The Teaching of American Literature
IN A Phi Beta Kappa oration delivered in I837, Ralph Waldo Emerson is credited with opening the campaign for American intellectual independence when he maintained that America should stand on her own feet in the field of literature as well as in the field of government. He protested against the American writers' habit of imitating British writers, and remarked that an attitude of apology with reference to one's achievements did not become "man thinking" on either side of the Atlantic. Emerson's common-sense arguments have been quoted frequently during the ensuing century, but the worth and importance of American literature are still a subject of controversy. Although most thinking people agree that the United States long ago came of age in literature, many still maintain that English literature so far surpasses American literature in quality that the well-educated person needs to be familiar with the former only. Possibly those persons are responsible for the continued emphasis on English literature in the colleges and universities of this country. Opposing them are those who clamor vigorously for more courses in our native literature and who argue at length concerning the relative merits of the two literatures. Somehow, one has the feeling that many of the persons on each side of the argument have missed the most fundamental matter involved-that