Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-06-26
THE GOWNSMAN
About the Study Of English

| IN RECENT number or Inc Nation,
! Professor Norman Forester has made sew
eral notable discoveries about English, which
| he finds sadly in need of reconstruction.
especially in our graduate schools. lie is
particularly troubled with the bogy OF
rampant bolshevism," as he calls radical
! ideas in education, and facilely divides
teachers of English--as he might those OF
| any other subject-into the German oligar-
| chies whose thoroughness he approves, as
| who does not, and surprising creature OF
| his imagination called the dilettante, whom
! ne describes as intolerant of scholarship,
! possessed of bad taste land likely to senti-
mentalize over beauties. rhythms. cadences
| and emotional spontaneity.' The Gowns
man has never had the misfortune to meet
| this variety of what must be the genus
muller. no matter what its sex. so he cannot
| do justice to this straw man nor sympathize
| with Professor Foerster's dcnunciaton OF
| the demagogic power of dettantism to win
| large student following" a matter, surely,
| of the most trivial vanity.
COME time ago an intelligent carpenter
| ~ was making repairs in a college building
| and fell into a pleasant passing of the time
! Of day with teacher. One day this car
penter inquired; "What subject, sir, do
| you teach?' "English. why, ] didn't
suppose anybody needed to be taught Eng
| lish leastways in college Soon his face
| Frightened however. and he added, We'll.
| | have seen some of them dagos around here;
I suppose they have to be taught English"
| And the teacher found the matter really
| difficult to explain.
| LNNGLISH. in college. as clsewheres is
IL quite number of different things. And
! first of all. English is a tool to us who speak
| it our daily, universal tool. Like any other
| tool the user must know how to handle
| it. and become skillful in its use. Like almost
any tool. it has possibilities and limitations.
| and it will do surprising things in competent
| hands and preposterous and dangerous
| things in the hands of incompetence. The
| use of English can be taught like the use
| of any other tool. Once more like a pencil
| or a brush, for example, English may be
| used not only as utility. but as the means
| of producing art and guidance in this way
| may be had as in any other art. although
| its triumphs are individual and above all
| rules of rote
| TNNGLISH. from another point of view. is
| IL interesting as growth which has gone
on from the early days when our forefathers
were semi savages-far more Teutonc than
they have since become by intermixture-
dwelling among the dunes and sparse fir
| forests Of Jutland and practicing form of
marauding warfare of which the late Ger.
| man example is only an historic throw
back How this rude tongue has developed
| into a language of the power, the compexity
| and adaptability of modern English is 'an
absorbingly interesting historical study, and
| one naturally a part of the equipment of a
| man of education. Back of this lie deeper
| fields which concern the relation of English
to other tongues. the laws of it's origin and
growth and the conditions out of which these
| things have risen. 1t will not make these
| things simpler to call them by the hard
names philology. phonology and morphology,
| nor better matters much by saying that all
| these studies are linguistic. But it would
be clear to our intelligent carpenter. though
he had never reached grammar school, that
| there are things to inquire about and teach
| to others besides the un Engiished dago.
A Nd now we reach the topic Of
| n friend-we had almost written our
| young friend-of The Nation, and that is
| English considered as literature as the
! humanist considers it. English as one of the
| humanitics. From a subject scarcely known
| except in the form of the old rhetoric, Eng
| lish has become in n single generation in
America at least. a subject of universal at
tenton. commanding large departments as
|
where choice is free. by large numbers of
students. This is not because English is
made up of "snap courses" for nearly all
such work entails much reading and mickle
writing. 1t is not because the dilettante
| rules in the English room. The modern
young man. and young woman do not flock
after the dlettante. Much less does a
Prussian efficiency in the hunting down of
facts attract him. The reason for the at
| ,,I af En0I in n,,r
colleges is its humanistc spirit, which only
Grass ignorance can wholly impair. The
reason for the popularity and success Of
English in our college classrooms is refer
able to the fact that English is the last
stronghold of the humanities. And the
humanities we must have.
TN OUR graduate schools we have been
i most Prussianzed and our scientific
friend has held too undivided a sway. There
is need that We do away with some of his
superstitions about 'original research as
the only thing which should demand the
activity of man. and that we SHOULD give up
genuhections and the hushed voice of adora =
tion whenever we hear of some inconsider
able trif1e as added to the sum total of
human knowledge" Human knowledge is
a good deal like money and the getting of it
like money getting. 1t is not the acquisi
ton Of knowledge that is important; it is the
use we make of what we get. Any one can
make money: few know how to spend it to
advantage. So any one of average ability
can, learn things and going about in un-
trodden ways, pick up strange pebble The
use Of knowledge is the rarity. And while we
can no more train the aptitude that makes a
large use of knowledge than we can train
poets, prophets and seers, it is that which
counts in the march of the race, not the
mere ACQUISITION of new facts. Wherefore
by all means let us prize our humanists and
the larger ideals they practice. Let us have
more of their spirit in our Ph.D. s as else
where But don't let us think that we are
the first generation to discover them.