Race, Composition, and "Our English": Performing the Mother Tongue in a Daily Theme Assignment at Harvard, 1886-87

Abstract

In the nineteenth century, the philological concept of the mother tongue assumed that language was strongly linked with race. The adoption of English as the medium of instruction in the US and the vigorous promotion of English as a subject in the university curriculum were predicated on the importance of protecting English as a mother tongue and the racialized values it was thought to embody. In 1886-78 daily theme writers in Barrett Wendell's English 12 composition course at Harvard reiterated and also questioned received statements about language use and race.