ABSTRACT
The second lecture here, ‘On English Literature’, picks up the idea set out by Maurice in his inaugural at King’s College, that literature gives the truest picture of a nation’s history, because it is a history from the inside; it will also lead the student to God. Kingsley believes that it is necessary to look at the whole period of English literature, particularly including the contemporary, since students will read this anyway, and they should therefore be guided. Like Maurice, and later Henry Morley, he is resolutely against the use of ‘Extracts’ and ‘Select Beauties’; students must study whole works, because a work of literature is an organic whole. Kingsley meets head on the question of nationalism in relation to the teaching of English literature, rejecting the need for any ‘John-Bullism’, but enthusiastically and unashamedly espousing the idea that English literature will give a more national tone to these girls’ education. Turning one’s back on ‘dreary cosmopolitanism’ is very much to be welcomed; it does not mean that foreign writers are not read, but well-educated English girls should have a strong English standard whereby to judge foreign thought.
