English education

“ I SHALL begin with an unequivocal statement of my position: the study of the English language and literature should occupy the central place—the place of honor—in every scheme of higher education for English-speaking men and women. This primacy I claim for two principal reasons: first, the knowledge obtained from this study is of most worth in the practical affairs of real life; second, the right study of English may be made the instrument of the highest culture of the mind. ”

“ But I have thought that in an age in which education and its improvement are the subject of more, if not of profounder, study than at any former period of English history, it may be useful that there should be some record of an education which was unusual and remarkable, and which, whatever else it may have done, has proved how much more than is commonly supposed may be taught, and well taught, in those early years which, in the common modes of what is called instruction, are little better than wasted. ”

“ Ask the man who is investigating any question, profoundly and thoroughly--be it historical, philosophical, philological, physical, literary, or theological; who is trying to make himself master of any abstract subject (except, perhaps, political economy and geology, both of which are intensely Anglican sciences) , whether he is not compelled to read half a dozen times as many German as English books? And whether, of these English books, more than one in ten is the work of a fellow of a college, or a professor of an English university? ”

“ We wish to have our young boys and girls taught in the different branches of an English education, and in other languages, and in the various sciences, all of which we intend eventually to have taught in this school. ”

“ UNSOUND TEACHING. The general unsoundness of what is termed an English education is, to a great extent, accounted for by the little attention paid in the Universities, Colleges, and Schools to teaching our native language, and especially to the proper teaching of English in schools for the people. ”

“ English, in these classes, is so alive with interest that the children write with ardor and read eagerly the literature which, improperly handled, they learn so soon to despise.
The time-honored studies of the old curriculum may be charged with interest if they are linked to life. The most irksome task has its pleasant aspects. ”

“ In the present condition of education in England, above all with the pressure upon young men, which is ever increasing, to complete their educational course at the earliest possible date, the number of those enjoying the inestimable advantages, mental and moral, which more than any other languages the Latin and the Greek supply, must ever be growing smaller. ”

“ That science should be a staple of education, that the teaching of Latin, of modern languages, of mathematics, must be reformed, that nature and handicrafts should be pressed into service for the training of the eye and hand, that boys and girls must learn to write English and therefore must know something of history and literature; and, on the other hand, that education must be made more technical and utilitarian--these, and such as these, are the cries of expedience with which we take the field. ”

“ The English scheme of education, which, with regard to academical studies, is more rigorous, and sets literary honours at a higher price than that of any other country, exacts from the youth, who are initiated in our colleges, a degree of philological knowledge sufficient to qualify them for lectures in philosophy, which are read to them in Latin, and to enable them to proceed in other studies without assistance ”

“ But the craving for English education among the poorer classes already amounts almost to a disease, and, in my opinion, ought not to be encouraged by a system of gratuitous education. From the very beginning of my career I have been an enthusiast for a certain kind of schooling, but I am convinced that the study of English has been pushed on too rapidly. ”

“ History, in which man discovers the meaning of the present and gains wisdom for the future, which is a potent source of ethical thought, must not be omitted. English language, as the means of accurate, vigorous, and beautiful expression, and English literature, which is the treasury of much of the world’s best thought, are not subjects to leave to the election of the pupil. ”

“ In furtherance of this idea, class talks, word study, the structure of sentences, drills on certain correct forms of expression, the proper arrangement of ideas, explanation of phrases and literary expressions, oral and written reproductions of narrations and descriptions, and exercises in original composition, all receive the attention which their importance demands. Thus will the pupils, while learning to read and from their earliest years, acquire that readiness in grasping the thoughts of others and that fluency in expressing their own, which are so essential to a good English education. ”

“ It will be possible to have only a little of this strong meat in Continuation Schools, but a little goes a long way, how far, our Public School men illustrate; for a careful analysis will bring us to the conclusion that not [298] Latin and Greek, Games, Athletics, or environment, but the ‘humanities’ in English alone will bring forth the stability and efficiency which we desire to see in all classes of society. ”

“ That if one asks what functions the teaching of English performs in contemporary education the answer will show that these functions are so basic educationally that they cannot be performed well in a single course or series of courses which the natural and social sciences still permit to exist in an innocuous corner of the curriculum. ”

“ To think justly, to write well, to speak agreeably, are the three great ends of academic instruction. The Universities will excuse me, if I observe, that both are, in one respect or other, defective in these three capital points of education. ”

“ Moreover, the ruling maxim of education, especially of English education until the end of the XIXth century, was that it was better to know one thing thoroughly than to acquire a smattering of a great many, and that a scholar was better served by an intimate knowledge of second aorists than by any wide extent of reading ”

“ The people responded promptly to the suggestion of modern education. This natural impulse was greatly fostered by the young men who came to the United States and reported the great value of an education in English. ”

“ It is indispensable, in order fully and efficiently to carry out our views as to these schools, that their masters should possess a knowledge of English in order to acquire, and of the vernaculars so as readily to convey, useful knowledge to their pupils; but we are aware that it is impossible to obtain at present the services of a sufficient number of persons so qualified, and that such a class must be gradually collected, and trained in the manner to which we shall hereafter allude. ”

“ As a teacher of English in a boys’ preparatory school, he is concerned with the problems of secondary education, and he takes the stand that the first demand on English teachers is that they teach the essentials of good English, putting accuracy in detail before attempts at literary grace. ”

“ In the light of these five points—and there are many others—you can see how defective and even defunct the teaching of the liberal arts has become in our education because it has been relegated to English courses, almost exclusively, or because the arts have been separated by departmental divisions or divided according to mistaken notions about what is proper at different levels of education. ”

“ The function of education is to make students feel, think and act, after a fashion that increasingly reveals and utilizes the best that is in them, and increasingly serves the uses of society, and both history and English can be so taught as to help towards the accomplishment of these ends. ”

“ The recommendations upon the subject of language should be broadened to cover the production of good English by the child himself, with the suggestion of suitable topics and proper methods. This report confines itself to the absorptive side of education and ignores that development of power over nature, man, and self, which comes from free exercise of faculties and free expression of thought. ”

“ Humanism in the English ‘Grammar’ Schools.—But the humanism of the ‘grammar’ schools in England, as in Italy and Germany, soon became narrow and formal. The purpose of humanistic education came to be not so much a real training in literature as a practical command of Latin as a means of communication in all lands and Soon became narrow and formal. ”

“ But I must also point out that I have acquired a lot of mish-mash in the course of this education. For instance, it is one thing to study English, its composition, spelling, vocabulary, construction, rules and regulations. One must learn these things if he is to be considered literate. In the course of such study, one also becomes acquainted with English literature. With literature it is enough to merely be acquainted with the subject. ”

“ TWO theories of historical teaching contest for the field of education through history : the first, or English method, aims to ground students in well-chosen secondary books, which they are to read, assimilate, and compare, and the divergences between which they must note, though they have not the means to reconcile them. Even in English universities only the most highly-specialized historical students use sources as an essential part of their study and training. ”

“ Did it depend on us to have the recasting of the system of education, we should be inclined to add on a year of further study as a requisite for graduation, and during the last two years of a young man’s course we would employ him entirely in the study of metaphysics and ethics, including the principles of political economy, of the philosophy of history—in which the great questions of history, as far as possible, might be reviewed—and in the further polish of his literary English training. ”

“ What he had specially studied he knew, save in rare and exceptional cases, better than the working man; but while the student had been mastering his Greek and Latin, and expatiating in Natural Philosophy and the Mathematics, the working man, if of an inquiring mind, had been doing something else; and it is at least a fact, that all the great readers of my acquaintance at this time—the men most extensively acquainted with English literature—were not the men who had received the classical education. ”

“ I would ask you to remember at this very early stage of your career in life that the usefulness to your country of the liberal education you have received consists not in writing bad manuals in English, but in writing good vernacular books on the models furnished by English authors. ”

“ The greatest stress was laid on training in the scientific theory and practice on which depend the future of the great manufactures of the north.
The question dealt with in this address is whether such an education can give the culture demanded of an educated man to-day. The answer is emphatically Yes. English literature is a field of culture second to none, and for solely literary purposes, a thorough knowledge of it, backed by some other modern language, will amply suffice. ”

“ The educational struggle in which the English people are now engaged has made distinct and tangible certain opinions and impressions that are latent in many minds. There has been an attempt to show that vice has increased in proportion to education. ”

“ Rather by instinct than by guidance, he turned to writing, and his professors or tutors occasionally gave his English composition a hesitating approval; but in that branch, as in all the rest, even when he made a long struggle for recognition, he never convinced his teachers that his abilities, at their best, warranted placing him on the rank-list, among the first third of his class. Instructors generally reach a fairly accurate gauge of their scholars' powers. ”

“ To say what is basic about English and to support my appeal that teachers of English abolish themselves and become undepartmentalized liberal artists, I shall now proceed to show, if I can: first, how the liberal arts have suffered from having ceased to be the whole of liberal education and having become mainly the preoccupation of English teachers, their concern and almost nobody else's ”

“ KNOWLEDGE of human nature is the beginning and end of political education, but several years of arduous study in the neighborhood of Westminster led Henry Adams to think that knowledge of English human nature had little or no value outside of England. ”

“ The chief feature of the educational system, controlled, examined and aided by government, is the emphasis given to an English training. From the second year of instruction, the English language grows annually in importance in the curriculum of studies. ”

“ As that education is, in general, the best which forms 140 the man, in the best manner; so, in this confined view, that education must be thought the best, which forms the Englishman, in the best manner. ”

“ The common schools, giving their pupil the power of reading, writing, and calculating, developing his faculties, and furnishing him with much elementary knowledge, put him in communication with all that is written in a common form in the English tongue ”

“ Like the scholars of the Revival period in England, our students, inspired by the simple love of learning, sought culture everywhere. Every available source of enlightenment, every volume of classic English in our reference library, was in its journey from hand to hand of our students a testimony to their enthusiasm. Books which had long remained unused suddenly became very popular, and the delight in reading expanded so as to include not merely literature but other lines as well—ethics, economics, sociology, history, the ancient classics, natural science. ”