‘Address,’ Queen’s University 1889

JAMES CAPPON 'Address,' Queen's University 1889 Edited by Paul Milton My subject to-night is the teaching of English in universities. Some seven or eight months ago it happened that an appointment was being made in this department in a neighboring university, and as a consequence the correspondence columns of the Toronto Mail were for a week or two filled with letters on the subject.1 Most of these letters enumerated the qualifications which, in the opinion of the writers, a university teacher of English ought to possess; and I, being myself a university teacher of English, was filled with admiration, not unmixed at times with terror to see the very liberal notions which these writers entertained regarding the acquirements of a professor of English. First - He should be a classical scholar, and have been 'bathed in the Thespian Springs,' and 'co sphered with Plato' long enough to have acquired something of that fine sense which the ancients possessed in art and literature; and this evidently, in the opinion of some, was the main thing, the thing to make sure of, I mean, the rest being to them more or less a matter of course. Second - He should be well acquainted besides, with the languages and literatures of the great continental nations, France, Germany and Italy, for a knowledge of these was necessary in order to explain many important phenomena in English literature; and this rather, I could perceive, in the opinion of some, was the thing to make sure of. Third - He should be a philologist, and should know, besides modern French, German and Italian, the following languages, old high German and middle high German, Dutch, Danish, Icelandic, Moeso-Gothic, AngloSaxon , Scotch, a Celtic language, Cyrmic (sic] or Gaelic, and at least two provincial clialects of English. Such, or something very like it, was the list which one of the writers furnished. I am not sure about the Celtic language , but I am quite sure about the Scotch. This writer, I presumed, held strong views regarding the prominence which philology ought to have in the 'teaching of English. Other correspondents said something about the teacher's accent, one in particular requiring that it should be equally free from the American twang, the Canadian burr (l think burr was the word) the Scotch drawl or the English lisp; some made suggestions regarding the teaching of composition; some dropped remarks on style, on nationality , on a sympathetic temperament, on anything in short that occurred UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY, VOLUME 64, NUMBER 3, SUMMER 1995 470 JAMES CAPPON to them as a possible qualification or disqualification for the duties of this wonderful chair. I do not know how the authorities at the university of which I speak, regarded this somewhat discordant volume of public opinion. Possibly, as the way of academic authorities is in such cases, they did not regard it at all. But to me, at least, this gratifying fact was evident, that most of the writers had a high sense of the importance - the growing importance - of the English department in our universities. That was the harmonious note in the otherwise discordant volume; that was the meaning of the varied and almost conflicting acquirements demanded of the candidate for the chair of English. But it was evident also from the exaggerated importance which some of the writers gave to some special faculty and from the loose comprehensiveness of others who demanded with indiscriminating emphasis every possible faculty and qualification, that public opinion as represented in these letters had no leading ideas on the subject. There was evidently no general agreement as to the relative importance of the varied attainments required of the English teacher. What his chief duty is, and where consequently his main strength should be, especially if he be the single teacher of English in the university; what in short is the true function of English in our universities, that fundamental question, it seemed to me, had not been much considered by the writers. By way of illustrating the difficulties which surround this subject, I shall begin by quoting the opinion of an eminent English scholar, Mr. Freeman, professor of history at Cambridge. Professor Freeman thinks that...