The English curriculum in the 1890s was an extension of the curriculum developed in the 1880s. The courses available to Freshmen now included American literature. The offerings for the first year included Rhetoric, with Hill’s Elements of Rhetoric; Essays; Critical Study of the Masterpieces of Modern Authors; Rhetoric, Essays and Orations; American Literature to the Nineteenth Century (Critical Study of Longfellow and Whittier); and American Literature During the Nineteenth Century (Critical Study of Bryant, Irving, and Hawthorne).
Sophomore-level courses included Essays; Debates and Orations; Study of the Masterpieces of Modern Authors, with Critical Essays on the Same; Critical Study of Goldsmith and Scott; Critical Study of Tennyson and Macauley; and History of the English Language.
Courses for Juniors included Rhetoric, with Hill’s Elements of Rhetoric; Morley and Tyler’s or Shaw’s English Literature; Critical Study of Masterpieces; Bain’s English Composition and Rhetoric; Garnett’s English Prose from Elizabeth to Victoria; History of English Literature- Critical Studies in Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare; History of English Literature (Critical Studies in Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden); Genung’s Practical Rhetoric; Genung’s Rhetorical Analysis; and Practical Studies in English Prose Writer.
Classes for Seniors included Critical Study of Early and Classical English; Critical Study in Pope, Gray, Burns, and Wordsworth; Critical Studies in Byron, Shelby, Coleridge, and Keats; and Studies and Readings in Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, and Robert Browning.