New-York tribune., 1907-04-24
COLLEGE ENGLISH.

Annually We read of the despair of college
professors over the ignorance OF the young
men who present themselves for entrance ex-
amnatlons in English composition and Eng
lish literature This year Is no exception, so
that all the past thought-taklng over this sub
ject has not resulted in a crop OF boys who
can write ineligible English or who possess
n sound sense of literature. Professor G. II.
Nettleton, Of Yale, writes TO '"The Indepen-
dent to ask whether college examinations In
English tend TO destroy the love OF literature"
and the English department OF Harvard has
issued "A Report on the Examinations in Eng
lish for Admission TO Harvard College" which
suggests that the studies for those eXamlna-
tions, If they fail to impart a love Of litera-
ture. fail equally to teach the humble but use
ful art Of writing tolerably literare English.
Literature is naturally an alien subject TO
the youthful mind. In general the prospective
college student may have read many books
including some good books, but he has done
so in a way free from self-consciousness as
a part of his intellectual play and they aro
not literature to him. but just plain books"
His first real Introduction into literature is
when he approaches the classics. Then he
learns the difference between "just books" and
literature Literature consists of the prosy
introduction Of some dull scloIist a text writ
ten by some one long time dead and always
spoken of with respect a great author"
and notes." and these last are the real gist
of literature. If you know the notes" you can
not fail on the literature examinations. So II
is with Cesar and Xenophon, who wrote his
tory; Cicero, the orator, and Homer and Virgil
two of the three poets in three distant ages
born" When the student being gradually in
Quoted into literature, comes to the third of
this trinity, Milton, another very respectable
person who wrote literature" and not plain
books such as everybody might read, this great
author, too, presents himself like the rest OF
literature in fragmentary form, prosy intro
ducton, text and notes. especially the notes.
You may read the fragment of text with an
uneasy feeling that here is nothing on which
any one might PASS an examination. But the
notes" are filling; they are the substance of
literature"
Some candidates for Yale were asked how
they studied Milton One wrote:
We studied them millions minor noen,sI very,
carefully over and over again. learning all the
meanings OF the important words 1 was taken
These notes supposed to have learned
perfectly.
Another responded thus:
Milton's minor poems are very deem. or at
least we were taught to find them so. as il re-
quires long study and good use of the Index
them.
y dozen or so wrote that almost all the
classwork was "allusions." one explaining
the process thus: I'VE took Milton line bv line
land the teacher explained away every illu
''siOn." Precisely so! Milton is only one OF
many authors who figure as In the prepara-
tory list of English literature, all to be had
and apparently all taught and studied-like the
classical literature I'm fragments exactly fitted
to college examinations, introduction" "text''
and notes" youth having studied 'litera-
ture" in this form may even grow to look at
Just books with some suspicion as taking the
same outward form as literature"
To one having learned about literature in
this way let us see what is the result in en-
pacity for English writing. For convenience
| the knowledge of the candidate in both utera-