University of Virginia Library

ENGLISH INSTRUCTION IN THE STATE UNIVERSITY

By Morris P. Tilley, Ph.D., University of Michigan

At the present time in our country there is going on a re-valuation of
educational methods in the light of the increasing cost of state instruction.
A new America is demanding a standard of clearer thinking and of higher
purpose on the part of the student who has spent four years in a state-supported
university or college. General criticism of present results insists
upon a reëxamination of university curricula, of administrative methods,
of the quality of teachers, and of the fitness of students to whom is granted

the privilege of state instruction. It is all an effort to determine and to
justify the final value to the state of the vast sums that are now being spent
in this country for collegiate and professional training.

This examination of the value of our present methods of instruction
comes at a time when there is an abnormal demand on the part of thousands
of young men and women for higher training for their life work. In order
to provide an education for these young people there must be obtained
more classrooms and more teachers! It is a fitting time, therefore, for those
to whom has been entrusted the instruction of the future leaders of our land
to take counsel among themselves and try to decide upon some means by
which better results may be obtained. The purpose of my paper is to
consider some of the problems of English teaching in the state university.
Among the most insistent of these are the necessity, first, of caring for the
freshman English work adequately; second, of securing instructors of suitable
qualifications; and, third, of developing among the members of the
department a spirit of continuous growth.

The most pressing need to-day is that of providing fully for the freshman
work. This cannot be done unless there is a recognition by the administration
of the special claim of the English department for adequate
assistance! It is true that the increasing number of students since the war
has affected the teaching conditions in all subjects. But no department is
threatened to the same extent as is the English with being submerged by
ever increasing numbers.

The large classes and the inferior quality of many of the freshmen are a
severe handicap to the English instructor already burdened with themes
and conferences. As a result he is unable to do effective teaching. The
first year student is the sufferer. He fails to receive at the beginning of his
course the stimulating instruction to which he is entitled.

To correct this condition should be the first aim of those responsible for
the freshman work in English. It should not be difficult by figures and by
comparisons to convince the administration of the urgent need of sufficient
assistance to reduce the sections to twenty-five students each. The department
should see to it, also, that the more experienced and more mature
teachers share in the instruction of the new students. The number of teaching
hours of the younger men should be reduced, where possible, to not more
than twelve a week. And every effort should be made to introduce into the
classroom such methods of instruction as may be most helpful to the student
who has not yet had time to adjust himself to college work.

To make sure of small sections under capable teachers, however, is not
the whole story. There is need of considering further, whether the content
of the course may not be so improved as to secure for the freshmen a more
stimulating appeal. Notable experiments are being conducted this year at

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at the University of Missouri.
These consist in a combination of English composition with history
and economics in which the lectures and assigned readings supply the subject
matter of the themes. The general aim of these experiments is to give it to
the writing in English a more vital interest; and it cannot be too highly
commended. Indeed, the success attending these combination courses may
well bring about a radical change in the methods of conducting the written
work in our freshmen English instruction. The outstanding success as
Columbia of a "Contemporary Civilization Course," that is required of all
freshmen, points to the value of organizing first year work in such a way that
the freshman's mind be forcibly stimulated.

If the tutorial system introduced some years ago at Princeton could be
combined with a study of selected English masterpieces dealing with economics,
history and philosophy, we should then have an arrangement of study
well calculated to stimulate the freshman's mind. This course given five or
six hours weekly, would go a great way towards correcting the lack of interest
which marks much of the freshman's attitude.

II

The second problem that presents itself is the difficulty of securing men
with the requisite qualifications. The demand from the over-crowded
English departments of our colleges for well-prepared teachers is far greater
at present than our graduate schools can supply. The standard of preparation
and of personality demanded of university instructors, as a result,
has been lowered. Men have been engaged, who a few years ago would
not have been thought eligible for vacancies on the teaching staff.

But the instructor question to-day is more than one of lowered standards.
The proportion of instructors to professors in our faculties has
steadily increased for a number of years. At the same time the ratio of
students to all members of the teaching staff has tended to become higher.
In this continued weakening of the teaching force there is serious cause
for concern. We need seek no further for an explanation of much of the
criticism directed against university methods to-day. In view of these
conditions the selection of instructors is vitally important.

There is a general agreement, I believe, in the qualifications desirable
in a university instructor. The candidate selected should be the man who
has taught with the most marked success, who has pursued his graduate
work with the greatest originality, and who has the strongest and most
attractive personality. The one hundred per cent. man in each of these
essential requirements is rare at any time! Especially in a period of readjustment
like to-day it may be necessary to be satisfied with a teacher who

does not measure up to the normal standard. But there is a minimum in
teaching experience, in scholarly work and in personality below which a
candidate may not fall. He should have taught long enough to have convinced
himself and others that he finds in teaching an abundant source of
satisfaction, even joy. He should have followed his graduate studies at
least to that point where he recognizes that a scholar cannot continue
successful teaching unless he has an ever deepening knowledge of his own
particular field. And he should have progressed so far in the development
of his personality as to be able to give freely of himself to his students both
in and out of class. To consider the appointment to a university faculty
of a man who is known to be deficient in any one of these qualifications is a
serious mistake; and invites the necessity of dismissing him when he breaks
down under the rigorous tests of success.

There has been a tendency, now fortunately passing, to weight excessively,
in the selection of a new instructor, evidence that is offered of ability
in research work. The more important qualifications of character and of
ability to teach have sometimes been overshadowed by a brilliant doctorate.
But numerous instances where the gifted Ph.D. has failed to develop even
the ordinary instincts of the teacher, and other cases where he has lacked
the basic elements of personal fitness, have caused a more careful regard
to be given to these requirements. It can be safely predicated that a
starved and meager personality is not the stock from which to develop the
flower of a sympathetic and inspiring teacher, or of an original and forceful
investigator. To every alumnus of the University of Virginia it is a source
of pride that the value of an invigorating personality has been recognized
in its various departments.

It is indisputable that the clearer thinking and the higher purpose
demanded of college students to-day cannot be obtained unless their instructors
point the way by example and by precept. When our faculties
in all ranks are made up of men of strong personal and scholarly qualifications,
there wil be a corresponding higher degree of attainment possessed
by the graduates of our universities.

We have next to consider how the candidate desired may be secured.
What are we to offer him in the way of financial remuneration, of opportunity
for development, and of certainty of advancement that will make it
likely that we can secure his service?

In the first place, we must face squarely the fact that the time when we
could get a competent man for twelve hundred dollars has gone, probably
not to return. A minimum sum of eighteen hundred must be offered, if we
are to think of bidding for him with the hope of competing successfully for
his services. I know of instructors to whom two thousand was paid last
year although they had had no experience in university teaching and had not

yet received their doctor's degree. It seems clear that we must be prepared
to pay according to a much higher scale in starting men than we have been
accustomed to in the past.

Other considerations than money, of course, will enter into the acceptance
of a position. A young man leaving a graduate school will weigh
carefully the opportunities for development presented by a position. He
will consider in particular the reputation of the men in the department that
he is asked to join, the library facilities available, the number of teaching
hours required and the character of the work that he is asked to "give."

If a department is able to offer a sufficient number of attractions to be
sure of adding to its ranks only men of first class attainments, it has open to
it the surest way to the development of a strong corps of teachers. It is the
department that is not watchful of the instructors that it adds to its teaching
staff that finds itself in a few years burdened with men that are blocks to
progress. Of such teachers few die and none resign: and the difficulty of
dismissing them increases with their length of service.

III

The English department that has enough men and able men to do its
work has still another problem before it. How may it develop among its
members that spirit of accomplishment that is not satisfied merely with
fulfilling the obligations of teaching, but is determined to win for itself
recognition outside of the university in the world of scholarship? How
may it, in other words, accomplish the hard task of contributing to the sum
of knowledge at a time when the demands made upon it in other directions
are many and continuous? I know of no better way of developing such a
spirit than by a full realization of the importance to the department and to
the university of a faculty of men who are esteemed by their fellow-workers
in other institutions as leaders in their especial fields of research. Once
the importance of such a spirit has been realized there will be an active and
aggressive emphasis laid upon the value of men who are able to show substantial
results in scholarship.

It is not possible for every man to excel in research work, and to startle
his colleagues by discoveries of value. But it is necessary for a department
of English to recognize that other calls than those made by his scholarly
interest are secondary. The younger teachers especially must be on their
guard against spending too much of their time on administrative affairs.
The older members on the other hand are more likely to rest upon their oars
and be satisfied with a routine of teaching. Threshing old straw year after
year, they slip gradually into a condition of ineffectiveness. Security of
tenure and seniority of rank invite them to an increasing inactivity that

undermines their own ability to teach successfully, and encourages a similar
inactivity on the part of their younger colleagues.

The members of the English department particularly have to hold constantly
before them the importance of scholarly work. They will otherwise
find their time consumed with instructing large classes, with the correction of
much written work, with speaking engagements both within and without
the university, with giving assistance to student publications and dramatic
organizations and with many other activities of university life. In the
face of these accumulating demands a teacher will fail to attain his greatest
effectiveness unless he keep clearly in mind the fact that his duty of imparting
the truth goes hand in hand with his second duty of seeking the
truth.

The chief problems, then, of the English department of the state university
are problems of personnel. It must have enough men, without overburdening
its teaching force, to give the students a sufficiently intimate
instruction to urge them to their best efforts. It is even more necessary that
it have able and forceful teachers, who can at the same time add to the sum
of human knowledge. The successful English department to-day is the one
which has an adequate number of able teachers who are at the same time
able scholars.