University of Virginia Library

English.

English A. English Grammar and Grammatical Analysis:—
The parts of speech with inflections and uses of each; syntax, especially
of nouns, verbs, and conjunctions; detailed study of sentence-structure,
including capitalization and punctuation. Textbook
recommended, Baskervill and Sewell's English Grammar.
Grammar and analysis might well be taught through two years of
the High School. (One unit.)

English B. Composition and Rhetoric:—The choice, arrangement
and connection of words with exercises on synonyms, antonyms,
and degrees and shades of meaning; fundamental qualities of
style, with selected and original examples; the sentence in detail as
to unity, coherence and proportion with ample exercises in constructing
sentences of varied types and emphasis; the paragraph with reference
to placing topic, structure for unity, continuity, and emphasis,
with abundant exercises in composing good paragraphs; much practice
in planning and writing simple compositions on familiar subjects
under the heads of narration, description, exposition and argumentation:
Text-book recommended, Brooks and Hubbard's Composition-Rhetoric.
Practice in composition should continue through the entire
High School course, though formal rhetoric may be studied but
one year. (One unit.)

English C. Critical Study of Selected Specimens of Literature:
—The specimens for reading and study designated for college
entrance requirements by the joint committee of colleges and secondary
schools. These required books or their equivalents should
be studied throughout the High School course under the guidance
of the instructor. Parallel reading should be encouraged and intelligent
conversation about books directed. (One unit.)

The college entrance requirements in English for 1913-1919
inclusive are:

A. Reading.

The aim of this course is to foster in the student the habit of
intelligent reading and to develop a taste for good literature, by
giving him a first-hand knowledge of some of its best specimens.

He should read the books carefully, but his attention should not
be so fixed upon details that he fails to appreciate the main purpose
and charm of what he reads.

With a view to large freedom of choice, the books provided for
reading are arranged in the following groups, from each of which
at least two selections are to be made, except as otherwise provided
under Group 1.

Classics in Translation.

Group 1: The Old Testament, comprising at least the chief narrative
episodes in Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings,
and Daniel, together with the books of Ruth and Esther; The Odyssey,
with the omission, if desired, of Books I, II, III, IV, V, XV,
XVI, XVII; The Iliad, with the omission, if desired, of Books XI,
XIII, XIV, XV, XVII, XXI; The Aeneid. The Odyssey, Iliad and
Aeneid should be read in English translations of recognized literary
excellence.

For any selection from this group a selection from any other
group may be substituted.

Shakespeare.

Group 2: Shakespeare's Midsummer Nights' Dream; Shakespeare's
Merchant of Venice Shakespeare's As You Like It; Shakespeare's
Twelfth Night; Shakespeare's The Tempest; Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet; Shakespeare's King John; Shakespeare's Richard
II; Shakespeare's Richard III; Shakespeare's Henry V; Shakespeare's
Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet (if not chosen for study
under B).

Prose Fiction.

Group 3: Malory's Morte d'Arthur (about 100 pages); Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress, Part I; Swift's Gulliver's Travels (voyages to Lilliput
and to Brobdingnag); Defoe's Robinson Cruso, Part I; Goldsmith's
Vicar of Wakefield; Frances Burney's Evelina; Scott's Novels,
any one; Jane Austen's Novels, any one; Maria Edgeworth's Castle
Rackrent, or The Absentee; Dickens' Novels, any one; Thackeray's
Novels, any one; George Eliot's Novels, any one; Mrs. Gaskell's
Cranford; Kingsley's Westward Ho! or Hereward, the Wake; Reade's
The Cloister and the Hearth; Blackmore's Lorna Doone; Hughes' Tom
Brown's Schooldays; Stevenson's Treasure Island, or Kidnapped, or
Master of Ballantrae; Cooper's Novels, any one; Poe's Selected Tales;
Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables, or Twice Told Tales, or
Mosses from an Old Manse; a collection of Short Stories by various
standard writers.

Essays, Biography, etc.

Group 4: Addison and Steele's The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers,
or selections from the Tatler and Spectator (about 200 pages);

Boswell's selections from the Life of Johnson (about 200 pages);
Franklin's Autobiography; Irving's selections from the Sketch Book
(about 200 pages), or Life of Goldsmith; Southey's Life of Nelson;
Lamb's selections from the Essays of Elia (about 100 pages); Lockhart's
selections from the Life of Scott (about 200 pages); Thackeray's
lectures on Swift, Addison, and Steele in the English Humorists;
Macaulay, any one of the following essays: Lord Clive, Warren
Hastings, Milton, Addison, Goldsmith, Frederic the Great, Madame
d'Arblay; Trevelyan's selections from the Life of Macaulay (about
200 pages); Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, or Selections (about 150
pages); Dana's Two Years before the Mast; Lincoln's Selections, including
at least the two Inaugurals, the Speeches in Independence
Hall and at Gettysburg, the Last Public Address, the Letter to
Horace Greeley; together with a brief memoir or estimate of Lincoln;
Parkman's The Oregon Trail; Thoreau's Walden; Lowell's Selected
Essays (about 150 pages); Holmes' The Autocrat of the Breakfast
Table; Stevenson's An Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey;
Huxley's Autobiography and selections from Lay Sermons, including
the addresses on Improving Natural Knowledge, A Liberal Education,
and A Piece of Chalk; a collection of Essays by Bacon, Lamb, De-Quincey,
Hazlitt, Emerson and later writers; a collection of Letters by
various standard writers.

Poetry.

Group 5: Palgrave's Golden Treasury (First Series): Books II
and III, with special attention to Dryden, Collins, Gray, Cowper,
and Burns; Palgrave's Golden Treasury (First Series), Book IV, with
special attention to Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley (if not chosen
for study under B); Goldsmith's The Traveller and The Deserted Village;
Pope's The Rape of the Lock; a collection of English and Scottish
Ballads, as, for example, some Robin Hood ballads, The Battle of
Otterburn, King Estmere, Young Beichan, Bewick, and Grahame, Sir
Patrick Spens, and a selection from later ballads; Coleridge's The
Ancient Mariner, Christabel, and Kubla Khan; Byron's Childe Harold,
Canto III or IV, and The Prisoner of Chillon; Scott's The Lady of the
Lake, or Marmion; Macaulay's The Lays of Ancient Rome, The Battle
of Naseby, The Armada, Ivry; Tennyson's The Princess, or Gareth
and Lynette, Lancelot and Elaine, and Passing of Arthur; Browning's
Cavalier Tunes, The Lost Leader, How They Brought the Good News
from Ghent to Aix, Home Thoughts from Abroad, Home Thoughts from
the Sea, Incident of the French Camp, Hervé Riel, Pheidippides, My Last
Duchess, Up at a Villa—Down in the City, The Italian in England, The
Patriot, The Pied Piper, "De Gustibus," Instans Tyrannus; Arnold's
Sohrab and Rustum, and The Forsaken Merman; selections from American
Poetry, with special attention to Poe, Lowell, Longfellow and
Whittier.

B. Study.

This part of the requirement is intended as a natural and logical
continuation of the student's earlier reading, with greater stress
laid upon form and style, the exact meaning of words and phrases,
and the understanding of allusions. The books provided for study
are arranged in four groups, from each of which one selection is
to be made.

Drama.

Group 1: Shakespeare's Julius Caesar; Shakespeare's Macbeth;
Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Poetry.

Group 2: Milton's L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and either Comus or
Lycidas; Tennyson's The Coming of Arthur, The Holy Grail, and The
Passing of Arthur; the selections from Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley
in Book IV of Palgrave's Golden Treasury (First Series).

Oratory.

Group 3: Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America; Macaulay's
Speech on Copyright and Lincoln's Speech at Cooper Union; Washington's
Farewell Address and Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration.

Essays.

Group 4: Carlyle's Essay on Burns, with a selection from Burns'
Poems; Macaulay's Life of Johnson; Emerson's Essay on Manners.

English D. History of English and American Literature. (One
unit.)

The courses outlined, in accordance with the program of most
high schools, have taken into account English, (1) as a language, (2)
as a means of expression, (3) as a literature—all so intimately connected,
however, that the proper study of each will bear indirectly
on the other two.

No student will be conditioned on English A or B.