"Priests Should study passion; how else cure mankind, Who come for help in passionate extremes?"
A preacher who knows Hebrew, Greek, systematic theology, New Testament interpretation, and who knows nothing about literature, history, art, and human nature, is grotesquely unfitted for his noble profession.
In every age it has been the fashion to ridicule and decry the literary production of that particular time. I suppose that the greatest creative period that the world has ever known occurred in England during the years 1590-1616, and here is what Ben Jonson said in 1607: "Now, especially in dramatic, or, as they term it, stage-poetry, nothing but ribaldry, profanation, blasphemy, all license of offence to God and man is practised. I dare not deny a great part of this, and am sorry I dare not." In 1610 he wrote, "Thou wert never more fair in the way to be cozened, than in this age, in poetry, especially in plays; wherein, now the concupiscence of dances and of antics so reigneth, as to run away from nature and be afraid of her, is the only point of art that tickles the spectators." And in 1611 he said, "In so thick and dark an ignorance as now almost covers the age ... you dare, in these jig-given times, to countenance a legitimate poem." And the age which he damned is now regarded as the world's high-water mark!
A man who teaches physics and chemistry is supposed to be familiar not only with the history of his subject, but its latest manifestations; with the work of his contemporaries. A man who teaches political economy and sociology must read the most recent books on these themes both in Europe and America--nay, he must read the newspapers and study the markets, or he will be outstripped by his own pupils. A man who teaches drawing and painting should not only know the history of art, but its latest developments. And yet, when the teacher of literature devotes a small portion of the time of his pupils to the contemplation of contemporary poets, novelists, and dramatists, he is not only blamed for doing so, but some teachers who are ignorant of the writers of their own day boast of their ignorance with true academic pride.
A teacher cannot read every book that appears; he cannot neglect the study and teaching of the recognised classics; but his attitude toward the writers of his own time should not be one of either indifference or contempt. The teacher of English literature should not be the last man in the world to discover the name of an author whom all the world is talking about. And I believe that every great university should offer, under proper restrictions, at least one course in the contemporary drama, or in contemporary fiction, or in some form of contemporary literary art. The Germans are generally regarded as the best scholars in the world, and they never think it beneath their dignity to recognise living authors of distinction. While the British public were condemning in true British fashion an author whom they had not read--Henrik Ibsen--German universities were offering courses exclusively devoted to the study of his works. Imagine a course in Ibsen at Oxford!