Rhetorical Science [pp. 660-678]

RHETORICAL SCIENCE.
shadow of a basis being laid upon which to build up a literature of his own. If the teacher of this science may simply be
acquainted with the writings of others, without being an author
himself, with the student it is absolutely essential that he become
an author. Criticism is by no means his only or even his highest work. He is studying with reference to individual composition, and is now in urgent need of an intelligent understanding
of all the varied laws of such composition, that he may at once
proceed to actual production, both under the direction of the
abstract laws, and the existing models before him'n literature.
Said an American professor some years ago: "My Department
is English Literature. I have nothing whatever to do with the
teaching of Rhetoric, that devolves upon others." In relation
to a remark of this character we would simply say, that for a
man to teach English Literature and to have nothing to do with
Rhetoric is in the nature of things impossible. Unwittingly, if
not wittingly, do we teach the science, essentially, when we teach
the literature; and, assert our independence of the science as
we may, the very subject we are teaching is its best resultant and
embodiment and receives its best interpretation through it. If
Cicero could justly rebuke Socrates because he made rhetoric
a merely verbal art, in that he was the first to separate it from
philosophy, how wide of the mark are they who attempt to
sever a people's literature from the laws which governs it! The
remark just quoted, discloses a radical misconception of the
true nature either of Rhetoric, or Literature, and an unwarrantable ignorance of their inter-relations and co-workings.
The professors of English Literature and Rhetorical Science are
not merely colleagues in the same faculty, but in the same department, presenting substantially the same subject from two
different stand-points, and each referring his students unceasingly to the other for purposes of illustration. We are not even to
recognize that degree of difference between them which might be
suggested by classifying them as two departments. They are a unit
in themselves and are to be unified in teaching. The philosophic
remark of Bacon is as true of rhetorical science as any other
"that the strength of a science lies in the bond." These intricate
and natural bonds we are not to sever, and we are sure that
when this study is viewed aright, and so handled in schools and
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