Professor Charles Sears Baldwin, who is amongst the distinguished delegates from the United States
has the conference in London which been discussing—various aspects of the study of the English language, was asked by a representative of The "Observer" if he would be good enough to state what has been his experience of the teaching of English_in America.
"Tt is the teaching of English literature." he said, "that I think we have felt the clearest community of interest in this conference. The making of various _peoples throughout the United Kingdom and the Dominions and the United States thoroughly conscious of the great traditions of life and conduct involved in the development of English literature has seemed to us all an obvious and at the same time a thrilling task, For the United Kingdom this has arisen through going out to the ends of the earth, and in the United States it has arisen conversely through having the ends of the earth coming to us.
"The main difference in the teaching in this field of English literature between the United Kingdom and the United States is that we have made in the United States a larger and more varied offer of courses for students whose main interest is not in English, but in some field of technology, in history, in economies, or in some other study primarily scientific.
"Such students with us turn in very large numbers to English for that kind of teaching which used to be given in the humanities through the classics of Greek and Latin, and we therefore feel a clear obligation to do what we can for them in the hwnanistie field. Courses, on the other hand; in English literature designed for honours or otherwise for students who take English as a main interest differ much less in the two countries.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.