The Peabody Journal of Education's "Proverbs For English Teachers" . . .

. . . circa 1943:

• The best English teacher is the one who knows the most about everything else.
• Great English does not come from below the elbow.
• Every class is an English class.
• Meet increased teaching load with increased pupil responsibility.
• Every class is an examination, and every examination is a class.
• Man has capitalized woman's curiosity as scientific research.
• English must first of all communicate.
• I can encourage learning, I can give some opportunity for learning, but the learning is the pupil's and not the teacher's. 
• The wise teacher prepares his pupils for the leisure that certainly will be theirs.
• Enjoyment of literature is a highly personal matter.
• Sentence sense is necessary to clear, logical thinking.
• Both mind-set and drill are necessary before correct speech habits can be formed.
• Diagramming is to grammer what graphing is to mathematics.
• Write and speak so that you cannot be misunderstood.
• Words have personalities.  Speak-easy words do not belong in drawing-rooms.
• Sloppy diction usually means sloppy thinking.

I have successfully resisted the urge to include a running commentary, but if someone could tell me what "Great English does not come from below the elbow" and "Man has capitalized woman's curiosity as scientific research" mean I'd be much obliged. 

Comments

[RPM]

I think the elbow thing has to do with writing. As in: great writing comes from the mind not the wrist/hand. That's my guess.

[Stephen]

What's also below your elbow? Your stomach, your genitals, and your ass. Great writing doesn't come from any of these things.

[Matt]

The heart, perhaps?

[ben wolfson]

The thing about elbows is that they can be lifted such that the only thing not below them is the forearm and hand.

[Stephen]

If you scrunch down a bit, they can also be the top points on your body. Maybe Great English doesn't come from the human body. It only comes from God.

[Dawn]

Great English doesn't come from BELOW the elbow...it comes from the greasy elbow.

[livingfossil]

Perhaps it means below the elbow on the arm. So, while good penmanship might come from the musclememory in your wrists, there's more to good writing than adeptly formed Hs.

Man has capitalized women's curiosity as scientific research: tropes of love poetry? I dunno.

[Adam Roberts]

Everbody is missing the fact that 'elbow' and 'below' are anagrammatically related. I translate: 'Great English does not come from indulging in specious anagrammatic reorganisations of words that refer to locations on, or parts of, the body.' A wise rule, I feel.

I translate 'Man has capitalized woman's curiosity as scientific research' as follows: 'I'm a crusty old English teacher in 1946 and I just can't seem to get laid.'

[Rich Puchalsky]

The below-the-elbow thing must be a reference to masturbation, mental or otherwise. See also "preparation for leisure" and "enjoyment of literature is a highly personal matter".

"Man has capitalized woman's curiosity as scientific research." First of all, I guess that women are supposed to be always curious, like cats. But their curiosity is never supposed to lead to anything and must be "capitalized" (very ambiguous verb there, btw) to turn it into Real Science. Now that I think about it, that makes no sense even if you take the misogyny as a given. Maybe this is just a memory of the writer's adolescent experience of "playing doctor", in reference to the paragraph above.

[Ray Davis]

... "Woman's Curiosity".

Ha ha ha ha! At last, my experiment is complete! And those fools at Yale said I was mad -- mad!

The "Great English" warning refers not to the classroom but the snooker table. It has been rendered obsolete by advances in computing technology.

[MT]

I think the point of the elbow remark is that Great English is humerus. The maxim arose to counter the myth about the funny bone, which in fact is about as funny as carpal tunnel, and no more literary. "Give the dog a bone" is another humerus expression.

[Rich Crew]

In pool and billiards, "english" is spin on the ball that you produce by striking the ball slightly off-center with your cue. It's not easy to control exactly, and I can see what it means to say that it "comes from the elbow." And thus that it doesn't come from "below the elbow."

As for "Man has capitalized woman's curiosity as scientific research," I guess that the point is that we are talking about Women, not women. Either that, or we're giving them loads of cash...

[nnyhav]

No,no,no: Lingustic corruption of 'below the Elbe', referring to the language's Germanic roots. Damn folk linguistics.

[Il Vostro Fratello]

I think it refers to the fact that man's inate fascination with woman (especially during/post puberty) has been an inspiration for an innumerable horde of literature. I suggest asking Dr. Hardy what "Man has capitalized woman's curiosity as scientific research" means. It's one of those questions that sparks an interesting rant on luscious tomatos.

[MT]

Maybe the point about woman's curiosity is that scientists are sissies?

[Leh Tschau]

I would like to obtain some appropriate proverbs for my teaching the students at my school.

My students almost have no aspiration for their own future life. They come from different and low family backgrounds and they are easily influenced by neglecting every thing but enjoying all kinds of entertainment.
I hope we,all, can provide them with something useful.

Kind regards,

Mr. Joe