800 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 



come to be regarded as a school task, they are not viewed with affection, 

 especially in these days of crowded curricula, when thore is little leisure for the 

 enjoyment of a book that requires deliberate reading. If the modern strenuous 

 curriculum of work ana 1 games has abolished the loafer it has also abolished 

 leisure, and has therefore removed one of the opportunities that used to exist 

 for the cultivation of literary and artistic tastes and pursuirs by those to whom 

 they are congenial. The art of expressing one's ideas in simple, straightforward 

 language is to be acquired not so much by study as by practice. There is no 

 essential reason why children should write worse than they speak; they do so 

 because they have constant practice in the one and little practice in the other. 

 Our grandparents felt less difficulty in expressing themselves clearly than we do 

 ourselves : of this their letters are evidence. It may have been partly due to 

 the fact that they had more time and encouragement for leisurely reading, 

 though they had not so much to read ; but 1 believe that the letters which they 

 wrote as children were their real education in the art of writing English. Much 

 would be gained if boys and girls were constantly required to express their own 

 meaning in writing. The set essay and the prcris play a useful part, but do not 

 do all that is needed. Translation does not give quite the necessary exercise. 

 What is required is constant, with certain periods of conscious, practice, and that 

 is only to be obtained by making every piece of school work in which the English 

 language is used an exercise in lucid expression. Very few paragraphs in any- 

 thing written by the ordinary schoolboy — or, for the matter of that, by the 

 ordinary educated Englishman — are wholly intelligible, and teachers cannot 

 devote too much pains to criticising all written work from this point of view. If 

 we first learnt by practice to express our meaning clearly we should be more 

 likely to acquire the graces of an elegant style later. I must add that I believe 

 the training in the manipulation of words would be improved if nil children were 

 required to practise the writing of English verse — not in efforts to write poetry, 

 but narrative verse used to express simple ideas in plain language — and I believe 

 that this would enable them the better to appreciate poetry, the love of which is 

 possibly now to some extent stifled by (he pedantic study of beautiful poems 

 treated as school tasks. 



In such a subject as English composition, in which reform is so badly needed, 

 something, perhaps, would be gained by an entire break with existing tradi- 

 tions — a break of the sort which would be required if it became suddenly neces- 

 sary to provide for an entirely new type of student. 



Now, there is one new and interesting development in which, for the first time, 

 an opportunity offers itself of dealing with a body of students who, although 

 possessed of more than average intelligence and enthusiasm, have not received the 

 conventional training which leads to a University course. The tutorial classes 

 for working people which have now been undertaken by several Universities, 

 and which already number about 1,200 students, are attended by persons care- 

 fully selected for the purpose and anxious to pursue a continuous course of 

 study of an advanced standard. In these classes the Universities will be com- 

 pelled to begin new subjects for students of matured minds who have not 

 received the usual preparation, and will therefore necessarily deal with them in a 

 new way. Here, if anywhere, the difference between school methods of teaching 

 and University methods ought to be apparent; and I feel sure that, if Univer- 

 sity teachers attempt conventional methods with these students, they will be 

 condemned to failure. It is certain that these classes will increase enormously 

 and rapidly, and I have great hope that they will for this reason influence the 

 methods of University teaching in a very healthy manner. In the tutorial classes 

 the teachers will be confronted with the entirely new problem of students 

 who have thought much, and of whom many are experienced speakers, well able 

 to express their thoughts by the spoken word, biit who, nevertheless, have 

 received little training, and have had still less experience, in expressing their 

 ideas in writing. Many of the students whom I have met have told me that this 

 difficulty of writing is their real obstacle, and the matter in which they feel the 

 want of experience most acutely. It will be a very valuable exercise for those 

 who conduct these classes to instruct their students in the art of writing simple 

 and intelligible English, and I hope that the necessity of giving this instruction 

 will have a good effect upon the conventional methods of teaching English 

 in schools as well as in Universities. 



