The history of the teaching of writing and of literature in this country is reminiscent of both Lincoln's "House Divided" speech and HumptyDumpty's condition after his fall. Ironically, in spite of the fact that most English teachers teach both writing and literature, relations between the two areas have been strained for years.

For example, a headline in Composition Chronicle in September, 1989, states, "MLA's Commission on Writing and Literature ends work 'in a spirit of cautious optimism.' " The sub-headline continues "[The] Commission expresses hope for improved conditions for composition teaches, friendlier relations between composition and literature," and then asks, "but can the two fields really dance together?" Gere, in an October, 1989, article in College English uses stronger language, speaking of "gestures of rapprochement" between the two groups, "awkwardness," and the "chasm" that divides them. But Robertson used even more forceful language about the division between freshman composition instructors and literature professors, at the March, 1989 College Composition and Communication Conference:

In higher education, if you're not in the catalogue, you're not a discipline or an art. We're not in the catalogue even though rhetoric has a rich intellectual history -- a longer history than the other disciplines, and one that includes a substantive social purpose. . . .

We are asking English departments to list in their section of the catalogue the courses we wish to offer as a curriculum in rhetoric. But the last thing English departments would want to do now is to change our status as teachers-of-a-skill because for so long, the skills course called by the generic name Freshman English has been the goose that lays the Golden Eggs for English departments.

How did this situation come about? Assuming Robertson's assertions are true, how did literature get the upper hand over writing, or more broadly, rhetoric? A look at the history of the teaching of English, of both writing and literature, gives the answer.It was not until 1876 that the first Professorship of English was created (by Harvard, for Child). Before that time professorships of rhetoric and oratory were the norm. Rhetoric deals with persuasion. In classical times it focused on the effective organization of content in orations. In medieval times and during the Middle Ages, rhetoric was one part of the academic trivium, the other two being grammar and logic. Now it is studied in both composition and speech (in the forms of debate and oration).The current battle between literature and writing in this country can be traced from Colonial days. The emphasis on the teaching of literature, or more specifically, belles lettres (imaginative literature including fiction, criticism, drama, poetry, and essays) dates back to the influences of college on secondary schools. It all started when, in 1785 and 1788 respectively, Blair Lectures of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres was adopted by Yale and Harvard as their standard rhetoric text. The measure of the importance of this book is that it was used by both colleges and secondary schools in America until the end of the 19th century. Its stress upon the morality exemplified by the belles lettres was particularly appealing to its users. Our struggling republic welcomed the combination of the morality taught in the belles lettres and the persuasion taught in rhetoric. Harvard College became the rhetorical model for other colleges when in 1806 it established the Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory, a lead it consolidated under the leadership of Channing, who occupied this chair from 1819-1851. In his 32-year tenure Channing set the pattern for the teaching of rhetoric nationally through:

In 1866 another important influence on the teaching of writing appeared, Bain English Composition and Rhetoric: A Manual. This work introduced a rhetorical model widely used in teaching writing on both college and secondary levels, the four modes of discourse: description, narration, exposition, and argumentation. These four modes heavily influenced writing instruction until the mid-20th century and still appear in both college and secondary school composition textbooks. In fact, half of the 375 English departments surveyed in a Ford Foundation study reported their freshman composition courses are still organized around these modes, states Larson.

Not until the time of Child, Channing's successor in the Boylston Professorship, did the great schism between writing and literature develop on the college level, later to trickle down to secondary schools. When Child assumed the professorship, the main purpose of the English department, as it had been for years, was to teach writing. All college students were required to take three years of writing, during their sophomore, junior, and senior years. It was assumed that these elite students who were preparing for the professions of the church, law, and medicine needed such instruction. But, during the final quarter of the 19th century, social, political, cultural, and economic forces brought about a complete change in emphasis in teaching in college English departments from the teaching of writing to the teaching of literature.

Child, a German-university-trained philologist, accepted the Boylston Professorship with the idea of shifting the emphasis from writing to literature. Resentful of the time-consuming job of marking papers, he delegated it to lesser members of the department and expanded the university's literature courses. Johns Hopkins, the first American university to model itself after the German university organization, offered Child a position in 1876. To keep Child on the staff at Harvard, the administration established the first Professorship of English, appointed him to it, and set the stage for literature to replace writing as the main focus in English departments throughout the country. From 1876-1896, Child devoted his time to creating a new English literature program at Harvard while his successor as Boylston Professor, Hill, carried on the tradition of teaching composition through the application of rules. However, Child's Professorship of English was dominant with the Boylston Professorship a secondary appointment.

Child was able to put his plans into effect because of powerful forces in operation at that time. The focus of a university education had changed. No longer was such an education solely devoted to preparing members of three professions: clergymen, medical doctors, and lawyers. The expansion of America demanded training for other middleclass professionals who needed certification, those in fields from agriculture and engineering to education and social work. University doors opened wider, wide enough to admit students who met admission requirements, not just the elite.

English teachers, too, needed certification as a discipline. Philology and literary history provided the legitimate grounds for establishing literature as a scholarly discipline. Johns Hopkins led the way by offering graduate work in English literature and awarding its first literature doctorate in 1878. It, along with other institutions, was completing its move away from the classical curriculum. Four years earlier, in 1874, Harvard had taken a decisive step toward establishing the legitimacy of literature when prospective freshmen were required to take an essay test with the subject taken from works of English literature. This requirement not only helped establish literature as the subject matter of English but also forced the responsibility for teaching writing onto high schools, an effort that spared college professors from the drudgery of teaching composition while saving money for Harvard. Influenced by the prestige of Harvard, other institutions fell into step and did likewise. Literature, which had been used as exercise materials for teaching grammar and rhetoric in the 18th century, became firmly established as a subject of study in both high schools and colleges by the beginning of the 20th century.

Although these changes benefitted English departments and saved money as well, one small detail remained obvious. Entering college freshmen were not prepared to handle the demands of university writing. Something had to be done. And it was. First, the Harvard Board of Overseers, outraged by the poor writing revealed in the 1894 essay entrance examination, had the essays published, then denounced the high school English teachers responsible for turning out such inept student writers, a tradition of shifting blame that has continued down to the present.

Next, because college students needed to be taught to write and freshman composition was the bread-and-butter course of English departments, required freshman composition remained in the curriculum as a service course. Ironically, this lowly, despised course subsidizes prestigious departmental literature studies. Besides, it handily provides employment at bargain basement prices for faculty spouses, graduate students working on advanced degrees, and recent PhD graduates without much chance of finding tenured-track appointments.

What are the consequences of literature's dominating English departments? According to Bain, professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, most university graduate programs of English are under the control "of the aristocrats whose ideas about literary study have always been more European than American and whose allegiances are to those nineteenth-century European models upon which most English graduate schools are based." And, since those aristocrats are more interested in literary research, writing articles and books, and graduate studies programs than in preparing community college, secondary school, and elementary school English teachers, the teaching of writing has suffered in many ways:

McCleary, founder and editor of Composition Chronicle, provides a personal perspective on the situation in recalling his experiences in 1974 at the University of Texas, Austin. He and his wife wanted to do their doctoral studies under Kinneavy, distinguished rhetorician and composition expert:

At the time he [ Kinneavy] held a joint appointment in English and in English Education; we enrolled in English Education because the English Department was not hospitable to the study of composition/rhetoric. (It still isn't, despite now having its own doctoral program in rhetoric and employing some very fine rhetoricians including Maxine Hairston, Lester Faigley, and John Ruszkiewicz. The story of Kinneavy's travails with that department could occupy a whole issue of Composition Chronicle.)

To show just how poorly prepared undergraduate English majors are for teaching, consider the results of a 1987 survey done by Stewart, Kansas State University Professor of English, former head of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, prolific author, and eminent leader in rhetoric and composition. Stewart's study covers "the undergraduate English major programs of 194 American colleges and universities . . . located in all 50 states and the District of Columbia . . . public and private universities, land grant institutions, former teachers' colleges, and private liberal arts colleges," representative of all types of institutions that offer undergraduate majors in English.His three-part, 18-month study includes school catalogues, course syllabi, and enrollment figures in various types of programs. He classified the programs offered English majors into three major categories:

He concludes from these results that:

. . . most students perceive the majors to be a program of study concentrating on the analysis of literature. . . . Canon reform is becoming a significant question in a number of programs, but no matter how it is resolved, the focus of the program is still on the study of literature. . . . and, unfortunately . . ., in the total number of English majors for which I have reports, the disparity between the number in the literature concentration and the others is striking.

Not surprisingly, he calls for a reform of the literature major, with a total of 39 semester hours, "13 three-hour courses; eight in literature, two in language and linguistics, one in creative writing, and two in composition and rhetoric," stating that students need composition history and theory courses just as much as they need similar literature courses. Second, other than these required courses, he suggests adding options in creative writing, language and linguistics, and composition and rhetoric, thereby adding more hours to the major for students electing these options. He concludes by quoting Fred Scott's 1900 "Report on College Entrance Requirements in English":

Are our methods of instruction in English in harmony with the social demands of our great industrial community? I suspect that they are not. More than that I suspect that the hard knot of the English question lies right here -- that our present ideals and methods of instruction are in large part remnants of an adaptation to a state of things which long since passed away.

Stewart's findings and recommendations are reflected in a May 1989 of Composition Chronicle, which calls "the status of composition . . . a puzzlement at all levels" and declares that "until it is straightened out at the higher levels of education, where teachers of all the other levels are trained, we will continue to have a curious situation throughout the land." Doubtless, proficiency in writing is valued, as evidenced by state and local policies of widespread testing of skills in writing, required remedial writing courses, and required composition courses at the post-secondary level. However, training for writing teachers at all levels, elementary through university, is top-heavy in literature with non-existent or little preparation for the teaching of writing. English teachers at all levels are prepared by departments that lack tenured writing specialists. Undergraduates are taught by "the underprepared and/or those without regular professional status," according to an article, "The Push to Upgrade Composition. . . ."

How did the "democrats," according to Bain -- who "see the mission of the English department as teaching young men and women how to read and to write critically and effectively" and also "believe their departments have some obligations to (prepare) teachers of reading and writing" -- permit the "aristocrats" to gain the upper hand?

In a sense the democrats were caught in a culture lag. They had no discipline to ally themselves with because their former allegiance to classical studies and rhetoric was rendered obsolete by the shift to English language and literature. Like their modern compositionteacher counterparts, they lacked power because they were committed to undergraduate teaching, and, worse yet, to an undergraduate skills course. In short, rhetoric as a subject for graduate study was inconceivable. Overworked and underpaid, they were no match for the juggernaut of literary scholars buttressed by the power of their newly established discipline with its authoritative base in German-university-type graduate schools of English. Moreover, once entrenched and in control of the training of English teachers, the aristocrats expanded their domain into secondary schools by requiring college entrance essay examinations based on lists of works by English literature, thereby mandating the secondary school English curriculum.

In spite of the seeming invincible position of the aristocrats, the democrats fought back. More and more of them, both at the college and secondary levels, rebelled against the power of the Harvard-type required reading lists. By 1911 there were enough democrats to form the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and to begin publishing in 1912 the English Journal. These were part of their answer to the aristocrats of the Modern Language Association who considered the only worthwhile scholarship to be literary studies. The first president of the NCTE and former president of the MLA, Fred Scott of the University of Michigan, a literary scholar himself, joined the democrats in supporting the teaching of writing. In 1914 college speech teachers, who had continued to teach the history of rhetoric, left the NCTE and started the National Association for Academic Teachers of Public Speaking which later became the Speech Communication Association.

The progressive education movement also opposed the aristocrats. Rejecting the elitism inherent in required reading lists, the progressives stressed social aspects of education, preparing students to be worthwhile citizens, and attempting to meet individual student needs. Progressives strived to cut the tie between the standard canon of literature and writing and substitute meaningful assignments, but their efforts were in vain, at least at the college level, where freshman composition continued to be an introduction to literature and the writing of literary essays. The few actual writing courses in existence followed the four forms of discourse presented in Bain's 1866 textbook.

Although in the 1930s, the New Criticism marked a movement away from a literary history approach to scholarship, substituting close textual analysis of works, the teaching of writing remained pretty much unchanged until the 1950s. However, in the early 1940s the New Criticism appeared to offer a way of uniting the divided house of English by basing writing courses on the subject that English teachers know best, literature. Further, the teachers wouldn't become burned-out "composition slaves" since they would be stimulated intellectually by constant work with great literature. Moreover, it offered bonuses for students as well because it automatically gave them subjects to write about while exposing them to the liberating effects of classic ideas and self-expressive works of the literary canon. Finally, at the time of the Cold War, literary-based composition provided a noncontroversial refuge, especially if the teaching of literature could be shown to enhance the democratic way of life.

But an overview of what happened to the relationship between literature and writing cannot be divided into neat compartments, each following the other in impeccable time order; for at the same time the New Criticism was influencing the teaching of writing, other forces were in operation. General education, core courses, and communications all influenced the teaching of writing during the period from approximately the early 1940s on into the 1960s. Core courses cut across department lines with the composition core serving as the tool for knowledge acquisition in other core areas of general education -biological, physical, and social sciences, and the humanities. A variation of this core approach, the cooperative approach, has team teaching with, for example, an English teacher working with a teacher from another discipline, both responsible for the same group of students. The theory was admirable but, according to Russell, in practice "few [programs] incorporated writing instruction in any systematic way, focusing instead on the reading of literature."

Communications courses were developed during World War II when officer candidates needed a speeded-up education. Therefore, speaking and writing were not taught as separate classes but combined with other courses. By 1947 the communications movement was important enough to warrant a conference organized jointly by the NCTE and the Speech Association of America. The next year the Conference on College Composition and Communication was organized, and in 1950 its journal, College Composition and Communication, was founded. But by the 1960s, except for a few isolated programs such as that at the State University of Iowa, as Russel points out, the movement had lost its impetus: "the communications caboose of the CCCC became unhitched, and the organization chugged on toward rhetoric and other more glamorous destinations." The House Divided remained filled with its squabbling children, and literature remained dominant in writing courses.

One area remains to be examined. What does research through the years tell us about the efficacy of using literature to teach writing? Considering how widely literature is taught, one might expect to find volumes of studies on different aspects of using literature to improve writing skills. Instead, there are virtually no studies.

For example, in Research in Written Composition, the major review of writing research published by the National Council of Teaching of English, the index lists twenty-four references on the effects of teaching grammar on writing. In contrast, under the heading literature, not one reference is found. Under literary devices, use of, one page is cited. On that page two studies are reported about the use of "alliteration, hyperbole, metaphor, simile, and personification in young children's writing." A check of the heading Models, of writing yields six references, but only two studies dealing with literature are discussed. Both deal with grade school children who either read children's literature themselves or had it read to them by teachers, in contrast to control groups with "no planned literary program"; the results on their writing were "so mixed to the extent that they are difficult to interpret." Not much help there.

Another likely source of relevant evidence is the literature article in the latest edition of the Encyclopedia of Educational Research. Here research surprises continue. No direct studies of the effect of literature instruction on writing skills are reported. The literary studies reported are in these areas: status surveys, reading interests, responses to literature, and instructional techniques. The best overall picture that we have of the effect of teaching literature on writing skills is a summary statement in the previously cited NCTE research survey: