President Gilman realized this
when he wrote to Lanier: "I think your scheme (of winter lectures) may be
admirably worked in, not only with our major and minor courses in English,
but with all our literary courses, French and German, Latin and Greek.
The teachers of these subjects pursue chiefly LANGUAGE courses.
We need among us some one like you, loving literature and poetry,
and treating it in such a way as to enlist and inspire many students. . . .
I think your aims and your preparation admirable."
Dr. Gilman refers here to a scheme for a course in English literature
outlined by the poet in the summer of 1879. Lanier indicated
three distinct courses of study which would tend to give to students
(1) a vocabulary of idiomatic English words and phrases,
(2) a stock of illustrative ideas, (3) acquaintance with
modern literary forms. To secure the first point, he suggests
that students should read with a view to gathering strong and homely
English words and phrases from a study of authors ranging from
the Scotch poets of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
to Swift and Emerson. To secure ideas, the student should study
systems of thought, ancient and modern. "The expansion of mental range,
as well as special facilities in expression, attainable by such a course,
cannot be too highly estimated." Under the third head he suggests
the study of various forms of writing, -- an idea which has been carried out
in recent years. The ultimate end of all this study, however,
is "the spiritual consolation and refreshment of literature
when the day's work is over, the delight of sitting with
a favorite poet or essayist at evening, the enlargement of sympathy,
derivable from powerful individual presentations such as
Shakespeare's or George Eliot's; the gentle influences
of Sir Thomas Browne or Burton or Lamb or Hood, the repose of Wordsworth,
the beauty of Keats, the charm of Tennyson should be brought out
so as to initiate friendships between special students and particular authors,
which may be carried on through life.
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