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

1874.] ON THE APPROACHES TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
countless bearings upon the cognate tongues can be gauged only
by one who has read it carefully. It is indeed a wonderful
poem, but it is not an English poem. The dividing line of AngloSaxon thought and English is unmistakable; the languages are
in the line of direct descent, the literatures are emphatically not.
English literature is a thing of our own day. Chaucer, for instance, is as modern as Shelley; his world is not essentially different from ours. But Anglo-Saxon literature, whether pagan
or monkish, presents in the main a phase of life and sentiment
which is for us extinct, and which on very many points is more
remote, more foreign to our ways of thinking, than the culture
that we call Greek and Roman. The introduction of such an
element as an obligatory part of a college course would not accomplish its object. It would not aid the English course, which
aims at showing students in the mass how the great masters of
English have thought and expressed themselves, and thereby indirectly teaching them-the students —how they in turn must
think and write. As part of an English course, Anglo-Saxon,
which, if worth learning at all, is worth learning thoroughly and
scientifically, could be taught only hurriedly and superficially,
and consequently it would be a bore and a stumbling-block to
the average student, besides depriving him cf time that might
be better employed in other ways. Furthermore, it would prevent the introduction of a real course in English philology, such
as would meet the wants and wishes of a few select students
whose capacity and training qualify them for the study.
Whatever rule may prevail in other departments, in English
philology, at least, the rule of guidance must be Aristotle's
apothegm; there is but one way of learning English philology
well, and the student who does not pursue it will only protract
his journey and may possibly fall into the ditch. That way is
through Gothic. The study of English does not begin with Aelfric, or Cynevulf, or even Beovulf, but with!jlfilas.
There is a familiar saying, which cannot be traced back to the
authority of any one scholar, but which, by whomsoever uttered,
conveys a great truth-namely, that it is at times easier to learn
three or four languages than one. The idea is that scientific
method and comparison may be of mnore service than narrowminded persistency. The characteristic features of the Teutonic family of the Indo-European trilbe of languages are the
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