REGARDING OUR ENGLISH.

If we pick up the threads of agitation here and there, we are tempted to conclude that a definite attempt is really going to be made to improve the miserable English which too frequently comes from college men. English A is this year co-operating with several other courses towards this end, and now comes the announcement that Mr. Castle will make a systematic investigation of the English composition of entrance examinations.

This latter development of the agitation seems to come nearer the root of the matter than has any before it. The concensus of opinion, if there was any concensus at all, of the letters which followed Mr. Bok's attack on colleges in the Outlook last summer was that the blame for poor English lay, not with the colleges directly, but with the preparatory and even grammar schools. It is true that it was generally believed that colleges were tending to encourage other studies at the expense of English, but, as far as the principles of English technique were concerned, all the writers seemed to agree that they should be acquired before men enter college. That is why we consider Mr. Castle's appointment as a step decidedly in the right direction, towards the cleansing of the English taught, or rather left untaught, in the elementary schools. If-now a demand for better English is accompanied with a liberal system of entrance requirements such as Harvard has introduced, we can see the demolition of the above argument that college demands shut out proper training in English.