Leaving a 100-Year-Old After "Taste"

After reading all those English Journal articles from different time periods I can't help but marvel at how far we have not come. Most astonishing and bizarre to me are the things I mused about after reading Fred Newton Scott's "The Undefended Gate" published in 1914 -- almost 100 years ago. When he discusses that there is "no sign . . .that boys and girls of today like literature any better than those of a generation ago, or write any better" he could be sitting in the English department meeting I just attended today. The more things change, the more they stay the same I guess and there will always be some new barbarian at the gate we teachers of English must contend with in order to defend the "standards."

These "new and improved" Illinois State Board of Education Standards for English and Language Arts were the topic, by the way, of the English department meeting at my high school today. Without boring you too much, let me just say that the new standards are way more specific than they have been in the past and the word "Shakespeare" is actually written into one of the many new standards. Hmmm . . .

But getting back to high schools of yore (or is it yesteryear). In 1914, the year "The Undefended Gate" was published, Ernest Hemingway was a 15 year old sophomore at Oak Park High School (now known as Oak Park River Forest High School) just down the street from our fair city, the city, by the way, that this article was heard first as Newton Scott's Presidential address to the National Council of Teachers of English. This council meeting and what was later reported as a scandalous speech in The Chicago Tribune was held at the "Auditorium Hotel" in Chicago. You guessed it folks -- the very building which now houses our beloved Roosevelt University since 1947. See picture below.

It gets better. I found on line that "Ferdinand Peck, a Chicago businessman, incorporated the Chicago Auditorium Association in December 1886 to develop what he wanted to be the world's largest, grandest, most expensive theater that would rival such institutions as the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. He was said to have wanted to make high culture accessible to the working classes of Chicago."

"High culture" accessible to the "working classes" of Chicago, folks.

Does anyone else see the delicious irony in all of this?

So I got to thinking. Newton Scott is blaming poor performance in English studies on the evil daily newspaper but young Ernie Hemingway sitting in his high school class room is probably at that moment dreaming of becoming a newspaper man. Yes, this boy who is attracted to the "uncultured," "brutal," and "filthy" printed word of the evil daily, who may have gone home, sat down with a snack, and enjoyed the "crude drawings of the insane" in the likes of "The Katzenjammer Kids" or "The Adventures of Tin Tin," got his start as a newspaper writer. Hemingway, this icon of American literature, put on par at times with (dare we say it) Shakespeare was not only influenced by the style of journalistic writing, but this style helped shape the future of American fiction.

Yet Newton Scott, unaware of all of this during his speech, of course, states that he is "bound to say that less has been accomplished in raising the general average of proficiency in writing and of literary taste than might reasonably have been expected, and it is high time that we faced the condition of affairs and inquired seriously into the causes of it." His villain is the newspaper, and The Chicago Tribune's response at the time
comes across to us as something that is hard to argue against. They paint Newton Scott as a privileged, cloistered academic who has lost his grip on reality and has no business being a teacher. Isn't this how we now feel about NEA Chairman Dana Gioia as he blames the "death of reading" on the evil internet? As Gioia slams on-line writing, what Hemingway in the making is blogging at this very moment?

Newton Scott wanted the English teachers of his day to "train the students to speak and write English well, to become familiar with the best literature, and above all to become fond of the best literature." That word "best" was certainly thrown around a lot in those days. As a matter of fact, the motto of Oak Park River Forest High School since 1908 has been "Those Things that are Best." If you go to their website today, you will still see that motto, emblazoned over the picture of a smiling African American male student, giving the "thumbs up."

No, I'm not kidding. See http://www.oprfhs.org

But, just as the face of the student population of Oak Park River Forest High School has changed since Hemingway's time, hopefully, what is considered "the best" in literature and writing has changed as well.

Though I'd bet money on the fact that "A Farewell to Arms" is still required reading there.