The Study of Modern Literature in the Education of Our Time

Extract

Ladies and Gentlemen:—The invitation to address you this evening was not accepted without considerable misgiving, and nothing but the urgent solicitation of your Secretary could have induced me to appear before an Association whose professional pursuits are in many respects so different from my own. The daily round of my duties is so far removed from the “ quiet and still air of delightful studies” which the scholar so much covets that it is not very easy to take up a subject which implies constant intercourse with the great masters of literature and an intimate familiarity with the college and university work of our time. At the same time I may venture to say that, while my labors have been almost wholly in the field of elementary education, I have not been unmindful of the important questions pertaining to higher education that have been so warmly discussed during the past quarter of a century. The question of educational reform touches schools of every grade, and no change can be made in any one department of school work without materially affecting all the others. While I beg of you to understand, therefore, that I shall speak of the points involved in this paper with great diffidence, what will be said may be taken as the result of careful observation and serious thought.