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“I hope that the mails lost for your college professors of English subscribers their copies of Books and the Book World [containing the foregoing observations on Book Reporting].... College professors do not like to be disturbed—and most of us cannot be, for that matter. The TNT in those pages was not meant for us, perhaps, but it should have been.
“When I read Book Reporting I dictated three pages of protest, but did not send it on—thanks to my better judgment.... Then I decided, since you had added so much to my perturbation, to ask you to help me.
“We need it out here—literary help only, of course. This is the only State college on what was once known as the ‘Great Plains.’ W. F. Cody won his sobriquet on Government land which is now our campus. Our students are the sons and daughters of pioneers who won over grasshoppers, droughts, hot winds and one crop farms. They are so near to real life that the teaching of literature must be as real as the literature—rather, it ought to be. That’s where I want you to help me.
“I am not teaching literature here now as I was taught geology back in Missouri. That’s as near as I shall tell you how I teach—it is bad enough and you might not help me if I did. (Perhaps, in fairness to you, I should say that for several years never less than one-third of those to whom we gave degrees have majored in English, and always as many as the next two departments combined.)
“Here’s what I am tired of and want to get away from:
“1. Testing students on reading a book by asking fact questions about what is in the book—memory work, you see.
“2. Demanding of students a scholarship in the study of literature that is so academic that it is Prussian.
“3. Demanding that students serve time in literature classes as a means of measuring their advance in the study of literature.
“Here’s what I want you to help me with in some definite concrete way: (Sounds like a college professor making an assignment—beg pardon.)
“1. Could you suggest a scheme of ‘book reporting’ for college students in literature classes? (An old book to a new person is news, isn’t it?)
“2. Give me a list of books published during the last ten years that should be included in college English laboratory classes in literature. I want your list. I have my own, but fear it is too academic.
“3. What are some of the things which should enter into the training of teachers of high school English? Part of our work, especially in the summer, is to give such training to men and women who will teach composition and literature in Kansas high schools.
“Your help will not only be appreciated, but it will be used.”