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The English Language in American Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

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Extract

MASTERY of the mother tongue is properly regarded in all cultures as a primary object of education, probably the most important. During recent generations in which the opportunity for learning has been viewed increasingly as a right for all and not merely a privilege for the few, reading and writing have helped to define the purpose of the schools of America.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 66 , Issue 1 , February 1951, pp. 49 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1951

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Footnotes

∗

This Report of a special Committee of the Association's Commission on Trends in Education, first published in 1945 as a pamphlet, is reprinted in PMLA by authorization of the Executive Council for the benefit of both our many new members and those older members who may have overlooked the original publication. The Report was written by Thomas Clark Pollock, with the cooperation of William Clyde DeVane and Robert E. Spiller.—ED.

References

1 A. C. Baugh, A History of the English Language (New York, 1935), p. 459.

2 J. G. Frazer, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul (Loudon, 1911), p. 318.

3 Edward Sapir, Language (New York, 1921), p. 105.

4 See our report on Language Study in American Education (New York, 1940).

5 New York, 1943; reprinted in PMLA, LXV (Dec. 1950), 977-997.

6 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1942 (Washington, D. C, 1943), p. 139.

7 The enrollment figures in this paragraph are taken from Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1942, p. 140.

8 The report of a Special Committee on the Secondary School Curriculum, What the High Schools Ought to Teach (Washington, D. C, 1940), p. 31.

9 Howard M. Bell, for the American Youth Commission, Youth Tell Their Story (Washington, D. C, 1938), pp. 61, 63. Italics in original.

10 Youth and the Future (Washington, D. C, 1942), p. 121.

11 Page 28.