Those reviews have
usually sought to foster all that is highest and best in our
intellectual development; and although English literary criticism has
been, on the whole, less convincing, less brilliant and less
authoritative than that of France, it has during the past century set a
fairly high standard of excellence. It seems difficult to understand why
the literary conditions in England, instead of developing critics like
Sainte-Beuve, Gaston Paris, Brunetiere and others whose utterances
redound to the lasting glory of French criticism, should be steadily
tending toward a lower and less influential level. Mr. Churton Collins
in his pessimistic discussion of "The Present Functions of Criticism"
deplores the spirit of tolerance and charity manifested toward the
mediocre productions of contemporary writers; he attributes the
degradation of criticism to the lack of critical standards and
principles, and indirectly to the neglect of the study of literature at
the English Universities. The plea for an English Academy has been made
at different times and with different ends in view, but under modern
conditions such an institution would hardly solve the problem.
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