensive list. If the
school sends graduates to college, let the colleges indicate the
scope of the work to be done, but „let the schools meet the
A ZAOR 7 OAy COURSES OA STUDY AW ÆAWGLSA/ 759
requirements as seem best. The college could examine care-
fully the work done by the school, what books were read, and
with what thoroughness the work was carried on. But the
schools should have a large freedom in their choice. -
Every school in Essex county, particularly those under the
shadow of Haverhill or Amesbury, should study the songs of
the Quaker poet. We cannot expect the schools of Salem to
pass by the works of Hawthorne, or Concord the work of
Emerson, or Cambridge. the work of Longfellow, Holmes, and
Lowell. Marshfield should study the masterpieces of Webster.
Nearly every town in New England, certainly every county, has
associated with it the names of men who have contributed to our
literature, both prose and poetry. America's best is the com-
mon heritage of all the schools. Just as in the study of history
and geography great stress is placed upon the importance of the
study of the town, county, and state in which we live, so in our
, literature the life and works of local writers should be studied.
Not alone should the writers of the past be read in our schools,
but the works of those now living, the venerable of today, whose
place in literature is already secure. Professor Norton's Hearts
of Oak and Dr. Hale's The Mam without a Country deserve a place
in every New England school and home. Even though it is
doubtless true that many of these books have been read in the
lower grades, their study should be a part of the high-school
CO Ul1TS€. -
- Closely associated with the work in English, and really a part
of it, are the courses in classics, modern languages, and history.
A purely classical course is extremely rich in its opportunities for
perfecting English. The careful reading and study of Virgil
and Homer, of Cicero and Xenophon, or of any other great
writers, if properly directed by the teacher, will greatly aid in
literary study and development. In all schools the study of
English should be closely connected with all other subjects, and
most particularly so in the allied subjects of languages and his-
tory. In the first year the Latin arid history give splendid
opportunities for English training in reading, writing, spelling,
construction, composition, and literature. English grammar, I
76o 7TÆVÆ SCA/OO Z Λ ΑΕ VVÆ VV
have stated, cannot be studied in any better way than through
careful training in the Latin grammar. This study enlarges the
vocabulary, teaches discrimination in the choice of words. What
is true of the study of Latin is almost equally true of the study
of Greek, French, and German. Added to this, the increased
familiarity with the culture and the civilization of the ancients
broadens the mental horizon of our pupils and gives to English
study a new importance.
In courses of study where the classics or the modern lan-
guages are wholly or partly omitted, additional attention should
be given to the study of English literature and composition.
Some attention should be paid to the translation of the ancient ,
classics. - - -
Books should never be studied word for word or line for line,
as is necessary to do with a foreign tongue. Let me read a sen-
tence from the “Suggestion to Teachers " in the pamphlet on
Emg/is/, in Secondam y Schools: -
Pupils should of course be made to understand what they read as they go
along ; but attention should be fixed, not on unimportant details of substance
or of style, but on the significance and spirit of the whole. In studying a
tragedy of Shakespeare, for example, far less time should be given- to the
discussion of details than to the march of events, the play of character, the
main lines of the plot, the significance of the whole as a work of genius.
Allusions of the broader and more interesting sort found in the works studied
— e. g., allusions to classic myths and to historical events — should receive
adequate and sympathetic illustration. If any etymological comment is
thought desirable, it should be limited to words having a distinct affiliation
with the pupil's present knowledge of language, especially of Latin. . . . .
In every case, a teacher should beware of imparting knowledge in such a
way or of such a kind as to kill interest in what his pupils, if left to them-
selves, would enjoy. -
Throughout the high school, then, the English work should
be carried along three lines: grammar, literature, and composi-
tion. In grammar, we have stated that the aim is for the pupil
to gain an intelligent grasp of the English language, with its
peculiarities of form and construction. In this the high school
finishes off the work of the lower grades. A text-book will not
often be needed, but each pupil might well keep a careful note-
book. • .
Æ ÆÆOA?7' OAV COÜÄ€SÆS OÆF SZTUZ) Y /Λ/ ÆAVG ZASÆV 76I
The aim of literature, we have seen, is to give the pupil a
clearer understanding of the author's meaning and a better
appreciation of the beauty of his thought and expression. The
pupil should see the pictures, hear the music, and feel not alone
the quiet happiness and the gentleness of the summer's breezes,
but also the sadness and something of the pain that the author
sees and hears and feels. A new hope in life comes to the
pupils of the schools from the sympathetic study of Lowell's
Visiom. How much they find in nature when they wander with
Thoreau ! How beautiful the flowers and fields seem when they
feel with Bryant and see with the eyes of Wordsworth ! How
quiet and restful are the scenes of country life seen through
Whittier's eyes ! What child or man can read Hiawatha sympa-
thetically and not glory in its beauty and be impressed with the
legends of a mythology wholly our own ? Are these only the
poets? Patriotism can be felt best by the heart-throbs of Henry,
Otis, Everett, and Sumner. How grand our youth think our
hard-earned liberty is when the sonorous periods of Webster
find a response through well-directed suggestions from a sympa-
thetic teacher! What an impetus to their imagination to read
the vivid descriptions of Poe! What lessons taught by the
Scarlet Letter and the Maröle Faum / What an inspiration the
pupil gets who studies with a lover of Emerson the beauty of
his philosophy !
Besides the work in the schoolroom, an interest should be
stimulated in outside reading. Often a teacher may help his
pupils much by telling them something in advance of the cir-
cumstances under which the book was written and its place in
literary history. Books suggested for private reading should be
in all cases such as will interest the. pupils, and besides cultivate
their taste and invigorate their minds. -
So much for grammar and literature. The third and last
division remains to be considered more in detail, viz., com-
position. - •. .
Throughout the seven years in the grammar and high-school
courses the pupils should have composition work regularly.
Occasional long compositions should be required. The number
e*
762 ' ' ' . . 7THVAE SCA£VOO Z Æ Æ]VVÆ VV
and length of these occasional productions might increase as the
pupil advances in his course. Individuality in thought and
expression should be carefully cultivated. I will not enlarge
upon this part of the subject, for I think that the schools in
general meet this work well. But to my mind, importantas these
long occasional compositions are, they are far less beneficial than
the frequent short ones. I believe that each pupil in the high
school (and I think each pupil in the grammar school) should
be required to hand in each day a short composition upon some
subject chosen by himself. These compositions, or daily themes,
should not be over a page in length, should be upon a single
subject, should be written neatly with black ink, and should be
handed in regularly. The pupil should be encouraged to express
himself in these themes. An experience of seven years in my
own school with boys between the ages of ten and twenty, and
an intimate knowledge of this same plan in a school of boys and
girls numbering over one hundred, convince me that daily theme
work, properly handled, produces better results than any other
method I have tried or have seen others try. Many schools are
approaching this work. I confidently believe that the day is not
far distant when all the better schools in New England will give
courses in daily themes. Our plan of work is briefly: Each
pupil deposits his theme in a locked box made for the purpose
before a specified hour each day. The themes are read, cor-
rected with red ink, commented upon, suggestions made, and are
then handed back to the pupil in batches of five or ten for his
examination. Later a personal conference, never exceeding five
minutes during which time the ' instructor runs Over the themes,
emphasizes his comments, answers questions. The themes are
then retained by the teacher. . *
The themes naturally cover a great variety of subjects. • The
instructor needs to be a man or woman well equipped; no better
equipped, however, than every teacher of English ought to be.
Naturally many of the themes are written hurriedly. In general,
the pupils take great pride in their themes and endeavor to do
their best work. The constant correction of little mistakes
teaches more careful expression.
v-.
Æ ÆFORT OAV COURSES OA STUDY ZAV ENGLISH 763
More than all, the teacher of daily themes gets an insight
into the very heart of every pupil in a way no other teacher can.
If properly encouraged, every pupil shows himself, his per-
sonality, his originality. The theme course stimulates observa-
tion. Many a time have I heard the remark, when something
occurred out of the usual order: “There is my theme for tomor-
row !” The mere necessity of writing something original each day
makes the pupil mentally alert and greatly develops his powers
of observation, which otherwise might lie dormant. .
I have found it very beneficial to call my pupils together
immediately after the morning exercises, keep them ten minutes,
requiring each to write and hand in a theme written on the spur
of the moment. Sometimes we assign a general subject or sub-
jects, and sometimes require each pupil to choose his own.
Occasionally the theme instructor gives a talk on themes, illus-
trating his remarks from themes. Each year a talk on the uses
of “shall'' and *' will" does much good. •
The course, properly conducted, takes time, although not
nearly as much as one would think who has not tried it. Objec-
tion may be raised that this course is impossible simply because
of the time it takes. I can say merely that there is always time
to do that which produces the best results. Further this work is
being done each year in an increasing number of schools. I
should give up any other course of study in my school more wil-
lingly than the course in daily themes.
In conclusion let me sum up. The grammar-school course in
English should continue the English work in the lower schools,
and the principles of grammar be firmly fixed. Where possible,
introduce the study of Latin early in the grammar course. Let
the progress be slow, but thorough, emphasizing the fundamental
principles of the English language. Much literature should be
read both in school and out. A better comprehension of the
reading is to be soüght, a deeper interest is to be aroused. Con-
stant written work daily should be insisted upon. In addition,
occasional long compositions should be required.
The high school should see no sudden change from the gram-
mar. In the high school the principles of grammar, already
764 7THÆ SCHOO/. ARÆ V/AEJV
learned in the grammar school, should be emphasized and firmly
fixed, as much through other tongues as through the English.
Many books are to be read, and the pupils trained to see, to feel,
and to hear with the author. Far better will it be read several
plays of Shakespeare with ordinary care than to expect your
pupils to study Macbeff, critically. Let Macbeth be read as Julius
Caesar or The Merchant of Vemice are read— understandingly cer-
tainly, but not critically. The latter is college work. Very few
men or women outside the college professors of Shakespeare are
qualified to teach Shakespeare critically. -
I hope that the colleges will greatly increase the requirements
in English, but that they will leave each school much latitude in
conducting its work and in choosing its literature. Let the field
be as broad as may be, and let it include the best of English and
American writers. Let each school be encouraged to give its
pupils more than a passing knowledge of the local authors and
writers, living and dead. - .
And, finally, let due attention be paid each day to correct
expression, both oral and written. Each teacher should be held
responsible for the use of good English in his classes, both in
the oral and in the written work. All written work submitted
by pupils should be regarded as English composition, and incor-
rect expression should be taken into account in estimating the
grade, whether the paper be work in history, arithmetic, or
English composition. - - -
The increased attention given to the study of English in
grammar, literature, and composition indicates the importance
of a most careful consideration of the subject in all its phases.
PERLEY HoRNE.
III. A COURSE IN ENGLISH FOR PRIMARY AND LOWER
GRAMMAR GRADES. - - -
GENERAL REMARKS.
1. It is taken for granted that teachers will carefully, tactfully,
and patiently correct poor enunciation and pronunciation.
. 2. The idioms prescribed are merely suggestive; the correc-
Æ ÆÆOÆ 7" OAV COÜARSÆS OÄ7 S7TÜZ) V /ΛV ÆΛVG ZASÆV 765
tion of false syntax will be determined, of course, by the meeds
of the pupi/.
3. Spelling should be both oral and written, with syllabication
in oral work. A spelling-book is neither denied nor required.
At the end of the sixth year children should be able to spell all
words of which they have need, and should know how to use a
dictionary with ease.
4. In all written work accuracy is to be required—in spelling,
punctuation, and in the use of capitals.
5. From Grades I to III, inclusive, all observations recorded
and experiences related must have come under the observation
of the teacher, to insure training in truthfulness.
6. Always a sharp distinction is to be made between written
recitations or reproductions and original compositions. .
7. Reading and literature are to take quite half the time
assigned to English. One half-hour every day is to be spent in
reading for pleasure. -
GRADE I.
(Fifteen hours a week.)
Oral exercises.
I. Conversations.
a) Connecting home and school.
δ) Upon the locality and natural surroundings of the school.
c) Upon animal and plant life, and minerals.
d) Upon matters concerning form, color, number.
e) Upon pictures.
f) Upon holidays. - -
2. Reproductions of some stories told by the teacher; explanation of
children's illustrations made with brush, crayon, clay.
3. Forms to be mastered during the year.
a) Use of am and a. •
b) Use of came, did, sazw, /aave (affirmative and negative; always in
sentences).
c) Greeting and farewell.
d) “ If you please;” “Thank you;” “ May I?”
Written exercises. -
I. Copying from board or cards: words, sentences, bits of good verse
(accuracy required in spelling and punctuation, and in the use of
capitals).
766 7THÆ SCHOOZ RÆ VIÆ PV
2. Child's own name, and *' I." Names of parents (Mr., Mrs., Dr.);
address of parents (street, avenue; Massachusetts, New York, as
needed). Names of the days of the week; names of the months.
Dates in April, May, and June. - ,
3. Letter-writing. Suggestions: letters to members of the pupils' families.
a) Note of thanks for a gift. • -
b) Invitation to visit school.
(To be correct as to spelling, capitals, punctuation; heading, salutation,
close, signature.) - «
Reading. ιι
I. From the board at first.
a) Simple sentences recorded from conversation.
b) Sentences leading to “ First Book.”
2. Several readers, including the Heart of Oak books.
Beginnings of literature.
I. Myths to/d by the teacher, not read.
2. Reading by the teacher.
a) Standard fairy-tales.
b) Fables.
c) Parables.
3. Poetry. - -
a) Read or recited by the teacher.
b) Learned by heart by the children. •s.
(Short artistic wholes, not mere snatches of verse.)
GRADE II.
(Thirteen and one-half hours a week.)
Oral exercises. .
I. Conversations as in Grade I. ę
2. Contents of reading lesson, substance of some stories, told or read.
3. Forms to be mastered: have beem, have come, have seem ——(also inter-
rogative and negative); there is, there are, there was, there zwere ; / am,
/ a//z moz, /'//? /?oz, szt, saz, r/z/?, 7ram , dra///é, drzm/è.
/ \ 'Z0/42
λe | . . -
22/0ZS 3/o/z ». Zwere
sλe z/.ey
it J
too } zoo/è } too )
772e 24S ] j/o/z and ///e
gave gave gave
Suggestions: Observe in reading lessons. Correct in speech. Written
exercises. : - -
I. Noun plurals in s.
Æ ÆAOÆ7 OAW COURSES OA STUDY /Λ/ ÆΛ/GZ/SA 767
2. ' Copying of fables, proverbs, verse.
Oral exercises.
I.
Uses of capitals. -
a) Proper names.
δ) To begin sentences.
c) To begin lines of poetry.
a) « I,” «o."
' Punctuation.
a) Period to close statement, to mark an abbreviation.
b) Point of interrogation.
c) Commas.
Before and after names of address, in heading and salutation of letters.
Dictation of proverbs, fables, verse—for spelling, punctuation, use of
capitals, idiom. • -
Letter-writing, letters of thanks, birthday greetings, informal invita-
tions. Abbreviations as needed.
Reading and literature as in Grade I, but somewhat more advanced. . .
GRADE III.
(Thirteen hours a week.)
Conversation : as in Grades I and II; also upon important current
events, local history, legal holidays.
Reproduction. •
a) Substance of the lesson to be read aloud.
b) Recitations in all subjects taught (special attention paid to sentence
structure). -
Forms to be mastered:
• Zo Zoz0/72
at homae, go < zn a carriage
?mio f/ae /;o/zse
Àe doesm'; fλzs *e • z/£ese *
//,ey dom'z . £} £z//a! t/Aose }sine
Shal/ /?. May /?
Written exercises.
I.
Copying.
a) Simple conversations for spelling, use of capitals, punctuation
(comma and quotation marks), apostrophe in possessive nouns.
b) Little poems to be kept. »
Dictation of simple questions reviewing forms learned in Grades I
and II (?). - «
Original answers to questions (.).
Noun plurals in oe, when vowel changes occur — e. g., mam, mem ; toot/,
feet/,.
a)
768 7THÆ SCHOOL ARÆ VVÆ VV
5. Exercises for changing sentences in singular to plural — e. g., given,
“ bird is singing;” required, “some birds are singing.”
6. Preterites of common strong verbs (in sentences), as begim, choose,
drimâ, drazw, Âmozw, etc.
7. Letter-writing.
a) As before.
b) Descriptions of things seen, as a bird, a flower, a toy. Reading.
As in grades I and II, with much supplementary reading, all good litera-
ture, not books of information.
Literature. a •
Greek myths leading to Hawthorne's VVomdemr Book and Tamg/ezwood 7ales.
Reading of teacher; prose and poetry.
Prose and poetry committed to memory and recited.
GRAIDE IV.
(Nine hours a week.)
Vocabulary.
Increasing from all lessons.
Elementary study of related terms.— e. g., zwa/è, march, fiace ; touch, taff,
Aëmoc ; harâ, Âear, /zstem.
Difference of meaning taught through illustration.
Use of dictionary for pronunciation and meaning.
Oral exercises.
I. Conversations on —
a) Local excursions.
δ) Occupations.
c) History.
a) Men of note.
e) Simple affairs of state, as election in town and state; talks about
authors several of whose books the children know, as Hans Ander-
sen, Longfellow.
Substance of some stories that are to be read aloud.
Forms to be mastered in sentences: /z/èe and /ove, zeac/ and Zea???,
zwzs/ and zwamt, 7mtay and cam ; / s/a//, you zwz//, /,e wz//. SÀa// /? /
sλο?z/a /j/èe. Observe in books read.
Written exercises. '
I. Copying from books. Poetry and prose to be kept. Suggestions:
wholes, or if not, indicate from what work the passage is taken;
author's name. -
2. Given, lists of any Æng/is/. nouns in singular; required, lists of same
nouns in plural. »
3. Dictation.
a) Simple conversation (fables or short stories).
b) Narrative verse.
c) Questions concerning use of capitals and ? .
| c c ° ° .
e }
AREAOR 7" OAV. COURSES OA^ STUoy /ΛV ÆΛVG Z/SÆV 769
4. Original answers to questions above.
5.
Letter-writing. -
a) Friendly letters on definite subjects (training for unity, orderly
arrangement, indicating paragraphs).
b) Informal invitations with replies.
6. Themes based upon observation and experience of the writer. Sug-
gested subjects: “ The New Fire Engine,” “ Our Sleigh Ride,” “A
Hornet's Nest,'' ** Fido's Tricks.”
Reading.
Nothing but permanent literature now and hereafter.
Literature.
I. Reading of teacher.
2. Poetry and prose learned by heart (choice allowed witb definite limits).
GRADIE V.
Nine hours a week.
Vocabulary.
Continued study of related terms to lead to synonyms. Oral expression.
Conversations as in Grade IV.
Plans made for topical recitations in geography, history, science.
Recitations by topics.
Relating incidents in stories read.
Forms to be mastered :
A person looks well, happy, pretty.
An apple looks good, riffe, rosy.
A person feels we//, happy, sad.
A thing feels smoot/, roug/a, /aard, sofè, etc.
I had rathemr ; I had befter; I had as /ie/.
Written exercises.
I.
2.
3.
Plurals of all English nouns.
Masculine and feminine of all English nouns.
Sentences containing personal pronouns in the predicate — attribute
and object.
Given, present of strong verbs; required, preterite and have —, has —.
Given, detached statements of related thought; required, good com
pound and complex sentences.
.. Dictation.
a) Special attention to paragraph and stanza.
b) Quotation within quotation.
Letter-writing, connected with school work.
a) To relatives at a distance.
b) To children of other towns.
c) To children of other countries.
d) Informal invitations.
**y
77o - '. ZWRÆ S€AHVOO / ÆÆ VVÆ VV ,
8. Themes.
a) Touching geography and history (imaginative work encouraged).
b) Based upon observation and experience (emphasis upon sentence
structure).
Reading and literature.
I. As shown in list.
2. Much poetry by one author— Longfellow, Whittier, Wordsworth, Ten-
nyson, Bryant, Scott.
3. Training of taste; children to choose what they shall learn from the
works of author read.
GRAIDE VI.
(Eight and one-half hours a week.)
Vocabulary.
Pupils may keep a list of new words learned.
Simple study of English roots, prefixes, and suffixes— e. g. : given, Âánd;
to form ; Âîndness, zzmánd, λέnd/y, Âîmd/iness, etc.
Constant use of dictionary for spelling, pronunciation, meaning.
Oral exercises.
I. Conversations on matters of world-wide interest.
2. Reproduction of matter silently read.
3. Recitations by topics (plans worked out in class).
4. Plans for themes worked out in class.
Forms to master:
eve^y ome £. Umzfed States } ioes
eac/. zvzs/Aes
a74y o72e ze/a7zzs
*' The class presents a picture.” “The class dine at Parker's.''
Written exercises.
Comparative and superlative of given adjectives and adverbs.
Masculines and feminines of nouns.
Plurals of compound nouns, of letters, of figures.
Copying of paragraphs containing —
a) Good compound sentences (;).
b) General statements followed by particulars (:).
c) A break in thought (—).
5. Dictation exercises, • to insure correct use of all punctuation marks,
capitals, etc.
6. Letter-writing.
a) Business forms :
:
ÆÆAOÆ 7" OAV COURSÆS OÆ S7TUZOY /ΛV ÆAVG/L/SÆV 77 I
Heading
Address
Salutation (:—)
Body
Close
Signature
Superscriptions.
6) Business letters and replies.
c) Bills: from grocer, market man, dairy man, furniture dealer, plumber,
mason, contractor, dry-goods dealer, music dealer, book-seller, et a/.
d) Invitations, informal and formal.
e) Friendly letters upon one subject.
7. Themes
a) Based upon observation and experience.
b) Imaginative themes relating to history and nature.
Reading and literature.
I. Silent reading encouraged.
2. Oral reading (pupils to choose matter within defined limits).
3. Reading of teacher.
4. Poetry and prose (recited and written from memory).
MARY C. MooRE.
IV. SIMPLE GRAMMAR IN GRADES V AND VI.
GRADE V.
Basis of work, some simple story. To be observed :
I. Paragraphs.
I. In conversation.
2. In description.
a) Subject of the paragraph.
b) All sentences relate to subject.
II. Sentences.
I. Classified as to use: declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclam-
atory.
2. Study of simple sentences.
a) Essential parts. Terms : subject, predicate.
b) Story told in nouns ; story told in verbs. Terms: noun, verb.
Use of personal pronouns.
c) Subject modifiers.
(1) Single words: that show ownership (possessive nouns and
pronouns); that identify (appositives); that describe, limit,
or designate (adjectives).
772 7THÆ SCHVOOL A&AE VVÆ VV
(2) Groups of words: that show ownership (of), accompani-
ment (with); that describe or limit.
Study of group.
(a) Noun or pronoun.
(ô) Word that exactly defines relation (preposition).
d) Predicate modifiers.
(1) Single words: that tell how, whem, where (called adverbs).
(2) Groups of words: that tell λοχω, τωλem, where, whemce,
zωλzz/ae/r, etc.
Study of group.
(a) Noun or pronoun.
(ô) Words that exactly define relation (preposition).
III. Words.
I. Nouns.
a) Classes: proper, common.
b) Number: singular, plural.
2. Verbs.
a) Self-sufficient predicate: “ Birds sing.”
b) Requiring complements.
(1) “ William is a humter,” “ William is agile" (attribute).
(2) “ William shot a deer (object).
GRAIDE VI.
Further study of the sentence, based upon observation of a simple piece of
literature.
I. Very easy compound sentence: members connected by amd, but, or
(co-ordinate conjunctions).
II. Review the work of Grade V.
III. Predicate modifiers : group of words containing subject and predicate,
showing time (whem), place (τυλere), condition (àf), degree (as — as),
concession (a/though), comparison (t/aam) (connectives called subordi-
nate conjunctions).
IV. Subject modifiers: group of words containing subject and predicate.
I, To limit.
2. To identify or explain.
VVλο, τυλοse, whom, which, that (called relative pronouns).
V. Interjections as they occur.
MARY C. MOORE.
i
A Ae PORT OAV COURSES OF STUDY AW ZAWGZ/S& 773
V. A LIST OF BOOKS GRADED FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.
ABBREVIATIONS.
.* (Unless otherwise stated, the publishing houses are in Bostom.)
LO. C. H. = D. C. Heath & Co. • . Put.= G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.
De W. & F.= De Wolfe, Fiske & Co. Scrib.= Charles Scribner's Sons, New York,
Ginn= Ginn & Co. • S. & M.=Small & Maynard.
H, & M.= Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Am. B.= Americam Book Co.
J. B. L.=.J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia. Cen.= Century Co., New York.
L. & S.= Lee & Shepard. L. B.=Little, Brown & Co.
Mac.= Macmillam Co.
GRADES III ANID IV.
Æ?f*y Ramaous Stories. Am. B.
Amdersem?'s Æaz/y 7a/es. Ginn. - -.
7}e VVomdemr C/.azr ama! f/e 7a/es iz 7o/d. Frances Browne. D. C. H.
Sevem Lztt/e Sisters. Jane Andrews. L. and S.
Æac/, ama A //. Jane Andrews. L. & S.
Æyes ama' Vo Eyes. Edited by M. V. O`Shea. D. C. H.
A Gardem of Child's Verse. Robert Louis Stevenson. Scrib.
The Eugeme ÆjeJa BooÂ. Scrib. &
ILitt/e Daffydowmdi//y amd Other Stories. Hawthorne. H. & M.
Sophie. Madàme de Segur. D. C. H.
The Litt/e Lame Primce. Mrs. Craik. D. C. H.
Jac£amapes. Juliana Ewing. D. C. H.
7Âe Arabiam AVigÃzs. Edited by E. E. Hale. Ginn.
A /ice zmz VVomder/a/td. . Lewis Carroll. Mac.
Grama fat/ier's Chazr. Hawthorne. H. & M.
Advemtures of UJysses. Lamb. H. & M.
7/e Jungle Book. Rudyard Kipling. Cen.
A z z/ae Back of t/ae Norf/. VVima. George Macdonald. J. B. L.
Umdime. De la Motte Fouqué. D. C. H.
Swiss Fami/y Robinsom. Wyss. Ginn.
Marco Po/o. Towle's Edition. L. & S.
What Kazy Did. Sugan Coolidge. R.
Greek Heroes. Kingsley. Ginn.
GRADES V AND VI.
77, e VVopzder BooÂ. Hawthorne. H. & M.
7amg/ezwood 7a/es. Hawthorne. H. & M.
The Boys' Kimg Arthur. Edited by Sidney Lanier. Scrib.
True Ta/es of Bzras ama Beasts. Edited by David Starr Jordan. D. C. H.
Madam Æozv amd Lady VV/y. Charles Kingsley. Mac.
A Year of Mirac/e. William C, Gannett. Ellis.
Birds ama Bees. John Burroughs. H. & M.
Aarab/es from AVatumre. Mrs. Gatty. Mac.
774 7THÆ SCHOOL ARÆ VVÆ VV
VVasfe /Voz, VVa/zz Noz ana Oz/e/^ Szo/rjeS. D. C. H.
77, e King of t/ae Go/dem Räz/er. Ruskin. D. C. H.
Water Babies, Kingsley. D. C. H.
7em Boys om t/ae Road from Lomg Ago to Vozw. Jane Andrews. L. & S.
.Storzes of z/ae O/a, VVor/a. Church. Ginn.
Story of the //iaa; Story of the Odyssey. Church. Mac.
Ulysses among z/ae Phaeaciams. “ Riverside Literature” series, No. 43.
H. & M.
7a/es of a Grama father. Sir Walter Scott, Ginn.
Aeazs om f/.e Fiord. Harriet Martineau.
7/ae Lama of P/ucae. Mary Mapes Dodge. Scrib.
Jam of t/ae //i//. Julian Ewing.
The Story of a Short Life. Mrs. Ewing. D. C. H.
77, e Greaz Stomae Aeace. Hawthorne. D. C. H.
7a/es from SÁaÁéespeare. Lamb. Ginn.
The CÀrzsz/zas Caro/. Dickens. H. & M.
A CÀz/a's Dream of a Sfar. Dickens.
A/umtimg ofz/ae Deer. Charles Dudley Warner. H. & M.
Story of a Bad Boy. T. B. Aldrich. H. & M.
VVi/d Amima/s that / Have Kmowm. Ernest Seton. Thompson. Scrib.
Ai/grim's Arogress. John Bunyan. Ginn.
Do/ρ/, Aey/iger. Washington Irving. D. C. H.
Æ/ams BrimÃer. Mary Mapes Dodge. Scrib.
Æ/eidi. Translated by Louisa Brooks. De W. & F.
Æoόzm Som, Crusoe. De Foe. D. C. H.
Evamge/ime. Longfellow. H. & M.
GRAIDE VII.
A/zfarc/, for Boys ama Gir/s. Put.
77, e Siege of Leydem. J. L. Motley. D. C. H.
Cast/e B/a//r. Flora L. Shaw. D. C. H.
7Âe Croffom, Boys. Harriet Martineau. D. C. H.
Being a Boy. Charles Dudley Warner. H. & M.
77ωo J^eaprs ôefore z/ae Masz. Dana. H. & M.
77, e Cricâ et om. f/.e Æ/ea/rz/,. Dickens. Dramatized.
Ta/es of a Trave//er. Irving. Put.
JL£fe of Audubom. John Burroughs. “ Beacon Biography." S. & M.
Lays of Amciemz Romae. Macaulay. “ Riverside Literature” series. H. & M.
The Visiom of Sir Laumfa/. James Russell Lowell. H. & M.
Smozwóoumd. J. G. Whittier. H. & M.
Captafms of /mdustry. Parton. H. & M.
Æab ama! Ais Friemds. Dr. John Brown. D. C. H.
Litt/e ////em. Louisa Alcott. L. B.
Lztt/e VVome/z. Louisa Alcott. L. B.
ÆÆÆOÆ 7" OÄV COURSÆS OÆ7 S7TÜZ) Y VAV ÆAVG ZASAR 775
The Mam zwitho/zz a Co/umfry. E. E. Hale. R.
ÆramÂ/im's Autobiograff/y. “ Riverside Literature'' series, Nos. I 9 and 2o.
H. & M.
A Vezw Æmg/amd Boy/.ood. E. E. Hale. H. & M.
GRAIDES VIII AND IX.
Sforzes from AFrozssarz. Edited by H. Newbolt. Mac.
Aassages from f/ae Speeches of Patric Æemmy, Benjamim FramÂ/im, Damie/
VVebster. H. & M.
Brute AVeighbors. Henry D. Thoreau. H. & M.
Boö. Sidney Lanier. Scrib.
Lífe of AgassÍ2. “ Beacon Biography'' series. S. & M.
The S£etc/, BooÂ. Irving. Put.
Treasure /s/ama. R. L. Stevenson. L. B.
Tom Browm at Rugby. Thomas Hughes. H. & M.
Sir Walter Scott: The Story of Abbotsford. See Lockhart's Lífe and Sir
Walter's /o/z^rma/.
Arue ama' /. George William Curtis.
The Lady of t/ae Lake. Scott. D. C. H.
77, e Lay of f/,e Lasz Mimstre/. Scott. D. C. H.
77. e Bui/a%mg of t/ie Sλέρ. H. W. Longfellow. H. & M.
Sohrab ama, Rusfum. Matthew Arnold. Three poems of knightly adventure.
“Standard Literature” series. University Pub.
Aepactom. John Burroughs. H. & M.
The Courtship of Mi/es Stamdis/a. Longfellow. H. & M.
The S/y. James Fennimore Cooper. H. & M.
The Lasz of the Mohicams. James Fennimore Cooper. D. C. H.
Láfe of Gramt. Owen Wister. “ Beacon Biography " series, S. & M.
Aassages from VVasλῖmgtom's Farezwe// Address. H. & M.
Lám co/mz's Søeec/, at Geztysburg. H. & M. *
Urtder the O/a' EZm. James Russell Lowell. H. & M.
The Co//a///e//zoraziom Ode. James Russel] Lowell. H. & M.
Láfe of VV//t/ier. Richard Burton. “ Beacon Biography " series. S. & M.
The Æortumes of AVige/. Sir Walter Scott.
A$emz/zwo/rf/;. Sir Walter Scott.
/wam/Aoe. Sir Walter Scott.
Our Maztaza/ Frzema. Dickens.
A Ta/e of Two Cities. Dickens.
Shakespeare: As You Like /?; /u/ius Cæsar; 7/ae Merc/ianz of Vemice ;
ÆHemmy V., A Mia'summer Nig/,/'s Drea/// ; Kimg Lear.
Eacon's Essays: “ Of Truth,'' ** Of Studies.''
Garet/, amd Lymette. Tennyson. Three poems of knightly adventure.
“ Standard Literature '' series. University Pub.
776 ZTHÆ SCAHVOOA ARÆ VIÆ VV
Poems of Emersom. Selected by George H. Browne. *' Riverside Literature”
series. . H. & M.
The So/itary. George W. Cable. In ** Strong Hearts.'' Scrib.
BOOKS OF CAREFULLY SELECTED POETRY.
CÀïía, Life in Aoetry. Whittier. H. & M. «/
Go/dem 7reasumy of the Best Somgs amd Lyrica/ Poetry im the Emg/is/, Lam-
guage. Palgrave. Mac. *.
The Chi/drem*s Garlamd of Verse from the Best Poets. Coventry Patmore.
Mac.
Opem Sesame. Bellamy and Goodwin. Ginn.
Aoems of P/aces. Longfellow. H. & M. i.
NoTE.—These works may be read by teacher and pupils in class ; by the teacher
to her class ; by individual pupils at séhool or at home.
MARY C. MOORE.
Reprinted from ¥he Schoo! Review, Vol. XIII, No. 2, February, 1905
VOLUNTARY READING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS *
E. H. RUSSELL
State Normal School, Worcester, Mass.
The reason why I stick to child-study through thick and thin,
notwithstanding its crudities, its oddities, its futilities—the reason
why I-still stand up for it and urge it upon my students, is because it
is the only antidote I know of against the vitiated atmosphere of our
profession; vitiated constantly, inevitably, like the lead-poisoned air
that house-painters have to breathe, by the assumption that human
beings in their mental endowments, especially in early years, are sub-
stantially alike. It is the practical ignoring, in Our popular education,
of the fundamental fact of individuality. Our classifications, our
courses of study, time limits, examinations, rankings, classes, diplo-
mas, all tend to blind us and paralyze Our Common-sense, insomuch
that, although we know better, we still act and talk as if we didn't, as
if we really believed that the meager pharmacopoea of pedagogy con-
tained a sovereign remedy for every mental ill or defect. Now, with
all its imperfections on its head, child-study does tend to open one's
eyes to human individuality, quite as marked in children by the way,
an we had the trick to see't, as in ourselves, probably more so.
Systematic psychology, from the very fact that it is systematic—that
is, that it dwells more scientifico on the qualitative resemblances
that constitute mankind a genus, and thereby leads the student
straight away from those quantitative differences, the more or less
of our various faculties or endowments that stamp every one of us
with individuality and entitle each to a local habitation and a distinct-
ive name—psychology as a science, I say, especially in the hands of
a young student, may easily do him more harm than good. It is
not the fundamental ingredients, so to speak, that analysis finds in
human nature as a whole, it isn't that that the teacher most needs tO
* Read at the meeting of the New England Association of Teachers of English,
November, I9o4. The general topic was “Voluntary Reading: Can it be Related to
School English?”

I6o s THE SCHOOL REVIEW
know; it is the proportions in which these ingredients enter into com-
bination; not So much the permanent what that constitutes our com-
mon humanity, as the ever-varying how much that determines our
individual personality. Classify children as we will on their quali-
tative resemblancesto one another, we never thereby get a step nearer
to the quantitative differences that always distinguish John from
Peter and Mary from Martha. Psychology makes them all human,
and inferentially alike; the pedagogy we need will recognize wide
and insurmountable differences between them. These differences,
as I said, we ignore; or if we are compelled to accord them recogni-
tion theoretically, we minimize or wholly disregard them in practice.
Just as certain savages, we are told, Cannot conceive of death as a
natural process, but always regard it, at whatever age, as due to some
malign influence from without, so we teachers are wont to attribute
the failure of our pupils to realize the ideals and aims that have guided
Our instruction, to faulty methods or untoward external conditions
rather than to inborn and irremediable defects or idiosyncrasies in
the pupils themselves. NoW, physicians do not accept the imputation
of malpractice whenever a patient grows worse or dies in their hands;
the only physician I ever read of who undertook the responsibility
of restoring the dead to life was Æsculapius, and he lost his own,
you remember, by the practice; the captain of a wrecked ship is not,
as a matter of course, discredited on account of the disaster to his
vessel; no one thinks the less of the generalship of Lee because of
his final surrender. But somehow, if failure is discovered in reaching
the lofty aspirations of our formal education, we Seldom hesitate to
charge all upon the teacher or the method. Take this subject of
English—and I know no better illustration of the point I am trying
to make. I have read lately several pungent articles in the magazines
deploring the failure of our schools and colleges to accomplish what
they are evidently stri§ing to do, namely, make all their pupils facile
and correct users of English and lovers of its best literature. Not one
of these earnest gentlemen, I think, betrayed the slightest recognition
of the sheer impossibility of the undertaking. The articles were one
and all pitched in about the same key, a minor for the most part,
in view of such meager results as are everywhere to be Seen, and which,
it was implied, might have been expected from the stupidity or per-
READING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS , I6I
versity of the methods employed; but the strain was finally modulated
into a more cheerful major as the writer confided to us the encourag-
ing prospect that all this might be changed and success achieved by
means which he had “up his sleeve.” The community seems to
expect of us some device or expedient. whereby all our pupils may
be made, if not to lead their class, at least to stand well above the
average; and the worst of it is, we ourselves appear to have accepted
and indorsed this demand as reasonable, and to take blame to our-
selves and lavish it upon our brethren when there is failure to meet
such absurd expectations. .
One trouble is that we are all specialists, with an una ppeasable
yearning to make our specialty the endowment and possession of
all mankind. The music-teacher thinks everybody ought to sing and
to play at least one instrument; the publicist feels that every youth ,
should be taught the institutions of civil government under which
he lives; the man of science believes it indispensable for the young
to form correct habits of observation and inference in dealing with
natural phenomena; the business man says that all young people
should be well grounded in the theory and practice of accounts and
business forms and usages; the scholar thinks it a shame for a per-
son to go through life knowing but One language; and SO on indefi-
nitely. •
But is this a large or reasonable frame of mind ? Who is sufficient
for these things ? What sort of a creature would a universal specialist
be, such as Ifear most teachers would like to make of every child born
into the world ? Herbert Spencer, I venture to say, saw nothing to
smile at when he wrote, reproachfully, that there are men who would
blush if caught saying Iphigériia, but Would show not the slightest
shame in confessing that they do not know where the Eustaehian
tubes are. Suppose you know where they are, what can you do about
it ? Must everybody be an accurate anatomist? Must everybody
know everything that anybody knows?
Now, Ibelieve that nearly every subject studied in our schools and
colleges at the present day may fairly be considered a specialty, and
that a special aptitude is requisite to gain a mastery of it. But what
proportion, think you, of the people one meets in an hour's walk
through the principal streets of any large city, or in a day's drive in
162 . THE SCHOOL REVIEW
the country, know anything whatever of science or literature, as schol-
ars understand the meaning of those words ? I doubt if any of us,
after due reflection, put the number so high as one in ten. Well, now,
my point is, where are the nine? For my part, I cannot escape the
conviction, not only that the instruction which may have been bestowed
upon them in those realms of knowledge has been wasted, but that
any instruction or training to which they could have been exposed,
under the most favorable conditions, would likewise and equally
have been wasted. Your dullass will not mend his pace with beating.
Someone will say: Why send the nine to school at all, then ? I
answer: For the good and sufficient reason that you cannot tell .
beforehand, nor without ample trial, which is the one and which
the nine. So both must grow together till the harvest. But don't
blame the reapers or the sowers iftares do not ripen into wheat.
The term “universal education” is perhaps responsible for the
notion that the mass of mankind is practically homogeneous, and
that allare about equally educable. Nothing, in my judgment, could
be more erroneous or more mischievous. I believe that the propor-
tion of those born into the world capable of education, in any sense
of the word not SO superficial as to be ludicrous, is SO exceeding Small
that, quantitatively considered, they would form but the thinnest
crust, the merest pellicle or film, upon the mass of the race. Ibelieve
that the conceptions of science, the appreciation of literature and art,
the comprehension of government, the power of invention, the faculty
of direction and control, or even the aspiration toward these things,
reside in the few, and are as foreign to the great majority, even in
civilized lands and in the great centers of population, as is the power
offlight. And yet I would abate nothing of the opportunities, nothing
of the facilities, offered to children and youth for enlarging the scope
of their minds and cultivating to the fullest extent every talent with
which they may be gifted. I am proud of the spirit of our people,
that has attracted, and is increasingly attracting, the attention of the
civilized World to its multiform and effective educational work. I am
reluctantto admitthejusticeoftheterm “superstition” which Professor
Wendell applies to it. Still, it is clear, Ithink, that our free schools,
day and evening—almost a “continuOus performance,” in fact—with
their free textbooks and stationery; our compulsory-attendance laws,
READING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS - I63
with truant officers to go out into the highways and hedges and
compel children to come in; our free public libraries almost in sight
of One another; our printing-presses “whose sore task does not
divide the Sunday from the week,” turning out readable editions of
the classics for a few cents a volume; and, more potent than all, the
fact that education with us has come to be, as Emerson says, “the
word of ambition,” that it is the fashion, the test of respectability,
almost of decency—this prodigious, all-sided atmospheric pressure
has swept and forced and jammed into the schools thousands upon
thousands who have no business there, but whom it is impossible to
weed out and get rid of. It is right and proper that all children
should be received with open arms into the lower grades, that they
should be taught, even Wooed, by the most skilful and seductive
teachers, that they should be generously tested and promptly promoted
as they are found fit. But this, it seems, will not answer. They
must be pushed and squeezed up and up until not a few of them, by
hook or by crook—mostly by Crook—at length stand in line and take
their diplomas in our colleges and professional Schools. What is
fondly called the “education” of such is but a mask, a simulacrum,
and implies no real culture whatever. I wonder how many decades
must pass before a frank and general recognition of this great fact
shall relieve our schools of the heaviest incubus that now clings to
them, impeding their work and dragging them down. As one con-
dition of such a millennium, educators must come to their senses and
cease to harp upon faulty methods and unskilful technic as the only
thing that stands in the way of making all children alike and enabling
every pupil to rank in the first third of his class. It is discreditable
to our intelligence to stand in such an attitude.
I come now to the question immediately before us. In order to
fortify myself with fresh facts, I appealed to the experience of about
one hundred and fifty of my teachers and students as to their volun-
tary reading in the period of childhood from eight to twelve. They
represent, of course, a selected body, all being graduates of high
schools, and a few of colleges. As compared with all the children
of the community between the ages indicated, the contributors of
my facts would be, in point of intelligence, far above the average.
They were asked to state, first, the character and extent of their
I64 . THE SCHOOL REVIEW
voluntary reading during those four or five years; secondly, what
had attracted them to this reading, and what they found in it; and,
thirdly, whether it was connected with or suggested by their work
in school. From their testimony it appears beyond question that a
very large amount of reading was done by nearly all at this period;
that much, if not most, of it was done at random and as a matter of
course, with little discrimination or reflection, and little obvious
effect upon mind or character. The motives leading to and sustain-
ing it were various. First, perhaps, the great abundance of reading
matter surrounding the child on every hand and pressed to his very
lips—books garnished with pictures; books received as presents, and
therefore imposing some obligation to read them; books recommended
by parents, teachers, and especially by associates; books read from
pride or vanity to seem acquainted with what was in them, and talk
about it; but most of all, I think, books read from genuine, though
superficial and transient, interest. This interest revealed two pretty
well-marked types of mind, as to susceptibility to the influences of
literature: one I may call the poetic or imaginative type; the other,
the prosaic or matter-of fact. In many individuals there was, of
course, more or less blending of the two, but in others a distinct and
often wide separation appeared. Fables, fairy-stories, extrava-
gancies of every sort, were, by one type of mind, eagerly sought and
fed upon; the opposite type rejected all such because they were not
true or probable to the understanding, preferring stories of children
precisely like themselves and their playmates and recording common-
place doings and happenings such as filled their own everyday lives.
The latter class included some—mostly girls—who manifested a
relish, sometimes perhaps acquired or reflected from their elders,
for the sentimental, or the conventionally good, or the goody, or what
I may call the dilute heroic. • -
A large majority reported that their reading had little or no con-
nection with school, except as books from the public libraries were
sometimes distributed by the teachers. But a minority traced
their interest in many good lines of reading to stories or Selections
read or suggestions given by their teachers. This seemed to be on
the increase; that is, a larger proportion of the younger than of the
older students and teachers referred to this Source.
READING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS I65
Two conclusions I am reluctantly compelled to draw from these
reports: First, that a large proportion of the mass of reading fur-
nished our children is unstimulating, uninforming, and wholly
unprofitable for the development of minds of any texture or promise;
it is commonplace and without literary quality or flavor. Oh and
alas! the herd of facile writers who have nothing of importance to
say, and who say it in a manner devoid of distinction or reserve;
who, failing to secure any adult audience, fall upon the helpless
children ! Oh and alas! the publishers whose only criterion and
justification is whether a book can be made to sell! My second
conclusion is, that there is, on the one hand, no art or method
whereby children can be supplied with reading matter even tolerably
adapted to their tastes and capacities; or be restrained, On the other
hand, from a cloying and suffocating excess of even the best litera-
ture. The idea of restraint hastaken no deep root in the community.
I am compelled to believe that at the age I am now considering it is
better to leave children to the guidance of their instincts, with a con-
siderable variety of matter to select from, than to compel or urge or-
even recommend. I say better, using the Comparative degree, for, so
far as I can discern, the best way, the superlative, is not yet in sight.
When we know vastly more than anybody knows now of the manifold
nature of childhood, and the manifold ways in which its development
into healthy maturity is effected or arrested, we may reach a solution
of what is at present an unSolved problem.
If the parent Orthe teacher possesses two very rare qualifications—,
namely, love of good literature and sympathy with children—much
may be done by reading aloud suitable classic stories, “without note
or comment.” I must repeat “ without note or comment,” and I
must add, in case of the teacher, without the odious, hated afterclap
of an examination or composition. For it is not in the surface froth
that may be churned.up by pedagogic nagging, but in the deep and
silent recesses of the soul, that literature does its work. I am in
full sympathy also with Professor Norton's admonition not to attempt
to make reading serve other branches of study, as is now so much the
fashion. I hate the very sight of a ** reader,'' with a qualifying
adjective that betrays its true character as a book, not of genuine
literature, but of science or history or what not.
I 66 . THE SCHOOL REVIEWV
When I was a boy, it was taken as a good sign to see a child with
his face in a book. Books were scarce then, and for the most part
not inviting, except to the few whom they might concern. But
times have changed. The deluge has come. As the season of Christ-
mas approaches, for forty days and forty nights it rains books, and
there is no ark of refuge. In the name of the children, I thank
heaven that “Christmas comes but once a year.'' I think Mrs.
Hunt makes an important omission in not including print among
dangerous stimulants and narcotics, for it may be either when taken
in overdoses by persons of feeble mental constitution, and especially
by children. I therefore suggest that a child with the reading pro-
pensity strongly developed needs watching, like one who shows a
taste for wine. Taking our whole school population, I do not believe
there is more than one in ten who will be much benefited by such
reading as he is likely to do in early childhood; and this mainly on
account of the excess of it, which often forms a sort of glaze over
the intelligence and sensibilities, or else induces a grasshopper habit
of Skipping from page to page in search of exciting episodes. A
child or youth besotted by reading may fall into a passive habit of
mind that will receive and absorb, sponge-like, any quantity of knowl-
edge about things, but remain incapable and apathetic as to any active
contact with the things themselves. sa
President Eliot says, if correctly reported, that “fifteen minutes a
day of good reading would give anyone” of that class of our fellow-
beings whom he seems to regard—rightly, I think—as infra-human,
living, as he expresses it, in “a mental vacuum;” he says that a certain
Small amount of good reading each day would lift anyone of this
multitude into “a really human life.” Now, I cannot but think
that the admirable president's own superior mind, and his long
association with a highly selected class of men and women, may have
betrayed him into a far too optimistic view of the educability of the
lowermost strata of our people, and of the efficacy of good reading
to transform a mental vacuum into a mental plenum. I should as
Soon think of prescribing fifteen minutes a day of Scraping on the .
violin for one who had no ear for tone or rhythm. Do not misunder-
stand me. As parent or teacher I would meet every child with a
reverent and expectant attitude, the attitude, almost of awe, with
READING IN ELEMENTA RV SCHOOLS 167
which Emerson was wont to receive every youthful stranger (“This
may be one out of a hundred thousand!”); but I would not, hoping
against hope, stay in this attitude indefinitely, or take blame to
myself without better reason than the naked fact that my pupil failed
to improve. What sort of economy would it be if any agriculturist, in
the varied and broken soil of New England, were to bestow, year
after year, equally upon every Square rod of his possession the same
share of his seed, his fertilizers, and his labor ?
My plea, fellow-teachers, when reduced to its lowest terms, is
only for better and better discrimination in the use of the splendid
means which we already possess.
2-
VOLUNTARY READING IN THE CLASSICAL HIGH
SCHOOL
FROM THE PUPIL'S POINT OF VIEW1
SAMUEL THURBER, JR.
Newton, Mass.
I trust that at the outset I am not ambiguous. I am not myself
a pupil. Indeed, I regret keenly that, for the benefit of English
teachers, I cannot speak from a schoolroom desk, and tell them, as
a boy as well as a critic, what I think of them, of the English they
give me to study, and the way they make me study it. After all,
what a misfortune it is that these pupils of ours cannot hold peda-
gogical discussions of their own, and then report to us what they
want, what they need, what in their hearts they feel! Such a privi-
lege school-teachers never enjoy. More than lawyers, or doctors,
or business men, they are handicapped by the immaturity of those
with whom they work. Boys and girls cannot reason about educa-
tional systems. What concerns them is not the why, but the how;
and the teacher's vital critic always remains the school committee.
Therefore I regret all the more that I am not a boy of fifteen.
But I have graduated and am one of the clan; so that I can only
ask the reader to forget himself, and as far as possible think of this
subject as boys and girls might think, and look at it for the moment
from their point of view.
Voluntary reading, as far as I have observed, today is not related
to the study of English in classical high Schools. Conditions are
such that a relation between the two is next to impossible. What
these conditions are I wish, first of all, to explain. In the second
place, I wish to describe briefly a few methods of teaching college
English which I have used in my efforts to meet these existing con-
ditions, and which have, in a small way, brought about that correlation
of home and school work of which we are speaking.
In the first place, there is no time. We are driven, crowded,
1 Read at the meeting of the Association of New England Teachers of English,
November, I9o4,
I 68
IREA DING IN THE CLASSICA L HIGH SCHOOL I69
hounded, as it is, by our prescribed work, to say nothing of going
into other fields to gather grain of a different kind. We cannot
afford to. The elective system and the increasingly greater demands
of the colleges have perhaps enriched our programs, but they have
also brought us to a state of utter poverty in our teaching of English.
Every minute must be counted and used. Every hour must be
strenuous. In the Newton High School exigencies of time and
space have made it absolutely impossible for “classical* pupils to
have more than two periods of English a week in all except thé first,
or freshman, year. These two forty-five-minute periods must serve
for literature, composition work, and rhetoric. Newton, moreover,
is no worse off than most cities in the East. In the classical high
schools of New England the average number of recitations in English
is less than three. Under such circumstances is it any wonder that
teachers are willing to rest content if they do the prescribed work
satisfactorily and nothing more ? •
But not merely do the college examinations takè all the time.
They themselves are narrow, exacting, petty. The questions set
on papers by some of the Smaller institutions are often rigid and
technical to the extreme. Harvard now seems to be taking a step
forward in this respect, and is giving the boy who has read and thought
for himself a chance to reveal what he knows. Nevertheless, by
the very nature of the tests which they give, many colleges are today
discouraging, if not forbidding, that correlation which our subject
suggests. 3-.
Lack of time and cast-iron examinations are serious obstacles in
our way. There is another, even more fatal. Between those two
parts of the boy's work which we wish to fasten together there is a
wide gap, a natural chaSm, so actual and so vast that I have never
yet seen a real bOy in a secondary school able to cross it. Not only
does the teacher see this gap; from the point of view of the scholar it
exists as well. I have found it in every boy's mind which I ever
explored. Among pupils out of school and in classes it is constantly
apparent. The average youth of fifteen or sixteen does not think
of his voluntary reading and his study of literature as one and the
same thing. They are as different to him as are Latin and geometry,
Or eVen mOre SO.
I7o THE SCHOOL REVIEW
I prepared for Harvard, with twenty-five others, in one of the
So-called Latin Schools of New England, corresponding almost
exactly to the average classical high Schooloftoday. This, fortunately
Was not So long ago that I have forgotten in the least how we boys
felt toward the same prescribed English, with a few exceptions,
that I am now teaching. Our English periods we all enjoyed. We
liked the teacher. He made the hours interesting by his personality,
so that they passed only too quickly. But for the “classics then on
the cöllege list* we had no natural, inborn enthusiasm. If we had
shown such a feeling, I am confident that the master would have
considered us abnormal and been worried. As a matter of fact,
we had the same feelings for them that we had for Ovid or Xenophon,
rules of French grammar, or quadratic equations. They were all
our stint of Work at that period of our lives, our portion of labor to
do in order to get into college, whither we all were going. I do not
believe that it occurred to one of us then, any more than I see it
occurring to girls and boys now, that the Essay on Burns, the De
Coverley Papers, and Macbeth were of the same stuff that made the
books which we read at our homes when Our lessons were done.
When the school which I attended, on some occasion or Other,
presented me with a Copy of Under Drake's Flag, by G. A. Henty,
an impression was made on my mind which I distinctly remember,
and the result of which I still feel. At the time I was puzzled. For
Henty to come to me through School seemed somehow incongruous.
I did not know then what it meant. But now, looking back, I can
see that really the first span of a bridge was being laid across that
dismal gulf between my study of literature and my voluntary reading.
Not a month ago I saw a bOy of fourteen pass through a similar
experience. Ihad just taken from a class The Lady of the Lake and
put into their hands Stevenson's Treasure Island. At the close of
the hour an astonished, excited voice said to me: “I—I've read this
book!” “Well, and what of that?” “Why, I didn't know we
studied this kind of a book in school.” -
Such a dawning of light as this comes to comparatively few boys
and girls. To the majority the idea that a book is a book, whether
it be Alger or Addison, is utterly foreign; and the conception that
literature is merely the best that has been written, the less good being
what they voluntarily read for pleasure—that the two are really rounds
READING IN THE CLASSICAL HIGH SCHOOL I7I
in the same ladder—such a conception is unknown until possibly the
last year in school. When such is the case, with even unlimited time,
what appreciable relation of the two can we teachers be expected
to bring about ? ę -
Now, the only way to relate voluntary reading to English in clas-
sical high schools is to bridge this wretched chasm from the start,
and to do this we must understand what are the causes ofits existence.
They are three in number: the nature of the voluntary reading, the
nature of the English in the classical high Schools, and the nafure of
English teachers. The boys, Iam confident, are in no way responsible.
Of what, then, does this voluntary reading consist ? From the
honest confession of a large number of pupils I find that 9I per cent.
of it is light modern fiction; 5 per cent. essays, biography, and science;
a little more than I per cent. poetry; and a little less than 2 per cent.
what we should call literature. These figures would unquestionably
change with locality and environment. Yet the change would be
slight; and I have often been surprised to see how closely they agree
with similar statements made by many teachers from all parts Of the
country. The authors of this great 9I per cent. range from Marryat,
Henty, Miss Jewett, Dumas, Mr. Trowbridge, through all the authors
of our “novels of the day,'' to Alger, Standish, Winfield, Castleman,
and men who have produced a dozen books poorer and weaker than
the proverbial “dime novel'' of the news-stand. Never, however,
have I found a boy reading a book positively vicious, or in my mind
wholly worthless. Eighty-five per cent. of this fiction is good, healthy
stuff—not harmful, not degenerating, not wicked, and certainly not
literature. To meet the problem before us we must recognize this
fact. We must realize that the vast majority of our pupils' voluntary
reading is simple, crude narrative, entirely lacking in literary style
or spirit or purpose. &
And, now, what of the classical high-school English—these pre-
scribed college books, to which we are going to relate this mass of
fiction ? I am neither “an educational anarchist'? nor am I “throw-
ing stones,'' but merely expressing the feeling of many an English
teacher today, when I say that, taking them as a whole, I am heartily
opposed to them, and with their character entirely Out of sympathy.
Moreover, if I were a pupil, and a teacher should ask me why I
felt so bitter, I should answer somewhat like this:
I72 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
“Your object, you say, is to interest me in literature and in better
reading. Yet your method has been to give me, with the exception of
Ivanhoe, Silas Marner, and a play or two of Shakespeare's, some of
the most difficult works of that literature—in no way suited, as far
as I can discover, to the tastes of boys and girls. You have given me
rather books which are the very opposite of my tastes and natural
cravings—essays, speeches, idyllic poetry, biography, when I want a
plot, and charactcrs, and action, and something being said.
“You not only give me such books as these, but you give them
to me to study, delve and dig in, to treat as I nevér treated any books
before, and nevershall again. •
“Then, if I ask you, you say that the authors which you put
before me wrote for mature minds, for people who already knew
what literature was and enjoyed it, not for beginners such as I. You
tell me that Macaulay wrote his Essay om Addison for the readers of
the Edinburgh Review, a magazine which boys like me in I843 no
more thought of reading than you yourselves expect me to read the
Forum or the Atlantic Monthly. You tell me that Burke made his
speech on “Conciliation with America' before a house of lords, middle-
aged, gouty men in wigs and powder, half of whom fell asleep while
he was speaking; and that only of late years has it been discovered
to be a suitable introduction for boys of sixteen into the golden realms
of English literature.
“You tell me many other facts that puzzle me. For instance, you
say that these gentlemen*wrote their fine books not only for grown-up
people, but for pleasure, not to be studied, picked to bits, and used
as examination material! Furthermore, you confess that my older
brothers who have gone before me, did not always get that love of
* better reading' which you expected, and go on reading Macaulay
and Addison when they left you, but have returned, in the rush and
stress of their business lives, just where I am now—to these books I
like today, to good stories, with hero and heroine and villain, and
plenty of talk and action.
“And now you are wondering how you can relate your classics to
my own reading. You cannot do it! At least, not until you give me
such classics, and teach them to me in such a way, that they will
appeal to me, not as something to be connected to my voluntary
reading, but as one and the same thing with it.”
READING IN THE CLASSICAL HIGH SCHOOL I73
Such is the natural, unspoken feeling in the heart of every real
boy—the unwritten protest, because he is not a Critic, against these
“prescribed books” which we give him. They were not meant for
him to read, still less to study. They are above his reach, beyond
his interests. To be sure, with our help, he can master enough facts
about them to pass an examination; but their style, their spirit, all
that makes them literature, he was not destined at his age to under-
stand or appreciate. The only three pupils, in my experience, who,
of their own accord and because they liked it, made a constant diet
of literature, were the most unattractive, unnatural, namby-pamby
girls I ever knew. •
A boy is never so. He is too genuine, too sincere, toO near to
nature's heart. We may treat him as a man. We may put him
through a course of training and drilling unsuited to any Creature,
young or old, that ever existed on God's earth. He will respond to
it and react; for he is sensitive, versatile, and alert. But we shall
not accomplish our purpose. We shall not change him. To himself,
to boyhood as he represents it, he is eternally true. As Mr. Flexner
has well said:
The boy on whom our system of mental therapeutics will produce the calcu-
lated effect does not exist outside of a schoolmaster's fancy. The real boy,
obscure and complicated, may detach himself for preparatory purposes (I might
say, for English purposes), but the center of his being is elsewhere—untouched,
untamed.
To many teachers of English, especially to the older and more con-
servative, these sentences will sound harsh and perhapsunreasonable.
To them the “college classics” are in a way sacred, and anything so
radicalas I suggest must seem to them naturally sacrilegious. Indeed,
I expect (and want) little sympathy from that good gentleman, or any
of his kind, who told a boy of seventeen that he could not “possibly
consider him an educated fellow because he had not studied Macau-
lay's Essays.” -
Some will remind me, furthermore, that it is ever unwise to throw
big stones, forgetting that the proverb works both ways, and that only
those who live in glass houses really fear the hurling of missiles from
without. - -»
There are others who will declare it rash to criticise so severely
a list of books prepared and authorized by “a body of learned pro-
I 74 THE SCHOOL REVIEWV
fessors and long-experienced teachers.'' I would answer, in the first
place, that it was just such ** rash criticism” that killed, after a
struggle, Defoe's Plague in London. and DeQuincey's Flight oj the
Tartar Tribe—lights which once adorned this same “college list,”
books which today hardly an English teacher does not shudder to
think of having had to teach. There may be other “plagues” among
us. Who knows ?
Again, I am not at all certain that the best men to prepare a list
of books to study in secondary schools are “a body of learned pro-
fessors and long-experienced teachers.” The fact that the list is the
result of scholarly idealism warrants it a practical failure with boys
in their teens. For it is a far cry from a university scholar to the
heart of a youth; and long experience is a capital School in which to
forget the point of view of the boy.
And lastly, these same learned professors, whom we are told we
must criticise so gently, Ifind are far from unanimous in their approval
of this “prescribed English.” If I had their permission, I might
mention the names of three instructors, two in Harvard, who within
a year have expressed feelings not a whit less strong than those I am
now expressing. Not a month ago One of the faculty of a New
England college said at a conference: “If you teachers in the Schools
didn't get these fellows so down on literature before they get to us, we
might do a little something with them.” When we explained to him
the nature of the books we were obliged to teach, he readily agreed
that “no boy could go through such a mill and come Out eager for
any more ofit.” • w
As a matter of fact, the college course in English puts on the boy
of seventeen an effectual check to any natural ardor he may have for
the literature of his mother-tongue. It is rash to quote from memory,
yet Ibelieve it was a year ago before a Connecticut educational con-
vention that President Hadley said he should prefer to have young
men come to Yale wholly ignorant of English literature rather than
have them come, as many were coming, with a decided prejudice
againstit. Such a prejudice many others have remarked. And we
have no farther to go to find its cause than the books which are used
for the study of English in our classical high Schools. .
The entire matter, after all, rests upon this: what is the aim of
READING IN THE CLASSICAL HIGH SCHOOL I75
teaching English literature ? If our aim is to exercise the pupil's
mind and prepare it for Other things than reading; if our ideal is to
develop quick and accurate thinking in the affairs of life; if we mean
to class English literature with Latin, geometry, algebra, and the
modern languages, as a subject “to train the mind;'' if English is to
be a purely intellectual process and mental drill—then we have chosen
an admirable set of tools with which to work. Throw aside The
Merchant oj Venice, Ivanhoe, and Silas Marner, add three works of
the type of Macaulay's Addison, and we shall have ourselves well
equipped to join the ranks of the teachers of Latin and algebra, and
march with them toward the same goal.
If, on the other hand, our aim is to cultivate a liking for the best
that has ever been written; if we are going to try to form tastes and
not train intellects; if our ideal is to lead boys and girls out of dark-
ness into “the sweetness and light” of real literature—then we have
chosen blindly and unreasonably. Somebody has blundered. The
tastes we now form are just the antitheses of our ideals; and the
teaching of English literature becomes a complete failure.
Nevertheless, unsuitable as these books are which we make our
pupils study, the gulf between them and voluntary reading might
be more often spanned if teachers were a little more sympathetic
and liberal with regard to their pupils' tastes. From the positions
which they hold, and from the nature of the work they are doing,
English teachers are men and women who do enjoy and read litera-
ture. Compared with people at large, they are literary personages.
As a result they do not know what the voluntary reading of their
pupils is. They may collect data and know the names of books they
read, but further than that they plead ignorance. How many
teachers today could pass an examination on the works of Henty,
Alger, Ellis, Castleman, Winfield, or Oliver Optic? How many
could relate Comus or Silas Marner, or The Vision oj Sir Launjal
to the voluntary reading of a girl, who is going to college in two years,
and who writes that the two books she enjoyed most in the summer
vacation were The Havoc oj a Smile, by L. B. Walford, and Poor
and Proud; or The Fortunes oj Katy Redburn ? Teachers, to be
sure, have put away childish things; they have cultivated literary
tastes; they are scholarly. Yet I fail to see how they can make any
I76 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
use of that voluntary reading, no matter what their Other tastes are,
until they have at least a speaking acquaintance with it; or how they
can interest their pupils in what they like, until they show them that
their teachers are also interested in what they like and naturally
enjoy.
A teacher of science or mathematics being, as a rule, not a man of
literary tastes, often, if not generally, has more reading sympathies
with his pupils than does their teacher of English; and, in my mind,
there is no doubt that the former, with a little experience, would sur-
pass the latter as a teacher of literature.
Two other mistakes we English teachers are constantly making.
From the nature of our work, we become too much prejudiced against
the books our boys and girls are reading. The great majority of
them are harmless, often even stimulating, stuffed with moral, gen-
erally productive of admirable men and women. They are not
positively bad. None of them are utterly worthless. They are only
the natural food for boys and girls between the ages of thirteen and
twenty. And they agree with them remarkably well. Yet I have
heard teachers speak of them before their classes as “trash.”
Again, we sometimes forget that literature, in reality, is a thing
for the few. People, in general, have never had, and never will
have, any artistic sense when it comes to style, Or that subtle quality
which all literature possesses. Not one business man in a hundred
today reads Macaulay or Addison—or even Irving. Shakespeare,
Scott, Tennyson, and Dickens, in leather bindings, are in many
parlors where the daily pabulum is the newspapers, magazines,
and recent novels. More rare than an ability to appreciate classical
music or the masters of painting is the ability to enjoy intensely pure
literature. It is a gift, inborn—rarely an acquired taste. Yet I
have known teachers who thought that unless boys and girls liked
Milton, and that unless men and women read poetry, they were lost.
The prejudices of English teachers, the simple and crude quality
of pupils' reading, above all the literature studied in class—these
are the conditions which practically forbid any serious correlation of
voluntary reading and classical high-School English. However, we
are unwilling to give up; and many of us are striving, With one experi-
ment and another, in spite of the obstacles in Our Way, to bring such
READING IN THE CLASSICAL HIGH SCHOOL 177
a relation about. In my own efforts I have worked with two objects
in mind; to attack the prescribed classics as though they were one
and the same thing as voluntary reading; and to become familiar
with the books which my pupils themselves read and enjoy.
In the first place, therefore, asfor Macaulay's Essays, or Macbeth, or
any of the others, we do not study them. We simply read, not by
any means every page, not in all parts thoroughly, seldom twice,
never as literature per se, but as something naturally, as a matter of
course, to be enjoyed, as a boy enjoys Treasure Island, Tom Saywer,
or Oliver Twist. Notes, introductions, lists of dates, suggestions for
methods of study, sample questions, all the editing of a modern
school classic I never ask a normal, sane pupil to read. Summaries,
plans, Outlines, compulsory memory passages, for the most part,
at once put a book into that hateful class of books which a bOy calls
“dry.” Therefore I cannot afford to use them, no matter what the
college requirements may be. Every day I repeat to myself the best
advice that was evergiven me: “Literatureis of the spirit and cannot
be taught; don't teach, don't preach, don't fall into the routine of
grinding. Read, read—inspire interest and hope for the best.”
The instant that I see a class making work out of a play of Shake-
speare's or Silas Marner I know that I have blundered and begin
another book. In this way we regularly spend no more than six
recitations with The Ancient Mariner, ten or twelve with Julius
Caesar, eight with The Lije oj Goldsmith, never more than ten with
Ivanhoe, and so on. -
The final result of this method I am not prepared to foretell.
Certainly of technical, college examination knowledge the boys
would have hardly enough to win honors in Cambridge. But what
is much more important, a large number of them seem to look back
with real pleasure to what was, although they did not always know
it at the time, their study of English literature. And what is more
essential still, many of them are so far from that prejudice against
literature of which President Hadley has spoken, that I can cherish
the hope that some of them will later, of their own accord, read more
of the same kind. And this hope is infinitely more comforting than
an A at Harvard Or a B at Yale. ?
In the second place, I admit frankly to myself that my year of
I78 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
pedagogical study was time wasted. I realize now that the ideal
training for a teacher of English is to spend some time as custodian
of the children's department of a large public library. This I have
had to discover myself. Now it is too late. And consequently I
have had to invent other means by which to keep in touch with
what the boys and girls of my classes are reading, that I may talk
intelligently when they are eager and able to talk, that I may show
interest, just as I want them to show interest. And, after all, how
can I expect the one without giving the other? To help me, there-
fore, I have each pupil keep a book record—a blank book in which
he enters all books which he reads out of school by himself or in
connection with his English work; the title, author, form, number of
pages, and a paragraph of remarks. These book records we use
constantly. I collect them, make suggestions, arrange lists of books
highly praised to put On the blackboard, and, as far as possible, read
them myself. Then pupils write compositions about them, exchange
records tO read each Other's entries, and, above all, draw comparisons
wherever possible, between them and the literature we are reading
for college. Hardly a period passes without some minutes given to
these memoranda; and of all the week these minutes are most heartily
enjoyed by pupils and teacher. Certainly, in my mind, there are
none more instructive. - -
All this naturally takes a vast amount of time. My own tastes
I often cannot indulge. At times a skim-milk story of Castleman's
will be almost nauseating. Today my three volumes of Lamb's
Letters are standing with leaves uncut. But as the years go on my
task will grow easier; and meanwhile I am accumulating a mass of
general information, and insight into books that children read,
which it seems to me is indispensable if I wish to lead them up to
Macaulay and Scott, Tennyson and Shakespeare.
What, now, is the result of these two methods, or rather what ought
the result to be when they are thoroughly tried and perfected ? For
as yet they are in but a rudimentary stage. First of all, the English
class ought to be “recreation,” not the drill and proverbial training
of Latin and Algebra and the rest. It ought to be a place where
feelings and tastes can develop, not one more period for intellectual
mechanics. . It ought to be an hour largely of reading, or discussion
IREADING IN THE CLASSICAL HIGHI SCHOOL I79
guided by the teacher, of reading which will be both the literature
prescribed for college, and the voluntary reading of each pupil, so
blended together that the boy hardly sees at the time which is which.
Then that dark gulf between the two ought, in a great measure, to
cease to exist; and, before you know it, your pupils should be coming
to a real liking of the best authors in our language. The bridging
of that gulf, however, is a most delicate matter. The boy must be
led acrossit, not driven. Enticing and even coaxing must enter into
the process. Compulsory reading of Macaulay we have; but com-
pulsory enjoyment of Macaulay is impossible. A teacher can make
no greater blunder than scorning or looking down upon the books
that his pupils naturally enjoy. If he does, the gulf between them
and literature is certainly widened; for, as someone has said, “half
ofteachingis sympathy.” Ishould sooner say to a boy thatbecause he
did not enjoy Macbeth he was certainly damned, than tell him that
Joe, the Indian Killer, of which he was passionately fond, was “trash.”
And yet, with all tact, and in spite of every effort, a gulf will remain.
The present conditions, as I said at the beginning, will not allow to
any appreciable extent the correlation of which we are speaking.
The nature of the classical high-school English is too great an obstacle
to be overcome by any device from without. Before we hope for
entire success we must remove other “plagues” from our “city of
dreadful night.”

VOLUNTARY READING IN THE ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOL
ILIILIAN B. MINER
English High School, Providence, R. I.
What the English High School of Providence has to present
resembles the crude physics notebook of our pupils—observations
heterogeneous, formulæ uncertain, conclusions or inferences scanty
and perhaps illogical. More than the classical high School, though
perhaps not so much as the elementary school, an English high school
is “of the people and for the people.” In its catechism the “chief
end*' of boy and girl is not college. The small proportion which it
sends to college does not influence much the, tone of the school or
the plans of the teachers. That “chief end* is directly, and not
through the College, culture and self-support. To our short-sighted
pupils and their parents the aim of culture, which includes our topic
today, often seems opposed to the aim of self-support. The influ-
ence of our commercial department, too, in spite of its broad-minded
management, is against culture. In Our School are the girl whose
mother cannot read or write in any language; foreigners who never
hear intelligible English at home; the stunted little fellow who carries
telegrams till midnight; the sleepy boy who was up at half-past four
driving a milk-wagon; the delicate girl who is both housekeeper and
nursery maid at home; the little chief cook of the family; the boy
whose father brings home every night a “yellow journal;” the boy
who does not own a single good book; the girls who are receiving
from their mother, one by one, for Christmas and birthday gifts, a
set of Mary Jane Holmes or of Elsie Dinsmore. Those who go to
college from accident and impulse, not from home influence.
Our pupils have no inheritance of culture; nor, indeed, does their
future promise more than their past.
Except for the small college class and the girls who, after a year and
a half or two years of Normal training, become teachers in the ele-
I Read at the meeting of the Association of Teachers of English in New England,
November, I9o4.
I8o
READING IN THE ENGLISHI HIGHI SCHOOL I8I
mentary schools, our pupils at graduation leave behind the world
of study. They are now to deal, not with books, except account-
books, but with machines, with customers, with kitchen furniture,
fancy work, and chafing-dishes. These conditions the teachers in
an English high School accept, and to them fit their expectations
and aims. There must be a place for the youth of the rising classes.
That place is evidently the English high School. Its work has an
interest, a pathos, a reward, ând a humor, all its OWn.
Because our material is what it is, our experiments will. seem to
the college-preparatory teacher to be on a low plane, just as methods
proposed and recorded by them seem to us above our level. At the
beginning of each year we spend in our School Some time in getting
acquainted with our material, a diverting occupation. We give sets
of questions like the following: (I) How much time each week do
you spend in reading for pleasure ? (2) What books have you read .
during the summer vacation (or during the past year) ? Mark with
a cross those you like best. (3) What magazines do you read (a)
usually ? (b) Sometimes ? (4) How much time each day do you
spend in reading the new paper?
Of course, we know what sort of answers to expect; but we work
better with the facts fresh before us, the answers further our acquaint-
ance with individuals, and they vary, from year to year, enough to
justify the repeated investigation. Five or six years ago Mrs. Holmes,
Pansy, and E. P. Roe led the third-year lists. They still have fol-
lowers, and Rosa Carey remains popular, but there is now an excess
of recent historical fiction, such as “When Knighthood Was in
Flower* and “The Crisis,” and of the latest popular book a little
behind time, whether it be “Lovey Mary” or “Elizabeth and Her
German Garden.''
The answers point to a few general conclusions: The second year
(among the girls) is the transition from boys' books and boarding-
school tales to the aforesaid historical romances. The boys during this
year outgrow their adored Henty for Scott, Dumas, Stevenson, and
Conan Doyle, if indeed these young business men and ball-players
find time for any reading. The girls read more than the boys.
The lists are often encouraging. Almost all of my third-year
class this year report some good, rather old, books. Shakespeare,
I82 - - THE SCHOOL REVIEW
Robinson Crusoe, Tom Brown, and John Halijax, Jane Eyre and
Lorma Doone, are well distributed; as are books by Miss Austen,
George Eliot, Thackeray, Dickens, and Stevenson, Mrs. Stowe,
Miss Alcott, Miss Jewett, and Mrs. Wiggin. More interesting than
the lists, because less stereotyped, are compositions entitled “My
Library,” wherein you may be told what books your pupil owns,
how she obtained them, which she likes best, whether she has a book-
case of her own or only a shelf in the family bookcase, and whether
she dusts them herself. “Books of my Childhood* is a good sub-
ject, too, for those who have kept from “the dim past,” as they call
it—the dingy and torn little volumes. Both lists and compositions
awake in the pupil a consciousness in the matter of reading, if not a
conscientiousness. - •
The tastes and habits of our pupils being somewhat clear to us,
we formulate to ourselves our aims for these young readers: more
reading, but not too much; better books; independence in reading;
the library habit and the buying habit. •
Most boys and girls are so constituted that when teachers say,
“Read The Rivals,'° they do not read it. Some of them have the
intention, but carrying it out means keeping the name in mind until
they go to the library, finding the name in the card catalogue, and
finding the book “in” when they ask for it. Usually, then, as the
sole result of this mention in class, the pupil has a vague impression
the next time he hears of the book, that he has heard of it before.
The impression is clearer if the names of the book and the author
are written on the board and copied in notebooks. In most cases
that ends the matter; after examination the notebook is discarded.
There are instances to the contrary, but discouragingly few. The
testimony of teachers indicates that posted lists are consulted by
seniors, less by third-year pupils, hardly at all by entering pupils.
Lists are probably more effective when the title is followed by a brief
characterization or Outline of the book, such as a publisher introduces
into his advertisement. To my third-year questions this fall I added:
“What books have you ever read because they were recommended
in school?” Only six out of forty-six had none to report. The usual
numbers are one, two, and three, occasionally five or six. These
include such works as Ramona, The Last Days oj Pompeii, Waverly,
IREADING IN THE ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOL I83
The Abbot, prose by Holmes, and poetry by Longfellow and Tenny-
son. “Recommended” probably means, in many of these cases,
more than merely mentioned in class. Ivanhoe and Kenilworth,
for instance, are given by many, but when these are not actually
required, they are put into the hands of all pupils and recommended
in such a way that the reading of them can hardly be called “volun-
tary.” -
One of our teachers of first-year English has attained success
by accident. Limited as to copies, she furnished the boys of the
division with The Pilot, and the girls with The House oj the Seven
Gables, letting each section report to the class on its own book. As
a result the girls wished to read The Pilot, and the boys The House
oj the Seven Gables. Their interest encouraged the teacher to borrow
from the public library twenty volumes of Hawthorne and Cooper
which are now in lively circulation. »
One device I have never found to fail of immediate effect, though
it may not aid in forming the habit of the initiative in reading. If
I bring in a book to which I wish to introduce the class, read to them
one or two wily selections, then offer to lend the book, they all want
to borrow it. After Ihad read aloud the fight between Tom Brown
and the slugger, every bOy in that second-year class was eager and
anxious. Ihad only one copy, but Ilent it; the school now possesses
fifty.copies. A judicious selection from Scottish Chiejs, Men oj Iron,
brought to terms a queer lot of boys who had prided themselves on
their indifference to anything I might plan for their entertainment.
By a similar judicious display of sample goods I have circulated
Lanier's Knightly Legends and The Boys' King Arthur, Lang's
The Book of Romance, Kingsley's Hereward, and Westward Ho!
and with more moderate enthusiasm Marjorie Fleming and Rab
and His Friends, Judith Shakspere, The Autocrat oj the Breakjast
Table, and Old Miracle Plays; and by the same method I could
circulate, I am convinced, whatever fit books I should read from,
in far larger numbers than I have time to select or means to
provide. We need a public school Carnegie. A book in the hand
is Worth two in the stack. A school library may increase tenfold
the influence of the school upon the pupils' reading—a library
with many duplicate copies, a loan library, with a librarian, and
I84 J ' ' ' THE SCHOOL REVIEW
with easy reading in foreign languages, as- well as our own. The
public library does for us all that it can. On our teachers? “books”
We may take out twenty volumes at a time, which we may keep for
three months, if they are not called for in the meantime. The
library is nearthe group of high schools, and pupils sent with names of
books desired come back with those volumes which happen to be
“in.” The library has provided itself with many duplicate copies
of certain books, Suited, however, to the lower schools especially;
and any teacher, by sending an Order to the purchasing agent of the
school board, may have such books delivered by express at the school-
house. But upon a city library there are many demands; and many
times, with the best efforts of the librarians, who call in for us the
books we wish, we cannot for weeks get what we need. -
A novel report comes from the Barrington High School. There
the pupils from the little town and the surrounding farms, are utterly
without the reading habit, except in a pernicious form. Each pupil
is required to read ten good books a year, giving proof by writing,
first, reviews, and later, outlines. The town library is in the school
building, and after school teacher and pupil together select there
a book which the pupil will like. This is ideal—the library, the boy,
the devoted teacher, and a leisure hour. The influence has extended
to the parents; and we are expecting a coterie of Gibbons and Goethes
from Barrington. -.
Better than the school library or public library is a library of one's
own. The affection recorded by our pupils for their little collections
is touching and cheering. One of my girls says: “ Each week my
books are dusted carefully. While I am doing this I often open them
and read two or three of the first pages of some of them which I
have forgotten.*' Another: “Many pleasant hours have I spent
with my book. I think, if I had my choice between a day's pleasure
trip and a good book, that I would choose the book.” And another:
“The pride of my heart is a dear little red-leather Sketch Book. The
book-mark is always placed SO that I can turn at once to the descrip-
tion of the organ in Westminster Abbey. I think that is one of the
most beautiful and realistic passages that I have ever read.” *
Now we should like to add to these small libraries books of our
own choosing, to divert the dollars spent on sets of Elsie into purer
READING IN THE ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOL I85
channels. And here we have a grudge against the free textbooks,
otherwise so valuable. In our time we were sure of having bits of
standard literature in the readers we had to buy. Nowadays good
authors are not inmates of the schoolboy's home; they are only flit-
ting visitors. The only remedy is to persuade pupils or parents to
buy these books. This some of us felt so strongly that last year we
drew up an appeal to parents. After impartially admitting the Con-
venience of having textbooks free, we pointed out the greater advant-
age of owning them. We said:
A book once known becomes a friend. If you own the book, you have your
friend with you for help and companionship. Parents and teachers may together
encourage a boy or girlto collect a library of good books. Believingthis, we make
the following suggestions:
I. Find out what books your child wants most, and give these books to him
for birthday and Christmas gifts.
2. Encourage him to spend his own money for books.
3. Read his books, talk with him about them, and lethim read to you.
While the reading of the best new books is not to be discouraged, these old
books cost less and become more highly prized as the years go by. They are used
in high schools throughout the United States. They make a good foundation for
any library. -
We were to accompany this letter by lists of books required in our
study of English literature, and by lists of supplementary reading.
We thought of sending these lists to the booksellers and department
* stores of the city, so that we could promise the parents the certainty
of finding there what we recommended. An experienced normal-
school teacher, when consulted, expressed approval of the plan.
Then it was read to a lawyer and his wife who had a large family of
children in school. “What would you think if you should receive
this letter?” I asked. . When I had finished it, Mrs. Jones said
emphatically: “ Well! I should think it very queer ?” Mr. Jones
said nothing, but looked every inch the lawyer. We did not. send
the circular. We still think the idea practical, if a wording can be
invented to express more truly our feelings, which are neither patron-
izing nor arrogant. - -
My entering class of girls last year resolved itself, every Friday,
into a reading club. Each girl who had read any book during the
week reported, telling briefly what it was about and how she liked
I86 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
it. We all took down in our notebooks the names which I did not
veto. Before I dared to pass judgment on some books, I had to
borrow them. L. T. Meade's boarding-school girls and Oliver
Optic's remarkable young gentlemen were new acquaintances to me.
The girls lent their books willingly to me and to their classmates;
several good books went the rounds; not a few were sought at the
public library with Some success; one or two were received by request,
as birthday gifts. The club method was effective, but it was on a
plane a little too low. We did not work out of the boarding-school
stories as entirely as we Ought. Still, another class might, of itself,
seek a higher level, and the teacher could use more upward pressure.
The same plan was tried in a second-year class, but without response.
Few read, fewer still reported. The method which succeeds with one
class will not succeed with the next, for classes differ in personality
as individuals differ. The teacher of English literature must forever
experiment. She may not rest On her oars, saying with satisfaction:
“At last I have developed a method.” She must always feel her
way, willing to give up a half-developed scheme, to retract, to change
her mind, to invent methods hitherto unheard of, to adopt methods
hitherto rejected.
The pupils' answers report an appalling number of fiction maga-
zines. In no way is reading-time so frittered as On the storiettes
which give a nourishment as brief and unsubstantialas the steam from
the soup kettle. Nor is the magazine habit cured by years, like the
Henty and Elsie habits; a humilating proportion of intelligent Ameri-
can adults read nothing else. The average given in the April leaflet
on voluntary reading of four periodicals to a pupil I find rather low
than high. Perhaps it is raised by my newsboy who makes the most
of his opportunities and reads for nothing several fashion journals
before he delivers them to his female customers.
There is a legitimate use of the magazines. Possibly if the best
periodicals were available in a School library, and certain valuable
articles were brought to the attention, not so much poOr fiction would
be selected. As to the newspapers, among the answers this year
was the following: “My main hold in reading is the newspaper and
every interesting account of anything I cut Out and save. In later
years I propose to have them all united into a Scrapbook.” The
READING IN THIE ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOL 187
conclusions of the April leaflet of this association are: “There is not
enough reading of the daily newspapers by many,” and “there is
excessive reading of daily newspapers by Some, and unintelligent
reading of them by many.” Unintelligent the reading no doubt is,
but in a third-year division of fifty, about one-third average fifteen
minutes daily, one-third half an hour—surprisingly sensible averages.
Only five or six read more than that, only one reads not at all. Seven
read occasionally. Pupils may be trained to read the newspaper
wisely by giving a few minutes of Some history recitations to the
reporting of current events. This plan may result in a journal or
two being brought into the schoolroom, and in a wild scramble On the
part of friends and neighbors through its columns. Connection is
often visible between current events and the history we are studying.
Labor troubles happened as long ago as the Black Death; and when
the Archbishop of Canterbury came to Boston, we were glad that we
knew how he and not another came to be the head of the English
church. One of our Providence papers published one morning lately
a comparison of thesiege of Port Arthur with those of Carthage, Rome,
and Constantinople. Regardless of correlation, I have encouraged
items scientific or local; on successful air-ships, color photography, the
securing of Boston symphony concerts for Our City, the loan exhibit
by American artists at our School of Design. This is a course in gen-
eral information, in “knowing something about everything.” Pupils
who may not have taken kindly to history are revealed in a new light— .
wide-awake, mature in judgment, thoughtful, original; for reporting
leads often to discussion of a length which would be impossible in
a class obliged to Cover certain hundreds of pages within certain
days. It may be that the Course in current events is a privilege
peculiar to an English high School. .-
In unresponsive classes activity may be induced by giving out
general topics to individuals or, better, to sections. Half of the
room for example, was one day to be prepared on foreign news, the
Other half on home news. The next day the arrangement was reversed
and the stimulus of the harmless rivalry was evident. I confess that
I have never yet succeeded in arousing the majority of a class to
bringing in items habitually, but those who do not speak, listen.
Maps, blackboard diagrams of military positions, general explana-
I88 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
tions by the teacher, are helpful. It means that I must rise early
in the morning and scan the news columns before breakfast, that I
may supplement and revise the items reported. Sometimes my
items are the only ones, but there is a gradual increase in the number
of reporters.
What We must mainly depend upon to develop so strong a liking
for good literature thatit shall govern voluntary reading, is the regular
class study laid down in the daily schedule. It is by the intensive
study of masterpieces that the critical faculty is trained for practical
use. Every other piece of literature looks different after such a
study. Even though it cause some temporary weariness, the per-
manent result is good. I do not believe that the “double life in
things literary” goes on forever, if the class study of good things is
at all what it may be. These experiments in voluntary reading are
only supplements, to be worked in as time and occasion allow. No
college examinations, no precedent, no theories of others or our own,
no poverty of material can acquit us, after four years of daily contact
in the classroom, for the failure to develop, in most of our pupils, the
elementary knowledge of good and evil in things literary, and the
embryo passion for the good.
DISCUSSION
Alfred H. Hitchcock, of the Public High School, Hartford, Conn.,
said, among Other things:
I. The increasingly common practice of making the English recitation
merely a pleasant hour devoted primarily to discussing cheap favorites
has many real dangers. There is, of Course, a tendency to aim too high;
yet it should be remembered that real enjoyment, real appreciation, rarely
comes save through labor. The student of literature, like the student of
any other art, must work.
2. To say that with one or two exceptions the present College require-
ments are absurdly inappropriate is hardly respectful to the College pro-
fessors and the hundreds of high-school teachers who sanction them. It
may take years of experimenting to find the best way of presenting the
Conciliation Speech and Milton's lyrics; it certainly requires more skill
to handle the Milton lyrics than it does to play with the works of G. A.
Henty. Not only must pupils work; teachers must work too.
READING IN THE ENGLISH HIGH SHCOOL I89
3. Those who recommend the abolishment of the present college
requirements, and the substitution of much easier and inferior classics to
be studied in a wholly agreeable way, show very little faith in the ability
of the average teacher to make his work profitable, and still less faith in
the hardihood of the- average pupil. A love for literature which can be
blighted by the Conciilation Speech or the Essay on Milton is hardly worth
Coddling. - . r •
I wish to take advantage of this opportunity to submit for considera-
tion a plan for relating voluntary reading to the pupil's individuality.
What the pupil is asked to do: (1) Make a list of five topics on which
he thinks he or some other member of the class might be able to write
entertainingly. (2) Give the titles of five books he has read and is willing
to recommend to his mates. (3) Describe, in a single paragraph, one of
the books recommended. (4) Write an 8oo-word composition on one of
the topics he has suggested or on one of twenty-five selected by the instruc-
tor from all the topics mentioned by the class. - -
What the teacher does: (1) Through studying book list, topic list, book
review, and composition, he tries to find the boy—the individual. (2)
Having corrected the composition and complimented its good points, he
adds a few lines regarding the pupil's reading, if possible praising the list .
of books submitted, never condemning it in a cutting way, and suggests a
few volumes, found in other lists, which may prove enjoyable. (3) To
supplement this individual prescription, he gives to the entire class an
informal yet serious talk on the dangers of too much promiscuous reading,
and calls attention to perhaps twenty good books recommended by various
members.
Professor Winter, of Harvard College, chairmam of the Committee on
the Establishment of Local Conferences for Special Work, made the
following report: –<
This Committee offers a report in favor of establishing local sections or con-
ferences for special work. .
It is the idea of the committee that such sections, or “shop clubs,” serving -
as rallying centers for teachers, may be a means of accomplishing some definite
work, and may, in several ways, be of advantage to the association. They there-
fore recommend that local sections be formed by members of the association, for
systematic work in such subjects as each section may choose; that such members
as approve of this and are willingto act, hand in their names, today, to the president
of the association; that he choose from this number persons who shall undertake
to act as starters or leaders in the localities represented; that these leaders, in the ^
name of the association, invite persons, who may or may not be association mem-
bers, to become members of these sections or clubs, and that these clubs be con-
I9o J ^ - THE SCHOOL REVIEW
ducted, with regular meetings for a given time, with the view to a specific work,
and according to a specific plan.
In the case of certain of the subjects suggested, it may be advisable—for
securing definite results—that some system of criticism be adopted for the work
of each meeting. It is hoped that the possible social features of such meetings,
as well as the intellectual fellowship of them, may be additional recommendations.
A report of the results of the undertaking—at the annual meeting—if such
sections are formed, is regarded as desirable. The interest of the committee has
been directed especially to the subject of oral reading. They wish strongly to
emphasize their belief in the value of oral work in connection with the teaching
of English. They believe that this work, done in this connection, is the best
means of teaching English speech, and that it contributes materially, in ways
that are well understood, to effective instruction in written English. The question
is seriously raised as to whether substantially all the energy and means now
given to occasional—oftentimes harmful—exercises in declamation, might not
better be devoted to systematic instruction, by simple and natural methods, in
oral English, alongside the instruction in written English.
The committee, therefore, especially recommends, as possibly a step in
increasing interest in this subject, the formation of local sections for oral reading.
As a help to this end, a program has been drawn up, and printed in the form of
an association leaflet, intended as a suggestion for Some effective scheme of
work.
[After luncheon, Professor Winter explained this program with demonstrative
readings to an interested audience. Over fifty members of the association have
volunteered for active service in local sections, and “starters'' have been appointed
in Boston, Worcester, Framingham.] -.
Reprinted from THE SCHOOL REVIEw, Vol. XVII, No. I, January, 19o9
** MAKE-BELIEVE GRAMMAR'° *
GERTRUDE BUCK
Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
Richard Grant White's statement that “nearly al1 of our so-
called English grammar is mere make-believe grammar” ' has
recently been quoted with approval by Professor Tolman, of the
University of Chicago, in his interesting account of “The Re-
viva1 of English Grammar.” * By “make-believe grammar* both
writers mean, as Professor Tolman states, the application of
rules modeled upon those of the highly inflected Latin language
to the facts of the English tongue, which is almost wholly unin-
flected. As conspicuous examples of such unwarranted borrOw-
ings from Latin grammar are cited the objective case of nouns
and the agreement of finite verbs with their subjects. In both
these instances we have in English no modification of form to
correspond with the Latin nomenclature; yet the nomenclature
persists, with the necessary result that insensibly the pupil comes
to regard the English tongue as falling short at many points of
. the accepted standard. Any well regulated language will, it is
assumed, modify the form of a noun when it serves as direct
object of a verb and that of a finite verb to agree with its subject
in person and number. Since English does neither of these
things, so much the worse for English. And from such entirely
reasonable inferences the pupil cannot but derive an essentially
false conception of his mother-tongue, a conception undefined,
unacknowledged, but no less real and permanent, that the
English language is a kind of inferior or degenerate Latin.
This species of “make-believe grammar,” however, is pretty
generally recognized and need not detain us long. Professor
Earbour in his admirable “History of English Grammar Teach-
* Read before the Michigam Schoolmasters' Club, Ann Arbor, Michigam,
April 2, I 9o8. -
* Words and Their Uses, p. 3o4.
* School Review, February, I9o2.
2I
22 THE SCHOOL REVIEW -. Q-
ing'' * has indicated its source in the Latinistic conceptions of
English held by our earliest grammarians and has traced at
least the beginnings of its decline under the influence of the wider
linguistic knowledge of their successors. Professor Tolman
cites Jespersen's Progress in Lamguage, with Especial Reference
to English, as competent authority for regarding the relatively
uninflected English tongue as a stage, not in the deterioration Or
decay, but in the progressive evolution of language-structure.
We are all theoretically at one upon this matter, it would seem,
and though some details of reform demanded by the protestants
may not be at once yielded by the practical teacher of grammar,
the direction of our advance lies clear before us. English gram-
mar must be presented as the formulated laws of English speech.
This essentially scientific attitude toward the facts of the
English language is already exemplified to a marked degree in
our modern treatment of questions of usage. Professors
Brander Matthews and G. R. Carpenter, of Columbia Uni-
versity, Professor Scott, of the University of Michigan, and
Professor Lounsbury, of Yale, have taught us that the old fash-
ioned dogmatism of grammarians as to how people “ought'' to
speak is too commonly based on ignorance of the idiomatic
peculiarities of our own language, of the past history of certain
forms, or of present customs of speech outside a very limited
circle. The more a man knows about any language the more
clearly he sees it as a living, growing, changing thing; and the
less willing is he to impose upon it an arbitrary legislation drawn .
from the usages of other tongues, from past usages of its own,
or even from present usages not widely representative.
Both theoretically then, and in at least one notable point of
practice, “make-believe grammar” of the type so far discussed in
this paper has fallen into disrepute. There seems little room
for doubt that it will eventually, and at no remote period, be
superseded in every detail by a grammar which bases itself un-
equivocally upon the facts of the English tongue as English.
But the term “make-believe grammar” need not be confined
to this fictitious structure of laws, terms, and definitions built
* Educational Reviezw, December, I 896.
** MAKE-BELIEVE GRAMMAR” 23
up by analogy from another language and without firm founda-
tion in the facts of English speech. There is another species,
no less figmentary than this, and in my judgment far more
fundamentally misleading to the pupil; that grammar, I meam,
which is derived not only from speech that is not English, but
from speech that is not, in any genuine sense, speech at all.
Our early grammarians, we allege, turned away their eyes from
the facts of English speech and gave us rules drawn by analogy
from the usages of the Latin tongue. But have not grammar-
ians of all languages and all times, too frequently turned away
their eyes from the facts of speech itself, from the language
process as we understand it today, and given us laws from the
dead and detached product of that process? If this be true, we
have a fictitious construction in English grammar considerably
more important as it is both deeper-lying and farther-reaching
than the mere Latinizing of English. -
Is it, however, true? Almost infallibly one is assured upon
the first page of every textbook on English grammar that
“language is a means of communication.” And from this indubi-
table, though somewhat shadowy declaration, we should
naturally expect to proceed by observing certain cases in which
an idea is conveyed from one mind to another and analyzing
the process as reflected in the language used. The office of
various elements involved in this communication would then
presumably be noted, and the elements defined on this basis.
That is, one would analyze a sentence as the unit of language, to
discover the parts of speech. But instead of this the accredited
procedure up to a very recent date, both for textbook and for
teacher, has been first to define the parts of speech in turn and
then proceed to join certain of them together in such fashion as
to make what was called a sentence. A noun, that is a word,
representing a person or thing was prefixed to a verb, that is, a
word standing for an action or a state of being, and behold a
sentence! Thirty years ago pupils were not infrequently re-
quired to manufacture sentences after this method, of which a
reductio ad absurdum appears in the following “direction”
24 THE SCHOOL REVIEW ι J \
taken from Reed and Kellogg's Higher Lessons in English.*
“Unite the words in columns 2 and 3 below [auxilliaries appear
in column 2, past participles in column 3] and append the verbs
thus formed to the nouns and pronouns in column I so as to
make good sentences.” And the implication that this is the
typical sentence-structure, that language is a mechanical aggre-
gation of separate elements, appears continually in the definitions
and rules current during this period. In his Essentials of Eng-
lish Grammar,° Whitney assures us that the parts of speech must
be “joined'' together, “in order to make a whole, in order to be
speech.” “For a sentence,” he declares further, “there must be
not only words of more than one kind, but words of certain
kinds, fitted together in certain ways.” (The italics are, of
course, mine.) Nor can we “make a complete sentence without
joining together a subject and a predicate.”
There could be no more unequivocal statement of the con-
ception of language as a mechanical aggregation of separate
words. And I might quote interminably from Whitney's con-
temporaries, even, I regret to say, from some modern textbooks
also, equally direct implications of this conception.
It is doubtless true that to the grammarian of an older genera-
tion there was no apparent inconsistency between this e pluribus
unum conception of sentence-structure and the statement that
language communicates the speaker's thought, since to the crude
psychology which he had inherited from a still earlier time
thought itself was “a thing of shreds and patches.” One was,
indeed, supposed to think first “house'' and then “burning'' and
then put these two thoughts together before he could think—or
say—“the house is burning.” Granting this as a true account of
the structure of thought, language might with entire consistency
be described as a similar adding of word to word.
But we al1 know now, that whatever else this splicing of
“percept' to “concept'' may be, it is not in the genuine sense of
the term “thought,'' any more than a leaf, a stem and a root
tied together are a plant. The leaf, the stem and the root are
* Lesson I I. ° Chap. ii.
“MAKE-BELIEVE GRAMMAR” 25
found in the plant as the ideas of house and burning are found
in the thought that the house is on fire; but as the plant is a
living growth, which has put out root, stem, and leaf, so the
thought is an organic structure out of which its constituent ideas
have developed. From a confused sense of something wrong
perhaps as one suddenly wakes out of sleep, grows the single
thought of the whole situatiom, namely, the house's being on fire,
in which neither the house as such nor the act of burning as
such have any separate existence. The thought is, in truth, one
before it is many. The growing plant or animal is its fair
analogy, not the mosaic or the stone wall.
This organic conception of thought the present generation of
English grammar teachers have gained from psychology and
from real logic. And further, all that we know of the structure
of language from modern philologists and students of literature
goes to show that it, tOO, is a living, growing thing, not in any
sentimental or remotely analogical sense, but as sober, scientific
fact. The sentence which is spliced together out of the “parts
of speech” is, in truth, no sentence at all. It is not language
any more than a company drill is fighting, or a scarecrOw a
man. Thought which is living, growing, organic in structure,
cannot be conveyed or represented by a lifeless, static, artificia1
construction. Nor are we studying language by studying such a
construction. The sentences which grammar presents to us have
in very truth ceased to be language, once they have been cut
off from all reference to the various acts Of thought-communica-
tion which gave rise to them, so that they seem to exist in and
for themselves, mere mechanical congeries of words, brought
together only to fulfil certain arbitrary requirements of the
sentence form as such.
That an artificial conception of the sentence similar to this,
and directly at variance with our best knowledge of its nature
and structure at the present time, has conditioned much teaching
of English grammar in the past, seems to be indubitable. And
that this false conception has actually been conveyed to pupils
through their study of English grammar I also believe. A
26 • THE SCHOOL REVIEW
C •
3
priori we should, indeed, expect it to be so. The mind of the
child is extraordinarily sensitive to the images latent in our
phrases. Professor Scott's paper on the “Figurative Element in
Grammatical Terminology"° discloses some quite unforeseen
conclusions drawn by the young pupil from the uses in grammar
of such supposably abstract and wholly technical terms as “case,”
“agree,” “govern,” “decline.” And it is hardly conceivable that
he should be insensitive to the suggestions of mechanical aggre-
gation offered by such words as “joined with,” “fitted together,”
“added to,” “put with,” “put together with,” or “put along with,”
which in the older textbook are continually applied to the rela-
tions of words with one another in the sentence.
The expectation, moreOver, that images of sentence-structure,
as mechanical rather than organic, must inevitably be carried by
language of this sort, has been abundantly confirmed by such
data upon the subject as I have been able to gather for myself.
From time tO time during the past few years I have taken occa-
sion to inquire into the ideas of language-structure and function
actually carried away by children from their study of English
grammar. Students in both high school and college have written
for me at various times answers to the following questions:
“What image (or picture) stood for the sentence in your mind
after you had first studied grammar in schoo1? What did you
then think a sentence was for ? *' Though many pupils were of
course conscious of no definite image, and many saw the sentence
always in terms of the formal diagram they had been taught to
use, the remaining answers all but invariably indicated both
an artificial conception of sentence structure and a complete dis-
sociation of the sentence from any purpose other than that of
serving as a grammatical exercise. The picture suggested might
be a string of beads, a line of wooden blocks, a train of cars, a
card-house, a square of crazy patchwork; but it was almost
invariably a whole made up of separate things put together in a
certain way. And these things were put together, not in order
to express an idea to someone else, but simply to—why, to make
° Leaflet No. 36, published by the New England Association of Teachers of
English.
** MAKE-BELIEVE GRAMMAR” 27
a sentence! “It was built up by somebody,” says one student,
“just as a block house might have been—for no purpose but to
pull it down again.” “I never thought a sentence was for any-
thing but to study,” sadly remarks another; while a third
volunteers the admission that, though “a sentence in grammar”
seemed to her as a child, like a square of patchwork, she does
not think of “a rea1 sentence'' in this way—“one that comes in
my reading, I mean.” This pointed distinction between “a real
sentence" and “a sentence in grammar,” has been repeatedly
implied in the statements of different pupils, and seems to me
worthy of serious consideration.
Such inquiries as this are no doubt relatively unimpressive to
anyone who receives them at second hand ; but I believe that any
teacher who, without prejudice, undertakes a similar line of in-
vestigation for himself, will come upon some astonishing and
not insignificant revelations as to the vestigia left in the child's
mind from his study of English grammar. Most convincing of
all, to me, upon this point, however, are the unconscious betrayals
to the teacher of literature' or composition of a pupil's unrecog-
nized sense of language as dissociated from the living thought
process, an artificial structure of mere words for no end save
that of meeting a requirement or “showing off' one's skill.
Sometimes in such cases the Source of this idea of language
seems to lie back of any larger study of writing or literature in
some obscure but persistent image, finally traced to the pages of
the grammar textbook or to the lips of the grammar teacher, an
image of the sentence as a “made-up'* thing, consisting of words
put together to form a certain pattern or to exemplify a given
rule. Such a deep-lying, inwOven conception, as many of us
know, goes not out by prayer or fasting. Only the expulsive
power of a new and truer image will avail; and upon the task
of making an entrance for such an image into the preoccupied
mind, presenting it again and again, etching it deeper and deeper
Over the lines of the old picture—upon this task, sometimes seem-
ingly hopeless, many teachers of composition and literature are
today expending their best efforts. No real writing, no real
28 - THE SCHOOL REVIEW
reading can be done by the student until works become to him
direct and genuine expressions of thought. But surely all this
labor to restore a vital significance which need never have been
lost, is an indefensible waste in education. !
It is only fair to say, however, that year by year such cases
as this become fewer, in my own experience at least. And they
would reach the vanishing-point within a college generation or
so, if only our growing sense of the fatuity of teaching a pupil in
English grammar ideas of language which must be with infinite
difficulty unlearned when he studies composition and literature
could be reinforced by an unerring choice of means for imparting
tO him the truer and more permanent conception of language as
organic. This last is, indeed, the crux of the practical situation.
Since the reign of W. D. Whitney and of Reed and Kellogg in
the field of English grammar we have unquestionably advanced
several steps in the direction of teaching the actual structure of
language; but the tale is not yet fully told. Many of our recent
textbooks strive, with varying success, to keep the “real sentence”
and the sentence of grammar from invidious separation in the
pupil's mind. They forbear to require the manufacture of imi-
tation sentences, according to a formula furnished by them.
Instead of “building'' sentences to order after this fashion, they
rather study such sentences as grow. naturally out of the student's
own thought or such as easily communicate to him the thought
of another person, and hence become vicariously his own. These
sentences are not mere puzzles, combinations of words in a
certain pattern. They exist tO convey thought, and do convey
it to the pupil, since it is thought of a type which either is already
or readily may become his. And at least the vanguard of our
grammar teachers at the present time see that whether the pupil
himself actually makes the sentence or whether it is suggested to ,
him, he does not study its structure until it is to him a living
sentence, a real expression of thought.
The modern textbook and the modern teacher, moreover,
insist upon studying the parts of speech as derived from the
sentence, not the sentence as made up from the parts of speech.
“MAKE-BELIEVE GRAMMAR” 29
u
They attempt, at least, to define each part of speech by the
actua1 service it renders in conveying the thought of the sentence
as a whole, rather than as merely representing some particular
class of things in the world. This is a little fire, but it kindles
a great matter. Verbs do, no doubt, in the realm of words,
roughly correspond to actions or “states of being” in the world
of things, nouns to persons or things, adjectives to the qualities
of persons or things, prepositions to relations between persons
and things, and so on. But to define a verb, a noun, an adjective,
and a preposition in this way is certainly to give color to the
mechanical conception of sentence-structure. Join a person or
thing to an action, a quality to the person Or thing, a relation to
another thing, and the two to the action, and you have a thought.
In the same fashion unite a noun with a verb, an adjective with
the noun, a preposition with another noun, and the two with the
verb, and behold the language-structure corresponding to the
thought. Such is the implication of these definitions. If, how-
ever, the subject as a whole has been first distinguished from the
predicate as a whole, on the basis of the different function each
performs in conveying the thought of the whole sentence, if then
each part of speech is similarly discriminated from every other
on the basis of its office in developing further any element of
the thought, the adjective, for instance, being defined by virtue
of its function as particularizing in various ways the meaning of
a noun or pronoun, an adverb as discriminating the precise
manner or conditions of the action indicated by the verb—if, in
short, a vivid sense of the activity of the whole sentence and of
all its parts in the communication of thought underlies every
definition and rule, we have at least an honest effort to deal with
real language and to represent it as it is. -
Attempts of this sort are certain to be faulty in detail until
we have become more completely interpenetrated than any of
us can be as yet with the functional conception of the sentence.
But they serve at least to point the way of our advance in the
rational and scientific teaching of English grammar.
We know that the study of English grammar has long since
3o THE SCHOOL REVIEW
ceased to justify itself as a practical art. It has been pretty
thoroughly demonstrated in experience that by parsing words
and memorizing rules children do not learn to speak and write
correctly. There remains, then, to the subject, only such justifi-
cation as it may fairly claim on grounds of being a science, the
theoretic formulation of the laws of the English language within
the limits of the sentence-form. But this justification is surely
imperiled by the charge of unscientífic method and conclusion
brought against it by students of comparative philology, in their
contention that English grammar treats and represents the Eng-
lish language not as English but as a hybrid or deteriorated
Latin. And still more conclusively we must admit does English
grammar forfeit its justification to a place in the curriculum of
studies as the science or theory of the English sentence, if it
continues to treat its subject-matter in a fashion essentially un-
scientific, averting the eyes from the facts of genuine speech and
writing, to analyze instead a fictitious construction of its own;
if it studies and presents to pupils, in lieu of the living language,
an artificial substitute manufactured by the grammarian and with-
out real existence or usefulness in the world ; if it holds and
conveys to students false conceptions of the English language not
only as English but also as language itself. This is “make-believe
grammar” in its deadliest aspect. Until we have done with it
entirely we cannot begin to enter into the possibilities which real
grammar offers to education in these present days. &
A word only in conclusion as to these possibilities. If we
pass in review the great tendencies and achievements in educa-
tion for the past half-century, we may note one principle as
common to them all—the principle, namely, of displacing a
formula by an activity, second-hand by first-hand knowledge.
The laboratory method in natural science thus substitutes the
pupil's own drawing of inferences and formulation of laws for
his acceptance of them ready-made as the products of other
people's observations and induction. He sees, traces out, con-
trols, and analyzes the processes giving rise to the formulae
which once he merely memorized from the pages of a book. And
** MAKE-BELIEVE GRAMMAR” 3I
wherever the experimental method has obtained, even in sub-
jects once regarded as insusceptible of scientific treatment, such
as psychology and history, the observation of activities has sup-
planted the mere learning of the results of these activities.
In manual training we have a further instance of the trans-
mutation of dead fact into living action. Those facts and prin-
ciples of measurement, calculation, physical properties, which
were once given directly to the student as rules or formulae to
be learned, are now encountered by him as he follows step by
step some active process in which they are involved. He thus
grasps them more readily and retains them more easily, since
they represent to him the living conditions or results of an
activity which he has himself witnessed or carried on.
Of similar significance is that interesting type of primary
education which uses the primitive industrial processes, such as
pottery making, weaving, iron and metal work, not only to train
the eye, the hand, and the mind of the pupil, but to afford him
some insight into the complex social organization of which he
is a part. By following out these processes from their crude
beginnings to their complicated development in the present
industrial order, the child is believed to gain not only a vital and
thorough knowledge of the facts and principles incident to them
throughout their evolution, but also some comprehension of
those infinitely tangled and multitudinous activities which con-
stitute the world's life, but which to those of us not thus initiated
are usually little more than a “big blooming buzzing Confusion.”
With the relative values of these various educational move-
ments we are not now concerned. Our interest is wholly in the
coincidence of their animating ideas, a coincidence which can
hardly be regarded as purely accidental. Beneath innumerable
differences of superficial aspect, these three noteworthy ten-
dencies in modern education are rooted in the same elementary
principle, namely that the products or results of an active pro-
cess cam be rightly understood and strongly seized upon by the
human mind only in connection with that process.
Within the field of language-study, moreover, this principle
32 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
has to some extent already obtained. The historical and the
comparative study of languages and literature is in fact built
upon it. Our teaching of English composition has for several
years paid tribute to it. In English grammar, last of all, we are
beginning to recognize it. In this subject, therefore, we have
yet to receive the returns which its completer acceptance and
more consistent carrying out have elsewhere yielded.
These returns are so far conceded that I need only enumerate
them. The laboratory method, manual training, the study of
social and industrial activities, the organic or functional study of
languages, of literature, of English composition, restore to
dead forms, detached facts, meaningless laws, the color, the life,
the significance which they have lost through separation from
the activities which gave them birth. Such restoration will
assuredly take place in grammar—has indeed already taken place
wherever the organic conception of language has entered into it.
When we have at length dismissed entirely from our teach-
ing that artificial product of the grammarian's ingenuity which
I cannot forbear characterizing as “near-language,” and set our
pupils in earnest to studying the language process by direct
analysis of the sentence-activity, we shall find this subject richer
in its opportunities than any of us has conceived. In the first
place the language process is not, like weaving or pottery
making, obsolete in our modern households. It is at hand when-
ever and wherever one wants it. It is carried on by every child
without self-consciousness as an essential activity in his daily
1ife. It may be studied without elaborate apparatus of any kind.
Since it involves abstract relations, without that actual manipula-
tion of materia1 substance characteristic of the industrial pro-
cesses, it should doubtless not be the earliest activity studied by
the child; but we must not on the other hand forget that when
every 1anguage relation is consistently referred to the concrete
reality behind the words, intelligent dealing with it becomes
comparatively easy even for pupils in the lower grades.
But beyond its extraordinary availability, the language prO-
cess has a second and quite incommensurable advantage Over any
“MAKE-BELIEVE GRAMMAR” • 33
other process as a subject for study, in its unrivaled importance
to the social order. If it is held advisable that the young student
should understand certain industria1 processes, that he may
thereby gain some insight into this complicated modern world of
ours, he should assuredly to this same end apply himself to
that great process of communication by language between man
and man, through which alone the individual can put his knowl-
edge and thought at the service of his fellows, through which
alone society can profit by the achievements of its members.
It is with this act, rightly understood, that grammar has to
deal, not with mere words printed on the page. And in so far
as it studies this act at first hand, observing and analyzing it
as communication, as the living transference of thought from
mind to mind, creating thus and shaping to its ends the sentence
form—in so far may it be accounted real grammar.

20
CONTRIBUTIONS TO RHETORICAL THEORY
EDITED BY FRED NEWTON SCOTT, PH. D.
Professor of Rhetoric in the University of Michigam
VII
THE VALUE OF ENGLISH TO THE PRACTICING ENGINEER
ANN ARBOR, MICH.
LIBRARY PRINTING PLANT
1 9 0 6
P R E F A C E
The letters contained in this number of Contributions were recently published by
the University of Michigan for distribution among the students of the Department of En-
gineering. Having served their original purpose of stimulating interest in the study of
English Composition, they are now reprinted as a document in rhetorical theory. Regard-
ed from this point of view their interest and value lies in the fact that they are the frank
opinions of men who are accustomed to regard their mother-tongue not as a means of
amusement or self-gratification, but as an instrument for directing the l ehavior of their
fellow- iijen. They thus furnish data. so far as they go, for solving the most fundamental
of rhetorical problems.
The original purpose for which the letters were obtained, and the mode of obtaining
them, are explained by Mr. Breitenbach in his introductory note. —THE EDITOR.
T H E VA LU E O F E N G LIS H TO
T H E PRACTICING ENG IN EER
[In this pamphlet will be found the opinions of a number of practicing engineers upon
the value of a training in English. Originally written as letters to students of the
Engineering Department of the University of Michigan, these opinions are here reproduc-
ed for the benefit of other students and of all who are interested in problems of education.
The letters were the outcome of a discussion which arose some months ago in a
class of junior engineers. The question under consideration was the comparative vaIue
of pure and applied science in the engineering curricuIum. As was natural perhaps, every
member of the class upheld the superior value of applied science, on the ground that it
was more ** practical.** This led to an inquiry into the character of a liberal education
and the relation of science and culture, and in this connection the following questions
arose: 1. Is the study of English part of the cultural or of the practical training of the
engineer? 2. Should essay-subjects for engineering students be drawn from the
students' general interests, or be confined to the scientific and technical field? Incidental-
ly it appeared that some members of the class were in doubt whether training in English
was of special value to engineers.
In order to answer these questions and allay the doubt which had arisem, it seemed
wise to refer the points at issue to practicing engineers whose experience would qualify
them to speak with authority.
•. Accordingly a list was made of about eighty successful engineers who since leaving
the University had each had from five to ten years of professional activity. The students
were then required to address letters to these graduates asking them:
« 1. To express their opinions on the value of training in English to the practicing
engineer.
2. To cite any cases in which such training had been of special value to them.
3. To offer suggestions, drawn from their experience, for the course in English in
the Engineering Department. - -
To these letters about one half of the number addressed were kind enough to reply
—a much larger proportion than was anticipated, since engineers do not, as a rule, have
time for what may be called literary correspondence. From these replies the following
material has been selected.
Taking the letters as a whole and examining them with reference to the first of the
questions above, the most striking feature of them is their unanimity. AIl the writers
agree that training in English is one of the engineer's most valuable assets. Many advise
an increase in the required work in this subject, and several go so far as to recommend a
year in the Literary Department. - -
The replies to the second question mention as the chief appIication ofthe engineer's
training in English, the writing of reports, specifications, contracts, etc. Several cases
are cited of engineers who have made writing their life-work, that is, who have
gone into catalogue-writing, technical journalism, and the like.
In the case of the third question the replies are less uniform, but all lay stress upon
2 The Value of English
the need of long-continued practice under- guidance and criticism. The kind of essay-
subjects does not appear to be of much importance provided the topics are such as inter—
est the Student. •
lt is to be regretted that of so many interesting and valuable letters only a few
could be published. Those that are reproduced, however, are representative and fairly
indicate the consensus of opinion. It remains to acknowledge the courtesy of those who
have contributed to the success of the plan by devoting to the subject the time and thought
of busy men. They may be sure that the spirit of earnest unselfishness in which the
letters were Written will find a quick response in the hearts of the younger generation.
H. P. BREITENBACH,
Instructor in Rhetoric.]
ù 1
[From the assístant to the chief engineer of am important construction company.]
l have your favor of December 18th, and am delighted to have the opportunity of
discussing with you the need of a thorough training in English for a member of the en—
gineering profession. • •
In the first place, one must keep in mind that an engineer should be, above all
other things, a man—well-balanced, broad-minded and capable of taking a place in the
community that will reflect credit on his profession. He should be fitted to discharge the
duties imposed upon all men who have special endowments or exceptional opportunity.
The broadest and most thorough general culture that one can have is not too good for a
man who is tO be an active member of society or a representative citizen in the state.
I do not know that this consideration is especially applicable to your question any
more than a similar query with reference to any other branch of what may be properly
termed ** culture study** ; I do know that English is at least as important as the study of
any of the other humanities.
When one comes to consider the proposition from a slightly more selfish and more nar-
row point of view, the work in English becomes of paramount importance, since the intel-
ligent expression of ideas will often do more to put one in touch with his working associ-
ates than having the ideas themselves. I do not mean by this that ** running the bluff?”
is conducive to prominent or enviable success, but that a good appearance and the ability
to show people that one has ideas in his mimd will go far towards gaining respect
and confidence. .
I cannot say a great deal about the specific uses of the proper English training by
an engineer, except to call to your attention the fact that most of the ** big°° work of the
erigineer is done with the typewriter rather than with the slide-rule or T-square; in
other words, you will probably find after graduation that highly technical work, while ab-
solutely essential, is not the work which alone will command the highest places profes-
sionally. From this it results that accuracy and clear:.ess in expression, the ability to
differentiate between expressions which will irritate and those which will stimulate—in
short, the ability to convey to a nother man in cold type the exact impression which you
wish him to receive, is a prime requisite. . Loosely-worded specifications and in-
accurate contractS are perhaps the most fruitful Source of contention, difficulty, and ex-
pense in work where contracts are involved; and you will most certainly find that your
official chiefs will expect any reports which you make for them to be such that they may
get at the meat of the subject reported without having to make a large alJowance for
your personal equation in the matter of diction.
] cannot give any concrete instances of what you wish, for the reason that exper-
ience has indicated that loose, inelegant, and indefinite English is, among engineers, de-
cidedly the rule—this, doubtless, in consequence of the fact that we are required less fre-
quently than clerics, doctors, and barristers to present an academic education as a pre-
liminary to our more narrowly technical work. .
The demands of office routine prevent me from replying as fully as | should like t0
your request for suggestions as to the preparation in English to be given to engineers. I
will say briefly, however, that at least.one hour a day each term throughout the Whole
course would be not at all unprofitable, most of that time to be spent in the study of
literary English, as distinguished from the class of work which was given in ^ur depart-
ment in my undergraduate days, and which I believe is given largely at the present time.
To the Pracficing Engineer 3
Very few professional men have anything like a correct literary taste, a thing which is of
more vital significance tban you perhaps feel now. My personal experience was that
after leaving the atmosphere of refinement and culture of Ann Arbor and getting into the
decidedly material ten or twelve hours a day of factory life, I needed something to fall
back upon for mental and moral stimulus. Social recreation is seldom offered to a young
fellow just out of college in quite the same way that you find it in our little Washtenaw
town; and good reading, music, and meritorious plays will go a long way toward filling up
the void. While this last suggestion is generally applicable to professional men, l think
'it applies especially to the case of engineers, since our work is usually stripped of al! the
more subtle influences of intimate personal association which are so essential, especially
to younger men. - v. .
II
[From am architect, contractor, and inventor in a large westemm caty.]
I wish to thank you for writing to me requesting my opinion regarding the degree of
proficiency in the use of English needed by an engineer. - - -
I can hardly express myself in sufficiently strong terms regarding such need. Eng-
ineering of today does not mean alone drafting, shop work, inspection and Other
duties which place the engineer as a subordinate under other officers. The engineer of
ambition should strive to be in charge of work, and especially in charge of its commercial
end. In my mind, the really successful engineer is the one who stands at the head of an
industriaf organization, who mamages and leaves the subordinate dutjes to others. In
such a managing position a tborough knowledge of English is an absolute requisite. The
engineer in this position is called upon to formulate propositions and contracts, His cor-
respondence becomes one of the very large essentials of his duties. A perfect command
of the English language places him in a decidedly superior position.
The engineer in the position of industrial manager should controlthe advertisements,
the sales department, and the manufacturing department. In other words, with the super-
ior training he has received he should be in a position to hanàle every branch of a manu-
facturing concern; and to make himself fulIy efficient in that position, a thorough know-
ledge of English is one of the fundamental requisites. In my opinion, therefore, too much
stress cannot be laid upon proper training in this respect. -
Personally, I feel that I never have given this portion of my college education suffi-
cient attention. While at the University I never realized that those studies which are
apparently not at all engineerlng are in reality fully as important as are calculus, mech-
anics, drafting, etc. An engineering student should mot try fo become a practical mam at
the Univem sit4/. He has forty years after the University life in which to become a practical
man, but he has only four years in which to become a thoroughly theoretical and polished
íma I]. •
Give me therefore at all times the graduate student with a sound body, a good,
Clear mind, and a thorough general knowledge, together with proper proficiency and the
fundamental theory underlying all engineering principles. With such a student in hand, the
matter of making him a practical man is only one of a little persistence and patience; in
the end he will be by far the most successful engineer.
I]I
[From a consultiaig civil emgineer.]
The following observations are suggested as possible lines along which to work out
some courses which might appeal particularly to engineering students. They have been
largely suggested by my personal experience since graduation. It must be confessed that
they are open to the criticism of being aImost wholly utilitarian, and of possessingbut little
of the culture value which English work is supposed to have. No man, be he engineer or
other, cam afford to cut himself off entirely from all the culture studies either before or
after graduation; but in a technical course looking mainly to professional training, some
excuse can be found for purely utilitariam studies, even in English. •
Instructors in English insist strongly on a study of the English classics as medels of
form and style and as sources from whicli a broad, general culture can be drawn. They
are right, and no man can afford to be without a good knowledge of the classics of the
language. What follows is intended to supplement such work with special reference to
technical lines. - .
Language is both oral and written. While conversational English may not
have been included in your inquiry, still it is of so much importance that it will be con-
4 The Value of English
sidered first in these observations. - The relation between it and written English is so in—
timate that it may be said that a good conversationalist wifl be a good writer—except
possibly as to the mechanical product—while the converse is hardly possible. A mam
who uses slovenly English with his intimates will almost necessarily do so with others as
well, so that the habit of Correct speech needs to be practiced socially as , wefi as pro—
fessionally, and every one concedes its value professionally. …
A man who cannot impress his subordinates with confidence in his ability will not
be successful, hence the man of ready, concise amd correct speech has infinitely the ad-
vantage Over one who is not so equipped. This fact is shown by the many men who suc—
ceed simply by ** making a bluff.** It must not be inferred from this that the practice of
bluffing is in any sense advocated ; what is desirable is the readiness of speech which
it requires.
A man who cannot convince his brother engineers of the truth of his ideas will
stand small chance of succeeding with them, unless his ideas are so evidently worthy as
to win without controversy. Even them, however, there is the , force of conservatism
which usually must be overcome, and that can be done most easily by a fluent use of the
English language. The writer has often seen engineers who are really brilliant in inven-
tion and mechanical ingenuity, completely thrown off the track by a good talker. How
few engineers, too, can acquit themselves well before an audience of other engineers. It
is to be noted that those who make the best appearance under such circumstances are al—
most invariably the successful ones, for some reason or other.
But altogether the hardest position in which an engineer cam be placed is before a
board of directors who are inquiring into the causes of an underestimate, or making some
similar query. Then, if ever, the engineer needs a fund of ready, Convincing English. He
must be accurate and concise. Shrewd, keen business men, who are accustomed tO judg-
ing character by speech and action and appearance, and who furnish the funds for the en-
gineer to spend, are the hardest to deal with, but make the best of friends if properly
handled. When a man is in the wrong is no time to ** bluff, '* but when he is right and
the business man does not agree with him, then is the time when the best English is of
most value.
Turning now to written speech, it is evident that many of the conditions referred to
above must often be met by written communications.
A man's merely social correspondence does not often come in evidence; but it may
do so, and therefore it should aIways be carefully prepared. How few nen—engineers
and others as well—can write a good business letter. There is a feeling among most people
that a letter of application for a position does little good, as it is usually ** placed on file
for future reference.** The writer thinks it is very oftem the fault of the letter itself.
PersonalIy he believes thoroughly in Ietters of application, and almost invariably exacts
one from each appIicant. If the spelling is correct and the wording good, it is a fair in-
dication that the man will be painstaking in his work as well as in his letter writing.
There is every opportunity to show originaIity in letters, and the man who can catch the
attention of a busy executive engineer or business mari by a letter of application is apt to
have that letter answered immediately ; at any rate his communication will be left in a
conspicuous place for ready reference.
The preparation of daily reports is usually a bugbear to the young engineer, but
within a month one young man of the writer's acquaintance has had his salary increased
over $100 a year solely on account of the kind of daily report he turned in. It is neat,
well tabulated, concisely stated, with the important points clearly brought out, and saves
many minutes a day for the persons through whose hands his reports pass. Another
young engineer was transferred from his position as building superintendent, to the office
as principal assistant in charge of reports, records of costs, etc.,—ten timesthe magnitude
of his former job, and a position in which he would gain information of inestimable vaIue,
—very largely because of the completeness and succinctness of his month[y reports. They
gave more information on a single page of letter paper, and in a more legible form, tham
was contained on ten pages of some other reports.
The preparation of a specification is a work of art. The lawyer draws his contract,
based upon it; the contractor prepares his bid by it; and the work is carried on and com-
pleted under its interpretation. The writer has been called upon to interpret specifications
which were entirely incomprehensible because of want of punctuation and improper sen-
tence construction. One branch of the United States government was very harshly Criti-
cised not long since, both editorially and by correspondents in engineering periodicals, be-
cause of faults in the specifications prepared by it. The fault was not Overconciseness
To the Practicing Engineer 5
either. In one case which came under the writer's observation within a few months, a
company was obliged to pay a stubborn contractor a large sum of money, because of the
use of a single wrong word by an engineer in a specification. A cJnsiderable time can be
spent profitably on the language of specifications for important works, and much atten-
tion and much space are being given to this point io several engineering periodicals at the
present time. Several papers relating solely to this subject have also been presented be-
fore engineering societies. Besides the usual faults of wrong tenses, omission of sub-
jects, verbs, etc., the larger faults of looseness of language leading to ambiguity or false
interpretation, are very often encountered.
IV
[From a construction emgineer in a lange weste, n city.]
The training an engineer needs most is in Iogic. The beauties of a figure of speech
or of fanciful description may be appreciated but never imitated by an engineer. His
work consists in stating clearly, in the form of a contract or. specification, what he wish-
es done, or in describing a piece of construction or design for the benefit of his fellows, or
in advocating the merits of a particular design before a board or commissioner. In all of
these cases clear, precise statement of fact, together with a logical exposition of the reason-
ing process leading. up to his conclusions, are leading requisites for successful work.
If he happens to be advocating a particular design he will frequently have to explain
technical points in a convincing manner to men totally unfamiliar with engineering science.
He must then, for the time being, lay aside his technical vocabulary and in the fewest
and clearest words possible, lest he become tedious, explain his principle from the ground
up. He will occasionally be confronted by another engineer with a rival design, and must
then engage in a joint debate. Here he will need all his powers, and a training in clear
and logical thinking and in the expression of the basic engineering principles in plain,
untechnical, Anglo-Saxon words, will prove invaluable to him. He must learn to avoid
generalities and bring out the definite, concrete facts at the root of the matter, and avoid
the loose and dangerous methods of reasoning by analogy.
When a man first leaves college he does not use his English training. He can
rise as a draftsman, inspector. or instrument man to a salary of §5.00 per day without
needing it. But as he goes above this limit and takes up consulting work, administra-
tive work, or the commercial side of engineering, his English training will become in-
creasingly useful. His engineering ability depends largely on his mathematical training
and his experience, but his engineering reputation depends to a greater degree on his
ability to handle English properly in technical papers, or to convince Iaymen of the
soundness of his ViewS.
V.
[From an electrical mining engineer.]
As I remember, one of the greatest bores of my college course was a course in Eng-
lish, a two hour course, which at that time was the only one that was required. I could
not understand at,the time why there should be this requirement in English for graduation
from the Engineering Department, and consequently skimmed over it with as little work
and thought as possible. I can remember, however, when a year or two after my gradu-
ation I heard that the course had been increased to four hours, I thought to myself
that it was a good thing and that the requirement slnould really be more. These courses
should be adapted to strictly engineering work and should not consist of writing a
series of compositions on ** Spring,** ** Flowers,'* and * *The Blue Sky Overhead'*. These
courses should require the writing of specifications covering a wide field of engineering
work, and the mal<img of reports on the condition of buildings, power plants, and all kinds
of machinery, such as a capitalist who is a prospective buyer might ask an engineer to
draw up. lt would be well to include practice in making out forms which could be used
for daily, weekly and monthly reports in connection with power plants, building operations,
and construction work of all kinds, A little practice in writing business letters would
lnelp. I dom't want you to understand by this that my idea of these courses is to confine
them entirely to writing. A lot of practice in the use of words to express thought is really
the most important thing. To be able fo express one's thoughts, using no superfluous
words and to be able to transfer what is in your mind tc £3e mind of your auditor, in a
clear, precise manner, is surely an accomplishment to strive for.
6 The Value of English
VI
[From a U. S. assistant emgineer.]
1. English has been of more value to me in the practice of engineering than an
other study. -
2. Concrete examples wherein I have been helped by my knowledge of English can-
not well be given ; English has always been present. But I am sure it has been useful to
me in securing work and in making specifications, reports, etc.
3. An engineer cannot have too much preparation in English ; the better his knowledge
of English the better able will he be to solve the problems that are likely to confront him.
He cannot hope tO get this preparation in college, but he should ma'<e a good start there.
Engineering is an exact science and therefore an engineer should be able to ex—
press his ideas, orally or in writing, as clearly and concisely as he would render a prob-
lem in mathematics. TOO much attention cannot be given to composition and expression,
especially to expression. The student who is inclined to reading can acquire these in
arge measure while in college, and will continue to do so after leaving college.
VII
[From a consulting engineer in a large western city.]
A good knowledge of English and ability to use it is of great value to the practic-
ing engineer. This is particularly true of the engineer in the higher walks of the pro-
fession, as he must be able to describe the work he proposes to construct clearly, com-
prehensively and succinctly. lt is also true of the engineer who is engaged in construct-
ing the work so described, as he must understand thoroughly the description by which he
carries on his work. lt is also true of the man making preliminary investigations or sur-
veys for proposed Work, as he must furnish the employers with complete, clear, and exact
information as to existing conditions. &
1. As to its personal value to me in my practice, I will say that it has enabled me to
report clearly and convincingly on my plans or methods for proposed work so that my
employers have agreed to these plans or methods; it has enabled me to describe clearly
in a specification the material and Workmanship involved in my work; and it has en abled
me to tell plainly and without unnecessary words anything regarding the work.
2. One example of the value of exact knowledge of language is to be found in the
specification of work. Engineers who can write a clear and full specification for work
without redundancy are the exception rather than the rule. The plans of a work show
alI lines, parts and commonly all dimensions. The specifications describe materials and
workmanship, and often the terms of acceptance and payment. It is evident that in the
specification words must be used in their exact meaning and with true value; ambiguous
words and phrases will cause disputes and often lawsuits, redundancy creates confusion,
and involved phrases Or badly arranged paragraphs lead to errors or omissions.
Again, an engineer who appears in court as a witness should have a full knowl-
edge and quick comprehension of the meaning of words that he may give clear evidence
and that he may comprehend questions. Without such knowledge his evidence is likely
tO be involved and contradictory. • ¥ , • *
3. The answer to this question , I think, may be deduced from the foregoing. The engineer
should be logical, deducing clearly and reasoning both broadly and closely; rhetorical, in
that he should be able to compose, if not with elegance, at least plainly and with good
construction ; and his vocabulary should be simple, containing words of clear and pos-
itive meaning. These conditions can be obtained only by broad reading of the best authors.
Essays and fiction are both to be included, for much clearness of diction, good construction
and strong reasoning may be found therein. History, biography and travel are all ad-
vantageous, giving breadth of view. Technical works contain the basis of his knowledge,
but while necessary to education, are not always beneficial to language.
VIII
[From the edutor of a technical journal.]
1. * * What is the value of a working knowledge of English to an engineer or Other worker
in science?” You might just as well ask me, What is the value of a sound general edu-
cation? It is simply invaluable. Why? Because the educated man is adaptable to the
thousand and one emergencies and changes of circumstance which no human being can
To the Practicing Engineer ¢ - 7
foresee, because his mind is flexible, because he can grapple with new conditions,
because his mind remains young longer and retains far beyond the average the power to
assimilate new ideas and grow. A working knowledge of English, that is, the ability to
write it clearly and forcibly in correct style fit to print, is almost as necessary to an
engineer as is a good handwriting to a bookkeeper. lt is one of the tools of his trade. He
must often prepare reports; he must write letters; as he rises in his profession he will con-
tribute to the engineering press, and at every step he will be hampered if he can*t write.
The ability to write may not be wholly indispensable in the early drudgery of the young
graduate fresh from college, but that is true of all general education: the need of it be-
comes more imperious and painful the higher you rise in your professional work. Rou-
tine drudgery is the common lot of the beginner in business, in the law, in medicine,
every where, but as the work grows more responsible and difficult, such a resource as a
working knowledge of English comes more and more into play.
2. ** What preparatiori in English will best fit him to solve the problems likely to con-
front him??? I have often been struck by the excellent command of English that the
average educated Briton displays in his letters and in his contributions to the trade press.
In this respect there is simply no comparison between the Englishman and the American.
To the educated Frenchman the statement would apply even more forcibly, because al-
most every Frenchman is a born prose writer. Now, why do the English excel us? Why
do we so rarely find among our university graduates in the United States so much as a
gleam of }iterary gift? Because we do not spend enough time in the study of the best prose
writers, because we do not live with them and in them, because we do not write enough.
The last reason is most important. To learn to write, about the only way is to write and
write and write. And when the teacher corrects, let him beware of a too rigid and
pedantic adherence to the rules of composition lest he stifle what individuality the pupil
possesses. Let him nurse and cherish the little originality that he may perceive in and
between the lines of the composition, and not choke it under a mass of rhetorical rules.
Teach the young writer to dare to be himself, to say what he thinks in his own way
without timid fear of violating some rule or incurring the censure of sone old fossil who
has forgotten that he ever was young. Self-confidence is no small part of the writer?s
outfit. Then, if the student has anything to say, he will soon learn how to say it. The
more ideas you find in his head the easier will be your task, for it is hard to teach style
tO anyone who lacks an active and thinking brain. After all, the supreme thing in writing
is something worth saying; it is matter, not manner; it is the message and not the form.
A vigorous tbinker is not likefy to grope about long for the most effective means of pre-
senting his thoughts; he is not apt to worry about his style; he doesn?t have to.
l close with the statement that in my own bread-and-butter work, which consists
principally of business correspondence, my high-School drill in the writing of English is of
m0re practical use to me than all the other things I was ever taught. It seems to me that
you have a rare chance to work out courses of the greatest practical utility to your
students, to say nothing of the happiness you will give them if you once kindle their love
of good Iiterature.
- IX
[From a member of a fi) m of advertising engineers.]
Replying to your favor, asking me to name concrete instances where I have found
my knOWledge of English of value in professional work, I can name no such cases as I
haVe neVer been engaged in professional work, if you mean by that actual engineering work.
On the Other hand, I have made my living since leaving school entirely by the use
Of English, as, except for a brief period in the Westinghouse shops, I have been solely
engaged in engineering journalism and advertising.
Answering your second question, concerning the kind of preparation in this subject
that I would consider best for an engineering student, I would advise a great deal more
practice in Writing tham most students receive, with a thorough editing or correcting of the
manuscript by instructors.
Further than this, I would suggest that writing upon live subjects would be much
more Valuable to the student than upon uninteresting or meaningless topics. For instance
you might Write a series of letters with the object of selling a machine by correspondence
Or With the object of inducing a public board to take some particular course of action in
regard to an engineering project.
It might not be a bad exercise also for engineering students to visit an engineering
Work and then write an article upon it, designed for one of the engineering periodicals, or
8 The Value of English
to write a paper for an engineering society upon some original work going on in the shops
or class-rOOms.
In any case, in engineering Work What you say is of a great deal more importance
than how you say it, and if you write a great deal on a subject about which you are thor-
oughly in earnest, you will be able, after a while, to state your thoughts effectively.
A knowledge of spelling, punctuation and the grammar of the English language is
also very important, as I find that most engineering graduates are surprisingly deficient
in these respects, so much so that their articles and letters will not bear printing without
a considerable amount of editing. -
vs X -.
[From an instructor in civil engineering forme/ly connected with the U. S. Coast Survey.]
At various times in his career, an engineer will require a knowledge of English in
order to prepare reports upon work performed under his direction, instructions to his sub—
Ordinates for the execution of his plans, and contracts and specifications which shall state
the requirements governing some proposed Work. In every case his statement should be
complete, concise, and exact, and should be arranged in some logical order.
As an example in my own experience, I can state that one of my first duties in
actual engineering practice was to compile data from office records and prepare the annua |
report of my superior officer for his approval and transmission to the proper department
authorities at Washington.
In preparation at the University, the engineering student should study the para—
graph as a unit, and should criticise the composition of articles in the current technical
periodicals and books from this standpoint. He should also familiarize himself with
methods of analyzing various subjects into topics and sub-topics to such an extent that
each of the ultimate subdivisions will form the subject of a unit paragraph. In general, it
is a study of English composition.
XI
[From the president of an electrical company.]
I. An engineer should be able to express at all times, in clear and concise lang—
uage, the meaning that he wishes to convey. It is needless to say that he should be able
to use correct grammar, and in addition to the usual vocabulary required in ordinary con—
versation, he should be as fully posted as possible on strict engineering terms. It is
frequently embarassing for a young man who has just completed an engineei ing course of
study to run up against the practical engineer and be unable to recognize the names of
some of the coinmon elements of machinery or mechanical appliances.
2. It is not only difficult but undesirable to give concrete examples referring to
particular persons, but it is not at all unusual tO rum across men in the engineering
profession, who are college graduates, who are umable to use ordinarily good English, and
are utterly incapable of writing a good business letter. è
3. As stated under (1), I believe that all college graduates wluether in the engi—
neering department or not, should have a most thorough knowledge of the English lang-
uage. ]n addition to these regular courses, ] believe that the student in the engineering
department could, with advantage, have a course of technical language.
XII
[From an estimating eligineer commecfed with an eastern compaiuy.]
To one engaged in the active practice of engineering, probably the first use for any
preparation he may have had in English Comes in the form of correspondence. Corres-
pondence is in itself a fine art, especially business correspondence, and is of extreme
importance. Oftentimes the impression created by a letter or proposal determines the
course of action of a prospective client. In many of the large contracting and manufactur—
ing concerns today men are employed to do nothing but attend to *' kicks**, andtheir busi-
ness is to keep clients satisfied and soothe the wounded feelings of custömers who think
they have been unjustly treated. To be a good correspondent one must first have a thor-
ough knowledge of the language he uses. Every engineer who attains any degree of suc-
cess has a large volume of correspondence, and by laymen who do not meet or know him
his abiIity is often judged by his letters. 1 recall a number of instances where the prepar-
ation which l received in English was of great value to me, and some also, I must confess,
where my lack of knowledge handicapped me severely. Probably the next use in point of
To the Practicing Engineer 9
time would arise from affiliating with some society. Papers on subjects of interest to
men in certain lines of work, and discussions of the same, are prepared and presented,
and here the use of English is so obvious as to require only mention. In reports on work,
such as tests, examinations of structures, machines, excavations, etc., often the amount
of work done and the efficiency with which it has been accomplished can only be indicated
in theíinal report. and this being the only means which the engineer in charge has to
shów his employers or clients what he has done, is of course of great importance to him.
Its value will depend largely on the skill with which it has been put together. The mass
of information which he may have obtained is of little use until properly arranged and ex-
plained.
In answer to your second question I would say that I favor a course decidedly
practical. It should consist of a thorough review of grammar, a subject which most
students take up at a time when they are unable to appreciate its váTue, a drill in the
use of synonyms, and practice in the construction of sentences and paragraphs. It should
aim to teach the student to express himself clearly, concisely and- briefly. Elaborate, or—
nate language, embellished with flowery figures of speech, has fallen into disuse of late.
Once called eloquence, it is now commonly known as *' hot air.** In the profession of
engineering it is excess baggage, and in the keen competition of the age, the young engi-
neer should travel light.
y^
THE VALUE OF ENGLISH TO
THE PRACTICING ENGINEER
[Reprinted, with additions, from Contríbutíons to Rhetorical Theory, No. VII]
Ann Arbor
SHEEHAN & CO.
1908
'THIS PAMPHILET IS PRINTED FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS IN THE ENGINEER-
ING DE PARTMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, ANI) IS SOLD TO THEM AT
'I`EN CENTS A COPY. THE PROCEEDS ARE, USED TO PURCHASE BOOKS FOR THE
ENGLISH READING-RO OMI.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allen, C. Frank. The- Outlook for Engineering Education. Proc. Am. Soc. Prom. Eng. Educ. 12:12.
[Same article] Eng. News, 52:228. [Same article] Am. Mach., 27:1367.
Arkel, Garret Van. Education of Engineers and Machinists. Am. Mach., 26:878.
Arnold, Matthew. Literature and Science. In Discourses in America.
Atkinson, Fred W. Technical Education with a view to I,eadership. Proc. Am. Soc. Prom. Eng. Educ.,
15:230.
Baker, Charles W. The Making of Literature for Engineers. Eng. News, 59:429.
IBalch, Samuel W. Rhetoric for Science. Education, 16:223. �
Breitenbach, H. P. The Value of English to the Engineer. Eng. Digest, 3 :299.
Buck, Harold W. The Education of the Electrical Engineer. Trans. Am. Inst. Elect. Engs., 19:1165.
Discussion on Enginéering Education. Trans. Am. Soc. C. E., 57:141.
Drown, Thomas M. Educational Value of Engineering Studies. [Pamphlet published by Lehigh
University, 1895.]
Engineering Literature. (Supplement to Eng. News.) Editorial. July 16, 1903.
Ennis, Wm. D. The Importance of English in the Work of the Engjneer. Eng. Mag., 35:180.
Estey, Wm. Electrical Engineering - Courses, etc. Trans. Am. Inst. Elect. Eng., 19:1145.
Ereeman, John R. Contemporary Technical Education. Jnl. West. Soc. Eng., 9:451.
Gherardi, Bancroft J. The Proper Qualifications of Electrical Engineering School Graduates, etc.
Proc. Am. Soc. Prom. Eng. Educ., 11:291. (See also discussion of paper, Ibid., pp. 315,
317.) -
Harrington, John Lyle. The Value of English to the Technical Man. Pamphlet. Kansas City, 1908.
Extracts in Eng. News, 57:465. -
EIayford, John F. Why not Teach about Mem, the Most Important and Difficult Tool am Engineer
- Uses? Proc. Am. Soc. Prom. Eng. Educ., 14:198.
Humphrey, Alex. C. The Engineer as a Citizen. Eng. Record, 54:465.
Huxley, T. H. A Liberal Education and Where to Find It.
Science and Culture. -
Science and Art in Relation to Education.
Johnston, T. J. Engineering English. Proc. Am. Soc. Prom. Eng. Educ., 11:361.
Rerr, Walter C. The Point of View in Engineering. Amer. Mach., 27:1590. [Same article] Electric
Club Jnl., 1:563. -
IXirby, Edmund B. The Human Side of a Mining Engineer's Work. Eng. News, 60:160.
Martim, T. Commerford. Aspects of Technical Journalism. Trans. Am. Inst. Elect. Eng., 25:18.
New Standards in Engineering Literature. Editorial. Eng. News, 56:688.
Perry, John. Science and Literature. Inaugural Address at Royal College of Science. Nature, 66:645.
Raymond, Rossiter W. Professional Ethics for Engineers. Eng. News, 56:666.
Scott, Chas. F. The Engineering School and the Electric Manufacturing Company. Electric Club
Journal, 4:683. -
Steinmetz, Chas. P. Presidentia! Address. Trans. Am. Inst. Elect. Eng., 19:1145. [See also dis-
cussion] Ibid. pp. 1179, 1187, 1199, 1205, 1210.
Telleen, J. M. 'The Course of English in Technical Schools. Proc. Soc. Prom. Eng. Educ., 1908.
[See also discussion of paper.]
Valentine, R. G. Instruction in English at the Institute. [Mass. Inst. of Technology.] Technology
Rev., 1:441.
The Value of Humanistic, particularly Classical Studies, etc. A Symposium. School Review, 14:389.
[Reprint in pamphlet form. Ann Arbor, 1906.]
Waddell, J. A. L. Higher Education for Civil Engineers. Lincoln, Neb., 1904. [Extracts in Eng.
News, 52:157.] • *
Wardlaw, George A. Literary Engineering. Sibley Jnl. of Eng., 21:182.
White, J. G. Problems Facing the Electrical Engineer, etc. Proc. Am. Soc. Prom. Emg. Educ., 11:274.
Wiley, H. W. The Role of Chemistry in University Education. Science, 16:841.
THE VALUE OF ENGLISH TO THE PRACTICING ENGINEER
[In this pamphlet ' will be found the opinions of a number of practicfng engineers upon the
value of a training in English. Originally written as letters to students of the Engineering Depart-
ment of the University of Michigan, these opinions are here reproduced for the benefit of other
students and of all who are interested in problems of education.
The letters were the outcome of a discussion which arose some months ago in a class of junior
engineers. The question under discussion was the comparative value of pure and applied science in
the engineering curriculum. As was natural perhaps, every member of the class upheld the superior
value of applied science, on the ground that it was more “practical.** This led to an inquiry into the
character of a liberal education and the relation of science and culture, and in this connection the
following questions arose: 1. Is the study of English part of the cultural or of the practical training
of the engineer? 2. Should essay-subjects for engineering students be drawn from the students' gen-
eral interests, or be confined to the scientific and technical field? Incidentally it appeared that some
members of the class were in doubt whether training in English was of special value to engineers.
In order to answer these questions and allay the doubt which had arisen, it seemed wise to
refer the points at issue to practicing engineers whose experience would qualify them to speak with
authority. • -
Accordingly a list was made of about eighty successful engineers who since leaving the Uni-
versity had each had from five to ten years of professional activity. The students were then required
to address letters to these graduates asking them : ę • •
1. To express their opinions ori the value of training in English to the practicing engineer.
2. To cite any cases in which such training had been of special value to them.
3. To offer suggestions, drawn from their experience, for the- course in English in the Engi-
neering Department.
To these letters about one half of the number addressed were kind enough to reply—a much
larger proportion than was anticipated, since engineers do not, as a rule, have time for what may
be called literary correspondence. From these replies the following material has been selected.
Taking the letters as a whole and examining them with reference to the first of the questions
above, the most striking feature of them is their unanimity. All the writers agree that training in
English is one of the engineer's most valuable assets. Many advise an increase in the required work
in this subject, and several go so far as to recommend a year in the Literary Department.
The replies to the second question mention as the chief application of the engineer's training
in English, the writing of reports, specifications, contracts, etc. Several cases are cited of engineers
who have made writing their life-work, that is, who have gone into catalogue-writing, technical
journalism, and the like. «* <•
In the case of the third question the replies are less uniform, but all lay stress upon the need
of long-continued practice under guidance and criticism. The kind of essay-subjects does not appear
to be of much importance provided the topics are such as interest the student.
It is to be regretted that of so many interesting and valuable letters only a few could be pub-
lished. Those that are reproduced, however, are representative and fairly indicate the consensus of
opinion. It remains to acknowledge the courtesy of those who have contributed to the success of
the plan by devoting to the subject the time and thought of busy men. They may be sure that the
spirit of earnest unselfishness in which the letters were written will find a quick response in the
hearts of the younger generation.
H. P. BREITENBACH, Instructor in Rhetoric.]
[In preparing a second edition of the pamphlet it has been found possible to include several
additional letters; and, with regard to the general subject, to append some references, mostly to articfes
that have recently appeared in the periodical press.
H. P. BREITENBACH.]
I
[From the assistant to the chief engineer of an important construction company.]
I have your favor of December 18th, and am delighted to have the opportunity of discussing
with you the need of a thorough training in English for a member of the engineering profession.
In the first place, one must keep in mind that an engineer should be, above all other things,
a man—we11-balanced, broad-minded and capable of taking a place in the community that will reflect
eredit on his profession. He should be fitted to discharge the duties imposed upon all men who have
special endowments or exceptional opportunity. The broadest and most thorough general culture
that one can have is none too good for a man who is to be an active member of society or a represen-
tative citizen in the state.
I do not know • that this consideration is especially applicable to your question any more than
a similar query with reference to any other branch of what may be properly termed “culture study*';
I do know that English is at least as important as the study of any of the other humanities.
When one comes to consider the proposition from a slightly more selfish and more narrow point
of view, the work in English becomes of paramount importance, since the intelligent expression of
ideas will often do more to put one in touch with his working associates than having the ideas them-
selves. I do not meam by this that **running the bluff'* is conducive to prominent or enviable success,
but that a good appearance and the ability to show people that one has ideas in his mind will go
far towards gaining respect and confidence. -
I cannot say a great deal about the specific uses of the proper English training by an engineer,
except to call to your attention the fact that most of the **big'* work of the engineer is done with
the typewriter rather than with the slide-rule or T-square ; in other words, you will probably find after
graduation that highly technical work, while absolutely essential, is not the work which alone will
command the highest places professionally. From this it results that accuracy and clearness in expres-
sion, the ability to differentiate between expressions which will irritate and those which will stimulate—
in short, the ability to convey to another man in cold type the exact impression which you wish him to
receive, is a prime requisite. Loosely-worded specifications and inaccurate contracts are perhaps the
most fruitful source of contention, difficulty, and expense in work where contracts are involved ; and you
will certainly find that your official chiefs will expect any reports which you make for them to be such
that they may get at the meat of the subject reported without having to make a large allowance for your
personal equation in the matter of diction. a -
I cannot give any concrete instances of what you wish, for the reason that experience has indi-
cated that loose, inelegent, and indefinite English is, among engineers, decidedly the rule—this, doubt-
less, in consequence of the fact that we are required less frequently than clerics, doctors, and barristers
to present an academic education as a preliminary to our more narrowly technical work.
The demands of office routine prevent me from replying as fully as I should like to your request
for suggestions as to the preparation in English to be given to engineers. I will say briefly, however,
that at least one hour a day each term throughout the whole course would not be at all unprofitable,
most of that time to be spent in. the study of liter ary English, as distinguished from the class of work
which was given in our department in my undergraduate days, and which I believe is given largely at
the present time. Very few professional men have anything like a correct literary taste, a thing which is of
more vital significance than you perhaps feel now. My personal experience was that after leaving the
atmosphere of refinement and culture of Ann Arbor and getting into the decidedly material ten or twelve
hours a day of factory life, I needed something to fall back upon for mental and moral stimulus. Social
recreation is seldom offered to a young fellow just out of college in quite the same way that you find it
in our little Washtenaw town ; and good reading, music, and meritorious plays will go a long way toward
filling up the void. While this last suggestion is generally applicable to professional men, I think it
applies especially to the case of engineers, since our work is usually stripped of the more subtle influences
of intimate personal association which are so essential, especially to younger men.
II
[From an architect, contractor, and inventor in a large western city.]
I wish to thank you for writing to me requesting my opinion regarding the degree of proficiency
in the use of English needed by an engineer.
I can hardly express myself in sufficiently strong terms regarding such need. Engineering of
today does not mean alone drafting, shop work, inspection and other duties which place the engineer as
a subordinate under other officers. The engineer of ambition should strive to be in charge of work, and
especially in charge of its commercial end. In my mind, the really sucessful engineer is the one who
stands at the head of an industrial organization, who manages and leaves the subordinate duties to others.
In such a managing position a thorough. kriowledge of English is an absolute requisite. The engineer in
this position is called upon to formulate propositions and contracts. His correspondence becomes one
of the very large essentials of his duties. A perfect command of the English language places him in a
decidedly superior position. -
The engineer in the position of industrial manager should contro1 the advertisements, the sales
department, and the manufacturing department. In other words, with the superior training he has
received he should be in a position to handle every branch of a manufacturing concern ; and to make
himself fully efficient in that position, a thorough knowledge of English is one of'the fundamental requisites.
In my opinion, therefore, too much stress cannot be laid upon proper training in this respect.
Personally, I feel that I never have given this portion of my college education sufficient attentiom.
While at the University I never realized that those studies which are apparently not at aII engineering
are in reality fully as important as are calculus, nechanics, drafting, etc. An engineering student
should not try to become a practical man at the University. He has forty years after the University
— 6 —
life in which to become a practical man, but he has only four years irae which to become a thoroughly
theoretical and polished man.
Give me therefore at all times the graduate student with a sound body, a good, clear mind, and
a thorough general knowledge, together with proper proficiency and the fundamental theory underlying
all engineering principles. With such a student in hand, the matter of making him a practical mam is
only one of a little persistence and patience ; in the end he will be by far the most successful engineer.
III
[From a consulting civil engineer.]
The fo11owing observations are suggested as possible lines along which to work out some courses
which might appeal particularly to engineering students. They have been largely suggested by my personal
experience since graduation. It must be confessed that they are open to the criticism of being almost wholly
utilitariam, and of possessing but little of the culture value which English work is supposed to have.
No man, be he engineer or other, can afford to cut himself off entirely from all the culture studies either
before or after graduation ; but in a technical course looking mainly to professionial training, some excuse
can be found for purely utilitarian studies, even in English. -
Instructors in English insist strongly on a study of the English classics as models of form and style
and as sources from which a broad, general culture can be drawn. They are right, and no man can
afford to be without a good knowledge of the classics of the language. What follows is intended to
supplement such work with special reference to technical lines. -
Language is both oral and written. While conversational English may not have been included in
your inquiry, still it is of so much importance that it will be considered first in these observations. The
relation between it and written English is so intimate that it may be said that a good conversationalist
will be a good writer—except possibly as to the mechanical product—while the converse is hardly possible.
A man who uses slovenly English with his intimates will almost necessarily do so with others as well,
so that the habit of correct speech needs to be practiced socially as well as professionally, and every one
concedes its value professionally. •. •
A man who cannot impress his subordinates with confidence in his ability will not be successful,
hence the man of ready, concise and correct speech has infinitely the advantage over one who is not so
equipped. The fact is shown by the many men who succeed simply by **making a bluff.** It must not be
inferred from this that the practice of bluffing is in any sense advocated ; what is desirable is the readi-
ness of speech which it requires. - -
A man who cannot convince his brother engineers of the truth of his ideas will stand small chance
of succeeding with them, unless his ideas are so evidently worthy as to win without controversy. Even
then, however, there is the force of conservatism which usually must be overcome, and that can be
done most easily by a fluent use of the`English language. The writer has often seen 'engineers who are
really brilliant in invention and mechanical ingenuity, completely thrown off the track by a good talker.
How few engineers, too, can acquit themselves well before an audience of other engineers. It is to be
noted that those who make the best appearance under such circumstances are almost invariably the suc-
cessful ones, for some reason or other. • -
But altogether the hardest position in which an engineer can be placed is before a board of directors
who are inquiring into the cause of an underestimate, or making some simiilar query. Then, if ever,
the engineer needs a fund of ready, convincing English. He must be accurate and concise. Shrewd,
keen business men, who are accustomed to judging character by speech and action and appearance,
and who furnish the funds for the engineer to spend, are the hardest to deal with, but make
the best of friends if properly handled. When a mam is in the wrong is no time to “bluff,** but when he
is right and the business man does not agree with him, then is the time when the best English is of most
value.
Turning now to written speech, it is evident that many of the conditions referred to above must
often be met by writtem communications. • - •
A man's merely social correspondence does not often come in evidence ; but it may do so, and
therefore it should always be carefully prepared. How few men—engineers and others as well—can
write a good business letter. There is a feeling among most people that a letter of application for a position
does little good, as it is usually “placed on file for future reference.*' The writer thinks it is very often
the fault of the letter itself. Personally he believes thoroughly in letters of application, and almost in-
variably exacts one fronm each applicant. If the spelling is correct and the wording good, it is a fair in-
dication that the man will be painstaking in his work as well as in his letter writing. There is every op-
portunity to show originality in letters, and the man who cam catch the attention of a busy executive
engineer or business mam by a letter of application is apt to have that letter answered immediately ; at
any rate his communication will be left in a conspicuous place for ready reference.
The preparation of daily reports is usually a bugbear to the young engineer, but within a month
one young man of the writer's acquaintance has had his salary increased over $100 a year solely on ac-
count of the kind of daily report he turned im. It is neat, well tabulated, concisely stated, with the im-
portant points clearly brought out, and saves many, minutes a day for the persons through whose hands
his reports pass. Another young engineer was transferred from his position as building superintendent,
to the office as principal assistant in charge of reports, records of costs, etc.,—ten times the magnitude
«-*-*-* 7 s-*- -*
of his former job, and a position in which he would gain information of inestimable value,—very largely
because of the completeness and succinctness of his monthly reports. They gave more information on a
single page of letter paper, and in a more legible form, than was contained in ten pages of some other
reports. - ~
The preparation of a specification is a work of art. The lawyer draws his contract, based upon it;
the contractor prepares his bid by it; and the work is carried on and completed under its interpretation.
The writer has been called upon to interpret specifications which were entirely incogmprehensible because
of want of punctuation and improper sentence construction. One branch of the United States govern-
ment was very harshly criticised not long since, both editorially and by correspondents in engineering
periodicals, because of faults in the specifications prepared by it. The fault was not overconciseness
either. In one case which came under the writer's observation within a few months, a company was
obliged to pay a stubborn contractor a large sum of money, because of the use of a single wrong word
by an engineer in a specification. A considerable time can be spent profitably on the language of specifi-
cations for important works, and much attention and much space are being given to this point in several
engineering periodicals at the present time. Several papers relating solely to this subject have been
presented before engineering societies. Besides the usual faults of wrong tenses, omission of subjects,
verbs, etc., the larger faults of looseness of language leading to ambiguity or false interpretation, are
very often encountered. •
Closely akin to the language of specifications is that of contracts. While this is a matter in which
the lawyer is supposed to hold sway, an engineer is often called upon to prepare a contract, and he
should know enough law to do so correctly as to fornm and language. To refer again to a personal ex-
perience, an engineer of the writer's acquaintance was called upon to prepare a contract for the removal
of a burned building. While there was evidently no questiom in the mind of the engineer as to what
the contractor was to do, the contractor brought suit for a large amount of money the settlement of
which hinged solely on an ambiguous expression in the contract. The engineer meant one thing, while
the contractor found it to his advantage to take another, equally possible, interpretation, as far as
the language of the contract was concerned. .
In view of a11 these points it is evident that an engineer should have a thorough grip of the
English language, if he is to be entirely successful.
IV
[From a construction engineer in a large western city.]
'The training an engineer needs most is logic. The beauties of a figure of speech or of fanciful ,
description may be appreciated but never imitated by an engineer. His work consists in stating clearly,
in the form of a contract or specification, what he wishes done, or in describing a piece of construction
or design for the benefit of his fellows, or in advocating the mefits of a particular design before a board
or commissioner. In all of these cases clear, precise statement of fact, together with a logical exposition
of the reasoning process leading up to his conclusions, are leading requisites for successful work. If he .
happens to be advocating a particular design he will frequently have to explain technical points in a
convincing manner to men totally unfamiliar with engineering science. He must then, for the time being,
1ay aside his technical vocabulary and in the fewest and clearest words possible, lest he become tedious,
explain his principle from the ground up. He will occasionally be confronted by another engineer with a
rival design, and must then engage in a joint debate. Here he will need all his powers, and a training
in clear and logical thinking and in the expression of the basic engineering principles in plain, un-
technical, Anglo-Saxon words, will prove invaluable to him. He must learn to avoid generalities and
bring out the definite, concrete facts at the root of the matter, and avoid the loose and dangerous methods
of reasoning by analogy.
When a man first leaves college he does not use his English training. He can rise as a draftsman,
inspector, or instrument man to a salary of $ 5.00 per day without needing it. But as he goes above this
limit and takes up consulting work, administrative work, or the commercial side of engineering, his English
training will become increasingly useful. His engineering ability depends largely on his mathematical
training and his experience, but his engineering reputation depends to a greater degree on his ability to
Handle English properly in technica1 papers, or to convince laymen of the soundness of his views.
V.
[From an electrical mining enginer.]
As I remember, one of the greatest bores of my college course was a course in English, a two hour
course, which at that time was the only. one that was required. I could not understand at the time why
there should be this requirement in English for graduation from the Engineering Departnment, and conse-
quently skimmed over it with as little work and thought as possible. I can remember, however, when a
year or two after my graduation I heard that the course had been increased to four hours, I thought to
myself that it was a good thing and that the requirement should be more. These courses should be
— 8 —
adapted to strictly engineering work and should not consist of writing a series of compositions on
“Spring,” “Flowers,” and “The Blue Sky Overhead.” These courses should require the writing of
specifications covering a wide field of engineering work, and the making of reports on the condition of
buildings, power plants, and al1 kinds of machinery, such as a capitalist who is a prospective buyer
might ask an engineer to draw up. It would be well to include practice in making out forms which could
be used for daily, weekly and monthly reports in connection with power plants, building operations,
and construction work of all kinds. A little practice in writing business letters would help. I don't want
you to understand by this that my idea of these courses is to confine them entirely to writing. A lot
of practice in the use of words to express thought is really the most important thing. To be able to
express one's thoughts, using no superfluous words, and to be able to transfer what is in your mind to
your auditor, in a clear, precise manner, is surely an accomplishment to strive for.
VI
[From a U. S. assistant engineer.]
1. English has been of more value to me in the practice of engineering than any other study.
3. Concrete examples wherein I have been helped by my knowledge of English cannot well be
given ; English has always been present. But I am sure it has been useful to me in securing work and in
making specifications, reports, etc. - -
3. An engineer cannot have too much preparation in English ; the better his knowledge of English
the better able wi11 he be to solve the problems that are likely to confront him. He cannot hope to get
this preparation in college, but he should make a good start there. - -
Engineering is an exact science and therefore an engineer should be able to express his ideas
orally or in writing, as clearly and concisely as he would render a problem in mathematics. Too much
attention cannot be given to composition and expression, especially to expression. The student who
is inclined to reading can acquire these in large measure while in college, and will continue to do so
after leaving college.
VII
[From a consulting engineer in a large western city.]
sa
A good knowledge of English and ability to use it is of great value to the practicing engineer.
' 'This is particularly true of the engineer in the higher walks of the profession, as he must be able to
describe the work he proposes to construct clearly, comprehensively and succinctly. It is also true of
the engineer who is engaged in constructing the work so described, as he must understand thoroughly
the description by which he carries on his work. It is also true of the man making preliminary investi-
gations or surveys for proposed work, as he must furnish the employees with complete, clear, and exact
information as to existing conditions. -
1. As to its personal value to me in ny practice, I will say that it has enabled me to report
clearly and convincingly on my plans or methods for proposed work so that my emp1oyees have agreed to
these plans or methods; it has enabled me to describe clearly in a specification the material and workman-
ship involved in my work ; and it has enabled me to tell plainly and without umnecessary words anything
regarding the work. • - - -
2. One example of the value of exact knowledge of language is to be found in the specification
of work. Engineers who can write a clear and full specification for work without redundancy arè the
exception rather tham the rule. The plans of a work show all lines, parts and commonly all dimensions.
The specifications describe materials and workmanship, and often the terms of acceptance and payment.
It is evident that in the specification words must be used in their exact meaning and with true value;
ambiguous words and phrases will cause disputes, and often lawsuits, redundancy creates. confusion, and
involved phrases or badly arranged paragraphs lead to errors or omissions. *. •- • .
Again, an engineer who appears in court as a witness should have a full knowledge and quick
comprehension of the meaning of. words that , he may give clear evidence and that he may comprehend
questions. "Without such knowledge his evidence is likely to be involved and. contradictory. . . . v °
3. The answer to this question, I think, may be dedueed from the foregoing... 'The engineer
should be logical, deducing clearly and reasoning both broadly and closely; rhetorical, in that he should
be able to compose, if not with elegance, at least plainly and with good construction ; and his vocabulary
should be simple, containihg words of clear and positive meaning. These conditions can be obtained only.
by broad reading of the best authors. Essays and fiction are both to be included, for much . clearness
of diction, good construction and . strong reasoning. may be found therein. History, biography and travel
are all advantageous, giving breadth of view. Technical works contain the basis . of. his knowledge, but .
while necessary to education, are not always beneficial to language.
— 9 —
VIII
[From the editor of a technical journal.] * •
1. **What is the value of a working knowledge of English to an engineering or other worker. in
science?'* : You might just as well ask me, What is the value of a sound general education? It is
simply invaluable. Why ? Because the educated man is adaptable to the thousand and one emergencies
and changes of circumstances which no human being can foresee, because his mind is flexible, because
he can grapple with new conditions, because his mind remains young longer and retains *far beyond the
average the power to assimilate new ideas and grow. A working knowledge of English, that is, the ability
to write clearly and forcibly in correct style fit to print, is almost as necessary to an engineer as is a
good handwriting to a bookkeeper. It is one of the tools of his trade. He must often prepare reports;
he must write letters ; as he rises in his profession he will contribute to the engineering press, and at
every step he will be hampered if he can't write. The ability to write may not be wholly indispensable
in the early drudgery of the young graduate fresh from college, but that it is true of all general education:
the need of it becomes more imperious and painful the higher you rise in your professional work. Routine
drudgery is the common lot of the beginner in business, in the law, in medicine, everywhere, but as the
work grows more responsible and difficult, such a resource as a working knowledge of English comes more
and more into play.
2. “What preparation in English will best fit him to solve the problems likely to confront him?”
I have often been struck by the excellent command of English that the average educated Briton displays
in his letters and in his contributions to the trade press. In this respect there is simply no comparison
between the Englishman and the American. To the educated Frenchman the statement would apply even
more forcibly, because almost every Frenchman is a born prose writer. Now, why do the English
excel us? Why do we so rarely find among our university graduates in the United States so much as
a gleam of literary gift? Because we do not spend enough time in the study of the best prose writers,
because we do not live with them and in them, because we do not write enough. The last reason is
most important. To learn to write, about the only way is to write and write and write. And when
the teacher corrects, 1et him beware of a too rigid and pedantic adherence to the rules of composition
lest he stifle what individuality the pupil possesses. Let him nurse and cherish the little originality that
he may perceive in and between the lines of the composition, and not choke it under with a mass of
rhetorical rules. Teach the young writer to dare to be himself, to say what he thinks in his own way
without timid fear of violating some rule or incurring the censure of some old fossil who has forgotten
that he ever was young. Self-confidence is no small part of the writer's outfit. Then, if the stvtdent has
anything to say, he will scron learn how to say it. The more ideas you find in his head the easier will
be your task, for it is hard to teach style to amyone who lacks an active and thinking brain. After all,
the supreme thing in writing is something worth saying ; it is matter, not manner ; it is the message and
not the form. A vigorous thinker is not likely to grope about long for the most effective means of pre-
senting his thoughts; he is not apt to worry about his style ; he doesn't have to.
I close with the statement that in my own bread-and-butter work, which consists principally of
business correspondence, my high-school drill in the writing of English is of more practical use to me
than all the other things I was ever taught. It seems to me that you have a rare chance to work out
courses of the greatest practical utility to your students, to say nothing of the happiness you will give
them if you once kindle their love of good literature.
IX
[From a member of a firm of advertising engineers.]
Replying to your favor, asking me to name concrete instances where I have found my knowledge
of English of value in professional work, I can name no such cases, as I have never been engaged in
professional work, if you mean by that actual engineering work.
On the other hand, I have made my living since leaving school entirely by the use of English, as,
except for a brief period in the Westinghouse shops, I have been solely engaged in engineering journalism
and advertising.
Answering your second question, concerning the kind of preparation in this subject that I would
consider best for an engineering student, I would advise a great deal more practice in writing than most
students receive, with a tliorough editing or correcting of the manuscript by the instructors.
Further than this, I would suggest that writing upon live subjects would be much more valuable
to the student than upon uninteresting or meaningless topics. For instance you might write a series
of 1etters vith the object of selling a machine by correspondence or with the object of inducing a public
board to take sone particular course of action in regard to an engineering project.
It might not a bad exercise also for engineering students to visit an engineering work and then
write an article upon it, designed for one of the engineering periodicals, or to write a paper for an
engineering society upon some original work going on in the shops or class-rooms. -
- In any case, in engineering work what you say is of a great deal more importance than how you
say it, and if you write a great deal on a subject about which you are thoroughly in earnest, you will be
able, after a while, to state your thoughts effectively.
A knowledge of spelling, punctuation and the grammar of the English language is also very im-
portant, as I find that most engineering graduates are suprisingly deficient in these respects, so much so
that their articles and letters will not bear printing without a considerable amount of editing.
X.
[From an instructor in' civil engineering formerly connected with the U. S. Coast Survey.]
At various times in his career, an engineer will require a knowledge of English in order to pre-
pare reports upon work performed under his direction, instructions to his subordinates for the execution
of his plans, and contracts and specifications which shall state the requirements governing some pro-
posed work. In every case his statement should be complete, concise, and exact, and should be arranged
in some logical order. •
As an example in my own experience, I cam state that one of my first duties in actual engineering
practice was to compile data from office records and prepare the annual report of my superior officer
for his approval and transmission to the proper department authorities at Washington.
In preparation at the University, the engineering student should study the paragraph as a unit,
and should criticise the composition of articles in the current technical periodicals and books from this
standpoint. ' He should also familiarize himself with methods of analyzing various subjects into topics
and sub-topics to such an extent that each of the ultimate subdivisions will form the subject of a unit
paragraph. In general, it is a study of English composition.
XI
[From the president of an electrical company.]
1. An engineer should be able to express at all times, in clear and concise language, the meaning
that he wishes to convey. It is needless to say that he should be able to use correct grammar, and
in addition to the usual vocabulary in ordinary conversation, he should be as fully posted as possible
on strict engineering terms. It is frequently embarrassing to a young man who has just completed an
engineering course of study to run up against the practical engineer and be unable to recognize the
names of some of the common elements of machinery or mechanical appliances.
2. It is not only difficult but undesirable to give concrete examples referring to particular per-
sons, but it is not at all umusual to run across men in the engineering profession, who are college
graduates, who are unable to use ordinarily good English, and are utterly incapable of writing a good
business letter. -
3. As stated under (1), I believe that all college graduates, whether in the engineering depart-
ment or not, should have a most thorough knowledge of the English language. In âddition to these
regular courses, I believe that the student in the engineering department could, with advantage, have
a course of technical language. - - .
XII
[From an estimating engineer connected with an eastern company.]
To one engaged in the active practice of engineering, probably the first use for any preparation
he may have had in English comes in the form of correspondence. Correspondence is in itself a fine
art, especially business correspondence, and is of extreme importance. Oftentimes the impression created
by a letter or proposal determines the course of action of a prospective client. In many of the large
contracting and manufacturing concerns today men are employed to do nothing but attend to “kicks,”
and their business is to keep clients satisfied and soothe the wounded feelings of customers who think
they have been unjustly treated. To be a good correspondent one must first have a thorough knowledge
of the language he uses. Every engineer who attains any degree of success has a large volume of
correspondence, and by laymen who do not meet or know him his ability is often judged by his letters.
I recall a number of instances where the preparation which I received in English was of great value
to me, and some also, I must confess, where my lack of knowledge handicapped me severely. Probably
the next use in point of time would arise from affiliating with some society. Papers on subjects of
interest to men in certain lines of work, and discussions of the same, are prepared and presented, and
here the use of English is so obvious as to require only mention. In reports on work, such as tests,
examinations of structures, machines, excavations, etc., often the amount of work done and the efficiency
with which it has been accomplished can only be indicated in the final report, and this being the only
means which the engineer in charge has to show his employers or clients what he has done, is of course
of great importance to him. Its value will depend largely on the skill with which it has been put
together. The mass of information which he may have obtained is of little use until properly arranged
and explained.
In answer to your second question I would ' say that I favor a course decidedly practical. It
should consist of a thorough review of grammar, a subject which most students take up at a time when
— II —
they are unable to appreciate its value, a drill in the use of synonyms, and practice in the construction
of sentences and paragraphs. It should aim to teach the student to express himself clearly, concisely
and briefly. Elaborate, ornate language, embellished with flowery figures of speech, has fallen into dis-
use of late. Once called eloquence, it is now commonly known as “hot air.** In the profession of
engineering it is excess baggage, and in the keen competition of the age, the young , engineer should
travel light. •
XIII
[From a well-known technical writer.]
The technical press is a most striking illustration of the debauching of English in, I may safely
say, the majority of cases. And, to my mind, the extraordinary mediocrity and lack of independence
of the Americam technical press is due entirely to the lack of present support from the engineering
fraternity, combined with the grossest sort of negligence on the part of the editorial staffs in publishing
undigested, and practically un-edited, matter. Probably one reason why the engineering fraternity
does not more generously contribute the proper matter to the technical press is because they are dis-
gusted with its mediocrity and do not think it worth while. 'The magnificent standard set by the
German engineering publications is a shining example of the reverse state of affairs. -
In my own case I confess candidly to much blundering when starting out in the technical
literary work that has conne to form a considerable part of my duties, and it was only by observing the
effect which the presentation of information, conveyed in my papers and articles, had upon various
engineers that I. was able to formulate a plan of action most suited to a particular occasion. I believe
that every man must work this out for himself. If a technical paper is logically planned under headings
and subheadings and properly paragraphed, its effectiveness will be much greater than if the information
is put down as it comes to the mind of the author. This latter generally results in a confused paper
entirely lacking in uniformity of treatment and which does not accomplish its purpose. On the other
hand, if a paper is logically treated from start to finish, it is particularly easy for an author to abstract
his paper as he is almost universally called upon to do on the rostrum of the technical societies. Any
one may see that it requires some very active thinking to accomplish this properly, and in proportion
to the lack of serious thought put upon the original paper, does the abstracting of it become a difficult
thing to do; it is usually the case that the author makes a miserable muddle of his paper in the attempt
to abstract it. Evidently logical treatment will be of great assistance in this respect. •
“What preparation do you think would best fit an engineering student to- do what writing he
is likely to be called upon to do in his future career?” The only answer I can make to this question
is for a student to devote his best energies to the opportunities open to him in the course in English
prescribed for engineering students. To the majority of students, this is, of course, a bugbear, but
it should not be so, and later on, a broad-minded fellow will instinctively turn back to his English
classics, simply because he has devoted so many years to thinking along one line; viz., the technical,
that he has become super-saturated with it and longs for a change. It he does not cultivate a liking
for belles lettres, he will surely land in the rut of verbose “shop talk,” which is one of the last stages
of literary decrepitude. •
An important thing, to my mimd, in technical writing is proper paragraphing. The course in
paragraph writing at the University has proven of great benefit to me in this particular. In nine cases
out of ten an engineer will often paragraph sentence for sentence simply to add emphasis, as he thinks,
to each thought that he utters. That this absolutely defeats his purpose is evident from the fact
that in reading over matter paragraphed in this manner, one soon finds the impressiveness of the par-
ticular thoughts gone, smeared together as it were, the important and the unimportant having equal
emphasis. How much better would it be to adhere to a definite form of paragraphing as outlined in
the course mentioned. A good illustration of this is, offered by the system which .some business firms
employ of stamping important mail, circulating through their different* departments, with a big RUSH.
Por a time this works, and when a letter is received with this istamp on it, it is given immediate atten-
tion. Inevitably, this RUSH stamp is used for less and 1ess important matter until it is finally grossly
abused, even being used in matters of personal privilege. Sooner or later every man's nerves are on
edge in endeavoring to comply with the instructions to rush the matter through, and the net result is
that every piece of mail matter, whether stamped or not stamped, goes into the mail basket, to take
its regular course in precisely the same manmer as it did before the RUSH stamp was used.
The nucleus of the whole idea of paragraphing is that the human mind is limited in its receptive
capacity, and furthermore, that it absorbs a given thought or principle in proportion to the conspicuousness
with which this thought is presented; lnence the necessity for bright lights and dark shades in writing
or speaking and consequently the necessity for proper paragraphing. This , principle is even carried
out in the inflection of a speaker's voice during the delivery of an oration. In short, we can only
absorb to the fu11est extent , the most important: points, while the less important must be held in the
background. .
If I were to retrace the steps of my college career, I would certainly attempt more . study of
1anguages, ' and particularly English. The ultimate result of the time thus spent is hard to predict, but
it is, nevertheless, certain. -
XIV
[From an assistant engineer in charge of construction work.]
I. What, in general, are the needs of an engineer with regard to English? The needs of the
engineer are the same, in this regard, as those of other professional mem. The engineer needs a thorough
understanding of English, whether it comes to him through his college or by outside study.
II. Give some particular cases in your own experience. Without giving special cases, I would
say that in writing papers upon various engineering subjects, in writing specifications, or in fact in the
daily correspondence, the engineer finds his ability severely tested many, times to say, just what he
wants to, and at the same time to say it so as to be pleasing and thoroughly understood by those who
are not necessarily engineers. • - -
III. What preparation in English do you consider best adapted to fit one to meet such demands?
The study in preparing the engineer along these lines, need not differ particularly from that for regular
literary students. If it is remembered that the college course of enginering is not to make a surveyor,
a draftsman, or a mechanic, these questions will be easily settled. The engineer's college course should
1ay a firm foundation, and pave the way to a career as highly professional as the lawyer, the doctor,
or the college professor. Give the engineer a good basis in English to work upon, and he will adapt
himself to whatever circumstances may come. -* -
XV
[From an engineer connected with a building construction company in New York City.]
1. An engineer's written communications consist principally of descriptions, reports, inquiries
and instructions. Verbal directions also form a large part of his duties. Each of these, to be of
value, must be at once complete, clear, precise, and brief.
2. One should have a good command of English, that he may make his descriptions so clear and
precise that any person must recognize the object at once, a veritable pen picture; tha£ his reports may
be complete, clear and concise, thereby reducing to a minimum his own efforts and saving his employer's
time in perusal; and that his directions may be simple, direct and positive. For example, it is one. of
my daily duties to report to my main office the character of work performed on my contract by some
two hundred odd workmen,—so many laying brick, so many rivetting steel, etc., throughout all the
various trades. Now, while this is important, I find I cannot devote more than fifteen or twenty
minutes to the actual writing of the report, without slighting some other equally important duty. Hence
my emphasis Qn completeness, clearness, precision and brevity. •
8. As I look back on my college work in English, I must confess I did not take to it with
much enthusiasm. I think an instructor should suggest subjects familiar to the student to secure his
best efforts. I remember my instructor in English once gave out a list of subjects for a descriptive
essay, among which were Moonlight, The Beautiful Huron, Spring, etc. I was forced to give up in
disgust and described instead an ordinary carpenter's plane, which tool I had reason to be familiar with.
I think that was the only composition that ever came back to me with the single red ink mark **excellent”
upon it. -& •
Strangely enough, the best and most useful study of English came to me, not in a language
course, but in the study of Professor C. E. Greene's works.
.*
XVI
[From an electrical engineer.]
NIy experience in ten years' service leads me to , the conclusion that the needs of an engineer in
Ânglish are the same as those of the man entering any other profession or business, namely, an ability
to express ideas in the most concise words and sentences possible. e
His preparation should be along the line of “correctº letters of application for position, stating
his past experience and qualification for the position sought. He also should be taught to make clear
and concise reports of technical research and investigation. ' «
XVII
[From a mechanical engineer connected with a large manufacturing concern.]
' I consider the study of English of prime importance to the engineering student who hopes for
the widest success. It is a study, however, which many engineering students seemingly undervalue.
A good vocabulary, knowledge of synonyms, ability to express one's thoughts clearly and concisely,
are a great help to the engineer. In his study of English Composition he should not lose sight of the
— I3 —
fact that, in the commercial world, he is the most valuable man who can do his work quickly as well
as accurately. He must learn to write as does the reporter whose manuscript goes to press as fast as
produced. In my own experience, I dictate, either to a stenographer or to a phonograph, many tech-
nical letters and reports. I must not take my own time to revise, nor should I burden the typewriter.
with extra work. The first draft must be correct.
IKnowledge of the technical subjects treated is of course essential, and to that must be added
skill in writing, which most people attain only by continued practice. -
I have been looking for some weeks for a man to do catalogue writing; in other words, for a
man who combines technical training with journalistic ability. Several to whom I have written Say
they likewise are hunting for such a man. Thus far, I have found but one whom I believe to be
capable, and he is a Michigan man. •
I am glad to have this opportunity to encourage engineers in the study of English.
XVIII
[From a member of a firm of consulting and contracting engineers.]
I. The study of English is most essential. The ability to write clear specificaticns and make
concise reports is one which many engineers lack. Further, to have a good command of language, and
to express oneself well and to the point, is very often a great aid in obtaining business.
II. In our business we have a great deal to do with preparing bids from architects' plans and
specifications, and it is noteworthy that scarcely one out of a dozen architects is able to get 'up his
specifications in intelligible shape ; and when it comes to the contract there is much that is loose and
ambiguous. Hence the lack of a thorough grounding in English gives rise to a great deal of trouble,
and very often is respomsible for expensive litigation. •
III. I would suggest that you seek every opportunity to express yourself both orally and in
writing, with the aim of stating your ideas in the clearest form but without redundancy. Further, to
make a success in . business, good address and the ability to make friends readily are prime essentials.
XIX
[From the manager of a manufacturing concern.]
In general, I may say that an engineer cannot have too good a literary or English education.
Specifically, the following are the principal demands in English which experience in the business world
has made on me : 1st. The ability to write a good strong engineering opinion. 2nd. The ability to
take up a pile of correspondence, say ten to twenty letters on different subjects, and dictate rapidly
a strong, concise and right-to-the-point answer to each. 3rd. I have been - called upon to get up a
trade catalogue advertising the electrical apparatus made by a certain concern, such as switches, circuit
breakers, arc lamps, regulators, etc. It takes a good deal of practice for even a good man to do any
one of the above well.
XX
[From a civil engineer connected with one of the principal railway lines.]
The spoken and written English of an engineer, in my mind, should be clear, precise and direct.
There is no use of any man's trying to talk to amother in language he is not accustomed to ; and as
all are accustomed to simple English, that is the kind for the engineer. Then the aim of the engineer
is to make everything he does correct, at least as far as the personal equation will permit—and to be
constantly using the grindstone on that equation. And then all the time wasted “beating around the
bush'* is lost as vigor to the speaker, and as interest to the listener.
The first characteristic is illustrated negatively in a certain colored man—an electrical engineer—
who insists upon talking about a device to a laborer as though he were a philosophy professor at a
convention. The laborer generally remembers more about the length of words used than he does
about the device explained. -
A personal bent to exaggeration—plus and minus—has been the means of my undoing many a
time since graduation, and before. I cannot do less than to warn others from the same rocks.
The beauty of directness is illustrated by Professor C. E. Greene's book on Structural Mechanics,
which contains in such small compass what Others have required double the space to express.
The best preparation that I cam think of would be of the nature of Professor Davis's “examina-
tions*'—papers on definite engineering topics, repeatedly corrected until a finished paper is produced.
Then the instructor could conduct an imaginary conversation with each pupil, assuming himself to be,
say, a laborer, or an employer, or a corporation president, or what not; and requiring the student to
present the engineer's side of the conversation. I would recommend also that the student read vigorous,
simple writers, like Ruskin,. Conan Doyle, John Fiske, etc.
— 14 —
XXI
[From the secretary of a manufacturing company.] . ' ;
It seems scarcely necessary to emphasize the value of English in college courses, professional or
otherwise. A college man but recently graduated ordinarily is not expected to know much of the details
of the particular business into which his lot may have fallen, but it is expected that he will have been
-taught a systematic and orderly method of thought and a clear and concise method of statement, for
it is extremely obvious that a man's thoughts, however brilliant, are only valuable in the measure in
which he is able to impart them. The modes of expression given to the engineer are the spoken and
written word and drawings. In the latter mode of expression the graduate usually finds it advisable
to take a graduate course of a year or two in some large drafting office, but rarely does he supplement
his college training in the use of his mother tongue by other courses than those given by the constant
association with men in shop and field, whose influence undoubtedly adds force to his diction at the
expense of all other attributes. -
As long as the world's snap judgment of the knowledge and culture of the man is formed from
his mode of speech, it is likely to be a far cry to the time when 'the engineer is admitted to the so-called
learned professions by reason of his elegance of expression.
Personally, I am too keenly aware of my own shortcoming to offer counsel upon the betterment
of our tribe in this respect, but in closing I wish to express my hearty agreement with Noah Webster
when he says that it is a greater and more valuable accomplishment to be master of one tongue than
to have a smattering of -a dozen.
XXII
[From an engineer connected with -the Bureau of Engraving and Printing at Washington, D. C.]
I. From information gained during my somewhat limited experience as an engineer, I should
say that one in my position should be capable of writing a report, a statement, a specification of some
piece of machinery to be purchased, or work to be done on contract, in good, clean-cut English, with
no superfluous words, grammatically correct and properly punctuated. He should make each sentence
worthy of its position in the article. Business men as a rule have no time for trimmings.
II. I must necessarily answer this question in a limited manner, because my ablity in English
is quite limited, through no fault of the University, however. You see I was one of those thoughtless
boys who did not realize the importance of being able to write good English until I bumped up against
the world. Since that time I have had it brought home to me on very many occasions. You will find,
as will the other boys, when they get out, that a man's calibre as an engineer is to a great extent rated
by what he says when he opens his mouth and what he says on paper.
My small stock of ability has been of service principally in enabling me. to express on paper the
thoughts which were tumbling around in my head. In my position I have many specifications to write
for machinery and supplies. These must be so worded that they express clearly and exactly what is
wanted. Reports of tests of machinery must be written, reports of the operation of boiler and engine
room, reports of the deportment of the men employed. I have found in examinations that the ability
to express one's thoughts clearly om paper is of very great value. I have seen and know personally
many good engineers who are not holding positions commensurate with their ability through this one
misfortune of not being able to write what they think in an intelligent way.
III. As regards the choice of subjects for essays, I cam only say that I would try to give
subjects which will interest the students. This I know is difficult, especially when the student thinks
as I did while I was in college. In my opinion, it is immaterial what class of subjects is chosen.
Engineering subjects, while perhaps more intersting to engineers, are very little if any more desirable
than any other class.
I have neglected until at this point to emphasize the importance of correct spelling. We know
that with some persons this is to a greater or 1ess extent a natural gift, but those not so endowed
must struggle so much harder. How often we unconsciously rate a man according to the way he has
spelled, or rather misspelled, words in a letter or other communication.
XXIII
[From an electrical engineer in the U. S. Reclamation Service.]
Answering your first question as to the need of the engineer in regard to English, I would say
that if any mam om the face of the earth needs good English, the engineer does; and this has beem
universally recognized throughout all technical departments of late years. This is owing to the fact
that an engineer must be clear and exact in his statements, because his specifications or his statements
must be such that they will convey at once to the minds of others, who have never seen them before,
exactly what he means. It will probably be hard enough for the other person to grasp the ideas
involved without having to wade through a lot of obscure English to find out. what that says.
— I5 —
Again, he must be able so to state his idéas that there will be no possible chance of any other
meaning being taken from them than the meaning which he intended. It is obvious, therefore, that the
engineer should have at his command English of the , very best quality. -
Answering your second question: the concrete example asked for was covered by the answer
to your first question. An engineer must write specifications upon all classes of work, machinery,
structures, etc.; must. issue instructions to the forenman of the shops, if he be working in a factory,
and must be able. to carry on correspondence upon technical : subjects every day in the week.
Referring to your third question relative to preparation, I would say that, from my own ex-
perience, the one course in English given the engineering students is almost useless and prac-
tically inadequate. It is my own personal belief that the individual is largely moulded by his early
training, by the literary atmosphere of the home from which he comes, by his own taste for reading
and good literature, and by the impression which the style and the fine use of language of the different
authors have made upon him. * - •
I would suggest that English courses of perhaps two hours a week be carried through at least
the first two years, and if possible, the first two and a half years of the engineering course, and that
the student be required to write freely very much as the students in the courses of training for news-
paper work, etc. Probably no change should be made in the elementary course, but this elementary
course should be supplemented and the work carried much farther. Probably the subjects on which
the students should write at first should be of a literary nature, in order that they may acquire literary
style and 1earn what good style is, but later they should be required to write on scientific subjects,
things which have come under their own experience, and of which they have a vital working knowledge.
They should be called upon to write specifications covering such things as bridges, machines, roads, and
other subjects handled by the engineer. · • .
XXIV.
[From a junior engineer in the U. S. Engineering Corps.]
'The question of better English among engineers is a good one to discuss, because engineers are
poor speakers and writers as a class. • - - - . • -
Your question I, as I understand it, is best answered by saying that an engineer needs to know
how to write good, plain English, for specifications, technical reports for engineering, magazines and
societies, and popular descriptions of work for the layman. . - • . - -
In respectº to II, I would say that an engineering student should have at least two hours a week
of English every year he is in college, and that if it is necessary to sacrifice any work in order to do
it, it would be better to cut the work in foreign languages to eight hours for the course. It has been
my observation that a great majority of engineers, never make use of their foreign language. Any articles
of merit in foreign work are always ably translated and discussed in our standard engineering periodicals.
If I were going through college again I would take as much work in paragraph writing as possible,
and this I have advised one or two fellows to do who are to enter next year. : One becomes proficient
in a work through constant practice. . : - •
My idea for a course of English for the engineer is this, to take two hours of English every
semester, and 1earn to write both popular and technical descriptions, arguments, and expositions on
- - various -engineering subjects ; study the styles of the best engineering writers, and learn to criticise the
various articles which appear ; discuss these articles in class and see where the student could improve
on them. Each student should ' write at least one paragraph a week.
Students should also have a lot of practice in writing contracts and specifications. 'This is a point
on which engineers, especially young ones, are very poor, and the subject itself is extremely important.
XXV.
[From atl engineer employed by a manufacturer of railroad supplies.]
An engineer should possess that degree of proficiency in the use of good English which will enable
him so to express his ideas that the person to whom he is talking or the reader will receive just the
impression that the engineer intended he should. It is often not necessary to use other than the simplest
Anglo-Saxon words.
I have been ca11ed upon several times lately by railway superintendents to write for them instruc-
tions to operators regarding the operation of certain instruments, and also the train rules under which
trainmen would handle their trains when these instruments were in service. It was necessary that these
instructions should be as brief and as clear as possible. They must be almost as concise in their meaning
as a legal document. It required all that I knew of unity, clearness, and coherence to do justice to the
undertaking. It was simply a question of saying exactly what I meant in as few words , as would be
consistent with good English. I believe that most of the literature which engineers are called upon to
produce is of a similar nature. - -
In choosing subjects for paragraph or theme writing, I would suggest that subjects be selected
upon which the instructor is as well informed as the student. As much good English training may be
derived from the describing of a tennis racquet or canoe as from the describing of a power plant or
steam turbine. : - - » r
—- I6 —
THE LEHIGH UNIVERSITY,
ASA PACKER, FOUNDER.
The Educational Value of
Engineering Studies.
AN ADDRESS
IDELIVERED ON
F`O UN D E R's DAY,
OCTOBER I o, 1895,
E3V
THOMAS MESSINGER DROWN, LL.D.,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY,
PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY.
I 895.
THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE
ENGINEERING EDUCATION.
HUMAN knowledge has increased so greatly in
amount in the last century and methods of education
have undergone such radical changes in that time that
the educated man of to-day is a very different product
of civilization from his counterpart of a hundred or
even fifty years ago.
To the question—What constitutes an educated
man ? must now be given a very different answer from
that which would have been given when the gradu-
ates of all colleges had pursued substantially the
same studies and were all cast in the same intel-
lectual mould. The schools which were formerly
content with a narrow curriculum of classics, math-
ematics, and philosophy have had their gates forced
open to admit a flood of new knowledge in the nat-
ural and physical sciences, and their methods of study
have also been radically changed by the intrusion of
these new sciences.
The study of the changes which have been made in
educational methods in the last two generations is a
most interesting one. These changes are the result
of the introduction of the elective system of studies
into our colleges and of the recognition, on the part of
•_!
— 4 —
educators, that the educational value of a study lies
largely in the way it is taught. It is a great gain,
every way, to a young man to be able to select, under
proper restrictions on the part of his teachers, the stud-
ies in which he is most interested, and of which, it may
be, he wishes to make immediate practical use, and to
derive from these studies the mental training and de-
velopment which it is the primary object of college
life tO give. This is an immense gain in educational
methods and a great saving of tinne and energy.
We may now fairly say that one may be ignorant
of the classics On the one hand and of the natural
sciences on the other, and yet lay claim to a high
education. It would be difficult to name any one
branch of knowledge without which one would be
thereby excluded from the educated class. Based
upon the elementary studies of the grammar and
high schools we could build a college course of
profitable study which might omit most of the stud-
ies considered, within the memory of most of us,
absolutely essential to the educated man.
Professional or graduate study has likewise been
loroadened and made more thorough in recent years.
Here, too, the natural and physical sciences have made
their way and have by their methods of study and re-
search inspired all the older faculties with new life and
vigor. And now come the so- called technical studies,
savoring of handicraft, knocking at the university doors
and claiming admittance. Already in Germany, in
Switzerland, and in this country there are great techni-
cal schools with extensive buildings, magnificent equip-
ments, and learned corps Of instructors, with thous-
ands of students whose courses of study are equal in
}
— 5 —
variety and thoroughness to those of the universities.
The mental training and discipline of these schools are
most severe and their graduates take positions in the
community of as high importance and responsibility as
the graduates of the older professional schools. There
seems to be no good reason why they should not ul-
timately be absorbed in the university system.
But it is important that there should be a clear
understanding of our meaning when we speak of
“ technical" schools, or schools of “technology."
These terms are variously used to include trade and
manual training schools on the one hand, and the
highest grade of engineering schools on the other.
To avoid this confusion I would propose that the
higher schools of technology, such as the Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology, Columbia School of
Mines, and Lehigh University on its technical side, be
called Schools of Engineering, including under this
name the courses in chemistry, metallurgy, architec-
ture, and geology, as well as those in civil, mining,
mechanical, and electrical engineering. This will
greatly aid us in discussing this subject and will help
to give these schools in the mind of the public a
professional status. -
The position of the engineering school in this coun-
try is a peculiar one. It is both a graduate and an
undergraduate school. It is not unusual to find here
the graduates of our best colleges pursuing engi-
neering studies beginning with the sophomore or
junior year; but, in the main, the engineering school
in the United States to-day is an undergraduate
school, with young men at the same age as in the
ordinary college course.
— 6 —
Many of us would be glad to see engineering edu-
cation re-organized as a distinctly graduate course,
requiring for entrance the equivalent of a college
education. It is within the recollection of many of
us that medical schools in this country required no
examination for entrance and only a very slight one
for exit. This day has passed and medical instruc-
tion is now, at our best universities, on a strictly pro-
fessional and graduate basis. But I fear it is useless
to hope that this change will take place for engineer-
ing. The standard of admission may be raised, in
age and qualificatiom, but the schools will remain es-
sentially undergraduate.
It is for only a little over a quarter of a century
that engineering has been systematically taught with
us. Formerly American students, including many col-
lege graduates, sought this education—principally
mining engineering—in the mining schools of Ger-
many and France. About that time the larger Ameri-
can colleges, in response to a demand for a course of
study which should omit Latin and Greek and substi-
tute some of the natural sciences, established the so-
called scientific school, to which students were admitted
at the same age as to college, but without any knowl-
edge of the classics. These scientific schools added,
gradually, to their curriculum various engineering
studies, including chemistry and architecture, and
gave engineering degrees. Schools of technology,
without any college affiliations, were also founded in
considerable numbers On the same basis as these
scientific schools, and thus engineering came to be
an undergraduate study.
It is not likely that there will be any decided change
— 7 —
in our American system, for first, engineers trained in
these schools and under these conditions have been
successful in their professions. Although the young
graduates are far from being engineers, strictly speak-
ing, yet they have the foundation and training which
enables them to reach, through after experience, the .
highest places in their professions. The existence of
engineering schools as now constituted is, therefore,
justified by their results. -
These young graduates, moreover, seem to be what
the engineers of experience need and desire as assist-
ants. There was a time when the older engineers
looked askance on the young men from the schools,
thinking that this school training might unfit them for
practical work. And it must be said that they often
thought more highly of their knowledge than was war-
ranted, and that they brought a certain assurance and
conceit with them which had first to be eliminated be-
fore they were of any real service. But that day has
gone by and the affiliation of the work and the schools,
as well as of the engineers and the students, is now
complete. Formerly the young man had to seek a place
in industrial works, now he is sought after. Teachers
know what is desired in their graduates—not the
knowledge which can come only by experience, but
the training of systematic study and experiment which
makes them self-reliant and able to do their own
thinking.
Again, most parents cannot afford to keep their
sons in school after they are 2 I tO 23 years of age. If
only college graduates entered the engineering schools
two or three years would have to be added. And the
fact that our great engineering schools are now receiv-
— 8 —
ing young men at I 6 to I 8, and that four years later
they at once obtain self-supporting positions has con-
vinced the parent that any longer time of tuition is
unnecessary. While there will always be a few wiser
and more favored ones who will add to the liberal train-
ing in arts and letters the special training in the engi-
neering profession, for the great mass of students the
four years' course in the schools of technology, at the
college age, will be the rule.
The question before us, therefore, in dealing with
engineering education is how may this time be most
profitably employed ; what is our duty as educators to
these young men who come under our care for four
years ? I would say, first, that we must free ourselves
from the idea that these young men are strictly pro-
fessional students on the one hand, or that they are
learning a trade or handicraft on the other. Of col-
lege age, and pursuing a parallel course to college
students, they must be surrounded by all the aids and
restraints, the inspiration and the drill which the best
thought in modern education has devised.
In their great zeal to prepare their students for
practical life many teachers drill them laboriously in
class room and shop in those subjects and operations
which will serve them in good stead when they begin
work for themselves. Praiseworthy as is this self-
denying zeal, it lacks often the discretion which the
true educator of youth would apply to this problem.
But it must be admitted that this practical training has
produced marvellous results, and that these zealous
teachers have builded often better than they knew.
The experimental work and original investigation
which find a place in our best engineering schools are,
— 9 —
in reality, the most valuable training which the student
receives and are of the highest educational value. In
this way our engineering schools have been grand
training schools in mental development. The habit
of logical, accurate, and precise thinking which a stu-
dent acquires in a well-directed research is of more
permanent value to him than all his store of facts.
In many respects his education has been more thor-
ough and more generally useful than the education
which our colleges afford, but it lacks the mellowing
and beautifying elements which a little of the human-
ities would introduce. I should like to see in every
engineering course a certain amount of culture stud-
ies pursued side by side with the scientific and techni-
cal ones. I would even go so far as to say that as
educators it is our duty to place these studies there.
It is often claimed that four years is not any too long
to equip the student for his work in engineering and
that no time can be taken out for any purpose without
a serious detriment to his course. It would be profit-
less to discuss at this time just what may and what
may not be omitted in an engineering course of high
efficiency ; my only contention is, that when the course
as a whole is regardedas mainly one of mental develop-
ment and training designed to fit a student to adapt
himself to new conditions and to be quickly and intel-
ligently responsive to the demands of his employers,
a little more or less of this or that study or practice
is not of such great moment as to justify the barring
out of studies which would make him a more per-
fectly rounded and permanently useful man. The ideal
way to do this, as already said, is to make engineering
a graduate study after a college preparation. But as
>{<
— IO —
we cannot expect that many will take the time to do
this, let us see to it that the young men under our
charge do not pass away from our influence without
having had presented to them the human side of life,
that life shall seem to them worth living not only for
achievement but also for helpfulness.
I do not now propose to prescribe just what culture
studies should be introduced into an engineering
course or how much time should be devoted to these
studies. But in a general way it may be said that
English, history, and political science should find a
place there. I do not mention the modern languages,
since a knowledge of French and German is a neces-
sity to the educated engineer and they belong, there-
fore, to his professional course.
Too much stress cannot be laid on the importance
of a thorough course in English language and litera-
ture. This should begin in the primary school and be
continued without interruption to the senior class of
our colleges and engineering schools, The study of
English in our secondary schools is most deplorably
neglected. Twice has the committee on English in-
struction of our largest and oldest college called at-
tention to the lamentable ignorance of their own lan-
guage which a large number of the applicants for
admission exhibit. Nor are the colleges themselves
free from reproach in this matter. Insufficient in-
struction and drill in correct and fluent writing of
English is the rule rather than the exception. It is,
if possible, more important even that the engineering
student should be proficient in the writing of English
than the collegian. The ability to express himself
clearly and accurately may be said to be a tool of his
— I I —
trade, for he has to write reports and prepare speci-
fications the very soul of which is accuracy.
But, still, I do not wish to have the demand for
thorough instruction in English rest merely on expe-
diency. To write one's mother tongue correctly is the
hall-mark of the educated man, and it is a grave wrong
on the part of the teachers of any school or college to
fail to provide suitable instruction to this end.
English literature, too, should be taught so as to in-
spire in the student a taste for good reading, and thus
make available for him for the rest of his life the best
thought of the world. If the love of literature and
reading is not acquired in the school when the mind
is plastic, it is not likely that it wiil come to one later
when life's busy work has begun.
My plea, therefore, is for the introduction of a
broader curriculum into engineering schools and for
the realization on the part of the teachers of these
schools of their responsibility for providing a rounded
education for their students. While recognizing fully
the dominant importance of the particular study which
the student is pursuing, his course should be so ar-
ranged that itshall include a fairly liberal amount of
studies of general culture. And if it should prove
on full trial, that this cannot be done as our courses
are now planned, without impairing seriously the
student's engineering knowledge and training (a re-
sult which seems to me, however, very improbable)
then I would advocate a course of five years instead of
four, that these humanities which belong in the daily
life and thought of the educated man, may not be
omitted in preparing engineering students for a useful
life.
— I 2 —
It is often said that the place for non-professional
studies is in the preparatory schools and that a stu-
dent should come to the engineering schools with his
English, history, and political science behind him, and
thus not have them as disturbing elements in his tech-
nical course. The objection to this scheme is two-
fold—first, to the youth of I 6 or I 7 only elementary
instruction can be given in these branches, and it is
not probable that he will retain any interest in them
after entering the higher school; and second, I believe
that so far from these studies being disturbing ele-
ments in the midst of scientific studies, they come as a
pleasant relief and lead the student to realize that
there are more things of value and interest in life
than can be expressed in figures and formulae.
The mingling of culture studies with professional
ones can be done bunglingly to the detriment of both,
and these culture studies may be taught in a dull per-
functory way which will repel rather than attract the
student. There is no doubt that much of the existing
prejudice on the part of teachers and students to the
humanities in schools of technology has been due to
the blundering way in which they have been co-or-
dinated with the professional studies and to the lack
of skill with which they have been taught. When
English, history, and political science shall be taught
with the same spirit and enthusiasm and with the same
thoroughness as scientific subjects, then we may ex-
pect similar results in interesting and uplifting the
young minds. •
The intimate association of students of engineering
and of the students of the classics and literature ought
to be of great advantage to both. The student of
— I 3 —
science and technology breathes some of the atmos-
phere in which his companion lives who is devoted to
ancient and modern literature, and he cannot fail to
appreciate in some degree the beauty and advantage
of this culture. And, on the other hand, the student
of the classics cannot fail to be impressed with the
mastery which the student of applied science obtains
over nature and Over himself.
It is my earnest desire to see a large increase in the
number of students in the classical and literary courses
at this university, both for the sake of their influence
on the engineering students, and for the advantage
which they themselves would gain in association with
fellow-students trained in accurate thought and free
from intellectual sophisms.
The educational value of scientific and technical
studies as conducted in our great engineering schools
has, I think, not been fully understood or appreciated
by recent thinkers and writers on pedagogics. Here
we have a severe drill in mathematical and mechani-
cal subjects, aided by laboratory practice, which per-
mits the student tO handle apparatus and machines
and to observe the results of his experiments. Lab-
oratory methods of instruction are now so familiar to
us in all branches of science and seem so obviously
necessary to successful instruction that it is hard to
realize that they have had their origin and develop-
ment in the last two generations. But of far more
importance than this great educational method is the
training in original research which pervades the en-
gineering school and which, if rightly guided, engen-
ders in the student a love of truth and empowers him
to be a successful seeker for it. And with this love
— I 4 —
and power come self-control, self-reliance, and a true
humility. -
The characteristics of a course in engineering (still
using that term to include all studies now grouped
under the head of technology) which would satisfy
at once the engineer and the educator are :—
I. A thorough class-room drill in the fundamental
principles of his profession.
2. The broadening and humanizing influence of
culture studies throughout his course.
3. The formation of good mental habits.
4. Careful guidance into the realm of original re-
search. »
There is no system of education, however thought-
fully and ingeniously devised, which can do away
with class-room drill in fundamental mathematical
subjects. A workman must have fitting tools for his
work and must thoroughly understand their use. The
engineer must be firmly grounded in his mathematics,
physics, and mechanics, so that his mind works in
mathematical channels without effort. This is his
necessary equipment as engineer ; but in acquiring
this mathematical facility his mind becomes at the
same time trained in accurate, logical thinking, and
his whole mental and moral fibre becomes strength-
ened. Specious reasoning repels him, for the quick-
ened intellect detects fallacy. The engineer thus
gains in his mathematical training the first qualifi-
cation of the educated man.
Of the importance of introducing the humanities to
aid and relieve this rigid training, I have already
spoken at sufficient length, and of their educational
value there is no question if rightly taught. Teachers
— I 5 —
of English and the humanities could have no more
receptive and inspiring classes than eager and earn-
est students of technology, who are keenly alive to
the necessary connection of cause and effect and who
maintain a discriminating attitude of mind towards
the true and the false. But he must teach his subject
with an intelligence, force, and enthusiasm to which
the student is accustomed in his engineering subjects.
If he does this, I have not the least doubt of his suc-
cess or of the future of culture studies in the engi-
neering curriculum. <.
Habits, whether of body or mind, whether good
or bad, are the great savers of time and energy in
life. If it required a nervous effort every time one
took a step to maintain his equilibrium, he would
make but slow progress, and would very soon become
exhausted. It is always a matter of interest and
pleasure to watch the co-ordination of nerve and
muscle in a supple and healthy body whereby exter-
nal impressions find an instantaneous response in com-
plicated muscular movements. Of a still higher order
is the wonderful unconscious translation of sensual
impressions into muscular action as when the trained
musician transforms the written page of music into
melody. The musician who has arrived at such a state
of technical perfection with his instrument that he
can read the written notes without mental effort has
his soul free for the enjoyment which the music is
able to afford and is also capable of creative work.
The self-perpetuating tendency in nature makes it of
the highest importance not only that good habits
should be formed, but bad habits avoided, owing to
the great difficulty in eradicating these automatic ac-
— I6—
tions. Speaking and writing correctly are, for in-
stance, matters of habit and teachers are neglectful
of their duty who permit bad habits in this regard to
fasten themselves on their pupils. -.
The necessarily severe training which the engineer-
ing student undergoes, the strictly logical and invio-
lable sequence involved in all his work, cannot fail to
exert a favorable influence on his mental attitude
toward. all phenomena and occurrences about him.
His reflexes become trained in such a way that the
mind responds in an ever increasing degree, with
sharpness and accuracy to the impressions made
upon it. The consequence of this, it seems to me,
cannot fail to have a moral as well as a purely intel-
lectual value, for truth is but accuracy on a moral
plane. A learned professor once replied to a student
who said he was anxious not tO get into an intellect-
ual rut: “ A good rut is a good thing." What is it
but a path prepared by patient persevering effort to
make further progress easier. Only when the rut
gets so deep that one cannot see Over its sides, and
know what is going on around him, is it a bad
thing. - -
There is another useful result of the formation of
good habits which, though well recognized, is not often
acted on as a power in education. It is the stimula-
tion of the moral sense by the habitual performance of
good and worthy actions. Let a child be taught to do
habitually kind and polite acts and speak kind words
and the spiritual condition which corresponds to these
acts will not be long in coming to him. And equally
certain is the evil influence on the moral condition of
the young of persistent indulgence in selfish and cruel
— I 7 —
acts. Likewise obedience to law is not merely discip-
line, it is an education, opening the mind to the recep-
tion of truth and supplying the impulse to right
action. This is one of the greatest of all truths
and was in the mind of our Lord when he said :—
“ If any man will do His will he shall know of the
doctrine.”
The opportunity for original research and the dis-
covery of natural laws in scientific and engineering
education I regard as the most valuable means for
mental development, training, and inspiration which
modern education possesses. In the hands of the
true teacher who studies carefully the individual char-
acter of all his pupils, the careful guiding of the stud-
ent into the realm of the unknown, and leaving him
to penetrate unaided into nature's mysteries is equiv-
alent to giving him a new interest in life. It is, in-
deed, for him a new birth, which he would probably
never experience if his education comprised merely
faithful and laborious study of the investigations of
others. Holmes has somewhere happily said that a
man's mind now and then is stretched by a new
idea and does not afterward shrink to its former di-
mensions. This is the case with the youth when he
becomes conscious of the power enabling him to
penetrate into the very heart of nature and discover
her laws, The higher spiritual enjoyment of discov-
ery has no alloy of self seeking in it.
It is a mistake, I think, to reserve work in original
research to the later years of one's college course.
Chemistry lends itself admirably to research work
for the beginner. To those who have acquired a fair
acquaintance with general chemistry and who have a
— I 8 —
sufficient knowledge of manipulation, simple prob-
lems can be assigned by the skilful teacher which will
involve some original thought for solution. At this
stage it is not absolutely necessary that the result
should be a new one to the world ; it is only necessary
that the result be new to the student and that he should
actually discover it anew. It takes earnest, patient,
and often exhausting work on the part of the instruc-
tor to teach his pupils in this way. He must know
their capacities and peculiarities, their dispositions,
their likes and dislikes. The study of the individual
student by the teacher is the only road to successful
teaching. But the labor thus expended is amply re-
paid by the interest which his pupils show in their work
and by the rapid progress he sees them make. The
average student thinks his work a task and I fear the
average teacher looks on his work as a task also. If
new life and interest can be thrown into the work of
both, teaching and learning may be transformed from
dull tasks into keen enjoyment. If we admit, as I
think all teachers in engineering schools will do, that
training is of more value to the student than the facts
he learns, then all methods which give to the student
a greater love of his work, a greater self-reliance, and a
greaterability for independent thought and workshould
be employed in our schools. My experience as a
teacher has brought me emphatic proof of the value
of this method of teaching, not only for the naturally
bright and industrious but also for the dull and indif-
ferent, who are not infrequently awakened from their
lethargy to a new life and energy by the discovery of
their own unsuspected power.
Many have the erroneous idea that there is required
rare talent, akin to genius, to be a successful investi-
gator. This is obviously true of an investigation
which requires the , master mind, but the method of
conducting an investigation in chemistry or physics
can be taught. There is nothing mysterious about it;
an experiment accurately carried out and accurately
observed and recorded must give a fact of some kind,
and when facts in sufficient number are appropriately
grouped their study may reveal a law. The function
of the teacher in such an investigation is to see to it
that the student does observe accurately and com-
pletely, that the conditions of his experiment are such
as he supposes, and to note whether there are disturb-
ing influences of which the student has taken no ac-
count and whether his deductions from his associated
facts are consistent and logical. Could any teaching
be more suggestive and valuable ?
I like to think, too, that the result of this trafhing is
morally as well as intellectually elevating. To all
minds this will not be the case, but to some the con-
sciousness that the hidden * laws of nature reveal
themselves to him who seeks with patient thought
and work, brings with it a sense of oneness with na-
ture, and of fellowship with the great minds to whom
she tells her secrets.
We listened last year to the story of the discovery
by an English physicist and an English chemist of a
new constituent of our atmosphere. So astounding
was the announcement of this discovery that the scien-
tific world received it with some incredulity and many
thoughtit easier to believe that two men had blundered
than that a host of chemists and physicists had for a
hundred years and more overlooked an element which
exists in our common air to the relatively large amount .
of one per cent. The story of this discovery fills one
with admiration for Lord Rayleigh's magnificent con-
fidence in the accuracy of his own experimental work.
His starting point was a difference of a few milligrams
in the weight of a litre of nitrogen obtained from the
air and nitrogen obtained from chemical sources. He
was sure that his gases were pure and that his balance
was true, and he knew that nature does not vary a hair's
breadth in the action of her laws. With a sublime
confidence in nature and in himself he predicted the
new element in the atmosphere with the confidence with
which Le Verrier predicted the existence of Neptune.
Not only has the new element, argon, been isolated
and studied, but other new and startling discoveries,
made now possible, have followed quickly in its train.
Helium, a gas known only as existing in the sun has
since been found in terrestrial minerals.
In contemplating such discoveries we are filled with
awe and are moved to say with the Psalmist—“ Such
knowledge is too wonderful for me; I cannot attain
unto it.'' And yet in Lord Rayleigh's methods, mate-
rials and apparatus there was nothing which is un-
known to the student of chemistry and physics in our
engineering schools. His inspiration and prophecy
were the direct, one might almost say the inevitable,
result of his simple and sublime confidence in the
laws of nature and in the integrity of his own work.
His laborious experiments on the weight of nitrogen,
pursued simply for the love of truth and not for the
love of discovery, had so cleared the mystery of the
composition of the atmosphere that the new element
could no longer remain concealed. •
To see things in their true relations to each other
we must rise sufficiently high above them. There is
a plane from which all facts and laws—moral as well
as physical—assume equal value since they are all the
laws of God. May we not truly say that the scientific
and engineering schools in their earnest search for truth
are contributing their share, with all colleges and pro-
fessional schools, to the increase of knowledge and
wisdom on the earth ?
A true seat of learning is known by its life and
growth. It cannot remain stationary, for inaction is
death. It is a pleasant conception of college life
which regards it as an association of scholars who
admit young men to their midst for a few years that
they may acquire the love of truth in the seeking for
it. When all teachers are not only patient and faith-
ful, but also lovers of truth and lovers of teaching,
then may we expect to see this new era of education
ushered in.
It is not my wish to make any comparison of the
educational advantages of a collegiate and engineer-
ing curriculum. My object is rather to show, if I can,
that a Course of engineering study liberally planned
and faithfully carried out is capable of making not
only a broadly educated man but one whose enthu-
siasm for truth and truth-seeking has been kindled to
a living fame.
To admit this does not require one to depreciate
the value of the usual collegiate course. There is no
finer product of education than the cultured scholar
of language, literature, and philosophy, to whom the
best thoughts of the best minds of all ages are tribu-
tary and whose trained reflective thinking occupies
- 22 ---
itself with the mystery of the soul of man. The
world needs these ripe and cultured natures of
gentle fibre, as it needs its engineers, with their
rugged strength. -
When the educational value of an engineering edu-
cation is fully appreciated, we may have students
seeking these schools for the training they afford
without regard to the practice of any of the engi-
neering professions. In my opinion, the best prepa-
ration to-day for the practice of medicine is a course
in chemistry in a technical school before entering the
medical school ; not merely for the knowledge of
chemistry which would there be obtained, but for the
severe scientific training and for acquiring a knowl-
edge of methods of research. Medicine, which is to-
day so largely empirical in its methods and practice,
would have a new era if all its students were trained
scientific investigators. .
If we compare the attitude toward his studies of
the student of engineering and of those in academic
courses, we cannot fail to observe, on the whole, a
greater earnestness, accompanied with more real ef-
fort, on the part of the young engineer. He realizes
more fully the end and object of his work and he is
generally more interested in it than the young colle-
gian, who toO often regards his course as preparatory
to something to come after. There is in modern col-
legiate life a steady increase of luxurious dilettanteism,
the natural result of the increase of wealth among us
and of the greater number of young men who go to
college every year. The life which our grandfathers
and our great-grandfathers spent in college was one
of serious purpose unbroken by the round of pleas-
ures and sports which now characterize college life.
The athlete and the sybarite were unknown in their
day, but so far from complaining of their lot they re-
joiced in their greät privileges. If one new to our
modern college life were to get his first impressions of
it from the daily press (which gives the public what
they are supposed to be most interested in) he might
well conclude that the purpose of the college was to
train students for gladiatorial exhibitions and for trav-
eling minstrel shows, and he would be wrong only so
far as he supposed this to be their dominant purpose.
I do not take a pessimistic view of modern college
education, nor do I think that the college spirit is in
a state of decadence. Modern collegiate life is to-day
a wonderful microcosm ;—it represents the endeavor
of generations of zealous, earnest educators to make
this period of youth increasingly profitable. The
number and variety of studies have been increased
many fold, the proportion of teachers to students has
been increased, improved methods of instruction have
been brought into play and the equipment of labora-
tories is lavishly generous. Never before has there
been such earnest discussion as to educational methods
and values; the teacher's art has become a science,
and he a great power in the land.
With enlightened educational methods goes hand in
hand the freedom of the student—freedom to choose
his studies and to occupy his time as he will, subject
only to the attainment of a certain scholastic standard.
It is not surprising that some students should abuse
this freedom and run into excesses that are anything
but scholarly. Recreations, gymnastics, and athletics
are healthy and useful in the college life. The gym-
nasiums of our modern colleges are witnesses of.
the importance which is now attached by educators
to muscular exercise and a harmonious physical de-
velopment during the years of college life. Athletic
games may be made a useful adjunct of this physical
culture, and supply an element which the gymna-
sium must always lack—the stimulus of contest which
brings into beautiful co-ordination the keen alert
mind and the strong responsive muscles. It is a sorry
spectacle when we see the perversion of this physical
training in public contests characterized by cunning
and brutality and productive of lasting ill-feeling and
bitterness. Think of it, the young men who have
afforded these spectacles were students in our great-
est colleges of learning and presumably pursuing
courses of study leading to solid wisdom and refined
thought and feeling. Athletics are now running riot
in our colleges and taking time and thought which
should be devoted to study ; it is high time that they
be relegated to their proper, subordinate place in the
scholastic life.
We have thus far considered our colleges and en-
gineering schools as institutions for leading young men
in the ways of wisdom and understanding and train-
ing them in the ways of right and accurate thinking,
and thus preparing them for active independent life
in various Occupations and professions. But it is
well to ask, is the whole duty of the college performed
when this useful and practical end is attained ? Ought
not this period of youth, with receptive maturing
minds, be made use of for still higher ends—the de-
velopment of character and preparation for duties of
citizenship, The crying need of our country tO-day is
— 25 —
for good citizens—not merely passively good, but ac-
tively earnest in maintaining right and justice and in
elevating the tone of our politics. The City, the
State, and the Nation have the right to the unselfish
services of all citizens in the maintenance of law
and order and in the promotion of the general
welfare and happiness. What do we see in our
modern political life ? City, State, and National poli-
tics largely in the hands of self-seeking and corrupt
politicians of the lowest order of intelligence. Where
do we find the college men who have enjoyed the
great privilege of years of study of nature, of history,
and of political science, and who should be leaders
of all that is best in thought and action in our politi-
cal life ? Do we find them banded together by a
common tie of purity of thought and usefulness of
action ? Alas ! no ; we find them scattered in the va-
rious camps, some, it is true, struggling hopelessly for
the right, but the majority indifferent, while the vul-
gar, uneducated throng take possession of the reins
of government and degrade the seats of honor and
justice. Where is the remedy ? The past history of
Our municipal governments shows that the usual
course is for the best element of society to allow
things to run on from bad to worse, and wait until
they become insufferably bad and absolutely unendur-
able and then by a vigorous effort to Overthrow the
corrupt government and substitute a decent one in its
stead. This spasmodic virtue exhausts itself generally
in one effort, and then the vulgar crowd comes to the
surface again for a new term of life. Many right-think-
ing persons lazily deplore this miserable condition of
affairs but they will not take the time and trouble to
— 26 —
change it permanently. Can there be a better place
than the American college to teach young men the un-
selfish duty of citizenship ? Not merely the duty to
vote aright—alas ! how seldom under our present sys-
tem has one any chance to perform this duty—but the
duty to enter loyally into every political campaign of
City, State, and Nation in the service of good honest
government. Graduates of our colleges and scientific
and engineering schools are increasing in numbers
every year. If united on the side of honest govern-
ment what a power would they now be in the land !
I see no better solution of our intricate political prob-
lem—a problem made more difficult every year by the
influx of an immense ignorant population and by the
ingenious and unholy devices of our degraded politi-
cians—than that the college men of the country should
unite to stem the tide of political corruption and to
set up a standard of honesty and purity. Cannot our
great schools of learning take active measures to this
end by enrolling all their students into classes and so-
cieties for the active study and debate of our social
and political problems ? It would be a dull student in-
deed whose sense of duty could not be aroused, and
whose enthusiasm could not be kindled to enter into a
crusade of political reform by teachers and leaders
whose hearts were in their work. What a grand ser-
vice would our higher education thus render our coun-
try ! Think of the power possessed by the trained
educated man in his knowledge, wisdom, self-reliance,
and self-control. An army of vulgar place seekers
would shrink away before the advance of a handful of
such men with public opinion behind them. -
It may be a Utopian dream, but it is a pleasant one,
— 27 —
that the college spirit should also be one of active
altruism, and that the four years Of partial seclusion
from the world spent in the study of nature and of
man and in the search for truth, should result in the
discovery of that sublime truth that “ There is that
scattereth and yet increaseth.” What a great part
petty meannesses play in our every-day life—the
greed of possession, the thirst for power. This spirit
is not to be eradicated from our natures by discipline
or punishment and the better way cannot be taught
by precepts or homilies. It is the spirit which giveth
life, and when the day comes that the teachers have
all attained unto this unselfish life, the pupil will not
be long in discovering that the beauty of right living
is the crowning glory of his education. - -
It is a beautiful and pious custom of this University
to insert in its calendar a memorial day, for all time, to
commemorate the virtues of its noble founder and to
keep alive the fame of living gratitude for all he did
for this great school of learning and for the cause
of education in this country. I know of no finer
trait of character than the desire of a man to give
to others the advantages of which he himself was de-
prived. A college is not the only road to education
and development of character. Asa Packer attained
this end unaided, by laborious self-denying effort. He
might, when his days were full of honor and prosper-
ity, have said, “ Let others tread the road I have trod
and win success by their own strength and Courage as
I have done.'' Not so did his benevolent nature
speak—but “ I will make the rugged road smooth, and
level the toilsome hills that the path of youth hereafter
to learning and honor shall not only be easy but beau-
— 28 —
tiful." The soul that is capable of this thought has
been very near to the heart of the Master who went
about doing good. Oh, that we could infuse into the
minds of young men who come here for an education
the meaning of all this, that they might realize that
they are enjoying the greatest privilege a young man
can have in this world and that they owe it to the
grand generosity of one to whose own youth it was
denied !
In the spirit of our noble founder, this school of
learning has been conducted by noble men who worked
with him and, surviving him, carried out his benevo-
lent intentions. Associated with the name of Asa
Packer as founder will always be the names of Henry
Coppée and Robert A. Lamberton who, by their
scholarship, learning, and vigor, made the University
what it is to-day.
The purpose and design of the University were
broadlyoutlined by its first president, Dr. Coppée, whose
scholarly, practical, and far-seeing mind discerned the
great possibilities for usefulness of a school of learning
in this beautiful valley rich in nature's treasures and
man's achievements. The University had happily the
presence, example, and counsel of this noble and bril-
liant scholar for nearly 3o years and he, happily, lived
to see his hopes for the University more than fulfilled.
I quote from his own words addressed to the students
on the opening of Packer Hall: “ Let us work to-
gether with ardor to a noble end, you to learn, we
to teach, and all determined, with God's help, to make
Lehigh University a blessing in this place and a glory
in the land.'' . .
It was during Dr. Lamberton's wise and vigorous
— 29 —
presidency for thirteen years that the University came
to be generally known throughout the country. He
brought the talent of a great administrator to the ser-
vice of the University and under his wise and skilful
guidance it found its place among our large institu-
tions of learning. This he did while maintaining the
high grade of scholarship which Lehigh's learned
faculty had originally established. These two great
presidents of Lehigh University, whose work is now
over, received their mission direct from its founder
and embodied his benevolent and gracious thought
in the great school of learning where we now meet.
Still another name is in all our thoughts tO-day, a
friend of its founder and a friend of the University,
one who rejoiced in its growth and usefulness and
whose counsel and purse were ever at her disposal.
Eckley Brinton Coxe was the child of gentle and dis-
tinguished ancestry, and his youthful life was sur-
rounded by all that could contribute to the harmon-
ious development of his character. After completing
his college course at the University of Pennsylvania
he spent many years in Germany and France fitting
himself for the profession of mining engineer. On
his return to this country he began his life's work in
the development of the large mining property of his
family. Most men, similarly situated, would have
been entirely engrossed with professional and busi-
ness cares, but Mr. Coxe found time also for scientific
research and beneficent works of practical philan-
thropy. As we read the printed record of his scien-
tific and technical industry we marvel at his fertile
mind and his power of work ; but his words and
works of kindness and helpfulness are recorded only
on the hearts of those to whom they are a precious pos-
session, A technically educated man, Mr. Coxe took
the liveliest interest in technical education and was one
of our foremost thinkers and writers on this subject.
He was always eager to help engineering students by
giving them the freedom of his great mines and engi-
neering works for instruction and study, and he never
tired of giving them, likewise, the rich treasures of
his knowledge and experience. Léhigh University
has reason to be proud of lhe absorbing interest he
took in her affairs and of his personal efforts to in-
crease her equipment and efficiency. • .
In Eckley Coxe we have the full realization of the
finely and broadly educated man, who drew his inspi-
ration both from his liberal and engineering educa-
tion. He was at once the scholar, the investigator
and inventor, the practical engineer, the man of busi-
ness, the statesman, and the philanthropist. And with
this remarkable many-sidedness was combined a per-
sonality so charming and winning, a character SO
elevated and an integrity so sublimely simple, that
he drew all men to him in unselfish devotion.
Placed side by side with his friend, Asa Packer—
how unlike were they in their early opportunities and
training, yet how alike in the deep springs of their na-
tures which broke forth in bountiful streams, enriching,
beautifying, and fructifying the world around them.
Let the memories of these four noble men—Asa.
Packer, Henry Coppée, Robert A. Lamberton, and
Eckley Brinton Coxe—be enshrined in our hearts to-
day and their lives be to us a perpetual inspiration.
2.
[Reprinted from the Schooz Review, January, I9o6, and distributed to members of the
New England Association of Teachers of English as a regular leaflet.]
TH E SCHOOL REVIEW
A JOURNAL OF SECONDARY EDUCATION
VOLUME XIV WHOLE
NUMBER I JAN UARY, I 9o6 NUMBER I3O
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC ANID IN COMPOSITION
REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE OF NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF
TEACEIERS OF ENGLISH ON AIDS IN TEACEIING ENGLISH *
Your committee, acting under the instructions of this association, begs
leave to submit a report on textbooks in rhetoric and in composition.
No attempt has been made to include in it all the textbooks in these sub-
jects to be found in the publishers? lists, nor even all that have come into
a somewhat extended use. The fact that a book finds no place among
these reviews is no proof that it is not an excellent one well suited to the
needs of Schools. The enforced limits of such a report as this make many
exclusions necessary.
Some difficulties connected with our task will readily suggest them-
Selves. First, it is no part of the committee's purpose to convert itself
into an advertising medium for any book or publishing house. And this
has imposed certain restraints upon us. Then, there is no general agree-
ment among teachers as to a desirable plan for composition and for rhetoric
such as might be exemplified in a textbook. Again, it is quite impossible
to review a book with the utmost fairness if the reviewer has no sure means
of knowing for what grades of school work the author intended it. The
last and perhaps the greatest difficulty of all is due to the fact that what
might seem to be the very best book from an ideal point of view may
become, in the hands of the teacher who lacks knowledge of the subject
and a hearty interest in it, coupled with real enthusiasm in teaching, a
poOr one, ill adapted to getting the little good that may be gained from the
study under the circumstances.
It has seemed best, therefore, to attempt to describe upon what view,
I Homer P. Lewis, superintendent of schools, Worcester, Mass., Chairman; Miss
IKate L. Clarke, Rogers High School, Newport, R. I., Miss Lillian W. Fay, High
School, Holyoke, Mass.—November, I8, I9o5.
I
2 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
in the opinion of the committee, a good textbook in each study should be
based and what it should contain, and then leave it in large measure to
those who consult the report to judge how far each book reviewed corre-
sponds to this ideal. - -
In connection with the textbook, we must take account of the teacher.
First of all, the teacher of language ought to be mightily impressed with
the importance of her work. She should have a firm conviction that
language should be the core of the curriculum, and that it is not to be
subordinated to any other study. Rather, it should have the primacy in
the course. “The significance of the development of modern education,”
says Nicholas Murray Butler, “can best be estimated by the progress of
the mother-tongue toward the central place in formal instruction.” Again,
the teacher should clearly understand the fact that thought in any line
can go no farther than language can be induced to follow it; that along
the avenue of language is the approach to all the sciences and to all other
forms of knowledge; that the man who seeks to do any exact thinking in
any direction must first master a vocabulary adequate to the purpose;
that the study of words and their functions in the sentence is the most
natural way of bridging Over the chasm between concrete and abstract
thinking, between the animal way of seeing life and the human way. For
the basis of all civilization is the capacity to communicate ideas. Utter
poverty of the means of expression spells utter isolation and stagnation.
The greatest upward movement in evolution began with the development
of articulate speech. Every gain in the power to reveal inner states of
mind by language strengthens the bonds of aSSOciation and leads on toward
the end of all progress, the final reconciliation of men.
Secondly, the teacher should appreciate at its full worth the value of
language as a means oj training. “The concrete subject which is best
suited for training the abstract powers is language,” says Laurie. And,
in fact, the invention of language is an attempt to escape from the domina-
tion of the concrete to the realm of the abstract. “Mind grows only so
far as it finds expression for itself.” The main part of this expression
being through speech, “the supreme subject of all education is language.”
By words, we share the common consciousness of the race which has
shaped itself in these symbols. -
Furthermore, “language is the highest physiological acquisition that dis-
tinguishes man from the brute.” The mental physiologist tells us that the
study of language causes the excitation of much wider brain areas, and
hence contributes more to the higher evolution of man, than any other study.
Nor is this an intellectual gain only. It affects the morals as well, for
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC AND IN COMPOSITION 3
the study of language, to the end that our speech may mirror more per-
fectly our thoughts, tends toward greater and greater truthfulness. The
constant feeling that we have said what does not express our thoughts
inevitably dulls our respect for truth and our perception of it. -
Now, if teachers in elementary schools were equal to the task, and if
superintendents and supervisors were broad-minded enough to give teachers
freedom and to be satisfied with less uniform results or attempts at them,
we should need no textbooks in language-study, perhaps, beyond Such a
compilation of literature, fable, and myth as would serve, when carefully
graded, as the basis for the study of literature and expression, leaving all
the mechanics of composition to the good sense of the teacher. Great
literature is the natural ally of language-study, because in it are to be found
the most perfect forms of expression and the models most interesting to
children. -
We shall do well to avoid the idea that the art of expression may be
best taught, or even well taught, through exercises based upon general
information, history, art, or science. In literature, as we have said, must
be found the models of expression worthy of imitation. On the other
hand, there is danger that we shall subordinate language, the study and
practice of expression, to the technique of language; that we shall arrange
our lessons accordingto some fancied logical Order of studying the mechanics
of composition, rather than in the line of the development of the child's
interests. Many are the books founded upon the letter, and in this case
there is no doubt that the letter killeth, The mechanics of expression—
capitalization, punctuation, correct spelling, paragraphing, the sentence,
the order of words—all these are mere implements for attaining complete
expression. But how often is this alleviating thought presented to the
child ? Rather are these set before him as the very sum and substance of
the matter in hand. Seldom or never is he taken into the secret that the
highest art in language is to rise through these to the point of forgetting
them—to the point of acquiring such a language-sense as shall make such
things as unnoticeable to his thought as, to his sight, is the window-pane
through which he gets a vision of the outer world. Language is most
perfect when it attracts least attention to itself. Our textbook must not
flourish its tools in the pupil's face. It is disastrous to have him too con-
scious that he is studying language and composition. Someone has said
that if a man goes through a course in gymnastics to the refrain, “I am
doing this for my health! I am doing this for my health!” the result is
sure to be fatal. So when the teacher says to her pupils, “Come now,
today we will study the sentence or the use of capital letters,” they become
4 - - THE SCHOOL REVIEW
like the Seekers of Vergil's Sibyl and go away nourishing a deep-seated
loathing for the guiltless sentence and the innocent capitals. Nor is the
teaching by insistent repetition, without making clear the central reason
forit all, without the compelling interest, likely to give any better results, as
is shown by the old story of the boy writing “gone” a hundred times as an
exercise after School, and then leaving a note for the teacher saying: “I
have gorn home.” Children have a marvelous power in some cases of
evading the domination of habit. -
We must avoid, then, the dangers of regulating a textbook on compo-
sition by the desire of introducing day by day a new item in the technique
of writing. Rather, the pupil should be told to seek first the kingdom
of literature, and all these things shall be added unto him. By literature
he can be taken into a world of wonderful and beautiful things, and, like
a child, he will immediately become anxious to tell them to others. And
in the telling let him be made to discover the means of expression. If he
can be made to feel the glow of enthusiasm and delight, the technical parts
of language will seem no burden to him, no obstacle, but rather a needed
help. For, as Chubbs says: “We communicate knowledge in vain, if we
do not evoke stable and growing enthusiasms.”
Now as to the book itself: -
I. A good grammar-school textbook should recognize that the child
has used language several years, and has studied it three years Or SO before
he comes to the book. He knows, therefore, a good many facts about
language, and has a right to escape the insult to his intelligence that toO
many books contain.
2. Our textbook should show a well-developed plan, like our books in
grammar and arithmetic, though possibly we are not quite ready for that
yet in the present state of knowledge of the Order of growth of the child's
interestS. -
3. It should give the minimum of grammar up to the seventh or eighth
grade. Let the pupil be made to feel the need of the mechanical aids to
composition, and some of the facts Of formal grammar, before he begins
to learn about them. . An exercise in reading an unpunctuated, uncapi-
talized paragraph will bring him to a realizing sense of the help of the
first, and a perception that words have different functions will awaken in
him some desire for the Second.
4. The book should give much attention to words, their history and
derivation, especially in the upper grades. We may remember what
Holmes said: “When I feel inclined to read poetry, I take down my dic-
tionary.*' The history of words is real poetry, and if the pupils are not
TEXTBOKSO IN RHETORIC AND IN COMPOSITION 5.
fascinated by this kind of study, we may legitimately suspect the power •
of the teacher. - .
5. There should be provision for much Copying, conversation, repro-
duction, and picture-study to develop the imagination and an interest in
one of the most noble forms of expression. It should carefully avoid all
paraphrasing of poetry. It should keep in mind that narration comes
before description, yet is closely interwoven with it. It should develop
the word-sense, the sentence-sense, and in some degree the paragraph-
SenS6. -
6. It should not attempt to teach history, geography, facts of science,
and give general information through lessons in language. It should sug-
gest that compositions be written out of the fulness of the pupil's knowl-
edge and out of his desire to express himself, and not as the result of special
research. The essay for a literary society which Smacks of the encyclo-
pædia, with the interest and vivacity of the encyclopædia lost in trans-
mission, is familiar to many of us. It should contain worthy poems and
bits of prose for study and memorizing, such as shall help the teacher to
sensitize the minds of the pupils to the best moral influences that literature
may so potently exert. You remember President Eliot's testimony to the
value of these memory gems in his own experience. Quintilian says:
“The simple reading of great works, Such as national epics, will contribute
more to the unfolding of the student than all the treatises that the rhetori-
cians ever wrote.” -
“The price that the gods exact for Song
Is that we become what we sing.”
In a lesser degree, perhaps, we become what we read, especially in our
earlier years. What these selections should be may be a matter for much
discussion and difference of opinion. Myths and fables, early epics and
stories of heroes, should undoubtedly have a prominent place. “Myths,”
as Dr. Hall says, “are profoundly true, not to the external world, as the
child knows and may be freely told, but to the heart and the world within.”
They are ethical in their tendency and may, as has been suggested, lie at
the basis of proper religious training. Selections for memorizing should
be either classics, old or new, that appeal to the child or such as shall
prove “a possession for all time.” Commonplace and trivial selections
should gain no admittance to the language book.
These then, in our opinion, should be the characteristics of a language
book designed for the elementary grades.
Turning now to high-School texts for rhetoric and composition, we may
reasonably expect to find a new point of view because of changed condi-
6 • THE SCHOOL REVIEW
tions. The elementary-school pupil “by imitation learns freshness,
originality, and boldness.” The Secondary-school pupil will put more of
himself into the work. His tendency to self-expression needs often to
be chastened and repressed. He is now ready to be trained as to the
manner of expression. He begins to have “a feeling for style anda capacity
for appreciating poetry.** He Ought not to be constrained to have these
develop by rules laid down in books. We may say with Dr. Thurber:
“All the rhetoric to be taught in connection With English composition
should be in the teacher's mind and habits. Utterly futile is the repetition
of rules.” The gradual but sure influence of models such as commend
themselves to the pupil Ought to be sufficient. -
Our ideal textbook must connect itself with our theories of the best
methods of teaching the subject in secondary schools. From the start,
the teaching of English has been open to criticism from one side Or the
other. In the grammar method of teaching too much attention is paid to
the mathematics of language. In the natural method the work is too
vague. Now, is it not possible to attain the two ends at once—close reason-
ing and the cultivation of the artistic sense by the reading of good literature,
and by the writing of good, clean, clear-cut English ? If it is, the two
methods of teaching should be combined.
The natural method, by a strong teacher, can be stretched to cover
the ground occupied by the textbook on grammar and rhetoric. To do
this, a great deal of work in preparing an outline for the class must be
done by the teacher. Every teacher should own all the textbooks he can
lay his hands on. From them he should make out a plan of his own to
fit the class he is teaching; or, better yet, to fit the needs of each pupil in
that class. - - es •
It is one of the chief duties of the teacher of English to afford to his
pupils practice in clear and orderly expression. Behind this is clear and
orderly thinking. This can hardly be attained from the dry pages of a
grammar. It is founded on interest. This is aroused, With the least
expense of time and study, by the reading of good literature. When the
pupil sees the clear thought expressed, his curiosity is easily stirred to a
study of the “how” of it all. The student must seek and find the “main
incident,*° the theme, then the subdivision of topics, them the sentence
thought—and so on down to an understanding of the very words them-
selves. The names of terms—copula, object, complement, etc.—are easy
enough now that the reason of it all has been previously made clear.
Verbs are unconsciously conjugated, pronouns slip into line, when the boy
sees that they must “to make sense.” That is reason enough, then, why
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC A ND I N COMPOSITION 7
the work should be correct, and no rule of rhetoric and grammar can give
him anything better by which to guide his expression. • •
The first requisite, then, for a “Course in English* is plenty of good
literature. Narration, description, exposition, argumentation—all these
in the textbook are but dull, lifeless words; but in the living, pure English
of a master-workman they become something to conjure with. So, too,
when he understands the structure of the paragraphs and the sentences,
it will not be hard to get him to try to write for himself in the same way.
He will use narration, description, etc., somewhat as the master used it,
lacking, of course, the skill of the author. Imitation is inherent in the
youthful make-up. -
By this time, if the teacher has worked out his plan carefully, he can
safely spend considerable time on pure grammar. Pupils will grind on
form when they see the sense of good usage. They could have no definite
aim unless they had first comprehended what others had done in the
way of expression. -
Of course, this method—scientific in intent—demands more of the
teacher than it does of the textbook. No textbook can take the place of
the teacher's plan for his own pupils. When something definite is needed,
for instance, on “Figures of Speech,'° or on “Prosody,' the teacher should
be able to turn to books and ask the pupils to consult them for the facts
they contain. -
Textbooks in rhetoric have passed through three stages in recent years.
First, we had rhetoric for its own sake; then rhetoric for the sake of litera-
ture; and now we have reached the stage when the theory that rhetoric
is for the sake of clear expression holds sway. It is no longer to be treated
as an art for the use of the literary or professional man. “The changes,”
says Professor Genung, “which have taken place in the study of rhetoric
have been steadily in the direction of making the subject more democratic,
of emphasizing its value for the many rather than for the few.” We are
realizing more and more that the clear and forceful expression of ideas is
necessary in business and in conversation as well as in literature. The
business letter and the literary model, as far as concerns language, are not
unlike. In both the attempt is made to express one's meaning with per-
fect clearness. This leads us to say that rhetoric is to be treated as a
useful rather than as a fine art; that it can therefore be brought down to
the level of the elementary- and high-school pupil, and should not be
treated as if for the guidance of men of letters only.
If we are to have a textbook put into the hands of the pupils, and
there may be an honest difference of opinion as to the advisability of this,
8 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
it should treat rationally and inductively the mechanics of composition,
and it should give exercises such as are not an affront to the intelligence
of the pupils. It may well face the fact that the grammar studied in the
elementary Schools, before the pupil was capable of understanding it,
should be boldly reviewed to some extent, if the course in rhetoric is to
be followed with intelligence. It should give an analysis of some good
selection under each of the four forms of discourse.
Next our book should show us how to go to work to put our experiences
into Writing, This is creative work and should be inspiring. According
to the laws of development, narration of simple incident and plain descrip-
tion come first; then more elaborate forms of both. Exposition follows;
then argumentation. The latter should be founded upon the simple
basic principles of debate, generally attractive to pupils of the secondary-
school age. Our text may well treat briefly of the method of expression
under Such subdivisions as figures, clearness, energy, elegance, and style.
Illustrative material, exceptin very limited amount, should not be found
in the textbook. The literature read will furnish ample illustration in a
really living form such as will create a lasting impressión. The teacher
will keep in mind that the textbook is a servant, not a master, in the study
of rhetoric.
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC AND IN COMPOSITION FOR
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
I. The School Course in English. By Edward A. Allen and William J. Hawkins.
(Boston: D. C. Heath & Co., I9o5.) - .
Book I, I7I pages, has a good table of contents, but no index. There is an attempt
to correlate literature, nature-study, and language. It is designed for a three years?
course of study, and would be suitable for Grades IV, V, and VI. It contains a few
well-chosen pictures for study. A large number of selections of prose and poetry is
given for study reproduction, and as a basis of composition work. The book contains
also some dictation exercises and many industry studies. The literature for study
and the poems for memorizing are well chosen. The book is planned with “ the belief
that language is best learned by associatingit in its use with the best forms of expression
of the best literature.” Book II is devoted mainly to grammar. It contains 78 pages,
however, given to composition. We have here a more advanced study of the sentence
from models, an extended treatment of letter-writing, and about 3o pages devoted to
the paragraph. The treatment of subjects in these books is in large degree inductive.
2. The Mother Tongue. By Sarah Louise Arnold and George Lyman Kittredge.
(Boston: Ginn & Co., I9o2.)
Contains 32o pages, with good index, but no table of contents. It has a few sug-
gestions for teachers. It is apparently designed for the fifth, sixth, and seventh years
of school life. It contains many pictures for study. The selections of prose and
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC A N D IN COMPOSITION 9
poetry for study and conversation are good. ' These selections show much variety
and will be found interesting. There are many lessons devoted to information. The
book provides for many reproduction lessons. The amount of writing for early grades
is large. It contains enough grammar for the seventh grade. • .
3. Steps in English. By Albert LeRoy Bartlett. (Boston: Silver, Burdett &
Co., I899.) •
Contains I 73 pages. It is designed for early intermediate grades. It gives con-
siderable space to the study of grammiar, treating of all the parts of speech with some
of their properties. There are many pictures for study. Many poems, fairly well
selected, are given for memorizing. Lessons are directed largely to giving informa-
tion, especially of nature. The study of correct forms of speech is prominent. Gen-
erally the studies and selections are more informing than interesting. Language is
made subordinate to the mechanics of composition and grammar. The grammar is
more advanced than the general scope of the book would lead us to expect.
4. Modern English Lessons. By Huber Gray Buehler and Caroline W. Hotch
kiss. (New York: Newson & Co., I9o3.)
Contains 3o8 pages, with full table of contents. It is designed for higher primary
and grammar grades. The text is well illustrated. The book treats of the nature of-
language, the writing of names, rules for punctuation, common errors, letter-writing,
sentences and their structure, and the parts of speech. The literary selections for
study and those for memorizing are excellent. The composition subjects are generally
related to the literary selections, with an attempt to connect them with the pupil's
experience. The treatment of grammaris sufficient and well developed.
- 5. Language Lessons from Literature. (Webster-Cooley Series.) By Alice
Woodworth Cooley. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., I9o3.)
Book I, 2oo pages; Book II, 4I 5 pages. Contain excellent tables of contents
and indexes. The author has leftit uncertain for what grades the books were designed.
They are suitable for grades above the fourth. The books have numerous admirably
selected pictures for study. There are full and valuable suggestions to teachers. The
language workis based upon the study of good interesting selections ofliterature. Much
attention is given to copying and reproduction. Thorough study and discussion of the
literary selections is suggested. There are many lessons devoted to spelling and to the
study of words. Narration, mainly in the form of biography, and description are
introduced as a basis for work in composition. Book II contains enough technical
grammar for the seventh or eighth grade. The books are well developed, interesting,
practical, and of a high Order of literary merit.
6. Language Lessoms. By Charles DeGarmo. (New York: American Book
Co., I897.)
Book I contains I 44 pages, with a good index. It has “ progressive exercises in
composition and an inductive approach to grammar.” It is designed for Grades III
and IV. The book contains abundant pictorial illustrations. There are two classes
of exercises running through it, sentence exercises and composition exercises. In
composition exercises an outline is oftem suggested. There is not much literature
given as a basis of work. Selections from Robinsom Crusoe and the story of the Trojan
IO THE SCHOOL REVIEW
War are given, however. A large part of the work is informational. The treatment
of technical subjects is more advanced than is usually found in books of these grades.
Eook II contains I88 pages. It is designed for Grades V and VI. It follows the same
general plan as Book I. It provides for much reproduction. Fables, mature-study,
extracts from biographies, brief stories, and stories from the Odyssey form the sub-
jects for reproduction. There is a full treatment of the mechanics of composition, and
of technical grammar. The book is especially strong in the direction of developing a
sentence-SenSe.
7. Inductive Course in English. By Larkin Dunton and Augustus H. Kelley.
(Boston: Thompson, Brown & Co., I9oo.)
Βook I contains I83 pages, with good table of contents and index. It is designed
for higher primary and lower grammar grades. It gives brief suggestions to teachers.
Considerable space is devoted to picture-study. The book is simple in the treatment
of the subject. It aims especially to develop the sentence-sense. There is an abun-
dance of copying, dictation, and invention of sentences based upon models. The
memory gems are well chosen and graded. The technical grammar is sufficient for
the sixth and seventh grades. The language is largely subordinated to the mechanics
of composition. Book II contains 244 pages. It follows the same lines as Book I,
with fuller and more advanced treatment. The subject is well developed and is
treated in a thoroughly inductive manner. The technical grammar is excellent and
sufficient.
8. Modern English. By Henry P. Emerson and Ida C. Bender. (New York.
The Macmillan Co., I9o5.)
Book I is not yet published. Book II contains 3I 2 pages given to grammar and
76 pages to composition, with good table of contents and index. It treats briefly of
choice of words, antonyms, synonyms, word-building by suffixes and prefixes, variety
of expression, the paragraph and its development, with abundant study of models,
narration, biography, description, letter-writing, the principal figures of rhetoric, and
punctuation. The appendix has a brief history of the English language. The treat
ment of composition gives reason to hope much for Book I.
9. Language Lessons. By Wilbur Fisk Gordy and William Edward Mead.
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, I9o3.)
Contains 215 pages, with good table of contents and index. The book is designed
for lower grammar grades. It is abundantly illustrated and has well-selected pictures
for study. The suggestions to teachers will be found valuable. The book urges
much conversation as a preliminary to composition. Conversation, dictation, and
reproduction are the main features of the early part of the work. Much is attempted
in the way of suggestions and Outlines to stimulate the pupil to originality. The
selections for study and reproduction are interesting and good. The technical grammar
is sufficient for the sixth grade.
Io. New Language Lessons. By Thomas W. Harvey. (New York: American
Book Co., I9oo.)
Contains I88 pages, with brieftable of contents and full index. It is designed for
higher primary and lower grammar grades. The book is in the main an elementary
grammar. One lesson in every.five is given to composition. It provides for some
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC AND IN COMPOSITION II
picture-study, and has a fairly full treatment of letter-writing. A rather full treat-
ment of technical grammar is arranged for early grades. Paraphrasing of poetry is
recommended. .
II. Two-Book Course in English. By Mary F. Hyde. (Boston: D. C. Heath
& Co., I9o2.)
Book I contains 2 II pages. It is designed for those beginning to write English,
and provides work for three years. It has well-selected pictures for study. Com-
positions and conversations are based largely upon poems, myths, and fables. The
written work for the earlier years is abundant. The book is interesting and well
graded. -
I2. Elementary English. By E. Oram Lyte. (New York: American Book
Co., I898.)
Contains I 6o pages, without table of contents or index. It is designed for three
grades. It is profusely illustrated. Some suggestion for the guidance of teachers is
given. Somie correlation -with the work in drawing is attempted. Many exercises in
filling in outlines of sentences are given. Considerable attention is paid to reproduc-
tion, forms of words, and the mechanics of composition. Subjects for work are drawn
argely from stories, literature, history, and science. The book contains very little
technical grammar. It is rather elementary. -
I3. School Composition. By William H. Maxwell and Emma L. Johnston.
(New York: American Book Co., I9o2.)
Contains 224 pages, with table of contents, but no index. Appendix I has rules
for punctuation. Appendix II contains hints to teachers. The book is designed for
Grades VIII and IX. It is divided into four parts, each part designed for ten weeks'
study. The work is based upon excellent models. An important part of the work
for the pupil consists in making outlines of the models, reproducing the models from
the outlines, and writing compositions upon similar subjects. The exercises are con-
cerned largely with exposition, description, narration, letter-writing, and the para-
graph. Much emphasis is laid upon the proper placing of phrases and clauses. The
book is notable for its careful directions and for its suggestions of subjects for com-
positions.
I4. Steps in English. By A. C. McLean, Thomas C. Blaisdell, and John
Morrow. (New York: American Book Co., I9o3.)
Book I contains 245 pages, with table of contents and index. It is designed for
Grades III, IV, and V. Each year's work is divided so as to give ten weeks each to
observation lessons, study of pictures, study of stories and poems, and note- and letter-
writing. Four lessons are to be given each week to composition and one to grammar.
Picture-study has its due place in the book. The material for study is derived from
anecdotes, brief descriptions, poems, and natural history. Much of the work consists
of information lessons. Book II contains I23 pages of composition work; the rest
of the book is given to grammar. The composition work is made up mainly of letter-
writing, narration, practical description, and persuasive writing. A brief exercise
is given upon the organization and conduct of a society or meeting. The treatment
of punctuation is ample.
I2 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
I 5. Language Lessons. By Robert C. Metcalf and Orville T. Bright. (New
York: American Book Co., I896.)
Rart I contains I 59 pages, with table of contents. It is designed for primary
grades. It gives many suggestive pictures for study. Many information lessons
form the basis for conversations, study, and writing. The selections to be memorized
are many and good. Letter-writing, spelling, phonetics, and the mechanics of com-
position receive due attention. The amount of writing is large for primary grades.
Part II contains 256 pages, with brieftable of contents and full index. This is written
for grammar grades. It contains studies of Longfellow, Whittier, the Careys, Holmes,
Lowell, Bryant, and Emerson. Information lessons are continued, dealing largely
with natural history. A few pages are devoted to the history of the English language.
There is a brief treatment of grammar suitable for the grades for which the book is
written. The book is especially strong in conversational exercises and in the study
of words as to good use, formation, derivation, and pronunciation.
I6. Lessons in Language. By J. N. Patrick. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott
Co., I898.) •
Contains 224 pages, with alphabetical table of contents. The book is written
for Grades IV, V, and VI. It makes no provision for picture-study. There are
many suggestions to teachers distributed through the book. Copying, dictation,
and reproduction are duly attended to. Much composition work is based upon nature
myths and facts from everyday life. Technical grammar is given prominence even
in the work intended for the fourth -grade. The language is made subordinate to
the mechanics of composition and the technical grammar.
I 7. Language through Nature, Literature, and Art. By H. Avis Perdue and
Sarah E. Griswold. (Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co., I9o2.)
Contains 238 pages, with full table of contents. This is a mew departure in
language. It is apparently intended for One year's work; it abounds in good, well-
chosen pictures and illustrations. Stories about animals, descriptions of plants and
trees, fables, pictures, poems, stories about `artists, occupations, and general informa-
tion are made the subjects Of conversations, drawing, and composition lessons. The
mechanics of composition are not neglected. The work is correlated with the seasons
of the year; e. g., in the fall a picture of an autumnal scene, poems about autumn,
and autumnal occupations are to be studied. The book leaves much freedom to
the teacher. Most of the work mapped out is for reading and conversation.
I8. Everyday English. By Jean Sherwood Rankin. (Boston: Educational
Publishing Co., I9o3.) •.
Book I contains 232 pages, with table of contents and full index. It is written
for intermediate grades. It contains no pictures for study. The book, as the author
says, is iconoclastic. It does not treat of the subject in the usual formal way. It
gives very little attention to the sentence as such. It is devoted largely to a vocabulary,
on the theory apparently that with a full vocabulary and interest on the part of the
pupil the sentences will take care of themselves. Much of the instruction is to be
given by talks to the children about language; yet the pupil's activity is not forgotten.
There is a very full discussion of words, their origin, changes in meaning, names,
colloquialisms, slang, dialects, provincialisms, idioms, newspaper English, etc. There
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC AND IN COMPOSITION I3
-is an adequate treatment of narration and description. The appendix gives ample
treatment of the mechanics of writing and most valuable helps and suggestions to
teachers. It contains also a fulllist of poems for reading and study. If rightly handled,
it must prove an inspiring book for pupils and teachers. It might be found too diffi-
cult for the pupils of the grades for which it is written.
I9. Introductory Language Book. By Alonzo Reed. (New York: Maynard,
Merrill & Co., I9o5.)
Contains 256 pages, with brief index. It gives no space to picture-study. Very
full directions are given to teachers. ' The plam of the book is to teach language through
observation and practice, with no attempt to teach technical grammar. Language
is studied mainly for correctness of expression, without much regard for interest.
Much attention is given to the sentence and to uniting sentences to form paragraphs.
Many outlines for compositions are given; these are based largely upom facts Of natural
history and short stories. No poetry for memorizing or study is given.
2o. Lessons in English. By W. H. Skinner and Celia M. Burgert. (Boston:
Silver, Burdett & Co., I9oo.) - .
Contains I 5o pages, with brief index. This is a unique book, designed to adapt
to primary instruction the interpretive system of studying literature originated by
Professor L. A. Sherman, of the University of Nebraska. It treats of principles of
interpretation under the following heads: effects, or hints; emotional words and
phrases; the study of metaphor and types; the theme; poses and pictures; sug-
gestions for teaching the forms. The book is designed for primary grades, and con-
tains reports Of many lessons, with questions and answers of the children given verbatim.
Much of the book is addressed to the teacher. The method of the book seems worthy
of investigation and trial. •
2 I. New Lessons in Language. By Gordon A. Southworth. (Boston: Benj.
H. Sanborn & Co., I9oI.) -
Eook I contains 2oI pages, with good index. It is written for intermediate grades.
It aims to give much practice in conversation, and to lead children to be more observant
of objects around them and of facts in the field of science. Many pictures are given
for study. Other subjects for study are largely of the informational kind. Language
is subordinated to getting information and to the mechanics of composition. The
book is full in its treatment of dictation, reproduction, the study of words, letter-
writing, and punctuation. The grammar seems too advanced for intermediate grades.
Much written work is required in early grades. Book II contains 33o pages, with
table of contents and full index. It is mainly devoted to grammar. About one-fourth
of the book is given to composition suitable to grammar grades. The principal sub-
jects treated are copying, dictation, letter-writing, narration, description, choice of
words, the paraphrasing of poetry, and the study of literature. The appendix gives
a brief history of the English language and treats of punctuation.
22. Essentials of English Composition. By Horace S. Tarbell and Martha
Tarbell. (Boston: Ginn & Co., I9o2.) - •
Contains 28I pages, with good table of contents and index. It is written for
higher grammar- and high-school grades. Many suggestions are given to teachers.
The subjects treated are: letter-writing, description, narration, reproduction, and
I4 •. THE SCHOOL REVIEW
essays, study of Longfellow, style, secretarial writings, choice of words, and punctua-
tion. The selections of models for study and reproduction are excellent. The sub-
jects for compositions are too suggestive of research to be suitable for grammar grades.
An especially valuable chapter is the one on secretarial writings. I
23. Foundation Lessons in English. By O. S. Woodley and M. S. Woodley.
(New York: The Macmillan Co., I9o2.)
Contains 2oI pages, with full table of contents and good index. The book has
many pictures for picture-study. There are good suggestions to teachers. The
book follows the spiral plan. Much attention is given to variety and exactness of
expression and to choice of words. Composition exercises are always to be preceded
by Conversation lessons upon the same subject. Sufficient attention is paid to memo-
rizing poems and to reproduction. The selections of literature are made with reference
to form and literary merit, not for the purpose of conveying information. But little
technical grammar is introduced. The amount of writing may be found excessive
for the younger pupils.
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION FOR
SECONIDARY SCHOOLS .
I. Introduction to Rhetoric. By William B. Cairns. (Boston: Ginn & Co.,
I899.) -
Contains 262 pages. Provides for the parallel study of style and invention.
Part I, “Style,” discusses language determined by usage (spelling, grammar, punctua-
tion, capitalization, reputable and questionable words), and language adapted to the
needs of the reader (clearness, force, ease, unity, figures of speech, variety). Part II,
“Invention,” devotes one chapter to each of the five forms of discourse. The author's
plan contemplates the writing of exercises in narration and description by the student
while he is studying Part I; the writing of exercises in exposition, argument, and
persuasion while reviewing Part I. Illustrative material and exercises, though not
abundant, are sufficient and suggestive. The exercises, especially, joined with the
direct, clear, simple expression, go far to secure the success of the author's aim—to
** present rhetoric as a reasonable study.” «
2. Composition and Rhetoric for Schools. By Robert Herrick and I,. T. Damon.
(Chicago: Scott, Foresman, & Co., I899, I9o2.)
Contains 466 pages in five parts. Part I deals with preliminary work in
composition-writing, how to choose a subject, development of topics into paragraphs,
building up of sentences, punctuation, letter-writing; Part II covers the princip]es of
good usage; Part III is given to diction, and Part IV to the laws of the sentence and
paragraph, unity, coherence, etc. Part V includes a study of the whole composition,
covering description, narration, exposition, and argumentation. This textbook
covers the work necessary for a four-year high-School course in composition. It is
rather complex for the young pupil.
3. The Principles of Rhetoric and Their Application. By Adams Sherman
Hill. (New York: Harper & Bros., I878.; revised edition, I895.)
4. The Foundations of Rhetoric. By Adams Sherman Hill. (New York:
Harper & Bros., I894.)
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC AND IN COMPOSITION I5
5. Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition: Including Practical Exercises in
English. By Adams Sherman Hill. (New York: American Book Co.,
I9o2.)
These three books, too well known to need comment and too important to be
omitted, are an interesting study in the evolution of the high-school rhetoric. In
each, accuracy in form and diction is made of paramount importance; but the suc-
cessive revisions show suggestive modifications of the original plan. The first, though
liberal in illustrations, makes no provision for class exercises. Of the 4oo pages of the
text, the first 246 are devoted to grammatical purity and the choice, number, and
arrangement of words. The remaining pages discuss the kinds of composition, with
the emphasis on argument. The treatment of the sentence, the paragraph, and the
whole composition, as such, is brief (3o pages). The second book (325 pages) has
omitted all study of the forms of discourse; to clearness, force, and ease has been added
unity, which is moved to the third section of the work, and given service under the
sentence. Part III (2o pages) discusses the paragraph. Though exercises are not
introduced, each principle is illustrated by numerous examples of the desirable and the
undesirable form side by side. In both books the appendix provides the student with
an excellent handbook of punctuation. In the third book (495 pages) punctuation is
promoted to the early pages of the text, the paragraph precedes the sentence, and the
discussion of the “qualities of expression” is relegated to the last section. The author,
however, has not been swept away from his earlier convictions; the book he gives us is,
last as first, a rhetoric, and offers the teacher no assistance in the selection of paragraph
topics, preparation of outlines, or any other devices of “composition made easy.”
6. Outlines of Rhetoric. By J. F. Genung. (Boston: Ginn & Co.)
Contains 342 pages, in three parts. Part I deals with the mastery of the principles
of style; Part II, with the organization of materials, including the arrangement of
sentences, paragraphs, and the complete essay; Part III is in the form of an appendix,
containing rules and illustrative material. This is a carefully worked out text, cover-
ing material suitable for second-year pupils in the high school. Especially good on
“ diction” and “sentence structure.”
7. The Working Principles of Rhetoric. By J. F. Genung. (Boston: Ginn &
Co.)
Too difficult for high-school pupils, but of great value to the teacher that wishes
to study into the details of the organic processes, of composition.
8. Elements oj English Composition. By Tuley Francis Huntington. (New
York: The Macmillam Co., I9o4.)
Contains 362 pages, Planned for a course of four years, two recitations per week.
Part I (I 28 pages) discusses planning and writing, with considerable emphasis upon
the selection and gathering of material and the various methods of paragraph develop-
ment. Part II (73 pages) deals with revision: essentials of sentence structure, kinds
of sentences, the choice and use of words. Part III (I 39 pages) treats Of letter-
writing—an especially detailed and helpful treatment of the subject—Of narration,
and of description, each in a full chapter; it relegates both exposition and argument,
in rather summary fashion, to the concluding 34 pages. The appendix supplies hints
on the preparation of manuscript, and rules of punctuation and capitalization.
g»
I 6 - THE SCHOOL REVIEW
Rnowledge of grammaris taken for granted. A distinctive feature of the book is the
large number of exercises based on revision of previous writing of the student, and on
his own experience and observation. This characteristic, together with the form of
«direct address so constantly used, should go far toward making the pupil realize the
practical and individual nature of the study of rhetoric. .
9. Studies in English Composition, with Lessons in Language and Rhetoric.
By Harriet L. Keeler and Emma C. Davis. (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, I892.)
Contains 2 Io pages. Arranged for Schools having a weekly exercise in composi-
tion, the course extending through three or four years. Of the twenty chapters, thirteen
are devoted to composition (narration and description, eight; persuasion, two; versifi-
cation, letter-writing, book reviews, One each); two chapters, to a study of authors;
and of the remaining five, one to the sentence and paragraph. Rules for punctuation
and the use of capitals, with lists of common abbreviations, are slipped into an appen-
dix. The general plan provides a selected model for study, followed by parallel
exercises. These, usually lists of topics, are accompanied by ** suggestions to the
writer,” which supplement the apparently meager treatment of rhetoric. .
Io. Primer of Essentials in Grammar and Rhetoric. By Marietta Knight. (New
York: American Book Co., I9o4.) «*
Will meet the need felt by many teachers who do not care for an extended text-
book on grammar and rhetoric. In 64 pages the book sums up all the necessary rules
for the structure of sentences. The directions for theme-writing are brief, clear,
and helpful. All illustrative material is omitted, but it is assumed that the teacher
will provide enough of this in connection with each subject; this suggestion is one of
the best things in the book. The “Don'ts” are well worth reading.
II. First Manual of Composition. By Edwin H. Lewis. (New York: The
Macmillam Co., I897.)
Contains 292 pages in six chapters, covering a series of selections to bé used as
models for general composition work, with practical explanations for the benefit of
the pupil; punctuation and sentence structure; description; narration; exposition;
and argumentation. The revised edition (I9o2) is valuable for first- and second-year
High-school work. A compendium of useful rules for spelling, punctuation, and
correctness of sentence form. The illustrations are unusually interesting and pertinent'
I 2. Inductive Lessons in Rhetoric. By Frances W. Lewis. (Boston: D. C.
Heath & Co., I9oo.)
Contains 3oo pages. Intended to accompany the study of literature “throughout
the course.'' The first three chapters treat of the qualities of style: clearness, force,
elegance; the next six, in order: verse, description, narration, exposition, argumenta-
tion, persuasion. An appendix of 43 pages presents the principles of capitalization
and punctuation, discusses sentence form from the point of view of grammar, provides
for a study of letter-writing, and adds further exercises upon the principles already
advanced. The plan of the book is indicated by the title; the pupil is not “ given
the facts and principles of rhetoric,'' but “helped to discover them for himself.” The
leading questions in the body of the text and the pages of rules in the appendix indicate
the inevitable falling away from this high standard. The illustrative material is
abundant and well chosen; the exercises in composition-writing-the themes mainly
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC AND IN COMPOSITION I7
from literature—are varied and numerous; and though one may be skeptical of the
result with certain classes, there can be no doubt of the author's statement as to “the
stimulating effect of turning the pupil into a book full of questions.”
* I3. Composition and Rhetoric. By Sarah E. H. Lockwood and Mary Alice
Emerson. (Boston: Ginn & Co., I9oI.) -
Contains 47o pages in four parts. Part I has a review of the principles of gram-
mar and of the rules of punctuation. Part II is devoted to description and narration.
-Part III contains a treatment of the paragraph, the essay, and sentence structure.
Part IV gives a study of longer prose forms, and versification. The book attempts
too much in the way of details of both grammar and rhetoric to be of great use in the
high school. The treatment of “figures of speech” is clear.
I4. Composition—Rhetoric. By Mrs. Margaret S. Mooney. (Albany: Brandon
Printing Co., I9o3.) -
Contains 344 pages. It is divided into two parts, and has an appendix. Part I,
in six chapters, covers an exposition of the various forms of discourse, including nar-
ration, description, exposition, and argumentation. Part II, in eleven chapters,
explains the structure of the paragraph and the sentence, the various theories of versi-
fication, figures of speech, style, etc. The appendix gives a summary of the rules
for punctuation and capital letters. This book is too detailed to be easily adapted
to high-School use. •
15. Rhetoric in Practice. By A. G. Newcomer and Samuel S. Seward. (New
York: Henry Holt & Co.)
Contains eight chapters, 285 pages. A chapter is given to each of the following:
narration, description, exposition, argumentation, paragraph structure, sentences,
words and the mechanical processes of spelling, punctuation, and letter forms. It
is a suggestive book, steering clear of the conventional in rhetorical form.
I6. Principles of Composition. By Henry G. Pearson. (Boston: D. C. Heath
& Co., I897.) -
Contains an introduction by Professor Arlo Bates, and Io6 pages oftext. Arranged
for a freshman course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, two recitations
a week, for sixteen weeks. Of the thirteen chapters, the first five deal with the whole
composition; the next three, with the paragraph; the next three, with the sentence;
the last two, with words. An appendix of eight pages presents an admirable summary
of the principles of good use as applied to diction, grammar, and punctuation. The
book is intended as a “manual from which the student may learn the general principles
of English composition.” As it is designed to “accompany a thorough course in
theme-writing,” it provides few exercises and illustrations. Though it is written
for more advanced classes, the simple, direct style and original and forceful handling
recommend the book for use in the last year of a high-School course.
(The admirable plan of this original book—applying the principles of unity,
coherence, and emphasis, successively to the whole composition, the paragraph, and
the sentence, ending instead of beginning with words—is elaborated by the addition
of numerous exercises, examples, and lists of topics (with 34 pages of preliminaries
and 5o pages of appendix) into a good working manual of 387 pages, published by
I8 • THE SCHOOL REVIEVV. .**
the same firm: Compositiom and Rhetoric, by A. H. Espenshade, I9o4—one of the
best adaptations of the Harvard doctrine of English composition to the last years
of the high-school course.)
I7. Composition and Rhetoric. By Maude L. Radford. (New York: Hinds,
Noble & Eldredge, I9o3.)
Contains 375 pages. Planned for the first two years of the high-school course.
The first three chapters discuss the principle of unity; the next two, the principles
of coherence and mass, as applied to the whole composition and to the paragraph.
The two following chapters handle the subject of the sentence and the word. The
remaining four chapters—not quite half the book—are devoted to the forms of dis-
course: description, narration, exposition, argumentation. An appendix provides
rules for punctuation, examples of faulty sentences (thirty pages), and of barbarisms
and improprieties (ten pages), and additional exercises upon the principles already
studied. Each principle is illustrated by well-chosen selections—frequently from
students' themes—and enforced by pertinent questions; and abundant provision is
made for written exercises. Especially elaborate and effective treatment is accorded
to description and narration.
18. Composition—Rhetoric. By Fred Newton Scott and Joseph Villiers Denney.
(Boston: Allyn & Bacon, I897.).
Contains 373 pages, divided into seven chapters and an appendix. The first
three chapters deal with the paragraph. Every detail of paragraph structure from
indentation to summary is carefully explained and illustrated by quotations. Chap. 4
covers sentence structure. Long and short sentences, loose, periodic, and balanced
sentences, are defined and their use explained. Chap. 5 is devoted to the logical
arrangement of ideas, and chap. 6 takes up the treatment of these parts with refercnce
to emphasis and proportion. Chap. 7 deals with “What Not to Say.*' The appendix
contains directions for preparing and Criticising manuscripts, material for analysis,
subjects for compositions, and a summary of rules for the use of capitals and punctua-
tion. As a whole, too difficult for most high-school pupils. The treatment of the
** paragraph* in this book is the best that we have discovered. The book should
be carefully studied, from cover to cover, by every teacher of English.
I9. Elementary Composition. By Fred Newton Scott and Joseph Villiers
Denney. (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, I9oo.)
Contains 24I pages, in six chapters. Two chapters are given to oral and written
forms of composition under the general idea of development of a topic. Chaps. 3-6
include discussions of description, narration, exposition, and argument, designed to
be carried out by both oral and written recitations. At the end of the book is a list
of words that are often misused. Useful in first-year work, both for oral and written
expression. lt contains a valuable set of “models'' of the different kinds of discourse,
especially narration.
2o. Composition—Literature. By Fred Newton Scott and Joseph Villiers Denney.
(Boston: Allyn & Bacon, I9o2.)
Contains 389 pages, in twelve chapters. Chap. I has some suggestions on “ First
Principles” of special interest to the teacher. Chap. 2 treats of the “Planning of a
Composition,” with particular reference to the idea of unity. The same subject is
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC AND IN COMPOSITION I9
carried over into chap. 3, with added emphasis on the grouping of ideas. Paragraphs
and sentences are taken up in detail in chap. 4; words and their use in chap. 5.
Chap. 6 explains figures of speech. Chaps. 7-I I are given to the discussion and
illustration of the four forms of discourse—narration, description, exposition, and
argumentation. Chap. I 2 contains a brief and interesting exposition of versification.
An ** all-around” high-school text. As good as the Composition—Rhetoric, but simpler
in form and content.
2I. A Modern Composition and Rhetoric. By Lewis Worthington Smith and
James E. Thomas. (Boston: Benjamin H. Sanborn & Co., I9oI.)
Contains 398 pages. Designed to cover a course of two years. Parts I and II
(with the aid of the appendix) treat of accuracy; Parts III and IV (about a third of
the book), of artistic effectiveness in composition. Like most rhetorics of the last
ten years, the book follows the Scott and Denney plan of proceeding from the whole
composition to the sentence and the word. Much more than the usual space is allowed
to the subjects Of diction, the use of figures, and prosody. Especially full and effective
treatmentis accorded the question of sentence structure: the relation ofform to thought,
and the means of subordination. Illustrative extracts and suggestions for written
exercises are abundant and helpful.
22. The Principles of Rhetoric, with Constructive and Critical Work in Com-
position. By Elizabeth H. Spalding. (Boston: D. C. Heath & Co., I9o5.)
Contains 267 pages. Though complete in itself, the rhetoric “offers opportu-
nities for the application of rhetorical theory” in a study of Silas Marner and The
Vision of Sir Launfal. The twenty-one chapters of the work treat most of the topics
usually discussed in high-school textbooks, but in an order apparently based on purely
esoteric principles. Five—not successive—chapters, headed “ Answers to Pupils'
Inquiries,'' deal with punctuation, capitalization, the correct use of certain words
and grammatical forms, and letter-writing; two chapters are devoted to the study of
poetry; and the ever-useful appendix offers interesting suggestions for the ** Cor-
relation of English and Library Work.” An especially good feature of the book is
the abundant use of material from students' essays. The topics suggested for class
exercises are generally excellent, and in comforting variety.
23. A Progressive Course in English for Secondary Schools. By Charles N.
Stebbins. (Boston: Sibley & Co., I9o4.)
Contains nine chapters, 238 pages. The first three chapters are given to the use
of capital letters, punctuation, and Oral composition. Letter-writing takes up the
third chapter, and theme work, including narration, the rest of the book. The various
forms of discourse are generously illustrated by quotations. Attached to the regular
rhetorical work is an outline of Ivanhoe, chapter by chapter.
24. Elementary English Composition. By Frederic Henry Sykes. (New York:
Charles Scribners' Sons.)
Contains 328 pages, in six parts. Part I, under the head of narration, deals with
story-telling, letter-writing, and biography. Part II, under description, brings in an
interesting study of the qualities of style. Part III is an exposition of the short story—
its principles, motives, characters, action, and setting. Parts IV and V take up exposi-
tion and persuasion. Part VI explains the principles of versification. The appendix
2O THE SCHOOL REVIEW
contains a list of the signs used in correcting proof and manuscripts. The text illus-
trates the idea that composition is not **correctional but creative.*' It contains a
unique collection of quotations, both in poetry and prose, suitable for first-and second-
year work in the high school. The use it makes of old legends and heroic tales is
suggestive and interesting. -
25. Elementary Composition. By W. F. Webster. (Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin &.Co., I9o3.) -
Contains 324 pages. It is suitable for the last two grades in the grammar grades
and the first year in the high school. Of the eight chapters, one is devoted to each of
the following subjects: kinds of quotations, with a study of the punctuation, structure
of paragraphs; sentences, with special reference to use of words and figures of speech;
composition in general; choice of subject and amplification of topic; narration;
description; letter-writing. Each chapter is fully illustrated by apt selections. An
appendix contains “Hawthorne's Great Stone Face” and a summary of rules for
punctuation. The text covers, in a delightful way, the work of the last two grades in
the grammar school and the first year in the high school.
26. English: Composition and Literature. By W. F. Webster. (Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., I9oo.) - -
Contains 275 pages. Arranged for a course of four years, five recitations per week,
in composition and literature. A detailed outline for this course occupies seven pages
of the introduction. Chaps. I and 2 discuss the distinctions between the various
forms of discourse, and the principles that should govern “the choice of theme;*'
chaps. 3-6 discuss narration, description, exposition, and argument; chaps. 7—9,
paragraphs, sentences, words. An appendix furnishes, besides the usual rules for
punctuation, various suggestions to the teacher, and a “supplementary list of literature.”
The author's aim has been, not ** to write a rhetoric,” but to ** teach the methods of
simple, direct, and accurate expression.'' To this end, an endeavor has been made to
include only those principles ** which every author of a book on composition or rhetoric
has thought essential.” Illustrative material is effectively used. The chapter on
narration treats incidentally unity, mass, and coherence; and also bestows a touch
upon kinds of sentences, choice of words, and number of paragraphs. Following each
chapter are several pages of suggestive questions and exercises, many of which, like
the treatment of the forms of discourse, suggest decidedly advanced work for beginners.
27. Composition and Rhetoric by Practice. By William Willams. (Boston: D.
C. Heath & Co., I89I.) *
Contains 329 pages. Basic idea: “Little theory and much practice is by far the
most effective method of treating composition.'' Belonging to the period preceding
the predominance of the paragraph, the book deals largely with the separate sentence.
Grammar, capitalization, punctuation, appear boldly as integral parts Of the text
proper; while the sentences “to be corrected*' march in platoons, with no hint of their
impending doom. The chapters on poetry have much to say of classification and
scansion, and are devoid of “tone color” and ** personal appeal.'' A good example
of the rhetorics that Smiled upon the paraphrase, and inculcated elegance by the reunit-
ing of a hundred disconnected sentences. After all, since revision plays so important
a part in good writing, can we afford to condemn a method that trained the student to
detect errors? And are the results of the new way so uniformly successful that we
can abandon the old with no lingering regret? *.
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC A N D IN COMPOSITION ' 2 I
DISCUSSION
COMIPOSITION IN tIHIE . GIRAIDES
MR. HENRY L. CLAPP, George Putnam School, Roxbury, Mass.: I wish I
could say to you that I am going to tell you something new; but you know there
is nothing new under the sun. What I have to say has been said a great many
times in a different way—in a better way perhaps. But while I do not aim to
say something new, I wish to mention some things that I have found to be true.
Of books of prose and poetry, of magazines and newspapers, of books for
adults and children, of language books and grammars, of talks and speeches,
especially just before public officers are to be elected, and perhaps I might say
at teachers' conventions, we have an abundance and to spare. We are well-nigh
Overwhelmed with this great mass of language material. It is not a question
of where we shall go to find it, but of how we shall get rid of a large portion of it,
and select that part which will serve our purpose best. I cannot go into this
great, extensive, and serviceable field, because I have not strength, and have
not prepared myself for it by Counting the molecules of water in the ocean, or
some similar work. .
The most important “Aids in Teaching English* refer, as it seems to me,
to methods rather than to materials, to seeing clearly the constitution of children
rather than to the make-up of books. I acknowledge the great service of books;
but they are of Secondary importance, while the children's educational treatment
is of the first importance. The teacher may use the books; the books should
not use the teacher. So I shall refer to methods first and principally, and books
later, if I can. I will mention these points:
I. Perhaps the most important part of any language instruction is the for-
mation of a vocabulary clearly understood and covering a wide range of subjects,
observations, and experiences. I am now talking about elementary things; I
am an elementary. I do not refer to that misty, emotional, prematurely taught
vocabulary that is expected to be understood ten years later. I have little sym-
pathy with the process of feeding to children food so strong that it cannot be
digested for eight or ten years. That produces mental dyspepsia. I would
give them such mental food as they can relish, digest, and assimilate now. I
would not force their emotions any more than I would their speech. If care
in this respect is not taken in the grammar school, it may not be in the secondary
school. Professor Copeland of Harvard says in his work on Freshman English,
which I hope you will all read:
Two-thirds of the daily work lies in local and contemporary description and
narrative. The young men must not dream dreams or see visions, nor recall their
childhood Or their first fish, Or their last summer vacation; they are to open their eyes,
and keep them open, to scenes and events near at hand.
It seems from this that some secondary schools do not attend to this matter—
not yours, but some in New York. Give the vocabulary time to grow sturdy,
as plants do in the open air, just as the vocabulary grows outside of School in
22. - THE SCHOOL REVIEW
connection with enlarged experiences. Our Schoolhouse language is apt to be
a hothouse product—forced, lacking in virility, and unnatural.
There is no better way of consciously adding to the vocabulary of children ,
than by giving them regular opportunities to write about their own experiences
or about natural objects. The children then use only the words they under-
stand. The new words supplied are applied so often to the objects to which
they belong that they come to mean something definite, precise, to the children.
There is a clarity about this kind of writing that is not surpassed by any other
kind. So a description of their own experiences has a clarity that the repro-
duction of a story has not. The first steps in scientific writing—thatis, in accurate
writing—are taken when the children describe natural objects and their own
experiences. They form the habit of stating the exact truth, than which nothing
is more important in language work. “Say,” says Denman Thompson, “honest,
now, can a press agent tell the truth ?” He might add another: “ Can a Simon-
pure politician tell the truth ?” The claim is made that the newspaper is a
great educator. Perhaps it will tell us who tells the truth. -
Whatever doubt there may be in the minds of others, who are unacquainted
with the results of children's personal observations and written descriptions of
natural objects and their own experiences, there is no doubt in my mind that
the only proper way to learn the exact meaning of words. is in connection with
the objects or things or experiences to which those words belong. The child
who frequently sees illustrations and makes frequent use of such words as “trans-
parent,” “opaque,” “translucent,” “elastic,” “resinous,” “iridescent,” “metal-
lic,” “stratified,” “whorled,” “scalloped,” “lobed,” “liliaceous,” or **thumb,”
“tongue,” “wrist,” “knee,” “knuckle,” all hard words to spell, and scores of
other words, will make a definite and practical addition to his vocabulary—
a vocabulary that will grow up with him and into him as a part of his mental
stock to be used immediately when required.
So one great thing is to enlarge the children's experiences. Why, we see it
in everything. How much the boys know now about motors, because they see
them ! They go to the shops where electrical things are done, and they can talk
about armatures, and coils, and connections, and positives, and negatives, and
volts, and all that sort of thing, with Some intelligence, because they have had
their experiences enlarged in that direction.
2. There should be written into the class program a regular place for language
forms, known as dictation lessons, such as I have seen going on regularly for
seventeen years in the school with which I am connected. The lower classes
have during each week four periods of fifteen minutes each, and the upper classes
three periods of twenty minutes each. The material, in the first place, was laid
out carefully and apportioned to each teacher. There was a place—I mean a
definite place—for abbreviations, possessives, marks of punctuation, capitals,
series of words separated by Commas, quotations, divided quotations, quotations
within quotations, and a great many direct quotations that do not begin with
capitals. That is the nearest thing to anything new that I shall say. During
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC A N D IN COMPOSITION 23
the last ten or fifteen years, and especially during the last week, I have examined
a great many books on language, and I have found but three books in the whole
lot that refer to this matter to which I have just referred, not one of which treats
the subject adequately. Here we go on giving this rule, “The first word of a
direct quotation should begin with a capital,'' and we read the magazines all
the time and see it controverted every minute, and see no inconsistency, nothing
fictitious about that rule. I am astounded. But that was the beginning. The
teachers have added from year to year very serviceable material to that original
apportionment; so that each one's collection now is unique, individual, and
original, and adapted to her everyday needs; and her everyday needs are mostly
correlations for which no book is sufficient. The method is especially designed
to cultivate the habit of taking the initiative; and that method should apply to
every study. •
Day before yesterday I came down in the car with a prominent grocer, who
lives in my vicinity, and he said: “Have you a boy that you could send to me?”
“What kind of a boy?” “Well,” he said, “not this kind of a boy. I tell the
boy that I have now, and whom I am going to discharge today, this, and he does
it, and then he stands waiting for me to tell him to do something else. Then
I tell him the next thing, and he does that; and so on the whole day through.
Why,” he said, “I cannot stand such a boy as that. What do you think is the
matter?” Well, I had my own opinion; I think I had better not express it
just now. You may think I am toO iconoclastic, but perhaps you will gather
from what I am going to say what I think about it. -.
The cumulative force of this regular, systematic work is properly appreciated
by those who have experienced its results. No others can properly appreciate it.
3. There should be regular lessons in, and opportunities for, making topics
and subtopics for composition work in the grammar schools. Here the judg-
ment of the pupil is constantly appealed to. “Is this point more important than
that?” “Does this point depend upon that, or vice versa?” “Is this, arrange-
ment natural, reasonable, and logical, or not?” Every pupil in the grammar
school makes his own arrangement. A pupil's list is rearranged On the board
by the teacher, after the judgment of the pupils has been called for and finally
approved. Those who come nearest to the approved arrangement are grati-
fied—and all try to come near it. This work is done regularly every two months
on all kinds of composition work that we do—at one time on imaginative work,
at another on experience, at another on reproduction, and at another time on a
letter. That we have had going some seventeen years. The power developed in
children by such careful and regular training cannot be easily appreciated by
those who have not had a hand in doing the work. Here also the habit of taking
the initiative is purposely cultivated. That ought to be the policy of every school.
One merit of the work is that it can be carried out by the average teacher
successfully. That shows that it is on the right basis. In my opinion, no work
is properly laid out or properly managed that cannot be successfully carried out
by the average teacher. If we are so fortunate as to secure an extraordinary
24 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
teacher once in a while, we should rejoice and be glad. But we should beware
of trying to make chrysanthemums as large as cabbages by special departmental
work and Other hothouse processes. What we want is stamina, power, initia-
tive, in every child, so far as his constitution will admit. We must not be satis-
fied with a little off of the top, from a few choice spirits who are made to be such
a credit to us. I want the work, of whatever kind it may be—drawing, music,
science, language, or what not—to be so conducted that a large majority of every
class will succeed so well that we shall not dislike to show that work, and that
we shall not do as the teacher whom Dr. Rice saw did. You remember the book
that he wrote, perhaps. After he had been all over the United States, and spent
six months, he went into a room, and the teacher evidently did not want him to
look at the papers. He took up one, and she took it away from him and said:
“Oh, that is the poorest paper in the class.* He took up another, and she said:
“That also is the poOrest paper in the class;'' and so on. There were not any
fit to be seen, in her opinion. •
Now, these two sets of papers that I have brought down here were not pre-
pared for any such use as I am going to make of them. Here are two sets of
topics. I have been speaking about the preparation of topics, and what power
it produces in children. These illustrate what I mean. Every member of the
class was represented. The topics on history are first drafts, just as they came
from the children's hands, written without any instruction in arranging a list of
topics on that particular subject, and about a week after the subject had been
dropped. There was no rearrangement whatever by the teacher. Each paper
is individual, original, and convincing, but with all the errors that pupils are
likely to make. Now, to me here is evidence of power and stamina, and that the
work is on the right basis, because all the children in this case, I take it, suc-
ceeded. I want you to look at them. I don't say that they are without mistakes,
that they could not be done a great deal better; but I am thinking of what a lift
that would be to a secondary school if all the grammar schools did it, and what a
lift that would be to the freshman English if they went from the grammar schools
to Some private school and did not go to a regular secondary School at all. I do
not believe that forty-seven teachers in Rhode Island, for instance, taking them
just as they come, could sit down and write as creditable a set of topical arrange-
ments on a familiar topic, such as “What I Like to do Best”—that is pretty
familiar—taking into account the handwriting, freedom from blots and mistakes,
and logical arrangement, to Save their positions as teachers. As usual, my belief
is founded on experience, which was interesting in spite of its exasperating nature.
Professor Copeland says that one of the chief faults of freshman English is
in the construction of paragraphs. From this we may infer that Some secondary
schools do not succeed in teaching the construction of the paragraph, if they
teach it at all—not your schools, but some in Ohio.
4. Pupils must be trained to correct composition work all through the gram-
mar school. Opportunity for such work should be insisted on. If the judgment
is to be trained properly, there must be ample opportunities for its exercise. The
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC A N D IN COMPOSITION 25
teacher's judgment should be the final court of appeal, and nothing else. The
class should play the game, while the teacher serves as umpire, nothing more.
As a means of teaching written English this work is indispensable to me. This
is the result of my experience.
5. I have found many aids to the teaching of spoken English, SO far as our
schools are concerned, in opportunities to talk in the schoolroom. There the
most favorable conditions for talking should be found, but unfortunately are not.
A normal-school girl recently admitted that during her whole course she had not
talked five consecutive minutes; that during weeks and months she did not say
a whole sentence; that for days she did not say a word. Isn't that the case with
some of our grammar schools and secondary schools? Ithink So. What oppor-
tunities to talk do they have ? Now, a teacher who is gifted in the use of lan-
guage, who has a hemorrhage of words every once in a while, likes to keep the
faucet open. I do it myself. She may add to the fluency of speech a striking per-
sonality—Idon't object to striking personalities, beauty, and all that sort of thing;
but there is an element of danger in it—and then the entrancement of the pupils is
made all the more certain, seductive, weakening, and possibly futile. The pupils
simply lether entrance, and do nothing to speak of themselves. I don't mean that
thatis always the case, but Ihave seenit done many times. She has little idea ofthe
difficulties that beset the way of the slow talker or writer; she cannot sympathize
with him, nor get down to his level to help him, because she has never been down to
his level. She may like to talk, or considerit imperative that she should talk,
considering there is so much to be done, and yet she may not have the pleasing
personality. She may be conscientious and devoted to her work, but may not
4ake the right view of the educative process by which oral language is best
developed.
Ionce knew a teacher of that sort, and a mischievous and irreverent boy wrote
a notice something like this, and pinned it on the door where she was to enter:
• Lecture by Marm Blank, today at I P. M.
All are respectfully invited—to stay away.
Go one—go all.
It was disrespectful, but not lacking in point. What would the boys of a base-
ball nine think of the umpire who talked so long and so well that they could not
play the game ?
The pupils should do the most of the talking in the schoolroom. That may
sound new; it is not new, it is history now. What should they talk about ? The
easiest thing is the story, and so easy that everyone uses that, and some scarcely
anything else. The written reproduction of a story is the poOrest kind of com-
position work. I believe that is generally acknowledged. I remember, when I
was in Clinton a week or two ago, Isaid that, and there was a noise all Over the
room, as if they approved, and then I thought I was right. It is the poorest
because the thought is another's, as well as most of the vocabulary. It is a seduc-
tive form of memory work, both individuality and originality being wanting.
The memory is the chief factor; of original thought there is none, or scarcely
26 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
any. The vocabulary, like a garment, is put on for the occasion, the recitation,
and straightway taken off when the ordeal is passed. I shall not Soon forget a
little scene that I saw in the little Canadian village of Yamachiche, where I spent
some weeks two or three years ago. I was walking along a lonely road, and I
saw a number of children, as I came within sight of a house, having, I thought,
a rather hilarious time. As I came nearer, I saw that they were all dressed up in
their mothers' and fathers' clothes. The girls were trailing their dresses around
in great shape, and the boys were holding up their pantaloons, and they were
having a fine time. I don't know that that made any permanent impression upon
them. They probably took them off after the occasion had passed. But it made
rather a permanent impression upon me, and it seems very much like this vocab-
ulary that is put On for the recitation and taken off as soon as the recitation is
passed. The author's vocabulary is used because of the inability of the pupil to
call up synonyms fast enough to make sure of expressing the author's thought.
He rather trusts to the words of the author than to his own, especially if his experi-
ences are rather limited, if he is not a good reader. If he reads outside, why, he
may supply synonymous words fast enough to express the thought of the author
pretty well. But self-expression is infinitely better as a developer of power in the
use of language. Now, the oral reproduction of a story has the same limitations
as the written; it is serviceable, but in a secondary or tertiary degree.
But what else can the children talk about freely ? “Freely” is a good word.
A reproduction is trammeled by the thought and words of the author. Children
can be brought up to talk freely about all their lessons in school. I have seen it
done a great many years. They can ask the questions, discuss them, and answer
them. When they cannot answer them, of course the teacher is expected to do
so. Sometimes she can't. I have the children ask me a great many questions to
which Isay right off that I don't know. I am not afraid to say that I don't know.
They can talk freely, because they can use their own thought and vocabulary.
They develop power to conform their thoughts and language to constantly chan-
ging conditions; and that is what we must do in real life—adapt ourselves to con-
stantly changing conditions. Reason is the chief factor, not memory. That
should always be kept in mind. They lose self-consciousness—-that is, the
thought of themselves—in talking of the subject; and that is the secret of the best
talking—to lose consciousness of self. The educative value of children's ques-
tioning in school is known to only a few. It is the natural process of learning,
and should never be stopped by a school. It is like a tremendous head of water
unceasingly pressing for an outlet. Suddenly shut off the flowing current, and
the water pipe is wrenched, sometimes burst. Suddenly shut off the child's
natural current of questions, designed for his development and education, and his
mental constitution is wrenched; but he cannot help himself. He may not realize
what the real trouble is, but often takes his turn in making trouble. The ever-
increasing current, when dammed up, is sure to overflow and make trouble
somewhere. I have made many troubles for myself, quite unnecessarily if I had
looked into the matter a little deeper. If I had looked into the constitution of the
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC A N D IN COMPOSITION 27
children a little deeper, and I had not kept my nose in books, I should have come
to the truth a little sooner. This may not be the truth, only my idea of it. It
is a mere trüism to say that the child learns to talk by talking and to write by
writing. So his English depends on opportunity, methods, and practice primarily,
and on books and' ear-service secondly. The children's obvious characteristics,
faculties, and habits should determine the bases of their education, and every
book that conforms thereto will be welcomed as a most valuable aid.
STORY-TELLING AS AN AID TO ENGLISH EXPRESSION
MIss SARAE CONE BRYANT: I have always been accustomed to tell people
that I like very much to talk, that I was never stage-struck or embarrassed; but
I admit that I am distinctly frightened and very much embarrassed this morning,
because I find myself in the awkward position of having almost to contradict, if
I am honest in my own opinion, the speech of a man who has a thousand times
my experience and a great deal more than my ability and reputation. The truth
is that I don't want to contradict the speaker who has just preceded me, but I do
want to present, as an important side, a side which he has definitely stated to be
very unimportant, and I have to do it because I believe it. It seems to me that
if the whole of the English language were merely the ability to get easily and
readily words for one's own thoughts, it would be true that all such processes as
depend for their success upon imitation would be base and irrelevant. But it
is not true that the English language is wholly that, or that expression in it is
wholly that; and if you will suffer me to be just a little bit roundabout, Ithink I
can tell you what I mean better than by any direct statement.
I have just come from talking in the schools and for the superintendents of
the Middle West, and I have been for two months altogether with teachers and
with pupils. It happened naturally that such impressions as Ihad with regard to
certain common habits of teachers and pupils were very much strengthened, and
so just at this minute I find one very strong single impression in my mind which
I want to give you. That impression is that we have somehow come to forget,
in our eager work, that English is a spoken language; and by that I meam simply
that we seem to have a feeling that English is a body of visible signs for abstract
ideas, and that it presupposes a nation of mutes—people who cannot speak.
Now, English—of Course, nobody needs to reiterate this—is a body of sounds,
isn't it? And it is not just a body of syllable sounds, that is, vowels, and con-
sonants; but, if you stop to think of it, it is a body of sound in inflection. For
instance, if a person says a thing in one tone of voice, it is very different from
what it would be in another tone of voice. That is not a matter outside of lan-
guage; that is language; that is English; and English is not English except as
“she is spoke.” When English is written, it is simply a substitute for speaking;
that, at any rate, is the way it looks to me. It seems to me that when we appre-
ciate the beauty of language, for instance, even in written literature, we appreciate
it through our ability to imagine by sound what is there written. Now, the
beauty of English is the beauty of sound, and it is a rare and wonderful beauty,
28 TH E SCHOOL REVIEW
which, alas, we are almost losing from the face of the earth. Our ability to pre-
serve and pass on the beauty of the English language seems to me to depend very
largely on ourability to recognize this plain fact, that English is a matter of sound.
It has seemed to me that all the glorious written literature which we have
would be powerless to preserve for us and transmit for us the real beauty of the
English language, if by any chance the whole country at large should suddenly
become afflicted with all of the terrible flaws in speaking which afflict different
parts of the country. For instance, suppose that the Brooklyn way of pronoun-
cing or—the oi, you know; woild, for instance, instead of world—should be com-
bined with a certain trick the middle westerners have, of pronouncing all final
en's un's; and then suppose that should be combined with the rolling r that they
have in some parts of the South and West; and then that you should have the
nasal trick which you New Englanders have to such glorious perfection; then
just take any beautiful line of Shakespeare or the Bible, and see what has become
of it. I tested it this morning. I went Over a number of sentences in this way
to see what had become of the language, and finally I lighted upon this sentence:
“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” I don't
remember whether I have quoted it correctly or not. I just changed it as I had
heard teachers in the last two months change those different words, and it became
this: “All the woild's a stage, and all the men and womun merely players.”
That is intelligible, perhaps, but the beauty of the English language has been
irrevocably lost in that sentence. If by any horrible mischance the whole country
could be infected with all of its flaws, instead of each part with its own, you
would no longer have a beautiful English language; it would not matter how
it was written; you see, it would not be there.
Now, it seems to me a very valuable and necessary thing that we teachers
should realize that English is a spoken language, and that the beauty of it is
something transmissible, but, alas, easily losable. I am coming at the idea I
started with. The children in our schools are particularly open to all forms of
error in the way of pronunciation and inflection and general use of words, because,
in the first place, of course, they have everything to learn anyway, so they have
that, too; and then they are so much about with the children of the poorer classes
in the city streets, and even in the country playgrounds, that they hear all kinds
of foreign idioms, and dreadful slum idioms, and all that kind of thing; and
nowadays in just about one-half of all our homes the children do not hear English
in a beautiful, clear, exquisite manner; and so it comes down to the plain fact
that they depend on the teacher usually for the English they get.
I am not pessimistic, and I am a most humble admirer of the work of the
English teachers all over the country; but I must say that the past few years have
made me feel very sadly that spoken English was at a discount among even our
mature and intelligent teachers. I have had for two years now a very interesting
class at Simmons College, which has a large proportion of teachers in it, and
those teachers have been friendly and frank with me. They came there to learn
what little I could give them about English, to teach again to their pupils, and
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC A N D IN COMPOSITION 29.
some of them are old teachers and know a great deal more than Ido about methods.
Eut nearly every one of those teachers was practically mute in English, not
because she could not write, or choose words, or find medium for expression,
but because she could not speak English as it ought to be spoken. The voice,
the enunciation, the inflection, the whole thing was crude, childlike, and almost
always nasal. Now, do you think in speaking of voice that I am departing
entirely from the subject of English ? You see my feeling is that English is
something fluid; it is thought in language, and the language lives On the voice.
I don't see how it can be language at all, if it is not borne to you by the voice.
And isn't it true that the voice, and inflection, and pronunciation, can make
farce out of tragedy ? It certainly is. You can twist up your nose and pro-
nounce a tragic line, and have it become the most utter farce; or you can säy it
without any common-sense in the inflection, and it becomes farce.
I want to speak of this a little later in connection with the value of imitation.
Just at present I am lingering, I know, On the thought that children come largely
to the teacher for their inspiration in English. Of course, they don't know that
they do. All young children certainly do learn most easily by imitation, and
they certainly learn most easily by unconscious imitation; and what I have to
say applies chiefly to the young children. Children imitate every single inflec-
tion of your voice; they imitate everything they hear around them in the line
of voice and pronunciation and all; , and that is why, of course, the children of
each generation reproduce all the faults of their locality.
I remember an instance of this which seemed to me very noticeable. A little
while ago I was in Milwaukee. I was visiting where there was a child two years
old-of course, much lower than the age of conscious imitation—and I was
reading him Little Black Sambo one day. Do you know Little Black Sambo, a
little book for very small children ? There is one part of the story in which
Little Black Sambo says: “ Please, Mr. Tiger, don't eat me up.” It keeps
going over and over again that same way: “Please, Mr. Tiger, don't eat me up.”
In my effort to interest the baby I forgot that he was, after all, human, although
a baby, and I emphasized very much more than was necessary. I kept saying,
“Please Mr. Tiger, don't eat me up,” which was very silly of me, but I had for-
gotten that he was human. Presently I found his mouth moving. He was
following along the story with me. At last he began to speak out loud, and he
said, exactly the way I did: “ Please, Mr. Tiger, don't eat me up.” Then I
realized it was working there; he was imitating. Every time he thought of that
story afterwards he would think of it just that way, you know; “ Please, Mr.
Tiger, don't eat me up.” -
It is true that children of an older development in school imitate, too, in this
same way; and I want, if you will let me, to tell you a little instance which proved
to my mind the absolute effect of imitation. A little while ago I was in a school
in Providence, where the supervisor allowed the children to recite something
for me, something they had learned as a whole, just to teach them mass reciting.
It was a bit of Hiawatha It always is Hiawatha, you know, in the little ones?
3o - THE SCHOOL REVIEW
Schools; they always recite that. I got so tired of Hiawatha the last two months;
I have heard it every day nearly. Well, it was that part which begins:
Ey the shore of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water.
These little bits of children were largely foreign Jews. A good many of the
children of Providence are immigrants, and this particular room was full of them;
but they recited with a beautiful, even, upward swing, almost like the chant of
some foreign nation, and with perfectly exquisite enunciation, right straight
through that whole stànza. I was absolutely astounded, because I have heard
a great many children recite, and I am very much used to the swing and the
jump that they give. I did not say much about it; I just waited to see what
would happen. By and by I happened to drop into that school while the teacher
was giving a new recitation of that sort, and then I understood immediately.
She had a beautiful, deep, low voice, which came out with a smooth rolling kind
of cadence, and she had beautiful diction, and she understood how to say poetry.
She did not say it as if it were a succession of leaps, you know, but she said it
as if it were a Song which went on. • w
Then just a little afterward I was in Chicago. I went to a model school,
where I was told that they were having some dramatization down-stairs, and
it would be a good thing for me to see. They had a peculiar kind of dramatiza-
tion there. One of the children stood and recited, and the other children acted
out the thing as he recited. It was after the old idea of the pantomime, with
an accompaniment. In. this particular School they were, strangely enough,
dramatizing Hiawatha. You would not think it possible, but they were. One
little boy stood up, and he gave the recitation part. I must give you this. It
was about Hiawatha. The little boy said:
But the fearless Hiawatha
Heeded not her woman's warning;
Porth he strode into the forest,
At each stride a mile he measured;
Lu— lu—
The teacher Said ** lurid.??
Lurid seemed the sky above him.
He went on like that. I thought: “Why is that child so bad? Why should
children say it like that?” Presently he forgot something, and the teacher Said,
“Never mind, we have not much time anyway, I will say it,'' and she said it in
exactly the same way. She said: “Thén the líttle Hiawátha.” She read it just
like that; and then I knew, of course, that was her way of expressing things.
Presently she did something which showed the whole situation to me clearly.
She wanted`somebody to be a rabbit and sit upon his haunches. They were all
doing those things. And she said, in a tired, nasal kind of voice: “Which one
of you can set up on their haunches?” I should not have believed it, if I had
not heard it. Of course, right there one slips into the very stern necessity, which
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC A N D I N COMPOSITIO NT 3I
has just been spoken of, of teaching the children the laws of English. If that
woman, of course, had known the laws of English, she would not have said “set”
and she would not have said: “Which one can set up on their haunches.” But
the fact was that she was teaching them unconsciously, not so much by law as
by what she said.
' It seems to me that imitation is one of the very best ways in which a small
child can learn the beauty of the English language, but it presupposes that the
teacher must have the beauty of the English language at control, and that is a
pretty hard question to face. There is no one of us, I think, who does not feel
conscious that he does not know all that he might about the beauty of the English
language. In the first place, of course, we have to know its grammar. In the
second place, of course, we have to know how to express ourselves with freedom
and choice of words, and with a certain malleability of sentence and paragraph
structure; but, more than that, we. have to know what it sounds like when it is
spoken. If we chop off the ends of our words, if we talk through our noses, if
we pronounce our vowels without any fulness and resonance of sound, if our
sentences are all mixed up together, it is not English, and no pupil will ever
learn English from us. •. - :
If the English language were valuable only for the expression of the com-
monest thoughts, if you merely wanted to say, “How much does that cost?”
“It costs so much,” “I will take it;” or if you wanted to say, “Do you wish to
come to dinner with me today?” and a person said “Yes,” then it would not
matter so much how we speak. But since our speech is one of the beauties, the
finenesses of our civilization, it seems to me that it does matter how we say it,
just as much as it matters whether we wash our faces three or four times a day
or not. It is one of the finenesses, the beauties of living; and so I just cling to
my feeling that it matters whether we speak good English or not. Now, suppose
you are a cultured person, and you do speak with a good voice, and with a nice
kind of pronunciation, and with a good inflection; then every time that you have
a chance to speak for a given length of time before a pupil in such a way that he
is very much interested, I think you give him a chance to absorb the English
language. •
I don't believe in talking pupils to death, and I fully agree with Mr. Clapp
about the possibility of overdoing it; but On this accasion I am just trying to give
you the value of that one thing in its right proportion. Of all kinds of talking
that you can use to children, I suppose there is no kind which so absolutely takes
them out of their conscious attitude of learning as telling a story. That is one
reason why I believe so much in story-telling. Everything a child learns in
hearing a story he learns in the beautiful way that he does when he plays; he
does not know he learns it, and so he gets it for keeps. If a child listens to a good
story, it is ten to one that he will remember it almost word by word; and I don't
object to that. I should object to that, if that were all he were to get in school
„ife; but I don't object to it. For one thing, he learns your good words, he
earns your good inflections, he imitates you. Yes, it is perfectly true, he does
32 THE SCHOOL REVIEVV
imitate. There are ever so many other times in the schoolroom when you can
give him original work; but just for that one little while you let him imitate,
happily, all that he imitates of you. Then he imitates with a freedom and a
spontaneity which he won't get anywhere except in the story.
I fancy I am taking more tham my time; am I not? I don't know whether I
was expected to talk to you about story-telling; it would take too much time to
do that. My idea was that perhaps I was asked to tell you some few ways in
which story-telling applies to Oral English. You see my general idea, whether
you agree with it or not, don't you ? One or two of the specific ways in which
you can use story-telling, then, are the retelling and the dramatization ways.
The retelling means largely that you tell a child, perhaps, a story a day, without
telling him which one you are going to pick out for retelling, and then at the end
of the week you have a story day, and you let the children, of their own choice
usually, pick out some story they liked, and you let anybody who volunteers tell
the story back to you again. You don't correct him; but if anybody else wants
to correct him On a fact, or a color, or anything of that kind, you let that happen.
Then usually One story is given to the person who, in the judgment of the class,
tells it best; so everybody has a pet story finally. But everybody is kept telling
all kinds of stories once a week right straight through the year. You will always
find that the pupil imitates his teacher. You can always tell, whatever room you
go into, just exactly what kind of a teacher he has. It is perfectly funny to hear
children sometimes speak with a brogue; even little Jewish children sometimes
tell you stories with a brogue. They won't do it with the ordinary answers,
because those are not spontaneous, but they will sometimes do it with a story. O,
Course, that is an argument against the story-telling as a feature when the teacher
is not good, but it is an argument for story-telling if the teacher is good. The
imitation I admit quite frankly, because I believe in it from this point of view.
The dramatization is a little different. That occupies all the children at
once, and it is really just a means of setting free their natural self-expression. It
helps children to get over their self-consciousness, and helps them to get over
that stiff schoolroom atmosphere they so often have. It usually means simply
that they are allowed to play some story, and very often they are all allowed to
play at once, so that everybody is either a silent partner in the game or a speaking
partner. The Hiawatha dramatization was so funny that I must tell you a word
about it. I did not approve of the Hiawatha dramatization, because the pupils
dramatized everything that existed, whether it just stood still or not. Three of
the children were the deep sea water. I never shall forget it. Here “the deep
sea water beats upon the shore,” and when they got to “beats upon the shore,”
the children who were the deep sea water were so interested in the story that
they forgot to beat; the teacher turned around, and she said, “Beat upon the
shore,” and they beat upon the shore. That does not seem very valuable. The
sort of thing that is valuable is a real acting out of the characters in the story which
can be acted out. The best place that I have ever seen for that sort of work was
Providence. ' The teachers in Providence have done a great deal of work in that
TEXTBOOKS IN RHETORIC AND IN COMPOSITION 33
direction; and if any of you ever have a chance to visit Providence, if you have
not seen those schools, I think you will get a good deal of light on the subject,
because they have pursued it year in and year out with great vigor. Thei
children take an ordinary little story and invent their own play from it.
Now, just one word more, and then I will keep still. The idea of dramatiza-
tion first appealed to me years ago, when I was entertaining children as a part
of my business. I used to tell the story of the Pied Piper a great many times.
The children always liked that story, At last one year I was hard put to it once
at a Sunday-school party for Something to occupy the children. After I had
finished, they ordinarily had games, and so on, for the children; but this time
they had generously assumed that I should occupy the whole evening; So I found
myself occupying the whole evening. It occurred to me that the children might
play the Pied Piper; so I said: “Would you like to play the Pied Piper?”
They shrieked “Yes” at once. I said: “What shall we do?” Three at once
came out and said: “Let me be the Pied Piper.” Well, after that it moved on
smoothly enough. The children picked out what they wanted, and then I picked
out the rats by calling off one óf those funny little counting things you play hide-
and-go-seek with. The rats and the children were picked out, the Pied Piper
and the mayor of the town were picked out, and then we decided where the town
hall should be. The Pied Piper came out and piped his little tune, and the
rats came from every direction. The children did it in the most charming way.
Of course, there was no hint of direction, there was nothing at all except a spon-
taneous playing of the game. That story was impressed in all its parts on the
minds of those children as I have never known another story to be. I knew it
because I visited one of the homes, where one of the sets of children lived, just
afterward, and I heard nothing but Pied Piper the rest of the time. It was not
that it was a valuable educational feature in any deep sense; it was simply one
of those things that help a child to get power of expression, natural power of
expression, and freedom. *
Now, it may be that what I have been saying sounds very fatuous, but perhaps
it will leave at least a little suggestion in your minds, if you will just remember
that what I am driving at is that English is a spoken language, and that imitation
is a helpful feature of teaching, and that story-telling is a helpful kind of imita'
tion.
MR. CLAPP: I beg to indorse what the lady. has just said. . I do so heartily-
I think it is a fine thing, taking advantage of the imitative faculty. I think,
when I call your attention to the way in which children play school, you will
understand that children learn a great deal by the imitative faculty. They bring
out all the school paraphernalia, as far as they can, in their teaching; and some-
times they bring out that part which we usually keep in the closet.
3. Ο
[Preprinted from the ScHooL REvrEw, Vol. XV, Nos. 5 and 6, May and June, I9o7,
and distributed to members of the New England Association of
Teachers of English as a regular leaflet.]
READING AND WRITING IN THE TEACHING OF
ENGLISH 1
HENRY VAN DYKE
Princeton University
I am very glad to be the guest of the New England Associa-
tion of English Teachers, and to find myself here. I choose
this last phrase, because it indicates my state of mind after some
perambulation on the streets of Boston in this part of the city. A
German greeting would be appropriate to a stranger who attempts
that task: Wie befindem Sie sich? And I know that, recognizing
the conditions under which I have come to you, you will pardon
my being a little behind the hour. In fact, my tardiness is a
guarantee of good faith. You will pardon me also for coming
to you without any preparation. I tried to make some prepara-
tion this morning out in the preacher's room at Harvard, but the
boys whom I am here to serve kept me so busy that I had no time
except to begin to write down half a sentence.
The object of the teaching of English in schools and colleges
is not to make authors. In the first place, you could not do it if
you would; and, in the second place, you should not do it if
you could. No school or college can make an author. That is a
matter which is in the hands of nature, under the direction of
* A stenographic report of an extempore address to the New England Asso-
ciation of Teachers of English at their annual meeting at Boston University,
March 9, 1 9o7. It has been impossible to give Dr. van Dyke an opportunity
to revise this report.
325
326 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
what Mrs. Partington Once called “an unwise and unscrupulous
Providence.'' There is some subtle balance of mental and emo-
tional powers, some secret gift Of insight or of outgo, some skill
in feeling the relations of words to things, that can never be
defined or reduced to rules, which makes a man or a woman an
author—the possession of something to say, and the skill of
knowing how to say it. Nor, if it were pOssible for schools and
colleges to make authors, would it be desirable that all the boys
and girls who go to our educational institutions should be directed
into writing as a means of earning their livelihood. In the first
place, the world would not support them; in the second place, the
flood of books with which our intellectual integrity is somewhat
threatened would be increased vastly, horribly; and, in the third
place, the magazine editors would be driven either into an early
grave or into a sanitarium. No, the object of the teaching of
English in schools and colleges is something very much simpler.
In its primary stages, Of which I shall speak mainly this morning,
the object of the teaching of English is to equip boys and girls to
read good books more intelligently and more joyfully, and to use
their mother-tongue correctly and to better purpose in the ordi-
nary affairs of life.
Now, about the reading which is to be done in connection
with this kind of English teaching. It should, in my opinion,
consist of interesting books—I try to weigh every phrase—inter-
esting books, suited to the age of the pupils, well written, and with
a healthy human tone. I have been reading the leaflets, two or
three of them, published by this association in connection with
this subject, and I can Only say that there has been so much said
and so well said in those leaflets that there is really hardly any-
thing left for me to say. Books of adventure, books of descrip-
tion, books which tell a simple story clearly and vividly, are those
which are naturally most suited to young people. Nothing better
than Robinson Crusoe, and the Jungle Books, and Treasure
Island; and, as far as my experience goes, the right kind of girls
like those books justas much as the right kind of boys do. Intro-
spective books, analytic books, philosophic books, and especially
highly pessimistic books, are unsuited for the consumption of
THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH 327
the young person whom we wish to keep in good intellectual and
spiritual health. Those books may have their uses in the world,
but, like caviar and paté de fois gras, they should be postponed
to a later age, if they are used at all. For this reason I would
not start my young people on Ibsen, nor on Bernard Shaw, nor
on the modern British female novelist. The way in which these
books should be read in the primary stages of English instruction,
it seems to me, is somewhat different from the way in which
they should be read later. •
I note one very interesting paper among the leaflets published
by this association, in which attention is called to the
cOmplaint made that, Owing to the fact that Shakespeare is taken
up in the high school and even in the grammar school, there is
nothing left for the university professor to do. Well, all I have
to say is that the university professor who finds nothing left for
him tO do has mistaken his vocation. But the study of a play of
Shakespeare, say Othello, or Hamlet, or The Winter's Tale, or
Twelfth Night, or Julius Caesar, in a preparatory school or in a
high SchOOl which does not lOOk toward college training, is quite
different from the study of the same thing in a university course,
and should be very much simpler, very much more direct, and
guided chiefly with an eye to making the young people feel the
fidelity of the thing studied, and get a clearly outlined picture
before the mind-a, better picture than the modern stage can
give, much better—of that which the great master of dramatic
poetry intended to show in that particular play.
Comparative literature ought not to be taught to school chil-
dren. They cannot take it in, and you simply ruin their little
digestions if you try to give it to them. Positive literature can
be taught to them, literature as the reflection and image of life;
and, in order to do that successfully, the teacher's attention, it
seems to me, should be directed, first, to the story; second, to the
elemental and creative trait in each character; third, to the rela-
tion of the action to the development of those characters; and,
fourth, to the lesson which the work teaches. Now, that is all
as simple as telling a child with whom you walk along the street,
and who sees a man that has staggered and reeled blindly .
328 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
across the street and been run Over on his way across, why that
thing has happened to that man.
Let me say, and let me say frankly and sincerely and hon-
estly, that in regard to the best literature, the big literature, the
great literature, the literature that is worth while, the literature
that has lasted, and the literature that is going to last, you can
never teach it rightly if you shut your eyes to the moral meaning
of it. You cannot do it, because the moral meaning of it is the
core of it, and the heart of it; and nine times out of ten the moral
meaning of it is the thing for which the man wrote it. I do not
mean as a catechist or as a preacher, but I meam as an artist
in letters, seeking to embody in his poem, or his play, or his
novel, or his short story, the eternal significance and the inevit-
able consequences of character and choice in this life of man.
You know a great deal more about the technical details of the
way to bring Out these things in the minds of the pupil—the
structure of the story, the relation of the different parts, and so
On—than I do, because I am a very young teacher. I have been
a teacher for Only eight years now. That is all the experience I.
have had. And the first thing I found out when I tried to do it
was that teaching and preaching were two totally different things;
because in the church where I used to preach, and where I still
preach, and of which I am still a minister, where I preach every
Sunday that I can get a chance to, in that church they do not
allow anybody to answer back. In some of the churches they
do, you know. But in the class, in the properly constructed class,
of course everybody is allowed to answer back; and that changes
the whole aspect, makes it very much more difficult, and in some
respects very much more interesting.
In regard to poetry, I would begin with the teaching of
English poetry, begin with the simplest things, and begin with
the things that have a story only ; and I would believe that those
things which have interested SO many people are good, no matter
what the academic and anaemic critics may say about them. I
think Scott's Lady of the Lake and Lay of the Last Minstrel are
good; and I think that the English ballads are good; and I
think that Longfellow's ballads and Whittier's ballads are good;
THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH 329
and I think that The Vision of Sir Launfal is good—nothing
better. I find that those are good things to begin with. Then a
little beyond that I would have a range of poems such as Tenny-
son's Idyls of the King, and some of Browning's simpler dra-
matic lyrics—the simpler ones, because I would not discourage
a youthful student from the future enjoyment of Browning by
endeavoring to begin it toO young. Then, of course, I would use
the lyric. Having begum with the narrative form, I would use
the pure lyric also. The first poem that my little children ever
learned, when they were from four to seven years old, was:
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life begam,
So is it now I am a man,
So shall it be when I am old
Or let me die.
The Child is father of the Man :
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
I wonder whether you have ever fully appreciated the beauty
of those last lines. It was my little boy who first brought it out
to me. He was five then. He used to say it: “The child is
farther than the man.'' I never corrected him. And there is an
exquisite beauty in that last word:
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
That does not mean simply by religious feelings. “Piety” is the
old Roman word for reverence for one's parents, and Words-
worth, having said “The child is father of the man,” says
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety;
that is, that I, a man, might reverence that which is the father of
my spiritual being in the purity and joyfulness of childhood.
That is what poetry can do for us. That is what poetry
can say to us. That is the magic of poetry, by which it inter-
prets those deeper, finer, nobler, purer, inward elements Of our
life which fools call unreal, but which are, after all, the only real
things and the things that make life worth living.
33o THE SCHOOL REVIEW
Now, I must not talk too long ; but a word about writing.
Let me begin with a negative statement. I do not approve of the
daily theme. It seems to me absolutely abnormal, unnatural,
superfluous, and injurious. I know of no position in life in
which one has to produce a daily theme, except that of the news-
paper service, and that requires a particular and definite training
which the newspaper men themselves will tell you schools and
colleges cannot give. The ordinary or garden variety of the
human being never has to produce a daily theme, except during
that brief period when he or she is in the first glory of an engage-
ment to be married, and then, if those two persons are so unfor-
tunate as to be separated, it becomes necessary for each of them
to produce a daily theme. But, my dear fellow-teachers, you
need not worry yourselves about that, you can leave that to
nature. Nature will take care of it. No, I think it is far more
natura1 and far more simple and far more profitable to have
perhaps a weekly theme, or perhaps a fortnightly theme, or some-
thing of that kind—and I will tell you, I will just give you my
own experience in regard to it in dealing with perhaps a some-
what older class of students. I find it best to ask them not to take
a long time in writing that theme, but to think about it, carry it
in their mind, and then sit down, take an hour or half-hour, and
write it as well as they can and 1et it go at that; with the idea
that they shal1 get from the writing, and from such criticism
as I may be able to give it, some encouragement to write better
or some correction of their natural faults. That seems to me the
best way. •
And as for the subjects, al1 subjects are good, provided you
will persuade your pupils to write about them naturally and spon-
taneously and frankly. You may take a subject which requires
the pupil to go to the encyclopedia in order to find out the facts,
but not to carry the paper and penci1 to the encyclopedia. Get
what you can from the encyclopedia and take it in. Then go
away somewhere where there is no encyclopedia, into a happy
land where the encyclopedia existeth not, sit down and put your
thoughts and notions and ideas and memories and your knowl-
edge and your feeling, whateverit may be, upon paper. I found
THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH 33I
a very good way this winter was to ask men to read a poem, orto
read it to them. (Let me say here, in passing, since you are
allowing me to jump Over the fence and go just where I please
this afternoon, that all good poetry is meant to be read aloud.
Any poem that is written is written to be read out loud or
repeated or recited. That is the origin of it, and that is the idea
of it; and until you have heard it, you do not know it, if it is a
good poem. Of course, that is not true of Some poems. But
meter being an essential element of poetry—there is another
subject, you see there is a big wide gate open there, and I might
go out through that gate into a tremendous field—but meter
being an essential element of poetry, you never get the full effect
of it unti1 it is read aloud.) As I said, I would read a poem
aloud to these fellows that were working with me, and then ask
them to sit down some evening when they had not the poem by
them and write me a description of it, anywhere from five hun-
dred to a thousand words. And by description I meam telling
first of all what kind of a poem it is, what order it belongs to—
this is for Older students—then what meter it is written in, then
what the subject is and where the subject came from, and them
whether they like it or not, and why. Well, you would be
astonished to see how some of those fellows succeed in digesting
that bony structure of a descriptive paper and making out of it
a really charming little expression of their knowledge and feeling
about such a poem as “Mazeppa,** or “Enoch Arden,'* or some-
thing of that kind. …
Then of course, beyond that, one goes on into the compara-
tive criticism, the question of sources and methods, and the ques-
tion of metrical variations, and all that sort of thing, which
belongs to the university life and not to school life. You have
got to leave something for that poor university professor.
And then a great thing is that we should be able to get our
pupils to understand the life and the power that there are in
words—that words are living things, that they are not made,
that they grow, and that they grow out of the heart and life of
human beings ; 'that words have characters and expressions just
as you have characters and your faces have expressions; that all,
332 THE SCHOOL, REVIEW
or almost all, possible shades of delicate and subtle feeling in our
experience can be expressed by words, if we will only learn to
treat them as living things, and remember the life out of which
they have come, and join them to the life which we desire them
to express. Oh, it will be a great service to render to the young
men and women of the coming generation if you shall enable
them to understand that rich inheritance which is theirs in this
glorious English language, the richest—not the sweetest, not the
most exact, not the most perfect—but the richest, fullest, most
powerful instrument of expression that the human race, I think,
has yet developed. “With all its faults we love it still.” And if
we don't love it, and if we don't love the great literature that has
been produced in it, then, ladies and gentlemen, we have no
business here.
3 ]
THE COURSE OF STUDY IN ENGLISH. THE CALL
FOR IT, THE CHARACTER OF IT, AND THE CON-
STRUCTION OF IT 1
Five years ago another committee of this association pre-
sented an exhaustive report upon courses of study.* Your pre-
sent committee, with a view to ascertain the drift of change since
that report, sent out a very humble and inoffensive questionnaire,
as follows:
Has your course in English undergone revision in the past five years,
or is any change now contemplated?
What is the motive and what the general scope of the change, (a) in
elementary schoo1? (b) in high schoo1?
What has been omitted or reduced?
What has been added or emphasized ?
What change has been made in the order in which subjects are taken up?
Is greater or 1ess emphasis laid upon grammar? rhetoric? literature? writ-
ten composition? oral expression? spelling?
The fact that opportunity was given to answer for the grades
and the high school separately seems to have caused some per-
plexity, and to have prevented some from answering whose work
was not precisely in either category. In general, however, the
questions have been promptly and generously answered. No
attempt has been made to tabulate the replies, nor would tabula-
tion shed more light than can be focused in a brief statement.
Indeed, the most striking features of the replies would not appear
in a tabulation at all.
Briefly, the replies show not a drift, but an eddy. Change is
in the air, but motive seems not to have risen to consciousness,
and changes of emphasis or of order move blithely to the step of
* This report of the Standing Committee on Courses of Study (William D.
Parkinson, superintendent of schools, Waltham, Mass.; Albert Perry Walker,
Boston Normal School; Grace L. Deering, English High School, Cambridge,
Mass.) was submitted at the annual meeting of the New England Association of
Teachers of English, March 9, 1 9o7.
* See School Review, Vol. XI (19o3), pp. 746-56.
333
334 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
“Al1 hands 'round.” Grammar is pushed from grades to high
school in One system, from high school to grades in another, con-
fined to first year in some high schools, reviewed in fourth year in
Others. Preparatory work has been deferred to the 1ast two
years in one school, extended Over the four years in another.
Emphasis is more on grammar and composition and less on
literature in one school, vice versa in another. Reading at home
is omitted here, the number of books read outside of school is
increased there; all for the betterment of the programme. If
any general tendency appears, it is toward reduced stress upon
formal rhetoric and increased stress upon everything else named
in our list. This increased emphasis al1 along the line seems to
be made possible in some high schools by increasing the number
of periods per week assigned to English. It would be interest-
ing to know whether Other subjects were correspondingly
curtailed in any.
The returns seem tO disclose an utter dislocation of the
present from the past in a large proportion of the schools. It is
made evident that, with very few exceptions, the high schools
are without any course of study or syllabus by means of which
teachers may know what has been done by previous teachers in
the same position, or by preceding teachers of the same pupils,
or even what is being done by Other teachers in the same school.
The replies show that the individua1 teacher is a, law unto him-
self, and that in many instances he has not been long in his
present position. He does not know what change there has been
because his predecessor is now married—and it is impossible to
ascertain what she did; or his predecessor did not do much any-
way, and he himself has not had time to undo it; or certain
classes have been transferred to Other hands, and he isn't sure
what their fate will be. As to what is being done in the grades,
he refers you to the superintendent.
Incidentally it appears that, in the absence of any course of
study, teachers usually elevate the college requirements into the
vacant place—a place for which those requirements were never
designed and never adapted. Here and there the avowed motive
of a change is to secure freedom from the bondage of college
THE COURSE OF STUDY IN ENGLISH 335
requirements, but more often it is to reach a better adjustment
to those requirements. Evidently, were it not for the influence,
whether attractive or repulsive, of the college requirements, the
high-school teacher of English would be generally without moor-
ings. Most grammar schools have some sort of syllabus or out-
line; and if any have nOt, there is usually a considerable number
of teachers in each grade who compare notes, and this mutual
understanding constitutes a cohesive force which prevents
extreme vagaries. The high-school teacher, however, has no
blazed trail. He may have a so-called course which designates
the number of recitation periods per week devoted to English,
but he is left tO plot the real course himself. Small wonder that
the college examination becomes his One landmark, and that he
circles about it like the wanderer who has lost all bearings. He
needs a syllabus even more than the grammar teacher. In all
but the very large cities he is isolated from other teachers doing
paralle1 work, and from grades above and below.
Nor have the college-bred teachers undergone a training
approximately synoptic, as have teachers normal-trained. Each
teaches as he was taught, at least until experience and observa-
tion have taught him anew. However original and fertile he
may be, he needs some kind of road-book to guard against omis-
sions, wasteful repetitions, disproportionate emphasis, to insure
continuity, co-operation, a common and definite aim, among all
the many workers who first and last are intrusted with the
fortunes of the same pupil. In the absence of one made for him,
he must make one for himself, and he needs as much aid from
the experience of Others as can be placed at his disposal.
In speaking of the course of study, we sometimes have in
mind the process through which the pupil is to go under the
guidance of the school, or the process through which, under
conditions more idea1 than the school affords, we would have him
go. From the practical standpoint, however, we are concerned
rather with the means by which the pupil's course is to be shaped
than with the course itself.
I. Our present inquiry, therefore, has to do with that pro-
gramme, outline, or code of instruction, which is placed in the
336 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
teacher's hands as a navigator's chart to give him his bearings,
and to both aid and induce him to take his students over a safe
and direct course to a chosen destination. -
The teacher, then, should regard the course, not as a boun-
dary fence Or a railway track, but rather as a series of way-
marks indicating points Of departure, points of destination, points
of danger, set up, not to resist or obstruct individual initiative,
but tO direct it along right lines and to check centrifugal tenden-
cies. -
Such a chart the teacher should not only desire, but should
demand. He should be familiar, not only with the portion that
relates to his own sections of the roadway, but with what pre-
cedes and follows—with the whole from beginning to end.
He should make it his business to understand its purport; and,
if anything in it seems to him inconsistent or inexplicable, he
should follow it to its Source for explanation or amendment. He
should obey the spirit of it, and knowledge of its spirit should free
him from bondage to its letter. His attitude toward it should
be, not that of a mere operative, working out a stereotyped
pattern in exact and painstaking detail, but that of a professional
worker who is tO be familiar with his commission and in
sympathy with its ideals, is to interpret it in the light of actual
conditions, and to exercise discrimination and skill in suiting
means to its ends.
2. The course in English, more than any other course, may
and should be one, consecutive, coherent, consistent throughout
the pupil's public-school career, keeping always in view the same
ultimate aim.
This is common-sense. No thoughtful person would regard
the curriculum as a series of canal locks in which activity is to
be confined to a certain annual opening of the sluices called pro-
motion, and in which continuity exists at no other time. Yet we
find it sometimes dealt with upon that plane.
If the course is to keep the distant aim in view at every stage,
both elementary and secondary experience should enter into its
making, and it should be made by an authority in which the
teachers, both elementary and secondary, have confidence. Its
THE COURSE OF STUDY IN ENGLISH 337
promulgation by an individual or by a volunteer committee will
not carry far. Certainly it is tOO large a task for any committee
constituted as this one is, or to be effectively presented in a
report of this kind. It seems necessary that it be prepared by a
body large enough to include many schools, in Order that it may
be put in permanent form and be widely distributed; but its form
should not be too permanent, since frequent revision will always
be necessary. Boston is preparing a new syllabus of which the
elementary portion is already in the printer's hands, and the
secOndary portion is in prospect.
In Connecticut the Counci1 of Education has essayed the task
and its syllabus is an important contribution to the cause. In
New York the state department of education issues such a sylla-
bus. The elementary portion of it bears marks of secOndary-
school authorship, but the secOndary portion is comparatively
simple and practical. If Some dignified body in each of our New
England states could be enlisted, their several independent studies
would promise results. It is better for such a course of study to
rest upon authority in the professional sense Only, and not at all
in the official sense. Even in New York, where this principle is
not always observed, the syllabus is suggestive only, and is
designed to be adapted and elaborated to suit the needs of such
schools as may accept it.
3. What is the ultimate aim which such a course in English
should hold before the teachers of every grade or year?
Simply stated, it is to teach the pupil to read and write. So
naked a statement must, tO be sure, be clothed with large mean-
ing, but it is better to have a watchword whose meaning unfolds
as we approach our destination, than one whose meaning must be
defined anew at each turn of the way. The secondary course,
like the primary course, needs to state its aim simply. But it
must still set its mark high. Interchange of thought and feeling,
intercourse of mind with mind-—what is there of human life that
is not comprised in this? To read appreciatively, to write effec-
tively, means no less. It may be said that to listen and to speak
are of first importance; but the man who can read—can he fail of
ability to listen? And the man who can write—can he not
338 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
speak? The less are included in the greater. To 1isten and to
speak are of time. Theirs is the fleeting moment. To read and
to write are of the infinite. They put man into companionship
with the immortals. They are capable of boundless develop-
ment; and our business with the pupil is to start him On through
lines. Perchance he shall write the thing which he hath seen,
the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.
And who is able to open the ultimate book and to loose the seals
thereOf? -
Our aim must be simple enough for all to see; but the higher
the meaning you may read into it, the larger the vision you may
Open to the student as he fares toward the goal, the better.
Grammar as a science, composition as an art, rhetoric as an
accomplishment, literature as a cult—these have no place in the
common-school curriculum. Until our conception of what it is
to read and write has risen far enough so that these studies fall
into line as subOrdinates, as a means to our end, we might better
exclude the terms from our pharmacopoeia. Whatever of theit
elements make for more effective writing, for more appreciative
reading, we may avail ourselves of; but we should avoid the use
of terms which suggest subjects imposing in themselves, and
which are likely to present themselves to teachers as destinations
instead of way-marks. Even the college requirements recognize
this principle, and, throwing aside all ponderous phrases, declare
that the essential thing is to write good English. To be sure, the
examination questions leer at you from behind the curtain and
tip a sardonic wink, but there are signs of amendment even here.
4. To read and write being the goal toward which the
teacher is to usher the pupil, the teacher's chart of direction
should prescribe certain essential lessons tO be taught and certain
exercises to be given at particular stages. What is everybody's
business is nobody's business. There are symbols whose proper
use is absolutely essential to reading and writing; there are forms
of expression which pass current everywhere. They must be
learned and practiced. These are not few in the aggregate,
but they should be few at any one stage. They cannot be
learned al1 at once; Some necessarily precede others; some are
THE cοURSE OF STUDY IN ENGLISH 339
meaningless to young children, and others will never be learned
if not learned early. But they are not so definitely marked as to
sequence or adaptation that even the most thoughtful teachers
can be sure in which particular year they belong, or can safely
apportion each to himself his proper share of responsibility for
them.
Nor, as intimated before, can these lessons be grouped under
certain heads or classed together under subjects, and assigned
—Orthography, grammar, cOmpOsition, rhetoric, literature—each
to a certain grade. A11 these in their elements enter into every
grade, but none of them belong as subjects in any. Thus,
spelling must begin in first grade, syllabication comes later, pre-
fixes and suffixes sti11 later, and certain rules for the adjustment
of terminal appendâges will stil1 sound like mystic incantations
to students well on the way to college.
Here we pause to say that the committee is unanimous in
approval of simplified spelling. We are not of those who were
hypnotized by the President's order, but neither are we of those
who were stampeded by act of Congress. The public printer
seems to be- the final arbiter of that Lilliputian battle, and we
leave the issue to him. But common-sense and the typewriter
are eliminating useless letters and we believe that schools
should cease to insist upon spellings which are fast becoming
obsolete in correspondence, and which will certainly be obsolete
in good usage by the time our pupils reach mature years.
But to return from this digression: As is spelling, so is
punctuation—not a bolus to be swallowed, but a regimen to be
pursued. The period and question mark are met in first grade,
the comma in address a little later, comma in series later; while
the colon and semi-colon can hardly become implements for the
student's own use in writing much before second year in high
school, although their significance must begin to be weighed
much earlier, in his reading.
We speak of technical grammar as belonging to certain
grades, and we dispute prodigiously as to what grades. Tech-
nical grammar belongs in al1 grades. It is only theoretical
grammar that should be excluded from any grade, and all grades.
34o THE SCHOOL REVIEW
One of the first difficulties of the little child in reading has to do
with pronoun and antecedent. Those names he need not learn,
but the teacher who does not see to it that the child recognizes
what persons Or things the pronouns stand for, is neglecting a
principle of grammar which is technical in the sense of having
direct application to the practice of interpretation upon which the
child is engaged. On the other hand, the distinctions of mode
and the sequence of tenses belong late in the high-school course;
Other grammatical principles lie along the way between, and
still Others should await the college and the university. The New
York syllabus makes grammar-study conspicuous from the
seventh to the twelfth year.
' In the same way, rhetoric in its elements has a place at almost
every stage. Practice in narration begins very early. Reasons
pro and con interest boys and girls of twelve. Figures of speech
ought to be made vivid long before they can be classified or
named. How are we to avoid chance omissions and vain repeti-
tions unless such lessons are specifically assigned and the assign-
ment is made effective?
In addition to the class of lessons thus indicated, there are
certain more general lessons which may well be assigned with
equal definiteness. There is a time for story-telling, for dril1-
reading, for declamation, for letter-writing, for teaching to use
the index and dictionary, for teaching to use the public library,
for introduction to the theater. Into this category comes the
college reading. Them, too, the pupil Ought each year to make a
friendly acquaintance with at least one or two authors, and it is
well that some thought be given to the order in which they shall
be approached. A11 these are proper lessons for special assign-
ment.
Enough has been said to illustrate (but only to illustrate)
the point that a degree of definite assignment is needed, and
that it should be, not by high-sounding and widely inclusive
title, but in simple terms indicating single steps. In the main, the
lessons to be positively prescribed are points of beginning, and
those to be designated in the suggestive way are such as keep
THE COURSE OF STUDY IN ENGLISH 34I
alive and in effect that to which the student has already been
initiated.
5. This supplementary designation should not go so far as
to limit the teacher's freedom or to take away from him responsi-
bility for the exercise of originality, inventiveness, initiative.
The course of study should encourage this exercise, and for this
purpose it should set before the teacher another. and larger class
of lessons collateral, supplementary, illustrative, suggestive—
such a repertory as a good teacher of exceptionally systematic
habits will himself accumulate as years go by, to be used as he
would use his own and to serve as a nucleus around which to
form his own, reminding him of interests which else had eluded
him, beckoning him to heights which he might not have
attempted.
6. The course of study may set before the teacher more or less
definitely the standards by which the pupil's success is to be
measured at the several stages of advancement. This does not
mean that it shall lay down a marking system, a scale of per-
centages, or a table of pedagogical logarithms. But it may by
precept and example enforce the principle that in the measure-
ment of the pupil's writing the gauge is to be applied, not to his
display English, but to the English he uses when attention is not
primarily upon its form. It will help to set the right aim before
the pupils, if merit is reckoned, not upon what they can tell about
English in an examination, but at least in part upon how they
apply it in their written work in other studies.
Since such a basis of measurement is severe, it will become
necessary for the teacher to reduce the severity of his criticism
more nearly to the standard to which he can hope to hold his
pupils, and indeed to the standard to which he holds himself.
For we are al1 aware that when teachers of English, interchange
memoranda or letters, but few of the papers passed would escape
the blue pencil if presented by students. Students can be held
more rigorously to reasonable standards than they can to drastic
standards. One great trouble with the standards both in the
schools and in the colleges is that they are set higher than they
342 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
can be maintained, and so have to be lowered in practice; and
standards Once lowered no longer serve the purpose of standards.
The measurement of the pupil's success in reading is properly
based in part upon his interpretation of what he has read, as
shown both by the expressiveness of his oral reading and by his
answers tO questions upon his reading. It should be in part, too,
upon the keenness with which he interprets the questions them-
selves. Even such questions as are used in the college examina-
tions may be useful, if it be understood that success is not to be
measured by the approach pupils make to the answer the exami-
ner himself has in mind, or by the extent of his resources for
answering, but by the aptness with which he employs his limited
resources in meeting the unexpected situation.
The difficulty with setting standards is that the finer qualities
of reading and writing—literary flavor, appreciativeness of senti-
ment and humor and fancy, “the daily theme eye,” as the con-
tributors' club puts it—these are too subtle to be measured and
too rare to be set up as requirements. They can be apprehended
Only by a sympathy quick and generous, and to attempt to set up
tests and standards, employing the terminology of the pro-
fessional critic, is to pull up the plant to see if it is growing. But
while literary taste is not to be acquired by analysis of literature,
and may even be blighted by it, analysis is essential to literary
power. To cultivate literary appreciation and neglect analysis
is like neglecting technique in the study of music. The course of
study must provide for analytical and exacting study of good
models. It must provide for this purpose selections which are
not included in the range of literature within which the pupi1 is
expected to find friends and companions. Necessary as dissec-
tion is, we do not employ it upon the bodies of our friends.
Standards of measurement and ideals are two different things.
The 1atter cannot be too high. The former easily may. This
fact is sometimes lost sight of, and the two are confused.
7. The course of study must be to some degree suggestive of
method. To go into the discussion of methods would encumber it
and tend to prevent its becoming really familiar to the teacher.
It should not formulate methods, but it ought by its own grada-
THE COURSE OF STUDY IN ENGLISH 343
tion to influence toward inductive methods, to exemplify certain
fundamental principles of development, and to discriminate
between those earlier activities by which impressions are derived
and those later Ones which involve reflection; between those
earlier lessons which widen the pupil's command Over vocabu-
lary, idiom, phrase, Or varied construction, as means of inter-
pretation, and that later development by which those same
instruments are subdued to his use in speaking and writing.
8. The course of study should point the teacher to available
resources. Lists of reference books, of books for outside reading,
of selections for memorizing, of selections to be read by pupils, of
stories to be told, brief lists of words to be added to the vocabu-
lary, lists of suggestive topics or devices for stimulating pupils
to write—all these have a proper place in, or in immediate con-
nection with, the course of study. If they are well made, they
are not only convenient, but stimulating, and they set a standard
of literary quality below which the teacher will not allow him-
self to fall. They may be arranged roughly by years, and, like
suggestive and illustrative lessons, they are to be regarded as
summoning the teacher to use them, unless he finds something
better. -
9. The allotment of time to English as compared with the
whole time-schedule, and the apportionment of the English time
to the several phases of English work, is another essential feature
of the course of study. In general it may be said that the whole
number of recitation periods assigned to each pupil in high
schools is too large. The colleges discourage their own students
from taking any such number of periods per week as their
requirements force upon those in the last two years of high
school. But it ought to be said that the schools themselves err in
assuming that additional periods of recitation will strengthen the
work in any particular when the aggregate number is already
large enough. One is reminded of the steam-boat with a whistle
so large that the engine had to stop to get tip steam enough to
sound it. Beyond a certain ratio of recitation time to study time
the recitation time is increased only at the sacrifice of study time.
This, however, is aside from our present theme.
344 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
The proportionate share of time set apart for English indi-
cates also its proportionate share of emphasis, although the fact
that English enters in such varying degrees into other studies
obscures the real ratio. In general it will be found that from
one-third to one-fifth of the time of pupils is devoted to English
throughout their school career, the ratio being the larger at the
earlier end and diminishing later. .
No time allotment should be upon hard and fast 1ines. The
varying aptitudes of classes, and of teachers as well, forbid
such rigidity. But this very variety of propensities and needs
makes it exceedingly important that some normal be laid down
to restrain too wide departures. Within the field of English
itself, too, it is desirable that some guide be had as to the pro-
portion of attention to be given to practice in reading, to practice
in writing—both in their larger sense—and to instruction in
the mechanism and means of expressiofi; but that a wide margin
be left for those lessons whose purpose is inspiration rather than
instruction or practice, and which may transcend all classifica-
tions. So far as any division is indicated in the courses at hand,
these three phases share about alike in both elementary and
secondary school, except that in primary grades learning to read
necessarily predominates. Whether in high school the pre-
valence of the three-period-per-week allotment to English has
something to do with this equilatera1 triangular division, or
whether it is the result of deliberate judgment, may be a subject
of discussion.
In answer to our question as to what, in the process of recent
change, has been omitted from his course of study, one teacher
replies: “Talk about expression.” This answer seems to imply
restiveness under the yoke of fashion.
The question arises: Are we laying too much stress upon
expression at the expense of impression? The outlet should
not be 1arger than the inlet, and if we expect any force at the out-
1et we must make the inlet the larger. We do well to recall that
the writing and speaking vocabulary, and the whole speaking and
writing currency, must be coined out of the bullion first mined,
assayed, and refined in interpreting the expression of others. The
THE COURSE OF STUDY IN ENGLISH 345
attempt to force the process of expression up too near to the
level at which impressions are received, or to force the speaking
vocabulary and idiom too near to the listening vocabulary and
idiom, may possibly limit the latter, and so limit both. To write
even a business letter, one must reckon with what will be read
between the lines. And One does not learn so to turn a phrase as
to make it vibrant with meaning who has not first felt the vibra-
tion of many phrases and learned himself to hear the overtones
that ring between the lines of what he reads. The one power
must follow and be derived from the Other, and must follow far
in its wake. - ' -
One lesson a week devoted to the presentation of written
work, conference and instruction upon it, and revision of it,
should insure better results than are usually obtained in a four-
year course. However many more periods per week are allowed
for English, they may profitably be devoted primarily to the
interpretive side, with such written and oral practice as are inci-
dent to it, which should be as free from the didactic element as
may be.
Our returns show increased attention to oral expression.
Here again caution is needed. The average English division
in high schools is probably not less than twenty-five. In such a
class oral training for one means aura1 training for twenty-
four. To require twenty-four minutes of listening to one of oral
expression, even assuming that the teacher keeps silence—which
is not always a safe assumption—is certainly reversing the
danger last alluded to. But the listening training one gets while
another is practicing orally is not usually the best exercise of
attention. Permit another brief calculation. The twenty-five
pupils seldom average over one hundred and fifty minutes per
week in class throughout the high-school course. Supposing
the teacher to maintain silence and all work to be devoted to oral
expression, then each pupil will have six minutes a week for oral
expression. Plainly, written expression and written testing of
outside reading must largely predominate, if the school is to
employ its time economically upon such a basis; and such oral
training as can be given must be largely in the way of starting
346 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
the pupil upon oral inquiries, conversational themes, oral read-
ings, or declamatory practice or debate, which shall be conducted
in large part outside Of schOOl. -*
All that can be done along these collateral lines is clear
gain. And the oral reading of impressive passages, as an indis-
pensable means of gaining insight into literature, must have a
place in the time allowance. But the limitations of oral expres-
sion in class teaching must be recognized. Not only has written
language the advantage in economy of time, but it affords oppor-
tunity for that close scrutiny by which one may learn to weigh
the full significance of what one reads, and to revise and intensify
the significance of what he writes.
IO. The course of study must take account of the psychology
of the teacher as well as that of the pupil. It is not the course as.
written in the syllabus, but the course as interpreted and admin-
istered by the teacher, that counts. It must be constructed with
due allowance for shrinkage and some for breakage. There are
certain prevalent tendencies among teachers to be indulged or to
be restrained. It is not necessary in this presence to elaborate
upon them. We recognize them in ourselves, and we may with
complacency confine our mention of them to those of which the
best teachers are themselves conscious.
There is the tendency to expect too much of the pupil, to
overestimate his resources, to forget that he has not as a back-
ground that great complex of convention and experience which
is second nature with us. It is this tendency that requires the
course of study to distribute elementary lessons over a longer
period than teachers themselves are tempted to do, and to follow
each with a longer season of simple practice.
There is also the tendency to expect too little of the pupil,
to underestimate his powers within the range of his resources, his
keen intuition, his depth of feeling, his personal poise. It is for
this reason that the course of study needs to suggest literary
models of a quality above what the pupil can be expected to
analyze, and topics of a variety wide enough to tempt his
response, whatever his interests.
There is a tendency to anticipate the work of a later stage.
THE COURSE OF STUDY IN ENGLISH 347
The teacher with his class On the double quick, having sur-
mounted the breastworks, is fired with ardor to invade and
conquer the whole realm. And, even if he is compelled to fa11
back within his own lines, he still feels that the momentary
triumph was Worth while; for the class has had a rea1 taste of
battle and will strike harder next time. This tendency would
contain its Own safety check if only the same teacher were to lead
the class henceforward; for he would discover and weigh the
effect upon future work. But in our wasteful bucket-brigade
system of gradation, in which pupils change teachers annually
or thereabouts, the course of study must hold the rein upon this
tendency in so far as to keep one teacher from too far invading
the province of the succeeding one. And it is extremely difficult
tO do this effectively without also dampening the very ardor
which counts for so much in lending genuine impetus to pupils.
On the Other hand, the teacher of the grade above is in danger
of attaching quite tOO much importance to having pupils at first
hand in his subject. It might be convenient for the instructor
if knowledge were parceled Off in original packages to be trans-
ferred under sea1 to the cells of the braim, but the convenience of
instructors seems not to have received first consideration in the
original design. There are bound to be interlacings of subjects in
every mind; and most minds must put forward a skirmish line,
even if the new territory loses some of its freshness thereby
before the main advance comes.
A more conspicuous tendency, and one which in a measure
counteracts the last, is the tendency to be tyrannized over by the
teacher of the grade above. It may seem odd to state this
tendency in the passive voice, but it is in that voice that it must
be predicated. There is little conscious tyranny, but there is a
sensitiveness amounting almost to superstition among teachers
of all grades, which leads them to attach undue importance to
what the teacher of the grade above may expect of the pupils, or
may think, or worst of all may say. No little time is wasted in
every school in preparing the pupils to answer questions which
the next teacher may chance to ask. The tyranny of the college
examination questions only illustrates this tendency. It is just
348 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
as real in the grammar School and in the primary school, particu-
larly, but by no means exclusively, where the grade above is in
a separate building. Curiously, no teacher, however subject to
it himself, ever seems able to understand why this feeling should
exist in the grade below. This tendency is relieved to a degree
when teachers are able to look to a course of study instead of
to the next teacher; but in the main it is to be remedied by bring-
ing the teachers together. -
The last tendency to which reference will be made is the
tendency to formalize; that is, to elevate a topic into a system,
a branch into a department, an exercise into an art, each elapor-
ated in detail, with complete classification and technical nomen-
clature. It is a tendency of the best minds to pursue a subject
to its outer confines, and in the complexity of interests it is with
difficulty that any of us limit ourselves to the simple and the
elementary.
The textbook-makers skilfully foster this tendency. The
enterprising youth who would learn to read and write must now
carry in his satchel a grammar, a manual of composition, a
rhetoric, a handbook of English literature, perhaps another of
American literature, and a small library of annotated texts. Nor
can he travel far from a dictionary. The volume of didactic
print he must wade through forbids any extended reading of
literature. Even the child who would write a, letter must have it
pigeonholed in his mind under the heads of business, polite, or
friendly (and what a dire calamity if their ingredients should
get mixed!), then thread the labyrinth of date and address and
salutation and body and conclusion and subscription. It is because
of this tendency that the course of study should steadily enforce
simplicity, employ simple terms, point to simple lessons, and, if
it must introduce the pupil to the dialect of pedantry, do it as the
Connecticut course does, presenting its technical terms, not as
additional branches of study, but as accessions to the working
vocabulary. The importance of simplicity cannot be overempha-
sized—simplicity of terms, simplicity of lessons, simplicity of
processes, simplicity of instrumentalities.
The conclusion then is that a syllabus in English is needed;
THE COURSE OF STUDY IN ENGLISH . 349
that it should be catholic enough to exercise a steadying and
unifying influence Over a wide area; that it should be made con-
secutive throughout the course, elementary and secondary; that
it should lean always to the side of simplicity—simplicity of aim,
of work, of treatment, of phraseology; and that this association
should take steps toward its construction, not by a committee of
its own body, but by some agency with resources for publication
and circulation upon a large scale, sufficiently organized to carry
on a thorough investigation, to discover and to command the
co-operation of the best teachers of all grades, and while accord-
ing due recognition to the views of all, to hold the scales between
conflicting tendencies.
<3^^
REPRINTED FROM
THE SCHOOL REVIEW
A JOURNAL OF SECONDARY EDUCATION
§¤vi FEBRUARY, I qo8 §í is,
WHAT THE COLLEGE HAS A RIGHT TO EXPECT OF
THE SCHOOLS IN ENGLISH 1
W. A. NEILSON
Professor of English, Harvard University
I should like to begin by drawing your attention to the form
in which the subject of my remarks is stated: “What the
College Has a Right to Expect of the Schools in English;'' not,
I am thankful to say, What the college expects of the schools.
This I should never attempt to answer; first, because I have
no authority from any college to interpret its mind on this point;
second, because I doubt whether the colleges in general have any
clearly realized expectation on the subject. But what the college
has a right to expect we may all speculate about, and you and I
may as freely utter ourselves On the question as any official or
committee or faculty.
It seems easiest to begin with two things which the college
has no right to expect. First, it has no right to expect to
dictate to the school its whole curriculum in English. I do not
say that it has ever claimed a right to do this; but it would not
be difficult to point to entrance requirements which imply some-
thing very like it. But the claim is obviously unfair, for our
secondary schools are not mainly or primarily fitting schools.
It is but a small minority of their students who go to college,
and it would be unwise to determine the English curriculum
* Notes of an address given before The New England Association of
Teachers of English, November I 6, I9o7.
73
74 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
by the needs of the minority, unless it could be shown that prep-
aration for college is also the best preparation for the student
who goes to work at once. Second, it has no right"to dictate the
method of teaching. It may, of course, advise, and expect its
advice to be heard with respect. But only a small proportion of
college teachers have had experience in schools, and they are as
a whole not wise enough or experienced enough to be able to
claim authority over the methods to be used in another branch
of the profession. - -&
Speaking in general on the positive side of our topic, one
might say that what the colleges have a right to expect of the
schools is that they should bring the pupils to a certain level of
culture. Our task now is to define as precisely as may be what
this leve1 of culture is. From the college point of view it implies
the preparation of the student's mind in such a way as to render
it receptive of the information and responsive to the training
which the college has to give. This preparation itself involves
both information and training, and on these points we must try
to be specific. -
The pupil should have been taught to speak. No part of the
preparation is more important; no part is more commonly ignored
or more imperfectly accomplished. Boys not only come to college
but leave college, who have difficulty in constructing orally a
sentence of any complexity or length, or conducting a conversa-
tion without slang and with clear articulation. This is surely a
matter for the schools, if the homes have not already done it.
The colleges have a right to expect that a candidate for admis-
sion should be able to speak with fair distinctness and accuracy
Of pronunciation, to express his own ideas in grammatical sen-
tences, and in language free from the jargon of the streets.
The pupil should have been taught to read. By this is to be
understood not merely the putting together of symbols and
sounds, but the training of the mind to concentrate upon the
sense of what is written, and to refuse to pass on until the sense
has been grasped. This capacity is often gained by students late,
sometimes not at all. In a class in Bacon's Essays in Harvard
College, I have found my chief difficulty to lie in leading the
WHAT MAY COLLEGES EXPECT IN ENGLISH 75
students to realize when they have not understood. The great
amount of ground to be covered both in school and college is
perhaps the reason for the common slovenliness in reading. If
so, we should seek to reduce the quantity; but about the necessity
for this training in extracting the marrow of an author there
can be no question. Reading should also include reading aloud.
It is common to lament this as a lost art. Certainly few of my
students can read a passage of English prose with intelligibility,
force, and a sympathetic modulation. Yet, both as a highly
desirable accomplishment, and as a means of teaching and test-
ing the appreciation of literature, reading aloud is of immense
importance. It is, unfortunately, One of the qualifications con-
cerning which, so far as I know, the statements of entrance
requirements in all colleges are silent. It would be difficult,
though perhaps not impossible, tO place it among these require-
ments and to examine On it; but, in any case, it is surely the
business of the schools. \ -
The pupil should have been taught to write. If the training
in speaking already discussed has been attended to, this, I think,
is not so laborious a matter as it is sometimes considered. It
does, of course, imply further detail. Any statement of college
requirements is explicit as to the correct use of words, the con-
struction of sentences and paragraphs, spelling, and the employ-
ment of capitals and punctuation. I do not know that anyone
disputes the right of the college to demand these things, and few
if any schools in New England fail to attempt to supply them.
More debatable ground is reached when we come to the
question of literature. There are two parts to this question:
that concerning the teaching of literature as such, and that
concerning the teaching of the history of literature. On the
former of these something has already been implied in what has
been said of reading; and to that might be added the explanation
of allusions. Here lies the teacher's main opportunity for the
imparting of that general information the range of which is one
measure of the culture of both teacher and pupil. Clearly no
definition of amount can be given here: the important point is
that the pupil should be trained to pass over nothing that he does
76 THE SCHOOL REVIE]V
not understand. The matter of allusions is worth dwelling on
for a moment. The pleasure to be derived from an allusion is
dependent on previous acquaintance with the fact alluded to.
In the absence of such acquaintance, an allusion is not an allu-
sion, but a conumdrum. Yet no one can seriously propose to
pass it Over unexplained. The two great sources of allusion in our
literature are the Bible and the classics. Neither of these is
known to our generation of students as they were known to
readers contemporary with the authors of the chief master-
pieces of English literature; and matters are becoming worse
rather than better. Clearly then, so far from giving up the
laborious explanation of these things, teachers of English have
to face the task of making up for this lack of literary back-
ground by supplying generously whatever is called for to insure
complete intelligibility of the texts read in school, If the labor
which this involves for both student and teacher interferes for
the time with the artistic appreciation, let us say, of Milton, the
fault is in the situation, not in the method which the situation
makes necessary. Gradually, by such teaching, a background
will be acquired, Other poems will be made easier and more
enjoyable, and in the long run even the poems which have
become of necessity a means of training will be returned to with
pleasure.
Much the same position must be taken with regard to all the
matters contained in the notes to a well-edited text. One often
hears protests against “note-cramming.” “Note-cramming” is a
bad name for a good thing, if it means only the acquiring of the
information necessary to make a piece of literature intelligible.
If it describes anything else, it describes a stupid way of per-
forming a necessary task. No method is safe with a poor
teacher. Our concern is with results; and we maintain that the
college has a right to expect that what the student reads in
school he shall be taught to understand. As for the direct culti-
vation of taste and appreciation, vastly important though it is,
I believe that no specific demand can be laid down. The teacher
with a gift for this may be trusted not to fail to exercise it; the
teacher without a gift had better leave it alone. I cannot see
VVHAT MAY COLLEGES EXPECT IN ENGLISH 77
that any college has a right to set up a requirement in artistic
appreciation.
In the history of literature, there is no difficulty in making a
requirement specific or in examining. The question is rather as
to whether there is room for it in the curriculum. But this
much, I think, may fairly be asked, that such an outline of
literary history be taught as will provide the student with the
ability to place in their period and environment the works and
authors that he reads, and with some knowledge of their relative
importance. Whether this is to be done by means of a regular
textbook, or incidentally in connection with books read, may be
left to the individual school.
It will be observed that I have given the college a right to
expect a great deal that may never be directly examined upon. I
think this is as it should be. No teacher whom I am addressing
expects to get recognition in examination points for all he does.
And our concern here is not with examinations and their remote
and helpless approximations. Our programme has permitted us
for this morning to concern ourselves with some of the realities
of our profession.
* *
&: *
•
• -
s
-*
'*, , Reprinted from THE SCHOOL REVIEw, Vol. IX, No. 6, June, I9oI.
COLLEGE-ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS IN ENGLISH :
RECENT discussions of entrance requirements in English- have
dealt mainly with the practical and the concrete — with methods
of teaching, courses of study, and lists of books. It may be
interesting to take another point of view. Let us consider for a
few moments the rationale of the subject. What do we mean by
college-entrance requirements ? More particularly, what ought
we to mean by entrance requirements in English ?
College-entrance requirements imply a relationship of some
kind between colleges and secondary schools. We may begin
then by asking what forms or types this relationship may
assume. If we attempt to answer the question, we shall find, I
think, that as respects this relation there are in this country two
distinct and opposed conceptions. For convenience they may
be termed the Feudal Conception and the Organic Conception.
The feudal system of relationships originated in England in
the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It was transplanted
bodily to this country at the founding of the two leading eastern
universities, Harvard and Yale. In the East it is still the pre-
vailing idea, though certain features of the organic system are
making gradual encroachments upon it.* Those who entertain
the feudal conception in its extreme form, imagine the university
as holding to the preparatory schools the relation of an ancient
baron or over-lord to the common people. According to this
view the university authorities live as it were in a moated castle,
in proud isolation from the rest of the world. They lay down
arbitrarily the conditions upon which persons shall be admitted
to communion with them. They let in whom they choose and
keep out whom they choose. The life within the university has
only an accidental relation to the life without. The university
has its own aims, its own ideals, its own standards, which exist
* Read at the Sixth Annual Meeting of the North Central Association of Colleges
and Secondary Schools, Chicago, March 29, I90 I.
a I refer to admission by certificate, a small part of the organic conceptiom, often
mistaken by easterm teachers for the whole.
365
366 » 7THÆ SCHOO L ÆÆ VVÆ VV
* quite independently of the aims and ideals and standards of the
secondary schools.' It is not affected by changes in the schools.
The schools may sink or swim, survive or perish, advance or
retrograde—it is all one to the university. /?s life goes steadily
on. To all appeals from the schools it has just one reply: “ Fit
pupils to pass our examinations and the drawbridge will be low-
ered. If you cannot fit them, you are no longer of any interest
to us. We will have none of you.”
Such is the general conception of the feudal system of rela-
tionships between school and university. Of such a systein it is
obvious that the essential and characterizing features are (I)
a set of more or less arbitrary requirements for admission
formulated by the university authorities, and (2) a rigid exam-
ination to which all applicants for admission must submit them-
selves. Both the entrance requirements and the examination
are matters which pertain solely, or almost solely, to the univer-
sity. The standard of requirement is determined out of hand
by the university authorities. The examinations are conducted,
at the university or elsewhere, by university examiners. From
the point of view of the schools, therefore, requirements and
examinations, being the recognized prerogatives of the univer-
sity, have a value almost purely negative. They are little more
than barriers set up by the university in order to keep out objec-
tionable students. '•
That such a system has its good features cannot be denied.
Perhaps the most obvious of them is that the university can set
the pace. The preparatory school must bring its pupils up to a
certain grade of proficiency or go out of business. The univer-
sity thus has the power of raising, as it were by the hair of the
head, all of the preparatory schools to a fairly high level. But
the system also has some obvious disadvantages, not the least of
which is its tendency to convert the preparatory schools into
mere coaching machines. Under stress of the feudal system the
principal of a preparatory school might reason with himself in
this way: “The university sets up a barrier at the entrance, by
means of which the examiners propose to keep my pupils out.
Let it be my business, then, to get them in. Whether they go
through the barrier, or over it, or under it, is of no great
COLLEGA-Aev7KAAVCÆ Æ ÆQU/RÆMEAV7S / V ÆNGLISH 367
consequence to me. My success will be measured by the number
of my pupils who, after the examinations are over, shall be found
on the other side. I shall comply with what appears on the face
of the requirements. The university must be responsible for the
results.'' Moreover, a principal who reasoned thus would be
strongly tempted to select teachers who were similarly minded
to himself. He would naturally choose those who had most
ingenuity in coaching pupils to pass examinations, rather than
those whose influence upon the characters of the pupils would be
best and most lasting. The teachers whom he employed, know-
ing that they were engaged for the specific purpose of putting
pupils through the examinations, might bend all their energies
to this one task. They might dismiss, as no concern of theirs,
the ultimate effects of such discipline. The outcome might
conceivably be that both principal and teachers would tend to
lose in some measure their independence and power of initiative.
They would need the galling spur of university censure to keep
them up even to the level of the formal requirements.
I have put the case hypothetically, but that even the best
of the eastern preparatory schools and the best of the eastern
teachers are not wholly exempt from these dangers is shown
by recent events. I have just been reading the report of the
fifteenth annual meeting of that ancient and honorable body,
the New England Association. of Colleges and Preparatory
Schools — a body whose deliberations have contributed to the
history of education not only some of its most profitable, but
also some of its most amusing features. At this meeting Mr.
Charles Cornell Ramsay, principal of the Durfee High School,
Fall River, read a report relating to admission to college by
certificate and by examination. In the course of his report
Mr. Ramsay quoted with approval the following letter from
“ the head master of a well-known academy :''
The preparatory schools cannot do without the drastic stimulus of an
entrance examination to college. Masters are lazy — some lazier than
others, but lazy. The colleges may talk until Time grows gray, but they
(the masters) will not act with vigor unless they see the grim necessity right
before them of working daily six days each week, to enable boys to enter col-
lege with credit. Given the college and anxious parents to apply the spur,
and most masters will “come to time."
368 7TÆVÆ SCHVOO Z Æ Æ VVÆ VV
So far as appears from the report there were no protests
against these amazing charges, either at the time they were read
or later. The head-master's characterization seems to have
been accepted equanimously and as a matter of course. Indeed,
in the discussion that followed, Mr. Wm. C. Collar, head master
of the Roxbury Latin School, applauded the sentiments just
quoted. '' I believe,'' he said, “ man is a lazy animal by nature,
and a boy is so in a superlative degree, and rightly, and we all
need, boys and teachers, a goad and a spur, and the examination
for admission to college supplies in some measure the goad and
the spur that we all need.” - w* -
It would be superfluous to point out the particular way in
which these utterances illustrate the tendencies that have been
indicated above.
In sharp contrast to the feudal conception, both in its nature
and in its effects, stands the conception that I have termed
organic. In its origin it is, of course, an -emanation of the Teu-
tonic mind. Embodied first in the school system of Prussia, it
was conveyed to America by means of Cousin's famous Report and
found its way into the Northwest Territory at a crucial period
in the history of our western education. I am repeating what is
known to every one here, when I say that this idea received
its first concrete expression in America in the school system
of the State of Michigan. From that state it has spread over
the whole* expanse of the West, wherever state universities have
been established. -
I have represented the feudal conception under the figure of
a baronial castle, but the organic system has so little in common
with the feudal system that to picture it adequately to ourselves
we must call in the aid of a wholly different metaphor. Although
I am aware of the dangers inherent in biological analogies, I will
compare this system to a living body. Of this body the uni-
versity and the schools are inseparable members. They are
related as the eye is related to the hand or as the arteries are
related to the heart. As is the case in the living organism, there
is division of labor and mutual dependence of parts. The well-
being of each member is involved in the well-being of the other.
Neither can act arbitrarily and independently without endangering
COLLEGAE- Ae/V7TRAAVCÆ ÆÆQU/RÆMÆΛV7S 7Λy ÆΛVGZ/SAV 369
the integrity of the organism. Or, translating these, meta-
phorical terms into plain statements, the schools and the university
in the organic system constitute one organization, which can
reach its highest point of efficiency only when the dependence is
recognized, not only of the schools upon the university but of
the university upon the schools.
That an organic system in its theoretically pure form can be
found in actual operation in this country I shall not attempt to
maintain, but I do maintain with a good deal of emphasis that
the beginnings of such a system can be seen here in the West,
that it is growing up spontaneously all about us, in response to
a public demand, and that presently it will, as the philosophers
say, come to consciousness of itself and take a more definite
form. That the form, when it is perfected and made manifest,
will be a reproduction of the German system, I am very far from
believing. On the contrary, it will be something sui gemeris,
something American, probably something western, the outgrowth
of our peculiar needs and temperament and ideals.
If the essential features of the feudal system are the entrance
requirements imposed by the university and the university exam-
inations,* the essential features of the organic system are : (I)
* If I have omitted to speak of emtrance examinations at western universities, it is
because at those universities the number of persons examined for admission is now '
so small as to be practically negligible. The following table will make this sufficiently
clear. The statistics, except in the case of Cornell University, are of the fall of I9oo,
and (with the same exception) relate only to the literary department:
Universities ^gjjgg ά Examined Total Ę -
Chicago . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 I 2 7 I 5O 333 I5
Michigan . . . . . • • • • • • • • • • • • • 399 * 9O 48 537 8.9
Wisconsin . . . . . . . . . • • • • • • • 238 6o 28 46o 5 6
Illinois..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I 2O 45 I O I75 5.7
Iowa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3O 38 8 I 66 4.8
Cornell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577 ? 67 24 668 3.5
Colorado. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 26 o IO4 O
Nebraska....... . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 3 | Io6 O 4 35 I O
Minnesota .... .... . . . . . . . . . . 233 I 28 O 4 36 I O
r Including I 42 admitted to advanced standing.
2 Including r64 admitted on Regents' certificates, and r38 admitted to advanced standing. The
figures are takem from the president's report for 1899-19oo.
3 Including 65 admitted by the emrollment committee.
4 No one took all of the examinations; a few were examined in special subjects.
5 The figures are approximate only. Hence the inconsistency.
37 O 7THÆ SCÆVOOÆ ÆÆ VVÆ VV
agreement as to what constitutes the normal course of develop-
ment of young persons of high school age, (2) a trustworthy
means of communication through which the university, on its
part, may learn what the high schools can do, and the high
schools, on their part, may learn what the university wants.
The first is what we know as university requirements ; the second
exists, at present, in a crude, inchoate form in our present
system of university inspection, our associations of secondary
and university teachers, our university publications intended
for Secondary teachers, and our system of reports and certifi-
CateS.
Although one who is familiar with the workings of the organic
system is not likely to maintain that it is in practice an unmixed
good, yet such a one can easily show wherein it escapes the
evils of the feudal system. Its general effect upon both princi-
pal and teachers is to promote independence, and at the same
time a sense of responsibility. The teacher is not engaged in
coaching pupils for examination. He is not even, in any narrow
sense, fitting them for the university. They are already in the
university, in the sense that they are in the system of which the
university is a part. If the teacher is in substantial agreement
with the ideals of the university — and the theory of the system
supposes that he is—he is free to arrange his work solely with
reference to the needs of his pupils. He is responsible to the
university not for the completion of some set of formal require-
ments, but for developing to the utmost the minds and charac-
ters of the pupils in his charge.
We are now ready, after this long introduction, to consider
the rationale of the so-called English requirements. What are
English requirements from the point of view of the eastern and
the western teacher, and what are their effects on teacher and
pupil ? From the eastern standpoint entrance requirements
are necessarily something pretty specific and rather formal. All
pupils must take the same examination ; hence all must read the
same books in the same way. The examiners, in order to finish
their gigantic task of marking four hundred or five hundred
examination papers in a brief time, must read, as one of them
coLLEGE EVTRAA/CE REQUIREMEA/7S /A EVGZ/SA 37 I
puts it, “ under the lash.'* Hence the pupil, in order to stand
any chance of getting good marks, must conform to a conven-
tional standard. He must learn to write the things which, by
tradition, have found favor in the eyes of the over-scutched
examiners. Now, what the effect of such a requirement may be
upon other subjects than English, I cannot say. Possibly in the
case of such studies as algebra and geometry and Latin (as it is
taught) it does no great harm. But in English, and particularly
in rhetoric and composition, it seems to me almost certain to be
disastrous. The reasons for this are obvious. The teaching of
English, more than the teaching of any other subject, is a mat-
ter of sympathy, of personal appeal, of mind catching fire from
mind. Spontaneity and enthusiasm are the very breath in its
lungs. Without these, drill and recitation and correction count
for little. Unless the teacher of English can carry his pupils
with him, they do not go at all ; they fall by the wayside. But
to all of these requisites of good English teaching the feudal
idea is flatly opposed. It says to the teacher: “You must teach
these books whether you care for them or not,'' and to the pupil
it says: “ You must be coached on these books and be ready to
write interesting papers on them, or you won't get into the uni-
versity." I can think of no better recipe than that for deadening
the nerves of sympathy and enthusiasm.
Evidences abound showing that in some of the eastern prep-
aratory schools the feudal idea reacts powerfully on the teaching
of English. To quote the words of a Harvard instructor who
has had considerable experience:
One of the gravest faults which underlie the whole system is that the
training in English is given not for the lasting benefit of the student, but to
enable him to pass the Harvard entrance examination ; when he has read
the required books and written a composition, when he is stuffed with the
necessary facts and supposed to be able to bring them out as occasion calls,
his education in English is complete.*
Still stronger evidence is furnished by those very frank
autobiographies of Harvard students published in I 897 by the
* PROFESsoR L. B. R. BRIGGS in Zwemty Years of Schoo/ ama' Co//ege Æmg/is/.
p. , 47. *.
a B. S. HURLBUT in 7'wemty Years of School and College Ænglish, p. 49.
372 7THÆ SCHOOL Æ Æ VIÆ V},
Harvard Committee on Rhetoric and Composition. I will quote
a few of them :
“The great fault of the preparatory school is that it simply prepares, and
does not lay a permanent foundation for knowledge. I was often told at (the
New Hampshire Academy, where I was prepared): “ Now, this is simply to
make you ready for the examination ; you'll probably forget all about it after-
wards.' • .
“The fifth year was spent in preparing us for the preliminary examina-
tions. As English was not one of them, they considered it as a secondary
subject. The only English we had was the reading of some of Shakespeare's
plays. Although we were continually being warned not to make such blun-
ders in our sight translations, and that our papers would not be accepted over
at Harvard if they contained such English.
“ Finally, in the sixth year, they tried to make up for lost time in teaching
English. They seemed to teach it to us for the sole purpose of making us
pass the examination, because they continually used examination papers as
references, and they said all the time that we must do this or that if we
expected to pass the examination.
“ It seems to me that the all-pervading idea of the school was not so
much to give us a lasting knowledge of the English language, but rather to
force enough of the rudiments of the language into our heads so that we
should be able to pass the examinations for Harvard. When we made a
mistake in anything the teacher would say that they marked this very hard
at Harvard; instead of merely telling us that it was bad English.
“ Then I thought that I was thoroughly prepared to take the Harvard
examinations. I was told to * cram ' on Milton's works, as there would cer-
tainly be questions on the paper based upon them. I obeyed orders. The
last of June found me taking the examination. I was greatly surprised when
I read the paper to find that it was based upon Longfellow's Evange/ime, and
other books which I had studied in the grammar school and which I had not
read for four years.'' -
“ For four years I studied (in a New Hampshire academy). Professor
's object in teaching English is to prepare men for the entrance
examination to Harvard College. He told us the fact on the first day, and
four years later ended his ' goodbys' by giving directions how to pass the
examinations most successfully.''
Such statements as “this last year's work was all right as a
preparation for the examination,” “our first duty was to make
ready for the Harvard examination in English,” “after all,
young men go to school to pass the college examinations,"
occur in many of the other papers; but perhaps the most sig-
nificant utterance is the following: “ Harvard overseers hold up
COLLEGAE- AeÅV7TRAAVCÆ ÆÆQU/A€ÆMÆΛV7S /Λ/ ÆΛVGLVSÄ/ 373
our English to ridicule and ask, Why ? Do they expect prepara-
tory schools to teach English without incentive ? How foolish !''
If we turn now to the organic system, we shall find, if not a
better, at least a very different set of influences. Under this
system entrance requirements, which play so important a part in
the feudal system, can hardly be said to exist. The term is a
misnomer borrowed from the feudal conception. If it is retained
at all, it must be interpreted from the point of view of the
schools, as well as from the point of view of the university.
That is to say, entrance requirements, organically conceived, are
not only the demands which the university makes upon those
who are to be admitted to the privileges of the higher educa-
tion ; they are quite as much the demands made by the princi-
pals and teachers of the secondary schools upon the pupils
who are to represent those schools at the university. Thus inter-
preted, the requirements, from either point of view, are simply
the normal educational processes by which young persons of
high-school age attain to a healthy intellectual development.
What these processes may be is a matter to be determined by
schools and colleges acting conjointly and bringing to bear on
the problem their combined wisdom and experience, each defer-
ring to the other in minor points in order to secure the completest
possible adjustment in essentials.
Logically, then, in reply to secondary-school teachers who
ask, What are your requirements in English ? a university work-
ing under the organic system ought to reply: “ We make no
formal requirements. We | only point to our needs. What we .
want is young men and women whose literary instincts are normal
and whose literary habits are good. We want students who know
what good literature is and enjoy reading it ; who can express
themselves with a fair degree of ease and accuracy ; and who
have a taste for what is simple and sincefe, as opposed to'what
is tawdry, or mawkish, or vulgar, in their own writing and the
writing of their fellow students. Send us young persons thus
equipped and we shall make no further requirement.” And if
the teachers, somewhat taken aback by this sudden and unex-
pected concession, should ask further, How are these good
374 7THÆ SCÆVOOÆ ÆÆ VVÆ MV
results to be secured ? the university might logically answer:
“That, primarily, is your business. It is you teachers who will
mold the pupil's mind and character by your daily communion
with him. Therefore it is you teachers who must take the initia-
tive and the responsibility, whether in determining the method
of teaching, in laying out the courses of instruction, or in meet-
ing day by day the unforeseen exigencies of the class room.”
Indeed, under ideal conditions the university might go so far as
to say to the English teacher: “Do what you think best. Let
your course in English extend over four years or one year, or
abolish it altogether. Have a course in rhetoric or have it not.
Require your pupils to write once a day or once a year. Read
ten books at a snail's pace or read two hundred books at headlong
speed. In short, follow your own bent and your own judgment,
provided only you send us young men and women who respect
their mother tongue and know how to use it. If you want
advice, or want to know more definitely what our ideals are, we
are ready and eager to give information. But we do not prescribe,
we do not dictate.” ,
This, I repeat, is what the university, under ideal conditions,
might confidently say to the principals and teachers of English in
our high schools. Under ideal conditions, I say ; but conditions,
as we all know, are not everywhere ideal, either as regards prin-
cipals or as regards teachers of English. In the first place the
organic conception, although I have spoken of it so confidently,
and although I believe in it so firmly, is still in the subconscious
stage. To most persons it is about as tangible as the unity of
society. Even in my own state, where, if anywhere, it should
rise above the threshold of consciousness, there are few second-
ary teachers* who do not now and then revert to the ideas and
the terminology of the feudal conception. Not long ago I had
some correspondence with one of our principals in regard to the
English courses in his school. Among the questions he asked
* To say nothing of members of the University faculty. A respected colleague
with whom I conversed recently about some of our accredited schools, was so recal-
citrant and spiritually inorganic as to affirm that in his view the certificate system was
rotten to the core. But he would probably say the same thing about the examinatiom
system. -
COLLEGAE- Ae/V7TRANCÆ RÆQU/RÆMÆ V7S /Λ/ ÆÂVGZ/SÆ/ 375
were these: “ Would a two-hour rhetoric course in the sopho-
more year satisfy the requirements of the university in rhetoric ?”
“ Does the university prescribe an order in which the books
required for admission shall be read ?” “ Will one essay every
two months be satisfactory to the department of English ?”
And so on. He had got into his mind the pestilent heresy that
when he had provided what the printed statements in the uni-
versity calendar called for, his duty was fulfilled. When he had
done that much, the university (he vaguely felt) ought to step
in and assume responsibility for the results. To a principal in
such a frame of mind the university naturally hesitates to say,
“ Make the requirements in English anything you please.” The
principal might indeed accept the challenge in the spirit in which
it was made. Probably he would do so. But there is some
likelihood that when he was hard pressed by the claims of other
subjects, he would feel warranted in letting some part of the
English work drop ; not because he believed it ought to be
dropped, but because to drop it would be to follow the line of
least resistance. -
This desire to escape responsibility is sometimes seen in the
teachers as well as in the principal; but in them it arises from a
different cause. In the case of the teachers it arises from the
fact that they are not so well trained as they should be for the
specific duties that are laid upon them. This is particularly
true of teachers of rhetoric and composition. We all know
teachers of these subjects, of the best disposition in the world,
earnest, enthusiastic, conscientious to a fault, who, because they
have had no special training for this particular business, are
pitifully dependent upon others for their ideas and their methods.
With no solid grounding in the fundamental principles of their
subject, they are at the mercy of every text-book and magazine
article. A new definition of rhetoric or a new device in teaching
composition is to them a kind of miracle. They cannot place
it. They live all their lives in a state of vacillation between
antagonistic theories. Upon such teachers the university does not
like to throw the whole responsibility of determining how much
English shall be taught and in what manner it shall be taught.
376 7YZAE SCAZOO Z KAZ VVÆ}}
Finally, among the unideal conditions should be mentioned
the present means of communication between the high school
and the university. At present it is long before the high school
teacher of English learns whether in the eyes of the university
the fruits of his work are good or not. Perhaps he never learns,
or learns only in a haphazard way. The university has no
medium for communicating to him promptly, and at frequent
intervals, its estimate of the English of his former pupils. Nor
in most cases is there any convenient way by which the teachers
of English can receive from the university instant help and
advice in an emergency. •
These obstacles to the working of the organic system of
requirements will doubtless be removed by degrees. Meanwhile
what should be the attitude of the university ? In general it
may be said that inasmuch as ideals are things that we may
approach but never can attain to, it probably always will be
necessary for the university to lay down certain requirements in
English ; but these will, I am sure, as time goes on, depart more
and more from the rigid prescriptions of the feudal system.
They will take the form of statements of proficiency in com-
position and of appreciation of literature, corresponding to the
attainments of the average pupils in the best high schools. To
these will be added hints and suggestions of methods of teach-
ing that have been found to be effective in actual practice. As
for the lists of books that have excited so much discussion of
late, I imagine that here in the West we shall always be in
favor of the largest liberty of choice. Under the organic con-
ception uniformity, except in the sense of agreement regarding
standards and ideals of proficiency, has but slight significance.
The tendency is rather toward the wide diversity congenial to
differences in environments, teachers, and types of students.
For this reason the open revolt against the list of books named
by the Joint Committee on Uniform Requirements in English,
seems to me to be one. of the most significant evidences that
have recently come to light of a healthy organic life in our edu-
cational institutions.* -
* My words will not be less pointed if I say that as a member of that committee
I helped make the list.
COLLEGE- EAVTRANCÆ REQUIRÆMÆΛVTS TV ÆλVG LISAI 377
But entrance requirements, as I have shown, must not be inter-
preted from the point of view of the university alone. I should be
false to my- theory if I did not point out how this liberal attitude
of the university lays duties upon the schools ; or ifit does not lay
duties at least makes it fitting for the schools to take duties upon
themselves. The first duty relates to the principals. If the atti-
tude of the university is such as I have described, it then becomes
the duty of the principals to cultivate a great tenderness of con-
science with regard to secondary English. Freedom, like
nobility, confers obligation. Now and then one hears a princi-
pal say, with the earnestness of conviction: “ I allow nothing to
interfere with English. Other studies may have to give way
occasionally, but English never.'' I wish more could say this
truthfully. I do not mean that I am jealous for a certain number
Of hours or a certain number of exercises. What I want is the
spirit, the respectful attitude. I would rather have in a high
school an English course of but one hour a week with the
understanding that it should never, on any pretext, be set aside,
than a course of five hours a week with the understanding that
a part of the students might, on some plea or other, at any time
be excused from it.
The Second afid most important obligation, however, rests
with the teachers. They hold the key to the situation. Upon
their fitness or unfitness for their specific tasks hang the fortunes
of secondary instruction. If the teachers know their business the
requirements will take care of themselves. It is the duty, there-
fore, of every teacher of English who realizes his great responsi-
bility, to give himself as thorough a training for his work as it is
possible for him to obtain. Opportunity for good training is
now generally available. Teachers' courses in English literature
have been offered for many years in almost every university in
this country, both in the regular sessions and in the summer
schools. More recently teachers' courses in rhetoric and com-
position have been established, and although there is as yet some
confusion in regard to the aims of such courses, the improve-
ment which they have wrought in enlarging the resources of the
teachers and enhancing the interest and value of their work, is
378 * , 7ΤΗAE SCAZOO/ ÆÆ VVÆ VV
* ? {*
distinctly appreciable. These courses are now the most adequate
means through which the secondary teachers and the university can
hold communion and effect interchange of opinion. I look for a
great increase of interest in this line of work, and I venture the
prophecy that if these courses are properly fostered in the uni-
versity and heartily supported in the schools, the grade of intelli-
gence and of resource in our teachers will so advance within
the next decade as completely to transform the spirit and method
of secondary English. We shall then be a long way on the road
to a solution of the problem of entrance requirements.
FRED NEWTON SCOTT
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
34
ON CRITICISM OF THEMES BY STUDENTS
ROBERT G. VALENTINE
A'eprimtea from the TECHNOLOGY REVIEW, Vo/. /V, AVo. 4
EOSTON
GEo. H. ELLIS Co., PRINTERS, 272 CONGRESS STREET
I9O2
ON CRITICISM OF THEMES BY STUDENTS *
The themes printed here are precise copies of themes
written by Freshmen at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Some of these themes will give the reader
too low an idea of the abilities of the Institute Freshmen.
To present fair specimens of the work in English composi-
tion is not the aim of this paper. The object is to tell
of a plan, tried last year, of which the chief characteristic
is that criticism of themes is done largely by the students.
The details of methods used must be spoken of to some
extent in order to make clear the principles on which the
work rests. In applying these principles, each teacher will
of course have his own scheme.
The student takes home the theme of another, and
writes his criticism upon it in red ink. This work counts
as half of his work for the week ; his own theme, as the
other half. His mark is, therefore, the sum of the parts
of two fifties. As the next step, both the writer of the
theme and the critic study it with the instructor in a con-
sultation of from five to twenty minutes. The records are
so kept that, when a man comes for consultation, he talks
over all his own themes and also his criticism of other
themes. Thus, in the end, the student both gives and
receives criticism which is careful and full, and of which the
inaccuracies are pointed out by the instructor. Relieved
of drudgery, the instructor is enabled to put his whole
force on whatever is each student's most vital need.
This method succeeds better with some classes than with
others. Classes, like individuals, are sociable, retiring,
light-headed, dull, bright, capable of working well only in
leading-strings or capable of themselves hacking their way
to power. I Different as classes are, the work here ex-
plained should be useful to them all in the hands of a first-
class teacher, and probably, if his method be right, in those
* See Vol. I. p. 44I of the Revi£w.
4
of a poor one. Under this system a poor teacher may
possibly become less of a drag ; for, if the method is
capable of living, it has its life firmly seated within itself,
and the teacher becomes, like the manager of one depart-
ment of a corporation, potentially greater for good, but with
less power to do harm. -
To the student the immediate results of this work form
a sure foundation for the best use of his abilities, both
while he is an undergraduate and when he enters upon his
profession. At the end of a lecture, writer and critic have
been seen, in the class-room or on the stairs. or steps, in
attitudes of discussion that at a bound put English compo-
sition into the realm of vital affairs. What spectacles and
arguments take place among the lodgings is unknown ; but
it can hardly be doubted that much good is done there,
too, since the discussions noticed, though often energetic,
are anything but incoherent. Last year several students
did such effective work in criticism, and the help they were
able to give was so gladly received by their fellows that
they were equivalent to an addition to the instructing force,
with full pay, in benefit to themselves. As the work pro-
gresses, the qualities developed in the student are precisely
those which will be most valuable to him in his work in the
world. He becomes wide-eyed in seeing faults, workman-
like in the correction of them, sportsmanlike, hitting hard,
and giving and demanding fair play. All this he learns to ,
do with dignity and courtesy.
One of the methods for starting this work is to have the
writer of the theme, before he begins to write, make a
brief character sketch of some person to whom the theme
is to be written. In such cases it becomes the critic's duty
to put himself into the mental attitude of this reader. To
make the work of more meaning to the men, several de-
vices have been used. Sometimes students hand in requests
for themes on subjects about which they wish to know.
The instructor then reads these requests to the class, and
such men as think they can give the information wanted
volunteer to try. Often they make the acquaintance of the
questioners, and the work is thus made so much the more
5
telling. Again, the subjects and titles of themes handed
in are read to the class, and the themes are distributed
for criticism, as far as possible, to the men who desire
them.
The following theme illustrates some of the points
already mentioned, and will make the remaining remarks
more clear. The corrections which the student makes on
the body of the theme are given here in the wide margin.
His comment is printed at the end of the theme across the
whole page.
TROUT FISHING IN A BROOK IN THE WOODS
ADDRESSED TO A FISHERMAN WHO THINKS IT TOO MUCH TROUBLE TO SIT ON
A WHARF OR IN A BOAT
This sentence might very
well have been omitted. It
is not directly connected with
the subject.
* great numbers
Reconstruct for emphasis.
Going along in a thick
woods, without carrying any-
thing, is hard enough ; but
when a person has to drag a
long pole and line with him,
it becomes doubly difficult.
I don't understand this op-
eration.
* to weave his line
*vines (probably)
*bushes. Finally he again
gets, etc.
AND WAIT FOR FISH TO COME TO HIS LINE
Fishing for trout in a brook which
runs through a dense woods, is a rather
difficult task, but it is in such brooks
that trout are found in greatest quan-
tities,* and this is what a true fisher-
man wants rather than an easy time.
It is hard enough to get along in a
thick woods without carrying anything,
but with a long pole and a line attached
to its end, it is very troublesome.
Sometimes to go as short a distance
as ten feet along the edge of a brook
in the woods, one has to drop the butt
end of his pole, wind the line around
the point, and then weave * it through
a perfect net work of small trees,
viands,* and bushes * until he gets to
an open space large enough to again
allow him to take his pole at its proper
end. At this point he has to unwind
his line, sometimes to make but one or
6
* casts ; then he must again go
through the place, where he
can, . . . with some safety.
(at end for emphasis)
* Often a fish bites and does
not get hooked. When this
happens
2nd paragraph
* these difficulties which he
* a mam who fishes in a brook
has to endure other annoy-
ances. He gets (1) his face etc.
he gets (2) . his . . . his
and (3) he has his face etc.
Why do you change your
person from the indefinite 3rd
to the 2nd, from ** one ** and
«« he ** to «« you ** ? (on this
page)
* though exciting, unpleasant.
** Trout fishing in a brook
is unpleasant,** is the general
thought of your theme. Why
not end with this thought.
Your last six words * * side-
track ** the purpose of the
theme.
According to your last sen-
tence, you do not consider
fishing in open water a sport.
Is that so ?
two casts,* and then again repeat the
trouble of getting to another place
where he can with some safety cast his
line again.
* Often times a fish will bite and
not get hooked, and when such cases
happen a long time is spent in getting
the line unfastened from limbs of trees
which project directly over the stream.
Besides the * difficulties one has in
making his way along the edges of a
brook in the woods, there * are many
annoyances to be put up with, such as
getting your face into the webs of large
spiders, getting your face and hands
scratched, and fine needles and small
sticks down your back by way of your
collar. & -
All these trials, with an occasional
tumble into the water from trying to
lean too far over the bank, go to make
trout fishing* come under the head of
sport.
As a whole, the theme has unity because it is all about fishing. But that
organised unity, which makes a theme forceful, is lacking.
There are a number
of thoughts, but they seem all thrown together.
Your sentences are, positively too long. You have exactly I 3 thoughts and
you should have that many sentences. You have only 8.
Then you have 7 Paragraphs for 8 sentences.
This is evidently too many.
Two are sufficient for your theme.
Put ome thought in a sentence and form paragraphs!!!
7
To make the student feel that his criticisms and com-
ments upon themes can be really of value is no easy task.
His perfectly natural scepticism in this respect is an almost
insurmountable barrier. It is crossed, however, as he
comes to recognize what it means for him to see another
student's work. In this light he writes both his criticisms
and his own themes. The rubbish and undue confidences
so often written to instructors in English prove that in-
structors have often been held by the college man to be in
nature something between a god and a waste-paper basket.
This is an animal for which no student can mistake his
fellow. Before another student he becomes humanly con-
scious of the real nature of the demands upon him and of
his own shortcomings. At precisely this moment he begins
to improve. Work that ** would do ” for the more abstract
instructor he is ashamed to hand to his concrete classmate.
His writing gains in arrangement and neatness. He be-
comes more simple and direct in his statements. His
themes grow to mean something to the men they are
written for. His criticisms do likewise, and so steadily win
his own respect and care.
These advantages to a composition are much the same
as those of electric lighting and efficient police to a city.
Above these is a further and constructive advantage. A
college man soon finds that his fellows will not care about
him unless he makes himself cared for. It is necessary for
him to win himself friends. If he does not come out of
himself, he will be left alone ; and, since he can hardly
escape his fighting nature, he will struggle with phantoms.
To help him to know the real men around him is one of
the powers of English composition, and one which the
writer of this paper believes can be made of great advan-
tage to composition itself. When the student graduates,
the reports he will write, the arguments he will make, will
depend for their success not only on his scientific training,
but on his knowledge of men and on the training he has
had in expressing himself to men. Under the plan here
outlined the student has brought home to him the im-
portance of this training.
A CONTINUOUS DEMAND.
* When going in to bat in a
game etc.
* pitcher. Right here etc.
* begin
* the
* give the closest attention, in
order to find out etc.
* the ball
* curve ;
* case,
* to sendit exactly to the right
place.
He can only do this by etc.
* diminish his attention
* This sentence has three or
four ideas in it. Two sen-
tences are made by cutting it
in two. •
advantage. He must be ready
to utilize any opportunity
* Starting to play a game of base-ball,
one steps to the plate with his bat,
and faces the pitcher * and right here, at
the beginning, he must start * in to for-
get everything else and concentrate his
whole mind on his * game. From the
time the pitcher begins his preliminary
motions until the ball reaches him, he
must fasten his eyes * right on the ball,
to find out, as nearly as he can, just
when and how near* it will come to
him. It may come straight, and as
swiftly as a rifle bullet, or it may be a
deceptive slow curve,* it may come
right over the plate, or it may come
high, low, out, or in.
must be ready, just as it reaches the
plate, to either let it go by, or hit it in
such a way as to send it to exactly *
In any case * he
the right place. This he can do only
by fixing his whole attention directly
on the ball.
He gets a hit, or a base on balls, per-
haps, and advances from the plate to
the bases, but he can by no means let
up * on his direct concentration of mind
on the game. He must watch every
motion of the pitcher and be ready, if
the latter tries to catch him, to get back
* Besides this,
he must watch the batter carefully, so
to his base instantly.
that he may cooperate with him to the
greatest advantage, be ready * to take
advantage of any opportunity to steal
9
*a base
* Besides all this,
* should * keep
* in order to take in every
* time. It may etc.
* liner ; * go
* Omit away
* judge
* and start for that place
This sentence is nearly a
repetition of the main idea and
is practically repeated in the be-
ginning of the next paragraph.
* At all times he must keep in
mind etc.
* and . . .
game.
bury himselfin the
This theme is a theme of exposition.
his * base and be prepared, in case of
any kind of a hit or emergency, to act
immediately and in the best way. *For
all of this it is absolutely necessary that
he follow * the ball closely and centre *
his mind right on the play.
His side gets out, and he goes into
the field, and here, still, he must put
the whole energy of his mind into the
game, so * that as to take in every de-
tail of the play. The ball is likely to
be hit in his direction at any time * ; it
may be a fiy, a ground ball, or a swift
« liner * : it may move * some distance
in back of him, away * in front of him,
or off to one side. At the crack of the
bat he must decide * just where it will
come, and be off to * that place in-
stantly. To do this it is obvious that
he must have his whole attention fas-
tened on the game.
All through the game, therefore, he
must devote to the play the entire
strength of his mind. He must be wide
awake to everything that is going on in
the game. * He must at all times keep
in mind every detail of the situation
and be prepared for any emergency that
may arise. His thoughts cannot wander
away for an instant ; in fact, he must
shut everything else from his mind,
and * as it were bury himself in his
game.
It tells just how a player has to con-
centrate his mind on the different parts of a ball game ; at bat, om the bases, and
in the field.
It is perfectly logical that there should be four paragraphs in this
IO
theme.
The first paragraph speaks of the player at bat, the next on the bases,
the third in the field, and the fourth of the game in general.
These are four
distinct phases and each calls for a new paragraph.
The idea, and especially the expression of ** Concentration of mind ** is
brought in a little too frequently and gets a little monotonous unless varied
somewhat.
There is also a little too much slang of the game ; such expressions
as ** fasten his eye on the ball,**
etC.
THE CANTEEN QUESTION
You have simply given
General Miles' version of the
question, and have not at-
tempted the other side. The
title should be General Miles'
opinion of the Canteen Ques-
t1On.
Not original w o r k, — all
quotations fr o m G e n e r al
Miles.
The subject is entirely too
broad for a three page essay.
* liquors,
* not
General Miles supports the abolition
He says : « Much
has been said concerning the army can-
Of the army canteen.
teen which when first established was
called the * amusement room ** and af-
terwards the ** post exchange.** It was
a place of amusement and recreation
for the enlisted men where they could
enjoy reading books and papers, playing
games etc., and could purchase such
refreshments, except liqours * as they
desired. It was then an eminently suc-
cessful institution and promoted the
contentment and general welfare of the
troops. Later, when what was known
as the post traders' establishments were
abolished, light wines and beers were
authorized to be sold in the canteen.
The government has now, by act of
Congress, prohibited the sale of untoxi-
cating beverages in the canteen, and it
is believed that no injury has resulted
thereby and that the law has, in the
main, been beneficial. The army is
composed principally of young men who
have no * formed the habit of using
liquor, and although the majority of en-
listments actually occur in large cities,
I I
No pains taken in sentence
StruCture.
Paragraphing good.
* There is no antecedent to
** it ** expressed. «* His opin-
ion ** you probably mean.
You have given no reasons
complete enough to draw such
a conclusion.
as the recruiting offices are principally
located there, a large percentage of the
men come from homes in the country
and small towns and villages in every
part of the United States. The predic-
tion that the change would prevent en-
listment and increase desertions has not
been fulfilled. Since the law was ap-
proved, namely, on Feb. 2, I9o I, the
recruiting stations have been thronged
with men seeking enlistment for service,
25,944 men having enlisted since that
date, and the percentage of desertions
is now far less than in former years.
Desertions most usually occur during
the first six months of enlistment, and
a much larger percentage of enlistments
has been made during the past six
months than heretofore. In many cases
the men that have deserted belong to a
class whose presence in the service was
not desirable under any conditions, but
whose real character was not known at
the time of enlistment.**
There are other officers whose state—
ments go to show that the abolishment
of the canteen was a bad measure.
Since a man in General Miles's position
supports the abolition of the canteen it *
will and ought to have great weight.
The only way to see which side is
right would be to have a fair trial and
testimony from both sides.
With the exception of the last nine lines, the essay is copied, as you say, word
for word from a statement of General Miles, amd it is therefore mot your original
work and not my part to attempt to correct quotations. If you desire to discuss
I 2
the canteem question from authorities, you should not limit your research to one
ITA2lI).
As it is, you have simply given an extract of General Miles' opinion on
the subject, and have made no comparisons or arguments whatever.
Why not
include the statistics of increased drunkenness given out by the Secretary of War,
Root, or the findings of the Committee on Military Affairs of congress, if you
wish to use authorities ?
The only original opinion of yours is that included in the last three lines, and
that is very vague.
To treat such a subject in three pages, you should give concise statements of
all the best arguments on the subject instead of taking over two pages for simply
one essential idea.
space.
LEGS
* One afternoon
unnecessary
£€
» 9
* left
in order to go through several
tOWnS
not connected with your subject
* Par. here
* machine,
Incomplete expression
* At times while steering etc.
Emphasis spoiled here
* three or four imches
Incomplete expression
What dimension of the sand
do you meam ?
Even then, the subject would be entirely too broad for the
AGAINST STEAM
One * afternoon, my cousin and I,
started to follow the Steamer M
to N VVe left * on Our tandem *
the moment the boat left the wharf.
For the first two or three miles, the
road ran parallel to the river, but after
that it leaves * the river in order to go
through several towns. We came to
the bridge at C
a ride on the draw.
just in time to get
* As soon as the
draw was closed, we jumped on our
machine * for we knew there were four
long hills between us and the next
bridge. By hard riding we managed to
reach the top of the last hill, just as the
Steamer whistled for the draw at Rock's
Bridge to be opened. What a ride that
W2iS the hill. At times * it
seemed as if my wrists must break,
steering. At the bottom, were three
or four inches * of sand. The machine
slid through it at a breakneck speed.
We arrived at the bridge however, too
before the draw was
opened. * As soon as possible we were
down
* New par. here
late to cross
I3
across the bridge and speeding towards
the next one, five miles farther down.
On reaching here, the steamer was out
of sight. The travelled road was con-
* that siderably longer than that * by which
Antecedent is obscure. the boat came. Now was the time for
The boat came by a river, eo &
not a road. sprinting. We had one more chance
It
seemed as if our machine must break to
to win before reaching N
pieces, such was the awful strain. At
* climbed last we climb * our last hill and
* had have * only two miles of level, macadam
road before us. Those last two miles
* came seemed an eternity but at last we were *
A weak ending. , Spoils the in sight of our destination. The race
°°P'*** **°" **"** *** was a tie, but we had the farthest to gO.
whole. » -
The unity of your whole composition, as well as that of your sentences, is
well kept. The emphasis of your sentences is also good. Your unity of expres-
siom in some places, however, is not so good. In the sentence in which you
mentiom the bridges and roads in the course of the race, it is difficult for the
reader to see at first how the latter affect the race. The best way to show this
would be to outline in your first paragraph the course of the race. The reader
could also follow the story of the race more easily if its different stages were
shown by a sub-division of the theme into paragraphs. Your chief fault, how-
ever, is your lack of coherence. The connection between your succeeding sen-
tences is not shown clearly ; and the incoherence confuses the reader and makes
it hard for him to follow the theme understandingly.
MAKING A CABIN
The first thing we did was to select
a cool and shady spot in the woods.
Having found a suitable place we raked
* loose all the leaves and all the losse * stones
away and cut down all the trees and
bushes except four trees. These trees
were so situated that they readily served
I4
* On each side between the
two posts we put in two posts.
* connecting all the posts,
around the sides
* Omit pretty
* No,
* and it looked pretty indeed.
End.
Not on the subject.
as our four corner posts. We * then
put in two posts between the two cor-
ner posts on each side. Previous to
doing this, we had nailed four pieces of
scantling around the trees, at a height
of eight feet from the ground. Allow-
ing a space for a door and .one for a
window, we nailed small strips* around
the sides about a half a foot apart con-
necting all the posts and did the same
thing to roof. After doing this we had
a pretty * substantial frame-work for
our little cabin.
Next came the work of thatching
the sides and the roof. We decided to
thatch the roof first, because if we
should thatch the sides first we would
be very likely to stick our feet through
the thatching in climbing up and down
from the roof. For this work we
gathered a large quantity of small
branches,* which had plenty of leaves
on them.
The thatching was done by weaving
the small branches in and out among
the strips which had been nailed to the
posts and scantling. After we had
covered every opening we thatched the
sides in the same manner, beginning
from the top and working downward.
Then our little cabin was finished and
very * pretty indeed did it look.
Many a pleasant afternoon did we
spend in that quiet and cool little cabin.
When it was too hot to do anything or
go any place we would get books and
I 5
go there and read. Very often we
would spend the night out there. In
fact, we used to make it a regular camp.
In describing what good times you had at the little camp and in telling why
you went there you forgot your subject was on building a camp not what you
did there.
I doubt also if you made a camp with a perfectly flat roof, yet you say it was '
eight feet high all around.
Is that the case ?
THE BEGINNER IN GOLF
Golf appears as seen etc.
It is not strictly in accord-
ance with good use to com-
mence a sentence with a par-
ticipial phrase.
* of games. * But also how
sadly mistaken that person is.
* He must learn etc.
«« Similarity in the relation
of ideas should be made evi-
dent by uniformity in the con-
struction of the sentence.**
* and they will . . . before he
has mastered the game.
** Phrases or clauses closely
associated in thought should be
closely associated in expres-
sion.''
As here the idea of the
probability of these qualifica-
tions is associated with the
idea of their being essential.
* in
severance and patience.
As seen by the on-looker, golf ap-
pears to be one of the easiest and sim-
But yet* how
sadly mistaken is that person. He
says, * Why, all you have to do is to
hit that little white ball.” Yes, that is
all, but oh, how much trouble lies in
hitting that little ball. Then, too, he
has * to learn just how far and where,
$plest* games on earth.
he must send it.
The beginner in golf, must have per-
These are
very essential, and * before he has mas-
tered the game, they will, in all proba-
The
bility, be completely worn out.
beginner should be careful as to* the
choice of his clubs ; single piece clubs
are much better than the two piece
clubs and although, the latter are
cheaper, the single piece clubs will pay
f
* of cost
* the reader may not know
what topping a ball means.
* points
* one becomes
* teed means a position up
therefore ** up ** is not needed.
* taken in driving off.
Coherence is lacking it
would be better to leave the
prep. phrase * * in driving off**
till the last of the sentence.
* « « in both hands ** should
appear at the end of the sen-
temce for coherence.
* For better emphasis put
«« the eye ** etc. first.
* Omit right
* the ball
* thing to use for work on the
links. This is superfluous
the meaning is perfectly clear
without it.
* stroke.
I6
the difference in * cost in the long run.
A beginner may safely use cheap balls,
for he is sure to ruin most any ball by
Then, too, he should
endeavor to obtain a good caddy ; one
« topping* * it.
who is able to give him pointers * on
the game. .
It is best to use a small rubber tee
in driving off, although when he * be-
comes proficient in the game the ball
may be « teed* up * on sand. In driv-
ing off, a position within easy swinging
distance of the ball should be taken ; *
and the weight of the body should be
The &c driver ??
grasped firmly in both
thrown on the right leg.
should be
hands,* near its top ; care should be
taken to see that the right hand is be-
low the left. The club should be
brought back in a full circle and then
brought down with a sharp quick
During the whole stroke the
eye * must be kept on the ball, for if
this is not done the aim is liable to be
thrown ofF. When the club is brought
down it must not be stopped right *
when ball * is hit but it must be al-
lowed to follow up the ball. If the
links are in good condition, a ** brassy ”
is the best club to use, but if the grass
is long a ** cleak ” is perhaps the best
thing to use for work on the links. *
The work on the « green ** is perhaps
the hardest part of golf. In ** putting”
it is best to grasp the club near its
middle and hit the ball with a kind of
shove stroke.
I 7
The beginner will often be dis-
couraged but it will not be long before
he too, is one of those ** crazy ** golf
enthusiasts.
I hardly think a beginner would succeed if he followed your instructions in
some cases. You have left out some very important points on how to dis-
tribute the strength of the stroke, which if not made clear to the novice, will
cause him much trouble.
Too many sentences are begun with * The beginner ” or ** A beginner.”
You have used such terms as ** topping,” ** teed,” ** driver,” ** brassy,”
* cleak,** «« links,** ** greens, putting,** and have not explained their meaning.
** The beginner** would have to study this theme with a dictionary in order to
get much benefit from it. On the whole this is a fair theme of exposition,
although it could be made clearer by making use of improvements suggested
above.
*) a €
THE RECOVERY OF BY PRODUCTS OF THE BLAST
FURNACE -
The by-products of the blast furnace
are about the same as those of the gas
* . * Omit but. * The works,* but * the * conditions are much
condition in which these by- d;£pen*
products of the blast furnace .
is obtained is much different coal produces about Io,ooo cubic feet
from the cgndition of the by- of gas which carried with it the products
products of the gas works.
In the gas works a ton of
to be recovered. In the blast furnace a
ton of coal produces from I 3o,ooo * to
* Do not use figures. I8o,ooo * cubic feet of gas with about
the same amount of recoverable matter
scattered through it. A group of blast
furnaces each consuming about Iooo
tons of coal per week will produce an
* This has nothing to do enormous amount of gas. * Thus it
with the subject therefore omit. appears that very much larger recover-
ing apparatus would be required for the
blast furnace gases than would be re-
quired for the gas of an ordinary gas
* Theme begins here. plant. * The gases from the blast fur-
I8
*. Omit but. It
* This is where your theme
should begin, all that you
have written thus far has noth-
ing to do with the recovery of
the by-products of the blast
furnace. -
Intended to say theme be-
gins on preceding page.
*, * for
* are. * place of them.
* New Paragraph
*. * Omit and This tank.
* Do you mean sucked
through the tar or do you meam
forced through the tar ?
* which is
* are
* Omit and. At
* gases (tar ?)
* from this washer at intervals
and are conducted into a stor-
age tank.
* up
naces have been used for many years
for heating the air blast and also as fuel
under the boilers,* but *, it * has been
only in comparatively recent years that
a more extended use has been made,
and valuable products extracted from
them. * These products are ammonia
and coal tar. The ammonia is gener-
ally converted into ammonium sul-
phate * as * this is the most convenient
and salable form of ammonia.
The apparatus required for the re-
covery of these products generally con-
sists of a preliminary washer for the
gases, an atmospheric condensor, and
scrubbers. In some places the scrub-
bers are done away with and two or
more washers * used in their * stead.*
* The preliminary washer consists of a
large boiler-shaped tank with sloping
bottom,* and * * is partly filled with
Through this tar the hot gases
from the furnaces are drawn,* with the
tar.
result that the water * in the tar * is
partly evaporated and the gases * some-
what cooled, and * at* the same time
the particles of tar and of dirt in the
gases are caught and precipitated to the
bottom of the tank. The heavier tars
are drawn off* at intervals into a stor-
age tank. The atmospheric condensors
consist of a large number of pipes set *
I9
*. There
* in order
* I should like to know how
the gases pass from one pipe to
another ; do they pass up one
pipe and then down the next
pipe etc. ?
* Do these boards project
from the sides of the tank or
how are they set on edge ?
* (into what ?)
* How cam water be pumped
from the last tank to the next.
I think you mean the water is
pumped from one tank to the
next tank, but you should use
a word which expresses what
you have in mind. * first
* tamk
*. * Omit so that. As the
result of the water flowing
through a number of tanks
Do you mean liquids if so
what liquids ? Do you not
mean gases ?
* pieces of
vertically and far enough apart to allow
a free circulation of air between them.
These.pipes are from forty to fifty feet
in height with a diameter of one and a
half to two and a half feet,* and * are
generally about two hundred in number.
The pipes are placed in rows and ar-
ranged so that the gas passes through
everyone of them. They are arranged
however so that any row of pipes may
be cut out of the circuit * to be cleaned
or repaired. At the bottom of each row
of pipes is a long tank to receive the
lighter tars and ammonia liquors which
have condensed in the pipes.*
The scrubbers are huge iron tanks
from fifty to one hundred feet in height
and ten to twenty-five feet in diameter.
These are filled with boards * set on
edge and placed very near together.
This thoroughly breaks up the gas *
and allows full contact with the water
which continually runs over these
boards. The water * from the last *
tank is pumped to the next * and so
on * so that* the liquids * are some-
what condensed when they leave the
scrubbers. The gases are thoroughly
washed in these scrubbers and the re-
maining tar and ammonia removed.
The gas now passes on to the receiver.
Let us see the effect of this different *
2O
* Where has this fact been
shown ? Newer heard of it.
Answer (See Banerman's
** Metallurgy of Iron ** p. 267
and the account of some ex-
periments on the value of blast
furnace gas as a producer of
power in the Engineering
Magazines of 1898 and others.)
* What has this to do with
the subject ?
* This has absolutely noth-
ing to do with the recovery of
the by-products of the blast
furnace.
the gas is condensed.
apparatus on the gas. The gas comes
from the blast furnace at a temperature
of 4oo°—6oo° F, it enters the prelimi-
nary washer where the gas is cooled to
some extent and much of the heavier
tars and dirt It then
passes on to the atmospheric condensors
is removed.
which, in hot weather, are cooled by
sprays of cold water. Here the gas is
cooled to 7o*, or lower, and the
lighter tars and moisture contained in
The scrubber
removes the remaining ammonia and
tar.
for heating the air blast, for burning
under boilers, or to be used in gas en-
gines. The non purified gases from
the furnaces cannot be used in the gas
engines on account of the tar and also
The gas is now ready to be used
moisture which is present, and,* as it
has been shown that in the gas engine
only 94. 2 cubic feet of gas is required
to produce one horse power, while by
burning under boilers 794 cubic feet
are required, it will be seen that in this
one case a large saving has been made.*
The tar is separated from the am-
monia liquors by gravitation. The tar
is placed in a still and oils of different
These have
small values as illuminants except when
grades are produced.*
used in a lucigen or Other blast lamp,
but they are good heat producers. The
pitch which is left behind is in demand
for making briquettes, and is used for
2 I
asphalting and roofing. The ammonia
* too vague. liquors are placed in a suitable * still
and the ammonia vapors are passed
* You should mot assume through sulphuric acid.* This am-
that the reader knows how the
sulphuric acid acts on the am- . s. • • • i •
monia. in chemistry is a valuable fertilizer.
From these furnaces all the fuel re-
quired by the iron works outside ofthat
monium sulphate in addition to its value
consumed in the furnace itself is pro-
* . Each duced,* each * ton of coal produces
twenty-two to twenty-six pounds of am-
monium sulphate, one hundred pounds
of pitch and about twenty gallons of
oil. The cost of one of these plants is
considerable but the profits are large.
The maim fault with this theme is that you did not stick to your subject.
You should begin your theme with ** the gases from " on page one, and end with
** the scrubbers remove the remaining ammonia and tar ” on page four. Of
course it is interesting to know what the purified gas is used for, but unless you
change your title to : — ** The recovery of the by-products of the blast furnace
and some of their uses; *' you must omit the uses of the by-products. You are
careless in your use of words ; for instance the word ** last ” at the top of page
three, you do not mean the ** last tank ** and so should not use the word
** last.” Most of your sentences contain but one idea. This is very good.
But there are a few sentences which have more than one idea, for instance the
long sentence at the bottom of page two beginning with : — ** Through this tar,
etc.** This sentence should be broken up into at least two sentences one
beginning with ** Through this tar,** the other «« At the same time.** The
last page of your theme seems as though it were written simply to fill up space.
It is better to write four pages than to write five and give the impression that
the fifth page is only written to make the theme five pages long. In many
places you leave the subject very vague, for instance you say at the bottom of
page three ** the gas breaks up.** You should tell how and into what it breaks
up. In writing this theme you should tell a great deal more about how the
tars are separated and how the oils are produced. For these two products are of
much more importance than the gas. You confine yourself too much to the
purifying of the gas and not enough to the other by-products.
It would be impossible to give here themes to illustrate
or to prove all the statements made in this paper ; nor is it
needful. One point alone is essential. For the plan pro-
22
posed to be of use it must have adequate foundation in the
critical abilities of the students. The results shown above
seem to prove that, at least in the classes in which it has
been tried, the work has this foundation. The method has
proved excellent in its direct bearing upon the teaching of
composition, and perhaps its indirect effects may be more
valuable still in bringing into closer relation the student's
work in the class-room and his experiences in daily life.
R. G. VALENTINE.
3 5
TH E SCHOOL REVIEW
A JOURNAL OF SECONDARY EDUCATION
VOLUME X WHOLE
NUMBER 5 M. AY, I9O2 NUMBER 95
THE UNDER GRADUATE STUDY OF ENGLISH
COMPOSITION. 1
A YEAR ago the Pedagogical Section of the Modern Language
Association investigated the question as to the feasibility of
making advanced work in rhetoric (using that term in the broad-
est sense) a part of graduate university work counting toward a
degree. The report read at the December meeting of last year
has just been printed. This year the investigation has been car-
ried a step lower down, and has endeavored to test the opinions
of competent judges on the question whether the methods of
teaching composition now so widely followed are beyond the
reach of criticism.
With this in view the committee selected, from a brief article
in the Century Magazine, a passage representing an attitude of
extreme hostility to the plan of compelling students to write fre-
quent themes, which should be corrected and returned to the
writers.
The passage runs as follows :
A wide reader is usually a correct writer; and he has reached the goal
in the most delightful manner, without feeling the penalty of Adam. . . . .
We would not take the extreme position taken by some, that all practice in
theme-writing is time thrown away; but after a costly experience of the
drudgery that composition work forces on teacher and pupil, we would say
* Aepor? of the Aedagogica/ Sectiom, read at the meeting of the Modern Language
Association at Harvard University, December 26, I9oI.
3 I7
3 I 8 - 7THÆ SCÆVOO/L ÆÆ VVÆ VV
emphatically that there is no educational method at present that involves so
enormous an outlay of time, energy, and money, with so correspondingly
small a result. . . . . In order to support this with evidence, let us take the
experience of a specialist who investigated the question by reading many
hundred sophomore compositions in two of our leading colleges, where the
natural capacity and previous training of the students were fairly equal. In
one college every freshman wrote themes steadily through the year, with an
accompaniment of sound instruction in rhetorical principles; zm f/ae o//,er co/-
Zege every fres/amam studied SÁaÁspere, Zvät/, abso/ufe/y mo frazmimg in rhetoric
ama* zvz?/, ^o £7ractzce 27? comaposztzo?2. A1 co7/275arzso?, of z/ae //.e/zes zw/rzzzem zm :
their sophomore year òy these studemts showed that techmica//y the two were
fu/Zy on a par. That is weighty and most significant testimony.— 77, e Cem-
tury Magazine (Vol. LI, pp. 793, 794). -
Comments were requested on the question raised by this
quotation. Details of similar experiments, if known, were called
for. And, finally, the question was raised as to the possibility
of conducting an experiment, or a series of experiments, which
should furnish conclusive proof of the value, or the futility, of
requiring freshmen to write themes steadily through the year.*
The reports that came back in response to these inquiries
varied in length from a line or less to elaborate discussions
which filled several pages. Taken as a whole, they may be
regarded as fairly representative of the present position of col-
lege and university teachers of English throughout the country
as to the relative importance of reading and theme writing.
Harvard University, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, the Universities of
Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Chicago, Leland Stanford Jr.,
Johns Hopkins, Louisiana, and many other institutions have had
a voice in the discussion.
Our report naturally divides itself into three parts : (I) A
summary of opinions on the question raised by the quotation ;
(2) an account of experiments similar to that just outlined; (3)
a discussion of methods for determining with some accuracy the
relativè value of reading and practical work in composition.
So much depends in this investigation upon the experiments
that we are naturally most curious to learn whether this question
has been very generally tested. I therefore take up the second
* The circulars of inquiry were issued under the direction of Professor F. N. Scott,
of Michigan University, the president of the Pedagogica] Section.
ÜÄVZQAEÄ€G® A /) ÜA 7TÆ S7TUV) V OÆ ÆλVG /LVSÆ7 CO/MAOSY7TYOÄV 3I9
division first. Unfortunately, most of those who answered the
questions in the circular of inquiry knew of no other such experi-
ments. Some teachers thought they had tested the matter by
noting that students in their classes in composition wrote better
at the end of a course than at the beginning, or by observing
that the winners of prizes for literary work in the various college
publications were almost without exception students who had
had systematic training in composition.
One professor of rhetoric* holds that he has proved the
falsity of the position taken in the quotation, and he sends on a
printed collection of unedited college themes, which he offers to
compare with a collection of articles written by college under-
graduates who have not had drill in theme-writing. One
instructor had been led to the conclusion in his own classes that
the most omnivorous readers are often careless writers, because
they write as they read, without much thought.
We have, however, a few accounts of positive experiments.
One of our pedagogical psychologists writes :
I am getting short themes written in class from high schools in different
parts of the country, with the intention of comparing the quality of the work
with the nature of the instruction given. In some cases there is regular
theme-writing, in Others not. In some cases there is much required reading
of English classics, in others little.
The results of his work are not yet tabulated, but they
ought to be of considerable importance, if sufficient safeguards
are employed. -
The next witness has experimented only upon himself, but
he has had " some convincing personal experience." He says:
I have published several books on the subject of rhetoric, and I consid-
ered myself fairly expert in the art of composition, besides trying to cultivate
a sense of style. I never had instruction, but obtained whatever proficiency
I had from reading and the teaching of composition. Last summer I was
printing a book on a literary subject, and the proof-sheets passed through the
hands of a friend who is also a teacher of rhetoric. Scarcely a paragraph 6r
sentence was left as originally written. I trembled for the result of such
* For a variety of reasons it has beem thought desirable to suppress the mames of
the writers of the individual reports and to allow the opinions and facts to speak for
themselves, Much care has been taken to secure a really representative expression
of opinion. Names will, however, be furnished on application.
32o 7THÆ SCHVOOZ ÆÆ VVÆ VV
anxious revision. But now the book has been said, by several competent
judges, to be written in a pleasing and unaffected style ! I honestly believe
that this practical instruction I obtained has yielded certain and important
results which my reading never has yielded and never can yield. This case
is not quite parallel to a student's case, but, as being in the nature of expert
testimony, should be worth something.
The three following are the only reported experiments similar
to the one mentioned in the quotation ; and these must be con-
fessed to be not altogether conclusive. Says one :
I have tried a similar experiment twice, for a period of three months. I
found that the study of Shakspere influenced the vocabulary of many stu-
dents the next quarter, but did not affect their prose style otherwise.
A Harvard instructor writes :
The only experiment of the kind I know of was in the comparison of a cer-
tain number of papers written in a course in literature at Yale College with a
number of similar papers written in a similar course at Harvard. Of three or
four of our men here who examined the papers, all but one agreed that the
papers written at Harvard were better written, and showed the result of the
time given to English composition.
This is presumably the experiment described in our quota-
tion. -
Lastly, we have the following:
In one of our eastern colleges, about two years ago, the course in rhetoric
and theme-writing was transferred from the sophomore to the freshman year.
As a consequence, the sophomores had no course in rhetoric and theme-
writing during the first year of the new plan. Nevertheless their writing
showed in the junior year no important difference from that of the succeeding
junior class. Having myself read the essays of both classes, I may affirm
that a slight improvement in sentence-structure, and a little more freedom
from glaring faults of taste and method, were the only noticeable distinc-
tions. I fail to see that the later class commanded a style a whit more
resourceful or effective. In short, the result was negative, not positive.
And I venture to say that this negative result — of mechanical correctness,
not real correctness—is all that is obtained in teaching unread students in
any college of the United States.
Some sympathy with the conclusions of the writer of the
paper in the Century is expressed in several of the reports; but,
taken as a whole, the reports reveal a pretty general skepticism
concerning the conclusiveness of the experiment therein
described. One experiment, it is urged, is not enough to estab-
lish a conclusion so far- reaching in its results.
{/vDERGRAZ UA 7TÆ S7'U7) V OA7 ÆΛVG L/SÆ COMPOSV7T7OÄV 32 I
Evidently, after this showing, anyone who is seeking an
unclaimed subject for investigation has a well-nigh virgin field
to work in. This leads us to a discussion of the possibility of
settling the question by experiment. A considerable number of
teachers hold that the matter lies outside the range of conclu-
sive experiment, owing to the difficulty of taking all the factors
into consideration, and one volunteers the opinion that pedagogy
is running mad and needs an infusion of common-sense. Some
think experiments to be possible, but very undesirable for the
students.
We do not [says one] tie up a student's arm and then read him anatomy;
we exercise the arm. We have no business to tie up his writing-hand for a
year and expect him to absorb technique of any sort through the skin.
One suggests a test course, half of a large class doing writ-
ing, and the other half receiving instruction in literature, the
experiment to be continued for two years. To another such an
experimentseems possible at a very large institution, but too risky
for a small one. Some think the case for composition already
made out, and the experiment therefore needless. “ Exper-
iments to determine whether freshmen should profit by practice
in composition are futile, but experiments to ascertain suitable
methods of instruction should prove of the highest value.”
“ Results,” however, “ cannot be obtained by a condensed report
of many opinions where all are at sea, but through an investiga-
tion of the essential principles and conditions of effective work."
Many of the suggestions go no further than to propose the
division of a class into sections. One section of freshmen could
be admitted immediately to a required course in English liter-
ature without a prerequisite course in composition. At the close
of the year these freshmen could be tested and the results com-
pared with the written work of the freshmen who had taken the
prescribed course in composition. But this plan, it is urged,
would interrupt the regular course of instruction and be unadvis-
able, because the results would necessarily be uncertain and
unscientific.
A more elaborate scheme, but adopting essentially the same
method, is the following :
322 . <… ZTHÆ SCHOOL Æ Æ VVÆ VV
Take a freshman class of a hundred or more students. Let this class be
conducted for a few weeks as a class in English literature, and let the study
be of poetry rather than of prose, which might serve as a model. Call for
weekly short papers and for one or two essays in which emphasis is laid upon
thought, not upon form. Upon the information thus obtained, divide the
class as soon as possible (in two months at the outside, sooner if practicable)
into four sections, A, B, C, and D. Let sections A and B contain the upper
half of the class—better still, the upper third, or even the upper quarter—
the grading to be based solely upon the work in this single subject up to the
time of the division of the class. -»
Let Section A study English literature (prose and poetry) during the rest
of the academic year ; let Section B study rhetoric. At the end of the year
it will probably be found that there is little difference between the members
of the two sections as regards skill in writing. Each section will furnish some
of the best writers in the class. -
Let Sections C and D (the lower half, or, better still, the lower two-thirds
or three-quarters of the class) be treated in the same way. Let Section C
study English literature ; let Section D study rhetoric. At the end of the
year it will probably be found that there is a marked difference between the
members of the two sections as regards skill in writing. A few members of
Section C will write as well as those in Section D, perhaps, even, as well as
the average members of Section A or Section B: there must inevitably be
some mistakes in grading. The members of Section D (rhetoric) will, how-
ever, write with more accuracy, with more freedom from the faults that
abound in the manuscript of nearly all students who have not received special
instruction in English composition. Especially will this be true if the mem-
bers of Section D have been required to do some reading of good prose in
connection with their study of rhetoric. My own classes are required to
make an analytic study of nineteenth-century prose in connection with their
study of rhetoric.
A suggestion that might be adopted without too great an
expenditure of time, and without interfering with the work of
students, is the following :
v.
It is proposed that a collation be made of the data to be found in the
registrar's offices in our colleges and universities with reference to the influence '
of various lines of study upon the use of English. ** I now have several people
at work,” says the writer, “ upon the data in the office of the registrar in our
own university, with the end in view to see if I can get any evidence relating
to the effect of classical and other fields of special study upon the àpprecia-
tion and writing of English. I am taking the records for a number of years
of students in the different courses and comparing these with reference to
their grades in English to see if the figures reveal anything. Of course there
ÜÄV/)AEÆGARA DUA 7TÆ S7TÜZ) V OÆ ÆλVG ZASÄ7 COMPOS/7T/OAW 323
are difficulties of a serious character surrounding the investigation, since stu-
dents come with different kinds and qualities of preparation, and those who elect
science often do not have a chance to show the influence of their scientific
training upom their English before they pass out of this study. But I still
think something of value may be gained, and I wish the work could be
repeated in the various universities, and taken up also in the high Schools. I
mean to examine the records in our registrar's office of pupils graduating out
' of different courses in the high schools and compare their standings in
English. This may perhaps give us more satisfactory results than the exam-
ination of the records of the university students.
The most extensive outline of a proposed experiment is the
following. It comes from a well-known investigator in the
Teachers' College of Columbia University. He criticises the
experiment described in the quotation as '' extraordinarily care-
lessly devised and lazily administered," and goes on to say : . . .
Even conclusive proof can be obtained as to the exact amount of the
value of composition work in improving the ability to write English, in case
there is such.
If, for instance, five or six or more colleges would split the freshman
class into two sections, dividing them at random (alphabetically), and would
give one section theme-writing and the other a reading course, data could
readily be obtained that would settle the question.
The data should be four or more themes written during the first two
weeks of the year by all the students, and a similar number written during
the last two weeks of the year.
To make the test valid requires (I) that the students be representative of
the general class “ college students," and not peculiar in any respect; (2)
that there be enough of them to reduce to a negligible quantity the chance
variation in quality of the work of individuals which occurs in theme-writing
as in anything else ; (3) that the instruction in theme-writing and in the read-
ing course be of the samie relative grade of efficiency (e. g., if the instructors
in the theme courses are such that out of a hundred college instructors
picked at random 27 per cent. would be superior to them, then the instructors
in the reading courses must also average at the same percentile grade).
(1) Would be satisfied by picking students at random from colleges
picked at random.
(2) Would be satisfied, I am fairly sure, by four hundred individuals in
each of the two classes, “ students with a year's theme work '' and ** students
without that, but with a year's reading course in its place." Probably two
hundred in each class would do to get a result accurate within I o per cent.''
(3) Would be satisfied by the random selection of pairs of instructors at
approximately the same rate of salary in the case of each pair.
324 * 7THVÆ SCÆVOO / ARÆ VVÆ VV
It would be possible to answer the question even without splitting classes
into two sections, though less surely and less easily. ι .
If eight or more colleges now giving regular theme courses would pro-
vide the data mentioned above, and eight or more colleges giving approxi-
mately the same quality of general work would do the same, but replace
their theme courses by reading courses during the year, the data would serve.
The matter of gaining an exact measure of the results of the year's work
in the case of both sorts of training, and of comparing these measures, is a '
very elementary problem in statistics. If ten fairly trustworthy critics of
English writing, e. g., assistants in rhetoric in colleges, and four experts, e. £,
editors or college professors, would each read 3oo themes, or if twenty
assistants and eight experts would each read 1 5o themes, and if the expenses
of correspondence were defrayed, anyone skilled in handling educational
statistics would probably be willing to work up a report on the data and risk
his reputation upon its accuracy. • •
There are means of getting precise measures of the improvement of the
ability to write good English ; measures that will not be invalidated by per-
sonal bias, or be so vague as not to advance us beyond common-sense
opinion.
It is impössible for me to take the time to describe in more detail how the
test themes should be obtained, e. g., whether all should write on the same
subject in some cases or not ; whether a time limit should be set in some
cases or not; whether more than four themes are needed or not. If one knew
just what opportunity could be granted by teachers of English in the colleges
for any such experiment, one could plan its details with surety.
The only difficulty in the world is to get the data. If colleges would
turn over to me the data I mention and money to hire men to read the
themes, I could get the answer in a month. The exact statistical treatment
is perfectly possible. •
We are now prepared to take up the discussion of the ques-
tion suggested by the quotation from the article in the Centumy
Magazine, The comments upon the quotation are not easily
summarized in a few words. But they generally emphasize the
fact that composition is an art rather that a science, and there-
fore can be mastered only by practice; and this preferably under
competent instruction. They point out important aspects of
work in composition that may or may not co-exist along with
technical correctness, such as unity of conception, logical devel-
opment of a theme, proportion of parts. These and many other
matters that have to do with the work of the accomplished prose-
writer are, they urge, the very things that trouble us most, even
UVDERGA ADUATE STUDY OF ÆAVGLISH COMPOSITION 325
when we have read widely and carefully for years, and have
given anxious thought to the task of expressing ourselves with
clearness and precision.
I should, however, be very unfair to the contributors to this
discussion were I to attempt in a word or two to summarize their
arguments. I must therefore be content to indicate thus briefly
their general drift, and allow as many as possible to speak for
themselves. ®»
As a matter of fairness I present first the views of those who
are in general agreement with the position of the writer of the
article in the Cemtury. Says one : -
I hesitate to express an opinion which is still unsettled in my own
mind. I am, however, somewhat strongly inclined to sympathize with the
writer from whom you quote. Of the two, I feel sure that reading is better
training than writing ; but I do not believe that either will help a student to
write well if he has to be driven to it. I think, therefore, that the first aim
of the teacher of English to underclassmen in college should be to interest
them in what they read. If he succeeds in this, they will perhaps afterward
be ready to profit by instruction in the principles of rhetoric ; if he does not
succeed in the first task, I think the second is in most cases foredoomed. I
have known of men who got little pleasure or profit from their instruction in
English literature, yet learned a*good deal from their later work in rhetoric;
but in my experience such cases have been decidedly exceptional.
Of the same general tenor is the following:
Wide reading is certainly, in my opinion, much more valuable than study
of the text-book and practice in theme- writing — in the proportion of ten to
one more valuable. For, by reading, the student attains a vocabulary, an .
array of phrases and idioms, and a notion of the qualities of style. Not one
' of these benefits, it strikes me, has ever been attained by the text-book and
the required essay. Teaching English composition to a student who is
unread is much like trying to make bricks without straw.
Says another:
The writer seems to me to have overstated his case. I should agree with
him, however, that in many of our colleges there is too much theme-writing.
For Some years I have had a section of freshmen in English, and I feel
strongly that the daily themes which by the custom of the institution I must
require of them, are not only unproductive of good, but by their monotony
they depress the student, and render him less capable of genuine pleasure in
composition. I hope for a change, but I trust that it will not be quite so
radical as that suggested by this quotation. My own plan would be to give
326 • * 7THÆ SCHVOO/ ÆÆ VVÆ VV
two-thirds or three-fourths of the time to reading, and to require a few themes.
These would give the student a chance to try his hand, and should be criti-
cised with reference to matters in which reading is not a sure help.
Apart from some very brief expressions of opinion, on the
whole favoring the extreme position taken in our quotation, this
is nearly all I have to offer on the one side. On the other hand,
the opponents of this position furnish an embarrassing mass of
material, of which I can present but a small part. Says one:
Looked at theoretically, the proposition that a pupil can learn to write
good English by reading Shakspere, with no practice in composition, is as
absurd as to maintain that one may become a good pianist by listening
systematically to good piano-playing; or that one may become a good skater
or a good painter by watching the performances of those who excel in these
arts. I believe that the great fundamental error which lies at the bottom of
our prevalent unsuccessful teaching of English is that of considering English
composition as a science, and not as an art. If it is a science, then the com-
paratively easy method of sound instruction in rhetorical principles will be
successful. But if it is an art, then, like every other art, it can be mastered
only by long and faithful practice. •
Another says:
I do not think that there is any necessary connection between wide read-
ing and good writing. I have myself known mature men, scholars of excep-
tionally wide reading in many languages, who wrote in a style not absolutely
incorrect indeed, but exceedingly dull and difficult. Wide reading forms the
style and enlarges the vocabulary of the born writer, the man who, like
Stevenson, reads with an instinctive feeling for style, in its broad effects and
its niceties of phrase. But such a reader turns naturally from reading to
writing, using what he has gained from the style of others, unconsciously or
(as in Stevenson's case again) by a deliberate reproduction.
Such cases manifestly give no support to the generalization in your quota-
tiom. The Stevensons hardly enter into the problem of the instructor in
English. The fine appreciation of style in others is naturally and commonly
associated with the power and probably with the desire to write, but this
conscious and discriminating appreciation of style is rare. Thousands read
widely who neither possess nor acquire it; reading for the matter and obliv-
ious of the manner. In such cases wide reading has but little or no effect on
style. } -
In general I should say, that the art of writing (so far as it can be learned
at all) must be learned by writing, as the art of painting must be learned in
the studio rather than by looking at pictures in a gallery. Practice in either
art should begin early. As to the experiment cited, it seems permissible to
ask, if the results claimed were gained by a study of Shakspere, why give
ÖVAW/) ÆÆGARAZ) ÜA 7TÆ S7TÜZ) J^ OA^ ÆΛVG Z/SÆ7 CO/MAOS/7TVOAV 327
up reading for writing in the sophomore year, or the junior year, or the senior?
If the ability to write will come by reading, a very burdensome occu-
pation will be gone. e -
It is important to note that, in the judgment of a Harvard
instructor— - .
the opinion quoted from the Cemtury is not borne out by the experience of the
department of English at Harvard. We find a marked difference between
the work of the freshman and sophomore classes in English composition, a
difference which shows that the writing of the same man before the course in
freshman composition and after it, is technically of very different quality.
With one exception all the members of the department who teach English
composition agree in this opinion. «
Objection to the position taken by the writer of the article
in the Cemtury is raised in the following report on the ground of
psychology:
There is a great difference between (1) interpreting visual forms to get
their meaning-equivalents, and (2) employing these forms to express one's
own thoughts. A simple illustration of this is found in the case of adults who
read Shakspere and who enjoy him, but who could not possibly constructa
half-dozen sentences on the Shaksperian plan, because their relations with
their author have not involved this factor of reproduction of his phraseology
and peculiar modes of expression. Then to proceed on the plan of having
pupils read widely without the necessity of writing will not accomplish as
much as the quotation claims for it. But if occasion be made for the pupil
to convey his thoughts in the happiest and most effective manner, the best
preparation therefor is unquestionably to have him brought into vital, sympa-
thetic connection with models in which these qualities are embodied. An
individual will grow in the power of literary expression mainly by the more
or less close imitation of good models presented in his literary environment;
just as in the formation of character in general it is far more effective to put
one in the presence of a concrete, living personality exhibiting certain desir-
able qualities of conduct than to give him a program of formal rules setting
forth how he should behave himself. One can imitate an act more easily
than he can transform into execution a verbal description of the act. So the
life, the spirit, the effectiveness at any rate of one's linguistic expression must
come, it seems to me, from his reading rather than from his formal study.
But still formal, technical things must often be learned in a formal, tech-
nical way. A pupil may read ever so widely and still go on using the split
infinitive in his own writing. Again, some of the larger characteristics of
good expression will often be. missed by even the widest reader if his attention
has not been especially directed to such matters. For instance, I have in
328 7TÆRÆ SCÆVOO/L ÆÆ VVÆ VV
mind now a man who has pastured in all the richest literary fields, but who
frequently presents an anti-climax in his written performances. The fact is
that most readers are interested in*the content of what they are reading, and
not in the forms of expression, and so they never get hold of these latter so
as to use them. Without doubt much experience will give a certain kind of
consciousness of things technical, yet it is certain that in some cases, at any
rate, this consciousness will not be vivid enough to have a controlling influ-
ence upon the individual's writing. It must be remembered that the pro-
cesses involved in motor execution are not immediately connected with the
processes of interpretation of visual symbols, so when a man takes a pencil '
in his hand it does not follow by any means that the experience gained
through the eye will determine the activities of the fingers. «»
This connection is to be established by a certain amount of attention
which will weld together the graphic and other language processes, and the
initiative in turning the attention upon the proper things must often be taken
by some one other than the learner himself.
Emphasizing the same general thought in a different fashion
is the following:
Though the average student may be a wide reader, he is certainly a
careless reader ; he will never acquire a good style by unconscious imitation.
In every college are to be found students who spell badly, who punctuate
indifferently, whose diction is meager and inaccurate, who have little feeling
foridiomatic phrasing or for sentence-structure, who will write an entire essay
in one or two paragraphs, or who will make a paragraph of each sentence ;
so blind have they been to the examples of correct usage that have been
before their eyes ever since they learned to read.
In the matter of form, of constructing an essay that shall have an organic
relation of parts, even very good students may be deplorably weak; in fact,
one may have a good command of language, yet fail entirely to write about
his subject. I quote an instructive passage from the Auzobiograff/y of Philip
Gilbert Hamerton : “ I offered two or three papers to the * Westminster,'
which were declined, and then I wrote to the editor asking him if he would
be so good as to explain, for my own benefit and guidance, what were the
reasons for their rejection. His answer came, and was both kind and judi-
cious. ' An article,' he told me, 'ought to be an organic whole, with a pre-
arranged order and proportion amongst its parts. There ought to be a
beginning, a middle, and an end.' This was a very good and much-needed
lesson, for at that time I had no notion of a synthetic ordommamce of parts.”
This lesson, I submit, might have been given by a college teacher; but a
teacher of that kind Hamerton never had; and I admit that the lessons that
are given by an editor — when he is willing to give them—are more deeply
imprinted in the mind, and are more completely learned. Certainly this
lesson was an important one for the youth, who— whatever his merit as a
UΛVZDÆ Â® GARA/)UA 7TÆ S7TUVQ Y OÄ7 ÆΛVG ZASAHV COMÆOS/7T7OAV 329
writer may be — eventually became a successful editor and the author of a
dozen or more of interesting books.
If the college cannot help the student in the matter of English Composi-
tion, why expect the preparatory school to succeed ? Or why stop there ? Is
it right to place so much drudgery upon the grammar and primary schools ?
Where is the line to be drawn ? At spelling ? or punctuation ? or at the
ability to construct sentences that are grammatical ? Or shall we leave
everything that comes under the head of English Composition to be learned
by unconscious imitation, by absorption, and devote our energies to the teach-
ing of Shakspere ?
The question really resolves itself into this : Can instructors in English
Compositión accomplish anything with their students ? I believe that even
the dullest students can be taught enough to justify the time and the nervous
energy that are expended by their instructors, that much can be done toward
the correction of faults, something even in the direction of positive excellences.
I freely admit that this work involves a considerable outlay of time,
energy, and money; but I doubt whether the result is correspondingly any
smaller than is the case with certain other subjects. In colleges in which
mathematics is required throughout the freshman year, can the instructors
felicitate themselves upon the attainments of the lower half of the class,
especially upon those of the lowest quarter of the class ? And do not the
members of this lowest quarter hold on to the little English that they have
learned, and get more profit from it, than the members of the lowest quarter
in mathematics get from their little learning ?
One of the most elaborate of the reports is the following,
which covers a large number of the questions suggested by the
quotation, and is in harmony with the spirit of many briefer
statements of opinion :
Since the quotation seems to imply a confusing distinction between rhet-
oric and composition, let me say that I understand the topic for discussion to
be the college study of prose composition and diction, both theory (as in
manuals, lectures, and analysis of good prose) and practice (as by the writing
of themes regularly for regular criticism). This study, by whatever name it
be called, is not uniformly valuable in allits parts. For first, dictiom (?. e., all
that relates to words and phrases separately and to their harmony) cannot, to
any great degree, be directly inculcated. The development of a man's vocab-
ulary being the development of his experience, a theme-reader's criticism of
it is limited usually to correction and general suggestion, î. e., is largely nega-
tive. This is the less unfortunate since the best means toward range, pre-
cision, and force of phrase is reading. I should have thought this a truism,
if it had not been so solemnly affirmed in the quotation. And I have to add
only (I) that “ wide " reading is not solikely to be so productive as deep read-
ing ; and (2) that just here courses in rhetoric and courses in literature,
instead of clashing, may complement each other.
33o 7HE SCHOO L Æ Æ VVÆ VV
Assuming, then, that in general (it would by no means always be true of
a given case) diction may be improved as well by reading as by writing, we
have still unanswered the whole question of composition in the literal sense;
z. e., of construction. But this is the proper domain of rhetoric. Therefore
the fallacy in the inference quoted on the circular is in arguing mainly beside
the point. The real question is in effect this: Can the average student learn
as well how to make his own writing lucid and forcible in construction by
reading the best poems, plays, and essays, as by practice and criticism
directed toward his specific ends ? Remembering that the student may do
both, and in fact often does both concurrently, observe that composition may be
roughly divided into the Zogica/ sort, the sort that proceeds from proposition
to proposition, and the artistic sort, the sort whose progress is not measured
by propositions. The two sorts overlap, especially in what we call essays,
but the distinction is real. Now the practice of the latter sort, the artistic or
literary, is the affair of the few. The study of it in masterpieces covers
almost the whole range of college courses in English literature, and I sup-
pose we all agree to this as part of any scheme of liberal education ; but the
practice, the composing, for instance, of short stories, is the affair of the few,
and these few precisely the ones to whom teaching, whether of rhetoric or of
literature, is least important. That college courses in rhetoric are useful even
to these is sufficiently established by experience : but the point is that such
courses must be a small part numerically of college work in rhetoric.
We are brought, then, by exclusion to this important fact, so important,
it seems to me, thatit ought to be made cardinal in our arrangement of courses :
zÀe magm business of rhetoric zvzt/, f/ae /z/zdem graduate mass zs zo teacλ δy ρre-
'cept, ôy ama/yszs of masterÃîeces, ôy examp/e, Zogica? compositiom.
To this I should add a corollary : It is also clearly within the province of
rhetoric as we now use the word, to teach artistic composition; but since this
is the ground where, courses called “ rhetoric” and courses called “litera-
ture” overlap, the time devoted to it by a given group of courses in rhetoric
should depend upon the number and character of the courses in literature ;
should depend, that is, on the particular college. In this regard colleges vary,
and will doubtless continue to vary, widely, both in the extension given to the
terms /r/aetoric, Eng/zs/, and /itemratumre, and in the actual proportion of hours
given, on the one hand mainly to reading, and on the other hand mainly to
writing. In short, the teaching of rhetoric may profitably spend on the artis-
tic side so much time as seems wise in a given college to complement the
teaching of literature; so much, furthermore, as will give to any student the
opportunity for consecutive criticism of any artistic form he shows himself
capable of pursuing; but in every college the teaching of rhetoric must
devote its main time to the training of the average student on the logical side.
Finally, let me explain what I wish to include in that term logical. Argu-
mentation, of course, debate, and other kinds of speechmaking. Persuasion
must always remain for most men the main skill sought by rhetoric. Its
{V/VZ)ÆÆGÆA Z) UA 7TÆ S7TÜZ) V OÆ ÆAVG Z/SÆ CO/MAOS/7TVO/V 33 I
importance is not in the least diminished by such changes in outward form as
have ensued upon modern conditions. But the term logical is meant to
include also what the books call exposition, either as subsidiary to persuasion
or as independent and self-sufficing; in a word, to include essays as well as
speeches. Either may or may not be literary in diction ; both are logical in
construction. Logical progress, in the whole and in every part, the lucid
conduct of a theme to its conclusion, is attainable by every student through
courses in rhetoric; it is attainable, without immensely great labor, in no
other way; and through courses in the history of literature or through “ wide"
reading without practice it is not attainable at all. “ Reading,” in the sense
of logical analysis, the study of the whole framework and of each part, is of
course directly contributory ; but this kind of “ reading'' is confined practi-
cally to courses in rhetoric.
This logical grasp, this bringing of knowledge to bear, which is one of the
most fundamentally valuable results of a college education, is subserved
more directly, I believe, than in any other single way, by the teaching of rhet-
oric. Essentially different from all other courses in seeking directly a skill,
an ability, rhetoric may thus be made to serve in particular each course on
which it depends for material, and in general the great object of all the
courses together. Here, it seems to me, is its main claim to a place in any
scheme of college education. Whatever was once meant to be included in
the idea of logic as the *' organon,'' our “organon " in college today is
rhetoric.
To expressions of opinion so able and so complete it is quite
unnecessary that this committee add anything. The case for
reading as a sufficient independent means of teaching composi-
tion has evidently, in the judgment of most college teachers,
not yet been made out. The burden of proof, therefore, still
rests upon the advocates of reading as against theme-writing.
No one doubts the value of reading as an aid to composition,
and most of us will probably agree that the constant endeavor
to draw something out of nothing is as dismal a failure as the
attempt to get up steam in an empty boiler. On the other hand,
to rely wholly upon reading as a means of reaching the rhetori-
cal goal is, to quote the picturesque phrase of one report, about
as satisfactory as trying to walk on One leg instead of two.
WILLIAM E. M EAD,
Secretary of the Pedagogical Section of the
Modern Language Association.
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY,
Middletown, Conn.
?,
THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH.*.
I. IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.
LIST NO. I: QUESTIONS FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.
I. What subjects studied in the primary and grammar schools do you
include under the term Eng/is/., or Lamguage? .*
2. How many hours of the week are devoted to each of these subjects in
the first grade ? in the third ? in the sixth ? in the eighth (or ninth)?
3. What do you regard as the chief aims of the English work viewed
as a whole ? '
4. In addition to the natural influences and opportunities afforded by
the schoolroom for improving the children's speech, is there any organized
effort made in your school to improve the spoken English of the pupils— (a)
as to quality of voice, (5) as to clearness of articulation, (c) as to common
illiteracies of speech ?
5. Do you have spoken composition work to any extent ?
6. Is the written composition work of the earlier years especially
designed to cultivate accuracy, or faciJi£y?
7. Have you any opinions on the teaching of spelling that would be of
service to others who are struggling with the spelling problem ? In teaching
spelling, do you believe in making an especial point of syllabication ? Do
you approve of oral spelling, or do you think that all spelling recitations
should be in writing ? -
8. Are especial details of written form (such as the comma in a series,
quotation marks, etc.) assigned to given grades for especially thorough study?
9. What proportion of the composition work is examined by the teacher?
What proportion do the pupils revise without rewriting ? What proportion
do they rewrite ?
I o. Are the same standards of excellence insisted upon in all written
exercises, whether they are or are not regarded as “ compositions'' ?
I I. What are the Sources of supply for composition subjects ?
I 2. Are your pupils encouraged to write often with the thought of a
specific audience ?
I 3. Do you ever interchange compositions with other Schools for mutual
criticism by the pupils ?
I 4. Are themes often read before the class by pupil or by teacher ?
1 5. How large a proportion of the reading supplied in regular and sup-
plementary *' reading books " deserves to be called literature, — in the third
grade ? the sixth grade ? the eighth (ninth) grade ?
* Report of Committee on Methods of Teaching and Studying English, presented
to the New England Association of Teachers of English, by the Committee on Meth-
ods of Teaching and Studying English, March, I 902.
332
Æ VG Z/SÆ /ΛV 7THÆ Æ ZÆÆMÆΛV7AÄ€ Y SCHOO/LS 333
, * i6. Apart from the literature supplied in the reading books, is there a
definite program in literature for each grade, or is each teacher left to her
own judgment in the choice of literature ? If there is a definite program in
literature, we shall be very grateful for as full a statement of it as you may
find it convenient to send.
17. Does the study of literature in your schools include the following
kinds of work ? (a) Reading literature to the class by the teacher ; (ò) read-
ing literature aloud in class by pupils ; (c) reading literature at home, to be
discussed in class ; (d) telling stories by the teacher; (e) telling stories by the
children ; (f) recitation of poetry by the pupils? 3.
18. Assuming that the main effort of the teacher is to interest the pupils
in what the author has to say, is any effort made to make them conscious and
appreciative of how the author says it — in the third grade? the sixth ? the
eighth (ninth)?
I 9. In what lines is there the greatest need of improvement in the
English work ? �*
- 2o. How, in your judgment, may such improvement be effected ?
Your committee has decided that it is practically impossible
to report upon all the phases of English work at this meeting,
and proposes to discuss the subject of expression, including
both spoken and written English, omitting thereby an equally
important if not more important matter, and to many of us a
more interesting matter, the teaching of literature, except in so
far as the teaching of literature must be considered in dealing
with the question of the pupil's expression. -
As you are aware, three series of questions on the teaching of
English were sent out by your committee about the middle of
January. These questions were sent not only to members of the
association, but to elementary and secondary schools, both public
and private, throughout New England, and to colleges in and
outside of New England. We have taken it for granted that the
purpose of the association is not to accumulate statistics but to
learn of one another and from outsiders how better work may
be done in the teaching of English, therefore we have attempted
to secure information from only alimited number of representative
persons. My own questions were sent to seventy persons con-
nected with elementary school work, forty of whom are outside
of this association. The list includes superintendents of schools,
principals of schools, teachers connected with training schools,
and teachers in elementary schools. Forty replies have been
334 7THÆ SCAZOO Z Æ Æ VVÆ VV
received, fifteen from members and twenty-five from persons out-
side of the association. A number of the replies have been
unexpectedly full and valuable, and all have been useful and
suggestive. I feel greatly indebted to my correspondents for
their courtesy and assistance. It would be entirely unscientific
to assume that from these replies we can know what is being
done throughout New England; the replies, however, have this
value: they call attention to fruitful lines of endeavor which
may well be imitated, to errors which are to be avoided, and to
debatable points which, it is hoped, may be discussed by this
association.
The province of a committee on methods is 1n itself a debat-
able question, inasmuch as the term methods is variously under-
stood and frequently abused. In this report I shall use the
term to signify the means employed in attempting to realize the
purposes of the English work. This immediately suggests that
the whole question of method depends upon a much more
important and more fundamental matter— the question of pur-
pose or aim. The shallowness and ineffectualness of many so-
called methods are due, I am convinced, to the inadequacy of
the teacher's conception of purpose. To be specific, a teacher
of average ability who sees with absolute clearness that one pur-
pose for which the state employs her is that she may teach
children from illiterate homes to use English intelligibly, who
sees it so clearly that she weighs her own work in the balance
and finds it wanting when she fails to attain this end, may be
trusted to find intelligent and effectual methods; whereas the
teacher who fails to see this objective point clearly may use the
exercises elaborated in language books and may imitate the
methods of successful teachers — and all with no results worth
the name. I do not wish to imply for a moment that method is
a matter of slight importance ; it is a matter of grave importance;
but it should take its true place in subordination to purpose.
In view of this relation between purpose and method, I
thought it best, in sending out my questions; to ask about the
purposes of the English work before making inquiries in regard
to the methods. It seemed necessary, however, to understand
AZAVG Z/SÆV /Λ/ 7TÆVÆ Æ ÆÆÆMÆΛV7TAÆ V SCAZOO ZS 335
first what each writer included under the term “ English,'' or
“ language." In answer to this inquiry I find every variety of
opinion, from the one extreme of including the entire curriculum
under the term “ English '' to the other of making the term
“ English " synonymous with composition. There is a correspond-
ing variety in the statements as to the purposes of the English
work ; but a few of the answers point out distinctly what seems
to your committee to be the twofold purpose of the English
work : the first is a practical purpose — the ability to handle
the mother-tongue, to read it, to speak it, to write it with such
intelligence that a certain independence is secured, a power to
understand and to be understood. Now it is perfectly possible
to develop this practical power of interpretation and expression
without developing a love for literature ; a person may speak
and read and write with intelligence without being a lover of
good books ; here, then, we have the second aim, spiritual rather
than practical in its import, far-reaching in its ultimate influence
on life. The far-sighted English teacher works with all these
ends in view ; every exercise that goes by the name of English
in her program has for its primary purpose one or more of these
aims. Such a teacher constantly judges the efficacy of her work
from this standpoint of purpose. “ Do my pupils speak better,
read more intelligently, write more easily, do they choose and
read good books?'' — these are the practical tests which she
applies to her own work.
Before considering the remaining questions, a word of
explanation is necessary. Two most essential features of the
elementary English work are not touched upon in these inquiries,
the methods of teaching beginners how to read and the methods
of teaching formal grammar. The first subject was omitted
because, although one of the most essentially interesting subjects
to the primary teacher and to the student of general education,
it is not a question which touches closely the interests of an
association such as this. Grammar was omitted because it is too
large a subject to be considered in so limited an investigation.
Questions 4 and 5 deal with speech-training. A child's
equipment in speech when he enters the elementary school is
336 7THÆ SCHOO Z. A&AE VVÆ VV
on an entirely different plane from his equipment in any
Other phase of the English work. He is not able to read his
mother-tongue, and he is not able to write it ; he may or may
not have begun to develop a taste for good literature, for he may
have come from a home where Mother Goose, the old fairy tales,
and the Bible stories are known and loved, or he may have come
from a home barren of these and of kindred joys ; buthe invariably
enters the primary school with considerable development in the
matter of speech ; he has a large vocabulary, when one con-
siders how brief a space of time has been devoted to accumulat-
ing it, and certain habits of construction, articulation, voice,
inflection, etc., that immediately individualize him. Here is the
English teacher's most perplexing problem. By means of wise
instruction she may teach a child how to read and write, she
may even cultivate his unformed literary taste by giving him the
best only — the best for a child, that is — but in the matter of
speech, she must take him as he is, with all his imperfections on
his head ; she must not only form new habits, she must break
up a score of old ones ; the good must not be added to the bad,
it must displace the bad.
In answering the question, which occurs at the end of the
circular, as to the lines in which there is the greatest need of
improvement, especial emphasis is laid on spoken English. It
is a satisfaction to find that this need is recognized, for the
recognition of an evil is the first step toward its reform. In my
own experience the work done in this direction by our best
teachers of English is less systematized and less effective than in
any other phase of the English work. And yet the answers to
questions 4 and 5 are very encouraging. Out of the thirty-three
answers received, twenty-four say yes to both questions, and
some writers add, in answer to the inquiry in regard to common
illiteracies, “ constant effort is made.'' Now, constant effort is
not organized effort, and I have sometimes suspected that our
failure is due, in part at least, to this constant, faithful, nagging
effort. *' The correction that does not correct'' is a familiar
experience here: a child is guilty of some solecism in his speech,
the teacher amiably supplies the correct expression, perhaps the
ÆÄVG ZZSÆ /ΛV 7ΤΗΣ ÆÆMÆΛV7TA ® Y SCÆVOO/ZS 337
child repeats it mechanically, perhaps he does not repeat it at
all ; the lesson proceeds, the next day the same thing occurs,
the constant effort of the faithful teacher is renewed, and so on
to the end of the chapter.
Now, this is both unphilosophical and unworthy. An organ-
ized effort in this matter implies at least three things that may
be done in any school: First, a classified list may be made of
the faults most common among the pupils ; second, although no
teacher should ignore any of the faults mentioned, to each
teacher may be assigned certain errors against which a special
crusade may be carried on while the pupils are under her charge ;
third, every teacher needs to see clearly what means are at her
disposal, and needs to use these means intelligently. These are
the obvious means available in the schoolroom for improving
and developing the children's speech — environment, instruction,
practice. Because our speech is so largely the result of our
environment, some enthusiasts have believed that nothing is
necessary in the schoolroom but a wholesome and stimulating
environment ; and I agree heartily with them that this is the
first essential. Given a teacher whose speech is first interesting
and then accurate, given a generous supply of good reading and
a wide range of wholesome interests, and the speech of the
children must inevitably be benefited in many ways : their
vocabulary must increase, their constructions must improve,
their articulation and inflection even may become more culti-
vated ; but this is not enough, as experience has often proved.
There are two types of people whose speech is not reformed by
environment: first, those who are naturally oblivious to all forms
of speech, who notice no difference between their own speech
and that of others, who are unaware that they make errors; and,
second, those who have a few bad habits of speech fixed by so
many years of practice that, although they may know better
theoretically, they make these particular errors unconsciously.
Let me cite two examples that have come under my observation
recently : One is a girl who came from an illiterate home, but
who, untii the age of fourteem, was in school under the charge
of teachers who spoke good English ; at that age she left school-
338 7THÆ SCHVOO L Ae Æ VVÆ VV
and took up an occupation that carried her from family to
family ; as she was an absolutely trustworthy and friendly soul
she was brought into close relations with people of much culti-
vation and refinement; her opportunities for hearing delightful
English were unusual ; she was very observing in many ways,
and in her topics of conversation and her knowledge of the ways
of refined living soon began to show the result of her environ-
ment : but her speech remained practically unchanged, full of
the most glaring illiteracies. It was quite evident that she
needed something besides environment. The other was a girl
who had excellent school advantages until she was twenty years
old ; her vocabulary was unusually large, her appreciation of
literature was genuine and ardent; in the course of fifteen min-
utes I heard her use lay for lie, I zwisht for I zwish, and /i/ée for as.
She, too, had needed something besides environment. Both
girls had needed, early in their school lives, to have their errors
of speech brought to their attention and the correct forms sup-
plied, î. e., they had needed definite instruction ; both had
needed practice in saying the right things, in feeling their
organs of speech produce the unfamiliar combinations; a con-
scious effort to do the right thing was essential. (Some of us
are very much afraid of making children conscious of their
speech : I think this is an unwarrantable anxiety.) And some-
how or Other — and it is perfectly feasible — instruction and
practice must be so managed that an enthusiasm for good speech
is aroused ; this is the most essential element of all ; this
accounts for the fact that, whereas, one girl from an illiterate
home continues in her habits of illiteracy, another who has
received the same instruction, but in whom an earnest desire
for better speech has been aroused, uses a language conspicu-
ously different from that of her parents. Environment, instruc-
tion, practice, and all of them shot through with the interest
that stimulates to endeavor — these means are at the disposal of
every one of us.
A word about the nature of the practice is necessary. It
must strike directly at the fault in question, and not beat about
the bush. A child whose articulation is slovenly, who drops his
ÆΛVG Z/SÄ7 7ΛV 7THÆ ÆZÆMÆΛV7TA® Y SCÆVOOZS 339
g's or puts an r after the azv sound, may go on repeating such
words as singing and saw after his teacher indefinitely, and he
will still drop his g's and use that intrusive r—so retiring and
coy in our average New England speech ; what he needs is to
use such words as sîngîng in the midst of other words and such
words as saw with a vowel sound immediately following. A
story is told — it may be a story only, but every teacher knows
that it is essentially true — of a boy who used the expression, “I
have went home ;'' thereupon his teacher made him write / have
gome fifty times after school ; the teacher was not in the room
when the task was finished, and, in order to explain his disap-
pearance, he added in good faith at the end of his paper, * I
have went home,'' and departed, leaving the document on his
desk, an unwitting monument to the teacher's folly.
One other somewhat pressing question presents itself in con-
nection with spoken English: How shall the children's sentence
sense be trained ? how shall the sentence habit, as we like to
call it, be established ? Some people believe that the children
should never speak in school except in complete sentences. I
knew a school in which this rule of action was carried so far that,
upon being asked by the teacher, as she pointed out a word in
the spelling-lesson, “ What word is that ?'' the children would
reply, ** I think the word is so-and-so.” Now, the absurdity and
wastefulness of this are evident. Moreover, the effort tO have
every expression of thought in the shape of a full-fledged sen-
tence when observing and discussing things in which the pupils
are really interested, such as pictures, or plants, or books, is
entirely contrary to the customs of cultivated people. Imagine
visiting an art gallery with a friend, and, as you walked from
painting to painting enjoying the spontaneous interchange of
opinion, being suddenly forced to express yourself in complete
sentences only ! Of course, the excuse offered for this exagger-
ated method is that it is difficult to draw the line, and that, unless
children are required to talk in sentences all the time, they will
neither talk nor write in complete sentences when occasion
requires. I can only say that this statement is not borne out by
my own observation and experience ; in my own classes and in
34o - 7THÆ SCHOOZ RÆ VVÆ VV
watching the work of other people, I have found it perfectly
possible to carry on a natural, informal conversation — an inter-
change of impressions — about a picture for example, with no
thought of sentences, with no thought of anything but the
picture and an occasional correction in pronunciation or the
choice of a word—and later to gather together in an orderly and
complete way all that has been thought and said, as a bit of
oral or written composition. The point lies just here: the
habit of good sentence construction and transition is due to two
things — first, to a knowledge of what a sentence is and of what
constitutes suitable transition from one sentence to another (not
a knowledge that can express itself in definition, but a knowl-
edge that makes it possible to recognize that this group of words
is a sentence, and that group is not); and second, much practice
in making and combining sentences. Children learn with sur-
prising quickness to differentiate between the group of words
constituting a part of a sentence and the complete sentence ; this
is observable in the lowest grade. It is true the teachers are
often unduly afraid of the term sentemce, and say to the children,
“ Give me the zwhole story,'' and the child responds with the
complete sentence. The little child's most conspicuous fault in
transition is to introduce every sentence with and ; when this
error is pointed out, however, he takes a distinct pride in over-
coming it. So far as practice is concerned, there are numerous
opportunities that can be made use of every day: in the higher
grades the formal recitation from topics of history and geog-
raphy, and perhaps physiology and the explanation of problems
in arithmetic ; and, in the lower grades, reproduction of stories,
simple accounts of personal experience, descriptions of the pic-
tures that have been discussed informally—all combine to provide
ample opportunity for the making and combining of sentences.
Some one may ask whether following an informal conversa-
tion about a picture by a formal rearrangement and restatement
of what has been already said does not involve an anti-climax
from the standpoint of interest. That depends entirely, I have
found, upon the motive or purpose of the more formal oral exer-
cise ; if it is in preparation, for instance, for a written exercise
A€ΛVGAZ/SÆV /ΛV 7THVÆ ÆÆMÆΛV7TA Ä€ V SCHOO/LS 34 I
which is to be taken home to some one who has not seen the
picture, or if any other appealing social motive is used, there
need be no falling off in interest. I would say, too, in passing,
that, with the exception of literature, no subject of study found
in the elementary school gives so delightful and natural an
opportunity of enlarging the children's vocabulary and of teach-
ing them a discriminating use of words as the effort to express
what is seen and enjoyed in a picture.
In regard to this matter of spoken composition, then, a mat-
ter which involves proper choice of words, proper combination
of words into sentences, and suitable transition from one sentence
to another, I have been trying to say simply this— that a knowl-
edge of what is right and much practice are needed, and that
such practice need not encroach upon the perfectly natural and
informal interchange of opinion that should be a part of the
schoolroom life.
Question 6 asks whether the written composition work of the
earlier years in the elementary school is especially designed to
cultivate accuracy or facility. Of the thirty-four answers
received to this question, eight say both, ten say accuracy, and
sixteen say facility. You will see, then, that a decided majority
of those who choose one consider facility the more important
matter. This opinion does not agree with the opinion of your
committee. To us it seems that accuracy should not be sacri-
ficed to facility, as is too often the case when facility is the
prominent aim. Written forms are matters of habit, compara-
tively easy to acquire provided the practice be as nearly correct
as possible from the beginning, very difficult to reform if the
practice has been inaccurate and careless. Of course, the reason
offered here is that children who are obliged to think continually
about sentences, paragraphs, punctuation, etc., are so hampered
and burdened that they cannot express themselves sponta-
neously. There are at least two ways of meeting this obstacle :
one is to give ample opportunity for spontaneity and facility in
oral expression, the other is to familiarize children with the
forms of written English through well-selected copying and dic-
tation exercises, in which the attention is necessarily on the
342 7THÆ SCHOOL ÆÆ VIÆ VV
form, and through which the use of correct forms may become
habitual. Then, in their written composition—aithough they
must give some thought to form, as they know that accuracy is
expected — the pupils will at the same time use quite uncon-
sciously many of the correct forms which have been growing
into matters of habit. I am inclined to think that the accurate
emptiness of the little themes that we sometimes get from the
older grammar-school children is due not so much to the stress
laid upon accuracy as to the lack of effort made to enlarge the
children's experience and to stimulate their thought.
Question 7 deals with spelling. It would take more time
than can possibly be given to report and discuss the interesting
answers to this question. I will say, in passing, that thirty persons
express approval of syllabication and only one disapproval, and
that there is a unanimous verdict in favor of more or less oral
spelling. One reply contains a statement of much significance,
which I commend to your consideration. This reply comes from
the Horace Mann School, a school for the education of the deaf,
and is as follows : “The pupils educated in the Horace Mann
School, as a rule, do not misspell. We think this due to their
constant use of written language.''
Question 8 asks whether certain details of written form are
assigned to particular grades for especial study. Twenty-seven
answer this question in the affirmative, seven in the negative. I
should like to read three replies to this question, each from a
writer whose position and success give weight to his opinion.
The first says:
No. Punctuation, being a means of making the writer's thoughts clear to
the reader, should be studied in connection with the expression of thought.
(Beyond the period, comma, question and quotation marks,
the use of punctuation cannot be successfully taught until the
pupil is able to construct long sentences and finds the need of
punctuation to make himself clear. We do not attempt much
beyond what has been stated below the seventh grade.) The
second says:
' We do assign special uses of punctuation marks, of capital letters, and
certain abbreviations to each of the lower grades. I believe that, whilst this
ÆAVGZZSA AV TAE EZEMEA/TARY SCHOOZS 343
is somewhat arbitrary, it is the effective way to get done in each grade what
ought to be done.
The third says:
Yes, but they usually have to be taught again in the next grade. I have
suggested that these technical facts be taught when they are first needed by
the children, in whatever grade they are. -
Different as these three answers are, they give the essential
features of the plan that I am about to recommend. Before outlin-
ing this plan, however, it is necessary to make a distinction in the
use of a term. Teaching a written form may mean illustrating
and explaining it so that it is understood, or it may meam, in addi-
tion, giving sufficient practice to cause the use of the written
form to become habitual. It seems to me that it should mean
the second. The written forms that should have become habitual
when a pupil enters the secondary school are the arrangement on
the page with due regard to margins, the use of capitals, and the
use of all the punctuation marks. Some of these—like the
arrangement on the page, the capital at the beginning of the
sentence, and the period at the end—are needed in the very
lowest grade; others—like the semicolon, and the comma
before an additional clause, as distinguished from a restrictive
clause — cannot be fully understood until grammar is studied,
and would naturally come in the seventh or eighth grades. Of
course, whatever is taught in one grade has to be reviewed in
subsequent grades; but, if it has been taught with ample practice, .
the reviewing takes but little time, comparatively. Now suppose
the exigencies of a bit of written composition require the use of
some form not yet taught, as, for example, the plural possessive
in the second grade. Here the form may be shown and explained,
and the brighter children will make it theirs ; but it does not
seem essential that the whole class should have the practice
in the form necessary to make the matter an unconscious habit;
that concentrated practice may come in a later grade. As for
the method of study recommended in the first reply, of course
the best way to introduce any new usage is in connection with
the natural expression of thought when the need is felt.
In considering this question it must be borne in mind that,
344 7T£VAE SCHOOÆ ÆÆ VVÆ VV
when a very large and general demand is made of a teacher rather'
than a reasonable and definite requirement, the results are likely
to be unsatisfactory; and, from the standpoint of the elementary
school as a whole with its eight grades, the danger is that certain
usages will require unnecessary emphasis, and that others will be
almost entirely neglected. It would seem reasonable and prac-
ticable, then—and I will add that I am speaking from experience
, here—to assign for especial practice certain details to the grades
where they are most likely to be first needed and frequently
needed, at the same time to leave every teacher free to explain
and illustrate other needed usages to which she cannot give an
equal amount of drill, and to call for the review in each grade of
all usages previously taught.
To question 9—“What proportion of the composition work
is examined by the teacher ? What proportion do the pupils
revise without rewriting ? What proportion do they rewrite ?'' —
the replies are so varying that it is difficult to arrive at any con-
sensus of opinion. I am quite ready to admit that this is largely
the fault of the question. Of the twenty-eight who answer the
first part of the question, twenty say that all or nearly all of the
written work done by the pupils is examined by the teacher, five
say that one-half is examined, and three imply that less than
one-half is examined by the teacher. The answers to the other
parts of the question are too few and too vague to make it worth
while to report them. There is certainly no matter connected
with the English work of the elementary school upon which it is
so difficult to come to any wise conclusion; and provided the wise
conclusions were reached, it would be difficult to state them
briefly, inasmuch as the written English of the elementary school
extends over eight years, and what is demanded by the work of
the low grades differs materially from what is required in the
high grades. But out of the conflicting theories and practices a
few principles of action emerge. In the first place, to quote a
favorite injunction, “Children should not be allowed to write
for the waste basket: '' this does not meam, however, that every
paper of every child should be examined by the teacher ; with
nearly sixty pupils to the teacher, with frequént written work,
ÆΛVGZ/SH /ΛV 7THÆ ÆZÆMÆΛV7ARY SCHOOLS 345
and with that written work only one feature of an exacting
school program consisting of seven or eight different subjects,
all taught by that one teacher, this is a practical impossibility;
the teacher must, however, read enough of the papers written by
each child as to discover his chief needs and his progress,
and to make him recognize the fact that his work may be
examined at any time and that it frequently is examined. This
is not an ideal arrangement, and it points emphatically to the
urgent need of fewer pupils to the teacher in the elementary
school—a change more called for, probably, than any other
purely administrative reform. In the second place, examination
by the teacher must not mean correction by the teacher, a practice
that inevitably deprives a child of go per cent. of the benefit that
should come to him from the teacher's examination of his work ;
it should mean rather the indication of necessary corrections.
In the third place, the pupil must show by revision that he under-
stands the teacher's criticisms; rewriting, it seems to me, should
be less frequent than revision, and should grow less not only as
the work of a given year proceeds but as the total work of the
elementary school proceeds, unless the nature of the criticism is
such as to call for reconstruction of the entire theme rather than
for correction of individual errors. In the fourth place the pupil
should be trained as early as possible to become his own critic,
for eventually that is what he must be. It seems worth while
to state briefly a plan of work that is being successfully tried in
the higher grades of an elementary school in Massachusetts.
The pupils are provided with a set of questions which they have
more or less in mind as they write, and which they apply deliber- .
ately to their own work after they have finished writing.
QUESTIONS,
Was it worth writing ?
Is it divided into paragraphs correctly ?
. Are the paragraphs divided into sentences correctly ?
. Is the writing neat, legible, not crowded ?
Is the meaning clear ?
. Are words used correctly ?
. Omissions ?
. Are capitals used correctly?
346 . - 7THÆ SCHVOO 7 ÆÆ V7Æ MV
9. Is the spelling (including syllabication) correct ?
Io. Is the punctuation correct?
I I. Is the grammar correct?
I 2. Construction?
STAGES IN THE WORK.
I. Pupils write, leaving margins on both sides.
2. Each pupil corrects his own writing, using the questions as a guide
for Self-criticism. He actually makes the corrections, so far as is possible.
Margins not used.
3. One of the exercises is written on the blackboard. The class and
teacher together discuss and correct it.
4. The exercises are distributed to the class, no one receiving the one
he wrote. Each pupil examines an exercise, indicating in the margin (by
number or some other symbol) the mistakes he finds, but not correcting
them,
5. The teacher examines the papers (all or part) at this stage, noting
the proficiency of the pupil both in writing the exercise and in criticising,
adding marks of criticism, and striking out marks of criticism that should
not have been made. -
6. Each pupil receives his paper, bearing in the margin the marks indi-
cating the mistakes, and copies the exercise into his book, correcting the
mistakes. During this time the teacher is at the service of the class to assist
them, The book must not be considered absolutely free from mistakes.
It will be readily seen that this scheme does not save the
teacher work, in the early stages of its use at least ; but the
result ought eventually to be that the pupils become more
thoughtful, more discriminating, more accurate, and that there-
fore in the long run the teacher's work be materially diminished.
The details of the plan might of course be modified ; its merit
lies in these essential features: (I) definite lines of improve-
ment known to the pupil, in which his own interest is enlisted
and for which he is held responsible; (2) an opportunity
to develop his critical powers by applying them both to his own
work and to somebody's else ; (3) a final judgment from the
teacher. -
Question Io asks whether the same standards of excellence
are insisted upon in all written exercises. Of the thirty-six
persons who answer this question, twenty-one say yes; thirteen
say yes with reservations ; two say mo. I am inclined to think
that those who say yes with reservations are not only nearer the
ÆÂVG LVSÆ7 /ΛV 7TÄVÆ Æ/ ÆMÆΛV7TAÆ V SCAHOO/LS 347
truth as it is, but are nearer the truth as it should be. The same
standards of spelling, for example, should be required in the
rapidly written history report and in the theme carefully pre-
pared for the English lesson; but there should certainly be a
more conscious effort for fitness of expression in the latter, and
in this respect the same standards should not be applied to both.
I once knew a teacher in an elementary school who complained
bitterly because her pupils did very careless work in English
composition. “ How often do your pupils write compositions ?"
I inquired. “ Once in two weeks,'' was the answer. *' Do you
have any other written work?” “ Oh, yes, the boys write their
history lesson every morning.” “ And what sort of written
English do they produce in their history exercises ?” “ Oh, I
never pay any attention to their English in those exercises. I
haven't time,'' was the reply. I comfort myself with the thought
that this is an extreme case ; but it is this type of thing — often
exhibited in a less flagrant form — that is responsible for much
of the slovenly, indifferent work that we find.
Question I I asks for the nature of the subjects used for
composition exercises. Almost everyone replies that the regular
school subjects provide topics for composition, and perhaps half
the number add to this source of supply the personal experience
and outside interests of the pupils. That the school subjects
should furnish a part of the material for compositions seems
essential for two reasons: (I) the work done in geography,
history, etc., needs the added stimulus, the demand for clear
thinking and exact expression that writing requires, (2) an entire
avoidance of the regular subjects of study of the schoolroom,
especially if we substitute for them an attempt to stimulate the
thought and imagination in unnatural directions, is likely to
make composition seem like an end in itself, and this is certainly
a most unfortunate attitude for teacher or pupil to take. Should
we not rather ask, what are the subjects upon which the pupil
has occasion to express himself both in school and outside of
school, and in the next place what are the matters in which it is
desirable to arouse his interest and upon which he should be led
to express himself ? In other words, his own life, and the larger
348 7THÆ SCHOOL Æ Æ VVÆ VV
life of the world as it is now making itself or as it is recorded in
books, and into which the teacher hopes to lead. him, should
furnish the topics upon which he is to write. This basis of choice
affords great variety and contributes materially to a child's edu-
cation, preparing him for the real exigencies that he is to meet
and at the same time increasing his appreciation of some things
that otherwise he might pass by unheedingly.
Questions I 2, I 3, and I 4 are as follows : i 2. “ Are your
pupils encouraged to write often with the thought of a specific
audience ?" I 3. “ Do you ever interchange compositions with
other schools, for mutual criticism by the pupils? '' I 4. “ Are
themes often read before the class by pupil or by teacher?”
Of course the controlling thought in all the practices sug-
gested. by this group of questions is the appeal to the pupil's
social instinct, his natural desire for communication, his natural
inclination to share his thought with others. Such practices give
purpose and dignity to his work. The recognition and applica-
tion of this motive in written work will be fully discussed in the
two reports that are to follow. The answers that I have received
indicate that considerable work of this sort is done in the
elementary schools. •
Questions I 9 and 2o ask in what phases of the English work
there is the greatest need of improvementand how such improve-
ment may be effected. Sixteen think that expression, either
oral or written, or both, calls most loudly for improvement;
four say spelling ; two speak of the need of cultivating a greater
interest in literature ; one speaks of oral reading. It is evident
that our views as to the greatest needs of our pupils are likely to
vary with our own individual interests and with the special con-
ditions under which we teach. In a district in which the majority
of the pupils are drawn from illiterate homes, the need of
improvement in spoken English is certainly the conspicuous and
crying necessity; in a school in which the English is fairly good
and the prevailing current of life vapid and frivolous, the need
of a thorough interest in good, wholesome books impresses the
earnest teacher most strongly ; in a district in which the super-
intendent calls for frequent proofs of the pupils' skill in English
ÆΛVG Z/SHV /ΛV 7THÆ Æ 7. EMÆΛV7TAARY SCHOOLS 349
composition, the teacher would hardly be human if she did not
regard improvement in written English as the conspicuous need.
Although my own belief is that our greatest need in the elemen-
tary school is to establish among our pupils the habit of reading
good books, the scope of this paper demands that I should con-
sider under question 2o only the means that may be used in
effecting improvement in the pupils' power to express them-
selves.
Many familiar remedies are proposed, such as better teachers,
greater thoroughness, patient and persistent instruction ; and one
man who believes better spoken English to be our greatest need
suggests that a more discriminating choice of parents is the only
remedy. In attempting to express my own view, I can find no
words so suggestive as those used by President Eliot in a memor-
able address on “ Education" delivered last November ufider the
auspices of the Twentieth Century Club. These are his words:
Concerning an educated individual, we may fairly ask, “ Can he see
straight ? Can he recognize the fact ? Next, can he draw a just inference
from established facts ? ''
We teachers of English need to see straight, to recognize the
fact, to draw just inferences from established facts. There are
two sets of facts with which we need to concern ourselves : first,
the purposes of our work, i. e., the ideal ends — none the less
facts — for which we are striving ; second, the facts as to the
present condition of our pupils. I think that I am justified im
saying that as a body we do not see with half the needed clear-
ness the ends toward which we should be working. I am sure
that we do not see things as they are with the largeness of view
and the hopefulness that the facts warrant. We find among
many teachers an extremely pessimistic attitude about the power
of expression, especially in speech, shown by the rising gener-
ation ; it is fashionable in some quarters to talk as if our English
were going to the dogs. I believe profoundly that there never
was a time when English was spoken and written so well by so
large a proportion of the people. If you feel pessimistic you
need only to compare the pupils of a great public school system
like that of Boston with their parents. The children from
35o 7THÆ SCÆVOO / ARÆ VVÆ VV
educated homes are following in the parents' footsteps, although
their English is, of course, immature; 'and the children from
illiterate homes are immeasurably above their parents in the
purity of their speech and in their ability to write. As an indi-
cation 9f the work that the schools have been doing, may I give
a bit of personal experience ? For seventeen years now I have
taught girls coming from some six or more Boston high schools
and from scattering high schools outside of Boston ; the written
English of the pupils has improved conspicuously within these
years ; a set of themes from a present entering class is far and
away ahead of those prepared by the entering classes of fifteen
and seventeen years ago. The spoken English is not conspicuously
better. This indicates the direction in which the best work has
been done, and the direction in which better work is needed ; but
it shows above all how encouraging the facts are.
To greater clearness in our grasp of the facts and their
significance, we need to add better organization of our work.
Better organization can only come through co-operation ; and
co-operation means working with approximately common aims,
with methods that do not defeat one another, although there may
be infinite variety in them, and with a rational agreement as to
the division of labor, which shall save us, on the one hand, from ,
doing over one another's work, and, on the other, from altogether
neglecting some essential detail. For the individual teacher I
would ask, then, greater clearness of view; for the body ofteachers,
better organization : only as we gain in these directions may we
hope for substantial growth in our pupils' power to use their
mother-tongue.
- KATHARINE H. SHUTE.
BOSTON NORMAL SCHOOL.
31
II. IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS.*
After the excellent general introduction by Miss Shute, I
need to give only a few special words by way of preface to the
report on secondary schools. - - - -
First of all, I wish to thank between eighty and ninety New
England teachers who have kindly taken the time and pains to
answer the inquiries of list No. II so fully and satisfactorily.
When. we first set about this task some prophets of evil foretold
that I should meet with disappointment in my inquiries among
the secondary schools, and that my portion of the report would
of necessity be theoretical and personal, rather than historical
and critical. I confess that I, too, had misgivings, arising in
part from a knowledge of the indifference with which a general
public is wont to treat circular questions, and I scarcely hoped
for half a hundred replies. But I find myself endowed with a
veritable embarrassment of riches, consisting of answers from
every state in New England, as follows : Maine, 7 reports rep-
resenting 7 schools ; New Hampshire, 9 reports representing 8
schools ; Vermont, 2 reports representing two schools ; Massa-
chusetts, 22 reports representing 2 I schools ; Rhode Island, 8
reports representing 6 schools ; Connecticut, 6 reports repre-
senting 6 schools. `, -
To these I may add a personally solicited report of the
Wadleigh High School of New York city — the largest in the
world, I think, with an enrollment of about three thousand
pupils. There are also, perhaps, a half dozen reports from per-
sons whose names were not appended to their replies, and whose
state is therefore uncertain — probably one of absent-minded-
ness. One of these is postmarked “ Back Bay." -
I have said that there were 22 replies from Massachusetts.
By this I mean the state at large. Besides, there were 32
* The list of questioms is omitted, as each questiom is given in connection with its
replies.
35 U
352 • 7ΤΗΑE SCHVOO Z ÆÆ VVÆ VV
reports representing 24 schools in Greater Boston, I I of these
coming from 3 public and 3 private schools in Boston proper,
not including Roxbury, Dorchester, Charlestown, and such sub-
urban districts even within the city limits.
I note that some of the replies assume that we intend to
report on a wider theme than your committee contemplated.
We decided to confine our inquiries and suggestions to the some-
what humble but necessary theme of composition, leaving the
subject of literature to another committee and a later date.
Grammar and rhetoric also, as well as literature, are left out of
our scheme of inquiry and recommendation, except where their
roots interlace and absolute separation becomes impractical.
One teacher, in submitting a report, says: “ One of my pet
heresies is, that composition, as such, has no place in a high-
school curriculum.'' But as we assume that most of you are
orthodox we do not recommend its immediate abolition.
Our committee has held several meetings, and these have
been characterized by harmony and substantial concord. Still,
it is scarcely to be expected that our reports should agree in all
particulars. In the first place, each member is alone responsi-
ble for the ideas advanced by him or her; in the second place,
the fields traversed by each report are distinct, and need cultiva-
tion in peculiar and sometimes radically different ways. The
general farmer, the market gardener, and the floriculturist all
sow seeds, all sow them in soil, and usually find air, light, and
water are helpful in developing the seed into a plant and in
bringing the plant to maturity. But they may have different
methods of dealing with the vegetable and animal enemies of
their different plants, and may have different methods of coax-
ing and rearing their specialties, according as they are Indian
corn, Hubbard squashes, or Lawson pinks.
Lest some members may have forgotten to bring their lists
of questions, I will read each before submitting the report
thereon. I will also premise that no question was intended to
be a leading one, and that when alternative methods were sug-
gested, an effort was made not to reveal the writer's own pref-
erence, if, indeed, he had one. It was farthest from his desire
ÆλVG LVSÆ7 7ΛV 7THÆ SAECOAV/)AÆ? V SCHOO /„S 353
to act like the prestidigitateur and cause his victim to draw a
forced card. He has been impressed by the spirit of general
interest and the evident frankness of the replies. He has been
encouraged by such remarks as “ Good idea;” “ Never have ; but
I meam to;" " I never thought of it: it seems a valuable sugges-
tion,'' and the like. It is quite unimportant if some of those
“good ideas'' for which he was presumed to stand sponsor did
not meet with his unqualified approval. Such remarks betoken
interest and sympathy on the parts of the respondents, and it is
only when we have a community of interests and a vital sym-
pathy with each other's needs, that this association will be in
the highest sense profitable. The first question upon list No. II
is as follows: “ During how many years is English taught as a
specific subject?” Almost without exception English is taught,
specifically throughout the courses of all the schools heard from ;
but their courses vary in length. They are 3, 4, 5, and in a few
cases 6 years. -
The second question is : (a) “ On an average, how many
recitation periods per week are devoted to the teaching of
English?'' (6) “What proportion of this (also on an average)
is devoted to. composition, and what proportion to literature?”
The answers to the first part (the number of periods per week)
present a wide variety ; 2, 2-+-, 2 %, 3, 3%, 4, 4%, 5, and in
extreme cases Io and even 2o. Possibly in the latter case ref-
erence was made to all recitations conducted in the Emg/is/. /am- .
guage / The Second part — the relative proportion of composi-
tion to literature — is answered, }, 4, 4, §, and § composition,
the smaller fractions being more numerous. In many cases the
amount of composition lessens as the course proceeds. This
seems necessary in order to comply with the college require-
ments in English literature, but I think many colleges wish that
the proportions were half and half.
The third question is, “ How often do you have written
work ?” The replies are : “ Daily;'''' Three to four times a week;''
“ Every one or two days ;" " Two or three times a week ;'
“ Every Friday ;'' “ Irregularly ;” “Very often ;'' “ Once in two
weeks ;'' “ Once in four weeks ;” “Always in composition classes;
in others once in six weeks.''
354 7THÆ SCHOOZ ÆÆ J/VÆ VV
Questions 4, 5, and 6 may well be considered together
because of the extreme range .of the answers. -The latter
sweeps through the whole diapason, chromatics and all. The
questions are : (4) “ About what proportion of the written work
is done outside the class-room ?" (5) “ Of written work in the
class-room, what proportion is impromptu ?" (6) “ Are your
pupils often encouraged to write with the thought of a specific
audience ?” The extreme replies to 4 are : “ Practically all;”
“ Almost none." To 5 they are : “ Most of it;” “ Very little.”
And to 6: “ Rarely ;'' *' Always.” -
Question No. 7 reads, “ How is the written work of your
pupils corrected ?” The replies are full of suggestion and inter-
est. There seems to be a fair unanimity of method, but by com-
mon consent it is not the best method. Almost no teachers
make the mistake of actually correcting the errors and relieving
the pupils of all thought ; most of them indicate with colored
ink or pencil the sort of error and the general location and
leave the pupil to find the rest for himself. A favored few meet
the student in personal conference. In addition to criticisms
like the above by the teacher a fair per cent. of the schools have
more or less of class criticism. ®
No. 8. “ What are your views on the value or personal con-
ference in the correction of compositions ?'' evoked replies
more nearly unanimous than any other question on the list,
Here are a few, and ex pede Herculem. “ Absolutely essential to
the highest success. Practically impossible because the number
of pupils and hours of recitation.” “Absolutely necessary.
Next best thing, extended written criticism returned with the
exercise.” “The nearer instruction in composition comes to a
personal conference on each theme, the nearer it approaches the
ideal.” “ Theoretically, personal conference seems to me the
only satisfactory solution of certain problems in secondary
school English. Practically, 2 I 2 pupils and 28 recitations have
hitherto precluded the possibility of my making any test.'' And
so ad finem.
The answers to No. 9, “ Is corrected work, as a rule, entirely
re-written ?'' disclose a decided difference, not only of method
ÆΛVGLISH /Λ/ THÆ SECONDARY SCHOOLS 355
but of opinion. * Many have their pupils rewrite all as a rule.
Many have that which is below grade rewritten. Some forcibly
object to the rewriting of corrected work on the ground that it
is drudgery for the pupil. We may remark in passing, that if
the pupil could be heard, he would sometimes call it drudgery
to write the first draft.
No. Io is, “ Are the subjects for themes chosen mainly from
literature or from experience ?” Generally speaking there
seems to be a fairly equal division between experience and liter-
ature. The majority seem to devote more time to experience at
the beginning of the course and to literature toward the end.
This is doubtless because of the approaching college examina-
tions. A few schools have mo themes chosen from experience.
Happily, however, they are in a Small minority. One .teacher
says: “ We try to combine experience and literature as in
* Sir Rogerly de Coveley at a Polo Game.''' One or two others
begin with literature and broaden to experience later. This
seems rather like inverting natural processes. Just as fingers
were made before forks, so experiences come before spelling-
books. •
I am a little surprised at the number of negative answers to -
No. I I — “ Do you often have compositions in the form of
reports of recitations, debates, parties, concerts, sermons, or.
speeches ?” Over a score give an unqualified “ No.'' Others say
“ Hardly oftem;” “ Seldom ;'' *' Rarely;” “ Sometimes;” “Occa-
sionally.'' One teacher says : “ We have not dared to touch on
some of these, and the others have been lacking for our use."
At first I was puzzled to see the meaning of this reply ; but later
reflection led me to conclude that the Siège Peri/ous in which no
one dared sit was either at the sermon or at the party, and that
the concert was lacking. But my question did not expect replies
that reports were regular!y made on al/ these subjects. Parties,
concerts, sermons, etc., were given as specimens of entertain-
ments or gatherings, some of which all students enjoy, or at
least attend, and a proper account of which would be interest-
ing to others who have not been present. Some practice in tel-
ling what one has seen — making others see through one's own
356 7TÆVÆ SCHVOO/L Æ Æ VVÆ VV
eyes — is good training. It is thus that journalists are made. In
this way the imagination is cultivated, too, so that an expert
reporter who was not at the Vanderbilt dinner with Prince Henry
can write an account as edifying as if he had been a favored
guest.
No. I 2. “ Do you often interchange, compositions with the
pupils of other schools for mutual criticism ?'' This question was
answered by an almost universal *' No.” Some seem a little irri-
tated by the question. One writes : “The value of criticism by
the class seems to me questionable. My own experience does
not confirm the truth of the statement that a correction by a
classmate has more effect than many by the teacher." In reply
to the last opinion I will say in passing that no such statement
was expressed or implied in the question, and the framer of the
question never heard the statement made categorically. But
within a month a teacher of Greek has told him an interesting
incident in this connection. He has repeatedly said to his class
that if they would learn the principal parts of certain Greek
verbs and the meaning of certain prepositions, they would be
fitted to take the average Harvard examination in Attic Greek
at sight. Day after day he repeated this opinion, but it seemed
to gain small credence. At last one day a pupil nodded at the
teacher's trite remark. “ Do you believe it ?” asked the teacher
triumphantly. *' Yes,'' said the boy ; ** I asked a fellow who had
taken the examinations, and he said it was so.'' Now, the
teacher had had phenomenal success in fitting boys for Harvard
for many years in many examinations ; but the pupil refused to
be convinced except on the testimony of one of his peers whose
experience extended over but one examination.
Another reply to the question concerning exchange of com-
positions, reads : “ No opportunity.'' Another: “ I never
have. I wish the committee would tell of the methods and
success of those who have.'' I will briefly answer the last two
correspondents. '
All that is needed by way of opportunity is a teacher who is
willing to co-operate and about ten cents in stamps. I have
exchanged twice during the past term — once with a teacher in
ÆAVGZ/SA AV 7HE SECONDARY SCHOOZS 357
the city, once with a teacher at some little distance. This was
our method : On a given day, fixed two or three weeks in
advance, our pupils wrote in the class for thirty-five minutes on
the same topic without notes. For the previous two or three
weeks, however, they had had opportunity to work up their
theme if they wished. Both subjects were taken from litera-
ture, for especial reasons. One was very simple—'' Mr. Burchell.”
The other was rather difficult, and one that some colleges would
not approve: “ Child Influence as Exhibited in The Princess
and in Silas Marmer. The latter theme tested the power of com-
parison and the ability to think straight on the part of each
pupil. The results justified the theory that some pupils in our
high schools need not be confined to description, narration, and
summary. •.
With the compositions (which were identified by numbers,
not by names) each teacher sent his estimate of the probable
order of excellence, judging from the past work of the pupils.
Then the presumably best composition of one class was given
to the presumably best writer of the other class for criticism.
The critics then made both general and special criticisms.
Special criticisms were written in the margins; general criticisms
were written on separate sheets. Each pupil then marked his
estimate of value on a scale from a A to F, and all papers were
re-exchanged.
As to the success: (I), there was great interest manifested
on both occasions, and my pupils emulated Oliver Twist in
clamoring for more; (2) I was surprised at the discrimination
shown by all classes in their general criticisms. It made me
feel a becoming humility to think that I sat in daily judgment
Over boys who could point out so unerringly a bit of bad logic,
a lack of coherence, a mass of mere verbiage, a digression, or
a platitude. But I found a bit of consolation now and then
when I detected them violating their own canons, as Richard
Gramt White so often does in his Words and Their Uses; (3) I
have seen a marked improvement in some directions in which
one class scored mine severely — that of punctuation especially.
One incident of the exchanges interested me very much. I
358 -» 7THÆ SCÆNOOZ ÆÆ VIÆ VV
gave one of the best and one of worst of a set of compositions
' received to one of the best critics in my class. He showed his
discrimination by marking the former A and the latter E, and
in the general criticism of the latter he hanged, drew, and quar-
tered him, and then flayed him alive. The teacher wrote me
that the victim wanted the critic's scalp, but he got something
better. A month later I asked the teacher what the result of the
merciless criticism had been upon his pupil. He replied
earnestly: “ Extend my thanks to No. 4. He has done in one
criticism what I have vainly tried to accomplish in four years.
He has stung that fellow's pride. He is actually trying to do
something, and is succeeding. His penmanship has improved
within a month so that it is hardly recognizable, and he is doing
better in every way. The other teacher with whom I exchanged
seems equally well pleased, and has proposed that another year
we organize a syndicate of exchanges among those interested.
As to question I 3—“ Do you have spoken compositions''—
the few affirmative replies betoken a lack of system. One of
the best and most helpful runs as follows: “ Yes, regularly in
all classes. Four are appointed from each class each week to
speak three minutes without notes on a subject of their own
choosing. These are criticised by pupils and instructor. The
instructor often reads from Higginson's Hinis om SpeechmaÂng
and Brander Matthews's Wotes on the same subject. No exer-
cise interests the pupils more.'' I will add that I have pursued a
method in many respects similar to that just given, and I find the
talks furnish an excellent subject for ten-minute themes in the
form of criticisms upon the speakers. I read the criticisms
aloud, concealing the writer's name, and thus each speaker is
stimulated to win the praise and avoid the censure of his com-
rades. I then correct the criticisms as I would any other com-
position.
No. I 4: “ Is careful attention given to the correction of
spoken English." Here the ayes have it. Almost everybody
says “Yes,'' and bold indeed were he who would cry “ Hold!
enough !'' Yet I must agree with Miss Shute's ideas upon this
same theme, and commend what she says to the consideration
ÆÄVG 7/SÄ7 /ΛV 7TÆ7Æ SAECOAVZ)AAR V SCHOOÆS 359
«of the secondary-school teacher. I have one unique reply,
however, which may be of interest: “ No. Our students whose
English needs correction are in the minority. They soon
pecome conscious of their errors and correct themselves. The
result is usually all that could be desired. It seems to me that
in view of these conditions, to correct in class a student's spoken
English would be unkind to the student and unjust to the class.''
No. I 5: “ Do teachers in the other departments co-operate
with the English teacher ?” Several say “Yes,'' but I am
inclined to think the reply is to be taken in a Pickwickian sense.
Other answers are evasive, as “ Constantly urged to 'do so;”
“ Probably as much as in most schools ; ” “ To some degree;”
“Our principal encourages and requests it." Others are mildly
sarcastic, as, “They mean to, but they forget it;” “We hope
they will in time ;'' “ All are expected to.'' And still others say
bluntly : “ Give very little help ;'' “ Some do ; I think that some
«do not;” “ Inadequately and intermittently ;” “They have been
urged to, and appealed to in every way, but they respond only
in a faint-hearted fashion ;'' *' I am of the opinion that the
English department is the only place where there is any attempt
to teach English ; I know poor English translations are accepted
in Latin." And lastly : “ No : on the contrary they are in-
clined to hold the English department responsible for all errors
in English found in their work.”
No. 16: “ Are compositions often read before the class ? If .
so, by pupil or by teacher ?'' I think there is but one unquali-
fied “ Vo''—implying, perhaps, that they are never read. Most
teachers have them read with more or less frequency ; some
always by the pupils ; some always by the teacher ; while others
try both methods. »
Nos. 17, 18 and I 9 were printed on the verso of the sheet
and were unobserved by several, and consequently unanswered.
Still a goodly number turned the leaf and took the trouble to
reply. -
No. I 7 reads as follows : “ Do you make a practice of tak-
ing a secret ballot to determine the best composition of several
read before the class ? If so, do you find the class opinion
36o 7THÆ SCHOO L RÆ VVÆ VV
generally coincides with your own ?'' I frankly confess that I
expected a grand symphony of “ Noes.” I scarcely knew a
teacher that practiced the ballot or favored it. Yet I believe it
to be of the utmost value, if not carried to an extreme, both as
a stimulus to the ambition of the writers on whom a class judg-
ment will be passed, and as a training of the judgment of the
individual voters. For the class usually votes right (î. e., accord-
ing to my judgment), and the voter who votes wrong writes him-
self down as uncritical — and no one knows it but himself. In
both of the exchanges of which I have spoken, my class by a
large majority selected the compositions of the other classes
which the teachers of those classes said were probably the best.
That was also, I consider, a great compliment to the judgment
of each of those teachers, for I feel sure my class was right.
One of their votes was most striking. The compositions of the
rival class were separated into three parts, and after they were
read before the class a vote was taken to determine the best in
each division. In two out of the three cases the teacher's esti-
mate was confirmed. In the other case, they disagreed, and
here very possibly the class judgment was at fault. But when
the three best according to their selection were read one after
the other, the vote for the boy whose composition his teacher
presumed was best, was almost unanimous. •
Coming now to the replies to question I 7, I find that, though
the custom of balloting is by no means a common one, it is
found in every state of New England with but one exception,
and from that state I have received but two replies. The last
fact in itself is significant. I read a few of the answers: “ Not
secret; no time. Classes generally find the best; always the
worst. They can usually tell whether the writer is a boy or a
girl. The name of the author is always concealed.” “ No. I
mean to try. I fancy from the unwritten votes I see in their
faces that I should find their opinion coincided with my own."
(a) “Secret ballot when papers- have been read by the writer;
oral vote when the authorship is concealed.” (ò) “ Nearly
always.” “ Not as a practice. I have done so- occasionally."
(a) " I do frequently." (ò) “Yes, almost invariably." (a)
ÆΛVG Z/SÆ/ /ΛV 7THÆ SAECOÄVZ)AA€ V SCAZOO ZS 36 I
“Often.'' (b) “ Always, almost, though I try not to show my
preference.'' So let the good work go on.
Nos. 18 and I 9 are questions as perennial as Tennyson's
brook, and were asked, not with the thought that the answers
could be codified, but rather with the purpose of stimulating the
thought of each member of this association so that after the
report there might be a vigorous discussion. By way of sum-
mary I will give a few of my own convictions, and they may also
pass as personal replies to Nos. I 8 and I 9, which read as follows :
(18) “ In what lines of English teaching in secondary schools
do you think there is greatest need of improvement?”—To this
I should reply, In the practice of composition (not the theory)
and in the teaching of literature. (I 9) “ Please state in less
than one hundred words some of the ways in which such
improvements may be effected.”
I shall not limit myself to a hundred words, shall say nothing
of the teaching of literature directly, and shall treat of both the
theory and practice of composition in my closing thoughts.
There is little time for arguments, so I shall confine myself
mainly to conclusions, numbering them to correspond with the
questions upon the list. -
I. English composition should be taught throughout the
secondary-school course.
2. This should occupy some part of at least three recitation
periods of each week. The time devoted to composition, either
spoken or written, should be equal to that devoted to literature.
3. There should be daily practice in the careful writing of
English. When the specific English recitation does not occur
each day, a translation into good English from some foreign
language, a history test, or the like, will serve to keep the pupil
in trim. - .
4. Until the pupil has learned how to compose, but little
work should be assigned to be done outside the class-room.
Some should be assigned, no doubt ; just enough to avoid going
tO extremeS. - •
5. Of work done in the class, the greater part in the early
years should be work relative to the pupil's experience, or that
362 THE SCHOOZ REVIEW
.•
in which the material is furnished him. It should' be work in
which thoughts are not so much needed as words. Toward the
close of the course, much writing should be absolutely
impromptu—both as to thought and as to expression.
6. Pupils should always write expecting somebody to read
and judge what they have written. It is well, for variety's sake,
not to have the same audience in mind day after day. Novelty
always enchains the interest of the child. -
7. The impression should never prevail that work is not to
be inspected or valued. There is not time to mark all themes
that should be written; but all themes should be returned to the
writer for careful preservation during the year, and at least one
of every two or three should be carefully marked for revision.
The writer should be encouraged to revise the others himself.
8. Personal conference should be secured, as all agree that
that is the only perfect method.
9. Much of the corrected work should be entirely rewritten,
but not all, except in certain years. By having frequent short
themes, each may be rewritten if necessary, without imposing a
seeming hardship upon the pupil.
Io. Subjects for themes should not be chosen exclusively
either from literature or from experience. The proportions
should vary at different stages of the pupil's career. If possible,
divide them about equally.
I I. Reports of various sorts furnish valuable training.
Reporters report constantly, and the twentieth century newspa-
pers will need many reporters. vo
I 2. The interchange of compositions with writers in other
schools gives a healthful and natural interest to composition.
I 3. Spoken compositions are no less valuable than written,
and excite far more enthusiasm. - -
I 4. Spoken English should be corrected according to some
system. -
I 5. Every possible pressure—moral, physical, and political—
should be brought to bear upon the teachers of all other depart-
ments to induce them to co-operate with the English teacher.
16. Compositions should be read frequently, even generally,
ZAVGZ/SA /Λ/ ZAE SECONDARY SCHOOZS 363
before the class ; sometimes by the pupil, sometimes by the
teacher. Class criticism should follow, and pupils should be
taught that criticism means, not censure, but judgment.
I 7. The secret ballot, showing the class judgment of the
best themes, should be employed much more widely, but not
overdone.' It is a valuable aid to the teacher and a valuable
training for all the class. It teaches pupils to weigh and Acon-,
sider. It stimulates each writer to do his very best, knowing
that his peers will dispense even-handed justice and give victory
to whom victory is due, honor to whom honor.
D. O. S. LOWELL.
ROXBURY, MASS., LATIN SCHOOL.
III. IN THE COLLEGE.'
LIST NO, 3: QUESTIONS FOR COLLEGES.
$
I. How many hours of required work are there in English composition
and rhetoric as distinguished from literature?
2. How many hours of elective work?
3. How often do you have written work, (a) prepared outside class, (ò)
done in class?
4. To what extent are theme subjects taken (a) from the literature
studied ? (ò) from the student's daily life, observation, and experience ? (c)
frorn work done in other departments of the college exclusive of the English
department ? -
5. How much time is given to the reading of themes in class ? Is the
reading done by the instructor or by the student ?
- 6. Are the themes written with reference to a specific audience sug-
gested by the instructor or chosen by the student ?
7. In the early work of the course is facility or correctness made the
immediate aim ?
8. To what extent is the entire rewriting of themes required ?
9. What amount of time per month is given by the instructor to personal
conference with individual students on the written work?
Io. Have you courses in which the problems of English composition are
considered with reference to training students who intend to teach English in
the secondary schools ?
I I. Along what lines do you see most need of improvement in the
English teaching of your college ?
I 2. What recommendations have you to send back to teachers of English
in the preparatory schools fitting for your college ?
The study of English in the colleges has, within the past
decade, become increasingly satisfactory. In several of the
smaller colleges, and in one of the great universities, the work
has been reorganized and a more generous allowance of time
given. It is noteworthy that Harvard, Columbia, and Vassar
still lead in giving English in the curriculum a place commen-
surate with its importance, providing five hours of required
work, and a large amount of elective work. It has been the
misfortune of English that it has not had the status of any other
full course in the hours assigned it, that it has been, and is still
364
ÆΛ/G Z/SÆ7 /ΛV 7TÆ7Æ COZ/LÆGÆ 365
in many colleges, tucked into a student's programme as an
insignificant adjunct to other work. The student is apt to take
his measure of the importance of a subject from the prominence
given it by the faculty, and to treat as a pretty, useless frill a
subject merely sandwiched in between Others which demanded
of him more lengthy consideration, and which, in the coin of his
realm, count for more toward a degree. Some colleges have
not passed the point where, as Professor Barrett Wendell has
said, the English teacher, like the dancing-master, is regarded
as a kind of ornamental appendage to the serious course of
study.
The root of the difficulty lies in the fact that the disciplinary
importance of English has not been properly recognized. So
long as English is merely an adjunct, a means of saving instruc-
tors in other departments work which they should do them-
selves, in insisting on proper form in their written papers, so
long will it be merely a side issue on the curriculum. The true
function of English teaching, as I conceive it, is to teach a
student to organize his experience and knowledge for expression.
There is nothing that taxes human intelligence so severely as
this very process of organization ; it involves clear, precise
thinking; it involves a nice perception of relations of one thing
with all the other things in one's universe. English teaching in
college suffers somewhat from the incubus which weighs on the
secondary school even more deadeningly— the incubus of formal
rhetoric. Instead of teaching our students names, classifica-
tions, an elaborate nomenclature of logical distinctions, we need
to teach them a few, a very few, basic principles of thought-
organization. We need principles, and the application of prin-
ciples to the matter in hand, and we need this done over and
Over again until the principles have sunken into the subcon-
sciousness of the student and are used by him almost automatic-
ally. If we could get into the heads of students in our college
classes what unity, emphasis, and coherence mean ; if we could
make them see that these are organizing principles of human
thought everywhere, in all the fine arts, in music, painting, sculp-
ture, architecture ; if we could make them realize that they are
366 7THÆ SCHOO/ Æ Æ VVÆ VV
fundamental wherever human intelligence seeks outward expres-
sion, we should do something for our students that would count
eternally in their development. The task of the English teacher :
is to teach students to think, to think in orderly processes, to sup-
ply the student with principles for testing thought. This is not
exciting work, and the student does not “ take to it'' as the tra-
ditional duck takes to water, but it is the business of the English
teacher, by infinite variety of resources, to instil these basic prin-
ciples until they are mastered. Instead of this, what we have in
much of our college work, even in the Freshman class, is
detailed classification of kinds of description — subjective,
objective, dynamic, kinetic, intensive, and a dozen more. In
narration, instead of the simple laws of development, we have
the whole theory of the technique of the drama, with charts,
and diagrams, and arches, and hypersubtleties of all sorts, and
then, to cap the climax, we have the complete psychology of
style unfolded to the freshman mind in its virgin innocence.
English teachers in college try to present in the freshman year
the material and results given them in their graduate work ;
English teachers in the secondary schools try to transplant col-
lege courses in toto to their new classroom ; neither is content
with the plain duty near at hand, but seeks self-exploitation and
artificial interest by the use of matter unadapted to the needs
of students. I believe, in short, that the next ten years will
see a great simplification of the subject-matter of English
taught in the secondary school and in college ; that heads of
departments will insist on the unloading in the elementary
courses of about half the material that now encumbers them ;
that there will be a return to basic principles for testing thought,
and form as it is related to thought. There is time enough to
teach freshmen the art of fiction, and the technique of the
drama, and the psychology of style, when they have learned
that two absolutely unrelated statements may not be connected
by amd and thrust into a single sentence. -
I have put stress on the necessity of teaching a few basic
principles or laws of thought, because they must ever be the
balance-wheel for the mass of new perceptions which it is the
ÆAVGZ/SA AV THE COLLEGE 367
highest privilege of an English instructor to evoke in his stu-
dents. The English instructor should stimulate, should help
awaken the imagination, should attune the senses to a finer and
more delicate registering of the experience of living. It is for
just such a purpose that I should recommend a great increase
in the number of short themes , assigned (commonly known as
daily themes), for they call for an immediate, personal, vivid
reaction on daily life with its crisscross and play of interests,
suggestion, and feeling. Since the function of teaching English
is to teach self-expression, to teach the student to organize and
phrase his perception of life, he should be sent to that material
which is warmest and closest, which he will umconsciously put
forth with most intimate knowledge. English composition can
never be vital until it trains the student to select his ozwm
material from that which life brings, making his selection along
the line of personal interest. As soon as English can be liber-
ated from the tyranny of set subjects taken from literature,
where the object is the mechanical reproduction of the ideas of
another, we shall begin to have work that is worth while. A
good many of the freshmen who come to Wellesley have no idea
of writing on anything but Hamlet's madness or the evils of
jealousy as seen in Othello, or Satan as the hero of Paradise
Lost, or friendship, with pitiful pilfering from Emerson. A sub-
ject of less magnitude is unworthy of their infant prowess ; they
who have been used to scaling the walls of Olympus lustily rebel
at the pedestrian task of giving an account of some simple inci-
dent of the day. They are tongue-tied and helpless unless the
material of ideas is taken more or less bodily from a book and
given back under a thin disguise of rephrasing. And we call
writing on such subjects Self-expression ! I do not of course
mean that subjects from literature necessarily call only for the
ideas of another, but wish rather to emphasize the obvious truth
that in the freshman and sophomore years the student's sponta-
neity does not naturally play about subjects taken from literature;
that therefore it is better to keep these subjects in subordina-
tion. In the later years of the course, subjects from literature
have much more a rightful place, for there is, as the student
368 7THÆ SCHVOO L ÆÆ VVÆ VV
matures, a growing catholicity of taste and an aptitude for ideas
as ideas; in the earlier years, however, consistent effort should
be made to keep the subjects for short and long themes humanly
rather than pedagogically interesting. Professor G. R. Carpen-
ter, of Columbia, writes : »
Theme subjects are taken almost entirely from matters lying within the
student's experience. We have not secured good results from making the
work in literature the basis of composition. My feeling is that such a union of
two different kinds of work is likely to be successful only in the junior and
senior years.
Of the colleges sending information on this point, Harvard,
Columbia, Cornell, the Institute of Technology, Brown, Williams,
Tufts, Amherst, Vassar, and Wellesley report that theme subjects
are practically all taken, in the earlier years of the course, from
subjects based on the students' experience.
A recommendation to which I attach much importance is
that more time be given in class to the reading and discussing
themes by the instructor, and more particularly by the student.
It is incredible to suppose that themes dropped into a box and
read in private by an elder and returned to the student in private
will have the same significance as themes which are to pass
muster before a student's comrades, which are to raise or lower
him in the esteem of those who constitute his world. A wise
instructor cannot neglect to utilize the social instinct which
makes us all eager to stand well in the eyes of our little world,
which makes communication to an audience of our fellows a real
and vital thing. Such class discussion will stimulate better
work in the students by lifting the act of writing from a mechan-
ical exercise to a human utterance to one's fellows. Besides
that, it will be the means of testing and applying to ever-varying
material the cardinal touchstones or principles of thought-organ-
ization which it is the business of the English instructor to
inculcate. Statistics as to the amount of time actually given in
the classroom to the reading of themes, in answer to the ques-
tion sent out, have been too vague and unsatisfactory to tabulate,
Some colleges report “ a considerable amount of time,'' what-
ever that may mean. The statements from Harvard, Columbia,
ÆΛVG Z/SÆ7 /ΛV 7THAZ CO /./.AEGAE 369
Cornell, the Institute of Technology, Brown, ' Amherst, Tufts,
Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley, seem to indicate that from one-
half to one-third of the time given to English in the classroom is
devoted to comment on themes read aloud. Reports from sev-
eral other colleges seem to show very little class discussion of
themes. One-third is certainly a low enough time allowance for
this part of the work. Our composition teaching, as I said a
moment ago, is suffering from too much theory, from too little
practical application to the matter in hand. No instructor can
ever be sure that his students are not bandying about mere terms
and empty names until they are put to the test of criticising
themes. It would seem, perhaps, a fairer distribution if one-half
the time in class were given to the presentation of a new body
of facts, or to outlining new modes of work ; if the other half
were given to the discussion and testing of the results in com-
position. The emphasis at present falls in such a way as to lead
one to suppose that we solemnly teach rhetoric as an end in itself
rather than as means to composition. In no art school does
the time spent on the theory preponderate, as in rhetoric teach-
ing, over the actual practice and criticism of results. In painting
and drawing, it is acknowledged that the student learns by doing;
in English composition, it seems to be supposed that the student
learns by copious advice as to how to do. In every studio
where artists are learning to paint, it is admitted by common
consent, that the criticism of results by the master and fellow-
students is the most valuable and significant part of the training.
Why should this not be true in the art of English composition ?
It will not seem extravagant to suggest that almost one-half
the time in the English class be given to the reading and dis-
cussion of themes, if it is borne in mind that another important
end is thereby achieved. It is very evident from college fresh-
men that they have not been trained to rewrite themes in the
sense of reconceiving, in a new and larger spirit, the matter pre-
sented. They will recopy themes, correcting specific mistakes
indicated, but they seem curiously fettered by the finality of the
written word in making radical and complete changes. The
discussion of themes in class, if wisely conducted, will throw
37 o 7ΤΗΣ SCHOOZ RÆ VIÆ VV
new points of view on the matter as well as the form ; will enable
the student to re-envisage his material, will send him away eager
to reconstitute it in the larger, more pregnant relations which
the discussion has revealed. It is because of this profound con-
viction that the class discussion of themes is the best means of
teaching rhetorical principles, the best means of training taste
and critical acumen, the only means of stimulating students to
an intelligent reconceiving and reshaping of material, that the
claim for half the time in the English hour is made for it.
Reports from several of the leading colleges indicate that from
sixty to seventy-five per cent. of the themes are entirely rewritten.
In the last two years of the high school, and throughout the
college course, the average student should be taught to expect
to rewrite about half his work. The criticism that fails to make
pressingly evident the need of the total reconstruction of a theme
must fall short somewhere or rest content with comfortably
mediocre attainment. In my own advanced elective work,
I count practically on every long theme being rewritten. As a
student advances in his work, the infinite possibilities of better-
ment in his writing should make constant and eager challenge
to him. •
The colleges themselves proclaim, as one of their greatest
needs, more time set apart by the English instructor for per-
sonal conference with his students. In the high School, the
need is more importunate, though on the whole there is far less
provision for it than in the colleges. Most of the colleges of
first rank follow the practice of Harvard in arranging that an
instructor shall have conferences with each individual student in
his written work at least once a fortnight. It is suggested by
the head of one of the leading English departments that a fair
allowance of time is to assign each college instructor six or
eight hours a week of conference with students for every two
hours of class appointment. Probably the best and most valu-
able work of the English instructor is done in talking Over the
themes of a student in personal conference. A single searching
question can set straight in a moment some point of defective
analysis; the inflection of the voice can reveal a whole new point
ÆΛVG Z/SÆV /ΛV 7TÆVÆ COÆ/LÆGAE 37 I
of view as no set of written symbols can. It is to be earnestly
hoped that the colleges will make more generous provision for
this part of the English work. • •
The general recommendation made to the colleges, namely:
(I) that there should be emancipation from so many set sub-
jects drawn from literature, and should be more themes based on
daily life and observation ; (2) that there should be increase in the
time given to the reading and discussion of themes to the extent
of making this one-half, or at least one-third, of the whole time in
class; (3) that there should be a great increase in the require-
ment of rewritten work ; (4) that there should be set apart for
the English instruction, as a necessary part of the work, as
necessary as the laboratory to the instructor in science, five or
eight hours a week for conference with individual students on
their work—these recommendations, I say, should be passed on to
the secondary schools. too. If they were carried out in the
secondary schools, the need for them in college would be far less.
The college must now supply in part the deficiency in secondary-
school teaching. There are some specific pieces of work cry-
ing aloud to heaven to be done in the secondary school. For
instance, there is no reason whatever why, in a class of I 75
freshmen, only. about twenty-five should know how to write and
punctuate the headings of an ordinary letter. Freshmen are
amazingly and grotesquely ignorant of the simplest rules. They
will, in writing a note to a college instructor to explain a late
theme, address the instructor as “ Kind Friend," with no sense
that there is anything provincial in such a salutation. Is it not
a clear injustice to the great mass of students who never get
beyond the high schools to send them forth into the world
without knowledge of the most practical points in English that
they are called upon to use in the business of life ? Letter
forms and punctuation have to be done year after year with
successive freshman classes in colleges, though both should have
been disposed of in the grammar , school. But the plea for
teaching punctuation and letter forms becomes a faint echo
before the clamor that English grammar be more efficiently
handled in the secondary schools. The colleges with unvarying
372 • THE SCHooz REVEW
insistence repeat that a more intelligent grasp of the elements of
English grammar is most desired of the entering freshmen. I
quote from a few letters sent in answer to the question, “What
recommendations have you to send back to teachers of English
in the preparatory schools fitting for your college ?'' From Mr.
Seaver, of the Institute of Technology, comes the answer:
More explicit instruction in grammar. The commonest violations of
mere correctness I encounter are grammatical errors, due chiefly, I think, to
hazy ideas about grammar in general. For instance, 5o per cent. of my
pupils insist that in such a sentence as “There were three men," there is the
subject of zvere, and if you ask them what part of speech z/ere is, they ask
you what you mean by part of speech.
Another correspondent writes :
The pupils may remember the dates of Longfellow's birth and death ;
they are confident that they once studied a book on rhetoric that had some-
thing in it about figures of speech, that they have read the MercÃamz of Vem-
ice and the Lady of the Laâe and some other books — they are not sure what.
But they can't tell a sentence from an adverbial clause; they begin each sen-
tence upon a new line; their idea of unity resembles the spokes of a cart-
wheel. I recommend that the preparatory-school teachers of English burn
up the text-books about literature and devote the little time at their disposal
to. a more thorough study of the books ofliterature; that they spend less time
on text-books of rhetoric and more on practice in composition ; and that, if
they are eligible, they take at the first opportunity the Harvard Summer
School course entitled English A. •
Professor Ganung of Amherst says:
There ought to be more drill in simple English grammar, and a more
vital, less exclusively. mechanical, approach to the work of composition.
Professor Maxcey of Williams College reinforces the thought
in this statement :
The pupils should give more attention to the principles of grammar and
less to the critical side of literature. The boys who come up to college are
in the great majority of cases lamentably deficient in the simplest principles
of grammar, while they can give all sorts of information about simile and
metaphor. It is of more importance to be able to write intelligently “ It is
he'' instead of “ It is him,'' and give a rational explanation why one is pref-
erable to the other, than to know the difference between metonomy and syn-
echdoche, or to know the difference between folio and quarto editions of
Shakespeare. I refrain from giving you instances of the wholesale ignorance
regarding grammatical principles and the essentials of sentence structure as
ÆΛVG Z/SAHV /Λ/ 7TÆ7Æ CO /./.A, GAZ - 373
illustrated by incoming freshmen, for you would have no confidence in my
veracity.
Professor Damon of Brown urges that the preparatory
schools —
spend less time on things the college is supposed to teach, and more time on
elementary matters, that we may not receive, duly equipped with a certificate,
students whose grammar is wholly individual, and who are unable to main-
tain in writing the degree of coherence expected of a man of average intelli-
gence in casual conversation.
Professor Hart of Cornell strikes at the root of our difficulty
in his recommendation :
The sorest need is the compelling of good English in other departments;
e. g., in languages, history, descriptive science. As long as other departments
are content to accept poor writing, they will get it. . . . . Our Cornell expe-
rience is that the most difficult thing to overcome is the lack of thought.
Many of our freshmen seem to believe that anything patched up in grammati-
cal shape will pass for writing. Our chief effort goes to training them to
think. Consequently I would urge school teachers to train their scholars to
z/zm/è ; especially to prepare outlines of composition, before writing the com-
positions.
Time forbids quoting from the many other interesting com-
munications on this point. The gist of them may perhaps be
expressed in the view that the preparatory schools should put
far heavier stress on teaching sentence structure, unity as applied
to the sentence, and the use of connectives ; that they should
send up students who actually know the essentials of a para-
graph, and know a good paragraph from a bad one ; who can
trace the logical development of an idea as formulated in a topic
sentence through a paragraph, or through a group of paragraphs ;
who can draw up sensible outlines of their themes as a guide
before writing ; who can detect manifest incoherence in thought
or form. The schools have, within the past ten years, done a
splendid work in sending up students increasingly well trained ;
this is our best augury for the future.
SOPHIE CHANTAL HART.
WELLESLEY COLLEGE. •
3^
PROCEEDINGS OF THE EIGHTH CLASSICAL CONFER-
ENCE HELD AT ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, ON
MARCH 27 AND 28. •
THE Eighth Classical Conference was held at Ann Arbor,
Michigan, March 27 and 28, in connection with the annual meet-
ing of the Michigan Schoolmasters' Club. The use of the
stereopticon made possible the presentation of a somewhat wider
range of subjects than at preceding meetings ; and this Confer-
ence differed from those of previous years also in the proportion
of time given to historical papers. There was a good attendance
at all the sessions.
The morning session of Thursday, March 27, was held in the
lecture room of the University Museum ; the presiding officer
was Professor Samuel Ball Platner, of the Western Reserve Uni-
versity. At the afternoon session, held in Newberry Hall, Pro-
fessor J. C. Jones, of the University of Missouri, presided. In
the evening the members of the Conference were invited to attend
a lecture given under the auspices of the Michigan Academy of
Sciences in University Hall.
On Friday morning, March 28, the members of the Confer-
ence were invited to attend a general session of the School-
masters' Club, at which were presented two papers of unusual
interest to classical teachers, by Professor William Gardner Hale,
of the University of Chicago, and Dr. Henry A. Sanders, of the
University of Michigan. Friday afternoon a joint session of the
Classical and Historical Conferences was held in the lecture room
of the Museum ; the presiding officer was Professor Richard
Hudson, of the University of Michigan. An invitation was
extended to all to unite in a special Good Friday Vesper Service in
University Hall at five o'clock ; the program of passion music,
arranged by Professor Albert A. Stanley, was of rare impressive-
ness. In the evening the members of the conferences were invited
to attend a general session of the Schoolmasters' Club in Univer-
sity Hall; Professor Francis W. Kelsey, of the University of
374
CASS/CA Z COÄVÆ7ÆÆ ÆAVCÆ ABÄ?OCÆ Æ/Q//VGS 375
IMichigan, gave an illustrated lecture dealing with the recent dis-
coveries at Pompeii. - - ~.
For convenience of reference the following abstracts of papers
and addresses will be numbered in the order of the program.
Of the twenty-two papers and addresses three (numbered I 6,
I 7, and 22), as already noted, were presented at general sessions
of the Schoolmasters' Club, and five (I 2, and 18 to 2 I) at the
joint session on Friday afternoon. Five (3, 7, 2o, 2 I, 22) were
illustrated by stereopticon slides.
I. “The Making and Use of a Latin Lexicon,” by Professor
John C. Rolfe, University of Michigan.
A well-made Latin lexicon consists of a series of biographies of
words, giving an account of their origin, their growth and development,
and in some cases of their death. Many of these throw light not only
On the language of the Romans, but on their history as well, using that
term in its broadest sense. » -
A good lexicon-article should treat a word from various points
Of view : ç
I. From the historical standpoint, a complete record of its existence
should be given, from its earliest appearance to its disappearance from
the language, or down to the period which is decided on as limiting the
scope of the work. In this field account must be taken of the great mass
ofliterature which has been lost, particularly in the ante-classical period,
as well as of the colloquial language, the sermo coztidiamus and the semrmo
p/ebeius, as found in certain inscriptions and to some extent in the liter-
ature. Much may be inferred which is absent from our records through
a careful study of the available material, and from the Romance lan-
guages. Particularly interesting is a study of the causes which led to
the disappearance of words from the language, and to the substitution
of new terms. This point was treated at some length and the belief
expressed that the tendency of monosyllabic words, as such, to dis-
appear has been greatly overestimated.
2. From the geographical standpoint : the dialectic differences in
the ante-classical and post-classical periods must be taken into account,
and the failure of the provincial writers of the classical period to use
the language with the correctness and precision of the classicists. The
highly artificial character of the sermo urbamus in accentuation, vocabu-
lary, and syntax must constantly be regarded.
3. From the etymological and morphological standpoints, including
376 THE SCHOOZ REVIEW
the derivation of words, questions of orthography and quantity, double
forms with or without a difference of signification, and the absence of
certain forms. - •
4. The bulk of a lexicon article deals with semasiology, the study
of the changes in meaning of words due to restriction or extension of
signification. The fondness of individual writers for certain words, as
well as their ** verbal taboos,'' should be considered, - •
5. We must look to the scientific lexicon for Syntactical and stylistic
information also. Here, as always, we must keep in mind the historical
and geographical points of view, as well as the individual peculiarities
of writers, due to the branch of literature which they represent, their
degree of education, tendency to innovation or imitation, and the like ;
also the development of a writer at various stages of his career.
A brief history of Latin lexicography was given, and the problems
presented to the makers of special lexicons and of school lexicons were
considered. The editor of a school lexicon has in some respects the
most difficult task of all, since he must aim at reasonable completeness,
must furnish considerable information on antiquities and kindred sub-
jects, and at the same time must furnish a book compact enough to be
easily handled, which shall sell for a moderate price.
It was pointed out that our standard lexicon in this country was
issued more than twenty years ago and needs a thorough revision.
That a revision has not been made is not the fault of the editor, nor is
it due to lack of material for the purpose. The real reason is, that
large lexicons are not extensively used in this country, and that our
students are not as a rule book buyers. The absolute necessity of a
good lexicon for teachers in secondary schools and for college students
was pointed out in some detail, and the teachers of Latin were appealed
to, in the interests of sound and thorough scholarship, as well as for the
sake of hastening the day when our present standard lexicon may be
thoroughly revised, to encourage the use of large lexicons, and to insist
on it when it is necessary. *
2. The Prometheus of Æschylus and the Prometheus of
Shelley,” by Principal J. H. Harris, Michigan Military Academy.
After a general introduction touching upon the main points of
similarity and difference familiar to students of the two dramas, Mr.
Harris narrowed his study to a comparison of the Zeus and Jupiter
respectively of Æschylus and Shelley. The Jupiter of Shelley is the
personification of all those laws, institutions, customs and beliefs which,
CASSYCA Z COÄVÆ7ÆÆ Æ ÂVCÆ ÆÆ?OCÆÆ/Q//VGS - 377
in his view, oppressed mankind and held it in despotic bonds. This
is distinctly avowed in the speech of the Spirit of the Hour at the
close of the third act :
And those foul shapes, abhorred by God and man,
Which, under many a name and many a form,
Strange, savage, ghastly, dark and execrable,
Were Jupiter, the Tyrant of this world.
The Zeus of Æschylus, on the other hand, is not an abstraction,
he is a person. Everything about him is human, save perhaps his
superhuman power. His wrath, his passion, his arbitrary exercise of
newly-gained power, his wilfulness, his jealousy — all are vividly
impressed upon us. The Zeus of Æschylus is in a choler, a temper,
from which he may recover if Prometheus will only yield up the secret.
The picture is not of a permanently tyrannical sovereign but of one
who has been temporarily baffled and enraged. In proof that Zeus
was in a choler — in other words in a bilious mood— Mr. Harris cited
the use of the words X6λos and öpyj in various passages, notably lines
29 and 3o; 31 2, 313; 375, 376; I9o, 191 ; 378. These passages, not
only in the use of the particular words, but in their spirit and form
indicate the temporary nature of Zeus's wrath. •
Another evidence of the ** mood *' nature of his anger is to be
found in the frequent references to the fact that he is exercising his
authority with the temporary arbitrariness and wilfulness of one who
has but just come to unlimited and irresponsible sovereignty. In
support of this view the following lines were quoted : 35, 36; 95, 96;
I 48, I49 ; 3Io ; 389.
In this view of the choleric nature of Zeus's wrath may be found,
Mr. Harris ventured to suggest, a possible explanation of the apparent
irreverence of Æschylus in his representation of Zeus. It has seemed
incomprehensible that Æschylus, a man of profound piety and rever-
ence, should paint Zeus in such harsh colors. It has been hazarded as
an explanation that if we had the lost “ Prometheus Unbound '' we
should find this excessive bitterness and harshness removed by a new
and more pleasing picture of Zeus than is presented in the “ Prome-
theus Bound." Grote's explanation that Zeus, though of superior
power and authority, was still only one of many divinities, and that the
ennobling conception of Prometheus outweighed any seeming irrever-
ence toward Zeus, has been received with much favor and has much to
commend it. But if we interpret the attitude of Zeus as a wrathful
mood which, under more favorable conditions, will subside, we shall
378 7THVÆ SCÄ/OO Z ARÆ VVÆ VV
have less difficulty in comprehending Æschylus's use of the vehement
and irreverent language which he so frequently employs. Epithets
and characterizations may be directed against a person's temporary
state of mind or temper which would not be justifiable or pardonable
against his general character. •
The Jupiter of Shelley, on the other hand, is not in a mood nor is
he giving vent to a passion which may soon subside. His is a perma-
nent, unyielding attitude of mind and cannot be changed nor molli-
fied. This was inevitable from the end which Shelley had in view and
from the interpretation of his Jupiter which has already been given.
These widely different conceptions of Zeus are the necessary
antecedents to the solution which is in the one drama foreshadowed
and in the other accomplished. The thought of a sovereign ruler
swept away by a temporary fit of passion necessarily anticipates a recon-
ciliation. The conception of a permanently tyrannical sovereign
necessarily involves a revolution. Nothing less than the complete
overthrow of Jupiter would satisfy the lines on which Shelley's drama
is constructed or the motif which underlies it. Reconciliation would
be as illogical as it was impossible.
3. “ The De Criscio Collection of Latin Inscriptions,'' by
Professor Walter Dennison, Oberlin College.
This paper was -illustrated by fifty stereopticon slides, made from
original negatives by Principal George R. Swain.
“ In the spring of 1897,” said Professor Dennison, ** I made several
visits to the magazzino of Ab. Giuseppe de Criscio, the parish priest of
Pozzuoli, Italy, who for many years had been a diligent collector of the
Latin and Greek inscriptions found in the vicinity of Pozzuoli. The
text of his inscriptions he had for the most part communicated to the
editors of the Corpus /mscriptiomum Zazimarum, as the tenth volume of
that publication testifies ; in the preface to the volume he is mentioned
as one of the contributors. During one of my visits he confided to me
his desire to dispose of all his inscriptions to some educational institu-
tion which would keep the collection intact. Upon my return to
America, I mentioned the matter to Mr. Henry P. Glover, of Ypsilanti,
Mich., who immediately offered to arrange for the purchase of the col-
lection and for its transportation to Ann Arbor. The inscriptions now
form a part of the archæological equipment of the University of Michi-
gan.” -
The collection includes not far from 275 pieces, and is fairly repre-
sentative of the most important classes of inscriptions. .
CASS/CA Z COMÆÆÆÆΛVCÆ APROCÆ Æ D//VGS 379
There are, first, imscriptiomes sacrae, one addressed to the Penates,
another to /upiter Optimus Maximus, and still another to the mumem
Augusti. Several are zizu/i operum pub/icorum, two of them mentioning
the office of the duoz/iri. By far the greater number are, as one would
expect, sepulchral inscriptions. There are Over two hundred of these,
and they illustrate practically all types, giving a wide range of modes
of expression, abbreviations, and proper names, and throwing light
upon many points in private life and family relationship. Among the
most interesting is a small slab set up with a rude metrical inscription
in memory of a child who had not yet completed ** four times seven
months.”
There is a large number of fitu/i mi/itares, epitaphs of sailors who
had been connected with the imperial fleet stationed at Misenum.
They are of unusual interest and value. One gives the name of a
mumus classiarium hitherto unknown.
This collection also furnishes material for the study of the forms of
Latin letters, from the end of the republic to the fifth century A. D.
They show cursive letters, as well as both forms of monumental capi-
tals, the scriptura momumemta/is and the scriptura actuaria. They
illustrate the /-/omga and apices; in one case a point is placed over the
long vowel, indicating its length. Divisions of syllables by points also
occur. Those which throw light upon disputed cases are S. C (thus
divided) and S. T.
To the De Criscio collection belong also several brick stamps and
a dozen sections of lead pipe bearing inscriptions, besides two terra-
cotta ash urns, one of which is dated by the name of the consul of the
current year. *
The collection includes about a dozen Greek inscriptions, most of
which are sepulchral. One of them is metrical, written in the hex-
ameter verse, and is Homeric in style. Another gives us Latin words
cut with Greek letters. This is of special interest because of the way
in which long vowels, especially è and δ, are transliterated. The rela-
tive pronoun qui is transliterated KOYE. A third inscription, relating
to the importation into Puteoli of a strange eastern goddess, has
attracted the attention of the French epigraphist, Professor Cognat,
who has recently edited it with comment in the Comptes Aeendus of the
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.
The value of the collection is great from a scientific point of view,
but still greater from the pedagogical point of view, as an adjunct to
advanced university work in the classics.
38o 7THÆ SCHOOL AE Æ VVÆ VV
4. “ Some Questions of Word-Order and Cadence in their
Bearing on the Authorship of the Pseudo-Cæsarian Writings,”
by Dr. Clarence Linton Meader, University of Michigan.
This paper, which, on account of the length of the program, was
read by title, will be published in full later.
5. “ Quintilian on Extempore Speaking in the Light of
Later Teaching,” by Professor George V. Edwards, Olivet Col-
lege.
This paper is printed in full ; see p. 396.
6. Dido—A Character Sketch,” by Mr. J. Raleigh Nelson,
Lewis Institute, Chicago.
This paper was an attempt at a sympathetic interpretation of Dido's
character as presented in the fourth book of Virgil's Æneid. It will
be published in full later. .
7. “ Classic Sites in Sicily,” by Professor Benjamin L.
D'Ooge, Michigan State Normal College. *
Professor D'Ooge gave a lecture illustrated by views which he had
gathered during a recent trip through the island. After a brief intro-
duction on the history of Sicily under the successive rule of the Greeks,
Carthaginians, and Romans, views were shown of the following impor-
tant classical localities: Catana, Tauromenium, Syracuse, Agrigen-
tum, Segesta, Selinus, Lilybaeum, Drepanum, Eryx, Panormus, Himera,
Tyndaris, and Messana, with neighboring Scylla and Charybdis.
8. “An Ancient Misogynist,” by Professor F. S. Goodrich,
Albion College.
After an introduction treating of the position of woman in general
in the Greek world, Professor Goodrich showed, by means of quota-
tions from the dramas of Euripides, why it is that this poet has been
called a misogynist. He subjected several of the adverse citations to
criticism, proving that if read in close relation with the context they
cannot be fairly taken as representing the poet's own opinion. Finally
he brought forward a convincing series of quotations of an altogether
different tenor, reaching the conclusion that Euripides' ideal of wom-
' anhood, as revealed in various characters, was very high ; and that no
writer who could give such marvelous delineations of female character
could justly be called a misogynist. <a
CZASS/CA Z COÄVÆÆÆ ÆΛVCÆ ÆROCÆÆ Z)//VGS 38I
9. “ Greek and Runic Letters and Numbers,” by Professor
George Hempl, University of Michigan.
Professor Hempl made a brief report on the progress of his inves-
tigations into the early history of the Runes, the first letters used by
our Teutonic ancestors. These studies have of late taken an impor-
tant turn, which not only establishes beyond all question Professor
Hempl's contention that the Runes are a Western Greek alphabet that
came to the Teutons between 6oo and 55o B. C., but also reveals an
unsuspected Teutonic numerical notation. In this, a — , represented
I-Io, and k—& stood for 2o—6o as in Greek, while T — y, the last mine
letters of the Western Greek alphabet not being needed in the Teu-
tonic sexagesimal-decimal system, were employed to represent I I— I 9,
leaving omicrom as a sign for the remaining high number, the humd or
long hundred (I 2o). This notation reveals important facts, not only
as to the character of the Teutonic numerical system and the time of
the Teutonic shift of consonants, but also as to the development of
the numerical notation of the Greeks. Professor Hempl's studies will
soon be published in full in /mdogermamische Æorsahumgem, the C/assica/
Review, and the Journa/ of Germamia Phi/o/ogy.
Io. “ Notes on Horace,” by Professor Wallace S. Elden,
Ohio State University.
I. Quid as apodosis.—In rhetorical questions involving a condition
the apodosis is sometimes represented by quid alone without a verb
expressed. The ellipsis may be supplied in a general way by a word
of saying, happening, or the like, as dicas, fiat, etc. •
Quid begins the period and either the indicative or the subjunc-
tive may stand in the protasis. Sometimes the question is followed by
another by which it is more clearly defined, the second question imply-
ing what the result would be if the content of the first were realized.
Horace, Od. III, 9, I 7—2o ; I, 24, I3— I 8 ; Serm. II, 3, I 59— I 6o ; II,
3, 2 I 9—2 2o ; II, 7, 42—43 ; Epist. I, I 6, 8— II; I, I 9, I 2— I 4.
2. Quodsi.—The origin of quod in quodsi is doubtful ; probably it
may be regarded as the accusative singular neuter of the relative pro-
noun used as an accusative of extent or specification, ** as for that,”
** aS to which.'' •
Quodsi occurs in Plautus (cf. Trin, 2 17) and Terence (Andr., 258;
Phorm., 2o I; Eun., 924). It is found also in I,ucretius, at least
twenty times (often in connection with forte) Virgil, Catullus (3),
Tibullus (2), three times in the Carmina Pseudotibulliana, twenty-six
382 7ÄVÆ SCÆVOO /, Ae Æ VVÆ VV
times in Ovid, twenty times in Propertius, also in Juvenal, Persius,
Martial and Phaedrus. &
In Horace there are seventeen instances of quodsi (not including
Od., I, 24, I 3, where quid si is the better reading, nor Serm., I, I, 43,
where quod probably has the force of at id), twice in the Odes (I, I, 35;
III, I, 41), four times in the Epodes (2, 39; I o, 2 I ; I I, I 5 ; I 4, I3),
once in the Sermones (II, 4, 6), ten times in the Epistles (I, I, 7o;
I, 2, 7o; I, 3, 25; I, 7, I o; I, 7, 25; I, 9, I I ; I, I 9, 17; I, 2o, 9; II,
I, 9o; II, I, 241). «-
In prose quodsi occurs first in Cicero, who uses it very frequently,
then in Nepos, Cæsar, and Sallust. In Livy it is rare, as also in the
later writers. - - -
3. 77ie imperative in a cha//emge.—The imperative is sometimes
used in an ironical exhortation or admonition to do something which,
after what has been said, or under existing conditions, is out of all rea-
son, or even inconceivable ; a protasis, as si potes, is implied. Serm.,
II, 2, I4— I 5; Epist. I, 6, I 7—I 8 ; II, 2, 76. -
I I. “The Epigraphic Sources of Dion Cassius,'' by Dr.
Duane Reed Stuart, State Normal College, Ypsilanti. +
Assuming that the prevalent attitude of the historians of the
Empire toward the testimony of monumental sources is marked by
indifference, it is, nevertheless, desirable to form a precise estimate of
the individual author in terms of his use or neglect of inscriptions.
The Historia Romana of Dion Cassius, as an important source for the
history of the Empire, challenges especial attention. Furthermore,
such an inquiry will contribute data applicable in the determination
of those disputed quantities— Dion's historical sincerity and the credi-
bility of his work.
A comparison of the Momumemtum Ancyramum with the parallel
passages of the Historia Komama was taken as a point of departure.
In two of the three instances in which surface examination reveals
likeness, the existing resemblance is due to the influence on both nar-
ratives of a natural or traditionally-crystallized mode of expression
[cf. M. A., 2, 29—33; Dion, LIV, x, 3; M. A., 5, 3-6 ; Dion, L, vi, 4].
In the remiaining case Dion's dependence on literary sources is clear
[M. A., 3, I 9—2 I ; Dion, LV, x, 1]. Entirely overshadowing these
instances of agreement are the cases (eight in all) in which Dion has
neglected the testimony of the inscription and fallen into error
thereby. The Historia Æomama, therefore, shows no traces of deliberate
recourse to, or indirect reminiscence of, the Monume/a/um Amayrayatum.
CZASS/CAÆ COAWÆÆÄ?ÆÄVCÆ AROCÆÆ Z)//VGS 383
The conclusions that may be drawn from Dion's neglect of the
AMomumemtum Amcyramum are affected by two cardinal considerations:
(I) Is the Momumemtum Amcyramum a true copy of the Res Gestae of
Augustus, mentioned by Suetonius [Aug., I o I] and Dion [LVI,
xxxiii, I]? (2) Was the original im situ in Dion's time ? An affirmative
reply was given to each of these questions. In connection with the
former an attempt was made to refute in detail the arguments
advanced by J. W. Beck [Mnemosyne, 25, p. 349; 26, p. 237] against
the Augustan authorship of the Momumem/um Amaymramum and its iden-
tification with the Aees Geszae.
The Aeasti and Acta of the Regia, useful as their content would
have been, Dion treated with the same neglect as his predecessors. We
may add to the conspicuous divergences discernible in connection with
the dictator-years of Julius Cæsar, four reversals in the order of nam-
ing the consuls, and one actual difference in tradition.
Further evidence of the historian's indifference to inscriptional
sources is furnished by various passages of the Historia Komama. In
LIV, xi, 7, LVII, xvii, 7—8, and LXXVI, xii, 3 Dion might have
avoided error and exaggeration had he taken the pains to check his
narrative by personal inspection of monuments accessible to him.
Turning to the affirmative evidence obtainable, we find but three
cases, in which it is feasible to predicate first-hand appeal to an inscrip-
tion [LXVIII, ii, 4; LXIX, xix, 2; LXXII, xxii, 3]. These are sur-
face references, the first two, epitaphs of striking content, the third,
Commodus's inscription on the base of the Colossus. Dion quotes
from memory these bits of antiquarian information, because they hap-
pen to occur to him? at the moment of writing. His attitude is moz
that of the diligent inquirer who has gone to the stones for data by
which to amplify or verify the material furnished by his literary
sources. In Dion's account of the column of Trajan [LXVIII, xvi,
2], there appears to be an echo, possibly unconscious, of C. I. L, VI, 96o.
This paper which, on account of the length of the programme, was
read by title, wili be published in full later.
I 2. “The Worship of the Lares,” by Dr. Gordon J. Laing,
'University of Chicago.
This paper will be published in full.
I 3. “The Psychological Background of Indirect Discourse,''
by Professor John J. Schlicher, State Normal School, Terre
Haute, Ind.
This paper is printed in full ; see p. 399.
384 7HÆ SCHOOZ RÆ VIÆ VV
I 4. “ A Review of Gildersleeve's Greek Syntax,” by Pro-
fessor S. J. Axtell, Kalamazoo College. , *
Professor Axtell had commenced the preparation of this paper
when he was stricken with a serious illness. It was at first thought
that he would recover ; but the third week in March there was a
change for the worse, and he was released from suffering on Sunday,
March 23. -
When the title of Professor Axtell's paper was reached on the pro-
gram, Professor Martin L. D'Ooge, of the University of Michigan,
paid an earnest tribute to his exalted worth as a man, his minute and
accurate scholarship, and his influence as a teacher. In emphasizing
the loss which the interests of our higher education have experienced,
Professor D'Ooge voiced the feeling of all present who were familiar
with Professor Axtell's work.
I 5. “The Similes of Apollonius Rhodius Compared with those
of Virgil and Hemer,” by Mr. M. C. Wier, Michigan Military
Academy. .
For teachers of Greek and Latin in secondary schools, particularly
teachers of Homer and Virgil, a most interesting work for supple-
mentary reading is the Argomautica of Apollonius Rhodius. Though
this poet borrowed about 8o per cent. of his vocabulary from Homer,
and appropriated Homeric tags and half-lines almost to the number of
his verses, he has nevertheless given us a work unique in ancient
literature, possessing a charm that even Virgil tried to borrow, with
«only imperfect success.
One of the characteristics of Apollonius's style is his prodigal use
of similes. In a poem of six thousand verses he uses about a hundred
and fifty comparisons. This is surprising when we see that in the
same number of verses in the //iad (I—X) there are less than sixty, and
in the Æmeid (I—VIII) there are less than twenty. .
Homer and Virgil seem to use the simile when great actions are
being described ; to present a picture that will render the action more
vivid rather than for literary embellishment. Apollonius uses it pri-
marily as an ornament. There is comparatively little action in his
poem. At best it is merely a series of episodes loosely strung together.
Throughout these he has used the figure almost as lavishly as Shelley in
his lyrics. As a literary embellishment it is often beautiful, and occa-
sionally stands out so cameo-like as to divert our attention from its
setting. Many of the similes, however, are so forced and unnatural
that even the scholiast criticises their inaptness.
CZASSICAZ coAAEREAVCÆ PROCEÆZ)/AVGS 385
Apollonius has imitated Homer nineteen times, but has never
appropriated his similes unaltered. He generally expands Homer's
idea and uses it in a different connection, just as he does Homeric
adjectives.
Both Apollonius and Virgil have in a number of instances imitated
the same Homeric simile ; one may compare, for example, Odyssey
6, Io2 ff. with Arg. 3, 875 ff., and Æm. I, 498 ff.; /7. 2, 87 ff. with
Arg. I, 879, and Aen. 6, 7o7, I, 43o ; /7. 2, 459 with Arg. 4, I 296, and
Aen. 7, 699 ; /7. 6, 5o6 with Amrg. 3, I 258 and Aen. II, 492.
One of Apollonius's most successful ways of affecting Homer is in
the aggregation of similes. In the passage where Jason slays the
giants that spring from the dragon's teeth there are nine within fifty
verses (Arg. 3, I 35o— I 4oo); with this compare /7. 2, 455—483.
“ Subjective imagery from sensation and thought,” says Professor
Jebb, “is extremely rare in Homer. Once there is a simile from a
dream, in which the dreamer cannot overtake one who flies from him
(//. 22, I 99). Hérâ is likened for Swiftness to the thoughts of a man
who has traveled in mamy lands ; he considers in his wise heart, Would
that I were there or there, and thinks wistfully of many things (//.
I 5, 82).''
The subjective imagery of the Argonautica forms one of its most
interesting characteristics. The inmost workings of the mind are
brought into direct comparison with physical phenomena. After con-
trasting the silence of the night and the slumber that had fallen on
men and animals with the tumult in the mind of Medea, Apollonius
compares the passionate movements of her heart to the flickering gleam
of sunlight cast on a wall from a vessel full of water (Arg. 3, 743);
And her heart was wildly stirred within her breast; as when a sunbeam,
reflected from water, plays upon the walls of a house— water just poured into
a basin or pail : hither and thither it darts on the quick eddy; even so the
maiden's heart was fluttering in her breast.
Virgil has translated the same simile thus (Æn. 8, 22):
Sicut aquae tremulum labris ubi lumen aënis
Sole repercussum, aut radiantis imagine lunae,
Omnia pervolitat late loca, iamque sub auras
Erigitur summique ferit laquearia tecti.
Athena hastening seaward toward the Argo (2, 543) is compared to
a man * who goes wandering from his country as oft we men do in our
hardihood, and there is no land too far away, for every path lies open
before his eyes, when lo ! he seeth in his mind his own home and there
386 7THÆ SCHOO Z Æ Æ VVÆ VV
appeareth to it a way over land or sea, and keenly he pondereth this
way and that, and searcheth it out with his eyes'' (see also Arg. 2, 291 ;
3, 446; 3, I o I 9). - -
Many of Apollonius's similes are drawn from nature. The light
of the heavenly bodies, the glow reflected from a passing cloud, the
beam reflected from water are used often with a very pretty effect. He
is also fond of introducing specters and phantoms, and makes frequent
use of the pathetic. - .
The range of Apollonius's similes is about the same as that of
Homer's. He keeps, however, within a more poetic latitude. He
would not, for example, compare his hero to an ass, although Homer
introduces that animal in describing the stubborness of Ajax. He has
used several similes that do not occur before his time ; Virgil seems
particularly fond of these (cf. Arg. 4, I 25 with Æm. 8, 622 ; Arg. I, 3o7
with Aen. 4, I 43; Arg. 2, 934 with Aen. 5, 2 I 3 ; Arg. 4, 1475 with
Æn. 6, 45 I).
16. “The Recent Changes in the Curriculum of the German
Gymnasium,” by Dr. Henry A. Sanders, University of Michigan.
This paper will appear in the SCHOOL REVIEW for June.
I 7. “ Certain Controlling Conceptions in Syntactical Study,
and their Application," by Professor Wm. Gardner Hale, Univer-
sity of Chicago.
This paper will be published in full in the June issue.
18. “ An Experiment in the Teaching of Roman History to
Young Pupils,” by Mr. J. Raleigh Nelson, Lewis Institute,
Chicago. . -
The relation between the study of Latin and the study of Roman
history is reciprocal, the latter furnishing the environment in which the
former may be imagined to live, the language work producing the
demand for the historical setting. The divorce of the two is 'unnatural
and each suffers a distinct disadvantage from the separation. When,
some time since, we determined at the Lewis Institute, to attempt a
reconciliation, we found the problem of correlation a difficult one. The
traditional courses had been stripped for light running, and we hesi-
tated to add any weight that might lower their time record.
The first year was finally chosen for the beginning of our experi-
ment, (I) because there was here the greatest need of some new human
interest ; (2) because we hoped to make our Latin work compete more
CZASS/CAL COÄVÆÆÆÆÄVCÆ APROCÆÆZ)/ΛVGS , 387
successfully in attractiveness with the technical courses ; (3) because the
young student is most receptive to the romance of history ; (4)
because the success of our experiment would benefit the other Latin
KCOUlIS€S. - •
The difficulty lay in the adaptation of the work to the peculiar mind
to which we proposed to introduce it. To plunge the young student
unprepared into remote antiquity in a country of which he knew little
and cared less, would have removed all probability of his ever properly
adjusting himself. A boy or girl with no knowledge of men and no
familiarity with life could not reasonably be expected to reconstruct a
great new world, unless he be given materials intelligible to him.
Moreover, such a policy would neither regard nor utilize the resistless
stream of his peculiar interest and activities. My aim in this prelimi-
nary work, therefore, was to find the most natural and stimulating
method of appeal. - -
There are few suggestions to which the adolescent mind responds
with more spontaneity than the proposition of a pleasure trip. The
promise of a story by the way makes the charm irresistible. The goal
is a matter of indifference ; it is the romance of going, the joy of a
new activity. The imagination is one of the most striking characteris-
tics of this period, a motive which, touched and rightly directed,
becomes an important factor in any educational problem.
When in' September I proposed a trip to Italy, I found the pupils
very responsive. I put at their. disposal prospectuses, time tables, pic-
tures and the like, procured from the steamship companies ; we dis-
cussed boats, their size, construction, speed records, etc. And when
the day arrived, after a thorough discussion, we started from Chicago,
and in our imagination traveled all the way. Vivid bits of description
from here and there and the use of all the illustrative , material at my
command helped to give the touch of reality to the occasion. When
we steamed into the bay of Naples, Italy was bound to the here and
now of each boy's life by a definite chain of association which gave it
new meaning.
The following week the trip was written up in our notebooks, to
which we gave the pretentious name, “ Guide Books to Rome and
Modern Italy.'' The individuality shown in the arrangement of these
records was one of the most interesting elements in the experiment.
Every one had something to show for each of his trips, from the
creepy, crawly, cramp-handed account of the boy with one small talent
to beautiful books illustrated with Perry pictures, cuttings from old
388 7`HVÆ SCAZOO Z Λ? Æ V/Æ VV
magazines and velox prints from the large collection of negatives at
my command. - - .
After another week's preparation, aided by the stereopticon, I took
my company to the few points in Naples, around the bay to Pozzu-
oli, Baia, Miseno, Cumae, back by Lake Avernus and the Lucrine Lake,
to Naples. I aimed to develop a definite conception of the location
of these places, not only by constant reference to the map, but by
emphasizing the time and money spent in reaching them. I left with
each place the association of every available story, and tried in every
way to produce an impression of color and atmosphere.
In the ten trips which followed, the same plan was pursued, a week
of anticipation, an hour of touring, with the stereopticon, a week of
reminiscence in the form of guide-book notes. The itinerary of the
class for the twenty-four weeks will indicate the scope of the work.
I. An ocean voyage from New York to Naples.
2. A general view of Naples.
Pozzuoli, Lago Lucrino, Baia, Capo di Miseno, Cumae, Lago Averno.
3. Herculaneum, Pompeii, Vesuvius.
4. Salerno, Paestum, Amalfi, Capri, Sorrento.
5. Naples to Rome ; a general view of the city from Porto del Populo to
the Capitol. -
6. The Forum and Sacred Way.
7. Places of amusement — Piazza Navona, Theater of Marcellus, Circus
Maximus, Colosseum, Baths of Caracalla.
8. The Tiber and its bridges, with a trip to Ostiâ.
9. The Appian Way.
I o. The Sabine Mountains.
Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli, Vico Varo, Licienza, Subiaco.
I I. The Volscian Hills.
Velletri, Cori, Norba, Ninfa, Segni.
I 2. The Alban Mountains.
Albano, Ariccia, Nemi, Palazzuolo, Rocca di Papa, Monte Cavo.
This brought the pupils at the end of the course to the very birthplace
of Roman tradition. .•
In this preliminary work my aim was to lead the pupil naturally
from the near to the far, from the present to the past ; to give him a
feeling of intimate acquaintance with the geography of Italy, to create
a conception of the physical environment in which the Roman lived;
in short to induce a state of mind in which a definite, systematic
knowledge of Roman history would be a crying need, demanded by
every interest of his heart. v
CZASS/CA Z COMÆÆîÃEÄVCÆ ÆAROCÆ Æ/0/ΛVGS 389
An effort to associate with each trip a special vocabulary of Latin
words helped to give them new meaning, thus :
For the ocean trips, navzs, mare, nubes, cae/um, ste//a, /una, sznus, /atus, etc.
For the land trips, moms, co//is, Zacus, /?umem, arbor, etc.
For the town trips, urbs, via, domus, temp/um2, forum, Zaberna, etc.
The pupil may be encouraged to write in his notebook each time
five or six simple Latin sentences regarding his trip, using the vocabu-
lary suggested for that time. And when in the regular Latin lessons
I could give new meaning to a word by recalling some place we had
visited, I took pains to do so.
Thus the trip every two weeks served as a constant stimulus to the
work, furnishing a goal of interest toward which we worked, and not
only did it inspire life and vigor in the class, but actually performed
an important mission in visualizing the Latin vocabulary.
The six months of preliminary study which I have outlined was
followed by six months of systematic history work, one lesson a week,
the book used being Morey's Out/imes of Romam History. At the end
of the first year we had studied to the close of the second Punic war,
and by Christmas of the following year, to the assassination of Cæsar.
In connection with the history I arranged a very simple course in
Roman life, taking up those topics most naturally interesting to the
pupils, the house, the slaves, the books, children's games, public
amusements, etc. For the boys I found, as was natural in a technical
school, that all problems of construction were especially attractive,
building materials, the handling of great weights, construction of
roads, etc.
In the third year, I assigned each pupil one topic in Roman antiqui-
ties, for which he must read extensively, and which he must present to
the class some time during the year. These papers, which often repre-
sented months of preparation, were always followed by discussion, and
a study of the illustrative material applicablé to the subject for the day.
All the pupils were required to keep notebooks and were held respon-
sible for the important points presented.
The results of our experiments so far have been so encouraging
that it is my hope as soon as possible to make this sort of work con-
tinuous for the four years.
I 9. “The Relation between Greek and Roman History,” by
Dr. Arthur L. Cross, University of Michigan.
Although, with the increase of specially trained teachers and
improved manuals, great progress has been made during the past few
39o - 7TÆ Æ SCÆVOO / ÆÆ VVÆ VV
years in the teaching of ancient history, much still remains to be
done. Text-books and teachers who use them are too prone to miss
the essential relationships in national and international development.
Bewildering series of military and political annals, ' dry and dusty
antiquities sprinkled here and there with entertaining but apocryphal
legends, moments of grand and unique achievement in literature and
art, are presented as isolated phenomena. The young mind, attracted
by the pomp and circumstance of war, has much to gratify its taste ;
and, under favorable conditions, one of different inclinations may
acquire an appreciation of the beauty and grace of ancient culture.
But rarely does the pupil have laid before him a coherent picture of the
development of Greek and Roman public life. Almost never does he
attain a realization of the fact that what he is studying has any organic
connection with the present. With more perspective, with a keener
sense of the unity of all history, teachers might make more of their
subject, might make it more interesting, not interesting in the sense of
entertaining, but rather as Sir John Seeley defined the term, as touch-
ing our broadest and most vital interests. -
This result might be brought about by teaching the history of
Greece and Rome as a single subject. Not only does the history of the
two countries belong together, but the causes and consequences of their
contact present problems far more fruitful to the student of today than
those to which his attention is usually directed.
Almost from the earliest times one can trace relalationships between
the two civilizations; but from the beginning of the second century
before the Christian era, when Rome enters upon its eastern conquests
their destiny becomes almost inextricably interwOven. For the con-
quest was by no means one-sided. As Rome conquers Greece so
Greece conquers Rome. Rome subjects and Romanizes the Hellenic
east as to government, but Hellas indelibly stamps its culture and
civilization upon its victor. As a result of the contact Roman institu-
tions, military and political, social and economic, religious and intel-
lectual, are utterly transformed. Moreover, the consequences of the
change have deeply colored our whole modern life. Greek history did
not end with the victories of Philip of Macedon ; but, through the
work of his still greater son, passed into a wider, an Hellenic stage,
when the best and the worst fruits of Greek civilization were spread
through western Asia and northern Africa. Had Alexander lived to
carry out his plans he might have conquered and Hellenized the west-
ern as he had the eastern world. But what he might have done was
CZA.SS/CAÆ COAVÆÆÆ ÆΛVCÆ Æ®OCÆ Æ/)//VGS 39 I
accomplished in a different way— through the Roman intervention in
eastern affairs.
As a consequence of the Great Wars not only did the simple city
state on the Tiber become a great world empire, but Greek manners
and customs, Greek art and architecture, Greek philosophy and litera-
ture took absolute possession of the Roman. Accordingly, what Rome,
as the custodian of ancient civilization, passed on to the modern
world, was, in its non-political aspects, at least, an essentially Hellenic
civilization.
This brief abstract aims only to suggest a method of regarding
ancient history which may prove help ful to teacher and pupil alike.
It is not the study of Greece by itself, it is not the study of Rome by
itself ; it is not military and political annals alone, it is not the study
of great literary epochs in the past taken by themselves: it is a vast
synthesis of all these as they acted and re-acted upon one another
that tell the whole story and makes us realize how the nations of
antiquity were related to each other, and how they are related to us.
It should be added, in conclusion, that the method here advocated
would offer no excuse for neglecting the facts. To teach generaliza-
tion to pupils who are not thoroughly grounded in the details on which
they are based is to build a house on sand. That kind of teaching
leads tO superficiality, intellectual flabbiness, and even to dishonesty.
What should be insisted upon is that the teacher should not only drill
the pupil in the acquisition of facts, but guide him in their interpreta-
tion. That one who does both, and only that one, is a true teacher of
history.
2o. * Travel in Greece as a Preparation for Teaching Greek
History,” by Miss May E. Barnes, Bay City High School.
This paper was illustrated by forty stereopticon slides made from
recent photographs. -
Miss Barnes gave an account of a tour in Greece made in company
with a number of students of the American School of Classical Studies
in Rome, in the spring of I 9o I. The company left Rome March I 5,
stopping at Benevento on the way to Brindisi, in order to see the
Arch of Trajan. From Brindisi they went by steamer to Patras,
spending several delightful hours on the island of Corfù. -
Starting from Patras, March I 9, they made the tour of the Pelo-
ponnesus, first visiting Olympia, then crossing the mountains to
Megalopolis on horseback. From Kalamata they went over the
392 7TÆVÆ SCÆVOOÆ Æ Æ V/AE VV
Langada Pass to Sparta, from Sparta by carriage to Tripolitza, after-
wards visiting Argos, the Argive Heraeum,. Mycenae, Tiryns, and Epi-
daurus while making their headquarters for Some days at Nauplia.
After a sojourn of two weeks at Athens, whence' excursions were
made to Eleusis, the plain of Marathon, and Mt. Pentelicus, the party
started for the tour of northern Greece. The greater number took
the overland route to Delphi, visiting Thebes and other interesting
sites along the way; the rest went around by water to the ancient sea-
port of Delphi. From Delphi some returned to Athens, to work in
the museums ; the rest went on horseback over the shoulder of Mt.
Parnassus to Thermopylae and Lamia, thence by carriage to the
wretched village that represents the ancient Pharsalus; connections
were there made by rail for Larissa, whence the Vale of Tempe was
visited. The return to Athens was made by boat from Volo.
On the way from Athens back to Patras, a day was spent inspecting
the American excavations on the site of ancient Corinth. The party
landed at Brindisi early in the morning of May I o. ι
The slides presented a representative selection of views and monu-
ments, which the party saw, and which, for those who have seen them,
remain an invaluable aid in the interpretation of the events and the
civilization with which they are associated.
21. “ In the Footsteps of Caesar in Gaul,” by Principal
George R. Swain, Bay City High School.
The sixty stereopticon slides used in illustrating this paper are
from original negatives made by Mr. Swain during the summer of
I 899. “An ideal vacation for teachers of Cæsar,'' said the speaker,
“ is a wheel trip over the routes of Cæsar's Gallici campaigns.” “ If
one wishes to take photographs of any value,” he added, “ a camera of
the long-focus type is indispensable.”
CÆSAR, DE BELLO GALLICO, BOOK I, I-XX.
Cæsar's eighteen miles of fortifications had no need to be continu-
ous. For fully three-quarters of the way from Geneva to the Pas de
l'Écluse sharply sloping or precipitous banks render fording utterly
impossible. One steep bank is as good as two to prevent crossing.
On the alluvial flats, where there were fords, the river channel may not
be in just the same place now as then, but the width of the flat has
probably not materially changed.
When the Helvetians decided to pass along the north bank of the
Rhone, owing to the short range of their missiles the Romans could
CZASS/CAÆ CO/VÆ7ÆÄ? ÆΛVCÆ AROCÆÆ DAVGS 393
only helplessly watch the great company of emigrants file along the
narrow road notched in the side of the cafion. Two men stationed
on the south bank with as many Gatling or Maxim guns and an
unlimited supply of ammunition could have stopped — or killed—
the entire Helvetiam nation.
The country between the Pas de l'Écluse and the Saône is so
rugged, so cut with steep-walled valleys and high ridges, that the con-
sent of the inhabitant to their passage had to be secured by the Hel-
vetians, else a small force might have ambuscaded or turned back the
emigrants.
The Saône may be described as aptly today as two thousand years
ago by Cæsar's words, for it even now flows incredibi/i /emitate ita ut
ocu/is in utram partem f?uat iudicari mom possit. For miles above Lyons
there is not a current ripple on the stream.
The exact mons where Cæsar planned to attack the enemy whose
march he had been dogging for days (chaps. xxi and xxii) cannot
today be easily identified. The erosion of the storms of twenty cen-
turies, together with age-long cultivation, especially in a region of
rather soft country rock, tends to level hills and fill valleys.
Mont Beuvray, the site of Bibracte, dominates the view for miles.
Its slopes today are nearly all wooded clear to the plateau-like summit.
The surrounding country is one of the loveliest sections of France.
Many fragments of pottery from the site of Bibracte may be seen in
the museum at St. Germain-en-Laye, near Paris.
The site of the final battle with the Helvetians (according to
Colonel Stoffel) is near the modern village of Montmort. From the
hill where Cæsar drew up his troops almost every foot of the field can
be seen. The rise of the slope of the hill is still enough to wind a
man even of good lungs should he rush up the ascent with the same
speed as did the eager Helvetians. The place where the final bitter
struggle among the carts of the baggage train was waged, is quite
deeply cut by ravines. The entire site is practically under cultivation,
save toward the tops of some of the higher hills.
BOOK VII, LXIX—XC.
The plateau of Alesia is a position of great natural military strength
— to armies unacquainted with gunpowder. Rapid fire one-pounders
could rake the hill from at least four surrounding heights. The slopes
today in numerous places are very steep, occasionally precipitous. The
plateau itself is cultivated, but the soil is shallow and stony. The
peasants till the slopes well up toward the summit.
394 THA, SCHOOZ AA. V/A. W
The modern village of Alise-Ste.-Reine is perched on the shoulder
of the eminence. Just above is the bronze statue* of Vercingetorix,
the first national hero of France. With steadfast look he gazes off
over the plain where the fiercest fighting strewed the earth with corpses.
As one goes to the south, for miles the image of the great Gallic chief-
tain is visible on the sky line. Had Vercingetorix possessed a fighting
machine of blood, bone, and iron equal to the Roman legionary, would
his genius or that of Cæsar have triumphed ? •
Every student of Cæsar who happens to be in Paris should by all
means visit the museum at St. Germain (already referred to), for here
are displayed scores of rusty Roman and Gallic weapons found on the
site of Alesia in the course of the excavations authorized by Napo-
leon III. »
22. “Ten Years of Excavation at Pompeii : I 892— 1 9o I,” by
Professor Francis W. Kelsey, University of Michigan.
The speaker, by way of introduction, spoke briefly of the eruption
of Vesuvius, which, in August of the year 79, overwhelmed the cities
of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae ; the progress of the excava-
tions at Pompeii, commenced in March, I 748, was then traced in out-
line, and four decades of discovery were mentioned as of especial
importance : I 763—72, I8I 3—22, 1823—32, and the decade just brought
to a close, I 892— I 9o I. -
The most important results of excavation in the last decade are: the
unearthing of the House of the Silver Wedding, in I 892—93, which
has the largest and most imposing atrium yet found in Pompeii ; the
excavation of the House of the Vettii, in 1894-95, containing small
paintings that give us new data for a true appreciation of the attain-
ments of the ancients in this field of art ; the uncovering, in 1894—96,
of the villa near Boscoreale, a short distance north of Pompeii, the
plan of which illustrates, better than that of any other villa yet brought
to light, the arrangement of a Roman farmhouse, and in which was
found the remarkable treasure of silver plate presented by Baron
Rothschild to the Louvre ; the removal of the débris, in 1898—99,
from the site of the temple of Venus Pompeiana, patron goddess of
the city, which, if completed, would have been the largest and finest
of Pompeian temples ; and, finally, the discovery, in November, I 9oo,
* A second statue of Vercingetorix is about to be erected at Clermont-Ferrand, a
few miles from the site of Gergovia.
C/LASS/CA Z COÄVÆÆÆ ÆλVCÆ ÆÄ?OCÆÆ DAVGS 395
of the bronze statue of a youth in the remains of a shop just north of
the Vesuvius gate, outside the city.
The plan of the Villa of Boscoreale was explained, and slides of
several specimens of the silverware found in it were shown and inter-
preted. The lecture was illustrated by thirty-five stereopticon slides.
JosEPH H. DRAKE.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHICAN.
QUINTILIAN ON EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING IN
THE LIGHT OF RECENT TEACHINGS.*
THE essential identity of modern with ancient culture in
certain fundamental aspects has been brought home to me by
a comparison of the work of Dr. James M. Buckley, entitled
Extemporameous Oratory for Professioma/ amd Amateur Speakers,
with some parts of the work of Quintilian. Dr. Buckley's book
was written after his long experience as an acceptable lecturer
on this subject before theological seminaries and law schools, at
the direct and coincident request of two faculties ; it may fairly
be accepted as an expression of modern views, just as we may
take Quintilian's work as the expression of the ancient.
Verbal identity of phrase is here out of the question, since
the speakers use different languages ; but practical identity of
thought will be readily apparent if corresponding statements be
set side by side. This practical identity will appear if Quintilian
be quoted only in translation ; in order to make clearer the
modern tone of the ancient writer, the references to the pas-
sages cited will be withheld until both the ancient and the
modern statements shall have been quoted ; there will thus be a
chance for the reader who wishes to do so, to apply the test of
that instantaneous discrimination between new and Old which
comes from our more intimate knowledge of modern teachings.
First, then, as to the regard in which extemporaneous oratory
is held as an art. We may compare these statements : (I, in
which the writer is speaking to students of rhetoric) “ The
richest fruit of all our study and the most ample recompense
for the extent of our labor is the faculty of speaking extempore.”
(2) “ I would again praise before any other acquisition that of
expressing forcibly and with ease any idea which the mind may
contain.'' (3) “ Oratory is the greatest of arts.'' The question
is whether we feel able to declare which is the ancient and which
the modern expression, until we have learned that quotation
* Paper read at the Classical Conference at Ann Arbor, Michigam, March 27.
396
ÆX7TÆ MAOARAAVÆOUS SÆ ÆAÆ(V/VG 397 -»
No. I is from Quintilian (Inst. Orat., X, vii : I); No. 2, the words
of Sargent Prentiss to his brother, quoted by Buckley, p. 39o ;
No. 3, Buckley's own expression, p. I.
Second, as to the basis of the peculiar quality of this art,
we may compare the following: (I) “ Every extemporaneous
address is the product of the whole man— mind, heart, voice —
every supporting and expressing organ contributing in varying
degrees of energy.'' (2) “ For it is strength of feeling com-
bined with energy of intellect, that renders us eloquent.” In
this case quotation No. I is from Buckley, p. 33 ; and No. 2,
from Quintilian (X, vii : I 5). -
Third, with regard to the means of acquiring this desirable
art. The topic is most readily treated in subdivisions.
(a) Years of learning are needed to fill the fountain of ideas
and words. Compare: ( I ) “ A double basis, compounded as
follows : First, of a wide and thorough general education
Second, of the habit of constant and searching reflection." (2)
“ We must acquire an ample store of the best language.'' (3)
“ We must study at all times and in all places.'' No. I, the words
of Gladstone, quoted by Buckley, p. 337; No. 2, Quintilian '
(X, vii : 7); No. 3, Quintilian, (X, vii : 27). -
(b) Trained habit will build paths of thought. Compare:
(I) “ Grooves are usually formed in the beginning of a career,''
and (2) “ He who shall speak according to a certain method
will be led forward . . . . as by a sure guide.” No. I, from
Buckley, p. 307; No. 2, from Quintilian. (X, vii : 6).
(c) The art of the extemporizer is the art of conversation.
Compare : (I) “ Nor must we omit to notice the advice that no
portion even of our common conversation should ever be care-
less, and that whatever we may say and wherever we may say it,
it should be as far as possible excellent in its kind ; " and (2)
“ Except in the case of some . . . . (speakers) in constant
practice . . . . who abstain from talking in private because
they have so much of it to do in public, I doubt if an instance
can be found of a successful extemporizer who is not what would
be called *' a great talker." No. I is from Quintilian (X, vii : 28);
No. 2, from Buckley, p. 187.
398 • 7THVAE SCÆVOO / Æ Æ VVÆ VV
(d) The habit of written composition is useful in forming
language for the extemporizer. Compare: (I) “The quest for new
words should be ceaseless. To imprint these indelibly the habit
of writing should be maintained . . . . should the neglect of
composition and self-criticism be prolonged (speakers who have
quit writing) will become padders ; " and (2) “ We must cer-
tainly write never more than when we have to speak most
extempore . . . . as it appears that by writing we speak with
greatest accuracy.'* No. I is from Buckley, p. 325; No. 2, Quin-
tilian (X, vii : 28). -
(e) Habit and exercise are the mainstay of extempore
facility. Compare : (I) “ For it is habit and exercise that
chiefly beget facility, and, if they be intermitted even for a short
period, not only will our fluency be diminished, but our mouth
may even be closed ; '' and (2, in which a great orator, speaking
of the need of practice to maintain perfection, says :) “ During
five whole sessions I spoke every night but one, and I regret that
I did not speak that night too :” No. I, the expression of Quin-
tilian (X, vii : 8); No. 2, the words of the English orator Fox,
quoted by Buckley, p. 36o.
It would be easy to multiply the parallels, and perhaps it
would be superfluous ; but one more example may be given :
An incidental characterization of extemporary eloquence is as
follows : “ The overflow of a full mind, Swelling in the joyous
excitement of a friendly reception, kindling in the glowing theme
suggested by the occasion, and not unmoved by the spirit of the
place.'' Is this quotation to be assigned to Buckley, to Quintilian,
or to Edward Everett? -
The modern tone of Quintilian's teaching is, after all, easy to
account for ; oratory involves relations of human nature, which
does not change. The methods of appeal are the same today as
two thousand years ago ; the insight of Quintilian as a teacher
of oratory has not been surpassed, and so his teachings remain,
tested and true.
GEORGE V. EDWARDs
OLIVET COLLEGE.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF INDIRECT
DISCOURSE.*
I.
PsycHOLOGICALLY speaking, there is no such thing as giving
directly the;words or thoughts of another person; for before we
can express these thoughts, they must pass into our own minds, and
our expression is then, strictly speaking, merely the expression
of a section of our own consciousness. Still, the distinction
which we make between direct and indirect discourse can be
justified in psychology as well as in grammar. The difference
between the two is that in direct discourse we make a positive
effort to eliminate the work of our minds, and to report merely
the record of our senses, while in indirect discourse we do not
make this effort, but simply give expression to the thoughts of
the other person exactly as they lie in our own consciousness at
the time. This being the case, a psychological discussion of
indirect discourse will have to do with the state or states of the
mind which result from its contact with foreign ideas ; in other
words, the discussion must be based on a study of the mental
processes which are involved in hearing, or reading, the thoughts
of another person. : -.
To avoid unnecessary complications in a matter which is, at
the best, complicated enough, we will leave out of account, for
the time being, such forms of speech as questions and commands,
and will confine ourselves, at the outset, to the consideration of
declarative statements addressed by one person to another, say
by A to B.
To begin with, then, it is perfectly clear that the ideas
expressed by A are not all received with the same readiness in
the mind of B. Some ideas are inherently more difficult to
grasp than others. But entirely apart from its inherent char-
acter, the difficulty or ease with which B takes up an idea
* Paper read at the Classical Conference at Amn Arbor, Mich., March 27.
399
4OO 7A, SCAZOOZ AA. VIÆVV
expressed by A, will depend even more decidedly upon whether
the idea has at some previous time been present in B's mind or
not. If the idea has been so present and B is already familiar
with it at the time when A expresses it, then A's statement will,
of course, serve merely to call it up again in B's consciousness.
This is a very simple and rapid psychological process. It
requires no appreciable time or effort of B. And as B will at
once recognize the idea as his own, he will, of course, under all
ordinary conditions, not ascribe it to A at all, even though A
has expressed it. Therefore, in case B ever expresses this idea,
he will naturally express it as his own. Hence in such a case
indirect discourse is not possible. *.
Very different is the case, on the other hand, when A says
something which B will not recognize as his own, but as A's,
that is, when A tells B something which B does not know as yet,
and with which his mind has had no previous experience. It is
only under such conditions that B can ever look upon an idea in
his own mind as still belonging to A, and it is only in this case,
' therefore, that indirect discourse will naturally result. This is
the case, then, that we must now proceed to consider in some
detail. «*
We find in the first place, that at the time when A makes his
statement, the idea which he expresses is a fully assimilated and
integral part of his mental stock, a finished product, if we may
use the term, which is ready for delivery. The process of trans-
fer from A to B will consist of two parts : The first is the utter-
ance of A, the second is the mental activity of B, by which the
idea is either accommodated to the content of his mind, or else
is found incompatible with it and is rejected. If the idea is
accepted by B, it becomes in due time a part of his mental stock,
and is then, in the end, with him just what it originally was with
A, a finished product ready for delivery. Therefore, if upon
reaching this point, B should express himself so far as that par-
ticular idea is concerned, he would do it just as A did it before
him, that is, his attitude toward the idea would be that of the
full possessor.
Now, it is neither the original utterance by A, nor this final
ÆACKGÀROU/V/) OÄ7 /Λ//Q/ÆÆC 7' /)/SCOURSÆ 4o I
utterance by B, with which we are at present concerned. For
in both of these utterances the speakers are merely expressing
ideas which they must feel to be their own. Indirect discourse,
on the other hand, has to do only with the expression of ideas
belonging to other persons. Genuine, spontaneous, indirect dis-
course will, therefore, be employed only during that time which
follows the original utterance of A, and precedes the complete
assimilation of the idea in the mind of B, that is, during the
time when the idea has as yet been but partially or conditionally
appropriated by B, or it may be, has failed of acceptance alto-
gether. For it is only in this preliminary state of incomplete
assimilation that the idea, while already present in B's mind,
still appears to him to belong to A.
Letus, then, examine more closely this preliminary condition,
in which the idea is temporarily delayed or permanently arrested
in its progress toward full assimilation in the mind of B. We
find that this preliminary process really embraces two stages,
which can easily be distinguished, an earlier and a later. The
change from the one to the other is occasioned by a shifting of
the attention on the part of B. In the very beginning, while A
is speaking, B's attention is, of course, fixed mainly upon him
and his actions, and it is not until A has done, that this attention
turns with any completeness to the idea itself. In the first stage,
therefore, that is, in the time during and directly following the
utterance of A, the idea is marked in B's mind by an over-
whelming sense of the original speaker's authorship and owner-
ship. It is not, indeed, so much an idea, as it is an activity of
A, that fills B's mind at this time.
But as B's attention is more and more withdrawn from the
speaker and confined to the idea itself, this strong feeling of
A's ownership and authorship of the idea will, of course, like-
wise gradually fade away in B's mind, until finally the sense of
A's connection with the idea becomes quite vague and dim.
This is the second stage in the preliminary process of assimila-
tion, in which the idea lies in B's mind as a more or less abstract
proposition, as so much pure thought-matter, more or less neu-
tral so far as relations of ownership to individual persons are
4o2 7THAE SCHWOO Z ARÆ VVÆ VV
concerned. After this point is reached, if conditions are favor-
able, the idea will move on into the third and last stage of
assimilation, and will pass completely into the possession of B,
or in other words, the sense of B's own possession of it will take
the place of his former sense of A's possession.
We may, then, roughly designate the three stages in the pro-
cess of complete transfer and assimilation of an idea, as they
are reflected in the successive states of B's mind, as follows : (I)
idea + A ; (2) idea, more or less pure; (3) idea + B. In those
cases where ideas expressed by A are but partially or condition-
ally assimilated by B, or are rejected entirely, of course only
the first two of these stages are ever reached: (I) idea + A;
(2) idea, more or less free from personal associations.
II.
Fortunately, we have preserved to us, in Latin, cases of direct
spontaneous expression of each of these three stages in the
assimilation of ideas. For convenience we will take them up
in the reverse order, and will discuss first the stage that is
reached last. In this stage, the one in which the idea has been
fully absorbed by B, and is completely in his possession, his
method of expressing it will, of course, be the declarative state-
ment, just as it was in the original expression by A. This is not
indirect discourse, and with this stage in the process we are,
therefore, not concerned, except, perhaps, in so far as the paren-
thetical remarks which proceed from the reporter's own knowl-
edge, and which have the indicative in Latin, may be said to
have a legitimate place in a discussion of indirect discourse.
The second stage in the process has been described as the
one in which the sense of A's authorship of the idea, and the
prominence of A's personality in it has, so far as B's conscious-
ness is concerned, faded away to a certain extent, in which the
idea is left in B's mind as pure thought-matter which is not very
closely associated with an owner. The direct expression of an
idea in this stage may be expected, therefore, after B's mind has
been busy with the idea for a time, without being able com-
pletely to assimilate it.
Æ3ACÄTGÆOUAV/) OA7 /ΛVZ)/ÆÆC 7" D/SCOÜÄ€SÆ 4o3
Now if we stop to think about these efforts which B has, by
this time, made to assimilate the idea, we must realize that they
cannot have occurred without affecting the form of the idea
itself. One change, at least, the idea must have suffered, a
change that every idea undergoes when it is subjected to mental
labor. We mean the change by which the idea is inevitably
reduced to that which to the hearer's mind is its simplest and
most portable shape, through the elimination of all that is irrele-
vant or of no present consequence to the hearer. The sponta-
neous expression of a foreign idea under such circumstances
must, then, amount to the expression of that particular phase of
the idea which especially interests the hearer.
In extant Latin literature we find frequent use made of such
expressions at the beginnings of new scenes in comedy, where
the purpose is at once to sum up a conversation which has just
been carried on off the stage, and to show the speaker's attitude
toward the subject of this conversation. So in the Adelphi of
Terence (ll. 447—9), when several new characters come upon the
stage with the following conversation :
Aegzo. Pro di immortales, facinus indignum, Geta,
quod narras !
Geta. Sic est factum.
Aegio. Ex illan familia
tam inliberale esse ortum facinus !
As this case and many others like it show, the natural mode
of expression in Latin for this, the second stage of assimilation,
is the infinitive — what the grammars call an infinitive exclama-
tion of surprise or incredulity.
Not all infinitives of exclamation fall under this head, how-
ever, for besides expressing the speaker's attitude toward state-
ments of other people, this construction may also, and often
does, express his attitude toward ideas which have come to him
in other ways — from his own observation, experience, or past
thinking. These observations and experiences of the speaker's
own are often found by him to be just as difficult of assimilation
as the things which are said by another. So in Terence's Andria,
870, when Simo exclaims over the waywardness of his son :
Tantum laborem capere ob talem filium !
4O4 • 7'/7Æ SCÆVOOAZ Æ Æ V/Æ VV
So far as the speaker himself is concerned, this independent
use of the infinitive in a case of his own observation or experience
is not different from its use with reference to an idea originally
expressed by another person. In the latter case the speaker's
sense of the original ownership or authorship of the idea has
simply faded out, while in the former case such a sense of
authorship never existed, and in both cases that phase of the
idea which particularly interests the speaker and receives his
whole attention, seems at the time utterly impossible of compre-
hension. Hence the surprise or incredulity.
Still a third independent infinitive which may be mentioned
in this connection, is the so-called historical infinitive, what
Professor Lane called the ** infinitive of intimation.'' This infin-
itive is used especially in narrating a series of events which all
crowd before the speaker's mind at once, or succeed each other
so rapidly that he does not have time to get the individual ideas
all completely under his control. In the case of the exclama-
tory infinitive we saw that the individual idea was not made the
speaker's own, because of its incompatibility with his existing
state of mind. In the case of the infinitive of intimation the
series of ideas is not thoroughly made his own, because of their
rapid succession, or their great number or diversity of character.
Psychologically, therefore, the ideas expressed by the infinitive of
intimation exist in the speaker's mind in the same state as those
other ideas, proceeding either from the statements of other
persons or from his own experience, which he has not been able
to absorb completely, that is, these ideas are all in a state of
incomplete association or assimilation. And this incomplete
assimilation in B's mind of the idea expressed by A, is exactly
the condition of the idea which is reflected in indirect discourse.
If we examine our mental habits, we find that we do not by
any means always completely absorb the ideas we hear expressed.
We all maintain a certain standard in the amount of corrobora-
tive evidence which we require of our own minds, before we will
allow ourselves to decide whether that which someone else has
said is true or false, whether we shall ourselves accept it as our
own or reject it. As a matter of fact, in the case of very many
ÆACÆGROUA/Z) OA ZAVDIRECT O/SCOURSÆ 4o5
things that we hear, this standard is never reached at all, and
cannot be reached, simply because it is not possible for us either
to have or to get the experience and knowledge with regard to
the idea, which is necessary for a positive judgment of our own.
To be sure, the general credibility of the person speaking may,
even in such cases, decide in his favor, and may get us to state
as a truth, from our own standpoint, what, strictly speaking, is a
truth only from his standpoint. But when this happens, we
simply say, “The thing is so,” not, “ He says it is so," and there
is no indirect discourse. We must therefore exclude this possi-
bility from our discussion. We have at present to do only with
those cases where B does not feel competent to pass final judg-
ment on what A has said, and must therefore leave the idea to
rest upon its own merits as an abstract proposition, or upon the
authority of the original speaker. And an idea in this state,
after the hearer's mind has been at work with it for a time, and
his consciousness of its connection with the original speaker has
y.
become somewhat faint, is in Latin expressed, as we saw, by the
infinitive. -
Having now considered the second and third stages, we shall
pass on to consider the first stage in the process of assimilation.
At this stage, as we saw, the hearer's attention has not yet been
completely transferred from the speaker himself to the idea he
has expressed, and the personality of A and the sense of his
authorship are therefore still very strong and vivid in B's mind.
The difference between this stage and the second, or infinitive
stage, which we have just spoken about, is that in this first stage
the mind of B has not yet had time to busy itself with the idea.
That being so, we should expect that B's expression, uttered as
it is directly after that of A, would present the idea to us in
practically the same form in which it was expressed by A. And
this we find to be actually the case, with the exception, in Latin,
that the verb is very often in the subjunctive, even when A used
the imperative or the indicative. For example, after an imper-
ative : •
Most. 633. 7ramio. Dic te daturum ut abeat. 7/ieopropides. Egon
dicam dare?
4o6 7THÆ SCHOOZ AAEVIA. W
Capt. I 39. Æegio, Ne fle. Ergasi/us. Egon illum non fleam?
After an indicative question :
Ad. 374. Syrus. Quid agitur? Demea. Quid agatur?
Ad. 84. AMicio. Quid is fecit? Demea. Quid ille fecerit?
After an indicative statement :
Andria 9 I 5. Chremes. Bonus est hic vir. Sìmo. Hic vir sit bonus?
Curc. 6 I 5. Phaedromus. Virgo haec liberast. Themapomtigomus. Mean
ancilla libera ut sit?
There is really nothing in this class of constructions that
requires explanation except the subjunctive. But why should
an idea expressed by A in the indicative have the subjunctive
when it is expressed by B? From the examples given it is clear
that the change in mood is not due to what A says or the way
in which he says it, but that it must be due to something in the
state of B's mind when he hears it, or in other words, to the
effect produced upon B by the mere fact of A's utterance.
For, as we saw, B uses the subjunctive in his retort exactly in
the same way, whether A's original expression was a statement,
a question, or a command. If we examine these three cases
individually, we can readily understand why an imperative should
change to a subjunctive. For when A gives a command to B,
the latter would naturally, upon applying it to himself, 7. e., the
first person, express it by the subjunctive, for in the first and
third person the subjunctive regularly performs the same func-
tions that the imperative performs in the second person. But
why B should also use the subjunctive to express his mind upon
hearing statements and questions that are put by A in the indi-
cative, is not so easy to see.
In looking for the explanation of this peculiar phenomenon,
we need to realize that it is in no sense an exceptional, but rather
a thoroughly universal state of affairs with which we have to
deal. For we find this exchange of mood in indirect discourse
in Greek and the Germanic languages, no less than in Latin. We
are fully justified in asserting, therefore, that the change is
due to a general cause operating in all cases alike, or in other
words, that there must be some common, fundamental, universal
characteristic of the hearer's state of mind in this earliest stage
ÆACÄTG /€OUAVZ) OÆ /Λ//)/A€ ÆC7" Z)/SCOUÆSÆ 4O7
of the process of assimilation, which has led him to express him-
self in the same way, whether it be a statement that he hears, or
a command, or a question, whether it be an indicative, a sub-
junctive, or an imperative. But what is this pervading quality
of the hearer's consciousness, and what force of the subjunctive —
or optative — is it that makes this mood his natural medium of
expression?
We saw at the beginning of our discussion that an idea
expressed by A has either been previously present in the mind
of B, or it has not been present. In case it has been present,
the only activity aroused in B's mind by A's utterance is the
simple recognition of the idea, which is already in his posses-
sion. In this case we saw that indirect discourse was impossible.
On the other hand, when A's idea is new to B, then a more or
less lengthy process of assimilation is necessary in 'B's mind.
And we found that it is during the earlier, or preliminary stages
of this process, while assimilation is yet incomplete, that indirect
discourse has its origin. When the subjunctive is used, there-
fore, to express an idea in the first part of this state of incom-
plete assimilation, it must have that force which will reflect the
peculiar characteristic which distinguishes the mental process of
active assimilation from that of mere recognition. And this
distinguishing characteristic is easy enough to detect. It is the
much greater effort which the mind, consciously enough, puts
forth to assimilate the strange idea. To the original speaker, in
whose mind the idea is already assimilated, the necessity of this
effort is of course not so apparent; but to B, who has the actual
work of assimilation to do, the effort is just as real and neces-
sary as though A had given a command to his mental activities,
instead of merely making a statement or asking a question.
Hence B, at least in this early stage, when the stress of mental
work is greatest and the personal e1ement is most prominent,
both feels and expresses the foreign idea, as if it were a demand
made upon his mental powers by A. The subjunctive would
then be the same subjunctive as that by which B retorts in case
of a command, ì. e., it is a variety of what we may call the reffeae
volitive. Commands, statements, and questions are all, in the
4o8 7THÆ SCHVOOÆ Æ Æ VVÆ VV
very earliest stage of assimilation, felt by B merely as commands,
or at least as demands upon his assimilative powers. After this
first shock, of course, as B's mind recovers its equilibrium and
gradually gains control of the idea instead of being mastered by
it, and as A's personality fades from it, with the transfer of B's
attention to the thought, this feeling of subjection to A's behest
also vanishes, and the second stage of the assimilative process,
the infinitive stage, supersedes the first or subjunctive stage.
There are two lines of external evidence which may be
offered in favor of this view, that a strange idea, though
expressed in a statement, is conceived by the hearer as a projec-
tion of the speaker's mind and personality, ì. e., as a demand
upon his own mind. The first of these proofs is furnished by
certain peculiar uses of the Latin verb volo. Volt and volunt, for
instance, which are the external symbols of a demand by a third
person or persons, are also used as the regular mode of introdu-
cing the religious and philosophical opinions of such persons.
This use of the word is found scores of times in Cicero's philo-
sophical writings, for example (De Vat. Deor. I, 26, 28, 29, 3o,
33, 34, 36; II, 64, 68, etc.) But in addition to philosophical
views, volo does also, quite frequently, introduce ideas or state-
ments of any kind, as for instance (Cic. Pro Cae/. 2 I, 53), Si
tam familiaris erat Clodiae, quam tu esse vis. In other words, a
person's saying or thinking something is looked upon as though
he zwished or zvantea something.
Still more decisive, perhaps, is the evidence furnished in
German by the use of the verb so//em. This verb, the cognate of
the English sha//, expresses obligation, î. e., the state brought
about by a command or expression of will on the part of another.
So *' Er soll gehen" means “ I or someone else wants him to go.”
But this same word is also regularly used as a sign of indirect
discourse, to express the opinions or words of someone else
which the speaker is not ready to adopt as his own. So “ Er soll
fünfzig Jahr alt sein,'' *' He is said to be fifty years old.'' Still
further, and this we must not neglect to estimate at its true value,
the same verb sollem is also used to reject a statement by another,
iust as the subjunctive is used in Latin. So my statement, “ Dies
ÆACKGAEOUAVD OA7 /Λ/Z)/Æ ÆC 7" D/SCOÜÄESÆ 4o9
ist der König,” would be thrown back at me by the exclamation
“ Dies soll der König sein?” Finally, in German as in Latin, the
subjunctive is used with exactly the same force to express the
identical shades of meaning that have been expressed by these
three uses of sollem, namely, command, reported statement, and
rejected statement.
To sum up our whole discussion in a word, then, we have
found that indirect discourse will arise spontaneously only while
the foreign idea is in a state of incomplete assimilation. Of this
period of mental activity preliminary to complete assimilation,
the subjunctive in Latin expresses an earlier, and the infinitive a '
later stage.
JOHN J. SCHLICHER.
STATE NoRMAL ScHooL,
Terre Haute, Ind.
E D I T O R I A L N O T E S.
THE problems of secondary education seem to be uppermost in the
minds of those who are interested in a nation's educational, industrial, and
commercial progress. Not many months since we noticed the movement in
Germany, under the patronage and indeed the inspiration of the Emperor, to
make the secondary schools conform more nearly to the needs of the national
life with its changed and ever-changing ideals. The bill before the British
'Parliament at the present time is distinguished from its predecessors by the
provision for a more accurate definition of secondary education, and for its
better articulation with elementary education. The Council of the Teachers'
Guild of England is now making an investigation into the right order and
relation of subject-matter in secondary schools, and expects to make this the
great subject for discussion at the meeting of the Education Section in con-
nection with the British Association next autumn.
But specially interesting to us is the movement in France. The Chamber
has just concluded a most interesting debate, conducted on a very high plane,
concerning a bill providing for thè reformation of certain phases of secondary
education in that country. The Minister of Public Instruction and the Com-
mission de l'Enseignement, after thorough investigation and mature consider-
ation, submitted a plan by which the secondary schools might be made more
direct and positive contributors to national progress. The movement toward
free secondary education is seen in France in the proposal to lower the fees in
connection with the Zycêes and to increase the number of bozzprses. As M.
Ribot said in the course of the debate — “ As to free secondary education,
the ideal of a well organized society is not to give the same instruction to all,
but to open a way to the highest studies for the brighter minds even in the
poorest classes of students." The total number of hours given to class work
and study is to be reduced to nine for pupils under sixteen years of age, to
seven for those under twelve, and a lesson instead of lasting through a weari-
some two hours is to be confined to one hour. These provisions seem to us
to be rational and in keeping with modern educational thought. But the
greatest of changes occur in the heart of the school — the plan of studies.
As an indication of the reason for the changes and of the general tendency
in higher education in France, an extract from the speech of M. Leyques
may be cited :
The struggle among nations for existence is too severe; the competition that we
have to meet from our rivals is too keen to permit the university to stand aloof. In a
country like France, where the professional population represents 48 per cent. of the
whole, where the commercial capital engaged in agriculture and 1ndustry exceeds two
4 I O
4-2-
THE SCHOOL REVIEW
A JOURNAL OF SECONDARY EDUCATION
§¤¤ MAY, I 9o4 Š, ns
THE NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS
OF ENGLISH.
THE fourth annual meeting of the New England Association
of Teachers of English was held in Room 23, Walker Building,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, Mass., on Satur-
day, March I 9, I 904, Dr. D. O. S. Lowell presiding.
The secretary reported 23o active members. The officers
elected for next year are: president, D. O. S. Lowell, of Rox-
bury Latin School; vice-president, Charles L. Hanson, of
Mechanics' Arts High School, Boston ; secretary-treasurer,
George H. Browne, of the Browne and Nichols School, Cam-
bridge; executive committee, Mr. John G. Hart, Harvard Uni-
versity; Miss Sybil B. Aldrich, Girls' Latin School, Boston ;
Miss Alice D. Mumford, English High School, Providence, R. I.;
Mr. Henry G. Pearson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The first paper read was that of Professor Mensel, of Smith
College, the subject being: “The Affiliated School in Theory
and Practice.'' It is published in full on pp. 349—6o.
The next subject was the report upon various phases of the
college-entrance requirements in English.
Mr. John G. Hart, of the department of English of Harvard
University, was present in response to an invitation to explain
the purpose of the Examination in English in that university.
He spoke as follows :
I am afraid that I have the ungrateful task of telling an oft-told tale. I
will try to make it as brief as a compositioiì on a college examination book.
329
33O 7TÆVÆ SCÆVOO Z ARÆ VVÆ VV
I can speak, of course, of the purpose of the examination in English
only at Harvard. We have there two admission examinations in English :
one that we look upon with some parental fondness, and another that we look
upon somewhat as a stepchild. I am sorry that, as I understand this meet-
ing, your interest is principally in the stepchild. »
I refer, of course, to the examination based upon the list of books pre-
scribed by the Commission of Colleges in New England, sometimes known, I
believe, as the uniform college requirements in English. For fear that some
may have thought we regard that examination with complacency and satis-
faction, I should like to say, first, that we look upon it rather as an evil for
the time being necessary. We have tried to get rid of it, we have tried to
change it, and we are trying to get rid of it now. We use it only because
giving it up would add to the confusion that already unfortunately exists in
college-entrance requirements. To give it up would make the problem of
the schools harder than it is now. , Our objection to it is, I think, chiefly this,
that it creates an artificial distinction between boys and girls who are going
to college and those who are: not, and subjects them to a preparation — at
least it seems to from our point of view — rather for an examination than in
the subject. To my mind this objection is enough to put the college-entrance
requirements into the limbo of things that have been tried and found want-
ing. To meet this objection, the department of English several years ago
planned a system of training in English which, in its judgment, is fitted for
boys whether they are going to college or not, and we should be very glad to
see this supplant the other requirements. We are doing all that we can to
bring about that result.
But I was asked particularly to say how we intend to use, or how we do
use, the examination that we do not look upon with feelings of satisfaction
unmixed with impatience at what we consider its defects. The purpose of
the examination in elementary English in Harvard is the same as that of all
the other Harvard examinations—to test a boy's ability, rather than his
knowledge of the facts in any particular set of books. We wish to use the
examination as a test of the boy's ability to express himself in written
English. The examination is divided, as you know, into two parts : one
made up of topics drawn from a certain list of books to be read merely, and
another made up of questions on the subject-matter, literary form, and logi-
cal structure — I believe I am quoting the catalogue language — of another
set of books, prescribed for careful study. • •
In the first part of the examination we simply. set a list of topics. We
use topics rather than questions because we wish to give the boys the utmost
possible freedom in writing. We look not so much for a knowledge of the
books from which topics are drawn as for the boy's ability to express what he
has to say about them. We look to see that he has a knowledge, first of all,
of spelling, of punctuation, of what a sentence is, and of what a paragraph
• is. If he does not know any one of those four things, he is conditioned
AWZW ÆAVGZAAVD ASSOC/A7/OAV OA TEACAVERS OF EYGZ/SA 33 I
forthwith. We look, further than that, to see that he has some skill in form-
ing his sentences and his paragraphs ; we do not expect very much. And we
look to see that he has some skill in organizing or composing what he has to
say ; we do not expect much there, and we get even less. . But if he shows a
knowledge of grammar, and some little skill in presenting what he has to
say, the boy, from our point of view, has proved his fitness for admission.
In the second part of the examination we are obliged to ask questions on
the subject-matter. I suppose those of you who are familiar with the Harvard
examinations have already noticed that we confine our questions almost
wholly to the subject-matter of the books, with an occasional question on logi-
cal structure. We have not found out what the Commission of the Colleges
in New England means by * literary form." I suppose Mr. Bowles later will
bring up awful examples of what we have done in our intervals of lunacy,
but our intention has been to put questions that will give a boy a chance to
show that he has understood the books as the expression of humàn beings.
The purpose of both parts of the Harvard examination will not be served
by drilling a boy on the books as if they were scientific treatises, containing
useful facts to be learned; it will be served best by training the boy in the
expression of what /ae has to say, and by using the books only as examples
of what some other human being has thought and felt and expressed well.
.To drill a boy on compositions based on the subject-matter of somebody else
is not, to my mind, a way of fulfilling the purpose of the Harvard examina-
tion in English. 'Its purpose is, first and last, to test the boy's ability to say
what /ae has thought and felt, and not to test his knowledge of the facts con-
tained in the list of prescribed books.
• This was followed by Miss Jordan's paper on “ Facts and
Fictions,'' published in full on pp. 361—64. -.
Mr. Ralph N. Bowles, of Phillips Exeter Academy, then gave
a summary of the replies to the questions submitted to the
teachers : •
AN INVESTIGATION INTO ENGLISH REQUIREMENTS.
Early in February the Committee on College-Entrance Requirements
sent out to 235 representative secondary schools, including public high
schools, endowed academies, boarding and private schools, a circular and the
following questions :
I. In general, do you approve the plan of conducting the English examinatioms
for admission to college ? •.
2. Does the division of the requirements into (I) books for reading and (2) books
for study commend itself to you ? -
3. Is the proportion of books in each division a good one ?
4. In general, are you pleased with the questions asked under (I) books for read-
ing ? under (2) books for study ?
332 • ZTHÆ SCÆVOO/ ÆÆ VVÆ VV
5. What proportion of such questions should call for the reproduction of subject-
matter? What proportion for opinions? What proportion, if any, for information on
the life of the author ? On the history of English literature ?
6. What books should you omit from the requirements of I 904—8?
7. What should you substitute for those you would omit ?
8. What books, if any, should you add to the present list ?
9. Have you found the ** certified exercise-book ” valuable ?
Io. What suggestions have you for improving the examination system ?
I I. What reasons have you for abolishing jt ?
12. Please write definitely of your grievances. For example, you might call
attention to some unsatisfactory questions you have noticed on examination papers,
and point out why they are unsatisfactory. Kindly send in any questions which seem
likely to lessen or to kill the human interest of the books. -
The schools to which this was sent were mostly east of the Mississippi
and north of Virginia and the Ohio River. A few, however, were sent beyond
those limits. Replies came in from more than one hundred schools, and to the
courtesy of the busy teachers who found time to respond the committee is
indebted for the substance of the present report. These replies naturally
show amusing differences of opinion. One happy teacher ignored all the
questions, and informed us that he found the teaching of the college require-
ments' so fascinating, and the books themselves so inspiring, that he had had
no time to think of complaining. Another teacher, quite as happy perhaps,
declared that he felt toward the whole business of college requirements as
Emerson did toward the Eucharist — it did not interest him. He added that
' his consciousness was destitute of requirement tentacles. Fortunately for the
committee, most of the teachers appear to hold less radical views. They
have taken the questions in good faith, and have made thoughtful and helpful
replies. • •
Concerning Question I (definite approval or disapproval of the general
plan of the examinations) about three-fourths of the teachers answer Yes. A
few answer No, and a few reply doubtfully, as, “in many respects,'' ** not
altogether," and ** a necessary but great evil.''
In case of Question 2 (the division of the requirements) about the same
proportions hold good. Most of the teachers are heartily in favor of the
present division. One, however, says that the books for study are too diffi-
cult ; another, that the division is unimportant.
In reply to Question 3 (proportion of books) there is considerable diversity
of opinion. About two-thirds answer Yes. Two say there are too many
books in bo//, divisions; five, that there are moz emoug/, books for reading; two,
that there are too many books for reading. Three say that there are too mamy
books for study; and two, that there are moz e/zo/zg/, books for study. One
says that the division is not adhered to by the examiners, and proposes that a
list for study be prescribed by the college, and a list for reading, adapted to
the needs of its students, be prepared by each school.
In the case of Question 4 (questions on books), about half the replies are
A/£W ÆAVGZAAVD ASSOCIAT/OAV OF TEACHÆRS OF ÆAVGZ/SA 333 -
Yes, a good many answer positively No, and quite a number doubtfully. The
questions set by the College-Entrance Examination Board are especially criti-
cised. One teacher says they are “not sufficiently simple and direct, and
tend too much to subtle character analysis and literary criticism ; '' another '
says “ they are too full of detail, requiring mere memory exercise;'' and still
another, that “they are too exacting in unimportant details."
In the case of Question 5 the general opinion is that a very large propor-
tion of the questions should call for the reproduction of subject-matter. One
teacher, however, says that only 25 per cent. should call for reproduction,
and 75 per cent. for opinions; and another, that only one-eighth of the ques-
tions should require reproduction, and five-eighths should call for opinions.
Another says that “ ready- made opinions are cheap and can be easily fur-
nished.'' Another scores the committee by saying that he has submitted the
question to four intelligent men, and no two agree as to what the question
means. There is a pretty general opinion that there should be few questions,
if any, on the life of the authors and on the history of English literature.
In the case of Question 6 tbe only books now on the requirement list not
attacked are 7T%e Merc/am/ of Vemice, /2/2us Caesar, and The Amczemz Marí-
mer. The Essay om Burms and 7 he Princessare the most severely condemned.
Each has 18 votes against it. Milton's Mimor Poems and the Essay om Addi-
som are a close second, with 17. Then comes The Vicar o/^ VVakefield, with
I 6; followed by the Essay on Mi/fon, with I 4 ; Burke's Speec/ om Conci/ia-
zîom, with I o; the Essay om, /o/. msom, with 9 ; the Lzfe. of Go/d's7/zz//;, with 8;
77, e Lady of t/ie LaÂe, with 7; Tennyson's Se/ecfed Vay//s, with 4; Sir Laum-
fa/ and the Cover/ey Paffers, each with 3; Macbet/a, /wam/aoe, and Si/as
Marmer, each with 2. One teacher says that after an experience of ten
years he is willing to substitute any one of the Rollo books; another says
sweepingly that he would omit “about half of them ;" another, that the “books
are profitable, but not always interesting." On the other hand, one says “they
are all good ;'' then he qualifies his assertion by adding: “The only abso-
lutely impossible book this year is Carlyle's Essay om Burms.'' One or two
others express contentment with the present list. -
The replies to Question 7 (books substituted) are almost too numerous to
mention. Paradise Lost, as a substitute for the //inor Poems, gets more
votes— 9; Dickens's Ta/e of Two Cities is next, with 7; Burns's poems, in
most cases in substitution of the Essay on Burmas, has 6 votes. Four suggest
some speech of Webster instead of Burke's Speec/ om Conci/iatiom. Four
suggest , the Æssay om Warrem Hasfimgs, instead of the essays on Milton,
Addison, and Johnson, and three suggest the Essay on C/ive. Four suggest
more American authors, and specify Cooper, Irving, Hawthorne, Whittier,
and Longfellow. Four advise more Emerson, and one specifies his Amerì-
cam Scho/ar. Four wish Wordsworth to be represented; several suggest
Stevenson and specify Treasure /s/and, Kidmapped, and Pueris Virginibus-
que. Some wish more Addison; others, more Scott. Of Scott, Kemí/wor//,
334 • 7TÆ7Æ SCÆVOO Z Æ Æ VVÆ VV
and The Ta/ismam are mentioned. One suggests a play of Goldsmith;
another, a play of Sheridan. Several wish to see Kipling represented, and
one mentions Captaims Courageous. Several wish more of Lowell; one sug-
gests his Commemoration Ode ; another, one of his essays. Several suggest
Æ/am/et ; several, As You Like /?; and one has the temerity to propose
Pilgrim's Progress. Other works suggested are: Bacon's Essays ; Pope's
J/iad ; Swift's Voyage to Li//z//zz, Goldsmith's Deserted' V7?/age ; Gray's E/egy ;
Lamb's Essays ; selections from Keats, Shelley, Byron, Browning, Arnold,
Pater, Tennyson, Ruskin, Poe, Kingsley, Irving, Longfellow, Motley, and
Parkman; Carlyle's Heroes amd Hero VVorsλῦρ ; Blackmore's Lorma Doome ;
Thackeray's Roumdabout Aaffers, Vamity Fair, and Æemmy Æsmoma, Eliot's
Æomo/a. Under this question one teacher makes the appalling suggestion
that “ the objective point should be development of types and the work
properly co-ordinated with history of Greece and Rome as well as England
and America.” .
In regard to Question 8 the general opinion is that the list, as it at present
stands, is long enough, and that, if new books are added, others should be
removed. Many, however, suggest books to be added, but it is not always
clear whether they propose them as substitutions or not. One suggests some
book of travel, if any of literary value can be found ; another, something
humorous, a burlesque perhaps; still another, “something humorous and
imaginative, such as A/ice ìm VVonder?ama,'' another, something introducing
classic myths, a translation of a classic from the German, Latin, or Greek.
This mention of classic myths reminds me that the other day, in an examina-
tion on Milton's Mimor Aeoems, I asked who Hymen was. One boy replied :
** Hymen was a king, and had lions called Hymenian lions, which were very
ugly and fierce." Two suggest some history of English literature; and one,
a history of American literature, with a personal acquaintance with the chief
writers. One proposes that some of the best American short stories be read;
another, a volume of extracts from numerous authors. One says her pupils
demand books of action. Several ask for more Shakespeare; one, for more
Macaulay; several, for the addition of Emerson ; and among specific works ,
mentioned are: the book of Job; Malory's Morte d'Arthur, Pilgrim's Arogress ;
Æobimsom Crusoe ; Pope's //iad, Franklin's Autobiograp/ay ; Macaulay's
Lays of Amciemt Romae ; Wordsworth's Ode om /mtìmatìoms of /mmorta/ity ;
Dickens's 7a/e of 77vo Czzzes and Davza, Co77/e/j?e/a, Hawthorne's 774e
Scar/e/ /Lettepr, 7}ae A/o/zse of Sevem Gab/es, and 7a/es of a VVayszde //am ;
Lowell's Comzmze//zorazzo/? Ode and Essay o?? Lz/aco//?, Arnold's So/, raò ama!
Æaustum ; Blackmore's Lorma Doome ; Kipling's Jumg/e Book ; Stevenson's
ÆØamappea, David Ba/four, and 7reasure /s/ama, Watson's Beside //ae Bom-
mie Briar Bus/, ; Green's Short History of the Emg/is/. Peop/e.
In the case of Question 9 (certified notebook), forty-seven either have not
used it or do not consider it worth trying. Twenty-six do not answer the
question at all. Thirteen approve of it, or say they have used it successfully.
ΛVÆ VV ÆΛVG ZAAVZ) ASSOCVA 7YO^V OÆ 7TÆACHÆRS OÆ ÆAVGZ/SA/ 335
One goes so far as to say: “Yes, it is capital; it is the only concrete thing
about the examination; it does allow us to secure some definite work from the
student.'' As testimony of exactly opposite kind, another says: “ Such books
usually waste time on nonessentials.'' One teacher replies: “ I do not know
this book;" and another makes the rather embarrassing answer: “ I have not
seen it. Will you please to forward it to me?" - •
In the case of Question I o (suggestions for improvement), thirty-one either
do not answer, or say they have no suggestions. One says: “Oh, reform it
altogether;" another, “Drop it entirely— the only possible thing to do with it
from the school point of view. The effect of the English requirement has
been thoroughly bad upon the school.” Another teacher says : “The more I
study the list of questions given, the better I am satisfied with them.'' Several.
say that there should be subjects for composition not based on books read,
especially since during the freshman year most of the student's work is thus
based on experience ; and several suggést that the number of required books
be decreased so as to allow more time for general theme-writing. Several
complain that the pupils do not write as good themes on books as on general
subjects, and that the amount of theme-writing on books necessitated by the
present long list tends to take all the interest out of the theme-work in the
schools. Another complains that the present arrangement compels the teacher ,
to make the work of preparation too formal, and so makes it difficult to .
inculcate in the pupils a taste for literature and the habit of reading.
Another teacher says that the books should be more human, and that the .
pupils should be taught to read more for enjoyment than for study. There is
a pretty general opinion that the examination questions should not be too
minute ; that they should not call for a display of erudition merely ; that all.
philosophical questions and all questions involving ethical comparison of
character should be omitted; and that they should be simple, direct, and
easily within the limited comprehension of the average boy and girl. Then
there are various other suggestions that deserve mention. One recommends
that more time be allowed for the English examination. Several say that the,
questions should not be limited to two or three books; several, that no dis-
tinction should be made between books for reading and books for study. One
or two suggest that the list of books be changed oftener; and others complain
that it is changed too often. One teacher suggests the addition of spelling
and of some test of oral English ; and another, of a requirement in English
grammar. One advocates replacing the present system by a series of certified
exercise books, showing the work done by the pupil on a list of books chosen
-by the instructor with a view to interesting his own particular classes. In this
way the particular aptitudes and tastes of the student could be reached. One.
teacher suggests that the examination books be read in a more leisurely
fashion, that more men be employed to read them, and that the men be expe-
rienced in such work. Another urges that the college employ as readers men
�
336 - 7A7AE SCHOOZ AA. PVE PV
who have been out of college more than a year or two. One teacher has
replied so fully that I shall quote his answer: -
I should assign as required reading (a) certain plays of Shakespeare; (ó) the
Mimor Poems of Milton and the first two books of Aaradise Losz; and (c) the repre-
sentative books of any definite period in English literature. The requirements under
(c) might be changed at intervals, as at present the list of required reading is occa-
sionally changed. ça
If the period selected for careful study under (c) were the early eighteenth century,
the authors studied would naturally be Defoe (A€οδόmsom Crusoe), Steele and Addison
(Sir Koger de Coverley Aapers, and preferably other essays in addition, such, for
instance, as those included in the “Golden Treasury” edition of Steele, and in the same
edition of Addison), Pope (Æpist?e to Dr. Arbut/ mo!, and selections at the discretion of
the teacher), and Swift (Gu/?iver's 7rave/s). Goldsmith, though of later date, might
wellebe added to this list, as the transition from,the Sir Roger de Cover/ey Aapersto 7/;e
Vicar of Wakefield is an easy one to make, and a comparison between the poetry of
Pope and the poetry of Goldsmith is notum interesting. I should add, also, Thackeray's
ÆNemry Esmond and Macaulay's Æssay on Addisom. The latter, however, I should not
overemphasize by making it a book for so-called “study and practice.”
If the period selected were the early mineteenth century, I should choose a group
of authors : Wordsworth, Coleridge, Hazlitt, Lamb, De Quincey, Scott — men who
lived at the same time and knew one another, and whose works have points of likeness.
which together make the characteristics of the early nineteenth century, and points of
unlikeness which give the individuality of the authors.
Whatever period were assigned, I should expect that the lives of the authors
selected and the literary history of the period should be studied. My object, however,
would be to bring out the human interests in literature, which is most strongly seen
whem the authoris known in hi§ environment, among his contemporaries, as an indi-
vidual human being. 3.
For examination purposes I should assign certain books which must be read, and
on the reproduction of the subject- matter in these books, on opinions concerning them,
and on the lives of their authórs I should base the larger number of the examination
questions. The background which comes from supplementary reading would be evi-
denced in the answers to these questions; but, if it were considered desirable, a few
general questions might be included for the special purpose of bringing out the knowl-
edge acquired by the supplementary reading.
Instead of asking detailed questions which require detailed answers, I should
assign subjects for themes, and require that three or four short themes be written on
three or four subjects selected from a list of from eight to twelve. This gives the
candidate an opportunity to show what knowledge of the books he possesses, what
appreciation of literature he has acquired, and what power he has to express his
thoughts or his knowledge in written words. And these three things are what, in my
opinion, should be tested by an examination. -
I should not be averse to dividing the examination into two parts. The first
would then be what I have already described ; the second would consist of questions
based on the careful study of (a) any two or three of Shakespeare's plays, and (6)
Milton's Mimor Aoems. Some intensive study is desirable, but these, and these only,
seem to me to repay the pupils in the preparatory schools for such study. -
The suggestions which I make are based on my experience in teaching at the same
Λ'EW EVGZAAVD ASSOCIATIOA, OA, 7ÆACÆRÆÆS OÆ ÆAVGZ/SA 337
time classes which were limited in their work by the college requirements in English,
and other classes which were not preparing for college, but were reading English litera-
ture as it grouped itself according to centuries or parts of centuries. In every case I
have found the non-college class eager, enthusiastic, thoroughly interested. The col-
lege preparatory classes, on the other. hand, have always worked mechanically. Their
English, in spite of my best endeavors, has tended to become task-work and has
dragged. They get very little out of their work, and yet they spend much time on it.
In comparison with the non-college classes, they get nothing.
I have found, in the course of my teaching, that pupils like to have some connec-
tion in their work. They like to have a link to join the book they are about to read
with the book they have just finished reading, and they very decidedly object to skip-
ping about from an Americam author to an English one, or from an eighteenth-century
author to a nineteenth-century one, or from poetry to political speeches. The
impetus which they have gathered in the study of one book is somehow lost in this
process of Skipping to another.
I have found also that pupils of the age of those preparing for college get more
good from the reading of a large number of books than from the intensive study of
Shakespeare and Milton. Their attention, if fixed too long on any one book, wearies.
They come to dislike the book. - - -
In conmection with this, I feel very strongly that English should not be made a
vehicle for instruction in geography, history, botany, foreign languages, and literature,
and, in general, all varieties of encyclopædic knowledge. If the emphasis is thrown
on such superficial matters (as it must be, if a pupil is to answer 3 (a) under English
B of the paper set by the College-Entrance Examination Board, June, I9o3), the real
value of the book from the point of view of English literature will necessarily be, to ,
say the least, obscured. My own opinion is that it will be totally destroyed.
In addition to a liking for a connection in their work, and a liking for the
intelligent reading of many books instead of the study of a few books, I have found
also among my pupils a liking for human interest as opposed to mere literary interest.
They are mot ready, in the years before they enter college, for advanced literary criti-
cism, and it should not be required of them. To underständ and to appreciate good
books is what they need to be taught and what they are usually willing to be taught.
They are not, however, interested in the relation which the Somgs bear to the develop-
ment of the idea of 7/ie Arimcess (see II, 3, English A, College-Entrance Examina-
tion Board, June, I9o3), and they reject such knowledge with surprising unanimity
and completemess.
All these characteristics which I have observed in pupils seem to me to be dis-
regarded by the present requirements of the college-entrance examination, and particu-
larly by the questions set by the College-Entrance Examination Board. The plan
which I suggest is, on the other hand, adapted to the liking of the pupils, and obviates
many of the difficulties of the present system, without losing any of its advantages.
In regard to Question 1 I, most of those who answered this question gave
no reason for abolishing the present system. A few, however, objected to it
strongly, and urge that the whole system go by the board. One alleges its
general absurdity; another calls it illogical and inadequate. One says it is
not a fair test of the students' powers, and suggests the certificate method
instead. Another complains that it takes life out of the books and makes the
338. -. 7THÆ SCHWOOÆ ÆÆ VVÆ VV
work of preparation too much of a “dead grind.'' One says: “ As a course
in the study of language it is weak ; and as a course in literature it is dis-
connected; and, while giving little knowledge of the subjects, tends to culti-
vate a distaste rather than appetite for it." Another says that expert teachers
are needed for it, and they are not to be had; that the burden of English has
been thrown almost wholly on the teachers of English requirements; that the
taste for good literature can be awakened, moz taught; and that the use of
good English comes only by the compulsory use of it in all school work.
In regard to Question 12 by far the greater number of teachers say they
have no grievances. Those who do complain speak of the tendency to
emphasize trivial matters on the examination papers. Some object to the
distinction between books for study and for reading. Others complain that
the examinations are made oüt too carelessly. One says: -
I think that the board examination in English A is too hard, and too far advanced.
It calls for too great a knowledge of the history of the time that each book represents,
and too great critical faculty on the part of the young student. The examination
seems to me to be better fitted for a college senior tham for a high-school boy. The
latter is not mature enough to answer such questions as the board asks.'
Another says:
The present system forces on both teachers and pupils too exhaustive a study of
a limited number of books. The tendency is to seek to anticipate every possible point
of view which may occur to the examiner. In the books assigned for reading it
becomes necessary to know (a) the story, even to the least important incident, for
even those may prove necessary for “ illustrations;” (ò) every character ; (c) every
possible grouping of the background or setting of the story, both the historical back-
ground, as in the case of feudalism in /wa/a/aoe, and the literal background, as in the
case of the description of Cedric's hall; (d) every possible point of view for the
literary criticism of each book, both in itself and in relation to all other literature ;
(e) every possible point of contact with actual history; (/) every incident that has to do
with the production of each book ; and (g) the life-value, or moral interpretation. A]l
these things have'been called for by the questions on recent examination papers. It
is evident that when ten books have been studied so carefully as to enable a student
to answer all such questions on all ten books, there is very little interest in literature
left.
Nevertheless, there are five other books to be prepared by careful study. The
pupils must know as much about them as about the books for reading, and in addition
must have an ability to place quotations, a knowledge of all allusions made in the
text, a knowledge of the structure of each book, a knowledge of meter, and a knowl-
edge of “ the leading facts in those periods of English literary history to which the
prescribed books belong. &
Finally the College Entrance Examination Board has added the essentials of
English grammar. What they consider essential is best seen by looking at I (ò) of
English B, of the paper set in June, I9o3. The sentence there givem is one which
would not be accepted from a school child of today, and even includes an absolute
construction which is essentially non-English. Yet this is the sentence that is given
for grammatical analysis. The most obvious intention of it is to catch the candidate
napping.
AVEW EVGZAAVD ASSOCIATION OA TEACHÆRS OF ÆΛ/GZ/SA 339
One of the things asked for by the committee was unsatisfactory exami-
nation papers. In reply to this request many such papers were submitted.
These I should be very glad to read in case anyone cares to hear them. One
teacher complains that college examiners sometimes seem to make out papers
as he once made out a paper in the days of his early teaching. He had to
set an examination in geography, and, as he knew nothing of the rivers of
Mexico, it occurred to him that it might be a good idea to ask the pupils to
name them. He accordingly did so. Only one boy answered the question
at al], and he said: “The only river I know in Mexico is Popocatapetl, and
that's a mountain.''
RALPH N. BOWLES.
Mr. Charles L. Hanson then read the recommendations of the
committee :
RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON COLLEGE
ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS IN ENGLISH.
While some of us are insisting that English is not examinable, while
many of us are looking forward for relief to some system of affiliated
schools, for most of us the plain facts remain that the. examination mills keep
up their annual grinding and that we must furnish the grist. Apparently,
then, your committee can best minister to your immediate wants by suggesting
some ways in which these examinations may better serve their purpose.
Before considering English examinations in general, let us note one or
two attempts to give the schools considerable freedom. Those teachers who
believe in examinations in English could hardly ask for anything more than
to have their pupils examined on the work done in a course of study which is
adapted to the special needs of each school. Precisely this opportunity is
offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I read from the cata-
logue :
As amz a/termative ἐm Aemg/is/. there may be offered any systematic course in com-
bined rhetoric and literature which in amount is practically equivalent to the require-
ment specified. Such an alternative, however, will be , accepted only upon special
application in each case not less than two weeks prior to the examination.* .
On the surface, it does not seem feasible for an institution like Harvard
University to adopt a precisely similar plan. By way of showing her good
* We know of one school which has taken advantage of this offer for several years.
Although the list which that school sends the institute each year does not vary much
from the “required " list, the plan allows the teacher to read some of the least
examinable books on the required list without any thought of the examination. The
very fact, too, that he cam omit Milton's minor poems, substitute Macaulay's lives of
Johnsom and Goldsmit/ for his essay on Miltom, and some of Webster's speeches for
Macaulay's essay on Addisom, puts his work on a different basis. Every year he feels
indebted to the Institute of Technology for the freedom this plan gives.
34O 7THÆ SCHOO/, KAE VVÆ VV
intentions, however, Harvard has taken a step toward giving each, teacher
the privilege of using in his teaching the literature he has found valuable.
In the plan of admission known as “ English (ò)'' the list of books is longer
than in the old plan, “ English (a)," and there are some, although perhaps too
few, options. The practical objections to “ English (ó)'' are, first, that most
schools feel too poor to buy the considerable number of books it requires;
and, second, that schools which send pupils to several colleges cannot form a
separate section for those who are preparing for Harvard.
Without dwelling on Other efforts to put the examination system on a
better basis, let us look at it as it stands today. First, what are the results of
the present system ; or, if that is not a fair question, what results does the
system reveal ? Your committee has not collected many statistics touching
this matter, but the very fact that last year, in the opinion of the Harvard
examiners, 28 per cent. of the applicants were “ illiterate," that their work
was “ seriously deficient in punctuation, spelling, sentence structure, and the
use of paragraphs,'' shows that we cannot afford to rest on the assurance that
we have at least made great improvement during the last ten or fifteen years.
At the other end of the line, many teachers who cannot complain that their
pupils are rejected lose courage because it rarely happens that the best pupils
do work which the examiner recognizes as conspicuously good. Under the
circumstances, it seems to your committee that the best way to secure better
results is to ask the examiners and the teachers to consider carefully (I) the
effects of the examination system on the teachers, and (2) the purpose of the
examination. -
I. 77ie effects of the examinatiom system om f/ae zeachers.—Some teachers
pay little attention to the examinations. The books read for college are mere
drops in the bucketfuls of English undefiled which they dip from the wells of
Chaucer and the rest. They do not need our help. We congratulate them
heartily, but for our present purpose we must set them aside. We are
thinking rather of those schools which can barely find time to read the college
requirements, or which feel compelled to rush through them all in a single
year; or, again, of those teachers who, after reading a book with their classes
as they think it should be read, are obliged to teach it with reference to what
the examiner may expect, and perhaps to review the same book a year or two
later. In such Schools, your committee is convinced, the tendency of the
examinations is to misdirect the teaching, and to kill interest in the books.
Perhaps it is true that the more conscientious the teacher, the more liable she
is to teach the book to death. Many of us think that in our struggle against
this tendency we are frequently, perhaps almost always, successful. Others
of us cannot help feeling that we are put to needless toil because the
examiners have not realized the tremendous influence which the phrasing of
their questions has on our teaching, and because we have not quite under-
stood what the examiners want. Statements of what the college wants are
AVÆ VV ÆAVG LAÄV/O ASSOCVA 7T/OÄV OÆ TÆACHÆRS OÆ ÆÂVG LVSÆ 34]
valuable only when supported by questions which are clearly in keeping with
such statements. -
This leads us to our first recommendation : that the colleges send out
explicit statements of what they expect of the applicants, and that they set
questions which are clearly in keeping with these statements.
2. 77, e purpose of f/ae examìnatìom.— If we ask the college catalogues, or
the men behind the catalogues, what the purpose of the examination is, the
prompt answer comes: “ To test the candidate's ability to write English.”
Incidentally, the candidate should show some knowledge of literature, and
now and then it is hoped that he may give signs of some appreciation of
literature. Let us pause over this threefold purpose of the examination. If,
as probably all concerned would agree, the main object is to test ability to
write English, . it should go without saying that papers in other subjects
should give evidence of such ability. To be sure, some efforts have been
made toward recognizing this fact, but the number of cases in which the
examiner of an English paper changes his estimate of a pupil's proficiency in
composition as a result of reading the pupil's papers in other subjects is so
small that it attracts little attention and has little weight. As a step toward
securing this object, the English work might be influenced by unusal ability
or marked impropriety in the use of English in examinations in other subjects.
When that day comes on which all departments of the college shall demand
good English, and when all secondary teachers shall make it their business to
attend to the pupil's English while teaching him physics and algebra, the main
object of the examination in English will be secured without giving any such
examination. Meanwhile an undue burden will rest on the shoulders of the
English teacher.
The second purpose of the examination — the test of knowledge of litera-
ture — may with perhaps more accuracy be considered the means to an end
rather than an end in itself — the means whereby a pupil may show his ability
to write English. Faithful teachers are under no less compulsion, however,
to teach the literature thoroughly. Now, it is a perplexing problem to
teach all the books prescribed for reading with a thoroughness that will war-
rant every pupil's writing readily and well on such a subject as “The Death
of Reed— that—bends," a question from an examination paper, and a question
which neither teachers nor examiners should be expected to handle. Pupils
read 77, e Lasz of the Mo/iicams, say, in the entering year of the high school.
They should never read it again in connection with school; but if they are to
be asked such questions as that — or, in fact, such questions as the majority
of those which are based on books to be read merely — a review is necessary
in preparation for an examination taken two or three years later. As one
teacher writes: “ Pupils can't keep in their minds much that is definite from
the books earliest read.'' Not only is it desirable, on general principles, to
read in the first year of the course all the books, like Vva/u/ioe, The Last of
the Mohicams, and 77ie Visiom of Sir Latamfa/, which are adapted to the less
342 7TÆVÆ SCAZOO/L ARÆ VVÆ VV
mature pupils, but so many of the requirements are too difficult to be under-
stood and appreciated till the last year that it is desirable, for this particular
reason, to read the easier works earlier in the course. Pupils of high-school
age develop rapidly. One year Shakespeare is “foolish ; " the next year he
is “great,'' with all the emphasis an enthusiastic youth can put into that
expressive word. Every school should take advantage of this rapid devel-
opment of the pupil and arrange its course , of reading accordingly, The
question Ought not to be, as one teacher put it for a good many of us: “ Shall
I teach literature or prepare the class for the impending examination ?'' And
perhaps this question would not recur so often if the colleges were not quite
so eager to catch the lazy boy. As an immediate means of alleviating this
condition of affairs your committee would make its second recommendation :
that the examiners give less attention to catching the lazy boy; that in testing
the pupil's knowledge of literature they do not confine their questions to two
or three books out of sixteen. - •
Down in our hearts we all agree that the highest end for which we are
working is that our boys and girls shall appreciate literature. Yet, while we
are doing our best, it frequently happens that “what a teacher calls a good
book is associated with drudgery.'' Our next query is whether the examina-
tion is to any extent responsible for this unfortunate result. One feature of
the requirement, evidently intended to lead to a proper appreciation of litera-
ture, is the division of books into two sets, the first for reading and the
second for study. Is it not possible that this very division defeats its own
object? If a teacher is worthy of any freedom, is not this a good place to
begin to exercise freedom ? Should it not be for the teachers to decide
whether their pupils shall ** study '' Ju/ius Caesar or Macbe//a, or both ? Hav-
ing found for ten years that my pupils thrive better on a careful study of
Macaulay's life of Jo/amsom than they do on a similar study of his essay on
Addisom, or his Mi/tom, why may I not choose which of the two or three
required works my pupils shall “study'' ? Just because some of you can lead
your pupils through Milton's minor poems line by line and syllable by syllable,
it does not follow that, with all my love for those very poems, I can induce
my boys to like them. Why not allow me to substitute two books of Para-
dise Lost, and let you continue with your more mature, or more appreciative,
or better-taught pupils ? Your committee comes then to its third recommen-
dation: That the division of the requirements into (1) books for reading and
(2) books for study be abolished ; or, if this change seems too radical, that the
teacher be allowed options among the books prescribed for study ; and that
the examiners give immediate relief by allowing the pupil options. If the
applicant has a genuine interest in Macbet/, and fails to appreciate Milton's
minor poems, let him choose between them. If he prefers Macaulay's
Jo/amson to his /Mi/tom, why should he not be encouraged to write on the
Jo/amson ? Possibly this granting of options may be the means of altering
the report from the colleges that composition is forced and unnatural, that
&
AVÆVV AeAVGZAAWZ) ASSOCZAZYO^V OA 7ZACARAZAëS OA ZAVGZZSÄ 343
the pupil says, in the words of one of them, “ what I thought the teacher
wanted me to say.''
Now we come to the books which serve as the basis of the examination.
. 'For the most part they are good. The replies to our questions suggest that
it might be well to give teachers a few options among them. One way of
doing this would be to arrange twenty-four books in eight groups of three, on
the understanding that every school should teach two books in each of the
eight groups. It is a fair question, however, whether in general the diffi-
culty really is with the books. Is it not, rather, with the way in which the
books are treated ? For instance, there would be much more point in pre-
scribing Carlyle's Essay om Burms if that requirement accompanied several
of Burns's poems. Teachers must be free to use a book in such a way that
they will do neither the author nor the pupil rank injustice. Burns has a
right to expect boys and girls to like him. The purpose of the essay is not
so much to introduce the boys and girls to Carlyle as it is to help them form
a just estimate of Robert Burns. Again, what is the use of trying to turn
7Âe Vicar of Wakefield into a text-book ? If we allow our pupils to read the
book through by themselves, and if after that we join with them in laughing
at the absurdities of the plot and all the other absurdities, why should we not
be content if they enjoy little but three or four of the character sketches ?
We shall be content to treat both book and pupil in this rational way just as
soon as the questions warrant our doing so, just as soon as this persistent
clamor for reproduction — or this supposed clamor for reproduction — gives
way to opportunities for the youth to tell frankly what he has come to think
or feel about such books as 7/e Vicar of Wakefie/a and Macaulay's Essays
and Burke's famous speech. Then, instead of questions involving display of
erudition, we shall have simple, unassuming questions of human interest. '
The applicant should be able to answer all such questions; the test should be
/ow we// he answers them. Then he might reasonably hope to show the
examiner some degree of proficiency in sentence structure and . the construc-
tion of paragraphs. It is possible, too, that occasionally a pupil might put
enough of himself into the writing to make it “ notably good.” -
It is desirable that the examiners should get the high-school point of view.
They must not expect too great maturity of thought. If you are an exami-
ner, why should you not question the applicant much as you talk to a young
person about a book you know of his reading ? If you expect him to reply
with interest and enthusiasm to your queries about Ebem A/o/dem or The Ca//
of t/ie VV?/a', you do not limit him largely to a reproduction of what he has
read. You are much more likely to ask some such questions as these : “ Is
Eben Holden a man you would like to know?” “Why ?” “ Does the story of
Buck remind you of the story of any other dog?” “ How did you feel as
you read of Buck's terrible experiences ? "
Why, many of us have all but lost sight of the main purpose for which
some of the books should be read. Such slaves of the examination system
344 . 7THÆ SCHOOL A. Ae VVÆ VV
are we that we need to be reminded every year that Shakespeare's plays are
Z/ays. Think of it ! The excuse given repeatedly for not reading Shakes-
peare aloud is lack of time! Some of you were told recently of a teacher to
whom it had not occurred to read the plays aloud, or to have them so read.
Now, it is quite possible that before the colleges abolish the examination in
English there is a bit of missionary work for them to do. Even if it is not
practicable to test each applicant in the ideal way — to hand him a copy of
7/ae Merchamz of Vemice and hear him read — it appears that it would be
desirable for the examiners to suggest in some way that the plays should be
read aloud. They might use once or twice a decade some such questions as
these: . •
How many times have you read this play aloud?
How many times have you heard this play read aloud ?
How many times have you enjoyed reading this play aloud?
How many times have you enjoyed hearing it read ?
Have you ever heard the following passage read so that it meant more to you
than when you read it by yourself ? If so, point out to what extent you are indebted
to the other person's reading. •.
A consideration of the attitude toward Shakespeare suggests that as a sub-
stitute for the time-honored passage calling for an explanation of italicized
words and an account of the circumstances under which the lines
were spoken, an occasional question like the following might have a whole-
some influence :
Quote from Vu/ius Caesar twenty of the lines which you learned because you con-
sidered them better worth learming than other lines in the play. Cam you tell just
why you chose those lines ?
To such radical changes the objection will be offered that due notice
should be given in order that the applicants may be prepared. True, but if
the questions were given as options, no one could find fault. Hence we offer
our fourth recommendation : that all students be trained to read aloud, and
that the examiners do all they can to encourage this form of training; and our
fifth recommendation : that the examiners take pains to ask questions which
will do no injustice to the pupil or to the author; questions which will, on the
contrary, encouage the teacher to have the pupil study the book as the author
would have him study it.
Our teaching is to a considerable extent a failure unless the required
l)ooks have a wholesome influence on the voluntary reading, What a trite
statement! As a means of anticipating further discussion of the subject,
suppose the examiners should offer a few options. For example, after the
applicant has been compelled to answer some questions on Vvam/aoe, he might
be allowed to substitute for other questions on the same book what he has to
say about 7reastare /s/ama, O/iver Twist, A 7a/e of Two Cities, or Qazemtimt
/Ourzwara, or, if the question were not repeated for Some years, he might be
left free to write about one of his favorite novels and to tell why he liked it.
g^
AVÆ VV ÆAVG LAλ//) ASSOC/.47YO^V OÆ 7ZACHÆÆS OÆ ÆΛVG Z/SÆ 345
Similarly in connection with Macbet/, there might be options on Kämg Lear or
A/am/et; and why shouldn't a student who is passing an examination on 7/ae
Merchamt of Vemice have the opportunity to tell whether and why he likes it
' better than A Midsummer Wight's Dream, As You Like It, or TweJf?/,
A/ig/a? ? On some examination paper, the pupil might be allowed to write on
the two books he likes best out of ten or twelve such as Tom. Brozwm*s Scλοο/
Days, Kepa//wort/., Roò Roy, A 7a/e of 7 avo Cities, Marmozom, 77, e SÄetc/,-Boo/è,
Aeoό272som Crusoe, 7a/es of a 7ra've/er, 7λe A/ozzse of Sevem Gaö/es, 77, e Pat/,-
f??2der, and 7reaszzpre /s/a/?a'.
If the required books do not influence the outside reading, other consid-
erations will. As Professor Bronson, of Brown University, says in a leaflet
soon to be published by this association :
Many of our high-school youth are leading a double life in things literary : in the
class-room, Doctor Jekyll studies the lofty idealism of Comus and Paradise Losz; out-
side, Mr. Hyde revels in the yellow journal and the flashy novel; and in many cases
Doctor Jekyll does not even realize thathe has changedinto amother and a lower being.
Now, experience and observation show that, whereas it is perfectly easy
to have pupils who are not preparing for college read from five to twenty
plays of Shakespeare by themselves while they are reading three aloud in
class, it is not feasible to pay so much attention to outside reading in the
case of those who are preparing for college. If the examiners should recog-
nize in some way this seemingly intangible “outside reading,” possibly they
might do much toward the symmetrical development of literary youth. Our
sixth recommendation, therefore, is that the examiners, at first by the use of
options, give the applicant a natural opportunity to show in what ways the
required books have influenced his voluntary reading; or, better, that the
applicant be encouraged to tell the examiner, even if briefly and imperfectly,
about his “outside reading.”
Even if all these changes should be made, and if they should all have the
most favorable results, the examination would still be narrow. Literature is
only one of a pupil's many interests. If he is expected to use English freely
and frankly, he should be allowed to write on other subjects. The college
would be glad to have him do so, because such training is a direct preparation
for the work which will be required of him in his freshman year. The require-
ment is a sensible one on general principles. It points toward the recognition
of the whole pupil. And what reason is given for the fact that it is so gener-
ally shunned ? Only that ugly reason of mistrust. Such miscellaneous infor-
mation has not seemed examinable. “ Boys would write papers on which they
had been previously drilled.'' The final suggestion your committee has to
make is that it is not only possible but practicable to set questions on various
subjects outside the realm of literature. It has been the custom for several
years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to have one general ques-
tion on each paper. In June, 1899, the question was: -
346 7THÆ SCAHOOL ÆÆ VVÆ VV
Give, in from fifteen to thirty lines, an account of your coming today to this
examination. - «»
In June, I goo, it was : • -
Write a theme of about one hundred words on one of the following subjects : (I)
“ Graduation Exercises at My School.** (2) “A Street Scene in My Town.”
In September, Igoo, it was: « » , • * -
Write a theme of about two hundred words on the following subject : “ My Last :
Day at School.”
In June, I 9o I, it was : - •
Write a theme of not more than two hundred words on the following subject :
“The Thing Which Most Influenced Me in My Decision to Enter Technology.”
In September, I 9o2, it was :
Write a theme describing any five minutes of your life.
Last June it was : -
. Explain, in not less than two hundred words, the chief defect (or good point) of
your preparation for this examination in English. Illustrate, if possible, by reference
to the way you have answered the questions asked above.
The Technology professors, far from having the feeling that boys have
been “drilled'' on those subjects, are enthusiastic over results. The papers
written last June, for example, satisfied one of the most laudable purposes of
an examination. They revealed so many weaknesses that the English depart-
ment saw with unusual clearness the line along which it should direct some
of the work of the freshman year, and new work was laid out accordingly.
Compare these stimulating results with the drudgery of reading reproduc-
tions ! - - .
With this report in mind, I asked some of my boys the other day to hand
me two sets of questions: (1) questions on which they would gladly be
examined personally; (2) questions which would be suitable for boys and
girls in general. Let me read the questions handed in by one boy. First, as
an indication of the boy's interests, those on which he would like to be
examined himself: .-
Write two hundred words on the comparison of the songs of the thrushes.
Write one hundred words on any incident connected with bird life.
Write two hundred words on the character of birds as displayed on their nests.
(Any similar question.).
Write on “ferns as pure leaves.”
Write on fern study.
Write on the fern's, place in nature.
Write on any incident in connection with the finding of ferns.
Write on whatever you please in connection with mosses.
Write on whatever you please in connection with mushrooms.
Write on some geological subject you are interested in.
Write on conglomerate rock of the Boston basim.
Write an account of your finding of some mineral.
A/EW EVGZAAVD ASSOCIATION OA TEACHERS OF EAVGLISH 347
Write an account of your trip through the mountains southwest of North Con-.
way, N. H.
' Write on the view from Mount Monadnock, N. H.
Write on evidences of the glacial period about your home.
Secondly, his questions for pupils in general:
Write one hundred words about any bird, animal, or tree that you are familiar with.
Write about any scene in nature that you are fond of. .
Write about some trip you have taken either through the mountains or in a sail-
boat or a canoe. . •
Write about the view from some mountain or hill.
Write about some book which you have read outside of school.
Write about your favorite poet or author, and tell why he is your favorite.
Write on your favorite kind of musical entertainment, such as vocal or instru-
mental music or dancing, and tell why it is your favorite.
Write a description of some building you are acquainted with.
Write about the subject you like best in your work and tell why you like it best.
These questions are copied exactly as they stand on the boy's paper. They
will serve their purpose if they suggest to some examiner a more suitable
phrasing, or if they indicate that it is absolutely feasible to give “ the whole
boy'' a chance in the examination in his mother-tongue.
In brief, our recommendations are : •
I. That the colleges send out explicit statements of what they expect of
the applicants, and that they set questions which are clearly in keeping with
those statements, - »
2. That in testing the pupil's knowledge of literature the examiners do
not confine their questions to two or three books out of sixteem.
3. That the division of requirements into (I) books for reading and (2)
books for study be abolished ; or, at least, that the teacher be allowed options
within the same types of literature represented by the books prescribed for
study; and that the examiners give immediate relief by allowing the pupil
options. This recommendation is to be construed as involving no addition
to the amount required.
4. That all students be trained to read aloud, and that the examiners do
all they can to encourage this form of training.
5. That the examiners take pains to ask questions which will do no injustice
to the pupil or to the author — questions which will, On the contrary, encourage
the teacher to have the pupil study the book as the author would have him
study it.
6. That the applicant be encouraged to tell the examiner about “ outside
reading.”
7. That in this test of a pupil's ability to use his mother-tongue he be not
confined to the-subject of literature, but be allowed to write on other interests
as well.
CHARLES L. HANSON, Chairmam.
MECHANIC ARTS HIGH SCHOOL,
Boston.
348 . - 7TÆVÆ SCHOO/ ÆÆ VVÆ VV
DISCUSSION.
Mr. J. Rowe Webster, private tutor, Cambridge, made an interesting
contribution to the discussion, in which he said that he had on a large printed
card in his school the following statement from the Harvard catalogue: “ No
candidate will be accepted whose work is seriously deficient in spelling,
punctuation, sentence structure or division into paragraphs.'' This had a
salutary effect upon the boys. In his experience he had found that boys had
great difficulty in writing good sentences, and in writing a variety of sentences.
There seemed a lack of power to form complex sentences and the develop-
ment of this power was one of the first things he had to teach.
Mr. W. M. Cole, of Worcester, said that in his experience the difficulty
that so many pupils find arises solely from the fact that the teachers have
tried to prepare them to take a college examination which,' as it happened,
was marked on a different basis from that which governed the teaching in the
high school. - • •
Mr. W. T. Foster, of Cambridge, thought that too much emphasis had
been placed on the books and too little on the text which Mr. Webster had
placed before his pupils. Teachers would come nearer to satisfying the
spirit of the entrance requirements in English if they assumed more independ-
ence in teaching what they think should be taught, and not try to cover the
contents of the exact books. . «
A %
THE AFFILIATED SCHOOL IN THEORY AND
- PRACTICE.
ITS INFLUENCE ON EXAMINATIONS IN SCHOOL ANI) COLLEGE.*
IT is but natural that in this country, with its independence in
the administration of educational affairs, a lack of uniformity
should be observable as far as the transition from the secondary
school to the higher institution is concerned. Only in late
years movements have been inaugurated that aim at a certain
unification of forces and greater economy in the expenditure of
educational resources. Of the two methods relied on to give
accurate knowledge of a pupil's fitness to do collegiate work I
am to discuss the one which, with a few notable exceptions, is in
operation in the majority of universities and colleges in the
country.
The committee that formulated my subject has made use of
the term “affiliated" to designate an especially intimate connec-
tion of the higher institution with certain secondary schools.
The term does not denote here an organic or semi-organic union
of the lower with the higher school, in which sense it is used
sometimes, but is chosen to designate a school which by some is
called an “approved,” by others a “co-operating,” or “accred-
ited," or " diploma" school. I might therefore put the first
part of my subject into the words, “the accredited school in
theory and practice.”
Because of the limits of time imposed, I shall confine myself
to a bare statement of essentials; and even here, I fear, I shall
in effect say only things with which you are familiar already,
because the same question, in one form or another, has for some
years past received occasional treatment in our educational
journals and at the meetings of our educational associations.
I take it for granted, therefore, that you will not expect me to
open up any unexplored regions; what value there may be in my
* Paper read at the fourth annual meeting of the New England Association of
Teachers of English, held im Bostom, Mass., March I 9, I9o4.
349
35o 7THÆ SCHOOL 娮 VVÆ VV
remarks lies in the fact that they are based on my own experience
in actual contact with the system, during my connection with the
faculty of the University of Michigan. -
The theory of the accredited school, stated as briefly as pos-
sible, is this: The Secondary school proves to the satisfaction of
the university or college that it is able to give its pupils an
adequate preparation for the advantageous pursuit of collegiate
work; the judgment of the school as to the competence of the
pupil to do so is accepted as final; the pupil is, in consequence,
not subjected to a test by the college authorities.
Let me explain a little more fully several fundamental ideas
implied in this. They led to the adoption of this method of
admission, and to them is largely due the rapidity with which it
has spread in one form or another. -
I. The first consideration in support of the reasonableness of
the theory is the supposition that, as far as the university or
college is concerned, it has satisfied itself first, by methods
adequate in its judgment, that the course of study in the prepar-
atory school fulfils its requirements for entrance; that the
efficiency of the instruction measures up to the proper standard ;
that the general intellectual and moral tone of the school is
good; that the university's confidence in the judgment of the
secondary school on the pupils' ability is not misplaced; and .
that the regulations and restrictions devised as safeguards are
effective. Thinking that a thorough examination of the school
at work will afford sufficient evidence of its power, the university
has adopted a method promising not only to prevent deteriora-
tion of scholarship, but to afford, besides, relief to its officers in
the labor of preliminary examinations. On the part of the
secondary school, there is the reasonable expectation that a
strict, but sympathetic, scrutiny of its work, repeated and constant.
examinations, with attendant frank discussions, cam react but
favorably upon it; and that this procedure will afford it an
opportunity to present under absolutely the best conditions what
it is trying to accomplish. .
2. In the second place, I mention a factor, of value perhaps
not so much here in the East, where the universities and colleges
THÆ AAA/Z/A7Z/) SCHOOZ ZAW THEORY AND ARAC7YCÆ 35 I
are of a private character, as in the West, with its state universi-
ties as the capstones of the educational systems—viz., the desires
for a closer affiliation between the higher and the secondary
school for purposes of mutual helpfulness. The representatives
of both felt the interdependence of their respective institutions;
they were impressed with the necessity of having the . relation
between them as intimate as possible, of removing any wall of
partition that had unnecessarily been put up. The university
looked toward the realization of an educational system of the
state and toward an increasing efficiency of the same. On its
part there was the desire, by harmonious action with those. in
charge of secondary schools, to bring about a more perfect unity
of plan and method in the schools, and it was thought that this
object could be materially furthered, if not accomplished entirely,
by a carefully guarded manner of admitting pupils of certain
schools without examination. But that there was also a desire
for closer articulation with the university on the part of the
secondary school is evident from the fact that the establishment
of the accrediting system by the pioneer in this movement, the
University of Michigan, followed partly upon the earnest solicita-
tions of the representatives of the best high schools of the state.
They saw that, under the conditions then existing, the gap
between the preparatory school and the university was too great;
there was nothing to indicate that, they were parts of one con-
nected whole. The pupil's promotion had been a natural one
until he came to the gates of the university ; it was felt to be
very desirable that, if he wished to continue his studies, he should
be enabled to advance as naturally from the lower to the higher
institution as he had passed from the grammar grades to the high
school in the same system.
3. A third consideration on which the theory of the accred-
ited school is built up is this, that, under the application of this
system, the responsibility for the pupil's preparation is actually
placed where it belongs. It is not to be denied that the entrance
examination likewise reflects to some extent upon the institution
from which the candidate comes, but it is not possible for the
higher school to bring home the responsibility in the same
352 - 7A7Æ SCÆVOOA, ARÆ VVÆ VV
manner and with the same effect. The university or college
by its inspection of the school's work as a whole assumes the
responsibility for the school, not for the single pupil; the accept-
ance of the accrediting right by the school implies a thorough
knowledge on its part of the university's demands and a will-
ingness to be held accountable for the candidate's preparation.
This is as it should be; it may in some cases prove an “unen-
viable” responsibility, but a teacher who has at heart the best
interests of the school and the pupil will not shrink from it, and
it will require stronger arguments than those that have been
advanced sQ far to prove that the teaching force of a school,
through years of intimate contact with the pupil, is not best
qualified to gage his mental and moral attainments and pro-
nounce judgment upon his qualifications for collegiate work.
4. One more cause that led to the adoption of the accrediting
method, and that is a consideration in favor of the reasonable-
ness of the theory, has been hinted at in what has been said so
far. Both parties concerned had found that the entrance exami-
nation as a test of a pupil's capacity for college work was quite
inadequate. It would simply be rehearsing what is well known
to you if I were to marshal before you what has been said on
both sides. The convincing force of certain arguments—viz.,
that the entrance examinations are mostly tests of knowledge
without any educational value; that they frequently fail to accom-
plish their end, of keeping out persons unprepared and of letting
in those who, in the opinion of educators who have watched their
progress for years, are well fitted for higher work; that in the
preparation for such entrance examinations undue weight is
attached to previous examination papers, to crotchets and pet
theories of the examiners; that therefore the fearful looking
toward them is subversive of good teaching, not only in schools
that aim to be preparatory schools in the strict sense of the
term, but also in schools where no differentiation should be made
as to whether a pupil intends to go to college or not; further,
that they encourage mere mnemonic gymnastics, whereby the
pupil may be enabled to have at his command the facts called
for, at the appointed moment, while it is of little consequence
7//E AÆÆ/Z/A 7TZZ) SCAZOO/. /Λ/ 7TAHÆOA€ V AAVIO ARAC7T/CÆ 353
that he should have understood certain truths in their depend-
ence on general principles—I say, the force of arguments point-
ing out these defects has led of necessity to a search for a method
that is free from them, and the weaknesses of which are insig-
nificant compared with the advantages it offers.
Thus, “the accredited school in theory,” as based negatively
upon unsatisfactory experience with another method, as sup-
ported positively by considerations of high importance, aims to
facilitate the transition from the lower to the higher school with-
out in any way damaging scholarship ; to secure economy. in the
interaction of different educational factors; to give, from a moral
point of view, to those who are entitled to it the blame and the.
credit for the student's fitness or unfitness to pursue collegiate;
work; to enable the secondary school to present its finished
product under conditions that can hardly be improved; and to
impress at the same time upon the secondary school the ideals
of the university, and this in a manner more forcible and insist-
ent and -complete than it can possibly be done by any set of
entrance examination papers. -
This theory has been in actual operation for not a few years;
it should therefore be able to verify its claims by results. It has
been applied with different modifications by different institutions
in different parts of the country. The excellent article by Miss
Salmon in the Educational Review, Vol. VI, pp. 223 ff., and Pro-
fessor Whitney's comprehensive paper read before the rneeting
of the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the
Middle States and Maryland, in Baltimore, I 902, and published
in the SCHOOL REVIEW, Vol. XI, pp. I 38— 48, give a lucid
account of the different methods in use. It is superfluous to
enter upon any detailed description of them, but since my sub-
ject requires me to speak of the “affiliated school in practice”
also, I must at least touch upon a few salient points in the actual
working of the theory. - -
I. The so-called certificating system in use in the East is well
known to you, whether the school is accredited as a unit or only
in certain subjects. In the Middle West and the West, the
Michigan system has developed, called so because originated at
354 ZTÆVÆ SCÆVOOÆ ÆÆ VVÆJV
the University of Michigan, 1872, and successfully copied by
most state universities and other great schools in that territory.
Its distinguishing features are: (a) the personal inspection by
university officers of the schools desiring to become accredited;
(b) the granting of certificate rights only for a specified time,
from one to three years, after which, or at any other time when
thought advisable, a re-examination becomes necessary; (c) the
frequirement that the candidate for admission present, besides
his diploma from an accredited school, a special certificate voic-
ing his principal's conviction that he is proper university tim-
ber; (d) post-entrance reports of the quality of his work in the
university sent, during the first year of his residence, to the pre-
paratory school. All these features—the latter also found in con-
nection with the ordinary certificate system—are of the utmost
importance. Until a few years ago, the work of inspection was
done by members of the faculty, usually following the apostolic
manner of going in pairs, one to represent the sciences and
mathematics, the other the languages and history. Various fac-
tors, however, combined to make the appointment of a new uni-
versity officer necessary, called the “university examiner,'' whose
sole duty it should be to inspect and report upon accredited
schools; this form of inspection is now in vogue in not a few of
the great universities of the Northwest. The men selected for
such a position are mostly taken from the ranks of superintend-
ents and principals of wide experience and unquestioned suc-
cess; they are men of thorough pedagogical training and sound
educational views, perfectly in sympathy with the secondary
schools and, at the same time, fully conversant with the ideals
and workings of the universities. How comprehensive their
examination is becomes evident from a glance at the blanks
filled out by them, calling for a variety of information: the
population of the city; the total enrolment in the schools, in
the high school; the number of teachers; their academic and
professional preparation, the subjects taught by them, the con-
duct of their classes, their efficiency ; the course of study ; the
text-books used; library facilities, laboratories, collections; the
discipline of the school, its intellectual and moral tone; the edu-
THÆ AÆFVLVA TED SCHOOL IV THEORY A/VD PRAC7VCÆ 355
cational sentiment of the community ; the attitude of the school
board, etc. I have dwelt upon this feature in the practical work-
ing of the theory at length because I believe it is most essential
and productive of much good. If repeated year after year, as
in California,* or only every two or three years, “it cannot help
but act as a spur to first-class teachers and first- class schools to
establish a record and to maintain it,'' as Dr. Sachs said at the
meeting in Baltimore. “It would vastly increase the dignity of
the secondary teaching profession—a highly accredited teacher
would become a recognized factor in the community; an accred-
ited school could not afford to deteriorate—it would maintain
at all hazards a staff of competent teachers or seek to improve
them.'' . - -
It may be questioned whether this feature of “the accredited
school in practice” could be introduced in this territory ; is it
not. based on the supposition that the requirements of one cer-
tain higher institution furnish the guiding principles for the work
in the secondary schools ? It is true, we have no central institu-
tions that would occupy exactly the same position in reference
to all schools or all prospective students, but it seems to me quite
feasible that here, too, certain agreements could be arrived at
looking to a unification of effort, even including the feature of
personal inspection. -
2. But what tangible results have been achieved by this sys-
tem in its practical application ? Have sanguine expectations
been realized ? Has the hope of establishing an educational sys-
tem through this affiliation been fulfilled in those parts where the
state university is the supervising agent? The answer is affirma-
tive; and there is no indication of any intention to abandon
the method and to return to the entrance examination. Nor are
many voices heard among teachers in secondary schools that call
for an abolishment of the system of affiliation. Some will try to
explain this on the ground that the pressure of examinations is
severer on the teachers in the secondary schools, saying that
“ nothing so holds a teacher up to his greatest effort as the cer-
* See article on the system in California by L. J. Richardson, in the SCHOOL
REVIEW, Vol. X, pp. 6 I 5— I 9.
356 7THÆ SCHOOZ ÆÆ V/A? VV
tainty that his work is to be judged inevitably and inexorably by
the results of the college-entrance examinations.” Personally,
I believe that the other method, where properly and rigidly
applied, has produced exactly the results that the advocates of
the theory looked for; and the fact that here and there an error
of judgment has been made in the admission of a pupil, and that
some secondary schools seek certificate rights, or some colleges
grant them, from mercenary motives, does not alter the case.
So far as secondary schools are concerned, there has been a
decided improvement in their tone and a raising of standards,
since the granting of the certificate right means first of all a com-
pliance with the requirements of the higher institution. This
leaven has spread from the accredited schools to those less
advanced, stimulating them to higher endeavor. School boards
and heads of private preparatory schools have come to look upon
the right of certification as a privilege greatly to be coveted, and
they evince usually commendable willingness to comply with the
wishes of the college or university which is principally their ideal,
in regard to the enlargement of the course of study, increased
equipment, greater efficiency in the teaching force. The pupils
themselves are impressed with the fact that their educational
career does not need to close with their graduation from the high
school, and not infrequently the initial impulse to a college course
comes from the visit of the inspecting committee, coupled with the
prospect of the saving of nervous strain through the absence of
an entrance examination. And from the standpoint of the uni-
versity it may truthfully be said that the accrediting system has
been no small factor in increasing the number of students.
3. But the question which after all will prove the value of the
method best is this: Does it prove adequate to test the pupil's
fitness for college work ? In other words, what is the student's
post-entrance record ? Besides reports of a general nature that
come from various institutions—e. g., “the certificate system
gives us students better prepared for university work;” “it gives
better results from students in the university;” “there is no
difference between those entering on certificate and those enter-
ing on examination;" " students admitted by certificate have
7H Ae AAA/Z/A7AED SCHOOZ ZAV 7AVEORY AND ARAC7YCÆ 357
secured quite as good average standing as those admitted by
examination; if there is any difference, it is in favor of the for-
mer;'' besides such reports of a general nature, it appears from
a tabulation made by the University of Michigan,' after the new
system had been in operation for nine years, that in the case
of more than one thousand freshmen whose work for the first
semester was carefully examined, the percentage of scholarship
of 47o admitted by certificate was 88.9 I, that of 574 admitted
by examination was 87. 22, clearly proving that in reliability the
accrediting system is not below the examination method.
4. What, now, is the practical bearing of this system O11
examinations in school and college ?
No type of the accrediting system contemplates the abolish-
ment of all examinations ; not even its most ardent defenders
would argue that these should be dispensed with. On the con-
trary, the student should early be impressed with the fact that
examinations have a distinct educational value, aside from being
tests of his actual knowledge regarding some particular subject;
and the practice that is occasionally indulged in, especially
toward the end of the preparatory course, and very likely more
in private than in public schools, of promoting the pupil without
an examination, should not be countenanced.
It is an unwarranted inference that the accrediting system
tends to undermine the pupil's sense of accountability ; he is still
required to pass examinations to prove that he will be able to
pursue collegiate work properly ; it is not the examination that is
eliminated, only the outside examiner. The conduct of these
tests is now placed in the hands of persons who, because of their
acquaintance with him in the usual school processes, will be
intelligent and discriminating judges of his work ; he will be
placed under circumstances that tend least to destroy his mental
balance and that will insure him an equitable treatment.
Just as the accrediting system will tend to good teaching in
the secondary school, so it will contribute its part to making the
*Cf. WHITNEY, Proceedimgs of the Sixteemth Ammua! Comvemtiom of the Associatiom
of Co//eges amd Preparatory Schoo/s of the Middle States amd //ary/ama, pp. 25 f.
[The same address im which this information is given was published in the
ScHOOL REVIEW, Vol. XI, pp. I 38—48.— ED.]
358 THE SCHooz R£VI£w
examinations of whatever kind, especially the final examinations,
what they should be: means indispensable in the process of
education, “ tests for instruction and promotion.'' . It is, indeed,
true that an examination is a good test of power acquired, but
the best exhibition of this power is much facilitated by the appli-
cation of the accrediting method. The college-entrance examina-
tion cannot seriously lay claim to being a means of education or
an absolutely satisfactory test of the pupil's acquired power,
while under the accrediting system the value of the examina-
tion as an educational factor will be greater, and the test itself
will be saner, more comprehensive, more just to the pupil, better
calculated to exhibit the power of the secondary school. •
Of course, there will always be college-entrance examinations,
just as long as there will be unaccredited schools and pupils with
irregular preparation ; will the accrediting system have any
effect on these ? Possibly not; at least only indirectly. The
accrediting system would produce a closer connection between
the college and secondary school; it might be that college
professors, through such intimate contact, would be influenced,
and would approach more nearly the ideal test for pupils in pre-
paratory schools (it is likely they would if they were on inspect-
ing committees). . « ;
Will the accrediting system have any influence on the exami-
tions in college, after the student has become matriculated?
No, if the phrasing means any change in the methods of exam-
iners; and this should not be asked. But let me put the question
differently. Will the accrediting system in any way affect the
pupil's powek to pass college examinations ? Yes. Examina-
tions have been important factors in his intellectual and moral
development so far and have given him valuable preliminary dis-
cipline ; they have prepared him for similar tests. That the
college-entrance examination in general fulfils such a propaedeutic
function is still unproved.
In closing, let me say a word as to the future of the accred-
iting system. Thus far it has been almost entirely within the
option of the individual higher institution whether or not a par-
ticular secondary school should receive such recognition as is
7THÆ AA7A7/Z/A7TÆZ) SCHOOZ /Λ/ 7THÆORY AND ARAC7YCÆ 359
implied in the admission of its graduates to college without the
ordeal of an entrance examination. But there are indications to
show that the forecast was correct which was made by Miss
Salmon about ten years ago as to the federating of colleges in
the matter of accrediting schools, of centralizing the efforts of
the colleges, and of saving worry and annoyance to secondary
schools, occasioned by repeated inspections and heterogeneous
entrance requirements. These latter are still in a somewhat
chaotic condition, varying in quantity and quality ; but if the
accrediting system is to do its work most satisfactorily, a com-
mon basis of requirements should be adopted. This seems to be
a fundamental need. Not that the same hard and fast demands
be made by all colleges, but that “essentially uniform or at least
equivalent'' entrance requirements be established. The experience
of the principal of a large high school in Ohio with whom I had a
conversation a few weeks ago, is interesting in this connection.
He had found by actual computation that if he wished his pupils
to be ready to enter any one of twenty-two universities and great
colleges in the country, which they might desire to attend at the
' end of their preparatory course, without being short in any sub-
ject, the diversity of the entrance requirements would impose
upon them more than sixteen semesters of work.
The New England College Entrance Certificate Board has come
into existence recently ; the time has not yet come to pronounce
judgment upon the practical workings of the system which it has
adopted. The Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of
the North Central States has formed a permanent “ commission on
accredited schools,'' with a “Subcommittee on High School
Inspection." From the report of this committee, soon to be
supplemented by a list of accredited schools, it appears that this
association looked well to the foundation on which it would base
its concerted action in the accrediting of schools, because it
expressed its firm belief “ that the basal factor in any plan
looking toward a reasonably uniform system of accredited schools
is necessarilythe course of study ;'' its first recommendations looked
therefore to the setting up of a standard by which to measure
the eligibility of secondary schools. With the recommendations
36o 7THÆ SCÆNOO Z ARÆ VVÆ VV
of the National Committee of Thirteen for a point of departure,
the commission defined and described umit courses of study in
the various subjects of the high-school curriculum; this report
was adopted by the association. And the adoption of such a
basis of federation will prove a great step forward in the simpli-
fication of the system and the efficiency of “the accredited
school in theory and practice.”
E. H. MENSEL.
SMITH COLLEGE,
Northampton, Mass.
FACTS AND FICTIONS IN ENGLISH.*
THE experience of one member at least of your committee
suggests a variation of the saying, “ Facts are stubborn things,”
to, Facts are elusive, and fictions are stubborn. The facts about
English training and English requirements are desperately hard
to get at, but the prejudices and grievances associated with
English are ubiquitous. - -
One fact is that there is no more fault to be found with the
English prescriptions for work than with those in any other depart-
ment of learning where a teacher or his teaching is unexpectedly
found deficient. The fiction at this point is that a teacher or
principalor superintendent who would hesitate to offer a judgment
in the case of mathematics or of botany feels perfectly qualified
to support one in English.
The fact is that college teachers are anxious to meet the
schools at the point where the latter have completed the train-
ing really, and therefore logically, preliminary to the stage of
education intrusted to the college. The fiction is that the col-
lege teachers are trying to put the drudgery of education into
the schools, while they reserve to themselves the easy, delight-
ful, self-indulgent occupations of discovery and exposition by
lecture.
The fact is that college teachers find themselves puzzled by
the inconclusiveness of their own theory and practice, in view of
the material furnished them, and are anxious to have the help
in interpreting conditions and characters made possible for
teachers by acquaintance and familiarity during the earlier years
of the student's training. The fiction is that the college teacher
distrusts the school-teacher, wishes to flunk the candidate, and
keeps a mill where the grist of human character and attainments
is to be ground into percentages, degrees, and honors, or low
grades, conditions, and drops.
* Paper read at the fourth annual meeting of the New England Associatiom of
Teachers of English, held in Boston, Mass., March I 9, I9o4.
36 I
362 7AAE SCAZOOZ AeAEVIAEW
The fact is that the college examiner is quite as anxious to
have students to teach as the school-teacher is to get them a
chance to be taught. The fiction is that the college examiners
have set up a golden calf, known as a high standard, to which
they sacrifice and with horrid rites abjure the true faith in simple
industry, clear thought, and sweet reasonableness.
The fact is that the critic of English is in nine cases out of
ten a chronic grumbler, or a man with a chip on his shoulder.
The fiction is that the burdens of bricks without straw imposed by
the English requirements have forced every secondary school to
show why there should not be an exodus led by its principal or
superintendent, who was the meekest of men until roused by
intolerable wrongs. . •
The fiction is that the formal requirements in English for
entrance to college are the occasion of abuses and wrongs in the
teaching of English in the schools. The fact is that the rights
of English as such in the schools began with these requirements.
The abolition of English examination tests might, as has been
suggested, save the state an outlay of many thousands of dollars
in poor text-books and misguided and misleading teachers, but
it would put a burden upon teachers of mathematics, science,
and foreign languages that they seem by no means ready to
accept, and that few observers of their daily work and conversa-
tion would judge them competent to discharge.
It is a fact that the modern principle of division of labor has
sharply isolated English. It has made it of necessity a study.
The old notion that English is the mother-tongue of the people
of the United States is no longer tenable. It is a fiction, but it
is stronger than truth with the low-spirited and the spiritually
muddled. - ç
It is a fact that the teachers in college would like to find in
the candidates for admission to the first class initiation, interest,
and respect for hard work in its proper place. It is a fiction that
under these names they have ever called for eccentricity, self-
will, and gush. - i •
It is a fact that the student who is really poor in English is
usually poor in everything else. It is a fiction that the student
ÆAC 7S AAVZ) ÆVC 7T/OAWS /ΛV ÆNGLSA 363
who is clever in English gets more than his share of the teacher's
good things, such as marks and prizes, while the industrious
mathematiciam has his labor for his pains.
It is a fiction that the English requirements are an additional
insult to the already injured vitality of the school programs.
The fact is that as many schools wish recognition for their treat-
ment of English as feel oppressed by the requirement of any
study of it. - .•
It is a fiction that the English examiners want strange, con-
tradictory, and excessive things. It is a fact that they would
wish to have good spelling, simple idiomatic English, a fixed
habit of inquiring the meaning of words, the power of reading
aloud intelligibly, of speaking and writing connectedly on sub-
jects properly within their attention as students. It is a fiction
that students are to be educated before they come to college.
It is a fiction that there is any one way by which these
ends may be accomplished, or that less than the entire energy
of school and college will be required in some cases, or that in
others these results may not be attained without them or in spite
of them. -
It is a fiction that the “prescribed books'' are an evidence of
college rapacity and self-will. It is a fact that the list is the
result of a long series of compromises between the ambitions of
strong schools and the necessities of weak schools, on one side;
on the other, between the claims of methods of reaching the
single result of a reasonable command of the mother-tongue,
as far apart as literary appreciation and literary scholarship, with
or without grammar and composition.
It is a fiction that the books were chosen with a peculiar desire
to force the student into acquaintance with what he would natur-
ally avoid. It is a fact that the books were chosen because
some of them were masterpieces, some of them were thought
likely to be interesting, because they all avoided the vexed sub-
ject of Copyright. -
It is a fiction that all boys or girls naturally like or dislike
any given book. It is a fact that the plays of Shakespeare are
the one feature of the present requirement reported as “certain
to go," i. e., to be enjoyed by the students.
364 7THÆ SCHOOÆ ÆÆ VVÆ VV
It is a fiction that good spelling and correct punctuation were
ever widely distributed accomplishments of English-speaking
persons. That they are lost arts is therefore a fiction. It is a
fact that natural science and methods of observation have not
secured the accuracy in these respects that some advocates have
claimed for them.
Finally, this is a fiction that the English requirement strains
the examination system harder than do other subjects. It is a
fact that the report of the teachers of Greek who read the books
for the candidates for entrance to college by the Examining
Board of the Middle States and Maryland was that Greek was
the worst-taught subject on the list.
It is a fact that, as Thackeray put it, “things is'nt so bad;"
and in a few particulars your committee thinks it sees its way to
making them better.
MARY A. JoRDAN.
SMITH CoLLEGE.
Reprinted from the ScHooL REvIEw, Vol. XVI, No. 6, June, 19o8
A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE CLASSICS
FRED NEWTON SCOTT
PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE CLASSICS 1
FRED NEWTON SCOTT
University of Michigan
The brief paper which I am about to read is in the form of a
letter. It is supposed to have been written in the year 4ooo A. D.,
by a citizen of Timbuctoo, which at this time has become the
capital of the world-republic. The writer is a teacher of English,
now a dead language, and his letter is written in Bantu, which
from a despised vernacular of South African tribes has risen
to be the common language of the world. Addressed to his
friend, the superintendent of public instruction for America, it
is an answer to a request from the latter for suggestions regard-
ing the curriculum of the secondary schools.
TIMBUCTOo, April I, 4ooo.
My DEAR PHILOSOPHIER, GUIDE, AND FRIEND: You, who
know so much more about the science of education than I do,
surely speak in irony when you say that you will put great con-
fidence in my judgment. I suspect you. I suspect that you are
merely seeking for confirmation of your own ideas, so frequently
and persuasively expressed. You want me to say that English,
the greatest of the ancient languages, is the one indispensable
study in the secondary schools; that there is no equivalent for it;
that without it boys and girls cannot become useful men and
women; that it is a necessary introduction to the study of the
vernacular; that it is essential to the training of the lawyer, the
doctor, and the engineer; that if it were taken out of the curric-
ulum, the secondary schools would go to the dogs. You think
because I am a professor of English I will stand by my specialty
through thick and thin.
Well, I am going to surprise you. I have been studying this
question for many years and have come to some very curious
* Read before the English Conference at the meeting of the Michigan
Schoolmasters' Club, April 3, I9o8.
36o
A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE CLASSICS 36I
conclusions. No doubt they will seem to you eccentric, perhaps
nonsensical; but they are the result of my best research and
reflection, and have passed into the stage of conviction. I do not
expect you to agree with them, but I will ask you to listen to
them as patiently as you can. Strike, but hear me.
- Let me say in the first place that no one loves and admires the
English language and the English literature more than I dO. I
have studied it all my life long. I have read its literature in its
whole extent from Chaucer down to its decay and final death. I
regard it as one of the most wonderful products of the human
mind. No other ancient language that I am familiar with is so
rich and copious in its vocabulary, so noble in its grammar, SO
flexible in its style, so capable of sounding all the notes in the
scale of human passion, imagination, and reflection, so varied in
its types of literary composition, whether in poetry or in prose.
It seems to have gathered into itself the beauties, the ideas, the
artistic forms, of all the older languages, just as the English race
gathered into itself the thoughts and feelings and experiences of
the nations that preceded it.
In all these respects it was the superior of the older languages
and literatures, especially the Greek and Latin. We of this day,
looking back over the history of the world for the past five
thousand years, can see this clearly. We wonder at the blind-
ness of those deluded writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen-
turies, and even of later centuries, who thought that English was
a poor feeble creature, hardly worthy to sit at the feet of Greek
and Latin.
I love this language. Ithink I was more fortunate than some
in my introduction to it. My first teacher was an enthusiast.
By some means, I hardly know what, he led me directly into the
heart of this ancient tongue. While other teachers were drilling
their pupils in the crazy orthography, and insisting upon the list
of irregular verbs, and pointing out the peculiarities of the
curious syntax, and in general building up a great barrier of
grammatical rules between the pupil and the language, this man
by a sudden stroke, as it were by a lightning flash, opened up to
me a secret passage into the undiscovered country, and I marched
in and took possession of it. I cannot describe to you the exulta-
tion, the swelling of the heart, the expansion of all my youthful
energies with which I realized that I had made that conquest.
362 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
It seemed to me, to quote the words of one of the great English
poets,
I was the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
There is one passage of Shakspere's tremendous drama,
Macbeth, which I cannot, at this day, read without tears. It is
the simple lines of the speech of Macduff brooding over the
murder of his wife and children :
I cannot but remember such things were
That were most precious to me.
Wonderful as is the poetry and pathos of these magic words, it
is not their tenderness or the dramatic power of the situation
which moves me. No, it is the recollection of the eager delight,
the trembling joy, with which I, a callow schoolboy, SO ignorant
of life, so doubtful of my powers, so blundering, so stupid, sud-
denly realized that I—I, tOO—was heir of all the ages.
For Others English is a hateful name. It is associated with
dull routine, with headaches and heartaches, with endless thumb-
ing of the dictionary, with blundering and stumbling transla-
tions, with prosy or prOdding task-masters. Not So with me.
When I speak the word there comes back to me the scent of the
lilacs in the old garden by the shining lake which once bore the
name of Michigan. The locust whirs in the old apple tree above
me; the shadow of the long spear of summer grass with which
my tutor points the lines falls again across the page; and through
it al1 like a strain of beautiful music sounds that plaintive cry
of world-old passion and grief and tragic pathos, filling my young
heart with terror and pity at the cruel law of life, and yet bring-
ing with it a strange calm and joy and surcease of pain. And
therefore, to paraphrase another poet's line, am I stil1 a 1over
of the English tongue and all that pertains to it. Nay, more.
It is curious how the sense for the beauty and power of this old
language gives a charm to every detail of it, how it transfigures
even the most commonplace things in the English grammar, how
through it even the sight of the old textbooks can give (to quote
my poet again) thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
You see what a sentimentalist I am about this old dead world,
which lives for us now only in its printed words—for we no
longer know how it was pronounced—and you will expect me to
A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE CLASSICS 363
wax eloquent in defending it against its enemies in the schools.
Yes, I can do that, too. But I would praise it with discrimina-
tion. When I look back Over my own progress from boyhood to
manhood, and ask myself soberly what I gained from my study of
English, it seems to me that one great good stands out above all
the rest. I will tell you after a little what it is. First let me say
that I cannot attach SO much importance as you do to those things
which you praised in your recent article—the mental drill from
the learning of paradigms, the aid in understanding our own
noble vernacular, the cultivation of memory, the increase of
vocabulary, the training in expression which comes from trans-
lation from that language to our Own. Many of these claims are
fanciful, as anyone can see who visits the English classes of our
schools and witnesses the blind gropings of teachers and pupils
lost in the maze of grammatical and rhetorical details. Recently
I heard a teacher expatiating on the beauties of the participial
construction in Keats to a class of students for whom, so far
as their feelings for the poetry were concerned, Keats's urn
might as well have been a bucket of ashes. The hungry sheep
looked up and were not fed. And the pity of it is that few of
them will ever go any farther. Such study reminds me of min-
ing shafts abandoned just before the vein of gold is reached. Six
inches farther and they might have come upon untold wealth.
As it is, all they have to show for so much hard labor is just a
big dump of worthless dirt and gravel.
No, these things are secondary. In putting them in the fore-
front of your argument, you seem to me, if you will pardon me
for saying so, to have overlooked the great end of education.
What is after all the primary thing in education? It is
character. Moral courage, self-reliance, respect for the truth in
every aspect of it, both material and spiritual, sympathy for our
fellow-beings and an active desire to help them and co-operate
with them, a love of justice and fair play, belief in democratic
institutions, loyalty to our republic—these are the elements of
character which our schools were, I believe, primarily established
to develop. Nothing will take their place—neither knowledge,
nor cleverness, nor business shrewdness, nor skill with tongue or
pen, nor deftness of the hand, nor inventive genius—not even
that idol of our modern civilization, success. No, character, in
the widest sense of the word, is the great end of education. The
364. THE SCHOOL REVIEW
school which helps build up character is good; the school which
fails to build it up is bad. Education may and should do other
things, but this it must do or go down to defeat.
And when I speak of character in reference to our secondary
schools, I mean the character of the adolescent on his way to
become an adult. It is a commonplace to say that adolescence is
the period of unrest. It is the time when the innate powers of
the mind rise like waves in a storm. The voices of the great
deep call to one another. The passions and impulses and
ambitions which shall one day make or mar the adult character,
struggle One with another for the mastery. This is the crucial
period in the pupil's life. Most of the evils of education arise
either from suppression and deadening of the swelling forces of
adolescence, or On the Other hand from the prolongation of the-
adolescent mood—its turbulence and lawlessness—into the years
of later life. Therefore, in order to the development of a.
rounded and stable character, it is essential that these forces
should be regulated, harmonized, conserved. Their unrestrained
liberty must be submitted to law. There is need of some power-
ful agency which will bring home to the pupil the meaning and
reality of the great law of life that freedom can be won only by
the surrender of freedom, that to whatever he believe in, be it
God, or humanity, or country, or abstract right, or ideals, the
youth must yield himself up unreservedly, in order that having
given himself to these great and good things he may in the end
recover himself. This is the intellectual. and emotional death and
rebirth through which every youthful Soul must pass if it achieves
true manhood and womanhood.
For my part, to come back to my theme, I found this trans-
forming agency in the study of English. It was my haven in
the storm of passion, it was my refuge from the terrors of life.
Life to me was then, in the words of an English essayist, some-
thing “monstrous, infinite, illogical, abrupt, and poignant.” It
bewildered me, it cowed me, it wounded my spirit already weary
with the inner conflict. But in that old dead world, the world
of Shakspere and Wordsworth and Tennyson, that world from
which the accidents, the trivialities, the carking cares have been
obliterated by the hand of time, was the stillness of the ages. Its.
peace, its almost miraculous beauty, the winning rhythms of its
poetry and prose, soothed my Overwrought nerves. The con-
A SUBSTITUTE FOR- THE CLASSICS 365
flicts of life seemed to be harmonized. God was in his world
Once more; all was right with his heaven.
This was the work which English did for me. It regulated
my emotions. It restored the equilibrium of my mind. It helped
to convert the wild, aimless forces Of the adolescent into the-
regular, purposeful forces of adult character.
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power,
sings the poet. If I possess these qualities in some measure I
Owe them largely to my living contact with this dead language.
As I write these things I can, in imagination, see you rub-
bing your hands and smiling, and hear you saying, “Just what I
thought. Trust this old enthusiast to commit himself. What can
he say on the other side now?”
But wait, my friend; I do not meam to recant. I take none
of these praises back. They are all too feeble. As I say, I love
this language, I believe in it, I owe much to it. And yet when
you ask about its place in secondary education generally, I won-
der whether we are not making a mistake, whether we are not
bartering, on even terms, gold for silver. Look at the history
of education in England and America. With this unrivaled
language on their tongues and this noble literature in their
libraries, see with what persistence English scholars turned their
eyes to those dead languages, Latin and Greek, as the foundation
of their culture. I cannot refrain from quoting this beautiful
passage from the inaugural address of the president of one of
the American universities in the twentieth century:
The classical literatures [he means the Greek and Roman] give us, in .
tones and with an authentic accent we can nowhere else hear, the thoughts
of an age we cannot visit. They contain airs of a time not our own, unlike
our own and yet its foster parent. To these things was the modern thinking
world first bred. In them speaks a time naive, pagan, an early morning day
when men looked upon the earth while it was fresh, untrodden by crowding.
thought, an age when the mind moved as it were without prepossessions and
with an unsophisticated, childlike curiosity, a season apart, during which ,
those seats upon the Mediterranean seem the first seats of thoughtful men.
We shall not anywhere else get a substitute for it. The modern mind has
been built upon that culture and there is no authentic equivalent.
This was a noble profession of faith by a wise man and
famous educator. Yet it rings Oddly in the ears of us of today,
366 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
does it not? No equivalent! No waters to sail in save the Medi-
terranean when all about him undulated the waves of that great
Atlantic of literature. And are we not making the same mis-
take? We also have developed a language and a literature. It
sprang, to be sure, from a meam origin; but we must remember
that Tuscan before the time of Dante was but a dialect of Italy,
that English itself was once a despised vernacular that at the
Norman Conquest seemed in a fair way to be displaced by the
language of the conquerors. It is true that our tongue is very
different in its structure from the English tongue. What would
the educators of the twentieth century have said of a speech in
which there were no nouns, no verbs, no prepositions, no con-
junctions, in fact, no distinct parts of speech as the English
understood them? Such is the character of our language, and
it has on this account been called a grammarless tongue and has
been disparaged by comparison with the ancient languages. And
yet we find it adequate for the expression and communication of
all our ideas and emotions. Nay, more, at the hands of great
poets and prose writers it has developed a rich and powerful
literature. I do not hesitate to say that, as a medium both for
the daily business of life and for literary composition, it rises
as far above English as English rose above Greek and Latin. It
is richer, more copious, more splendid. “The thoughts of man
are widened with the process of the suns,'' an English poet once
said. How true that has been in the past few hundred years,
and how grandly has the river of our speech widened to receive
these swelling thoughts and to bear them on to future genera-
tions! But history repeats itself. With this living speech on our
tongues and this unrivaled literature on our library shelves, we
turn the faces of our children to the symbols of a dead past.
For a large part of their educational life, at the most impression-
able period, at least the most formative period, we force them to
give their best energies, I will not say to a mastery of these
symbols—for few achieve that—but to a hand-to-hand fight with
them, in which the pupil usually comes Off second-best.
I know how you will meet this argument, or rather this con-
viction, for I am not pretending to argue. You will say that this
same dead language, English, is valuable to us just because it is
dead. Let me quote your own words. You say in your last
report:
A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE CLASSICS 367
How fortunate for us that in the remains of English literature we pos-
sess a language precipitated, crystallized, fixed in beautiful forms which
cannot greatly alter. If they do change somewhat in the progress of classi-
cal scholarship, as we learn to know them better, the change does not affect
the stability of the types; their progress, if such it can be called, is like that
of great Alpine glaciers moving imperceptibly in their beds. The living lan-
guage, on the Other hand, is fluent, plastic, Protean. Its character changes even
as we speak, new words and forms continually arising, old words incessantly
taking on new meanings, the body of the language quivering with life and
sensitively responding to every wave of thought, the whole contour of the
languiage changing from year to year with the inrush of fresh literary pro-
duction. Such a language is at once too intimate and too elusive. Its
mutability is disconcerting. One knows not where to lay hold of it. There
is a vagrancy in its very laws and principles. Only a language which has
ceased to pulsate with the energy of life, which has passed into a state of
life in death, as it were, is fitted to become a perfect instrument of education.
Once I should have said a hearty amen to that, but now I
am not so sure. Is it, after all, the deadness of the language
that makes it a good instrument for education? Is it not rather
because by serious study of it and prolonged absorption in it,
and especially by learning its value as the expression of the
national life—is it not, I say, because by this means we have
got into the very heart of it? That is my view, at any rate.
And now suppose that it were possible for us to do the same
thing with our Own language. Imagine that one has by some
magic art penetrated to the very center of this great living organ-
ism, where one can perceive and understand the source of its
energy, that one sees as it were in a vision, the streams of power
running out to the ends of the earth, binding men together, driv-
ing them on to generous deeds, uplifting their hearts, making
them laugh, making them cry, revealing to them their inmost
unsuspected thoughts, opening up to them the secrets of the uni-
verse, disclosing to them the laws of their own action, drawing
them together into a common brotherhood. Would not this reve-
lation of the power of a living speech be the authentic equivalent
of a petrified and crystallized language and literature? Might it
not be more than an equivalent? Could this be done for our
young people, I am tempted to say that the results would be more
beneficial than those which flow from the best teaching of
English. For who can doubt that it is better to travel oneself
368 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
than ' to read guidebooks, better : to eat bread than to listen to
lectures on bread-making? -
You will perhaps expect of me that I shall at this point bring
forward some novel, profound, far-reaching philological doc-
trine, which, reconstructing the theory of our native language
and literature and furnishing a basis for a new method of teach-
ing, will present a substitute for the classics. I regret most
bitterly that I have no such discovery in reserve. The Copernicus
in this field of education is still to come. Perhaps he is not yet
born, or if born he is still a freckle-faeed lad in knickerbockers
going with shining morning face unwillingly to one of the ward
schools of Timbuctoo. Be that as it may, that he will come in
due time I am very confident. And while we are waiting for
'him, we may, for the amusement of his leisure hours when he
has become a mam, endeavor to forecast the direction of his
speculations.
Of one thing we may be sure. Our future guide in education
will find his starting-point in the pupil's own interest in language.
To begin with what we know to be true and what we feel to be
valid and compelling for us, is surely sound educational doctrine
in this or any other field. Every pupil uses his own language,
every pupil is witness to the power of his own words upon his
fellow-pupils. To reveal to him the effectiveness of the tools
which he already knows how to use and to show him how to
sharpen them and use them more effectively, is the language
teacher's first task. I might say that it is the teacher's whole
task, for what more is there to do than to go straight on in the
same direction, cultivating more power and realization of power
as long as education lasts? We call this training in composition.
How deadly dul1 it is for some! And yet, if teacher and pupil can
somehow be brought to conceive of it as growth in power to do
the world's work, I do not see why it should not be one of the
most inspiring of all studies. I do not see indeed why it should
not give zest to the driest details of grammar. Once let the great
light shine through these little things and
A11 the dry dead impracticable stuff
Starts into life and light again ; this world
Pervaded by the influx from the next.
When I was a boy my greatest ambition was to throw the
switch at the great falls of the Nile which supply electricity
A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE CLASSICS 369
to this continent. In imagination I could see the electric impulse
rushing through the ether in every direction in countless waves,
turning ten thousand wheels, lighting a million lamps in far-dis-
tant houses, driving railway trains up mountain sides, sending
airships hurtling through space, raising tons of ore from deep
mining shafts. But how puerile was such an ambition compared
with that which anyone can realize who cultivates his mother-
tongue. . What power of the electric fluid can rival that of the
printed or spoken word which, thrown into the mental ether,
starts vibrations that roll on forever? What is the lighting of
lamps or the driving of railway trains to the illuminating of
minds or the stimulation of generous emotions in our fellow-
beings?
This is what the dead languages once did for the nations
who are dead. It is because they did this work that they are so
great and beautiful in their remains. But our language is doing
it every day, could we but realize it and make our pupils realize
it. Must we wait until it is dead before we enter into our pos-
session of it?
- Such are my fond speculations, at which you may laugh as
much as you choose. I admit that they are fanciful. At any
rate they cannot easily be molded into one of those neat little
outlines of courses which you send out from your office year
after year to a million teachers throughout the world. But not
every good idea in education will go into an outline. And besides
I am not reckoning with the present but forecasting the future,
when my hypothetical schoolboy will have come into his king-
dom. Set me down for a dreamer of dreams if you will. I
shall be half inclined to agree with you. And yet when I look
far into the future, I seem, if I may quote again, to see
The point of one white star . . . . quivering still
Deep in the orange light of widening morn
Beyond the purple mountains.
That is my star of hope. I shall not live to see it grow into
the light of the world, nor will you. But our schoolboy* may. I
envy him his youth. -
THE VALUE OF HUMANISTIC, PARTICULARLY
CLASSICAL STUDIES AS A PREPARATION
FOR THE STUDY OF MEDICINE AND OF
ENGINEERING, FROM THE POINT OF VIEW
OF THE PROFESS] ONS
A SYMPOSIUM
From the proceedings of the Classical Conference held at Ann Arbor, Michigan
MARCH 29, 1 9o6
Reprint from the Schoo? Keview, June, I9o6
T H E SC H O O L R EVIEW
A JOURNAL OF SECONDARY EDUCATION
VOLUME XIV WHOLE
NUMBER 6 JUN E, I 9o6 NUMBER I36
A SYMPOSIUM
ON THE VALUE OF HUMANISTIC, PARTICULARLY CLASSICAL, STUDIES
AS A PREPARATION FOR TEIIE STUDY OIF MEDICINE AND OF
ENGINEERING, FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE
IPROFESSIONS*
I. THE VALUE OF GREEK AND LATIN TO THE
MEDICAL STUDENT
VICTOR C. VAUGHAN, PH.D.,, M.D., LL.D.
Dean of the Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Michigan
Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen:
The disciplinary value ofthe study of the classics has been generally
recognized by educators for hundreds of years, and it is no less today
than it was a generation ago. Allteachers agree that there is no royal
road to knowledge, and this sentiment has been attested by such axio-
matic phrases as, non palma sine pulvere, ad astra per aspera, etc.,which
allhave approved and none denied since the time of Cicero and Sallust.
Nil sine magno vita labore dedit mortalibus, “There is no excellence
without great labor,” is trite enough, but astrue astrite; and now that
we know more of the operations of the mental faculties than the best
* Part of the program of the Classical Conference at Ann Arbor, Mich., March 29,
rgo6. A similar symposium, on “The Value of Humanistic Studies as a Preparation
for the Study of Law and of Theology,” will form a part of the program of the next
conference, in March, I9o7.
Through the kind assistance of the Board of Regents of the University of Michi-
igan and the courtesy of the publishers of the School Review, it has been possible to
secure a number of reprints of this Symposium for distribution among teachers and
students. Those desiring a copy may address (inclosing a two-cent stamp for pos-
tage): MR. LOUIS P. JoCELYN, Secretary Michigan Schoolmasters* Club, South
I)ivision Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
389
39o . THE SCHOOL REVIEW
teachers of former generations knew, the truth of this old “saw” has
been intensified to the nth power. No one can become a student of
anythinguntilhe learns how to study, and he does this only under the
whip of application. No knowledge, save that of the most superficial
character, is easily acquired. Like gold, true knowledge lies beneath
the surface, and he who would possessit must digforit, and systematic
education should begin in learning how to use the senses—the pick
and shovel, as it were, of the mind. The five senses are the only
avenues through which we acquire knowledge, and even the most
brilliant pictures of our imaginations are but perceptions previously
acquired through the senses, and subsequently rearranged and pro-
jected onto the sensitive retina of mental vision. Although we cannot
' define mind, we know something of its modus operandi. We know
that the pyramidal cells ofthe cortex of the brain must be broughtinto
relation with the non-ego; that this connection can be made only
through the nervous mechanism of the special senses, and that this
machinery does fine and effective work only when nicely adjusted
under the guidance of long experience. Like the gastric cells, the
pyramidal cells of the brain atrophy with disuse, as happens when fed
upon predigested food; and if I may express an opinion here paren-
thetically, I will state that too much of this kind of pabulum is dealt
out to the young in both our secondary and higher institutions of
learning. There has been found nowhere a better training for the
thinking apparatus of the young than the study of Latin and Greek.
The great number and variety in the inflections of noun'and verb render
close attention an absolute necessity, and this, in and of itself, is of the
greatest value in an educational way. Carelessness and superficiality
are incompatible with any thorough study of Greek and Latin.
Besides, with the close attention that the student must give to the vari-
ations in the structure of words, he soon begins to perceive that these
indicate variations in the shade of meaning, and then the joy of study
takes possession of the student. His observation is sharpened, his
perception becomes more delicate, and he finds increased pleasure in
the intensity with which he seeks fully and correctly to interpret the
author's meaning. And this habit of close observation, of attention
to detail, of looking for fine distinctions and shades of difference, and
the alertness of mind possessed by an individual of this habit, will be of
inestimable service tohim,should he choose medicine for hisprofession,
A SYMPOSIUM 39I
both in his experimental Work in the laboratory and at thebedside of
his patient. This point in favor of the study of Greek and Latin, it
seemsto me, is noteasily overestimated. Indeed, the progress of medi-
cine is determined largely by the accuracy and precision with which
observations are made. The careless or the superficial man is not
suited either to the practice of medicine or to the conduct of experi-
ments for the elucidation of medical problems. It is the painter who
brings out detail, and not the impressionist, who is needed in scien-
tific medicine. The best medical Schools are rapidly advancing their
requirements for admission, and now demand from two to four years
of collegiate Work, while the academic faculties are filling these two to
four years largely with loosely regulated electives; and I am by no
means certain that in fact the medical student of today has a better
preparation for his professional study than his prototype of fifty or
more years ago. William Harvey, whose keenness and accuracy of
observation led to the discovery of the circulation of the blood, after
many years devoted to the classics, gave five to the study of medicine,
and his fitness was proved by his work. -
The direct value of Greek and Latin, especially of the former, as
aids to the exact meaning of medical terms, as shown by their deriva-
tions, is disputed by no one. But some do claim that the giving of
from fourto six years, or even more, to the digging of Greek roots and
the trimming of Latin stems is too big a price to pay for the result,
however valuable it may be; and possibly this is right, if the student
gets nothing but a knowledge of etymology from his classical studies,
and if the time and energy given to the classics are so excessive that
he cannot seek knowledge in other fields. The education that best fits
one for the study of medicine certainly should not be narrow, and I
would not have the preliminary training of the prospective medical
man confined to Greek and Latin, nor Would I give to the classics an
undue share oftime and energy. But when, in addressingmy medical
students, I use a new term—for instance, when I speak of a “toxico-
genic bacillus” or a “pathonogmonic symptom”—I can easily distin-
guish the students who have a fundamental knowledge of Greek from
those to whom this basic language—certainly basic so far as medical
terms are concerned—is indeed a dead language. Years of frequent
and careful consultation of the dictionary may make good this plainly
evident deficiency, which, however, does not exist for the student who
392 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
lhas been drilled in Greek in his preliminary education. Medicine is,
now at least, a rapidly progressive science, and even the dictionaries do
not keep pace with its advancement. Itnot infrequently happens that
an earnest medical student comesto me with the statement thathe can-
not find a certain word—“galactotoxismus,” for instance—in his dic-
tionary. Ifsuch a student had had a fundamental training in Greek,
he would not have needed to consult a dictionary in order to ascertain
the meaning of this word. Besides, Iam of the opinion that the best
dictionary, frequently consulted, cannot give to one wholly ignorant of
Greek the correct, clear, and full appreciation of the meaning of such a
word as “sitotoxismus” as comes unsoughtto the one versed in Greek.
Of the two languages, Greek is of much more value than Latin as an
aid in the comprehension of medical terms; and it seems to me
regrettable that at least two years of good, solid Work in Greek
cannot be demanded as an unconditional requirement for admission
to our medical Schools. 3. *
It has been said that the use of Latin names in medicine, and espe-
cially in the writing of prescriptions, is pure affectation and should be
discontinued. This statementis wholly erroneous and could be made
only by one grossly ignorant of the facts. The word “salt” may mean
any one of a thousand compounds, but “sodii chloridum” and “mag-
nesii sulphas” are definite and signify definite compounds, and are
capable of only one interpretation, be the reader English, French,
German, Russian, Italian, or Spanish. Forthe purpose of designating
a certain plant, or the extract of a certain plant, the common name
cannot be used, because it may not be the same even in different sec-
tions of the same country, while the scientific or Latin designation is
thesame the world over. The language employed by an exact science,
like chemistry or bacteriology, must be one which has already crystal-
lized, and not one which means one thing today and may have quite
another meaning a year from now, or even a century in the future. We
must not forget, even in the pursuit of the rapidly growing modern
sciences, that there is also a science language, and that it, like every-
thing else mundane, comes into existence, goes through a process of
evolution, suffers modifications from its environment, and does not
crystallize into exactness until it is no longer used orally; and not
until this final period is reached, and it is no longer subject to
A SYMPOSIUM 393
material modification, does it become the suitable form for exact,
scientific expression. - -
I have given thus briefly and imperfectly some of the reasons of a
practical character as to the value of Greek and Latin to the prospec-
tive medical student. There is much more that might be said. The
boy who hasnot studiedtheselanguages has missed the full and satisfy-
ing pleasure that comesto him who reads in the originalthe wonderful
epic of Homer and the stately lines of Virgil, has caught the full force
of the eloquence of Demosthenes and of Cicero, has had a bout with
Horace and helped Cæsar build his wonderful bridge; and mirabile
dictu, I believe that the boy who has had the wider view given by
a study of the classics will be all the stronger in both experimental
and practical medicine on account of the knowledge and wisdom
gained from the wise men of Greece and Rome. -
II. DISCUSSION OF DR. VAUGHAN?S PAPER
CHARLES B. G. DE NANCREDE, A.M., M.D., LL.D.
IProfessor of Surgery, University of Michigam
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I esteem it a privilege to address this assembly for any cause, but chiefly, I
confess, because it lies in your province, and you have the power, to do what
I hope will be done in the near future—restore the study of Greék to a proper
position, so far as my professionis concerned.
You cannot discuss a paper without disagreeing with the statements con-
tained in that paper. Now, I do not disagree with Dr. Vaughan, in the
slightest particular. As a teacher of medicine who has been working at it
for thirty-seven years, I surely ought to be able to appreciate the importance of
what Dr. Vaughan has said. While I cannot say anything in addition, I wish
to lend my support and give as much emphasis as possible to each of his conten-
tions; for an additional favorable opinion.in any controversy adds to the weight
of the arguments adduced and to the strength of the position taken. I have this
matter very much at heart, which is indeed my only excuse for addressing you.
The medical profession is not only employing Greek and Latin terms, using
them at all times, but it is also coining them, and often doing so very incorrectly.
The way Latin beginnings have tacked on to them Greek endings has come to
be an abomination. Such illiteracy is making a laughing-stock of the profession
in the opinion of men of the most ordinary culture.
But there is something worse than that. It is surely breaking one of the first
394 THE - SCHOOL REVIEWV
rules of pedagogy to try to convey information concerning abstruse subjects to
those who have never heard anything resembling these new studies, in a technical
language that they cannot understand—in an unknown tongue, as it were. This
is just what we do, and, as Dr. Vaughan has said, how many thousands of times,
as Ilook at the faces of my students, do Isee a puzzled look 6r wrinkled forehead,
because they do not understand the meaning of the technical terms I am employ-
ing, and which I must stop to explain! It is not my business to teach the mean-
ing of ordinary technical terms. I should be able to use any technical term that
I see fit to illustrate the subject, and the student should, if reasonably conver-
sant with Greek and Latin, after a little reflection be able to understand it. I
can hardly recall a technical term that as a student I had to look up in the diction-
ary. Thus, lack of knowledge of the dead languages proves a serious inter-
ference to teaching medicine, because we compel the student to learn a language
composed of meaningless terms with which to acquire knowledge of entirely new
subjects—subjects to which he should devote all his energies. Thisis badenough;
but what is still worse is, that those who have never studied Latin or Greek very
rarely take the trouble to consult the dictionary to ascertain the meanings of
scientific terms. They may ask their neighbor what one means, when he prob-
ably knows less than they; and so they go through their medical curriculum
and through their life not understanding, or actually misunderstanding, what
certain terms meam. I find, when Iam examining students, that they often do not
know the meaning of the technical terms they are employing. In giving the history
of a case they use terms that convey the opposite meaning to the one which is
intended to be conveyed.
III. THE VALUE OF HUMANISTIC STUDIES AS A PREPARATION
FOR THE STUDY OF MEDICINE
WILLIAM B. HINSDALE, A.M., M.D., LL.D.
Dean of the Homeopathic Medical College, University of Michigan
All knowledge has, of course, value; but not to any single indi-
vidual. In its distribution throughout the World there are apprecia-
tive and utilizing persons, who, by each appropriating different parts,
render it all profitable. How profitable a certain branch may be
to one depends upon many different things, Some of which are, how
much it will benefit him in his station as a self-reliant worker for a
living, as a member of society, as a citizen, as a person With or without
an appreciation ofit. Again, grantingthat a particular kind ofknowl-
edge has value to a certain individual, the question arises whether
some other kind, or more of another kind, might not make him more
A SYMPOSIUM 395
efficient. His efficiency depends upon adjustability to his special
vocation, which, in turn, is based upon a preliminary or preparatory
training. The student who has educational qualifications or accom-
plishments, aside from those which have a necessary bearing upon his
chosen profession, is the best prepared, not only for fife, but, to use a
biological term, for his specialization. He should be so prepared as
not to become an intellectual malformation, but a well-balanced man.
If a liberal preparation includes the humanities, then of course their
importance is conceded. On this point there is probably a decided
difference of opinion, and to discuss it leads to disputation. If the
' humanities are not essential, except in so far as they may have a few
so-Called practical bearings upon a professional education, they must
be assigned to the optional class. There are those whose views upon
the subject, if their reasoning be carried to the ultimate conclusions,
mustleadthem to think that the preparation for medicine should begin
in the kindergartem. On the other hand, others do not consider that
there ought to be any particular difference in the elementary prepara-
tion of students for all the professions; they think that the foundation
for a liberal education is the foundation for a professional education.
The views of this class must lead ultimately to the conclusion that, if,
when the student begins to specialize in medicine, he has not acquired
sufficient special knowledge to enable him to round out a thorough
training in the ordinary four years, the course should be lengthened,
either by a preliminary year for special foundation work, or by an in-
troductory course to the main subjects as they are taken up in routine.
Some seem to maintain that this is particularly a transitional age
in the adjustments of studies; that, after a while, we shall get matters
“fixed.” The factis, all ages are transitional. Adjustment by virtue
of human progress blends into or out of non-adjustment. There is no
such thing as fixation. At the present time, as the affairs of the world
are going, the ordinary physician, like the average lawyer, teacher,
journalist, and clergyman, does not care for education as an accom-
plishment. He recoils from severe training and hard reading. His
ideal is the ordinary routine business success. This state of affairs
must be tolerated so long as the student considers life a failure if he
cannot graduate at an early age regardless of preparation; or while the
leading question is: “What are the minimum requirements of the
396 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
law and the curriculum ?” “ How is such or such a study going to
help me to be a doctor ?” is the commonest inquiry from the ordinary
medical student. • ' . .
The learned physician recoils from the thought of Professor James's
description of the uneducated person. He abhors being “nonplussed
by all but the most habitual situations.* He wishes to have his
resources so organized and powers of conduct so great as to fit him
with as perfect relations as possible to his social and physical World.
He works to be as well prepared as possible, to educate himself
“by means of the examples with which his memory is stored, and of
the abstract conceptions which he has acquired from circumstances
in which he never was placed before.” -
The physician should have special, exact, and ample knowledge of
the many scientific branches that constitute what is generally summed
up in the term “medicine.” These branches he should comprehend
in their interdependences and true and broad relations, pursuing them
with a sanctified devotion. There is no branch of learning which may
not materially contribute to such a grasp of his subject. While he
cannot read or study everything indiscriminately, he will have an elec-
tive affinity for Some subject or subjects in the broad field of knowl-
edge that he will make conducive to his peculiar needs, although he
may not be able to explain just how or why. He should know the vir-
tues, vices, and needs of those who make up his social environment,
and appreciate the claims that neighbor, community, and state have
upon him. To be a wise citizen, he should have a historical and pres-
ent knowledge of the political institutions by which he is governed.
' The humanities have here special. importance, if he is interested in a
historical study of the duties of citizenship. The physician must have
a penetrating insight into human nature; not humanity as a mass, but
a scrutinizing, differentiating, penetrable gaze into individuals that
reveals to his trained perceptions the reasons for the one under obser-
vation being mentally, morally, and physically different from every-
body else. The educated physician is larger than his profession and
wider than his allotted space in the community. •
He does not consider that the pre-medical branches he studied in
school are to be laid aside. With him, preparation and specialization
go on hand in hand. As the superstructure is to be enlarged, the
A SYMPOSIUM . 397
foundations must be extended. If the building advances in a particu-
lar direction, in that same direction must the preparatory or substruc-
ture expand. If he aspires to be an author, language and the powers
of expression must be studied. If he delights in bibliography and lore
of the profession, then linguistics must be carried along. If he mingles
with educated people, from necessity, he must have the faculty of ap-
preciation and the powers of address. If he would be looked upon, as
were the doctors of a century.or so ago, as the learned mam of the com-
munity, he must keep ahead of his devotees. For his recreation and
self-entertainment, he is entitled to give his tastes a wide range, but .
should avoid permitting his indulgence in this respect becoming a dissi-
pation. No man is up to the full degree of professional efficiency who
permits his leisure to be frittered away by unprofitable recreation.
Even recreation has character and, be it ever so relaxing, should be
graced by dignity. Literature, art, music, brilliant associations,
politics, languages, poetry, a side branch in science, biography, the
“humanities,” all have their recreative and great cultural value.
While I have referred to these subjects as recreations, they cannot
failto have a reactive benefit'upon strictly professional work, and to be
contributory to one's acumen in handling and interpreting people,
even in estimating their modalities in regard to the administration of
remedies. In some of these subjects, physicians, aside from being
foremost in their specialties, have attained distinction. . William Har-
vey was one of the best mathematicians of his day. Daniel G.
Brinton was perhaps the best qualified man of his time upon the subject
of American archæology. O. W. Holmes, while he maintained his
position as professor in a medical college, gained vastly more distinc-
tion as a literary man than as a doctor. The late Timothy F. Allen,
one of New York's leading physicians, became a noted botanist and
was regarded as the best American authority upon the Characea.
Virchow was learned in statesmanship. Metchnikoff declares that,
aside from what is ordinarily referredto asbiological sciences, folklore,
philosophy, religion, language, and poetry of all races and stages of
culture must be studied in order to comprehend the real physical and
physiological properties of man.
Probably the most conspicuous living example of the physiciam who
combines literary pursuits with his scientific work is Dr. Osler. He
398 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
takes wide excursions into the domain of the classics, and draws
freely for his illustrations upon ancient literature, history, and biog-
raphy. Still he Writes that the biological studies give to a man clearer
points of view and an attitude of mind more servicable in a working-day
world than other sciences, or even the humanities. Scholastic studies
are not incompatible with ample professional qualifications.
Just now there is an awakening to an interest in historical medi-
cine. Six medical colleges in the United States (Yale, Chicago, Johns
Hopkins, Maryland, Buffalo, Minnesota) have courses in medical
history. Original records, manuscripts, inscriptions, and even excava-
tions are being ransacked for mines of neglected and Overlooked dis-
coveries. Besides, the relations that existed between the doctors of
medicine and the Pope and the clergy, the governors and the people,
arebeing studied in the original languages. Eventhe old Hebrew writ-
ings and Egyptian inscriptions are subjected to investigation from the
physician's standpoint. - •
Before a young man enters upon the study of medicine, the law, as
well as the college course, requires that he have a specified degree of
attainment in certain branches. These are regarded as essential to
a comprehension of the fundamentals of the subject. What values are
to be placed upon different branches has caused much discussion and
disagreement, but the average high-School course is now agreed upon,
as a minimum. Some maintain that certain studies are the all-essen-
tial; others that a mind trained to continuity of thought and the capa-
city of independent reasoning from facts and data to rational conclu-
sions is sufficient, and favor giving the student a wide choice ofelection.
According to an Old system, the physician classified his people by
temperaments; a method not. without merit. There is the nervous.
temperament, the phlegmatic temperament, the sanguinous tempera-
ment, and so on. In a similar way students may be grouped in regard.
to their tastes. One has a predilection for languages, one for mathe-
matics, othersforliterature, and Some for the classics; and so through,
the list. From their earliest school days they frequently manifest.
these preferences, which may be developed into delightful accomplish-
ments and carried along with routine Work. -
By the fixed-rule system, only such language, mathematics, history,
and natural science are measured out to the pupil as it is thought he:
A SYMPOSIUM 399
should know so as to enter understandingly upon medical branches.
According to the other theory, even if he be deficient a count or two in
trigonometry, for instance, he may be ahead of the average in Latin,
Greek, English, elementary psychology, or Some Other disciplinary
branch, SO as to comply with an elastic standard. -
Of course, it is appreciated that so long as the high School is the
gateway for the ordinary student to a medical course, there is not so
much hope of his becoming liberally educated as there will be when the
academic college courses are added to the list of entrance require-
ments. However, if with nothingbuta high-schooltraininga student of
the intellectual diathesis starts out in medicine, he will, with a little
latitude for his tastes, round out to a high degree of scholarly attain-
ments. - -
The student who has the elective privilege and selects only easy
courses will probably never make a scholarunless, perchance, he expe-
riences the quickening influence that occasionally comes from contact
with an inspiring teacher. In his choice of studies he betrays his
instinct and gives evidence asto whether he hadbetter orhadbetter not
be urged to take what is usually referred to as advanced work. The
student with the scholarly predisposition and a taste for the human-
istic studies should be encouraged to pursue them. If, On the other
hand, histaste inclinehim strongly in another direction, why not let him
gravitate that way ? Butthere is dangerat this point of his being preju-
diced by some scientific enthusiast who does not himself comprehend
the importance of any group of studies besides those which he has him-
selftoo narrowly pursued. •
If I may be allowed to presume that there is anything conclusive
about what I have said, I will make the following summarization:
I. A preparation for medicine is not particularly unlike prepara-
ion for any other specialized work. It contemplates the training of
the faculties and acquisition of classified knowledge.
2. The average graduate, at the present time, Will enter the prac-
tice of medicine as abusiness project, and will not strive for lofty educa-
ional ideals.
3. The ideal physician will appreciate the value of all knowledge
and delight to become proficient in such intellectual activities as he
may be led to by a refined taste. • . - - -
4OO THE SCHOOL REVIEW
4. So soon as practicable, advanced or collegiate work should be
required for admission to medical college.
5. In the advanced studies a wide latitude should be permitted to
the conscientious student, that he may cultivate his preferred branches.
6. As the humanistics, such as the classics, philosophy, history, the
arts of reasoning, and so forth, have great cultural and disciplinary
value, students should be encouraged to pursue them as a historic
background against which the present appears.
7. The greatest merit of these studies is not to be sought in their
technical values, although a knowledge of Latin and Greek is, time-
saving in the etymological translation of words and phrases, and facili-
tates the learning of modern languages; but in that they conduce to a
better interpretation of literature, both medical and general, in a
broader sense, and are of great refining worth.
IV. THE VALUE OF THE HUMANISTIC STUDIES AS A PREPARA-
TION FOR THE STUDY OF ENGINEERING
HERBERT C. SADLER, D.SC.
Professor of Marine Engineering, University of Michigan
The subject of the technical training of engineers is one that has
been treated at some length by many Writers within the last decade.
In the majority of cases, however, little or no attention has been paid
to the earlier or preparatory education of those intending to follow
this profession.
The engineering profession naturally demands a training along
highly specialized lines, and the consideration of this fact has to a cer-
tain extent overshadowed that of the purely preparatory, or what may
be called the general education, which must form a basis for this spe-
cialization.
In the engineering departments—and, it must also be confessed, in
the departments of literature, science, and the arts—Of our universities
the utilitariam spirit has of late assumed a Somewhat prominent place;
and, in the endeavor to devote his time solely to those subjects which
he considers will be useful or money-producing immediately after
graduation, the student in all probability will omit those studies which
A SYMPOSIUM 4OI
are of the nature of general culture. The time which the average man
can spend at the university being limited to four years, and in the case
of most modern engineering courses four years at a considerable pres-
sure, the demands of the purely technical studies, .or those bearing
immediately upon the same, have rendered the introduction of any
culture studies an impossibility. This is due to the fact that, owing to
the recent developments within the sphere of science, there is so much
more to teach in the old subjects, so much that the students ought to
J{now about the new, that four years is all too short even fór the tech-
nical work. • . -
With this atmosphere pervadingthe educational world, it is not very
Surprising that the student, in deciding upon the selection of certain
courses, will ask himself: “Isthis particular study going to be usejul to
me?” In his somewhat immature judgment he is apt to lay greatest
stresS upon those subjects which he imagines may be converted most
easily into cash in the immediate future, losing sight of the fact that
there may be other things in life besides the mere accumulation of
Wealth or expertness in his profession. . -
It may be pertinent at this time to consider the position of the engi-
neer in the economic and social World of today. In the early days of
the profession the only representative was the military engineer; but,
as time went on, operations other than those of a military or semi-
military character demanded men whose training was not necessarily
along military lines. Hence arose the term “civil engineer” as apply-
ing to those non-military men engaged in engineering in a general
sense. The advent of steam and machinery led to a new class, known
latterly as “mechanicalengineers,* this term being used to distinguish
the men who specialized in moving machinery rather than in statical
structures. In these later days the name of the various classes of
engineers is legion, but it is necessary here to emphasize the Second
main division of the engineering profession, as in the early days it led
to the introduction of a class of men entirely different from the civil
engineers. Even at the present day many are apt to Couple the term
“engineer* with machinery, and its accompanying adjuncts of Over-
alls, grease, and grime. - -
In the early days before the development of engineeringas a science,
the only method of obtaining knowledge of machinery was by close
4O2 - THE SCHOOL REVIEW
and intimate contact with it. Engineering courses at universities were
unknown, and those who took up this profession-or, more strictly
speaking, trade—were in the majority of cases men of somewhat
limited attainments, so far as general education or culture was con-
cerned. AS time went On, and engineering problems began to attract .
the attention of scientific men, the methods of the profession beganto
change. The old “rule of thumb* gave place to scientific method,
and the demand for men with a thorough grounding in science—or, in
other words, educated men—increased. The reason was not far to
seek. New problems were arising continually and these required
something more than mere practical experience in their solution.
Twenty years ago the employer looked askance upon the graduate of a
university or technical school; today the majority of large concerns
will employ no one unless he is a graduate. A remark made recently
by the manager of one of these may perhaps be of interest as showing
his complete change of front; he said, in speaking of the work that a.
university should endeavorto accomplish: “ You give them the ground-
ing and theory; we can give them practice.” So far, then, as the pro-
fession in itself is concerned, there is at the present day a demand for
educated men. - -
The modern engineer occupies, in many respects, a unique position.
In practically all enterprises affecting the public at large either the
responsibility is thrown directly upon the engineer, or at least his aid is
required partially; in fact, he is reponsible for nearly all those opera-
tions which involve the outlay of large sums of money. As compared
with his professional brethren in law, medicine, or divinity, he may be
said to be in a position of trustto the community at large rather than to
the individual. - - :
He is, therefore, brought into contact with all sorts and conditions
of society, and must meet men of all professions or trades, not neces-
sarily in a business way only, but also privately or socially. If statis-
tics could be obtained from prominent engineers of today, I have no
doubt it would be discovered that the impulse which gave them their
early start was due as much to the help of Some influential friend as to
their own native ability. The faculty of being able to “get on* with
everybody (to use an everyday expression) means more to the engineer
than many realize.
A SYMPOSIUM 4o3
These considerations, apart from proficiency in his profession,
which, as was seen above, demands an educated man, tend to ,
, emphasize the fact that he should also be a cultured man; that is to
say, a man with some interests outside his own profession, or at any
rate one with sufficient training in what may be called the culture
studies to appreciate what is being done in professions Other than his
own.
The above discussion of the position of the engineer in the world of
today, although necessarily fragmentary, will perhaps be of assistance
in appreciating the arguments which will follow. •
There are certain preparatory subjects which may be regarded as
common to all professions, buttheir relative importance may be greater
in some than in others. The study of a so-called culture subject may
be useful in fulfilling two objects: first, for the knowledge of the sub-
ject per se, or as an introduction or basis to Others; and, secondly, as a
general training for the mind. : •
So far as the profession of engineering is concerned, at least under
the existing conditions, the second may be said to have the greater
weight; although the importance of the first cannot be overlooked.
While not an exact science, the study of engineering demands defi-
niteness and conciseness of thought, and one of the chief difficulties
that those connected with the education of engineers have to overcome
is a tendency to generalization on the part of the student.
An analytic, in preference to a philosophic mind is the type that
should be cultivated. In order to be successful, the student should
have formed the habit of co-ordination 'and exactness in his earlier
years of study. …
While it may be the opinion of many that the introduction of some
elementary form of scienceJmay accomplish this result, I venture to
suggest that, as a general rule, studies of this nature will have an effect
diametrically opposite, and lead toward vagueness rather than con-
creteness. What, for example, can be done in a subject such as physi-
ology, when it is taught, not for the science itself, but under the influ-
ence, and as a means of propagation, of certain ideas of a serious but
somewhat misguided body of women ? The time so spent would be far
more beneficial, both for a general training of the mind as well as for
forming a basisto further studies, if devoted to the humanities.
4O4 THE* SCHOO L * REVIEW
. Asa means ofinculcatingideas of exactness the study of the human-
ities is facile princeps. The niceties of translation, the importance of
gender, number, and case, the proper use of the moods and tenses, and
the demands of the relative clause, compel the mind toward a certain
definiteness which is lacking in many of the subjects taught in the early
stages of education. The most simple translation, or even the study
of the grammar of these subjects, demands a directness of attention
and a consideration of detail which cannot be otherwise than beneficial
to a student whose work in the future will lead him into subjects where
generalization is impossible. • . . . -
As a direct preparation for many studies now required in the engi-
neering curriculum, the humanities also play an important part.
In the majority of engineering schools of the present day the first two
years are devoted mainly to non-technical subjects, such as preliminary
mathematics, English, and modern languages. The benefit of the
study of the humanities as a preparation for modern languages is too
well known to need discussion at this time. A word, however, may be
said regarding the study of English. Few perhaps realize the amount
of writing that an engineer has to do, especially if his work is of a
consultingcharacter. Heis requiredto reportupon numerousschemes;
he is often asked to give his opinions relative to the probable successor
failure of certain undertakings; and in many cases his evidence in law
courts is the ruling factor of the decision. These, together with the
preparation of specifications and contracts, demand a familiarity with
the English language which, it must be confessed, is often lacking.
While the cultivation of an elegant and literary style is neither
demanded nor desired, it is, however, necessary that the engineer
should be able to express his ideas concisely, and with at least a cer-
tain amount of regard to the common usages of decent English.
Itis an everyday experience that the origin of most lawsuits in engi-
neering, especially in cases of interpretation of a specification or in
patent suits, may be traceable directly to some idea loosely or inade-
quately expressed. The English speech, which One of our modern
writers has aptly characterized as “thesea that receives tributaries from
every region under heaven,” requires a background of training in the
humanities, at least for a full appreciation of sentence structure, if not
for the benefit derived from the study of the grammar of these subjects.
A SYMPOSIUM . 4o5
It maybe pertinenthereto callattention to theamountoftime Spent
upon, and the methods of teaching, English grammar in most of Our
public schools. The idiosyncrasies of the preposition and the con-
junction, the use of the comma and semicolon, and many other details
throughout the whole domain of English, are learned by rote; and the
ease with which some children can reel off pages of rules, without the
slightest idea of their meaning or application, is at once a Source of
wonder and pity. - -
Iventure to suggest that, if half the time at present devoted to this
kind of study of English were spent upon Latin, the net result both
from an educational and mind-training point of view could not be
Otherwise than beneficial. - -
As a matter of fact, most children begin the study of languages far
too late in their curriculum, and there is no reason why Latin, and
perhaps French, should not be begun in the grade schools. So much
of the earlier part of a language must necessarily be learned by rote
that it seems hard to realize why these studies have not been intro-
duced in preference to some of the somewhat useless and inadequate
frills so often found in many of our schools. Both in England and
Germany, Latin and French are begum at a much earlier time than
here—generally between the ages of eight and ten; and, what may
seem peculiar, no other studies are neglected to make way for these.
Although the above discussion may be considered as somewhat
beyond the scope of the present paper, yet, when the previous argu-
ments are taken into acccunt, I trust I may be permitted this
digression.
In connection with the study of the humanities as a preparation'for
an engineering education, the question as to the length of time that
should be devoted to these will naturally arise. The work at present
required of engineering students, in the general four-year course,
leaves practically no time for elective studies; and even if time were
available, it is an open question whether this should be devoted to the
further study of humanities or not, especially as in any case it would
not amount to a sufficient number of College hours to prove beneficial.
In the years immediately preceding the university—that is to say,
throughout the high-school course—the study of the classics is cer-
ainly most desirable. At present the engineering department of this
4o6 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
university accepts only two years of Latin for entrance requirements;
but in all probability these conditions will be revised in the future.*
Ifthe languages could be begum in the grade schools, then perhaps
three years of classics in the high schools would prove sufficient for
most cases. The last year could then be devoted to those subjects—
such as chemistry, physics, and modern languages—which would
cover the other entrance requirements. After all, the object of a
university entrance examination is simply to show that the student
has a moderately well-trained mind; and I venture to suggest that
one who has devoted his time to the study of the humanities will be
in as good a condition to absorb the university work as one who has
spent his time in getting a Smattering of a number of subjects, some
of which are practically useless. -
It may be interesting to notice that, on the average Over the past
three years, 49 per cent. of the total number of entrance languages
presented by candidates for admission to our engineering department
were Latin, about 37 per cent. German, and II per cent. French, and
the remainder a Small fraction of Greek, Spanish, or no languages at
all. Ofthese itis a little difficultto say, without looking up a mass of
certificates, how many students had more than' two years of Latin;
but the presumption is that the majority did not have more than this
amount. While two years of a language such as Latin is certainly
better than none at all, it is doubtful if a student has any particular
grasp of the subject in so short a time.
The difficulties attendant upon the somewhat crowded conditions
of work in the regular four-year course, as well as the demand for men
with a somewhat broader education, have led the engineering faculty
of this institution to consider the advisability of arranging a, six-year
combined literary and engineering course. -
As, however, the technical work has been revised and rearranged
during the past year—and this in itself has entailed a considerable
amount of change—the committeee in charge of the proposed course
deemed it wise to see how this new scheme worked before reporting
upon any further possibilities of extension. In a general way it may
be said that the work in the literary department will be chosen so asto
I Since the reading of this paper, the Engineering Department of the University of
Michigan has decided to accept two, three, or four years of Latin. Greek is also ac- .
cepted for entrance.
A SYMPOSIUM 4o7
giye the student a good general course—with perhaps a few electives,
but not many. Itis the desire of the department to give the student a
broader education, especially on the culture side.
With this in view, itis hardly necessary to point out the advisability
of the study of the classics in the high-School grades. Even with a six-
year course, provided that a student had at least four years of Latin
previouslyto his coming to the university, it is doubtful ifthere Would
be any particular advantage in the continuance of this line of study in
his higher education.
While the writer is aware that many points in connection with the
subject of this paper have remained unconsidered, or dwelt upon
somewhat lightly, it was thought best tQ give a general survey of the
conditions at present obtaining in the engineering profession, and to
trust that some of the important details would come up in the dis-
cussion.
In conclusion, it may be said thatit should be the desire and aim of
everyone connected with the education of engineers to raise the stand-
ardof the average orrank and file of the profession, so that in the future
it will not be a source of wonder and Surprise when an engineer is dis-
covered who has interests outside his profession, and who can appre-
ciate art and literature for themselves alone. *
V. DISCUSSION OF PROFESSOR SADILER?S PAPER
GARDNER S. WILLIAMS, C.E.,
Professor of Civil, Hydraulic, and Sanitary Engineering, University of Michigan
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Engineering as a profession has come to a sudden popularity. At the present
moment, taking it in all its branches, it may safely be called the most popular of
the professions; and it also, from its traditions, is looked upon as a most practical
profession. It was developed essentially as such, and those who simply look at
it from the outside so regard it. That was its original characteristic, and it may
be interesting to note that some of its early exponents felt that when they had
completed their life, they had done all the engineeringit was necessary for anyone
to do.
It is related of Thomas Telford, one of those early civil engineers to whom
Great Britain owes so many of her canals and roadways, that when a young man
made application for the privilege of studying engineering under him, he replied
4o8 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
by asking what the applicant expected to find to do in the profession, saying: “I
have built all the canals and all the roads that are necessary, and I do not see
what there is left for you to accomplish.” That was the view that a practicing
engineer took of his profession in the first half of the mineteenth century. And
even now, judging from its history and traditions, there is no profession that may
more properly say: “Away with the culture study! Away with Greek and
Latin! We do not need them.” And there is no profession that has said it
more frequently than has the profession of engineering. But there have been
divers reasons for that. It was not wholly the engineer's fault. Our cultured
friends must take a little of the blame upon themselves. They chose to look
down upon the engineer; and, though quite justly, nevertheless the engineer
objected to being looked down upon. The votaries of classical training were able
to say that the great men of history had been men of classical training. They
could support their assertion with the figures. They could say that of the men
who had risen to prominence in whatever line they chose to select, the great
majority were men of classical training. But they overlooked the fact that a man
in those days who had any training at all had to have a classical training; that
if he had the advantage of any education, it was a classical one.
The past fifty years, largely as the result of engineering, have developed a
new kind of education in which the classics have been left out, and we are to
consider whether on the whole thatis best. Firstit was argued that the practical
side had no place in university training; then, that the cultural side could be
properly omitted, and the demand was for the practical; but one might as well
say that, as glass is good for windows, he will build his house's walls of glass, or,
because wood is good for the panels of a door, that he will make the window
panes of wood. The sensible position is an intermediate one. The two things
must come together, each in its proper place. But, unfortunately, with the antag-
onism of classics toward engineering, or more properly toward the engineer, as
he rose in the world he had ground into him a reflex antagonism toward the
classics which he looked upon as his chief enemy.
As time has gone on, engineering has advanced both in influence and in
learning. I venture to say that ten years ago an engineer would hardly have
been invited to speak upon this subject before such a gathering as this; and even
though he had been, he hardly would have said the things I am prepared to say.
When the institution of Civil Engineers of Great Britain was formed, it
adopted in its constitution Thomas Tredgold's famous definition: “Civil engi-
neeringis the art of directing the great Sources of power in nature to the use and
convenience of man;* but at the present time I contend that Thomas Tredgold's
definition is insufficient. If it were sufficient, it would not seem to be necessary
to appear here as an advocate of classical training for engineers. I maintain
that engineering ceased a considerable time ago to be an art; and I would say:
“Engineering is the art and science of directing the great Sources of power in
nature to the use and convenience of man;*' and I would distinguish between an
art and a science, in that science is classified knowledge, while an art is merely
A SYMPOSIUM 4O9
based on information; the scientist knows why, the artist knows only how. The
engineer must know both. He must not only know the rule, but the reason for
the rule, the underlying conditions which have produced that rule. So the engi-
• neer of today is reaching back to those days when devotees of natural science
were not looked upon as mere practical men; when they were received and courted
by the most cultured; and when the literature of the time, the most popular
literature, was made up of their work. We are going back to look at the produc-
tions of Descartes, Newton, Bernoulli, D'Alembert, Prony, and Bacon, and of
many others whose names are famous On the pages of history, and whom one
does not ordinarily think of as belonging to the engineers in any way.
When the engineer goes beyond the merely practical results, to the arrange-
ment of those practical results with a view to discovering within them the law
according to which their causes operated, something more is required than the
mere observation of everyday occurrences that one is taught in the course of a
practical training. It requires an attention to detail and an inquisitiveness that
is seldom observed in one who has come up simply as an apprentice. The
development of the reasoning faculty is not to be found in the solely practical.
The devotion to detail is the thing that must be looked to, to the fine differ-
ences and the fine distinctions, whether they be in the construction of a sentence,
in the establishment of a theory, or in the mending of a road.
The engineer is now called upon to describe his work, to lay down rules for
its furtherance, and when he lays down his propositions they must be so laid down
as notto be misunderstood. In other words, the engineer must be a master of his
language. How can he become so ? He must acquire a large vocabulary. And
how can this best be done ?
There are those who urge that for the engineer the sciences offer all that is
necessary, and that the time spent upon any language at all is wasted. The next
step after asserting that the sciences offer all that is needed, when that is shown to
be untenable, isto assert that modern languages supply the deficiency, and we have
the error of that idea before us in many of our present students. Anyone who
has studied the ancient languages feels that there is something very materially
lacking in the groundwork of the modern languages. German and French seem
like a child's production as compared with the structure of Latin. Nor can one
properly understand English without an understanding of the Latin grammar,
I believe, though he should study it until he were gray. There are features of
language which the study of English in itself does not bring out, and which cannot
be brought out until one goes back to its parent tongue; and it is in these dis-
tinctions of meaning that the engineer must ultimately become versed. Often-
times we look upon the study of language, and the student particularly looks
upon it, with a view to its practical use. He says: “I can study German, and
it will be of some use to me; I can study Latin, but what good is that to me ?
Nobody speaks Latin.” That is the very fortunate thing about it! Nobody
does speak it. If you study Latin, you do not study it to speak it. If you wish
to learn to speak German, go and live with a German family; do not waste your
4IO THE SCHOOL REVIEW
time in a classroom. It is not the purpose of the study to learn how to speak
the language; the purpose isto understand its structure, and thereby understand
the structure of our own language, and incidentally to acquire facility of expres-
sion.
There is nothing in which engineers today are so lacking as in the ability to
express their thoughts; and there is nothing that will so surely give one such an
ability as the translation from a foreign tongue; and the more delicate is the dis-
tinction of meaning in different foreign constructions, the better it is for the
student. t*
There is one more point bearing on the question as to whether the training
in the high school shall be in Latin or in a modern language. Latin, if it is
taught at all, is taught well; and I may say that it is very rarely that the modern
languages are. A thing well done, one thing well done, is worth any number
superficially done.
We find today that the students who are entering college do not seem to be
capable, on the average, of such a high grade of work as those who entered a few
years ago. There seems to be a deterioration of the quality of mind, in its adapta-
bility or its training. It has been said that the students who enter college today
expect knowledge to be pumped into them or fed to them with a spoon. They
look upon college as a kindergarten where they are to take their ease, and have
information administered in sugar-coated preparations. They think that they
can understand a thing when it is demonstrated before them, and they think
that they have acquired it when they merely see it, though they Could not repro-
duce it to save their souls. The result would be the same in translating, if
one should read through a book catching here and there a word that he knew,
and passing the others by. He would not get far in an understanding of his
translation. The student must cover his whole subject; he must see what every
word means; he must know the nice distinctions; and by the time he has
accomplished that he has absorbed his subject, and when he has had four years
of this training in language, he will be able to treat his mathematics in the same
spirit.
Coming to the use of ancient languages in the understanding of words, it is
not necessary to go so far as terms like “pseudomorph* Or “toxicogenic,” and
those which are made up of two or three ancient roots. Take such simple words
as “affect** and “effect.” I venture to say that 95 per cent. of the students of
the senior class of this university who have not had a classical training will fail
to distinguish the difference between those two verbs; and yet the difference is
quite essential and it is especially essential to the engineer.
The information that a student absorbs during the early days of his life, after
all is said and done, is not such a very important thing. A great deal of it will
very likely cease to be accepted as correctinformation before he has gotten through
college, particularly if it is along many of the scientific lines. We should, there-
fore, even in the high school, look more to developing and directing the student's
mind, than to filling it with miscellaneous bits of information here and there.
A SYMPOSIUM 4II
If I were to say what would best comprise the preparation of the student
for the engineering course, at this time; if I were to lay out four years' work, it
would be something along this line, assuming that the student carries four major
subjects each year. •
I should put first for the first year: English grammar, composition, and
spelling—do not forget fhe spelling. Ithink I would put next arithmetic, because
the student should get through arithmetic in the earlier part of his course. He
should be thoroughly trained in it in the grammar school, because, although
arithmetic is a true science, a great many things in it must be actually learned,
must be impressed upon the student's memory. He will not have time in after-
life for counting up to discover that two and two make four, or figuring out the
multiplication tables. He must know them. I would put next in the first year
Latin, and then I would put history.
Going to the second year, I would put Latin first, I would put algebra second
and I think I would introduce physics, elementary physics, because then it is
time that the pupil should begin to appreciate some of the laws of nature. I
should prefer history to make up the last study, but out of deference to some of
my scientific friends I would submitto biology.
Third year: Latin first, algebra second, English composition and rhetoric
third; then another language, either German or Greek—it would not be French.
Not that I have anything against French, but if one has a thorough foundation
in Latin, French comes too easily to warrant any time in its acquisition in the
high school.
For the fourth year I would put Latin first, geometry second; then I would
put English literature, the reading and the speaking of the masters of English—
and I consider this a very important one of the branches: the understanding of
a great language, the formation of am accurate vocabulary, the development of
a taste for Something besides the vernacular. What we need today is less of the
dialect and more of the pure English. It would be better for our language, if
those who are seeking to perpetuate the dialect of the plains and of the “poor
white trash* of the South would cease their efforts, and let us get back to the
language of Thackeray and Scott. Then as a fourth branch I would put in
either German or Greek.
In closing, it may be well to state what inclines me so strongly to Latin. My
father did not have an opportunity to study it, but he thought that it was wise
that his son should, and a portion of my time in the high school was devoted to
that subject. With a retrospect of twenty years, it seems to me I am warranted
in saying that I could have better spared any other course that I took in high
school than the Latin. If something must have gone, if I could have taken but
three-fourths of the subjects that I took, the Latin would be be first and foremost,
the one thingthat would not have been left out.
4I2 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
VI. DISCUSSION OF PROFESSOR SADLER'S PAPER
GEORGE W. PATTERSON
Rrofessor of Electrical Engineering, University of Michigan
In discussing my colleague's paper on “The Value of Humanistic Studies as
a Preparation for the Study of Engineering,” I wish to raise my voice in favor of
things whose bread-and butter-value is not evident.
Herbert Spencer,* in his essays on Education, writes at length on “what edu-
cation is most worth.'* He says:
If we inquire what is the real motive for giving boys a classical education, we find
it to be simply conformity to public opinion. Men dress their children's minds as they
do their bodies, in the prevailing fashion. As the Orinoco Indian puts on his paint
before leaving his hut, not with any view to any direct benefit, but because he would
be ashamed to be seen without it; so a boy's drilling in Latin and Greek is insisted
on, not because of their intrinsic value, but that he may not be disgraced by being
found ignorant of them—that he may have “the education of a gentleman”—the badge
marking a certain social position, and bringing a consequent respect.
While in general men of science will agree with Spencer in looking upon an
education limited to so-called humanistic studies (meaning thereby polite litera-
ture, grammar, rhetoric, and poetry, including the study of the ancient classics)
as a very narrow and bigoted kind of education, yet I am not willing to stand on
his side and say that science is the exclusive education of most worth. His
wholesale belittling of the classics makes me class him also among the bigots.
Is not a position intermediate between the extremes, the sensible place for parents
and teachers to stand?
For the sake of definiteness I shall consider whether or not the engineer is
better fitted for his life-work if he has had a full high-school course in Latin
preparatory to entering the study of engineering. I wish my sons to study Greek
too, but I shall base my thesis on the study of Latin.
For the engineer, then, what knowledge is of most worth ? And does it
include Latin ? Knowledge is classified by the thinking man into, (a) value for
itself alone, (b) value for foundation for other knowledge, (c) value for training
solely.
Let us consider Latin under these three heads, taking them in their inverse
order. The boy, or the girl, needs foundation on which to build his education
just as surely as any other builder needs a secure foundation; and, in my opinion*
the value of a subject for the foundation training of a boy's mind is of great
importance. Now Latin, with its structure obeying fairly consistent rules, is
able to furnish the mind with exercise of practical value comparable with the
value of exercises to the musician. The study of Latin grammar gives good oppor-
I Herbert Spencer, Educatìon, p. 7.
A SYMPOSIUM 4I3
tunity of holding the pupil to good consistent work, and leaves little room for
vagueness.
But the value of Latin for training solely would not be a sufficient excuse for
its use in the education of the child; for the same argument might be made with
reference to Sanskrit or Arabic. So let us turn to the consideration of Latin
under the second heading—value for foundation for other knowledge. Language
study, even if without value in itself, or as training for the mind, is yet necessary
for the well-informed engineer; for he should be able to keep abreast of the
progress of his profession in other lands, and a reasonable knowledge of French,
German, and perhaps Italian may be looked upon as necessary tools of his trade.
In my opinion, these modern languages will be better acquired by an engineering
student who has had a good Latin training.
We have already established the right of Latin to be included in the curric-
ulum. We shall, however, not rest with a simple right to be included—we
shall go on and say that it is unwise to leave the student any option in the matter;
and the justification for this stand is that Latin is not only of value for training
and for foundation for Other knowledge, but it is also knowledge of value
foritself alone; in other words, it is a part of “knowledge of most worth.” This
will be seen when we consider that the Latin language is the most extensive
Source for the words of our own language, and that no one can really know
English, French, or Italian who is a stranger to Latin. The engineer is not a
man apart from the rest of mankind. To be a success as an engineer, he must
be a man among men who are largely in other walks of life. He must be able
to write clear, concise, accurate reports to his clients or employees; and a thor-
ough mastery of English is a tool without which the owner cannot afford to be.
Let our engineer, then, be a man of all-around culture, who, though a modern
man of science, does not fail to appreciate the good things of yesterday, today,
and I believe tomorrow.
But many say that there is not time for four years of Latin in the training of
the engineer. I believe that there is not only room for four years, but even room
for six years. Why do we tolerate useless studies? Why do we compel our
children to learn obsolescent tables of weights and measures, to be forgotten
tomorrow ? Why do we have courses in physiology whose object is to give
children perverted notions of a grand science ? Why do we have courses in
patriotism—a thing which every boy should learn at home ? Why do we waste
precious time in mastering absurd spelling? Answer these questions by saying
that we will reform our ways, and then the engineering student will find plenty
of time for four, or better six, years of Latin, and even some Greek too, and thus
not neglect a part of knowledge of most worth.
4I4 THE SCHOOL REVIEW
VII. A CURRENT VIEW OF COLLEGIATE EDUCATION
FORMULATED IN PROPOSITIONS
JOSEPH B. DAVIS
Associate Dean of the Department of Engineering, University of Michigan
I. Languages are not “practical.”
2. A college education has no especial significance. It is a fashion to go to
college, so children are sent.
3. College should prepare people for obtaining money.
4. There must be a shorter way of getting into college than through the
preparatory schools. *
5. Enrolment in a college adds an indefinable, but vast, accretion to one's
learning and wisdom.
6. Preferences not justly earned, are expected—“graft.”
7. High-school graduates are prepared to begin the study of a profession.
8. Anyone can plan a college course, a course that will be ever so much
better and more “practical* than the one planned by those who have spent
their lives at such work. Children are especially sure they can do this, and are
not only permitted, but encouraged, to do it.
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RHETORIG AND ||;
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THE GIFT OF
FRED NEWTON SGOTT


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