The following twelve lectures have this much in common with a
previous twelve published in 1916 under the title "On the Art of
Writing"--they form no compact treatise but present their central
idea as I was compelled at the time to enforce it, amid the dust
of skirmishing with opponents and with practical difficulties.
They cover--and to some extent, by reflection, chronicle--a
period during which a few friends, who had an idea and believed
in it, were fighting to establish the present English Tripos at
Cambridge. In the end we carried our proposals without a vote:
but the opposition was stiff for a while; and I feared, on
starting to read over these pages for press, that they might be
too occasional and disputatious. I am happy to think that, on the
whole, they are not; and that the reader, though he may wonder at
its discursiveness, will find the argument pretty free from
polemic. Any one who has inherited a library of 17th century
theology will agree with me that, of all dust, the ashes of dead
controversies afford the driest.
And after all, and though it be well worth while to strive that
the study of English (of our own literature, and of the art of
using our own language, in speech or in writing, to the best
purpose) shall take an honourable place among the Schools of a
great University, that the other fair sisters of learning shall
Ope for thee their queenly circle ...
it is not in our Universities that the general redemption of
English will be won; nor need a mistake here or there, at Oxford
or Cambridge or London, prove fatal. We make our discoveries
through our mistakes: we watch one another's success: and where
there is freedom to experiment there is hope to improve. A youth
who can command means to enter a University can usually command
some range in choosing which University it shall be. If Cambridge
cannot supply what he wants, or if our standard of training be
low in comparison with that of Oxford, or of London or of
Manchester, the pressure of neglect will soon recall us to our
senses.
_The real battle for English lies in our Elementary Schools, and
in the training of our Elementary Teachers._ It is there that the
foundations of a sound national teaching in English will have to
be laid, as it is there that a wrong trend will lead to incurable
issues. For the poor child has no choice of Schools, and the
elementary teacher, whatever his individual gifts, will work
under a yoke imposed upon him by Whitehall. I devoutly trust that
Whitehall will make the yoke easy and adaptable while insisting
that the chariot must be drawn.
I foresee, then, these lectures condemned as the utterances of a
man who, occupying a Chair, has contrived to fall betwixt two
stools. My thoughts have too often strayed from my audience in a
University theatre away to remote rural class-rooms where the
hungry sheep look up and are not fed; to piteous groups of
urchins standing at attention and chanting "The Wreck of the
Hesperus" in unison. Yet to these, being tied to the place and
the occasion, I have brought no real help.
A man has to perform his task as it comes. But I must say this in
conclusion. Could I wipe these lectures out and re-write them in
hope to benefit my countrymen in general, I should begin and end
upon the text to be found in the twelfth and last--that a liberal
education is not an appendage to be purchased by a few: that
Humanism is, rather, a _quality_ which can, and should, condition
all our teaching; which can, and should, be impressed as a
character upon it all, from a poor child's first lesson in
reading up to a tutor's last word to his pupil on the eve of a
Tripos.
ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH
July 7, 1920.