Outlines for the Study of English Classics. CHAPTER I. AN OUTLINE COURSE OF STUDY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. "It is better to have a thorough acquaintance with one writer's works, than a superficial knowledge of the writings of many authors."-Arthur Gilman. "Assuredly, the right way of teaching English literature, so as to develop the intellectual tastes, is by using authors, and not miscellaneous literary chips."-H. N. Hudson. "Some historian will record of this present age, that it witnessed the introduction into our schools,-at least into some of them,―of a careful study of our native tongue, and the great works written in it."-J. W. Hales. "There is no need more urgent at the present moment in our education, than the encouraging in every way we can of the study of literature (especially of our own), before it is entirely supplanted and destroyed by the equally, but not more than equally, important study of the exacter, and, therefore, more material and less human 'natural' sciences."-F. G. Fleay. "Among teachers of English literature, there is a growing conviction that much time is wasted in the class-room by attempting to learn about too many authors. Such an attempt is dissipating to the mind of the student, and is most unsatisfactory to the teacher. Wherever the students can have access to a good library, it will be found to be the most profitable use B of the time generally allotted to this subject, to have them study brief biographies of the few authors who have wielded potent influence over our thought and our language, to have them read the best criticisms upon these authors, and the best passages from their works."—-Shaw's New History of Eng. Lit. I. INTRODUCTION. 1. Within a few years, English Literature has become not only a recognized branch of study in most of our high schools, academies, and colleges, but the method of instruction has been radically changed for the better. In the past, too much time has been given to mere routine study of the pages of a manual devoted to the history of our literature, and too little attention paid to the critical study of the writings of an author. To-day, however, this plan has been superseded,—at least in most of our best schools,-by a more sensible, and in fact the only true method,-viz., a thorough and systematic study of the text of a few great classics, supplemented by such explanations, criticisms, and biographical facts as will enable the student to accomplish this result. The English instructors have taken the lead in this matter, and to such teachers and scholars as F. G. Fleay, J. W. Hales, E. A. Abbott, R. Morris, E. T. Stevens, D. Morris, R. S. Davis, J. Hunter, and many others, are we indebted for ably edited and cheap editions of the English classics. In this country, too, our publishers have issued some beautiful and well edited editions of Milton, Addison, Goldsmith, and Shakespeare. Such teachers as Hiram Corson, F. A. March, Homer B. Sprague, H. N. Hudson, W. J. Rolfe, and others have done much by their writings to advance the study of English Literature to its proper place in the school curriculum. |