NEW LAMPS FOR OLD

Evening Star, Issue 17429, 12 August 1920, Page 3

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD

16 In ,our public, secondary, or priva sohddls there la -always, nowadays, a clepai _ ment devoted to literature, with a litera: staff of, usually, from two to four or mo: ~ members (says a correspondent in ‘TI Times’ Educational Supplement). The tin io given to tha subject is considerable, but u excessive. But the syllabuses are, in almo ly every instance, antiquated and wastefo st Those framed previously by myself, at s . differing hardly at all from those of oth r average teachers of literature, have been • . _ this nature, the object being; (1) Toaomiaii ’» the child with as much as he could take ®* during his school life of the literature of b re own country: (2) to develop in him a tas d for good reading. These are good object! Ie bub in view of modern requirements inad - n quate, as I hope to prove. Dp io a few years ago mr coxnplaoem was unshooked. The war and the work _ did among boys (who are more outspoki L ’® and loss amenable than girls) set mo thin! it ing. 1 bad always found that whatever oi a happened to bo teaching, whether poetry < Ip prose, could be made acceptable to one s. pupils; what I bad nqt realised 1 was thi ... the interest ss_ oftener than not due to tl honest enthusiasm of the teacher. Aft-i t exhaostless inquiries J find that the avera; 2* modern boy or girl “loathes” many of tl "* so-called English classics, and reads the only when obliged to. ,'r Isow, a sane, healthily-reared young hums is animal doubtless knows its particular nee< it better than folk of ea earner seneratioi le for whom those needs were non-eristen 3 { This new generation of ours is living in world as different from that of 20 years ag as that differed from the age of Cicero. ; is a world baaed on ascertained knowledg —which is not, by any manner of mean; -- to be oonfunded with a mere collection < ig facta. The literacy men of to-day ai s- vitally and _ fundamentally scientific, eve s> when not in the exact sense scientist They are “ aware **—in the highest caa continually aware—of tfche trend of model . thought. * On the teachers of literature it is laid 1 le see that the new generation is made frt xr of all that is intrinsically beautiful in pa. 3- and present literature. But we have anotb i- duty, equally important. We have to mal ie the new generation free of the accumulate jt generalised knowledge of mankind, so ih; r _ it starts off from, not a thousand, or twent , or even five years back, but from yesterda' ’ The “science” side of our schools cannot c 10 it. Bach particular eclence is neceasari i- concerned, so far os it can go in school lif ie with elementary bat tremendously imports! d basic work. literature must be its han t- maiden. All the great generalisations : y botany, astronomy, geology, biology—eve: n perhaps, chemistry and physics—should 1 _ as well known to every sixth form boy i the Catechism used to be. Outride tl >e purely aesthetic branch of the literature < i- to-day there is a large body of scieutif 1- writers whose -works axe literary in the hfo 1 > est degree. They have the first essentials[e exact knowledge, an enthusiasm that crcat t- own “style,” and a lucid simplicity < i_ diction. Sodd/a ‘Science and Life,’ 191; might well be substituted for Peacock’s do ’ old ‘ Essays ’; Bay Lancaster’s delightf . book on prehistoric animals for the stup hj and solemn humbug of ‘ Atlantis.’ These ai k only two examples of modern snasterpiec n that are ignored, while our children a ” dragged through nineteenth-century nove _ that they find dull, and accounts of pocta ters who ought to be left decently in tl , r obscure graves they so fitly earned. To frame our literary school syllabus- - on modem lines would mean trouble—ai 7 possibly persecution. But it can bo don “ It should be the business of the scientil 0 side of the teaching profession to co-opera with the literary, to place their knowledj t, at our disposal, to keep us in touch with ti d modem books of the best modern me' e 40 have and to use. There need be no c it of practical difficulties. The need creati 4 be supply. Where the necessary books fo £ ay, lower form information did not exi T they very soon would. Our children ; n taught, would know from the start what v ,e unscientific folk of the older generation ha; [, only found out la/t-er, and often accidental d —the wonders of this wonderful univer: g and of themselves. Their romance would b a °°t the unreal romance of the trashy novi but the romance that lies around them, ar m .them. That is always there, even wht the glamor and romance of introspect! youth has gone—a romance that beoom. o only the more beautiful the more one knot it of it; a romance instinct with poetry ar ,t built on truth.