PLACE OF ENGLISH IN HIGHER EDUCATION. %^ 



a liberal education — the central source of " sweetness and light." These 

 gods of Greece and Rome, having j^layed their part, still " lag super- 

 fluous on the stage," and we must push them from their places to make 

 room for something better — for modern languages and physical sciences. 

 It may be said there is room for all, but I doubt it. Many eminent 

 teachers in America and in England, writing to me in regard to a prize- 

 paper on " Hamlet," printed last year as a specimen of the work done 

 by my pupils, use expressions of surprise and admiration that have as- 

 tonished me, and confess that they are unable to do work so good on 

 account of the over-crowded curriculums of their colleges and univer- 

 sities. From numerous statements of this kind, I infer that, although 

 able and learned men are employed in the department of English in 

 our leading institutions, the students do not have time for any real, 

 earnest work at English. There is too much of something else. We 

 must find this encumbering something and drive it out, to make room 

 for English. I think I see it in the form of Latin and Greek, and ab- 

 stract mathematics in some colleges. Like the men of Ephesus who 

 shouted " Great is Diana of the Ephesians " all the louder because they 

 no longer believed in her greatness, we sometimes cling the closer to 

 our idols after we see their utter powerlessness. So I have done, and 

 in the curriculum of Logan Female College I permitted Latin to hold 

 the place of honor after I had lost faith in its right. Meanwhile I was 

 giving the primacy to the study of English in the actual work of the 

 college. A copy of the college register having fallen into the hands 

 of Mr. A. J. Ellis, formerly President of the English Philological As- 

 sociation and author of " Early English Pronunciation," he wrote me a 

 long private letter, in w^hich he severely criticises my inconsistency, and 

 presses me to an oj^en avowal of my real faith. I can best fortify the 

 position I have taken by quoting his words, as I find them in a lecture 

 before the London College of Preceptors : " It is perfectly absurd to 

 speak of the humanizing efiect of Latin and Greek, the grand litera- 

 tures which they contain, their poetry, their philosophy, their history, 

 the enormous influence which they have had upon the literature, poetry, 

 philosophy, the whole tone of thought prevalent among civilized na- 

 tions — I say that it is perfectly absurd to advance all these arguments, 

 when the only condition Avhich could make them valid is wanting. That 

 condition is, that those who acquire them should be able to use them ; 

 that is, should be able to take up a Latin or Greek book, and read as 

 most of those who have learned French and German would be ashamed 

 not to do with French and German books ; should be able rapidly by 

 the eye to drink in the sense without the laborious consultation of dic- 

 tionaries, without having to consider their own language at all ; should 

 be able to think in the languages so far as to speak and write in them 

 with tolerable facility, making the words and phrases immediate repre- 

 sentatives of thought. Without such power, we have no notion of the 

 meaning or literature of a language. The words are tasks to get up, 



