472 lournalofAdvanced Composition

graduate/graduate programs. As sensible as these recommendations are,

they do not consider problems with implementation.

RIretoricinAmerican Colleges, 1850-1900, Albert R. Kitzhaber(Dallas: Southern Methodist UP, 1990,288 pages).
Reviewed by Kerri K. Morris, University of Tennessee
We finally have an answer to the question, "When will Albert Kitzhaber's
dissertation be published?" SMU Press has just published Rhetoric in
American Colleges, 1850-1900 as part of its Studies in Composition and
Rhetoric series, making this vital and important analysis easily available to
historians and others with serious interests in contemporary rhetoric and
composition studies. Kitzhaber's study, originally his 1953 dissertation, is a
necessary introduction to the discipline of composition and a thorough
history of nineteenth-century rhetorical instruction, primarily told through
analyses of the major textbooks of the time. Because the dissertation has
already been so widely circulated and has served as a foundation for nineteenth-century studies, the appearance of this book will not so much influence scholarship as it will simplify it. This review, then, aims to summarize
the impact Kitzhaber's work has already had on the discipline, and assumes
that the text will always be a prominent one in composition's canon.
Perhaps it would not be overstating the case to say that Rhetoric in
American Colleges ushered in the discipline as we know it. As John Gage tells
us in his introduction to the book, it is the first major study of nineteenthcentury rhetoric's institutional history, and as such it offers a series of firsts.
Kitzhaber's history notes Gertrude Buck's contributions to rhetoric and is
the first to "conscientiously study Buck's" The Metaphor-A Study in the PsychologyofRhetoric, according to Donald Stewart in The Present State ofScholarship in Historical and Contemporary Rhetoric (160). Kitzhaber considers
Buck's criticism of a mechanical view of the figures of speech "ahead of her
time" and credits her with truly new rhetorical thought: "Buck deserves much
credit for her courage in ... making an earnest attempt to attack the SUbject
of metaphor from a wholly new point of view."
In addition, Kitzhaber is one of the first to challenge the modes of
discourse, announcing the arrival of a time when many in composition
studies would begin to examine facile assumptions. He concludes his chapter
"The Forms of Discourse" with this assessment: "The effect of the forms of
discourse on rhetorical theory and practice has been bad. They represent an
unrealistic view of the writing process, a view that assumes writing is done by
formula and in a social vacuum. They turn the attention of both student and

Reviews 473
teacher toward an academic exercise instead of toward a meaningful act of
communication ina social context." The Kitzhaberof 1953 sounds strangely
contemporary, his concerns with process and social context clearly relevant
to us in 1991.
The historical method of the book seems contemporary, as well. Thoughout the study, Kitzhaber balances the contributions of psychology and
educational theory, rhetorical theory, and pragmatic need in producing the
classroom practices of the period. Many of the theories about teaching
writing, for instance, were based on faculty psychology, which stressed the
need for "mental discipline," thus justifying rote memory and exercise as
valid teaching methods. Rhetorical theories, in tum, were built around these
assumptions. However, there is never a sense that Kitzhaber sees these
relationships simplistically, and he reminds us that often what goes on in a
classroom is determined by context. Consider this comment about Adam
Sherman Hill's The Principles of Rhetoric and Their Applications, a text he
considers traditional and dogmatic: "Yet for inexperienced teachers, or
those who are heavily burdened with paper correction, or those who have no
particular interest in teaching composition, who look at it as something to be
got through as quickly and painlessly as possible-for all these a dogmatic
text is often quite valuable. It discourages questions from students, it
simplifies the teacher's job of exposition, it saves time." He continues this
discussion by reminding the reader that when Hill's book was popular college
enrollments were high and teachers' responSibilities impractical. This
historical phenomenon is not incidental, and throughout the book we are
reminded that class size, teaching load, professional training of teachers, and
types of students profoundly affect what happens in classrooms.
Kitzhaber, then, has greatly influenced both the substance and method
of our own disciplinary study. As Gage observes in the introduction, the
histories of James Berlin, Robert Connors, Andrea Lunsford, Michael
Wozniak, and Winifred Homer rely heavily on Kitzhaber's historical spade
work: "Kitzhaber has looked at nineteenth century texts that others will now
want to look at again, especially since this book will reveal how some of the
more recent work done on this historical issue has relied on Kitzhaber's
findings and interpretations without going back to the primary sources that
Kitzhaber read so well."
The introduction by Gage is a helpful overview of the book and an
informative perspective on Kitzhaber's biography. Perhaps most interesting,
Gage compares the historical period that Kitzhaber examines to our own
moment, noting the similarity of concerns and efforts: attempts at interdisciplinary inquiry, difficulties of translating theory into practice, and institutional constraints affecting the discipline, from teaching loads to relationships with secondary schools. Indeed, we can't help but wonder why the
discipline has been so unsuccessful at solving some of the problems that have
plagued it since the 1870s. Kitzhaber's concerns about the nineteenth

474 Journal ofAdvanced Composition

century are surely our own today, and we can't pass up the opportunity to
discover the relationships between the two. Kitzhaber's work ends with a
justification for knowing history, and his own words are perhaps the best way
of recommending the book: "The tradition of rhetoric is now some 2,400
years old-one of the longest traditions still represented in the modern curriculum. Teachers of composition today fail to recognize that they and their
work are part of that tradition. If a teacher is to have any perspective on his
subject, he must know the tradition that lies behind it, know the place of
himself and his times in the tradition, and, through this knowledge, be able
to put a proper value on new developments in his subject as they appear."
Reading Albert Kitzhaber's Rhetoric in American Colleges, 1850-1900 is one
of the best ways I know of gaining a perspective on the late nineteenth
century.

A Sense ofAudience in Written Communication, ed. Gesa Kirsch and Duane H.

Roen (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990,304 pages, vol. 5 of Written Communication Annual).

Reviewed by Douglas B. Park, Western WaShington University

This collection of sixteen original articles aims to represent the multidisciplinary nature of composition studies. The editors divide the book into two
parts: Historical and Theoretical Considerations (three articles on history,
seven on theory) and Empirical Considerations (six articles). These parts
account for a good cross section of the kinds of scholarly interests and
approaches to audience taken by composition studies in recent years. The
range and variety of the collection make it a useful text for a graduate seminar
or for someone desiring an overview of approaches to audience. The
bibliographies of all the articles together probably constitute a complete
resource for the study of audience, and the whole collection is well indexed.
At the same time, the wide variety might limit the appeal of the book for
readers with more specific interests. In a few cases, the authors attempt to
create a sense of conversation within the collection, but for the most part they
come to the subject from different angles and, at times, from different
presuppositions about their own audiences' levels of knowledge.
The articles written from a historical perspective (R.J. Willey on audience and the pre-Socratic philosophers; Thomas C. Willard and Stuart
Brown on the concept of the "One and the Many"; and Brown and Stuart on
George Campbell's treatment of audience) all take a fairly introductory
approach to their subjects. At another extreme are articles by Theresa Enos,
who applies the concept of ethos and Burkean identification to audience,