NOVELS AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY

Some fourteen years ago, in the pamphlet of elective courses of study open to the senior and junior classes of Yale College, I announced a new course called "Modern Novels." The course and its teacher immediately became the object of newspaper notoriety, which spells academic damnation. From every State in the Union long newspaper clippings were sent to me, in which my harmless little pedagogical scheme was discussed—often under enormous headlines—as a revolutionary idea. It was praised by some, denounced by others, but thoroughly advertised, so that, for many months, I received letters from all parts of the Western Hemisphere, asking for the list of novels read and the method pursued in studying them. During six months these letters averaged three a day, and they came from the north, south, east, and west, from Alaska, Hawaii, Central and South America. The dust raised by all this hubbub crossed the Atlantic. The course was gravely condemned in a column editorial in the London Daily Telegraph, and finally received the crowning honour of a parody in Punch.

Things have changed somewhat in the last ten years, and although I have never repeated my one year's experiment, I believe that it would be perfectly safe to do so. Not only does the production of new novels continue at constantly accelerating speed, but critical books on the novel have begun to increase and multiply in all directions. At least twenty such works now stand on my shelves, the latest of which (by Selden L. Whitcomb) is frankly called "The Study of a Novel," and boldly begins: "This volume is the result of practical experience in teaching the novel, and its aim is primarily pedagogical."

The objections usually formulated against novels as a university study are about as follows: (a) the study of fiction is unacademic—that is, lacking in dignity; (b) students will read too many novels anyway, and the emphasis should therefore be thrown on other forms of literary art; (c) most recent and contemporary fiction is worthless, and if novels are to be taught at all, the titles selected should be confined entirely to recognised classics; (d) many of the novels of to-day are immoral, and the reading of them will corrupt rather than develop adolescent minds; (e) they are too "easy," too interesting, and a course confined to them is totally lacking in mental discipline. These objections, each and all, contain some truth, and demand a serious answer.

That the study of fiction is unacademic is a weighty argument, but its weight is the mass of custom and prejudice rather than solid thought. In old times, the curriculum had little to do with real life, so that the most scholarly professors and the most promising pupils were often plentifully lacking in common sense. Students gifted with real independence of mind, marked with an alert interest in the life and thought about them, chafed irritably under the old-fashioned course of study, and often treated it with neglect or open rebellion. What Thomas Gray said of the Cambridge curriculum constitutes a true indictment against eighteenth-century universities; and it was not until very recent times that such studies as history, European literature, modern languages, political economy, natural sciences, and the fine arts were thought to have equal academic dignity with the trinity of Latin, Greek, and mathematics. There are, indeed, many able and conscientious men who still believe that this trinity cannot be successfully rivalled by any other possible group of studies. Now the novel is the most prominent form of modern literary art; and if modern literature is to be studied at all, fiction cannot be overlooked. The profound change brought about in university curricula, caused largely by the elective system, is simply the bringing of college courses of study into closer contact with human life, and the recognition that what young men need is a general preparation to live a life of active usefulness in modern social relations.

That students read too many novels anyway—that is, in proportion to their reading in history and biography—is probably true. But the primary object of a course in novel-reading is not to make the student read more novels, instead of less, nor to substitute the reading of fiction for the reading of other books. The real object is (after a cheerful recognition of the fact that he will read novels anyway) to persuade him to read them intelligently, to observe the difference between good novels and bad, and so to become impatient and disgusted with cheap, sensational, and counterfeit specimens of the novelist's art.

That much of contemporary fiction is worthless, and that the novels selected should be classics, is a twofold statement, of which the first phrase is true and the second a non sequitur. Much ancient and mediÆval literature read in college is worthless in itself; it is read because it illustrates the language, or represents some literary form, or because it throws light on the customs and ideas of the time. The fact that a certain obscure work was written in the year 1200 does not necessarily prove that it is more valuable for study than one written in 1909. Now it so happens that the modern novel has become more and more the mirror of modern ideas; and for a student who really wishes to know what people are thinking about all over the world to-day, the novels of Tolstoi, BjÖrnson, Sudermann, and Thomas Hardy cannot wisely be neglected. Why should the study of the contemporary novel and the contemporary drama be tabooed when in other departments of research the aim is to be as contemporary as possible? We have courses in social conditions that actually investigate slums. I am not for a moment pleading that the study of modern novels and modern art should supplant the study of immortal masterpieces; but merely that they should have their rightful place, and not be regarded either with contempt or as unworthy of serious treatment. The two most beneficial ways to study a novel are to regard it, first, as an art-form, and secondly as a manifestation of intellectual life; from neither point of view should the contemporary novel be wholly neglected.

That many of the novels of to-day are immoral is true, but it is still more true of the classics. The proportion of really immoral books to the total production is probably less to-day than it ever was before; in fact, there are an immense number of excellent contemporary novels which are spotless, something that cannot be said of the classics of antiquity or of the great majority of literary works published prior to the nineteenth century. If immorality be the cry, what shall we say about Aristophanes or Ovid? How does the case stand with the comedies of Dryden or with the novels of Henry Fielding? No, it is undoubtedly true that the teacher who handles modern fiction can more easily find a combination of literary excellence and purity of tone than he could in any previous age.

That a course in novels lacks mental discipline and is too easy depends mainly on the teacher and his method. As regards the time consumed in preparation, it is probable that a student would expend three or four times the number of hours on a course in novels than he would in ancient languages, where, unfortunately, the use of a translation is all but universal; and the translation is fatal to mental discipline. But it is not merely a matter of hours; novels can be taught in such a way as to produce the best kind of mental discipline, which consists, first, in compelling a student to do his own thinking, and, secondly, to train him properly in the expression of what ideas he has.