With this view,
as you look over the accompanying theses, please observe: --
1. That each of these involves original research and will
-- if properly carried out -- constitute a genuine contribution
to modern literary scholarship;
2. That they are so arranged as to fall in with various other studies
and extend their range, -- for example, the first one being suitable
to a student of philosophy who is pursuing Anglo-Saxon,
the second to one who is studying the Transition Period of English,
the sixth to one who is studying Elizabethan English, and so on;
3. That each one necessitates diligent study of some great English work,
not as a philological collection of words, but as pure literature; and
4. That they keep steadily in view, as their ultimate object,
that strengthening of manhood, that enlarging of sympathy,
that glorifying of moral purpose, which the student unconsciously gains,
not from any direct didacticism, but from this constant association
with our finest ideals and loftiest souls.
Thus you see that while the course of "Class Lectures" submitted to you
nominally centres about the three plays of Shakspere* therein named,
it really takes these for texts, and involves, in the way
of commentary and of thesis, the whole range of English poetry.
In fact I have designed it as a thorough preparation
for the serious study of the poetic art in its whole outcome, hoping that,
if I should carry it out successfully, the Trustees might find it wise
next year to create either a Chair of Poetry or a permanent lectureship
covering the field above indicated.
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