May 13, 1887] 



sci:EJsrcE. 



475 



These four are fair examples of the whole list of 

 failures. Nor must it be supposed that these 

 young gentlemen had not been prepared in schools 

 that stand fairly well. One was a graduate of 

 a Massachusetts high school ; one was a graduate 

 of the preparatory department of one of the lar- 

 gest colleges in Ohio : two were prepared in New 

 York high schools : the four taken together repre- 

 sent the educational system of three of the wealthi- 

 est, most populous, and most progressive states in 

 the Union. In other simple grammatical forms a 

 like ignorance was displayed ; as, for instance, 

 when one student declined Moses thus : — 



Moses, Moses, Mosaic. 



Such examples might be multiplied indefinitely, 

 but these will suffice to prove how utterly inade- 

 quate is much of the preparatory instruction in 

 the simple forms of our almost grammarless 

 tongue. 



When the work of writing English is considered, 

 the results are almost equally barren. Scarcely 

 an applicant for admission can write the simple 

 essay required at the examination without some 

 blunder in orthography, punctuation, capitaliza- 

 tion, and, what is worst of all, gi'ammatical ac- 

 curacy. I say nothing of the faults in logical ar- 

 rangement and rhetorical effectiveness. These 

 qualities might, and indeed should, be taught in 

 the preparatory schools ; but I am sure every 

 teacher of* English in the colleges will be fully 

 satisfied if students are sent up well equipped for 

 writing English with grammatical correctness and 

 some degree of ease. Such a foundation as this 

 would enable the teacher to begin at once the 

 work of aiding the student to acquire a clear and 

 forcible style, instead of wasting time, as is now 

 necessary, in doing the work of the preparatory 

 . schools. 



The trouble seems to be that the preparatory 

 schools do not, as a rule, give enough attention to 

 the study of English. There is in the grammar 

 schools a certain amount of grammatical drill and 

 of analyzing and iDarsing. Much of this is good ; 

 umch is worthless. So far as any useful end is 

 concerned, the mere ability to analyze and parse 

 an intricate English sentence counts for little. The 

 ability to write a simple English sentence with 

 accuracy and effectiveness would be of vastly 

 greater advantage to the student. When the stu- 

 dent attempts to pass an examination in any first- 

 class college, this fact is made clearly evident. 

 The main requirements at such a time are three, 

 — first, the ability to recognize the few grammati- 

 cal inflections that still persist in English, and to 

 illustrate these, together with certain sentential 

 constructions, by examples written at the exami- 



nation ; second, the ability to point out in sen- 

 tences given at the examination the examples of 

 false syntax and of offences against idiomatic 

 English : third, the ability to write, on some fa- 

 miliar subject, a short composition which shall 

 prove that the applicant possesses a reasonably 

 full vocabulary, and is able to construct gram- 

 matical and idiomatic sentences and to combine 

 them with ordinary skill. Of the three tests, the 

 last named is by far the most important. 



This brings us to a consideration of the work 

 necessary to be done in the preparatory schools in 

 order to fit students for college entrance exami- 

 nations in English. In sketching this I shall not 

 attempt to be exhaustive, but simply to indicate 

 the main lines on which preparatory work ought 

 to proceed. 



1. There ought to be a thorough grounding of 

 pui^ils in the inflections of English. This does not 

 imply that pupils should be put through a severe 

 course of training in all the niceties of grammar, 

 but simply that the necessary inflections should be 

 made perfectly familiar. For the accomplishment 

 of this end, any one of the numerous 'methods' 

 of language- study may be profitably employed ; 

 but it is my conviction that patient drill, accom- 

 panied by constant practice in the use of the vari- 

 ous grammatical forms, is the best and simplest 

 method. It cannot be too emphatically impressed 

 upon the teacher that there ought, imder any 

 method, to be constant illustration, in actual work, 

 of all difficult points in grammatical structure. It 

 is especially important that the student be thor- 

 oughly drilled in the use of idiomatic Enghsh, and 

 be taught to observe the distinction between 

 closely related forms ; as, for instance, ' shall ' 

 and 'will,' 'may' and 'can,' and other forms 

 which persons ignorant of the idiom of the lan- 

 guage are likely to confound. 



2. There should be a reasonable amount of in- 

 struction in the simple intellectual qualities of 

 English style. Dr. Abbott says, "Almost any 

 English boy can be taught to write clearly, so far 

 at least as clearness depends upon the arrange- 

 ment of words. . . . [It] is a mere matter of ad- 

 verbs, conjunctions, prepositions, and auxiliary 

 verbs, placed and repeated according to definite 

 rules." ^ Clearness is simply an intellectual 

 quality, not depending, like strength and elegance, 

 upon emotional or aesthetic gifts. Clearness, 

 therefore, may easily be taught in the preparatory^ 

 schools, and the principles and rules upon which it 

 rests may be made a part of the intellectual equip- 

 ment of the student. Beyond this it is useless to 

 go. The study of rhetoric, in any proiier sense of 

 that term, is a waste of time, a source of conf us- 



1 Hoio to write clearly, pp. 5 and 6. 



