That a young Englishman may be turned out of one of our unversities, "epopt and perfect" so far as their system takes him, and yet ignorant of the noble literature which has grown up in these islands during the last three centureies . . . is a fact in the history of the nineteenth century which the twentieth will find hard to believe; though, perhaps it is not more incredible than our current superstition that whoso wishes to write and speak English well should mould his style after the models furnished by classical antiquity. . .. I mark among distnguished contemporary speakers and writers of English, saturated with antiquity, not a few to whom, it seems to me, the study of Hobbes might have taught dignity; of Swift, concision and clearness; of Goldsmith and Defoe, simplicity. . . It has been the fashion to decry the eighteenth century, as young fops laugh at their fathers. But we were there in germ; and a "Professor of Eighteenth Century History and Literature" who knew his business might tell young Englishmen more of that which it is profoundly important they should know. . . than any other instructor.

THE HUXLEY FILE

C. Blinderman & D. Joyce
Clark University