THE DECAY OF LITERARY KNOWLEDGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2394, 18 January 1900, Page 65

THE DECAY OF LITERARY KNOWLEDGE.

(New York Nation.) If there is one thing in the way of distinctively intellectual acquisition which educated youth of the present day conspicuously lack, it is a knowledge of literature. To be sure, boys and girls who now fit for college have to read with some care a few English classics and pass examinations on their subject matter, but they rarely get t evidence of having read much of anything else. Reference to the prominent characters or strik-. ing situations sketched by such makers of English, as Thackeray, Scott, and George Eliot often evokes no answering sign of recognition. The wealth of allusion drawn from Greek and Jtioman authors is rapidly disappearing; only a pedant dares quote Virgil, and only a specialist knows enough of Virgil to quote. The heroes and heroines of modern novels, deeply versed as they are in science and philanthropy and psychology, are rarely found talking about literature. With the market flooded jwith inexpensive reprints, and with elaborate critical editions of nearly every "classic" under the sun, the knowledge of the great writings of former times, even among persons apparently most likely to. have it, seems to be in inverse proportion to tho ease of obtaining it. Literary interest of a certain sort we have, undoubtedly ; but it is only too obvious that much that passes under that name makes no vital connection with the literary Ufa of the past. One of the most striking, and certainly one of the most serious, manifestations of this changed condition is the ignorance of the_ English Bible. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of' the Bible as a formative influence in English literature. Its variety of style, its marvellous felicity of phrase, and its dignity and impressiveness early entered into the very fibre of our literary expression, and long remained there a potent force. Everybody read it from childhood, everyone quoted from it, everyone's memory was stored with its incidents and its forms of words. To this day the skilful use of Biblical phraseology and allusion constitutes one of the greatest charms of style. Yet there is only too much reason for fearing that the Bible no longer holds its ancient place as tlie chief fountain of literary reminiscence.-- .The systematic reading of it in the "family has much declined, and has already largely disappeared from the classroom. Few teachers of college classes now venture to refer to it, save on the assumption that their students know nothing about it. Among writers and speakers, the use of its superb sentences tends more and more to be restricted to purposes of hortatory effect. The greatest literary landmark of the English tongue threatens to become unknown or else to be looked upon as of antiquarian rather than present worth.