Dogberry in the College Classroom

NEIGHBOUR DOGBERRY maintained that “to write and read comes by nature” — but everybody knows that he sought to be writ down an ass. Nowadays college classes in rhetoric and literature have their Dogberrys who trust to natural inspiration and whose unconscious humors ought to be “condemned into everlasting redemption.” Not long ago there arose in Freshman English some discussion of the Baconian theory. Among other reasons it was suggested that it was improbable that Bacon could have written Shakespeare’s plays because Bacon’s known works are deficient in humor. A month later, when it was necessary “to examination these men,” Dogberry’s pen and inkhorn “set down this excommunication : ” “ Bacon had no sense of humor. If he should come to life now, he would think it no joke to be saddled with the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays.” It was his classmate, Verges, who turned an innocent comment on the imperfections of some of the “pirated” quartos into the assertion, “Shakespeare’s quartos are practically worthless, as they were mostly written by pirates.” Nobody to-day would be rash enough to declare that ignorance of Biblical allusions is confined to any one class of college undergraduates, but it was surely Dogberry who tried to explain FalstafFs phrase, “if to be fat be to be hated then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved,” by answering, “I don’t know what the ‘lean kine’ refers to, but faro is a dangerous gambling game.” Only the other day another Dogberry, asked to state differences between Byron’s story of “The Prisoner of Chillon” and the history of the real Bonnivard, replied, “Byron’s prisoner regained complete liberty, but the real Bonnivard was released from prison only to be married four times.”

But though Dogberry often proves “the most senseless and fit man” for English Literature, he is perhaps “most desartless” in the field of rhetoric. “Unless we are careful,” he once wrote, “Yale’s bygone athletic prowess will in the future become a thing of the past.” Local tradition has handed down this excerpt from a Freshman theme on “The Decay of Faith :” “And now we are deprived of the hope of a future life, Hell being a myth.” Frequently Dogberry’s metaphors are as “odorous” as his comparisons, as once when he wrote, “Professor Blank’s indulgent eye and friendly hand have gained a firm footing in the hearts of all undergraduates.”

Familiarity with Dogberry in the classroom may, indeed, at times breed doubt as to the value of college training, but there is ignoble satisfaction in discovering Dogberry’s tender burgeons already expanding in the kindly light of the preparatory school. A June college entrance examination that required some discussion of the reasons for terming The Merchant of Venice a “ tragi-comedy ” brought forth these responses: “ The Merchant of Venice is really a tragedy, for did not Shylock have to become a Christian ” ? — “Shylock did n’t know whether he preferred his daughter or his ducats — that was tragic — if he had preferred his daughter that would have been comic ;” — “For whom had Shylock saved his money except for his daughter, and for her to desert him under the circumstances was worse than unnatural — it was a tragedy.” But after all, why should not the college instructor turn gratefully from the sometimes too palpable hits of the real wits of his classroom to the birdbolts of harmless Dogberrys ? What matters it if they have committed false report, have spoken untruths, and have verified unjust things ! It would be “flat burglary as ever was committed ” to conclude that “ they are lying knaves.”