Classics, College, Curriculum, Censorship

Abstract

Selection of materials for secondary school literature study has long been plagued by the need for approval from college English departments. Beginning with the College Entrance Requirements book lists in 1874, curriculum materials in secondary school literature study, i.e., the classics, have generally been consonant with college suggested reading lists. An early complaint appeared in the November 1913 English Journal and was summarized in the 1917 Reorganization of English in the Secondary Schools Report: prevailing mode was to distribute the college-entrance books through the four years, with no general agreement as to the locus of any . (see Hook, p. 43). NCTE's book lists for wide reading originated and continue today as an antidote to college lists. Though college entrance lists ceased by the early 1930s, the notion of reading the classics as college preparatory reading (and for everything else, for that matter) still has its grip on secondary school book selection. Many reasons have been advanced for this situation, including the possibility that secondary English teachers teach only books they were taught in college, but the reasons are not as important as the fact that the college influence, direct or indirect, is there. Though the direct cause and effect of the college entrance lists is no longer with us, there remains a close correspondence between what secondary school English teachers teach and what college professors of English teach, or what college professors suggest for secondary school students to read and what English teachers like to teach. A current illustration can be seen by comparing the results of the 1978-79 English Journal survey of secondary school English teachers' favorites with the Suggested Precollege Reading lists published by the New England Association of Teachers of English in 1970 and 1981 (Barrs, 1970, 1981). The NEATE lists were drawn from the responses of English department chairs in most of the New England colleges and universities; the English Journal list was drawn from the responses of secondary school English teachers to a survey published in the journal (Judy, 1979). Almost all titles and poets listed under the English teachers' teaching favorites are on either the 1970 or the 1981 Suggested Precollege Reading lists published by NEATE. Since the English Journal survey was a national survey and the NEATE list drew only on the New England colleges, direct influence seems unlikely. In any case, direct cause and effect would be difficult to demonstrate. But