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SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— L. 405 



(a) Ml'. G. N. PococK. — The Teaching of English in Public 

 Schools. 



The Report shows that schoolmasters have long been experimenting in the 

 teaching of English, iu i.solation from one another. The problems they have 

 set themselves to find out is whether English can become the natural and 

 sufficient basis of all education in England. If this is so — and many of us are 

 convinced that it is — it now remains to pool resources and enthusiasm, though 

 without producing a stereotyped scheme. 



It is essential to break down barriers between schools, and bulkheads between 

 subjects in each school. If English is to be the basis of all education it must 

 be taught scientifically as well as artistically. The basis of the scientific treat- 

 ment is not grammar and analysis, but accurate observation and exact thought. 

 The basis of the artistic treatment is self-expression, which can be trained 

 through English Literature, by original composition both oral and written, and 

 above all through the drama. 



The object of this paper is to show how all this can be done — and is being 

 done. 



(b) Prof. Edith Morley. — Consideration of the Report of the 

 Departmental Committee. 



The general excellence of this Report is marred by its comparatively unsatis- 

 factory treatment of the problem as it affects University ' Honour Schools of 

 English.' The Committee have tried to hold the balance between the two 

 branches of the subject, literature and language, but the compromises they 

 propose are unlikely to meet the views of any experienced University teachers. 

 English literature cannot be studied as it should be by Honours candidates, 

 who read it only ' from Chaucer onwards,' for the English outlook on life has 

 remained the same from the beginning, and neither Chaucer nor his successors 

 can be properly understood without first-hand acquaintance with this permanent 

 English point of view as exhibited in early writings. Nor can English prose 

 style be adequately examined by those who are incapable of realising for 

 themselves its continuity. 



Similarly there is no break in the history of the language which is the medium 

 of English literature. Consequently the recommendation to investigate the 

 difficult problems of fifteenth-century English, or of later idiom, syntax and 

 phonology, cannot be followed by those who are unacquainted with the earlier 

 stages of the language. Still less can they profitably study place-names and 

 family -names, which study, we are told, ' should form part of a living linguistic 

 course.' 



It is not possible for Honour students to begin the study of either language 

 or literature with Chaucer, if they are to pursiie their investigations by genuine 

 University methods. 



The Committee's arguments that the English Honour School should, for 

 •undergraduate students, consist of the two branches of literature and of 

 language, are convincing. They are right, too, in the assumption that in the 

 past too much Germanic philology has been demanded from those whose bent 

 is primarily towards literature, and that this has often unduly curtailed the 

 time available for reading. Changes in the right direction are already being 

 made in most University curricula. Notably there are the alternatives per- 

 mitted under the new Oxford scheme, or in the proposals for the new School 

 of English at Liverpool, which is to supersede the present separate Schools of 

 English Language and English Literature in that University. In some such 

 way, and by means of some such evolutionary developments of the hitherto 

 prevailing system, the just balance will eventually be struck. Progress is not 

 likely to be achieved by means of the revolutionary proposals made by the 

 Committee, which ignore the experience gained from the experiments of the 

 past twenty-five vears. 



(c) Mr. J. H. Fowler. 



Tuesday, September 12. 



9. Consideration of the movement towards Individual Work in 

 Schools, with special reference to experiments in Hull. 



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