English Instruction Through the Ages

As a student pursuing English studies at Vanderbilt, I found Franklin’s “Idea of the English School” quite impressive because his outline of English education has remained largely unchanged to this day. During Franklin’s time, literacy finally became widespread, and thus he would feel the need to create a format of instruction for children. As a small tyke, I almost exactly followed Franklin’s gradual step process by beginning with learning how to construct and spell words. Again, Franklin proved to be ahead of his time because, until the end of the Victorian era, children were often treated as little adults, rather than developing humans. Franklin however, suggests starting with short readings (rather than instructing a child to perform wrote learning by reciting, perhaps, some lines from Voltaire). He uses Croxall’s Fables as an example, because unfortunately, the fable was really the only form of literature that children read during his era. For this reason Jonathan Swift structured Gulliver’s Travels as a fable. We’ve often discussed how Franklin laments that he would not live to see the progress of his work take full form. Indeed, after his death, entire genres of literature for children emerged. One of the few principle differences between Franklin’s method and contemporary instruction is the lessening emphasis on handwriting as computers saturate more levels of our society. Though I learned cursive at the same time as block print in kindergarten, many schools no longer teach cursive at any age. It seems that the ability to write by hand may one day become specialized or antiquated knowledge practiced only in formal situations rather than expected general knowledge. Not knowing how to write a physical letter poses a disheartening view of my generation’s literary advancement. At the same time, however, I’m very thankful that I had a plethora of children’s literature to choose from growing up, rather than being summarily forced into the world of adult works, as it would have perhaps stunted my enthusiasm for reading.