804 “PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 
past few decades—‘ Trilby,”’ “In His Steps,” ‘‘ The Sorrows 
of Satan,’ “ The Christian,’ and the ‘‘ Master Christian.” 
These books sell in their thousands, while Meredith is almost 
unread, Shakespeare is seldom played (except as a clothes- 
prop), and Fielding, Scott, Thackeray, and Jane Austen are 
only saved from oblivion by a small band of zealots who 
keep the laurel green upon their sepulchres. 
If we turn to the writings of Australian authors, we find 
that, largely through the influence of one magazine— 
accepted, through lack of proper school-training, as the 
dictator in such matters—the literary output of one of the 
most honest, healthy, and hopeful nations of the world is 
becoming notorious for its strident affectation of unaffected- 
ness, its morbid brutality and its sordid pessimism. 
What can be expected when the children who grow up 
to form our reading-public leave school without so much as 
learning even the names—let alone the love—of the leaders 
of our race in thought and fancy; and possessed. by the 
pernicious fallacy that anything between covers is a book? 
It seems abundantly evident that Australian primary 
education requires reform; reform in the direction of 
smaller classes, better educated educators, a wider and wiser 
course of study. In that course of study, as put before 
smaller classes by better-educated educators, I put in this 
earnest plea for English literature. 
