Studies in English

As the slight leisure that I have had in connection with my life-work of teaching has been devoted chiefly to the Historic Study of the Mother-tongue, it has occurred to me that it might be of interest, even to a general audience, to have a brief survey of the work done in this field in the United States. Of set purpose I shall dwell more on the beginnings of this study, which are less known, at least to our juniors. And, to keep within manageable limits, I shall in the main restrict myself to the work done in language rather than in literature, especially to that done by teachers. In a word, I shall attempt to give a just picture of the Pioneers in the Study of the Mother-tongue in the United States.

Like Carlyle, I am a hero-worshiper. And I should count myself happy if any of my hearers should catch something of the enthusiastic admiration evoked in me by a study of the life and works of the pioneer directors of the historic study of English in the United States, and should seek to follow in their footsteps. Let us recall what Sir Thomas Moore tells us of the Utopians (Utopia, edited by W. D. Armes, p. 195): "They think that this remembrance of their goodness and virtue doth vehemently provoke and enforce the quick to virtue, and that nothing can be more pleasant and acceptable to the dead, whom they suppose to

1The two addresses that follow were given as a prelude to the series of Research Lectures at the University of Texas for the session of 1924-1925, and were delivered in April, 1925. They are here printed substantially as delivered. The Research Lectures proper dealt with certain aspects of the Subjunctive in Old English, and will probably be published at a later date.

2Their of the dead.

be present among them, when they talk of them, though to the dull and feeble eyesight of mortal men they be invisible. . . . Therefore they go more courageously to their business, as having a trust and affiance in such overseers."

3

Who in the United States first urged the historic study of English? However strange it may seem, the suggestion came first from one who is known to history chiefly as a statesman, the immortal author of the Declaration of Independence. In a letter "To Herbert Croft, Esq., LL.B., London," dated "Monticello, October 30, 1798," Jefferson tells us that, while a student of law, he became convinced of the value of Anglo-Saxon to a lawyer, "by being obliged to recur to that source for the explanation of a multitude of law terms;" that, while using Elizabeth Elstob's AngloSaxon Grammar (London, 1715), he became so much interested in Anglo-Saxon that he had jotted down suggestions for the improvement of the same; and he promised to add these suggestions as a sequel to his letter to Croft, since the latter was engaged in the preparation of an English and German Dictionary. This sequel constitutes Jefferson's Essay on the Anglo-Saxon Language, which, though written before 1798, was not published until 1851, at New York, and which is now accessible in Bergh's The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. XVII, pp. 365-411. Here I can pause only long enough to say that, though this essay has, of course, not a few erroneous notions concerning Anglo-Saxon grammar, it shows unquestioned originality and an admirable conception of the relation of Anglo-Saxon to Modern English. But Jefferson's interest in Anglo-Saxon antedates his letter to Croft. In his interesting essay entitled "English Studies in the South," in Vol. VII of The South in the Building of the Nation (Richmond, Va., 1909, pp. 115-134), Dr. John B. Henneman, late professor of English in the

Printed in Albert Ellery Bergh's The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. XVII, Washington, D. C., 1907, pp. 361-364.

4This essay is a slightly amplified version of Professor Henneman's earlier "The Study of English in the South," in the Sewanee Review, Vol. II, 1904, pp. 180-197.

University of the South, tells us that for many years Jefferson advocated making Anglo-Saxon a definite part of the college curriculum, from 1779, when a member of the board of trustees of William and Mary College, until 1825, when the University of Virginia was opened. And in another paper, "Two Pioneers in the Historical Study of EnglishThomas Jefferson and Louis F. Klipstein: A Contribution to the study of English in America" (in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, Vol. VIII, 1893, pp. xliii-xlix), Henneman tells us that "in fathering his State University he (Jefferson) introduced into its curriculum the first course of Anglo-Saxon found in an American institution of learning. The University of Virginia, chartered in 1819, was thrown open to students in 1825; and from that day to this Jefferson's wish has been carried out continuously, and a course in Anglo-Saxon has been constantly given, however meager and inadequate at times, through the exigency of circumstances, it may have become."

The instruction in Anglo-Saxon at the University of Virginia was for many years (until 1882) given by the Professor of Modern Languages, Jefferson requiring that the occupant of this chair should be an expert in the early forms of English (Anglo-Saxon and Middle English). For its first seventy years the chair of Modern Languages was occupied successively by three scholars.

The first occupant of this chair, from 1825 to 1840, was George Blättermann, LL.D., a German residing in London at the time of his call to Virginia. He was a scholar of distinction for his day. He gave courses in French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Anglo-Saxon, and declared himself prepared to give instruction in the Portuguese, Dutch, and Scandinavian languages. Though accounted a vigorous teacher, Blättermann did not get on well with students or with colleagues. In 1838 a section of his students formally petitioned for his dismissal, but he was kept until 1840, when he was dismissed on (let us hope) the unique ground of having twice cowhided his wife, once in public,

Books

Studies in English, Ausgaben 4-5