On the Approaches to the English Language [pp. 434-456]

440 ON THE APPROACHES TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [July,
of two courses. First, the course in English literature. The
student in this course need not go back farther than the present
English language, i. e., need not go behind Chaucer, or perhaps
Wycliffe. There is nothing in Wycliffe that cannot be mastered
by the student who exerts at all his patience and his wits. As
to Chaucer, the only additional help required will be a fair
knowledge of French. Special explanations can be given by the
instructor from time to time, as the necessity may arise. From
Chaucer on, the work, at least so far. as grammar is concerned,
grows easier and easier. It should be borne ever in mind
that the work is essentially literary and critical, not philological;
that the aim of the course is to familiarize the student with the
thinkers of England, the products of the English imagination.
The growth of the substance, and not the evolution of the form,
is the point of interest. To attempt the study of Anglo-Saxon
would not only be superfluous, but would even be injurious to
such a course, as a course, —for the following reasons: The
course should be obligatory upon all students; no one is entitled to the diploma of Bachelor of Arts who has not mastered
the outline of the literature of his mother-tongue. But to impose Anglo-Saxon upon the mass of college students would
make their burdens unnecessarily heavy, and at the same time
defeat the object of the course. What with Latin and Greek,
German and French, college students have already enough, perhaps more than enough. _We would only attenuate the present
curriculum, so faulty and superficial, by adding Anglo-Saxon.
Furthermore, Anglo-Saxon is a difficult language; even for one
who approaches it with zeal and reasonable preparation, its difficulties are far more serious than is commonly known. The inflections, although not numerous, are puzzling, and the phonetics are at times perfectly discouraging; one finds himself
swamped by a sea of forms. Finally, to read Anglo-Saxon literature with an adequate appreciation of its meaning requires
far greater c-'pacity for collateral work than can be expected of
the average student. The gem of the collection, namely
Beovulf, is a short poem of only 3,200 lines: but to master
Beovulf, as far as a student can be said to master anything, is
the work of six months of uninterrupted study. Its richness of
allusion to Scandinavian history and legend, its abrupt epic
transitions of narrative, its touches of genuine folk-poetry, its