Produced by James Tenison
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Copyrighted in the United States of
America by G. P. Putnam's Sons
All rights reserved
On The Art of Reading
By
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
TO
H. F. S. and H. M. C.
First edition 1920reprinted 1920,1921Pocket edition 1924reprinted 1925, 1928, 1933, 1939
The following twelve lectures have this much in common with aprevious twelve published in 1916 under the title "On the Art ofWriting"—they form no compact treatise but present their centralidea as I was compelled at the time to enforce it, amid the dustof skirmishing with opponents and with practical difficulties.
They cover—and to some extent, by reflection, chronicle—aperiod during which a few friends, who had an idea and believedin it, were fighting to establish the present English Tripos atCambridge. In the end we carried our proposals without a vote:but the opposition was stiff for a while; and I feared, onstarting to read over these pages for press, that they might betoo occasional and disputatious. I am happy to think that, on thewhole, they are not; and that the reader, though he may wonder atits discursiveness, will find the argument pretty free frompolemic. Any one who has inherited a library of 17th centurytheology will agree with me that, of all dust, the ashes of deadcontroversies afford the driest.
And after all, and though it be well worth while to strive thatthe study of English (of our own literature, and of the art ofusing our own language, in speech or in writing, to the bestpurpose) shall take an honourable place among the Schools of agreat University, that the other fair sisters of learning shall
Ope for thee their queenly circle …
it is not in our Universities that the general redemption ofEnglish will be won; nor need a mistake here or there, at Oxfordor Cambridge or London, prove fatal. We make our discoveriesthrough our mistakes: we watch one another's success: and wherethere is freedom to experiment there is hope to improve. A youthwho can command means to enter a University can usually commandsome range in choosing which University it shall be. If Cambridgecannot supply what he wants, or if our standard of training below in comparison with that of Oxford, or of London or ofManchester, the pressure of neglect will soon recall us to oursenses.
The real battle for English lies in our Elementary Schools, andin the training of our Elementary Teachers. It is there that thefoundations of a sound national teaching in English will have tobe laid, as it is there that a wrong trend will lead to incurableissues. For the poor child has no choice of Schools, and theelementary teacher, whatever his individual gifts, will workunder a yoke imposed upon him by Whitehall. I devoutly trust thatWhitehall will make the yoke easy and adaptable while insistingthat the chariot must be drawn.
I foresee, then, these lectures condemned as the utterances of aman who, occupying a Chair, has contrived to fall betwixt twostools. My thoughts have too often strayed from my audience in aUniversity theatre away to remote rural class-rooms where the