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to endure. Those six odes have in them much of war's alarum and of the thundering tread of victorious legions; but in the midst of the din, in the fourth ode, Horace tries to present the crowning virtue of empire, the worship of the muses. How subtly without saying a word to discredit the military and political achievements of Augustus, Horace suggests that these are but means to a higher end. It is so easy to forget that the machinery of government is not an end in itself. The test of a civilization or of a form of government is its power to produce the things of the spirit. Horace does not bluntly say this, but he hints that when Augustus has made provision for his veteran legions he will devote himself to poetry and philosophyand become first citizen in a world of refinement and beauty, a world of faerie remote from brute force, a land in which Horace has lived from earliest childhood, a land where one must use a new set of standards in estimating success. It is a world in which some slight inspiration of the Grecian muse can outweigh all the harvests of Sicily and the cattle grazing on a hundred hills. It is a world in which the charm of woodland glades and the subtle whisperings of the spirit are more important than success in business, political preferment, or victories in the field of war. It is the world of Orpheus and Amphion where cities are built without sound of hammer, where swift streams and stately forest trees arrange themselves in forms of wondrous beauty to imagination's magic harp.

GRINNELL College

CHARLES NEWTON SMILEY

V

WHAT IS ENGLISH?

Every one knows what algebra is, or Latin, or botany. But what is English? In the colleges the answer is fairly clear: required composition for freshmen and elective literary courses for higher classes. Yet there is such variety of theory and practise that a proper exposition would have to be entitled The maelstrom. One professor devotes his life to sophomore themes, only to be assured by a venerable colleague that his work is in vain. Another, who has taught literature half a century, declares that literature ought not to be, and never can be, taught. One of our greatest universities requires no freshman English, but offers to sophomores instruction "aiming at fluency in focussing daily impressions." Whether literature is a subject to be attacked by analysis, or is something that reluctant youth should be coaxed into loving; whether the purpose of composition should be literary grace or mechanical accuracy-these questions have been everywhere debated with religious fervor.

Such antagonisms of opinion within the college are of little moment to the world: the wisdom of professors can be trusted in their own courses. But they guide the schools, and if wrong notions cause mismanagement and waste of energy there, then every tax-payer and parent is concerned. Every teacher whose efforts have been misdirected becomes a drag on civilization. More time is devoted to English than to any other subject; it is conceded to be more directly useful than any other; more fault is found with poor teaching of it; in no other department do teachers so agonize and study methods and pray for guidance, and so often despair. What is English?

If you ask a high school boy, he will say, "Oh, we read

Julius Caesar and Vision of Sir Launfal, and a lot of books like that." Press him further, and he will tell you, "We write themes sometimes." This incomplete reply is substantially the truth. Reading a lot of books and writing a few themes is secondary English. The wisest high school teacher I happen to know, who is the author of the most sensible composition book I know, has declared in print that only two-fifths of the total English time should be allotted to grammar, spelling, and rhetoric.

Put your query to a file of the N. E. A. T. E. leaflets. The cornucopia of replies is as follows: The Use of Modern Literature, the training of young people to self-discovery and self-expression, Dramatization and the Festival, Oral Composition, The Teaching of Literature, let us court the candid opinion of the beef-eating athlete, a pleasure and a duty to employ his noble mother-tongue nobly, 48% of the schools that send replies give less than onethird of the English time to composition, The Old Testament in Schools, we ought to turn over to you children that have some power of finding joy in allusion, it is easy to secure the children's interest in the stories of Shakespeare's plays. This sheaf of titles and significant expressions was gleaned absolutely by chance. I took a jumbled lot of leaflets, began at the bottom, and took the heading or a quotation from each one, until the list was long enough to be tiresome. Dates of publication range from March, 1907, to April, 1914.

A very large part of the discussion in conventions for the last fifteen years has centered about the college entrance list of required reading. Shall we have two lists? Shall we have any lists? Shall we be shackled? We want plenty of optionals! such questions and slogans have mightily stirred the secondary world.

What is English according to the admission requirements of colleges? Two Princeton catalogues furnish an interesting contrast. In 1909 we read: "The examination will be based upon the books prescribed by the uniform entrance requirements in English. Questions as to the

subject matter, structure, and style of these books will be asked." In 1913: "The purpose of the examination is to test the candidate's knowledge and appreciation of certain masterpieces of English literature and his proficiency in English composition." This current toward composition has been so strong during the last decade that teachers who thought they were on the high seas of literature have been continually finding themselves stranded on the shoals of spelling. In the Yale catalogue for 1912 English was placed after Latin, French, and German, and began: "The aim is to foster the habit of intelligent reading." In 1914 English was put first in order, and began: "Preparation in English has two main objects: (1) command of correct and clear English, spoken and written.”

It appears that we are actually to know before many years what English is. From all quarters we hear the same cry: "Our freshmen can't spell, can't punctuate." Everywhere it is necessary to form freshman spelling classes or Freshman o English for those who are deficient. No college now passes a paper, no matter what powers of appreciation or fluency it may exhibit, if the candidate is ignorant of commas or doubled consonants or past participles.

Three years ago the University of Wisconsin printed a most remarkable bulletin, Requirements for Admission to the Freshman English Course. It is essentially a guide for perplexed teachers, a definition, in the form of 87 rules, of what English is in Madison. Nothing is said about appreciation of literature, nor about themes based on books read. We are told only that: "One of the laws of the University makes a certain amount of proficiency in writing English prerequisite for admission to the freshman English course. Whether or not students possess the necessary ability is determined by a preliminary test consisting of the composition of a few short essays on familiar and simple subjects."

The reader is four times warned that the rules are in no sense a curriculum, are not to be learned; that they

"show only the qualifications necessary for admission," and merely "indicate the result which high school training should accomplish."

Intensely interesting is the explanation of what is included in the "certain amount" of proficiency which a candidate must show. "In the first place we will state what is not included. The art of writing consists of a higher part and a lower part; the lower concerning such matters as spelling, punctuation, syntax, idiom, and reference, and the higher concerning such matters as grace, charm, effectiveness, and power. The higher part is not included in the amount of proficiency required for admission to freshman English. When we say that a certain amount of proficiency is necessary, we mean a certain amount of proficiency in the rudiments of writing. Students whose writing is devoid of interest, originality, or any other literary merit, are qualified if their writing is satisfactory as to the rudiments; and students who possess literary skill are not qualified if they are seriously deficient in the rudiments. Moreover some of the lower part is excluded."

Perhaps this merely states the practise of most college examiners; possibly there is nothing revolutionary about it. But I have never before seen such a frank admission or so specific a formula. In every textbook, in every magazine article, in every paper before a convention, the author seems dazzled by the assumption that the purpose of composition work is to inspire some measure of grace and charm. College theme-writing is a failure, it has been argued, because college graduates are no more literary than they used to be. Our rhetorics all imply that high school boys and girls are to try to be artists in putting words together. I venture that in 1912 ninety-nine teachers in every hundred would have been astonished (fifty would have been grieved) by the Wisconsin announcement.

Probably many years must elapse before such a blunt statement will be commonly made and generally ratified. Yet its sound sense, its evident accord with recent tendency, are guarantees that the sooner a school accepts it the more

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