Milk from the Bull of Human Kindness; Or, a Confessional Note on the Decline of Culture

Author(s): Dennis R. Hall

Source: College English, Vol. 36, No. 8 (Apr., 1975), pp. 894-899
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
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DENNIS R. HALL

Milk from the Bull of Human Kindness; or,

A Confessional Note on the
Decline of Culture

IN COMPLAINING about the skeptics of his

time, Dr. Johnson was moved to observe

that "truth, Sir, is a cow, which will yield
such people no more milk, and so they are

gone to milk the bull." The sour husbandry of the skeptic, grounded in his

reliance on his own perceptions, is at

least equalled in the blind faith of the
enthusiast. A principle of conversion

seems to operate between the two positions, whatever articles of assent are in
dispute. As were most in our occupation,

doing or had done. Worse yet, as it appeared to my fellows, I was developing

no apparent skill and was likely doomed
to do nothing for the rest of my life.
Conventional wisdom had it that one

could possibly snap out of the self-indulgence of being an English major by

going to law school or getting an M.B.A.
or embracing a corporate training pro-

gram, but clearly one did not practice

English. In the days before the glut on
the pedagogical market, one might be

I was introduced to this dialectic as a

able to support an incurable critical habit

student in a cumulation of experiences

which have doubtless changed my life. I
have fears that they may be representative and that they may have conditioned
a generation of people in the business of
teaching college English.
As an undergraduate in the early 60's,

by teaching. Going to graduate school

might provide a bit more status and

I became aware of the perennial argument about liberal education. It seemed

that all about me were learning the

mysteries of the market place or how
things worked while I was involved in
the pedestrian task of discovering what a

miniscule number of people thought

about what the bulk of humanity was

money, but such was only a further in-

dulgence; it was not really doing anything. The then fashionable cloak of
pragmatism allowed these skeptics to
ridicule the whole business as parasitic,
for English teachers never seemed to do

anything but generate more English

teachers. It was a social enigma a little
like welfare, which the economists, sociologists, and psychologists one day
would have to do something about.
As undergraduates, my fellows and I
sullenly endured. Our faith in the English

major and the humanities in general was

not sufficiently refined to create a genuine polarity. Armed with an embarrass-

Dennis R. Hall is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Louisville. He is cur-

rently working toward a discussion circle on

"English and Humanities Graduates in the General Employment Market" for the 1975 SAMLA

ing parody of Pascal's wager, we con-

tinued our studies reasonably sure that

if a liberal education should not prove
our justification, we could learn a trade

Convention and will chair the section on "Sex-

books for Squares" at the 1975 Convention of

the Southern Popular Culture Association.
894

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Milk from the Bull of Human Kindness 895

without great deprivation. But if the

promise of liberal education were vindicated by experience, we had the pearl
of price otherwise lost. It turns out, how-

had been an English major and had good

recommendations from English teachers;
my experience with English to date and
my commitment to graduate study evi-

on in the world is no more equal to the

denced abundant intellectual and psychological resources. So I taught. At a

threat of the skeptic than it is admissible

to the consciousness of the enthusiast.

rate of nearly 150 students a year, I encouraged others, largely by example, to

ever, that reason sufficient simply to get

That dogma does not easily admit com-

think about what others had done and

promise, I suspect, makes dialectic in-

put these ruminations down on paper.

Through processes of communication

evitable.

I don't know what happened to the

others, but in 1964 I politely declined my
acceptance to law school and began graduate study in English. My faith in wellroundedness had firmed up considerably
as I began training in the most limited
of all specialties. As a graduate assistant,

I was immediately caught up in the

symbiotic employments of student and

teacher. To be occupied in this way, and

in close company with more than a

hundred others so diverted, provided

considerable relief from my undergrad-

yet unknown to me, I came to the con-

viction that my students, these otherwise

ordinary people, suffered from an alarm-

ing deficiency. Lacking the graduate assistant's commitment to the verities of

language and literature, these hapless

Midwesterners were stricken with a kind
of cultural rickets.

As far as I know, no one was ever

struck to the ground with this perception; it nonetheless was a profound experience. Here was vocation, something
to be done, and I somehow was selected

uate anxieties, for one never feels greater

soundness than when close to others in

to do it. In the scenario of this struggle

the same condition. After the example of

my instructors and fellows, I found myself thinking more and more about what
others had done and was periodically required, on occasion even moved, to put

glish department was the last bastion of

civilization and its composition instruc-

between culture and anarchy, the En-

tors the pickets. After a year or two

of defensive duty, about the time we re-

crucial as these experiences were in shap-

ceived our masters' degrees, some few

of us appeared to be indelibly marked
for more aggressive duty-to go forth

about, that higher level of awareness was

engendered in the experience of teaching
Freshman Composition.

and preach the humanistic gospel among

the metallurgists, economists, and agronomists. It all bore the stamp of Pauline
religion, a point not lost on those among

these ruminations down on paper. As

ing my consciousness of what I was

With an equivalent training far less

than any state demands of a sixteen-year-

old driver, I began teaching in an immense state university. Any expressions

of misgiving were met with the assurances of my employers and of those who

us who had sharpened the mythopoeic

habit of thinking about what others had
done. We should teach the humanistic

truths to receptive audiences and hostile,

especially the hostile. We should delight
them by our example. We should move

had taught for a year or two that I would

them to be humane. We, indeed, were

not have been admitted to the program

were I not equal to the task. I, after all,

empowered to grant them the assurance

of pardon if they would only follow us;

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896 COLLEGE ENGLISH

that is, be civilized, be creative, be saved.

This enthusiasm, in our view, clearly

was not an explosion in the imagination
caused by the release of undergraduate
anxiety. Concrete evidence supported the

role. The English Department at my

of a spirit of missionary zeal than out of

a desire to accommodate the secular

world. At my school the general evolution began to manifest itself in 1967. The

forms of the cult's governance took a

school was then the largest single depart-

decidedly presbyterian turn as the elder

professors of English granted the depart-

ment in the university. It employed near-

ment's graduate assistants wider par-

ly three hundred teachers, had an annual

budget of close to a million dollars, in-

taught and how it was to be disseminated.

structed well over eight thousand students a term, and was the only department to offer a course required of every
undergraduate student in one of the ten
largest schools in the world. These facts
perhaps offered incentive enough, but a

skeptic could have taken bulk alone as

some accident of the physical universe
or possibly even as an intrusion of efficiency. The truly inspiring data suggested that English was not only big, but
that it was growing, an infallible sign of
progress. Annual enrollments in the department increased in bites of ten and
thirteen percent, even in courses not required of every student. Starting salaries
for new professors grew in annual jumps
of five to seven hundred dollars. Between

1958 and 1968 increasing graduate en-

rollments had more than doubled the

number of serious novices seeking admission to the profession of English. Such

is not simply an opportunity for mission;
it is testimony that it is ongoing, thriving.
If the world was not yet humanized, it
was clearly becoming so. Each of us according to our rank was involved in the
inexorable process of redemption.
As the health of the Modern Language
Association of America, the College English Association, the Conference on Col-

lege Composition and Communication,

and a host of others suggested, the humanistic movement was not a parochial
phenomenon. I found it, as are all organic
entities, subject to change, but more out

ticipation in determining what was

The trend began slowly in the creation

of a massive Freshman English Committee. Three professors and eighteen grad-

uate assistants were charged to think

about what was being done and might be
done with the texts, syllabus, adminis-

trative procedures, pedagogical techniques, and the like in the three course
freshman sequence. Some few of us had
been chosen for a higher mission.

That this ponderous committee effected only minor changes in the syllabus
and selected two new texts which were

in every fundamental way like those used

the previous year, affirmed that the providence of humanism is evolutionary and
that its operations are as inscrutable as

they are sure. After all, what we had

done was not so important as what we
had thought. It had been, by all accounts,
an opportunity for growth which bore
the fruit of an excellent learning experi-

ence. We had developed greater sensitivity to our mission, raised our consciousness of the humanities. Through

it all, we had been creative, if not very

productive.
We, indeed, felt obliged to go through
rather a lot in rising to the condition of
creativity. The redeeming character of
our involvement in the committee's work

was a function of intimacy and passion.

Abandoning all vestiges of concupiscent

interest, the committee's members hurled

themselves into thinking. We thought

about ordination, coordination, and sub-

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Milk from the Bull of Human Kindness 897

ordination; about diagraming, paragraph-

somewhat extended discussion of the

ing, and outlining; about description,

archetype in Marion, Ohio), but the fears

of some that the committee might be-

narration, and exposition; about spatial,

temporal, and ideational order; and about
the cognitive quality of ditto, mimeo,

and Xerox reproduction. We pondered

the nature of logic and rhetoric in the

modern world; we speculated on the

place of epideictic, deliberative, and
juridical discourse in contemporary

American culture; we considered the in-

fluence of invention, disposition, and

style on humanistic thought. The committee diligently sought consensus on the

ethos, logos, and pathos; analyzed essence, accident, and precedent and reflected on the synergy of linguistics,

come mired in the irrelevant were, in the

main, unfounded. We were clearly about

our humanistic business.

What we were about is, to be sure, of

critical importance, but how we went

about it is equally significant, for process

and product are inextricably mixed in

humanistic experience. In enumerating
some of the larger objects of our attention, I have not disclosed any sense of the

minute particulars which made work on

this committee a definitive experience.
A controversy within the committee sug-

gests, I think, something of what we

cybernetics, and belletristics. Through

these, among other objects of thought,
the committee, in sum, attempted to ac-

then would have called the "nitty-gritty"

count for the nature of feeling, thinking,

is my perception at this moment-that the

and doing in the Midwest. In the best

humanistic tradition, our speculations
led to four or five position papers from

of the committee's work.

It seems to me-mind you please, this

committee's members divided into two

nearly warring camps. Predictably we

fell out over means rather than ends, for

each of the committee's members which

both groups felt extreme dissatisfaction

were circulated so that each might reveal

his or her position of the moment and
contribute to the general opening up of
a growth-furthering supply of alternatives. We were professionals in the best

with the present and sought changes

which would establish a more perfect
the paradigm of that end in the past, in
the primitive forms of humanism, be-

gaged in the range and potential of language/literature.

The charge, the collective spirit, and

end, innovative forms of humanism, were

sense of the word-people wholly en-

the status of the committee made its

labor enormous. The collected papers,

staples removed, amount to a stack ten
and three-eighths inches thick. Over 120
hours were consumed in formal meet-

ings. Each member devoted at least twice

that amount of time to preparation, informal dialogue, and private meditationthe real stuff of humanistic work. Despite

the task's enormity, the committee was

order of humanism. Those who found

longed to the traditional school; "antiques" they were commonly called.

Those searching for a new model of that

in the light-my-fire school; "sparks" in

common usage. In each group there were
as many subspecies of thought as there
were individuals. The antiques, for the
most part, subdivided temporally. One
suggested we establish the humanism of
Greco-Roman culture; another that of
the Renaissance or the Neoclassical period or the Nineteenth Century or the
time from 1942 to 1952. The sparks dif-

able to stick to the work at hand. There

fered in terms of the objects most worthy

was the occasional digression (as in the

of attention. One pleaded for film, an-

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898 COLLEGE ENGLISH

other for political documents or black

fiction or advertisements or pornography
or the Beatles. Sparks were given to using

words like "relevance," "flexible," "in-

novative," and "outreach." Antiques preferred terms like "significance," "consistency," "preservation," and "life of the
mind." While the specific differences between the two dispositions are rather dif-

ficult to nail down, sparks apparently

were inclined to take humanism to the

people, while antiques sought to make

the people come to humanism.

sect clearly accountable, the humanistic

vice of competition had subtly obtruded.

The Department provided coffee and

doughnuts for the two-hour weekly

meetings. Antiques began increasingly to

favor the jelly and powdered doughnuts

and to express their distaste for the

chocolate and glazed doughnuts preferred by the sparks. Sparks began to
distinguish themselves by passing the
coffee and bringing their own fruit
juices. The antiques countered with
drinking canned cokes. Sparks retorted

Lest I misrepresent what went on, I

should emphasize that "war" is my own
awkward figure for the division within

with water. In three months all refresh-

stained by unseemly arguing. The committee dialogue, indeed, was marked not

weeks we had all abandoned filters for

the committee. It was no doctrinal battle

so much by assertion and rejoinder as

by expression and response. Rather than
contend or dispute, speakers and writers

suggested, pleaded, hinted, urged, ad-

vised, intimated, and recommended. The

only disruption in the committee's sentient atmosphere arose when a speaker,

quite inadvertantly, "allowed as how."

Through it all, we remained a con-

fraternity of humanism dedicated to its

propagation in the world. This commit-

ment we reaffirmed at the conclusion of

each meeting in unanimously agreeing

that we had enjoyed a fruitful experience.

There were, however, some few signs,

or so it seemed to me, of a spiritual

division among us of some substance.
To the casual observer perhaps these

marks would seem accidental, yet in an

atmosphere of aroused sensitivity, they
took on nearly symbolic meaning. The
room the English Department set aside
for sessions of this kind was equipped
with a long narrow table. The members
of the two dispositions habitually sat on
opposite sides. With the success of either

ment disappeared from the meetings.

After a Bogart Film Festival, a spark introduced a package of Camels; in three

Camels, Luckys, Pall Malls, and Old

Golds. The antiques met this challenge

with cigars and wooden matches. The
committee's chairman, an aging associate

professor, proved an heroic model of

openness to diversity of expression, as he
allowed, without the slightest objection,
the fires within us to be enunciated in

clouds of smoke. The sparks took up a

peripatetic manner during the meetings;
speakers would pace around the room as
they thought out loud. Antiques would
speak seated, stone still, heads back, as if
addressing their thoughts to the ceiling.
There were, of course, other less distinct

signs of the division among us. Suffice

it to say that we were all more aware of
it than we were willing to acknowledge
or dared believe.

Thirteen of the committee's members

eventually took doctoral orders. One

now works in the Foreign Service (as
an attache in Botswana), another re-

stores old houses in San Francisco (a

carpenter without union card), another

is in publishing (rewriting what the

trade calls "sex books for squares"),
another is in social work (dispensing

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Milk from the Bull of Human Kindness 899

food stamps in Auglaize County, Ohio).
The rest of us have gone forth to labor
in the collegiate vineyards of humanism.
For all of us, I think it safe to say, the

experience of being on the Freshman

English Committee formed our consciousness of what it means to profess
English far more than did the teaching,
the lectures, the seminars, the examinations, the dissertation, and the rest of it.

True to my training, I have been

thinking about what we did then and

what many in a generation of professors

of English now do. It is with acts of con-

trition as with exercises of adoration;

they commonly spring from fear and its

attendant diminution of faith. And what

scares me is not the stuff of the humanities so much as the method of deal-

to absurd parodies of one another. To

be in the service of teaching and scholarship rather than to practice and study reveals the pretentiousness of these attempts

to improve mankind. What really scares

me, then, is that the delicate web of humanistic study may come floating down

upon us if those otherwise ordinary

people discover that our intrusions into
their lives are as impotent as our claims
have been extravagant.
Some doubtless will derive satisfaction

in realizing that what has been taken for

one of the most irreligious periods in his-

tory is actually teeming with religiosity.

Lest that satisfaction mislead one to hope
for this polite and refined age, I am com-

pelled to offer an additional note. While

the current state of humanism bears

ing with the several branches of learning

of a cultural character, just as I may remain reasonably content with the matter

every stamp of a modern religion, I fear

the sect has not theology enough to en-

of the technologies while suspecting the

which survive provided sustenance and

enlightenment through a clear definition
of the objects of their attention and a
disciplined manner of attending to them.

manner. The humanities no less than the

technologies have descended to assuming

dispositions rather than doing things.

The dichotomizing habits of thought

dure. Since time out of mind those cults

St. Benedict's motto is the most succinct

that set them apart in the first place have

enunciation of the principle: Orare et

confused their frontiers. The arrogance

and pride of the humanistic response to
technocracy has too often led to a selfbetraying repetition of the adversary's
inanities. We may no longer be able to
divide resolutely a good from the corruption which apes it. The posturing of

Laborare. Too many of us consume too

much time praying, in private meditation

and public ritual, and too little time

working. We may reasonably wonder
how long the mass of ordinary people

will support a large group of mendicants

from whom they derive so little benefit.

humanists and technologists reduces them

The Chesterton Review

The first journal devoted to the study of the late G. K. Chesterton, English
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