Oxford do if she were to establish yet another School, which would enforce a thorough knowledge of English, and would, moreover, teach her bantlings a new use of the Latin and Greek already learnt! The works of March, Morris, Max Müller, and others would soon become Oxford text-books in one of the most charming of all branches of learning. Surely every good son of the Church will be of my mind, that the knowledge of English is a point well worth commending to those who are to fill our pulpits. Our clergy, if well grounded in their own tongue, would preach in a style less like Blair's and more like Bunyan's. Others may call for sweetness and light; I am all for clearness and pith.[1] But we are getting into the right path at last. Articles have lately appeared in the Times, calling for more attention to the study of English at our Grammar Schools.
While we are on the subject of schools, it may be pointed out that Greek has done much in the last three centuries to keep before us the foot, that English will lend itself readily to high-sounding compounds. Old Chapman long ago set us on the right tack; Milton followed; and our boys at school talk glibly of wide-swaying Agamemnon and swift-footed Achilles; thus the power of compounding has never altogether left us. Would that we could also fasten any one of our prepositions to our verbs at will! I believe it is mainly owing to the study
- ↑ There is an old Oxford story, that a preacher of the mawkish school, holding forth before the University, spoke of a well-known beast as ‘an animal which decency forbids me to name.’ The beast turned out to be the one nearest of kin to the preacher himself; Balaam's reprover, to wit.
