medium section than elsewhere, while this percentage was just reversed in the weak section. Three pupils with the best record for good books also have the worst record for bad ones. The weak section, whose lists were more conventionally correct for the ninth grade, read willingly, with a seemingly stolid content in doing so, and with great pride and pleasure in completing a book; but they did not read with the abandon and initiative of stronger pupils. This may have been due to mechanical handicaps; but the question nevertheless remains, should children read widely of both good and bad and enjoy intensely their reading or should they read less widely and with a milder enjoyment? Which gives them proficiency in the mechanics of reading? Which gives them a background upon which to base literary discrimination later? Which labels reading as a social pastime to be enjoyed in leisure hours and to be discussed from one's personal viewpoint?

One interesting bit of follow-up observation in the second semester was with a boy who, aside from his 10 points in 9-B work, had read only the Merrivale and the Tom Swift series. He had read his 10 points in the middle of the fall semester after a long series of unacceptable books. His duty done, he returned with unabated zeal to the same cheap type. The second semester, to my amazement, he started on Dickens. I suggested something easier. "What for?" he said. "I'm half through Oliver Twist now." I was skeptical, and when he finished I quizzed him on points that I knew were not in printed reviews of the book nor in the movie. I could not find a weak spot in his armor. "I've started David Copperfield," he said. "It's good, too." His report on that a short time later was just as satisfactory. I was gratified, but I was not sure whether his change was an argument in favor of liberty of choice or a sad slander on Dickens's virtuous little boys.

I found small correlation between home conditions and either the kind or the amount of reading done. With the exception of two college-bred men, the education of the parents extended only occasionally beyond the grades. The community is industrial. Home advantages take the form of radios, autos, and material luxuries. There is small cultural background for most of them. In homes where a foreign language is spoken, less reading was done by the

child; but that reading was always of an acceptable kind. I had, however, too small a number of pupils from foreign-speaking homes to draw any conclusions from them. On the other hand, the best reading-list of the three classes, as far as length, variety, difficulty, and intelligent reaction was concerned, was from a Jewish boy with foreign-born parents whose education had not extended beyond the third grade.

It would doubtless be misleading to draw the conclusion that this method results in appreciably more reading by the pupil, inasmuch as all children probably read much more ordinarily than they attempt to use for school credit. That it did stimulate some reading I am sure. The posting of reading-records always resulted in comparison of credits, and in more and longer lists immediately following such posting. There was rivalry among some of the pupils who read much to be the one who read the most. It relieved the eleventh-hour scramble to finish reports; for the pupil who had less than 10 points was regarded as something of a curiosity by nine-tenths of his classmates. He was offered so much advice and was subject to making so many explanations regarding his reading that popular sentiment drove him to complete his work early. There has been a smaller percentage of bluffing, and a much more wholesome class sentiment toward reading. I recommend the method to others.

TROUBLESOME ADVERBS

GEORGE PHILIP KRAPP

Adverbs are in the main a well-behaved part of speech, though certain adverbs now and then cause trouble. Sometimes the difficulty arises from confusion between adjective and adverb. Thus good as an adverb, in He doesn't write good, is not acceptable standard English because standard English uses good only as an adjective, the corresponding adverb being well. But well may be either adverb or adjective, as in He writes well, He is well. The question whether one may say I don't feel good must be answered by the dictionary, not by grammar. For good in this construction is an adjective, as it is regularly, the uncertainty being whether the word good can be used in the sense of the adjective well, "in good health."

In the adverbs without ending, like Go slow, run swift, modern English employs the same form indifferently as adverb or adjective. To say that adverbs like slow, and swift are adjectives used as adverbs is true neither to the psychology of present speech nor to the history of these constructions. In older English these adverbs without ending had an ending, which was an unstressed final e. But like all other final e's of Old and Middle English, this ending has been lost in modern English, with the result that adjective and adverb may now have exactly the same form. To the theoretical grammarian this is distressing, and he therefore insists on supplying a new ending to take the place of the lost -e. This new ending is -ly. Yet -ly is not exclusively an adverb ending, but may be also an adjective ending, as in kindly smile, friendly thought, etc. Nor can the ending -ly be added consistently to all adverbs, for one must say hit hard, run fast, and not hit hardly, run fastly. The obviously proper thing to do is to take these adverbs without ending as we find them, without fear of the theoretical grammarian's prescriptions.

Still another troublesome group are those adverbs with the ending -ly attached to nouns. Modern English makes adjectives freely by adding -ly to nouns, as in wifely devotion; and not quite so freely, but nevertheless not infrequently, by adding -ly to adjectives, as in kindly thought. On the other hand, Modern English makes adverbs freely by adding -ly to adjectives, as in wisely spoken, brightly shining, but it makes adverbs less freely by adding -ly to nouns. Thus one may speak of a manly boy, but standard English does not approve of He behaved manly. Yet in Middle English the noun with an added -ly to make an adverb was in general use, as in Manly when they together met, from the Earl of Toulouse. And indeed there seems to be no good historical reason why Modern English also should not employ adverbs like manly as freely as Middle English. For these adverbs in origin are exactly the same as slow, swift, and other adverbs without ending. They were made by adding the inflection -e to adjectives, which in turn were made by adding the earlier equivalent of the adjective suffix -ly to nouns. But through the loss of final -e these adverbs became exactly the same in form as

adjectives, both having only the ending -ly. In one group of words, time words like hourly, daily, monthly, yearly, adverbs made from nouns with -ly are acceptable usage in Modern English, perhaps because the meanings of these words are peculiarly appropriate to adverb uses. For the most part, however, it is necessary to make an adjective of a noun before it can be made into an adverb, that is, manfully and not manly, sunnily and not sunly. But sometimes this is so awkward that it cannot be done. One cannot make an adverb friendlily, and the only possibilities are a circumlocution, in a friendly manner, or an adverb friendly. And perhaps usage does permit friendly as an adverb. One might say "How did he behave?" and the answer might well be "O, very friendly." The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that the categories are not hard and tight; and of course the further practical conclusion that usage is to be followed, even when it leads to grammatical inconsistency.

GRADUATE STUDY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE1
ERNEST BERNBAUM

Since 1916, five-sixths of my work as a professor has been the teaching of graduate students of English literature. During those years I have tried various methods, including some in which I myself was trained, and have abandoned or modified them in favor of certain methods which now seem to me the very best. Although it is experience which has convinced me of the superiority of these methods, I set them forth, at the request of the National Council, only with reluctance; for in this matter, as in every other search for the truth, I doubt the general value of any individual's views unless they are developed and presented in relation to a closely reasoned disputation in which other competent persons participate. And on graduate instruction in English there is at present no properly dialectical discussion: there is probably no general opinion as to what the chief problems are; and since the questions have no history, the issues are not yet sharply defined, and we are making no logical progress toward their solution. On the teaching of litera'Address given before the College Section of the National Council of Teachers of English, November 26, 1927.

ture in elementary and high schools, there is a large body of expert and thoughtful discussion; on the teaching of literature in college, there is not a little; but on the teaching of literature in graduate schools, there is next to nothing. Such being the situation, what I here submit, in the hope of starting discussion, is not intended to be a dogmatic declaration of principles but a frank statement of personal opinion. I admit at the outset that the aims and methods which I have come to believe the very best may possibly be the best for me alone. If any of the numerous and eminent practitioners of the methods I denounce can defend those methods, I hope that they will do so. I am more than ready to modify my present views if experienced teachers of graduate students will enlight

en me.

I

It seems no longer necessary to urge teachers of English liter-. ature to go to graduate schools. Too many now enter who are unfit, either in knowledge or in attitude of mind. Too many come for whom the high school and college have not performed their proper function, namely, to make them love good literature intensely. Without such love, the advanced study of literature is futile drudgery. Too many come seeking the Master's or Doctor's degree for their economic advantage-Simon Maguses who think that the technique of the laying on of hands, and the conferring of the Holy Spirit, may be purchased with money-i.e., with the expenditure of semester-hours. The frequent presence of such obtuse misfits creates difficult practical problems, but they do not concern me here; for it would surely be anomalous to speak of the principles of graduate instruction except on the assumption that we are considering students who are prepared at least to begin genuinely graduate life.

May it not also be postulated that graduate instruction is essentially and chiefly intended to help the student to grow into a scholar and (in nearly all cases) a teacher of literature? It is not designed to make him a literary artist; those aiming at that high function should be reminded that it is not graduate-school professors who train literary artists, but contact with God, nature, and human life. What we can perhaps train is the literary scholar. And