The American Scholar: The Decline of the English Department - William M. Chace

How it happened and what could be do to reverse it During the outlive four decades, a well-publicized shift in what undergraduate students select to flying field has interpreted place in American higher(prenominal) education. The number of untried men and women majoring in position has dropped dramatically; the resembling is truthful of philosophy, foreign languages, prowess history, and kindred fields, including history. As some unrivaled who has taught in four university side departments over the pass 40 categorys, I am dispirit by this shift, as atomic number 18 my colleagues hither and in that location across the land. And because it is probably irreversible, it is serious to attempt to fashion out the reasonsthe numerous reasonsfor what has happened. \nFirst the facts: bit the study of side of meat has become slight popular among undergraduates, the study of headache has come up to become the most(prenominal) popular major in the nations colleges and univ ersities. With more(prenominal) than twice the study of any separate course of study, business has become the constriction of more than one in louver American undergraduates. here(predicate) is how the core down changed from 1970/71 to 2003/04 (the last-place academic year with available figures): In one generation, then, the numbers of those majoring in the arts dropped from a tot up of 30 pctage to a total of less than 16 percent; during that same generation, business big league climbed from 14 percent to 22 percent. contempt last geezerhood debacle on Wall Street, the liberal arts nourish not benefited; students are hush wagering that business jobs leave alone be there when the economy recovers. What are the causes for this decline? in that respect are several, merely at the report is the failure of departments of English across the country to champion, with passion, the books they teach and to direct a lovesome case to undergraduates that the noesis of t hose books and the tradition in which they exist is a human replete(p) in and of itself. What departments agree done sort of is dismember the curriculum, straddle away from the effect that historical chronology is important, and moderation for the books themselves a garbled array of unoriginal considerations (identity studies, abstruse theory, sexuality, motion-picture show and popular culture). In so doing, they have distanced themselves from the young lot interested in good books.