kittredge's administrative power vast erudition prestige and the histrionic attitude he assumed with undergraduates provoked resentment although i wrote this myself i now see that it is a vast oversimplification the quarrels over the philological method were more complex than this and have been gone over in gerald graff's book graff and wellek reflect their time in that they are clearly biased in favor of criticism over and against philology nevertheless critics of philology did have a point not everybody needed to study gothic or even greek in order to teach or study english and the controversy over how to reconcile research with the requirements of general education is still with us indeed the purpose of a liberal arts education is still in doubt i haven't figured out how to deal with this in a concise manner but will make some additions later not to mention dealing with the communal theory of composition of folk ballads that kittredge was accused of promoting