The sun., 1919-07-20

United States is not producing more illustriouS
authors is not that it doesn want Them but that it
does. 1t coddleS the originality out of them as
parents sometimes make physical weakllngs of their
children through excess of anxiety to do the oppO
site Also, it heralds second rate native novel or
poem masterpiece, and fondly tries to believe
the desired excellence attained. Hence, for one
thing blurb ON books jackets. Burb is not the
publisher bamboozling the public, but is we-the-
peOple-of- the United -bambOozng ourselves.
incidentally, the reason why SHAKEsPEARE on the
stage generally loses someone's money, and why
the most tiourishing magazines full of pitllng
fiction is the selfsame reason. Talk of editors and
publishers vitiatng the public taste is confusion.
The public taste vitiates the editors and publishers,
who in the perfectly straightforward business of
selling us what we will buy. What else should they
sell us Yet most of us who buy have been through
high school at least The school process of asso-
ciating high standards and good authors, not with
pleasure and interest but with cut and dried
pulsory boredom, naturally turns many graduate
forever after against anything suggestive Of high
standard or good authOr-until the graduate has
growing children, when his veneraiiOn Of the Lit
erature he himself cannot abide is naturally revived
on their behalf
Premature Laurels.
While the class work is preoccupying the future
writer with considerations of rhetoric and fas-
tening upon him an artificial canonic discrimina-
tion other features Of school life carrying along
the enlargement of his ego School societies of the
kind eounenanced by the school authorities, formal
exercises aud exhibitions, the school magazine, if
there is one, the graduation programme, offer the
student with a writing bent premature satisfac-
tion in distinguishing himself with his pen.
Nothing is counteraeting their influence by i'm
pressing him with the fact that while this is credit
able work at II it will scarcely be worth a smile
at g. and that once the real struggle before him
is on the awards will not be made by academcians.
We suspect that the school magazine is worse
thing for the youngsters who edit and contribute
than any educator realizes. 1t means, to Them pro-
fessional recognition-and because they are espe-
cially susceptible TO recognition it will be harder
for them later when they undertake 10 write for
grownup magazines, to realize that they back in
the primary grade again than it will be for the boy
who stood high in math. to realize correspondingly
when he begins at the bottom in engineering.
And the result will be that when their manu-
scripts come back, with stereotyped regrets they
will fail to wonder what may be the matter with
the manuscripts in wondering what is the matter
with the editors
We do not believe any system of teaching "E-ies-
lsh," however bad, can "ki personality if the
personality is strong, or can smother potential
ability of much force We do not believe anything
can do that. We believe the present system loads
up the ink drinking student with lot of cobwebbed
rubbish he will presently have to shed, and that it
rhttenripens many of them with"premature salts
faction. Let the grammar schools rub in grammar
the harder the better. If English courses in the
secondary schools were limited to an occasional
purely original theme or essay, this to be simply
corrected and discussed and if otherwise the young
idea were left to gang his own gait with an I'M
limited assortment of meritorious authors available
for his reading and nothing prohibited or recon-
mended (just as the Head Masters library
open to BEETLE, who is autobiography of KIPILNG);
above ALL if the death penalty were established for
prophetic praise of the writing of any person under
= Well, SADIE PERKINs's diploma might not help
her to get her certificate for teaching English,
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