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The teaching of English in the elementary and the secondary school (1903)
The teaching of English in the elementary and the secondary school - 1903 Author:Percival Chubb Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II The Limitations Of The School In Dealing With Illiteracy So much attention has been drawn by wide discussion in the press to the battle against ... more »illiteracy, which the movement for the reform of English studies signalizes, that we think it necessary to consider carefully what the responsibilities of the school are in the matter of illiteracy. This will enable us to indicate our general conception of the scope and aims of English study, and to review the limitations that thwart and excuse the school. It is as important for the teacher as for the public to recognize these limitations at the outset. In no subject do the forces of the social environment against which the school has to strive make themselves so continually felt as they do in English. In literary studies the higher ideals and sentiments of the race expressed by its poets and seers clash with the average commercialized ambitions and soiled ideals in whose atmosphere the child is reared; while in language work the higher usages of literary English exacted in the school are in perpetual conflict with the barbarismsof the swarming illiterate outside. The teacher of English, at least in the great majority of our city public schools, is involved in unceasing warfare with these retarding forces. In Arithmetic or Science or Geography the teacher may sow on virgin soil; the English teacher must sow on soil choked with the weeds of bad habit, and must ceaselessly ply the hoe against untiring enemies. In the discussion of the problem of illiteracy not enough allowance is made for this fact. It is one of fundamental importance; and our discussion must start with it because it has very practical bearings. The schools are held responsible by the public and by the colleges for linguistic faults that have their roo...« less