Crewe (1921)

Background notes

The complete report is shown in this single web page. You can scroll through it or use the following links to go to the various sections.

Preliminary pages (page iii)
Witnesses, membership, contents, introduction

Part I (27)
History and present position
Part II (59)
The practical problem
Part III (111)
Classics in the schools
Part IV (177)
Universities
Part V (204)
Scotland
Part VI (223)
Ireland
Part VII (235)
Wales
Part VIII (250)
Post-graduate professions
Part IX (259)
Classics for those outside the universities and secondary schools

Conclusion (267)
Recommendations (269)

Appendices (283)

The text of the 1921 Crewe Report was prepared by Derek Gillard and uploaded on 10 November 2014.


The Crewe Report (1921)
The position of the Classics in the Educational System of the United Kingdom
Report of the Committee appointed by the Prime Minister

London: HM Stationery Office


[title page]

COMMITTEE TO INQUIRE INTO THE
POSITION OF CLASSICS IN THE
EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF
THE UNITED KINGDOM.



REPORT

OF THE

COMMITTEE APPOINTED BY THE
PRIME MINISTER TO INQUIRE
INTO THE POSITION OF CLASSICS
IN THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.


LONDON
PUBLISHED BY HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.

To be purchased through any Bookseller or directly from
H.M. STATIONERY OFFICE at the following addresses:
IMPERIAL HOUSE, KINGSWAY, LONDON, W.C.2, AND 28, ABINGDON STREET,
LONDON, S.W.1;
37, PETER STREET, MANCHESTER; 1, ST. ANDREW'S CRESCENT, CARDIFF;
23, FORTH STREET, EDINBURGH;
or from E. PONSONBY, LTD., 116, GRAFTON STREET, DUBLIN.

1921
Price Two Shillings Net.


[page ii]



NOTE.

The estimated gross cost of the preparation of the appended Report (including the expenses of the Witnesses and Members of the Committee) is £2,602 19s. 4d., of which £315 represents the gross cost of printing and publishing.





[page iii]

CONTENTS.

PAGE
List of Witnesses examinedxii
List of Persons from whom Memoranda were receivedxxi
Reference1
List of Members of the Committee1
Prefatory Matter2

Introduction
6
1. The place of the Classics in a National System of Education6
2. The growing appreciation of the value of the Classics16
3. The use and abuse of translations from the Classics21

PART I.

A. HISTORICAL SKETCH27

1. Mediaeval Education
27

2. From the Reformation to the XlXth Century
30

3. From 1800 to 1902
32
(a) The Older Universities and the Public Schools32
(b) The Modern Universities and University Colleges34
(c) The University, Public Schools, and Schools Inquiry Commissions34
(d) Competition of the Grammar Schools with -
    (i) The newer Public Schools35
    (ii) Schools earning Grant for Science and Art35
(e) Effect of the Elementary Education Acts36
(f) Education of Girls and Women37

4. From 1902 to 1914
38
(a) Work of (i) the Board of Education; (ii) the Local Education Authorities38
(b) Growth of the Modern Universities40

5. From 1914 to 1920
40
(a) Education Act of 191840
(b) Advanced Courses41
(c) Organisation of Examinations41
(d) State Scholarships42

6. Summary
42


[page iv]

B. STATISTICS ILLUSTRATING THE PRESENT POSITION43
1. Boys' Schools43
2. Girls' Schools44
3. Schools provided by Local Education Authorities46
4. "First" Examinations47
5. "Second" Examinations47
6. Advanced Courses48
7. State Scholarships49
8. College Scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge49
    (a) Oxford50
    (b) Cambridge50
9. Classical Examinations at Oxford and Cambridge51
10. Colleges for Women at Oxford and Cambridge54
11. Modern Universities55
12. Question of supply of Classical Teachers56
13. Summary of present position56

PART II.

THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM

1. EXTERNAL INFLUENCES AFFECTING THE POSITION OF CLASSICS WITHIN THE SCHOOLS59
(a) Board of Education59

(i) Grants
59

(ii) Regulations
60
    Consideration of Schools in which no Latin is at present taught61

(iii) Inspection
63

(iv) Advanced Courses
63
(a) The existing Regulations63
(b) Recommendation of the abolition of the existing system54
(c) The Advanced Course in Classics66
(d) The Regulations for the Modern Studies Advanced Course66
(e) The aim proposed by the Regulations67
(f) Their practical effect68
(g) Detailed criticism of the present Regulations69
(h) Some further considerations71
(k) Conclusions:
    (i) Abolition of existing system71
    (ii) Reinstatement of Latin (with alternative Greek) in Modern Studies Course71


[page v]

(l) Discussion of the problem of Transfer72
(m) Latin in Modern Studies Advanced Course76
(n) Combination of Latin or Greek with -
    (i) Modern Languages77
    (ii) English77

(v) State Scholarships
78

(b) Policy of -
(i) Local Education Authorities79
(ii) Governing Bodies80

(c) Examinations
81
(i) Entrance Examinations81
    (a) to Secondary Schools81
    (b) from Preparatory to Public Schools81
    Position of Greek in -
    (a) the Common Entrance Examination84
    (b) Entrance Scholarship Examinations84
(ii) "First" Examinations86
(a) Character of the Examination in Classics87
(b) Recommendations as to -
    (i) Set Books88
    (ii) Ancient History88
    (iii) Greek89
    (iv) Compulsory Subjects90
(iii) "Second" Examinations91
Relation to Advanced Course Syllabuses91
(iv) Professional Examinations92
    (a) For entrance to the Navy93
    (b) For entrance to the Army94
    (c) For entrance to the Civil Service95
(v) Matriculation Examinations97
(vi) For Leaving Exhibitions97
(vii) Scholarship Examinations at Oxford and Cambridge98
    (a) Importance of College Scholarship Awards98
    (b) Normal conditions of Election; Age limits, Tenure and Value98
    (c) Scope of the Examinations at -
        (i) Oxford99
        (ii) Cambridge99
    (d) General conditions which should govern Elections99
    (e) These conditions generally satisfied100


[page vi]

    (f) Existing methods of Election at Oxford and Cambridge100
    (g) Grouping of Examinations at -
        (i) Cambridge101
        (ii) Oxford101
    (h) Recommendation of a common General Paper101
    (i) Classics and Ancient History in History Scholarship Examinations102
    (j) Influence of the Examinations on Secondary Schools105
    (k) Effect of establishment of State Scholarships105
    (l) Question of value of Scholarships106
    (m) Limit of age106
    (n) Facilities for transfer to another Study107
    (o) "Close" Scholarships107
(viii) Classical Scholarships at Modern Universities and University Colleges108
(ix) Classical Scholarships at the Women's Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge109
(x) City and County Major Scholarships110
(xi) Scholarships awarded by City Companies, &c.110

PART III.

INTERNAL CONDITIONS AFFECTING THE POSITION OF CLASSICS IN THE SCHOOLS.

1. School Organisation111
(a) The Curriculum in relation to schools of different types111
(b) English in the preliminary stage and the teaching of Grammar through English112
(c) French normally the first Foreign language113
(d) Teaching of Latin114
    (i) Age for beginning -
        (a) In the Preparatory Schools114
        (b) In the Secondary Schools115
    (ii) Importance of frequent lessons117
    (iii) Importance of a course of not less than three years118
    (iv) Should no Latin be taught to some pupils -
        (a) In the Public Schools118
        (b) In the Secondary Schools120


[page vii]

(e) Teaching of Greek121
    (i) In the Public Schools121
    (ii) In the Secondary Schools123
(f) Teaching of Classics in Girls' Schools124
    (i) In the Secondary Schools124
    (ii) In the High Schools125
    (iii) Difficulties peculiar to Girls' Schools125
(g) Time Tables: Proportion of time allotted to Classics in Schools of different types126

2. Teachers
128
(a) In Day and in Boarding Schools128
(b) In Preparatory Schools129
(c) In Public Schools130
(d) In Secondary Schools130
(e) In Girls' Schools132
(f) Qualifications of the Teacher of Classics132

3. Training of Teachers
133
(a) The function of the Training College134
(b) The function of the School136

4. Method and Curriculum
138
(a) Preliminary: The need for a new outlook139
(b) General considerations on Method142
(c) The "Grammatical" Method142
(d) Oral Work143
(e) The Direct Method144
(f) Grammar, Syntax, and Vocabulary147
(g) Composition148
    (i) Prose148
    (ii) Verse150
(h) Texts152
    (i) Latin152
    (ii) Greek153
    (iii) Suitable for Higher Forms154
(j) Ancient History156
(k) The use of Translations159
    (i) In non-classical Schools159
    (ii) For non-classical Specialists160
    (iii) In Schools with a four years' Latin Course160
    (iv) In Schools with a full Classical Course161
(l) Pronunciation162
(m) Terminology of Grammar163
(n) "Material Aids" - Archaeology and Art163


[page viii]

(o) School Libraries167
(p) Classical Courses in the new Secondary Schools168
    (i) Aim in teaching Latin170
    (ii) Method172
        (a) Grammar and Syntax172
        (b) Literary Texts172
    (iii) The method as a preparation for advanced work174
    (iv) Application of the method to Greek175

PART IV.

UNIVERSITIES.

1. Modern Universities177
(a) Their origin and development177
(b) Actual conditions of Classical Studies in Modern Universities179
(c) Their relation to schools in their Area181
(d) Their provision for Greek182
(e) Their provision for Latin183
(f) Honours in Latin with subsidiary Greek183
(g) Honours in Latin without Greek184
(h) Modern Universities and the supply of Teachers185
(i) Research in Modern Universities185
(j) Recommendations186
    (i) Latin in Arts Courses186
    (ii) Endowment for Classics186

2. Oxford and Cambridge
187
(a) The abolition of compulsory Greek188
(b) Action taken or proposed at Oxford:
    (i) Study of Greek Texts in translations189
    (ii) Classics in Preliminary Examinations189
    (iii) Pass Schools189
(c) Classical Honour Schools190
    (i) Moderations191
    (ii) Literæ Humaniores191
    (iii) Classical Tripos191
(d) Provision for -
    (i) Specialised training in Classical Subjects193
    (ii) University Scholarships, &c., for Classics193
    (iii) Honours in Latin with subsidiary Greek193


[page ix]

    (iv) Correlation of College Scholarship Examinations with the syllabuses for Higher Certificate Examinations and for Advanced Courses194
(e) Effect on the Classical Schools of the Regulations for admission to the Civil Services195

3. Women's Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge
197
(a) Classical Honour Moderations197
(b) Classical Tripos197

4. Post-Graduate Work
198
Oxford and Cambridge:
(i) Prolongation of the tenure of College Scholarships198
(ii) Senior Scholarships199

5. Provision for Research
199
(a) Oxford and Cambridge199
(b) Modern Universities200
(c) Women's Colleges201
(d) Voluntary Associations for encouragement of Research201

PART V.

SCOTLAND.

1. Historical Sketch204

2. The present position
209
(a) School Organisation209
    (i) The Intermediate Stage211
    (ii) The Post-Intermediate Stage211
    (iii) Comparison with English systems212
        (a) Age for beginning a foreign language214
        (b) The Intennediate Examination214
        (c) The Leaving Examination217
(b) Universities219
(c) Summary221

PART VI.

IRELAND.

1. Historical Sketch223
(a) Protestant Schools223
(b) Catholic Schools225


[page x]

(c) University Education228
    (i) Trinity College, Dublin228
    (ii) Modern Universities229
    (iii) Training Colleges230
2. The Present Position230
    (a) In the Schools231
    (b) In the Universities233

PART VII.

WALES.

1. Historical Sketch235
(a) Roman Influence235
(b) Early Vestiges of Greek236
(c) Saint David: Giraldus236
(d) Tudor Times237
(e) Welsh Translations of the Greek Testament: other Welsh Translations237
(f) Educational Organisation238
    (i) Grammar Schools238
    (ii) Growth of a larger system of Secondary Education239
    (iii) University of Wales: Jesus College, Oxford240

2. The present position
241
(a) Latin in Schools and University241
(b) Greek in Schools242
(c) Transfer; Latin- Greek Teachers242
(d) Greek as separated from Latin in the University243
(e) Supply of Teachers243
(f) Study of Greek by Teachers of Religion244
(g) Welsh as a help to Latin and Greek245
(h) Adult Education ; Popular Interest245
(j) Classical Archaeology246
(k) Celtic in relation to Classical Studies247
(l) Linguistic Studies248
(m) Literary Studies248

PART VIII.

POST-GRADUATE PROFESSIONS.

1. Law250
2. Medicine250


[page xi]

3. Theology251
    (a) Church of England251
    (b) The Free Churches252
    (c) The Catholic Church253
4. Business, Industry, and Commerce255
5. Journalism257

PART IX.

CLASSICS FOR THOSE OUTSIDE THE UNIVERSITIES AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

1. Elementary Schools259
2. Technical Schools260
3. Continuation Schools260
4. Adult Education261
    (a) Working Men's College261
    (b) Workers' Educational Association263
    (c) Adult Schools264
5. University Extension264
6. Army Education266



Conclusion
267
Recommendations269
Appendices283





[page xii]

LIST OF WITNESSES EXAMINED BY THE COMMITTEE.

Government Departments.

BOARD OF EDUCATION.

Hon. W. N. Bruce, C.B., late Second Secretary.
Mr. R. J. Gr. Mayor, C.B., Principal Assistant Secretary, Universities Branch.
Mr. W. C. Fletcher, C.B., Chief Inspector of Secondary Schools.
Mr. H. Ward, Chief Inspector of Training Colleges.
Mr. D. R. Smith, H.M.I. (late), Secondary Schools Branch.
Mr. D. A. Macnaughton, H.M.I., Secondary Schools Branch.
Mr. A. E. Twentyman, Director of Special Inquiries and Reports.

SCOTTISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT.

Dr. George Macdonald, F.B.A., Assistant Secretary.

MINISTRY OF LABOUR.

Mr. F. J. H. Darton, Appointments Department.

CIVIL SERVCE COMMISSION.

Sir Stanley M. Leathes, K.C.B.. First Commissioner.

Educational Associations.

INCORPORATED ASSOCIATION OF HEAD MASTERS.

Mr. H. G. Abel, Central Foundation Boys' School, London.
Mr. J. E. Barton, Bristol Grammar School.
Mr. J. R. Eccles, Gresham School, Holt.
Mr. W. Edwards, Bradford Grauomar School.


[page xiii]

HEAD MISTRESSES' ASSOCIATION.

Miss M. E. Lewis, Wimbledon Hill School.
Miss A. M. Stoneman, Park School, Preston.
Miss E. Strudwick, City of London Girls' School.

INCORPORATED ASSOCIATION OF ASSISTANT MASTERS.

Mr. L. W. P. Lewis, Bradford Grammar School.
Mr. A. Robinson, Wolverhampton Grammar School.
Mr. W. F. Witton, St. Olave's School, London.

ASSOCIATION OF ASSISTANT MISTRESSES.

Miss E. G. Davies, Wyggeston Grammar School for Girls, Leicester.
Miss D. M. Hibgame, County Secondary School, Kentish Town.
Miss M. L. Newman, High School, Sheffield.
Miss E. Purdie, Ladies' College, Cheltenham.

ASSOCIATION OF PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.

Mr. D. Harcourt Clarke, Stancliffe Hall, Buxton.
Mr. H. C. McDonell, Twyford Abbey School, Winchester.
Mr. E. G. H. North, Farnborough School, Hants.
Mr. H. C. King, Secretary to the Association.

ENGLISH ASSOCIATION.

Miss K. S. Block, Staff Lecturer in English, Royal Holloway College.
Mr. G. Kendall, Head Master of University College School, London.
Mr. P. Simpson, Fellow of Oriel College, and Lecturer in English, University of Oxford.

GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION.

Professor H.J. Fleure, Professor of Zoology and Lecturer in Geography, University College, Aberystwyth.
Sir W. M. Ramsay, K.C.B., Hon. Fellow of Exeter, Lincoln and St. John's Colleges, Oxford.
Professor A. E. Zimmern, Professor of International Politics, University College, Aberystwyth.


[page xiv]

HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.

Mr. M. Gary, Reader in Ancient History, University College, London.
Mr. C. H. K. Marten, Assistant Master, Eton College.
Miss C. A. J. Skeel, D. Lit., Head of the History Department, Westfield College.

MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION.

Mr. F. Cloudesley Brereton, Inspector in Modern Languages for the London County Council.
Mr. H. L. Hutton, Assistant Master, Merchant Taylors' School, London.
Miss F. M. Purdie, Head Mistress of Paddington and Maida Vale High School for Girls.
Professor J. G. Robertson, Professor of German, King's College, London.

SCIENCE MASTERS' ASSOCIATION.

Mr. G. D. Dunkerley, late Assistant Master, Watford Grammar School; Organising Secretary to Incorporated Association of Assistant Masters.
Mr. E. R. Thomas, Assistant Master, Rugby School.
Mr. A. Vassall, Assistant Master, Harrow School.

ASSOCIATION OF SCIENCE TEACHERS.

Miss E. M. Ridley, Assistant Mistress, Kentish Town County Secondary School.
Miss B. M. Schooley, Head Mistress, Northampton School for Girls.
Miss M. B. Thomas, Director of Studies in Natural Science, Girton College, Cambridge.

DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE ON ENGLISH.

Mr. John Bailey.
Sir Henry Newbolt, D. Litt., LL.D. (Chairman).
Mr. George Sampson.

WORKERS' EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION.

Mr. A. Greenwood.
Mr. T. W. Price.


[page xv]

COUNTY COUNCILS ASSOCIATION.

Mr. J. S. Furley, Hampshire County Education Committee.

ASSOCIATION OF EDUCATION COMMITTEES.

The Rev. E. J. Gilchrist, Chairman of Ipswich C.B.C. Education Committee.

ASSOCIATION OF MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS.

Alderman J. W. Alsop (the late), Chairman of Liverpool Education Committee.

Women's Colleges at the Universities.

Miss J. R. Bacon, Director and Lecturer in Classics, Girton College, Cambridge.
Miss E. C. Higgins, Principal of the Royal Holloway College.
Miss E. F. Jourdain, Principal of St. Hugh's College, Oxford.
Miss H. L. Lorimer, Tutor of Somerville College, Oxford.
Miss M. E. J. Taylor, Senior Staff Lecturer in Classics, Royal Holloway College.

Training Colleges.

Mr. F. J. R. Hendy, Director of Training of Teachers, University of Oxford.
Professor T. P. Nunn, D.Sc, Professor of Education, University of London.
Miss M. H. Wood, Litt.D., Principal of the Training College for Women, Cambridge.

Theological Colleges.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Ely.
The Rev. A. C. Headlam, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Oxford; formerly Principal of King's College, London.
The Rev. Canon F. C. N. Hicks, Secretary to the Diocesan Training Association; late Principal of Bishop's College, Cheshunt.


[page xvi]

ROMAN CATHOLIC.

The Right Rev. Dom C. E. Butler, O.S.B., Abbot of Downside Abbey, Bath.

FREE CHURCHES.

The Rev. W. B. Selbie, D.D., Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford.

Individual Witnesses.

Mr. E. H. Alton, Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin.
Mr. R. B. Appleton, Assistant Master, Perse School for Boys, Cambridge.
Professor E. V. Arnold, Litt.D., Professor of Latin, University College, Bangor.
Mr. C. Bailey, Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford.
Sir Graham Balfour, Director of Education for the Staffordshire Local Education Authority.
Mr. E. Barker, Principal of King's College, London; late Fellow and Tutor of New College, Oxford.
Mr. W. Bateson, F.R.S., Hon. Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge.
Dr. F. A. Bather, F.R.S., Assistant Keeper of Geology, Natural History Museum, South Kensington.
Dr. Ll. Storr-Best, Head Master of Pitsmoor Secondary School for Boys, Sheffield.
Professor H. E. Butler, Professor of Latin, University College, London.
Sir Robert Blair, LL.D., Education Officer of the London County Council.
Mr. J. R. M. Butler, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Professor A. C. Clark, F.B.A., Corpus Professor of Latin, Oxford University.
Sir R. Waley Cohen, K.B.E., Director of the Asiatic Petroleum Oil Company.
Professor R. S. Conway, F.B.A., Professor of Latin, Manchester University.


[page xvii]

The Rev. Professor T. Corcoran, S.J., Professor of Education, National University of Ireland.
Dr. J. H. E. Crees, Head Master of the Cathedral School, Hereford.
Mr. H. W. C. Davis, Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford.
Mr. G. G. Dawson, FeUow of All Souls' College, Oxford; formerly Editor of "The Times".
Mr. G. Lowes Dickinson, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge.
Professor J. Wight Duff, Professor of Classics, Armstrong College, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Sir Walter Durnford, G.B.E., Provost of King's College, Cambridge.
Professor F. Y. Eccles, Professor of French Literature, Bedford College, London.
Mr. R. C. K. Ensor, of "The Daily Chronicle".
The Rev. G. F. Fisher, Head Master of Repton School.
Mr. F. Fletcher, Head Master of the Charterhouse.
Professor P. Gardner, F.B.A., Lincoln and Merton Professor of Archaeology, Oxford.
Captain E. Gill, Education Sub-Committee of the Advisory Committee of the Labour Party.
Mr. W. King Gillies, Rector of the Royal High School, Edinburgh.
The Rev. J. H. Gray, Fellow and Tutor of Queen's College, Cambridge.
Sir Richard A. Gregory, Editor of "Nature".
Mr. E. Harrison, Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Professor J. Harrower, LL.D., Professor of Greek, Aberdeen University.
Mr. P. J. Hartog, C.I.E., Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dacca, Bengal.


[page xviii]

Mr. J. W. Headlam-Morley, formerly Staff Inspector, Board of Education (Secondary Branch).
Professor R. M. Henry, Professor of Latin, Queen's University, Belfast.
Mr. W. L. Hichens, Managing Director of Messrs. Cammel, Laird & Co.
Sir Herbert Jackson, K.B.E., F.R.S., Director of Research, British Scientific Instruments Research
Association.
Professor H. Stuart Jones, F.B.A., Camden Professor of Ancient History, Oxford.
Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, K.C.B., P.B.A., Director and Principal Librarian of the British Museum.
Miss Clara Knight, D.Lit., Senior Classical Lecturer, King's College, London.
Mr. A. S. Lupton, Vice Principal, Working Men's College.
Dr. J. W. Mackail, formerly Assistant Secretary, Board of Education (Secondary Branch).
Mr. A. Mansbridge, World's Adult Educational Association.
Professor J. W. Marshall, Professor of Greek, University College, Aberystwyth.
Dr. J. E. McTaggart, Litt.D., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Professor G. Norwood, Professor of Greek, University College, Cardiff.
Mr. Alwyn Parker, C.B., C.M.G., Director of Lloyds Bank.
Professor J. S. Phillimore, Professor of Humanity, Glasgow University.
Miss E. F. Phipps, Head Mistress of the Municipal Secondary School for Girls, Swansea.


[page xix]

Professor J. P. Postgate, F.B.A., Professor of Latin, Liverpool University.
Mr. A. B. Poynton, Fellow and Tutor of University College, Oxford.
Miss Olive Purser, Dean of Women Students, Trinity College, Dublin.
Mr. D. R. Pye, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Mr. W. Rennie, Lecturer in Greek, Glasgow University.
Mr. H. A. Roberts, Secretary to the Appointments Board, Cambridge University.
Dr. W. H. D. Rouse, Head Master of the Perse School for Boys, Cambridge.
Mr. W. D. Ross, Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College, Oxford.
Mr. J. T. Sheppard, Fellow and Tutor of King's College, Cambridge.
Mr. D. Nichol Smith, Goldsmiths' Reader in English Literature, Oxford University.
Mr. G. Smith, Head Master of Dulwich College.
Dr. E. A. Sonnenschein, formerly Professor of Latin, Birmingham University.
Miss E. Stevenson, Head Mistress of St. George's School, Edinburgh.
Professor J. Strong, LL.D., Professor of Education, Leeds University; formerly Rector of the Royal High School, Edinburgh.
Dr. W. Tattersall, Principal of the Museum, Manchester University.
Mr. H. W. V. Temperley, Fellow of Peterhouse and Reader in Modern History, Cambridge University.
Mr. J. Thompson, Head Master of the High School, Dublin.
Professor P. N. Ure, Professor of Classics, University College, Reading,


[page xx]

The Rev. E. M. Walker, Fellow and Tutor of Queen's College, Oxford.
Professor Graham Wallas, Professor of Political Science, University of London.
Mr. W. Glynn Williams, late Head Master of the Friars' School, Bangor.
Mr. S. E. Winbolt, Assistant Master, Christ's Hospital, Horsham; Secretary of the Archaeological Aids Committee of the Association for the Reform of Latin Teaching.





[page xxi]

LIST OF PERSONS FROM WHOM MEMORANDA WERE RECEIVED.

Mr. P. A. Barnett, late Staff Inspector, Board of Education.
Mr. C. Booth, Director of the Booth Steamship Company.
Mr. J. W. Budd, Chairman of the Legal Education Committee of the Law Society.
Mr. C. L. Burt, Psychologist to the London County Council.
Mr. John Clarke, Director of Education, Aberdeen University.
The Rev, D. H. S. Cranage, Lectures Secretary to the Cambridge Local Examinations and Lectures Syndicate.
Mr. E. Salter Davies. Director of Education to the Kent Education Committee.
Miss I. M. Drummond, Head Mistress of the North London Collegiate School for Girls.
Colonel M. Earle, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., General Staff, War Office.
Sir T. Gregory Foster, Provost of University College, London.
M. Gautier (through Professor G. Rudler), Secretary to the Director of Secondary Education, French Ministry of Public Instruction.
Dr. G. B. Grundy, Fellow and Tutor of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
Professor J. Harrower, Professor of Greek, Aberdeen University.
Miss G. E. Holding, Classical Mistress, North Loudon Collegiate School for Girls.
The Rev. F. E. Hutchinson, Secretary .to the Oxford University Extension Delegacy.
The Rev. H. Kelly, Principal of the Society of the Sacred Mission, Kelham,
Mr. J. Lea, Registrar of the University of London Extension Board.
Dr. W. Leaf, Hon. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Dr. George Macdonald, Assistant Secretary of the Scottish Education Department.
Dr. J. Y. MacKay, Chairman of the Education Committee of the General Medical Council.
Mr. A. P. McMullen, Director of Naval Education, Admiralty.


[page xxii]

Mr. P. E. Matheson, Fellow and Tutor of New College, Oxford; late Secretary of the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board.
Professor J. L. Myres, Wykeham Professor of Ancient History, Oxford University.
Miss M. K. Pope, Tutor in Modern Languages, Somerville College, Oxford.
Mr. W. A. Sharpe, late President of the Law Society and Chairman of their Examinations Committee.
Mr. E. Sharwood Smith, Head Master of Newbury Grammar School.
The Rev. H. F. Stewart, Fellow and Praelector in French Studies, Trinity College, Cambridge.
Mr. W. Glynn Williams, late Head Master of the Friars' School, Bangor.




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THE CLASSICS IN EDUCATION.

REPORT

OF THE

Committee appointed by the Prime Minister to inquire into the Position of Classics in the Educational System of the United Kingdom
(27th November 1919).

REFERENCE.

To inquire into the position to be assigned to the Classics (i.e. to the language, literature and history of Ancient Greece and Rome) in the Educational System of the United Kingdom, and to advise as to the means by which the proper study of these subjects may be maintained and improved.

LIST OF MEMBERS.
The Most Hon. the Marquess of Crewe, K.G. (Chairman).
The Rev. C. A. Alington, D.D.
Mr. S. O. Andrew.
Miss M. D. Brock, Litt.D.
Professor the Rev. H. J. Browne, S.J.
Professor J. Burnet, LL.D.
Mr. T. R. Glover.
Sir Henry Hadow, Mus.D.
Miss K. Jex-Blake.
Professor W. P. Ker, F.B.A.
Mr. J. G. Legge.
Mr. R. W. Livingstone.
Mr. G. A. Macmillan, D.Litt.
Professor Gilbert Murray, LL.D.
Mr. Cyril Norwood, D.Litt.
Professor W. Rhys Roberts, Litt.D.
Mr. C. E. Robinson.
The Very Rev. Sir George Adam Smith, F.B.A.
Professor A. N. Whitehead, F.R.S.
Mr. Chr. Cookson (Secretary).


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To the Right Honourable DAVID LLOYD GEORGE, O.M., M.P., Prime Minister.

SIR,

The Committee appointed by you in November 1919 beg leave to report as follows:

PREFACE.

Your Committee have sat on 85 days and have personally interviewed 140 witnesses. These have included officials and ex-officials of the Board of Education, the Scottish Education Department and the Civil Service Commission, representatives of the Universities and University Colleges in the United Kingdom (including Women's Colleges), Head and Assistant Teachers in Public and Secondary Schools of different types (including Preparatory Schools), representatives of Associations interested in education, members and officials of Local Education Authorities, persons connected with Theological and Training Colleges, the Working Men's College, the Labour Party and the Workers' Educational Association, members of leading commercial firms, and journalists. We have also heard the evidence of a number of other persons qualified to advise us on various points and have considered memoranda supplied by persons who were not able or whom it was not possible to invite to give oral evidence. A list of the witnesses and of the writers of memoranda will be found on pp. xii-xxii. To all of them we tender our sincere thanks for their assistance. We think that we may claim that we have taken full account of all; but we regret that it has been impossible to deal explicitly with two valuable memoranda, one on Classical Education in France* by M. Gautier, Secretary to the Director of Secondary Education at the Ministry of Public Instruction, and the other on Psychology in Classical Education by Mr. Cyril Burt, of the London County Council. In addition we have tried to acquaint ourselves with a considerable number of published documents bearing on the subject of our reference, among which we may specially mention the Proceedings of the Classical Association.

We thought it an important part of our duty to ascertain the existing state of Classical Studies in the Universities and

*This memorandum was kindly sent to us by Professor G. Rudler.


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Schools. For this purpose we addressed questionnaires to the Modern Universities and University Colleges, the Women's Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and all the Schools of the Headmasters' Conference and of the Incorporated Associations of Head Masters and Head Mistresses. We have to thank our correspondents for the very valuable information thus elicited. The peculiar constitution of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge made it necessary to rely largely upon information contributed unofficially by individual members of those Universities, to whom we are greatly indebted for the pains that they took in the matter.

We have thought it desirable to devote separate sections of our Report to the bearing of our reference on Schools and Universities or University Colleges in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. We have endeavoured to secure that our information as regards these countries should be not less accurate than as regards England.

In some portions of the Report we may appear to have strayed beyond the limits prescribed in our reference into questions of a more general kind. We have found it impossible altogether to avoid this. The question of the position of Classics in a national system of education touches at almost every point the whole field of education from an historical, a theoretical and a practical point of view. The Classics are not, like Science or Modern Languages, something that has recently been added to the educational curriculum. They were for centuries the main, if not the sole, instrument of education other than elementary, not only in this country but in all Western Europe, and the re-adjustment of their claims to modern conditions cannot be considered without a survey of the whole province of liberal education.

It may perhaps be necessary to explain in some particulars the sense in which technical or semi-technical terms are used in the following Report. We have often found it desirable to draw a distinction between those Boys' Schools which have inherited and still maintain in a greater or less degree a classical tradition, chiefly through a connexion with Oxford and Cambridge, and those schools in which no such long-established tradition exists. Schools of the latter class ordinarily receive


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a large number of pupils direct from the Public Elementary Schools, while those of the former receive fewer or none, and there is a corresponding difference in the ordinary age of entry. We have called schools of the former class "Public Schools", as the leading public schools are the most characteristic members of the class, and those of the latter "Secondary Schools". But this terminology must not be taken to imply that schools of the latter class do not possess the characteristics which are more usually connoted by the term "Public School" or that the schools of both classes are not doing essentially similar work.

Under the head of Boys' Schools are included the schools which contain both boys and girls. These are either "mixed" schools, in which boys and girls are taught together, or "dual" schools, in which they are taught separately. Much that is hereafter said about Girls' Schools must therefore be taken to apply, with any necessary reservations, to girls who are being educated in "mixed" or "dual" schools.

A somewhat similar distinction of which we have found it convenient to avail ourselves may be drawn between Girls' Schools of two different types: those which receive pupils direct from the Public Elementary Schools and those which do not. Here, however, there is no nomenclature ready to hand. But, as the characteristic group of schools owned by the Girls' Public Day School Trust are all called "High Schools", we have ventured to extend the use of this term to denote all the Schools of one class, while we have called the others, as in the case of the corresponding class of Boys' Schools, "Secondary Schools". We wish, however, to make it quite clear that no hard and fast line can be drawn between the schools, whether for boys or for girls, belonging respectively to the two classes, and that nothing more is intended to be implied by the use of the terms we have adopted than a distinction due almost entirely to differences of historical origin.

We have endeavoured to make the statistics quoted in the Report as accurate as possible. Official figures published by or obtained from the Board of Education have been checked up to 31st December 1920, or in some cases to the beginning of the school year 1920-21.


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We desire to acknowledge our indebtedness to our Secretary, Mr. Christopher Cookson, during the whole conduct of the inquiry, and notably in the preparation of this Report. His attainments as a classical scholar, and his personal knowledge both of school and university teaching, as well as his more recent experience as an official of the Board of Education, have enabled him to be of the greatest possible assistance to us throughout.





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INTRODUCTION.

1. THE PLACE OF THE CLASSICS IN A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION.

The civilisation of the modern western world is grounded upon the ancient civilisation of the Mediterranean coast, which began after the barbarian invasions at the end of the second millennium before Christ and ended in that other series of barbarian invasions which wrecked the Roman Empire. A very- large part of our present civilisation cannot be understood with- out some knowledge of its predecessor. Our ideas of law, citizenship, freedom and empire; our poetry and prose literature; our political, metaphysical, aesthetic, and moral philosophy, indeed our organised rational pursuit of truth in all its non- experimental branches, as well as a large and vital part of the religion which has won to itself so much of the civilised world, are rooted in the art or thought of that ancient civilisation. Much of that art and thought has disappeared beyond recovery; but much also remains enshrined in writings and monuments still extant and accessible, many of which were regarded throughout all the centuries of later antiquity as "classic", or belonging to the highest class of human achievement. By the study of the Classics we mean the study of these writings and monuments, and therewith of the languages and literature and art of ancient Greece and Rome, both as interpreting that civilisation and as being in themselves lofty and unique expressions of the spirit of man.

The Classics have had in European education a position of exceptional privilege due in part to historical causes which have now ceased to be valid. We have no wish either to disguise the fact of this change or to shrink from its consequences. The place occupied by the Classics in our national education ought to be determined by their educational value and nothing else. But that educational value appears to us to be of a peculiar kind.

It is difficult, if not impossible, for any man to state exactly what he owes to his education or to any particular part of it. But if we put such a question to a man who has gone success-


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fully through a full Honours course in Classics in a University, we should probably get some such answer as the following:

(a) He has obtained access to literature, both in prose and poetry, which in the judgment of many is absolutely the noblest in the world; but, if that claim is not admitted, is at least unique, inimitable and irreplaceable. We have here a spiritual value which cannot be exactly reckoned, but which certainly, to some of those who have experience of it, ranks among the most treasured possessions of their lives.

(b) He has had the advantage of studying a civilisation in which many of the fundamental problems were the same as our own but presented themselves in vastly simpler forms and on a much smaller scale. By studying, for instance, the few greatest books of Athens of the fifth and Rome of the first century B.C. he covers an extremely varied field of social experience, and can see the underlying principles at work much more clearly than he could by attacking without such preparation the problems of the enormously large and complicated civilisation which now surrounds him. His powers of criticism are not deadened by custom; for though the ancient world took various wrong things for granted, they were not the same things as are taken for granted now. Also, what is sometimes a matter of great moment, in ancient history he knows the end of the story. Thus, when he comes to face the problems, private or public, speculative or administrative, of modern life, he starts with a peculiarly valuable equipment. He is not provided with information about the modern world; but he has, we suggest, acquired a certain power of understanding and of judgment in fundamentals, which is harder to get than information and quite as indispensable.

(c) He has attained this access to beauty and this power of understanding by means of a peculiar course of training which requires the exercise of many different powers of the mind and forms a remarkable combination of memory-training, imagination, aesthetic appreciation and scientific method. For better or worse, the study of the Classics is quite a different thing from the learning of languages pure and simple. The method is much slower than most of the usual methods of learning a modern language, and in the purely linguistic sense much less effective. Classical scholars after many years of study can seldom talk, or even write, the classical languages fluently. On the other hand,


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they have probably gained a far better understanding of the formation of words and sentences and of the logical and psychological principles underlying language in its relation to thought; have formed that invaluable habit of thinking out the real meaning of words and phrases before attempting to translate them, which is the first problem of Latin or Greek composition; have been forced to use the historical imagination and led to appreciate beauty or nobility in literature even when it appears in a strange dress. In educational effect the two languages are no doubt generally similar, though in detail they differ. As contrasted with the languages of modern Europe both are severe trainers of the observation, since both are highly inflectional and express differences of meaning by minute variations in the forms of words. Both can attain extraordinary flexibility and delicacy of expression by varying the position of words in a sentence, a power which modern languages have largely lost. Both again are reflections of a world very different from our own, in which comparatively few of the concrete objects exactly correspond with ours and still fewer of the abstract terms. Con- sequently translation to or from the classical languages requires to an uncommon degree that process of analysing words and phrases into their lowest terms of which we have spoken above and which in all matters of language and literature is one of the clearest tests of a penetrating mind. But Latin seems to be of special value in training the reasoning powers, since its sentence construction, while elaborate and exact, is strictly logical in principle. Greek, on the other hand, often sacrifices logic to psychological sensitiveness, while it possesses an extraordinary capacity for expressing exact shades and subtleties of meaning. Latin is a language formed for law and administration, Greek for philosophy and poetry.

We speak here of the fully trained classical scholar. And it must be remembered always that an intelligent scholar never should, and seldom does, confine himself to classical study. Classical study provides an instrument for the better enjoyment, understanding and mastering of the world in which we live; and a classical scholar who knows no modern foreign languages and has no interest in modern literary, social or philosophical subjects is an exceptional and unfortunate phenomenon, like a workman who possesses fine tools and does not use them. But it must be freely admitted that not everyone has either the wish or the


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capacity to be a scholar. Quite apart from the fact that, in the present state of society, comparatively few young people, even with help from endowments or State Scholarships, can afford the time necessary for a pursuit that involves so much hard work and so little pecuniary return, it is only a small percentage of young people who would care to spend a large part of their time up to the age of twenty-two or twenty-three in the study of a past civilisation or who would adequately profit by it if they did. Roughly speaking boys or girls, whatever their home surroundings, may be divided into three classes in this respect.

(i) A certain number are capable of the high intellectual training, literary, aesthetic, linguistic, historical and philosophical, which we described above as characteristic of the best type of classical scholar. We hold that it should be made accessible to them.

(ii) A larger class, containing many young people of practical ability and some of strong intellectual powers and tastes in subjects other than Classics, will nevertheless greatly profit by the study of antiquity, and indeed will be left intellectually maimed or one-sided without it. This class falls into two types. Some of them can profit by the full classical course to the age of enter- ing the Universities. In Oxford and Cambridge at present one may find among the best students in History and English and even Natural Science many who came to the University on classical scholarships and then changed their course. This is quite as it should be. Such students will doubtless never attain the same intimate understanding of the Roman or Greek mind as the first class; but there is no reason why they should not carry equally far at school the general study of antiquity, including history, archaeology and the reading of ancient authors for their subject matter.

But there will be others continuing at school till 18 who, though not able to pursue a full classical course, should not abandon their classical studies altogether. There ought to be provided for this second class a classical course less exacting on the linguistic side. Composition with these should be used as a means of ensuring accuracy and of training


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the mind, not cultivated as an art, and in the later stages of their education should fall into the back- ground or be dropped entirely. They may well learn Greek for the purpose of reading only and get their mental discipline chiefly from Latin. Or, in some cases, as has been suggested by important witnesses, they might learn both languages for the purpose of reading only, with no composition at all.

(iii) There will be a very large number of boys and girls who, if they begin Classics at all, must drop them altogether about the age of 16, either because they then leave school to earn their living or because they turn entirely to non-classical studies. Those of them who have a capacity for literary subjects should, as a rule, have acquired some knowledge of at least one classical language, which will normally be Latin; how much will be discussed later. But it is of the first importance that the course devised for them should be complete and rounded-off and directed towards the attainment of a definite end. A knowledge of Latin gained mainly by drill in grammar and syntax and constant practice in elementary composition but divorced from all real study of literature and history for them leads nowhere, as from the nature of the case they will never reach the stage at which the benefits of it can begin to be felt. But we have evidence to show that a profitable and stimulating course for both boys and girls of this class can be provided. And even those who may never begin Latin ought in our judgment to have some general knowledge of the ancient world, based both on modern histories and on translations.

Indeed, it seems as if on many grounds we might fairly ask that all boys and girls, including even those in elementary schools, should be admitted to some vision of the great chapter in the progress of mankind which is comprised in the history and literature of Greece and Rome. The story of mankind is both clearer and more inspiring when seen in long stretches. Weight also must be allowed to the consideration that, while the study of modern history largely emphasises the differences between nations, that of ancient history by revealing their common origins


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emphasises their brotherhood as co-heirs in a great inheritance. The stories of ancient mythology and history are not only a delight to children of all ages but an invaluable help to the understanding of modern literature, especially of its poetry. And we should not overlook the remarkable popular interest that has been evoked by recent books upon the history of mankind, even when they demand considerable effort from the reader. The conception of the life of mankind upon earth as a story with a plot, however obscure the working out of that plot may still remain, is not only an inspiring idea but one of great educational value. And if this generalised study of ancient history is very different from classical education in the stricter sense, it must be remembered that wide-spread knowledge, however elementary, of the ancient world from which our civilisation has sprung will not only be of use to the student of modern history or philosophy or literature or science; it is also the ground out of which a desire for a higher and fuller study of the Classics may arise. For there is no safe foundation for the continued life of any study except a spontaneous and wide-spread curiosity.

It will be seen that while recognising the very high value of an intensive classical education for the few who are fit to pursue it, we lay greater emphasis on the importance of the study of the Classics as a preparation for other studies, or rather as a dynamic element in a general national education which must, for obvious reasons, be mainly concerned with modern subjects. For example, the study of French will not only be easier to a student who knows Latin; it will be, as it were, transmuted and will mean more. And the same process, we believe, takes place in various degrees in all kinds of modern studies, where it is less obvious.

None will derive greater benefit from an early training in the Classics than those who in after life will be largely occupied in the writing of their mother tongue. The importance of such a training to a modern journalist is discussed below, pp. 257 seq. Its importance to writers of more permanent literature has, in our opinion, been proved by history. But, to take broader ground, we regard the wide extension of a sound knowledge of the classical languages, or at least of Latin, as of great and almost irreplaceable value as a means of promoting the proper use of the English language both in speech and writing by all


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classes of the community. This view perhaps requires explanation.

The traditions of the French language, as we all know, have in the past been greatly stabilised and preserved by the Academy. It is in no small part through its influence that a high standard of simplicity, directness and lucidity, both of expression and of thought, has been fostered in French writers as a whole, and this cannot have been without effect on the speech and language of their readers. The Academy's influence in this matter has for some time been waning; and we learn with interest that a deliberate effort is now being made in France to compensate for that loss by a restoration of the classical tradition in the schools. In this country there has been no Academy, and its place has, we consider, to a great extent been supplied by the tradition of classical scholarship.

Now the writings which are most widely read at the present day and perhaps exercise the greatest influence on public opinion are also those which are most rapidly produced and in which therefore lucidity, if it is to exist at all, must be spontaneous and instinctive. In rapid writing it is only the scholar's instinct which will light unhesitatingly on the right word and secure general precision of statement and orderly sequence of thought. In rapid reading again it is the scholar's instinct which detects most surely the presence or absence of these qualities. We are far from denying that this instinct can be trained within the limits of English or a modern foreign language. Nevertheless it is true that the defects in the use of language which are most conspicuous and common in modern writings are precisely those in which modern languages contrast most sharply with Latin and Greek of the best period, and it is by reference to that standard that they can best be detected.

To take a single instance, there are few ideas in modern political life which could not have been expressed by Thucydides or Demosthenes, Cicero or Tacitus. It is a well-known exercise to translate the terms denoting such ideas into Latin or Greek. And we venture to think that the modern terms would be far less apt to degenerate into catch-words if more people had had to consider how, on different occasions and in different contexts, they would have been expressed in Latin or Greek. Modern languages can provide no similar test; even in a classical language it can only be applied by one who, whatever the extent


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of his learning, has at least acquired it in a scholarly way. To this extent the ancient languages serve, we consider, as a standard which nothing else can provide. The better classical scholars our writers are, the more precise should be their statements and the more lucid their thought; the better scholars their readers are, the more they will look for precision and be repelled by the lack of it.

If this is true, then, apart from any educational theory or any view that may be held as to the value of ancient literature or history, some training in the Latin and Greek languages, or at least in one of them, has for citizens of this country a value which nothing else can quite replace. But it is by no means upon this ground alone that we would base our belief in the educational value of the study of the classical languages. It is on grounds that require for their adequate presentation a some- what fuller analysis of the mental processes involved.

Language is the most complex and subtle expression and self-delineation of the human mind that exists. That will be generally agreed. Language is a symbolism, and a complex symbolism: that is to say, each word or phrase has associated with it as part of its meaning the most prominent ideas, images, and emotions which have grown round it in the experience of its users.

Now languages notoriously differ from one another in the selection of "objects" or "lumps of experience" to which they assign the honour of separate words. Each language possesses certain words which have no exact equivalent in other languages, such as the Greek υβρις or σωΦροσυνη the Roman ratio, the German Sittlichkeit. But far more important, names denoting identical objects, and quite common objects, differ greatly in their connotation in different languages. The Roman pater, with its connotation of patria potestas, has not the same meaning as the English "father". The Greek υλη, with its connotation of "matter" or "raw material", is very different from "a wood" in English. And even when a word is definitely borrowed, it proceeds to change its meaning by acquiring secondary associate meanings from its new neighbourhood and losing some of those of its first origin. We cannot begin to understand the function of languages in life without explicitly emphasising the idea of each word and each phrase as embodying its own peculiar society of meanings, some dominant and


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some sub-conscious, some of them conceptual ideas, some images and some emotions. The whole society signified by a word-symbol invests the meaning of that symbol with a certain quality, to which the closest analogy may be found in Helmholtz's theory of the varying qualities of musical notes of the same pitch. He explains the differences as due to differing societies of accompanying harmonics: so that a note with one quality differs from the same note with another quality because it is accompanied by its harmonics in different proportionate strengths.

These considerations enable us to form some estimate of the precise educational value of acquaintance with a foreign language, apart from its instrumental value for intercommunication or as a means of access to the literature. Each word in a language embodies a racial experience and a judgment of value, expressed by the selection of that particular society of meanings for denotation by a "word"; by its selection, that is to say, for the emphasis of permanent symbolism. We have taken our instances from nouns, but the same is true of other parts of speech and indeed of each unit of linguistic structure, whether in syntax or accidence. To learn the language fashioned by an alien race to express its racial experience is in itself a penetrating education. Its value will vary according to the greatness and fineness of the experience in question, including the amount of new and relevant experience it brings to us, the completeness of the language itself as a record, and other similar factors. The comparison of the strange language with the native language should produce not only knowledge but in a peculiar degree instinctive knowledge of the energies, the limitations and the reactions of that supreme instrument of human self-expression.

Accordingly the ultimate defence of a classical education in the strict sense of the phrase is that the Greeks and Romans were races whose languages were developed under the stimulus of peculiarly noble and successful experience; that their experience found very perfect expression in literature, exposing clearly the character of thought and feeling enshrined in the languages; that the experiences thus enshrined are singularly well-marked in type, comparatively unbroken by cross-currents from without and diverse from one another, and that the languages are sufficiently unlike our own to compel attention to every step in the mechanism of linguistic expression. It is no disadvantage for our purpose that each race was dogged by the defect of its


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excellences; both the lapse and the achievement may be almost equally instructive.

Thus, a highly important element in classical training is the comparison of the classical with the native language as a vehicle for the ideas current in the ancient civilisation. This is the principle which justifies, at a certain stage of progress, the practice of composition, both in prose and verse, and explains its undoubted interest. A man who can write good Greek prose has often attained thereby a more intimate knowledge of the Greek mind than one who, without knowledge of the language, has read many volumes on the history of Greek philosophy.

We consider it a mistake to profess that the main object of classical teaching is to enable the pupils to use the languages as their own. If this is indeed the object, it must be confessed that the failure is at present almost complete. Hardly any Englishmen can make an impromptu speech in Latin or Greek, and only a comparatively small number read the Classics widely for pleasure in later life. But this admission does not in itself involve a condemnation of our school system, hi those periods when educated men throughout Europe, or certain parts of it, spoke and wrote Latin with facility as an ordinary means of communication, the teaching of Latin in school was naturally adapted to attaining that facility. But the study of the Classics now demanded of an advanced scholar is scientific, exact and wide- reaching to a degree far beyond the conceptions of those colloquial Latinists; and the mental training received by an intelligent pupil at school ought to be something much the same in quality, though taken at an earlier and more elementary stage. As such it will have its specific value in after life, on the lines which we have indicated above. These remarks must not be taken to imply that we set no store on what is sometimes disparagingly called a "courier's knowledge" of foreign languages, whether ancient or modern, or that we are not quite alive to the suggestion that the scientific study of Latin and Greek might be greatly helped by some of the more colloquial methods which are often called "modern", though they were usual in the sixteenth century. That subject will be treated in its place, among problems of practical school method (see pp. 143 seq.). We also consider there the best means of giving to pupils who will not carry their study of Latin literature very far a real knowledge of the Latin language as an expression of


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the experience of the Roman people. It is inevitable that the larger number of boys and girls will either leave school at the age of 16, or will then proceed to specialise in science or in modern literary subjects. It is of vital importance for all such pupils that their grounding should be right, that they should receive an education which will elicit lucidly and without confusion the fundamental ideas and critical mental activities on which their appreciation of modern civilisation will depend. We think it quite possible to arrange a self-contained elementary course adapted to these scholars, which would leave the pupil with some power in the analysis of thought, with some literary command of language, with some contact with the ideas of a great and important alien race, with some knowledge of the background of our civilisation, and, by its references to the ancient life round the shores of the Mediterranean, with some feeling for the geographical factors in history and for the alternating flux of civilisations. All these are important elements in education, and it may be doubted whether they can be imparted to the majority of pupils in any other way so thoroughly, so easily and so quickly, as by a classical course.

THE GROWING APPRECIATION OF THE VALUE OF THE CLASSICS.

The argument in the preceding pages is based upon the collective personal experience of the Committee. All of us have had what we regard as the inestimable advantage of an education in which Classics played a conspicuous part; and though some of us might confess with regret that our education - as, perhaps, in the circumstances of the time was inevitable - may have been too exclusively classical, we owe too great a debt to our early study of the Classics not to desire ardently that the advantages which we have enjoyed should be made available so far as possible for all people in these islands. On the other hand, many of us are still occupied in the study or the teaching of the Classics, and it may therefore be suspected that our view of the question as it affects the country as a whole is distorted by our individual predilections or by other considerations of a personal kind. It is therefore a matter of great satisfaction to us to know that the conviction which we feel is reinforced by the deliberate opinion of those who, with every opportunity of arriving at an independent conclusion, cannot be suspected of prejudice in the matter.


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We had the advantage of hearing evidence from representatives of the English, Historical, and Modern Language Associations, from the Associations of Science Masters and of Science Teachers, from the Geographical Association, and from the Chairman and some members of the Departmental Committee on the Teaching of English. It is hardly a matter of surprise that the position which we claim for Classics among the humane studies should be freely recognised by representative's of other branches of the humanities. But experts in Science and Mathematics have combined with experts in Modern History, Geography, English and Modern Languages to assure us of the value that in different degrees they all attach in the interest of their own subjects to a classical element in education. They do not all use the same terms, and some of them indicate a difference of opinion within their Associations even on points which may be considered as fundamental. But, speaking generally, they all recognise that Latin at least provides an incomparable discipline for modern linguistic studies; that historical problems, including those arising out of physical environment, can only be studied properly in relation to their origins which lie in a remote past - a conception which history owes largely to biological science; and that premature and narrow specialisation in science and mathematics defeats its own object. Many of them, we believe, would go further, and agree that no educated citizen of the British Empire can afford to ignore the example of the Romans in uniting in a contented and prosperous commonwealth nations differing widely in race, language, and culture, or that of the Greeks, with whom originated all our modern forms of poetry, history and philosophy, the conception of political freedom and of a self-governing democracy, and even the beginnings (»f physical science. Indeed, it is remarkable that some of our scientific witnesses were more emphatic on the value of a preliminary training in Classics for the student of science than were other witnesses on their value for English and Modern Languages. The latter, no doubt, laid less stress on the matter, because they took for granted that a knowledge of Greek and Latin literature was of great value to students of any modern European literature whatsoever.

It should be added that the Committee on the position of Natural Science in the educational system of Great Britain deprecated the overstatement of the merits of Science and the


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depreciation of the value of the Classics and recognised that some of the ablest minds have received from their classical instruction enduring gifts that have been of great service to the State and of great refreshment to their possessors (§4). The Modern Languages Committee were divided on the question of the relative educational value of French and Latin, whether in the early or the later stages, and on the desirability of making Latin compulsory at any stage; and the majority of them were inclined to lay stress on the desirability of recognising Honours courses in modern languages and literatures from which the classical languages were altogether excluded. But their Report lays very strong emphasis on "the high ideal" of classical studies (§55) and in several places insists on the value of a knowledge of Latin for the student of Modern Languages.

We think, therefore, that we are justified in saying that- all but perhaps a few extremists among the representatives of the other studies which we have mentioned would deplore as bitterly as we should ourselves the disappearance of Classics, including Greek, from the schools, though they would naturally differ from us and from one another on the extent to which these subjects should be carried in any given case and on the proportion of pupils who should study them.

In spite, however, of the friendly and sympathetic attitude towards the Classics adopted by these witnesses and the wide range of competing interests which they represent, it is impossible to ignore the fact that a classical education has often been attacked in the past by persons of high distinction in other branches of learning, whose names have rightly carried great weight with the general public, and at no time with greater vehemence than shortly after the outbreak of the late war. It is therefore the more important to say at once that the position of the Classics in education has recently received serious and sympathetic consideration from many of those who have hitherto been supposed hostile or indifferent to their claims. Much has been made in the past of the antagonism between science and literature and particularly between modern science and ancient literature. It is true that the attitude of the champions on both sides has often been antagonistic. The champions of Science often knew no Classics, the champions of Classics often knew no Science; so long as this state of things endured it was impossible for them to understand each other's position, and even argument


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on the subject was futile. The blame does not rest wholly with the scientists; their attitude could not but be aggressive where they were fighting to secure a foothold. The classicists, on the other hand, at any rate in some of the schools and universities, have passed in the course of the last 50 years from an attitude of aloofness to one of nervous alarm and from that, in some cases, to a premature despair. Earlier and less grudging attempts on the part of the classicists to establish a modus vivendi and initiate and forward a constructive policy might have produced more favourable results, but too many of them have been unwilling to surrender anything and have failed to realise that an educational curriculum once suitable for a few thousand boys and young men in the Public and Grammar Schools and the older Universities is not necessarily as suitable for ten times that number of pupils who are now to be found in the modern Secondary Schools and Universities and whose paths in life will be very diverse. It is, however, worth saying that if the proposals first made at Oxford and Cambridge some 30 years ago to abolish compulsory Greek had been successful, Greek would in all probability have never attained even the precarious foothold that it has in the schools established after the Act of 1902. To this extent the policy of caution has had beneficial results. But the struggle is now over, and both sides have discovered that they cannot achieve their ends without co-operation. It has been realised that the object of education, on its social side, is to fit a man to play his part in the environment in which he is placed, and that in this environment the forces of nature are not the sole determinant. It is not only on their knowledge of the physical phenomena of the universe that the happiness and welfare of most men depend; they depend rather on their knowledge of the minds and character of themselves and of their fellow men. But there is no natural antagonism between Science and the Humanities, either in their aims or in their methods. Both set before them, in different fields, the aim of enlarging the confines of human knowledge; both pursue knowledge by observation of facts laboriously gathered, wisely selected and carefully tested; and both in their several ways appeal to the aesthetic sense.

The most remarkable indication of the amount of agreement that has now been reached on this point is provided by the results of conferences held between representatives of Literary and Historical Associations on the one hand and those of


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Scientific Societies on the other. Early in the war a Committee of the British Academy, along with representatives of the Classical, English, Historical, Geographical, and Modern Language Associations, formed a Council of Humanistic Studies. The Council entered into relations with the Joint Board of Scientific Societies which had been brought into being through the initiative of the Royal Society. In the Conference which ensued (26th January 1917) seven resolutions were unanimously passed. These are printed in Appendix A together with the amendments, largely verbal, which were subsequently adopted by the Executive Committee of the Board of Scientific Studies.

While it is no part of our task to discuss the educational principles which are laid down in the resolutions, we should wish to express our complete concurrence with them, though with one reservation. Where in the "schools of the older type" mentioned in the fifth resolution the time allotted to Classics is as short as the figures given in Appendix G show that it now is, we consider that no further reduction can safely be made. We should agree with the Committee on the Neglect of Science (a body whose activities gave occasion for the Conference) that one of the aims of education is to provide a broad basis of fact as to man's environment and his relation to it. But three parts of that environment are for most of us not physical but social; and we would call attention to the declaration of the Conference that the first object of education is the training of human beings in mind and character as citizens of a free country. If this is admitted, the theoretical basis of the old quarrel is cut away and the question becomes the merely practical one of the best method of carrying this concordat into effect.

We believe that no suggestion made in the following pages for the improvement and encouragement of classical teaching is inconsistent with the resolutions; and we venture to hope that both the Humanistic and Scientific Societies collectively and their individual members will co-operate in carrying them into effect. In particular we would appeal to the large number of scientific men who are members of Governing Bodies of schools to see to it that, within the limits laid down by the resolutions, the claims of Classics as regards staffing, equipment and endowment are not ignored.

But if the accredited representatives of all branches of learning have reached an agreement on the importance of


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providing opportunity for adequate instruction in Latin and Greek for every boy and girl who is qualified to profit by them, it is not less remarkable that this point of view is strongly held by accredited representatives of the Labour party. Their witnesses told us that the Labour party was seriously concerned with the fact that in industrial districts education is too much limited to utilitarian subjects; that there is lack of opportunity for children of the working classes to get a classical education, by which many of them are well suited to benefit; and that it is therefore important that in each district one or more Secondary Schools should be in a position to provide it. They look forward, in fact, to the provision of schools which would do for the workers what Eton, Harrow and Winchester have done for other classes in the past. In particular they realise that, if Labour is to become a governing power in the country, the average worker must attain a wider outlook on the problems with which the country will be faced, and that this will best be given by the study of the Classics. They would favour the teaching of Latin and Ancient History in the Continuation Schools and Adult Classes, wherever there was a demand for it.

Lastly, we would call attention to the fact that as will be seen later (pp. 250 seq.)^ views not less strong on the value of a classical training for the learned professions and the higher branches of business and commerce have been laid before us by witnesses eminently qualified to express an opinion on the matter.

It is a great encouragement to us in our task to realise from the outset that any recommendations which we make for the maintenance and development of classical studies will have the serious consideration of the representatives of so many diverse interests. They approach the question from very different points of view and their essential agreement is the happiest omen.

THE USE AND ABUSE OF TRANSLATIONS FROM THE CLASSICS.

There remains, however, one objection commonly raised to classical studies by those who stand outside them with which we should deal before going further. It is an objection which not only is constantly urged in public by the leading critics of these studies, but is probably tacitly entertained by a very large number of persons who have never bad occasion to give serious


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consideration to the matter. Prima facie it has much plausibility and it is right that we should deal with it at some length.

"Granted the excellence of the classical literatures", it may be said, "and the importance of a knowledge of the Graeco-Roman civilisation, cannot all that is worth learning about them be obtained through translations? The literature and history of the Old Testament and still more of the New are an integral part of our national culture, though few Englishmen know Greek and still fewer know Hebrew."

Leaving the particular illustration for a moment, let us deal with the general question.

1. It is obvious, of course, that this argument leaves out of account the value of the language itself as an expression of the civilisation and national character (see pp. 13 seq.).

2. But further, we cannot admit that this claim would be generally true even of translation from a modern foreign language. In poetry no translation can really be adequate. It is indeed possible, in a sense, to transfer to another language the thought and images of a poet. And this is something: indeed in epic or dramatic, as opposed to lyrical poetry, it is much. But in no great literature is the substance separable without loss from the form in which it is expressed. They are correlative parts of the same organic whole. To hold any other view is to deny that there is such a thing as literature. Few people would seriously maintain that we can get "all we want" out of an English translation of Victor Hugo or Goethe, or a French translation of Shakespeare or Burke. But if much is lost in modern poetry or the best modern prose by recasting it in another language belonging to the same civilisation, there is a vastly greater loss in recasting the great works of Greek or Latin literature in a language so widely different from the original as English. The structure of Latin, for instance, affects the whole of Latin literature. The highly developed inflections enable the words of a sentence to be so varied in order according to differences of emphasis or meaning as would be impossible in an uninflected language like English. The syntax admits of great complexity without loss of clearness, and makes possible stately rhythms and periods which English cannot imitate. It has been said, for instance, that the i beauty of Horace's Odes lies chiefly in the order of the words and the exquisite precision of the metre. But English, being without inflections, cannot vary the order of


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its words without turning subjects into objects or verbs into adjectives or the like, and is structurally incapable of reproducing the metre. Again, the language that a great author uses determines what he can say and not merely the way in which he says it. If the language of Homer had been Latin and that of Virgil Greek, the Iliad and the Æneid would have been utterly different poems from what they are. Further, every language has its metaphors, but they are not all readily to be caught in a translation. The new language does not know them, and the translator is driven either to commentary or paraphrase or to the conversion of metaphor into simile. In either case something is lost.

This untranslatable quality, if we may use the expression, belongs, of course, most markedly to poetry and the higher type of prose, the kind of literature which aims at beauty and depends for its effect upon form. And it must be remembered that this kind of literature constitutes a far larger proportion of the whole in the remains of ancient Greece and Rome than it does in any contemporary literature. We would not say that it is impossible for any ancient poetry to be made to live again in a modern translation. There are no doubt instances to the contrary. But we would point out that such oases are only isolated tours de force and also that in them the poetry has gone through a process of re-creation in the new language rather than real translation, so that the result is no longer an equivalent or complete reproduction of the original.

3. There is more to be said for the adequacy of translations in representing books which were intended to be read, or at any rate in a particular case are read, not for their form but their subject matter. A translation of the Elements of Euclid is, for purely mathematical purposes, as good as the original Greek.* A translation of a Greek or Roman Historian may be more or less adequate on the ordinary level of the narrative, but wherever the style rises it will probably fail, and the failure will be greatest where the writer's mind is at its best. The trans-

*See, however, from Sir Thomas Heath's preface to Euclid in Greek, Book I (Cambridge, 1920):
"The aim of this book is to maintain an opinion which I have long held, that if the study of Greek and Euclid be combined by reading at least part of Euclid in the original, the two elements will help each other enormously."


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lator will go through Thucydides and Tacitus giving always something less vital than the original, less delicate, less exact, less profound.

Much the same is true of translations of philosophy. A good English translation may represent not inadequately Cicero's philosophical works, which are themselves translations or adaptations of Greek originals and often somewhat hastily written; it will he very inadequate in dealing with Plato. Even in Aristotle, where the element of beauty is not important, much difficulty is caused by the lack of exact equivalents for the Greek words. A translator is totally unable to use consistently the same English term to represent the same Greek term. He is unable, that is, to convey the exact thought which Aristotle expressed and the understanding of which is often essential to the comprehension of the whole treatise.

It may be argued here that an average student, even if he reads the original, will perhaps seldom be alive to these exact shades of meaning. He will neither feel the peculiar beauty of a Virgilian phrase nor the exact significance of an Aristotelian term. But this is much less true than at first sight appears. An average student is capable of recognising the word ποιησις if it occurs in two passages in the Poetics, though the translation will call it "making" in one and "poetry" in the other and thus obscure the connexion of thought. He is capable of feeling a beauty in "Breves et infaustos populi Romani amores", which neither he nor his master can reproduce in translation. It may need a scholarly teacher to call attention to these minutiae in the first instance, but that is all.

Let us now consider the most striking apparent exception to these generalisations. The Authorised Version of the Bible is a real English classic. In point of form and beauty the English Old Testament is perhaps almost equal to the original Hebrew, and the English New Testament actually superior to the original Greek. There appears to be the same feeling about Luther's translation in Protestant Germany, though not about the vernacular translations in Catholic countries, like France or Italy. Several causes contribute to this result.

The English translation of the Bible has become an object of great reverence. For some 90 years many of the best minds in England devoted themselves to perfecting this translation. They aimed at exact scholarship, and if in the pursuit of that


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aim they used un-English idioms or phrases that in ordinary life would have seemed uncouth or unintelligible, not only did the atmosphere of reverence surrounding the book invest these peculiarities themselves with an august quality, but pupils and class-rooms week by week for centuries occupied themselves in making the Hebrew idioms and allusions familiar to English ears. The work was completed in 1611, when the English language was perhaps for this purpose at its very highest perfection. As a translation it is often, especially in the Old Testament, inaccurate, but it was accepted with reverence from the outset and has been canonised by centuries of tradition. It never had to make those fatal compromises which are forced upon most translations. But for Homer and Virgil such conditions can never be reproduced.

Furthermore, the language of the whole of the Old Testament and the narrative parts of the New is very simple in construction. The chief difficulties in translating from the great Greek and Roman writers are not present. An ordinary Sixth Form boy, if he knows Greek at all, can pick up the Greek Gospels and translate currently as he goes; not the greatest scholar could do that with Thucydides or Tacitus.

The very superiorities of the English jNew Testament to its original confirm and illustrate the position here taken. The Greek of the New Testament, as recent discoveries have made increasingly plain, was not a high type of language. It had neither the grace of richness and precision of a writer like Plato nor the directness and raciness of common men speaking their mother tongue. It was a sort of lingua franca of the towns of Egypt and the Levant. Consequently, the Authorised Version, with its pure and beautiful Jacobean English, does not give an historically exact reproduction of its original. A student who wishes really to understand the writings of Paul or the Evangelists must go to the Greek if he is not to be misled.

We have dealt fully with the question of the use of translations, both because we believe that it is somewhat widely misunderstood and because, having once explained that translations can never be a complete substitute for original texts, we wish, subject to that ruling condition, to recommend that their use in classical education be greatly extended (p. 159). The chief necessity is the presence of a teacher who is a competent scholar and knows the text in the original.


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Such a teacher will not only correct continual misunderstandings: he will also put life and meaning into books which, just because they are translations, referring to unfamiliar conditions and expressed in slightly stiff and unnatural language, will otherwise run the risk of being both dead and meaningless. But it is also very desirable, where it is practicable, that the class which is reading a translation should have some acquaintance, however slight, with the original language. The experience of teachers in using translations goes to show that the task is immensely lightened if the class is able, on occasion, to follow the actual verbal explanation of a Greek phrase.

We have endeavoured in the preceding pages to clear the ground by setting out our view of the place that may reasonably be claimed for the Classics in a national system of education and by meeting on the threshold the objection that is most generally urged against the spending of time and labour in learning the classical languages. Our reference, however, assumes that some place should of right be conceded to the Classics. It is therefore incumbent upon lis to consider what position they do in fact at present occupy, and, if it is shown to be insecure, how it may best be strengthened and improved.



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PART I.

A. HISTORICAL SKETCH.

We have not thought it to be any part of our duty to describe in detail the history of Classical education in this country. But the present position is only intelligible in relation to the historical causes from which it has arisen. We consider it important to make this position clear in all its main features, and we propose therefore to preface our Report with a brief historical sketch dealing with education in England.* A similar sketch is prefixed to the sections below which deal with Scottish, Irish, and Welsh education (pp. 204-249).

1. MEDIÆVAL EDUCATION.

Mediaeval education came nearer in England to providing opportunities for all classes of society than anything that has since been achieved till our own day. Based upon a double tradition, that of the Roman schools of rhetoric with their preparatory schools of "grammar" - i.e., of language and literature - and that of the study of the Scriptures and the Fathers, leading up to the study of systematic theology, it was from the first in the hands of ecclesiastics and conducted wholly in Latin. Schools were normally attached to monasteries, cathedrals and collegiate churches, and there is even evidence that teaching of some sort was part of the duty of every parish priest. Education was regarded as complete when including the whole of the Seven Liberal Arts, of which the trivium covered the field of humane letters, as then understood, and the quadrivium that of the sciences.† The first of the Arts was "grammar", the essential preliminary to all the rest, and the schools in which it was taught came therefore to be known as scholae grammaticales or Grammar Schools. Thus education was brought within the reach even of the humblest in all parts

*For the substance of this sketch we are indebted to the recently published "Short History of Education" by Professor Adamson of London University.

†The trivium comprised grammar, logic and rhetoric; the quadrivium arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.


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of the country, and the career of many a mediæval ecclesiastic shows that the humblest did in fact profit by it. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the rise of the two Universities of Oxford and Cambridge added to the training in the Arts provision for a training in the three higher "Faculties" of Theology, Law, and Medicine. The object in view was the education of a class of clerici or "clerks", that, in the words of the Bidding Prayer still in use at the older Universities, "there might never be wanting a succession of persons duly qualified for the service of God in Church and State". The ideal therefore was, in modern language, that of preparation for public and professional life even more than for a life of study and research. From the twelfth century onwards the ecclesiastical foundations began to be supplemented through the foundation of "Public Grammar Schools" by gilds or municipalities or more often by individual "pious founders". These were mostly day schools. Later the College of St. Mary of Winton (1393) and the College of St. Mary of Eton (1440) were founded as "non-local", i.e. boarding schools. The close association of both with Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge is noticeable, as an indication that this type of school education was at any rate in theory preparatory to the University.

The early years of the sixteenth century saw the foundation of St. Paul's School (1509) and Corpus Christi College, Oxford (1516), the first two foundations in which provision was made for the teaching of Greek. Oldham, the co-founder with Fox of Corpus, was also the founder of Manchester Grammar School. Such foundations were the first fruits of the Renaissance in this country, and many later founders followed the example thus set. Within a hundred years the remaining six of the present older Public Schools* had come into existence, for the most part

*The dates are Shrewsbury, 1552; Westminster, 1560; Merchant Taylors', 1561; Rugby, 1567; Harrow, 1571; Charterhouse, 1612. The dates assigned to the foundation of the schools included in the Public Schools Year Book are distributed as follows:

Pre-conquest5) Almost all of16th century35
12th century3) these are in17th century9
14th century4) Cathedral or18th century2
15th century3) Abbey Towns.19th century34

There are, of course, other existing "Public" schools which might have been included in this list and many more of similar type which have ceased [Continued on page 29.


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by the liberality of private benefactors, and many of the Grammar Schools had been re-founded, nominally at any rate by the munificence of the Crown.

Greek was thus established in the Grammar Schools and the Universities. The latter have since the early part of the 16th century produced a long succession of scholars whose contributions to the advancement of our knowledge of the ancient world have bad an important influence on the character of the con- temporary teaching in the schools and consequently on the life of the nation as a whole. And this is as it should be, for when education is in a healthy condition the relations between the schools, the Universities and the nation are drawn closer. The acting of Greek and Latin plays at the Universities in the first half of the sixteenth century is not unconnected with the rapid development of the English drama in the second half.

It is not, however, easy to say how far the post-Renaissance Grammar Schools actually brought a knowledge of the Greek language within the reach of any considerable proportion of their pupils. The mere prescription in school statutes of the study of Greek is probably not conclusive evidence. That many men and some women outside the Universities were good Greek scholars may be admitted, but there is little in the literature of the age of Elizabeth and James to suggest that either the authors or their readers generally had much, if any, knowledge of the Greek language. It was on the other hand, an age of great translations; those of the Scriptures are only the most conspicuous illustrations of this fact.*

Continued from page 28.] to exist. But the figures illustrate conspicuously the arrest of development in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of which something is said below. Only one of the seventeenth century foundations is later than 1629. AVe cannot go into the obscure question how far the benefits of any of these foundations were intended to be or accidentally became accessible to girls. At Christ's Hospital at any rate (founded 1552) provision was made from the first for "mayden children" as well as boys, and so late as the Schools Inquiry Commission (1864) girls in a Lancashire Grammar School were being taught Greek alongside of boys.

*Even Sidney and Spenser got their knowledge of Plato largely from the commentary of Ficino, and Jonson and Chapman read Greek with the help of a Latin translation. North's Plutarch was of course translated from Amyot's French version.


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2. FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

One of the results of the Reformation (at any rate in England) was that ecclesiastics ceased to play as prominent a part as formerly in public life, and a demand thus arose for a type of education less predominantly clerical. The failure to meet the demand led to the increasing employment of private tutors for the education of boys of the wealthier classes who were intended, in the language of the time, to be "courtiers". Schemes for the foundation of "academies" for the education of "gentlemen who should have authority in the public weal" in what we should now call "modern" subjects had little practical result in England, though they were promoted by men like Bacon, Milton and Cowley. It should be unnecessary to say that they were essentially "humanistic" in spirit and in no way excluded the study of Greek and Latin.

Another result was that education was brought within the field of theological and political controversy. The Acts of Uniformity (1559 and 1662) and similar measures stereotyped the schools and Universities as clerical and theological institutions. It was not till 1779 that Protestant Dissenters, nor till 1791 that Roman Catholics were allowed by law to follow the teaching profession, and denominational tests were not wholly abolished in the older Universities till 1871.

Throughout the eighteenth century therefore the public schools and the Universities remained for the most part outside the movements which were preparing the way for great changes in the ecclesiastical, political, social, and economic life of the country. The Nonconformist "Academies", however, though mostly short-lived, did excellent work, not merely in training some of the best brains in the country, but in providing a liberal type of education more in harmony with the needs of the professional, commercial, or industrial life of the rising middle class, from which most of their pupils were drawn. Many of them continued to do good work till far on into the nineteenth century. Nor must the influence of theoretical reformers like John Locke in liberalising the traditional curriculum be overlooked. But the Grammar Schools and the Universities remained untouched by any liberalising movement; by the latter half of the eighteenth century their teaching had to a great extent become purely


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traditional and formal, and they were rapidly losing their hold on the national life.

The scope of classical studies in the Grammar Schools and Universities was also becoming narrower, and the excessive attention that has been paid in the last 100 years to verbal scholarship in other languages besides Greek and Latin may be traced back to the influence of Porson at Cambridge. The narrower and more specialised view of scholarship taken by critics of his school, as compared with that taken a century or so before, though in itself productive of much immediate advantage, has yet helped to discredit classical learning in the eyes of the public at large. The great scholars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were often active in other fields besides that of classical learning. Linacre, the first great name in the history of modern English scholarship, was also founder of the College of Physicians, and men like Savile, Selden, and Bentley were very far from being mere pedants. But while the Classics, if little else, continued to be taught throughout the period which we are considering in the schools frequented by the children of the governing classes, it is not easy to estimate how far, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the first third of the nineteenth, the average public schoolboy, when he became a country squire or a professional man, retained any continuous knowledge of the Classics or derived any pleasure from them.

That a familiar knowledge of Greek was confined to relatively few persons outside the Universities may be taken as certain. Dr. Johnson's saying: "Greek, sir, is like lace: a man gets as much of it as he can" illustrates the point. There are, of course, exceptions, and among them some of the most famous names in English statesmanship. But we are aware of no evidence of the existence at this or any other time of a golden age in which the ordinary schoolboy had learnt nearly as much Greek as he had Latin. Latin on the other hand had a predominant influence on the literature of the eighteenth century, and the ordinary Latin authors must have been tolerably familiar to all educated men. The frequency in that age of classical quotations in Parliament may serve as a rough indication of the state of things; for Parliamentary orators who quoted the classics to a House of Commons composed mostly of country squires would not have done so unless they had expected their point to be taken; and these quotations include not only


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Virgil, Horace and Juvenal, but also Silius Italicus and Claudian.* The practice, used often with admirable effect by the two Pitts, Fox, Canning and Peel, was continued to recent times by Gladstone, and less devoted students of the Classics, such as O'Connell and Disraeli, did not disdain it on occasion. But with the Reform Act of 1832 it began to dwindle and may now be regarded as extinct.

The interest of the English nobility and gentry of the age of Dryden, Pope and their successors was not, however, confined to the literature of the Classics. To the seventeenth century and the early years of the eighteenth we owe the famous collections made by the Earl of Arundel, the Earl of Pembroke, and Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester. The journey to Greece and the Levant of Spon and Wheler (1678) led various young noblemen to extend their grand tour to these regions. Towards the middle of the eighteenth century Stuart and Revett made the journey to Greece which resulted in their famous work on the Antiquities of Athens. It was the publication of this book which stimulated the Society of Dilettanti (founded in 1732 by some "gentlemen who had travelled in Italy") to send out successive expeditions to Greece and Asia Minor, and to record the results in the series of volumes on the Antiquities of Ionia, of which the first appeared in 1790. The Elgin Marbles were brought to England in 1815. "In promoting the regular search for such antiquities and thus laying the foundations of what we now call the science of Greek Archaeology, England may fairly claim to have taken a lead among the nations of Europe."†

It is also perhaps worth noticing that the practice of employing Latin as an "international language" in documents addressed to the learned or official world lasted at least down to the date of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), which was drafted in Latin. Newton's Prinicipia was published in 1686. The practice of writing school grammars and annotating classical texts in Latin has become extinct in this country only within living memory.

3. FROM 1800 TO 1902

(a) The older Universities and the Public Schools. With the nineteenth century the current of reform began to flow.

*See Lord Curzon's Modern Parliamentary Eloquence: Rede Lecture, 1913, page 8.

History of the Society of Dilettanti (1898), by Lionel Cust, page 69.


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Oxford* in 1800 established a system of written examinations for the B.A. degree, and Cambridge in 1824 the Classical Tripos. It is also noticeable that even before the University Commission of 1850 Cambridge had established two and Oxford four non-classical Honour Examinations. In the Public Schools two Head Masters, themselves distinguished classics, showed similar breadth of view. Butler at Shrewsbury had made English, and Arnold at Rugby Modern History and Foreign Languages a regular part of the curriculum of their schools. But elsewhere obstacles were thrown in the way of such reforms by decisions of the Court of Chancery in 180H and 1826 that the funds of Grammar Schools could only be expended in instruction in the "learned languages". Mathematics did not become a regular subject at Eton till 1851. A great step forward was taken by the foundation in the middle of the century of a group of schools which, though now ranking as Public, were originally Proprietary Schools.† These schools, while maintaining a close connexion with the Universities and other Public Schools, from which their first Head Masters were drawn, added to the old Classical curriculum many of those modern subjects the demand for which had previously been supplied mainly by private schools. It was in schools of this type that the "modern side" was first evolved.

*It should not be forgotten that George I. founded Chairs of Modern History at both Universities in 1724, that the Senate House Examination (in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy) was established at Cambridge in 1789, and that nearly 20 chairs, mostly in scientific and mathematical subjects, were founded at Oxford and Cambridge during the eighteenth century, often with the active co-operation of the leading classical scholars of the Universities, Thus Bentley at Cambridge fitted up a chemical laboratory in Trinity College for Vigani, who was appointed Professor of Chemistry in 1702, and Wallis, Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford, was a distinguished classical scholar. Isaac Barrow was Professor at Cambridge successively of Greek and of Mathematics. In fact, the "New Philosophy", which claimed Bacon and Galileo as its parents and the principles of which the Royal Society (founded in 1662) was designed to promote, led to a good deal of private study at the Universities and else- where of natural philosophy, mathematics, and kindred subjects (see Adamson, page 181 seq.). Such subjects were, however, not yet recognised as a normal part of the University or school curriculum. For Mathematics and Modern Studies in the schools of that period see Adamson, pages 221: seq. and 315 seq.

†Cheltenham, 1841; Marlborough, 1843; Haileybury 1862; Clifton 1862; Malvern, 1865, &c.


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(b) The Modern Universities and University Colleges. Meanwhile the foundation in 1828 on a strictly undenominational basis of what has now become University College, London, provided a teaching "institution of University rank", to use the modern phrase, free from all restriction of tests. A little later the examinations of London University, which obtained its charter in 1836, and particularly its matriculation examination, began to exercise a predominant influence on the curricula and teaching in most of these schools which had no close connexion with Oxford and Cambridge. Though both Greek and Latin were required for London matriculation till 1873 and Latin till 1902, the fact that the examination was largely used as a "leaving examination" for the children of the middle classes is a sufficient indication that other subjects were not ignored. In the first instance only pupils of King's and University Colleges were admitted to the London examinations. The curricula of both these Colleges always included scientific as well as literary subjects.

The University of Durham obtained its charter in 1837. In its original conception it followed closely the lines of Oxford University. ]t was partly endowed out of the funds of the See and Chapter of Durham.

University Colleges also began to spring up in other great centres of population.* Originating in local needs and supported largely by local benefactions, they were naturally closely associated with local industries and from the first laid stress upon the study of mathematical, scientific, and modern subjects. All of them were on an undenominational basis.

(c) The University, Public Schools and Schools Inquiry Commissions. Voluntary action of this kind was accompanied by similar action in Parliament. The University Commissioners of 1850 and 1877 made provision at Oxford and Cambridge for the endowment of modern subjects as regards both teachers and scholars, removed practically all obligations to take orders in the Church of England, and did much to make the Universities accessible to persons of the male sex from all classes of the

*Owens College, 1851; Yorkshire College, Leeds, 1874; Bristol, 1876; Firth College, Sheffield, 1879; Mason College, Birmingham, 1880; Notting- ham, 1881; Liverpool, 1882; Reading, 1892; Southampton, 1902. Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, had been in existence for some years before it was in 1871 affiliated to Durham University.


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community. On the recommendation of the Public Schools Commission of 1861 and the Schools Inquiry Commission of 1864 modern subjects were introduced into the curricula of a very large number of schools.

(d) Competition of the Grammar Schools with (i) the newer Public Schools. On the whole, it may be said that by the end of the nineteenth century, while the teaching of modern subjects was everywhere spreading, the general tendency was to liberalise curricula on reasonable lines, which would not necessarily impair the secure position of the Classics in their hereditary homes. It must, however, be noted that the increasing popularity of schools of the Public School type and the growing belief that something of unique value - a creation largely of the great Head Masters of the middle and end of the century - could only be obtained in a few of the schools of the country, which were all boarding schools, tended to undermine the position of the old local Grammar Schools. Many of these, as the Reports of the .Schools Inquiry Commission of 1864 and the Bryce Commission of 1895 amply proved, had fallen into grave financial embarrassment, while others for various reasons had ceased to discharge any useful purpose. The newer Public Schools, charging comparatively low fees and being, thanks to the railways, easily accessible, attracted the children of professional men of moderate means, who in an earlier generation would have attended the local Grammar School. And further, all the schools which by common opinion were included in the category of "Public Schools" in the modern and restricted sense of the term, began in the last quarter of the nineteenth century to be used in increasing numbers by the sons of wealthier parents of the classes engaged in commerce and industry. Since these were in less close touch and sympathy with the old classical tradition, the modern sides in many of the Public Schools were beginning to compete in numbers with the classical sides, though they were as a rule on a lower level as regards both intellectual attainment and general prestige. On modern sides, however, Latin continued to be, and still is, generally taught.*

(ii) Schools earning Grant for Science and Art. About the same time another cause began to impair still further the position

*A powerful impulse to the development of modern studies in these Schools was given by the publication in 1867 of Essays on a Liberal Education, edited by the Rev. F. W. Farrar.


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of Classics in the local Grammar Schools. Towards the middle of the century a demand had arisen for some public provision for technical education, and as years went on the social and economic situation made this demand increasingly urgent. Government grants for Science and Art began to be given to schools in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, and these were supplemented later on under the Technical Instruction Act of 1889 and other Acts by aid from the local rates. It is true that the term "technical" was liberally interpreted and came to include many subjects comprised in a general education, but, as grants were in practice restricted to schools known specifically as "organised Science Schools", it did not cover the study of the classical languages.* Many of the local Grammar Schools had incurred under the Endowed Schools Act new responsibilities which their financial position made it difficult for them to meet. They were accordingly forced to seek assistance and, however reluctantly, to weight the scales in favour of subjects on which grants could be earned. Classical teaching tended therefore in these schools to drop back or altogether to disappear. We desire to emphasise the fact that this was the direct result of the special privileges accorded to other subjects. Moreover, the establishment, as the result of the Technical Instruction Acts, of a considerable number of Technical Schools of various types tended and perhaps still tends to draw away promising pupils from the Grammar and Secondary Schools. On the other hand it is fair to say that in some neighbourhoods the existence of a Technical School or Institution has resulted in the development of a School with a full secondary curriculum.

(e) Effect of the Elementary Education Acts. Meanwhile the great movement in favour of universal elementary education, which as an organised force dates back at least to the foundation of the National Society in 1811 and of the British

*The Schools receiving grants came eventually to be classified as "A" and "B" Schools. In schools of the first class not less than 13 hours a week was allotted to Science (including not more than 5 hours to Mathematics), and not less than 10 hours to other approved subjects, which must include English and at least one other language. In schools of the second class not less than 9 hours must be allotted to Science (including not more than 5 hours to Mathematics).
Schools of the first class had previously taught little but Science and Mathematics; in those of the second class Science was now often introduced for the first time.


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and Foreign School Society in 1814, had culminated in the Acts of 1870, 1880, and 1891, which established a national system of free and compulsory elementary education. The further education of the best pupils produced by this system consequently became a matter of urgency. The first attempt to solve the problem naturally look the form of providing a higher type of vocational education, and the upper forms in many of the Higher Grade Board Schools became either Organised Science Schools or Secondary Day Schools earning a corresponding grant.

We cannot refrain from pointing out that during the last quarter of the nineteenth century practically nothing was done by authority to encourage higher literary education in this country. Science received encouragement and assistance which were no doubt overdue, but literary studies, whether classical or modern, were neglected. This neglect has had as its result that it is now much harder, save in certain favoured districts, for an elementary school child of literary promise to receive the full literary training for which he may be eminently fit than for him to receive advanced scientific training, should his gifts lie in that direction.

(f) Education of Girls and Women. Girls had not been entirely debarred from the benefits even of mediæval foundations, and the higher education of women and girls had held a conspicuous place in the writings of educational reformers in this country and abroad at least since the time of Locke. But the last half of the nineteenth century saw a great development of this movement. It is not perhaps necessary for our purpose to sketch its history in the same detail as we have sketched the contemporary history of boys' education. It began with a scheme privately initiated to issue diplomas on the result of examinations to women found qualified to undertake teaching work, mostly as private governesses, and from the nature of the case was largely concerned with admissions to existing examinations. With the assistance of some of the Professors of King's College, classes for women were started at Queen's College, Halley Street, in 1848; among the first pupils were Frances Mary Buss and Dorothea Beale. Bedford College was founded, with the support of University College, in 1849. Three other Colleges for Women, all in connexion with London University, have since been founded; Westfield College in 1882, Holloway College in 1886, and King's College for Women in 1902.


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In 1869 a College was opened at Hitchin by private initiative, in which Miss Emily Davies played a conspicuous part, with the object of preparing women for the Cambridge degree courses. It was removed to Girton in 1873. In 1869 the University of London instituted an examination for women, and in the same year Cambridge, which had admitted girls to its Senior Local Examinations in 1865, established a "Higher Local Examination", designed expressly for women. Lectures given at Cambridge in connexion with this examination led to the foundation in 1880 of Newnham College. At Oxford Lady Margaret College was opened in 1878 and Somerville in 1879; these were followed by the foundation of St. Hugh's College in 1886 and Si. Hilda's in 1893.

Cambridge admitted women informally to Tripos examinations in 1872, and formally in 1881; Oxford took the first steps in the same direction in 1884. The London examinations for women were abolished in 1878, when the degrees were opened to them. Women have from the first been admitted to the degrees of all the modern Universities, and the Oxford degrees were thrown open to them in 1920.

The establishment of the London Colleges soon led to steps being taken to improve the education of girls while still of school age. The INorth London Collegiate School was opened in 1850 and Cheltenham Ladies' College in 1854. Their success and example led to the formation in 1873 of the Girls' Public Day School Trust, which now owns 25 High Schools distributed over different parts of the country.

It should, however, be noticed that this voluntary activity, important and successful as its results were, hardly professed to do more than make provision for the better education of girls of the upper social classes or of those who could afford a University course. No formal provision was made out of public money for the higher education of girls till after the Education Act of 1902. But the surplus funds of many Foundation Schools had been devoted by scheme before that date to the establishment of Girls' Schools, many of which have since come into existence.

4. FROM 1902 TO 1914.

(a) Work of (i) the Board of Education; (ii) the Local Education Authorities. The Bryce Commission of 1895 was


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instructed to make recommendations for the establishment of a well-organised system of Secondary Education in England. Its recommendations, so far as they were accepted, were embodied in the Board of Education Act, 1899, and the Education Act, 1902. The former established a Central Authority administer- ing the Government grants.* The latter constituted the County and County Borough Councils as the Local Education Authorities administering the local grants, including what is known as the "whisky money,"† and charged with the duty of aiding, supplying and co-ordinating education in their respective areas.

Both bodies alike were confronted in the first instance with the problem of providing and staffing a sufficient number of new Secondary Schools. As the result of their efforts some 500 new "Provided" Schools have come into existence in England and Wales since 1902, and the number is increasing and will continue to increase. Such schools could, however, at first be created in many parts of the country only by taking over bodily some of the existing Higher Grade and Higher Elementary Schools with their staffs.‡ From the nature of the case there could be little provision in these schools for the teaching of Classics, with which the teachers were for the most part unfamiliar. Even where it was possible to start entirely fresh, the fact that the bulk of the pupils entered the Secondary School late and left it after a year or two to go to work made it difficult even for a competent and willing staff to do much teaching of the Classics. No one therefore need be surprised if in such schools a classical tradition has been slow to establish itself. Even in the three years ending July 31st, 1912, the average school life after 12 years of age in Grant-earning Schools in England and Wales was for boys only

*It should be mentioned that the Board from the first abandoned the old practice of making grants for specific subjects and pays grant on the same scale to all schools with an approved curriculum which accept the full conditions. The recently established grants for Advanced Courses imply however some departure from this practice

†The "whisky money" was that portion of the Customs and Excise duties which under the. Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act of 1890 was handed over to the County Councils, who might, after providing for other purposes, expend it on technical education.

‡There are now some 500 Secondary Schools "provided" by Local Education Authorities, of which about 70 were taken over from the old School Boards.


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2 years 8 months and for girls 2 years 10 months; the average leaving age was for boys 15 years 7 months, for girls 16 years.

An equally inevitable result of the situation as it has developed since 1902 is that a considerable number of the old local Grammar Schools have come wholly or in part under the control of the Local Education Authorities.* Circumstances, generally financial, have made it necessary for them to seek grants from the Board or the Local Education Authority or both, and these grants have been given only on conditions which in many cases proved unfavourable to the maintenance of what was often a long-established classical tradition. It may be conceded that these schools are in many respects better equipped, better staffed, and more efficient than they were, and provide education for a much larger number of pupils drawn from a far wider range of population. On the other hand it must be said that many of them which used to teach Greek no longer do so, and that even Latin is suffering unduly from the competition of modern and scientific subjects. Thus a number of children who might profit by a classical education are deprived of the chance of obtaining it.

(b) Growth of the Modern Universities. One further feature in the situation as it existed at the beginning of the war remains to be noticed. Most of the University Colleges mentioned above had by 1914 received charters as Universities. These new Universities are in no sense hostile to Classics; indeed all of them require Latin (sometimes with the option of Greek) as one of the subjects for the degree in Arts, and during recent years they have shown an increasing sympathy with classical study. But on the whole, the scientific and modern studies pursued in them have not unnaturally met with readier support locally, and the full provision needed for the best classical teaching has been slow in coming.

5. FROM 1914 TO 1920.

(a) The Education Act of 1918. - It remains to mention briefly certain steps which have been taken during and to some extent in consequence of the war. Principal among these is the

*Fifty-seven schools now on the Grant list have been "municipalised", but there is in addition a very large number of Grammar Schools for which the Local Education Authorities accept the ultimate financial responsibility.


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Education Act of 1918. For our purpose the most important of its provisions is that which requires at least part-time attendance at school up to 16 and eventually up to 18 years of age. As this provision comes into operation, it will be much more worth while to introduce or retain Classics as a regular subject in the Secondary School curriculum, especially since it has been generally agreed that the age for transfer from the Elementary to the Secondary School should be not later than from 11 to 12. Moreover, the Act makes the Local Education Authority responsible for providing for "the progressive development and comprehensive organisation of education" within its area, and incidentally therefore, it may be assumed, for the provision where desirable of opportunities for classical education. The provisions for Continuation part-time schools open out further possibilities.

(b) Advanced Courses. In 1917 the Board of Education issued their scheme for the subsidising of Advanced Courses in Grant-earning Schools, one of these courses being in Classics. Such courses extend over two years and are intended for pupils between the ages of 16 and 18. We shall discuss later the important questions that arise in connexion with this scheme (pp. 63 seq.),

(c) Organisation of Examinations. About the same time the Board, with the assistance of the Examinations Council, developed their scheme for the organisation of examinations in Secondary Schools. Tn the result, the work of almost all Secondary Schools of whatever type in England and Wales is now tested by one or other of eight approved "First" or School Certificate Examinations. For the Public Schools this means that in the middle and lower forms more attention will be paid to Science and Mathematics than has sometimes been the case hitherto, and many of them are being reorganised accordingly. For some at any rate of the Secondary Schools it means that more attention will be paid to languages, among which Latin and Greek should find their place. But the point of cardinal importance is that the ordinary pupil (boy or girl) in a school of either type, whether coming from a Preparatory or from a Public Elementary School, will be submitted at about 16 to approximately the same test of general education, and will not in normal cases begin to specialise, whether in Science or in Modern Subjects or in Classics, till that stage is passed. For pupils of 18 a similar


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group of "Second" or Higher Certificate Examinations has been approved.*

(d) State Scholarships. Finally, in 1920 the Board of Education issued their Regulations for the award of State Scholarships tenable by pupils from Grant-aided Schools at Universities and other approved places of higher education. Under this scheme 200 such scholarships were awarded in 1920. The scholarships were awarded on the results of the approved "Second" or Higher Certificate Examinations and on the recommendation of the Examining Bodies, each Examining Body being invited to recommend for election a number of candidates proportionate to the total number of candidates in all subjects who were entered for the examination held by them. The Examining Bodies were, however, requested, so far as the performance of the candidates allowed, to recommend an equal number of boys and of girls. No restriction was imposed on the subjects that might be offered for examination; i.e., the scholarships could, subject to the regulations of the Examining Bodies, be awarded to candidates whose main subject was either Classics or Modern Studies or Mathematics and Science. We shall consider later the probable effect of these State Scholarships on classical studies (p. 78). For the present it is sufficient to notice that in 1920 all but 15 of the 200 scholarships were allotted to candidates who offered subjects other than Classics.

6. SUMMARY.

It is clear that in the last twenty years great progress has been made in many directions. With regard, however, to the Classics, if the situation in 1900 is compared with that of 1920, there is ground for grave misgiving. Twenty years ago, though the Classics as a whole no longer occupied their old privileged and protected position, their study was not yet seriously threatened. But at the present time the situation is very different.

At the older Universities, although the number of under- graduates reading for Classical Honours has not diminished, it has failed to increase relatively to the total increase of students. The newer Universities have so far not been able to do much to redress the balance. Greek is now optional for matriculation at all Universities. In the Public Schools comparatively few boys

*For details of both these examinations, see pp. 86 seq.


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are learning Greek, and even Latin, though still generally taught in middle and lower forms, tends more and more to be dropped higher up. None of the new Provided Schools has yet been able to develop a classical tradition and few of them teach Greek.* Though Classics still flourish in some of the Grammar Schools in the great towns, this is not universally the case, while in most of the country Grammar Schools they have sunk to the position which they occupy in the Provided Schools. In few of the Girls' Schools is the position of Classics satisfactory, and very little Greek is taught in most of them. The danger with which we are faced is not that too many pupils will learn Latin and Greek but that the greater part of the educated men and women of the nation will necessarily grow up in ignorance of the foundations on which European society is built.

It remains to substantiate this summary statement by actual figures. In considering them two things should be borne in mind. The number of pupils learning Latin and Greek in the schools is some indication of the contribution that the Classics will make in the next generation to the national life, and the standard reached by them is some indication of the effectiveness of this contribution. The number of students of the Classics in the Universities is in addition an indication of the advance that may be looked for in classical learning, but it is perhaps even more important because from this source alone can the teachers of Classics in the schools be drawn.

B. STATISTICS ILLUSTRATING THE PRESENT POSITION.

1. BOYS' SCHOOLS.

We addressed a questionnaire in February 1920 to 788 Boys' Schools of the Head Masters' Conference and of the Head Masters' Association (including many mixed schools) and received replies from 612 (containing 160,149 pupils). Of these, 161 (containing 56,804 pupils) teach both Latin and Greek, and 360 (containing 86,929 pupils) teach only Latin as a regular part of the curriculum. On the other hand, in 91 schools (containing 16,416 pupils) neither language is taught. Accordingly, 10 per cent, of all the pupils are in schools which make no provision for teaching either language and a further 54 per cent, are in schools which make no provision for the teaching of Greek.

*In 1917-18 Greek was being taught in 33 out of a total of 414 Provided Schools.


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But some of these pupils may be learning one or both of them as extra subjects out of school hours or by special permission for a definite purpose and in lieu of another subject.

The number of pupils learning Greek is 7,047 (or 4.4 per cent.), viz., 5,275 pupils (in 146 schools) in forms up to the stage of a First Examination, and 1,772 pupils (in 125 schools) in forms beyond that stage. The number of pupils learning Latin is 70,946 (or 44.3 per cent.), viz., 66,956 pupils (in 518 schools) and 3,990 pupils (in 260 schools) at each of the two stages.

As regards Latin it may be said that the situation, taking the schools as a whole, is fairly steady, the schools in which the number of pupils taking it is decreasing being almost exactly balanced by those in which it is increasing. But in 90 of the 161 schools in which Greek is taught the number learning it is decreasing.

When it is remembered that the figures include all the Public Schools in England, Scotland, L*eland and Wales which are members of the Head Masters' Conference, it will be realised that the situation which they disclose is disquieting.

2. GIRLS' SCHOOLS.

A similar questionnaire was addressed to 396 Girls' Schools represented on the Head Mistresses' Association and replies were received from 343. Of these 343 schools 83 (containing 27,579 pupils) teach both Latin and Greek, 233 (containing 67,484 pupils) teach Latin only, and 27 (containing 6,435 pupils) teach neither. That is, some 6 per cent, of the pupils are in Schools which make no provision for teaching either of the Classical languages, and a further 67 per cent, are in schools which make no provision for Greek.

The number of pupils learning Greek is 451 (or 0.4 per cent.) viz., 240 pupils (in 51 schools) in forms up to the stage of a First Examination, and 211 pupils (in 60 schools) in forms beyond that stage. The number of pupils learning Latin is 27,641 (or 27.5 per cent.) viz., 25,585 pupils (in 313 schools) and 2,056 pupils (in 231 schools) at each stage.

In the great majority of Girls' Schools the number of pupils taking Latin is returned as increasing or steady, and the same is true of Greek. It must, however, be remembered that at the time our questionnaire was issued the effect of the abolition of compulsory Greek at Oxford and Cambridge had not begun to be felt, but it was generally expected to be serious.


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From the figures given it appears that out of 260,647 pupils in all these schools (boys', girls', and mixed) only 7,498 (or 2.8 per cent.) are learning Greek and only 6,046 (or 2.3 per cent.) are carrying Latin beyond the First Examination stage. It is fair, however, to point out that a number of these schools contain Preparatory and even Kindergarten departments, the pupils in which, though included in the returns, are below the age at which Latin is ordinarily begun.*

On the other hand it should be remembered that even where Latin or Greek or both are taught to pupils above this age, the study of them is not necessarily carried by those learning them through the whole of their school course, A more accurate impression of the number of pupils seriously studying either language can be formed from the statistics of those offering them for a "First" or "Second" Examination (see p. 47).

Some of the figures in the last few paragraphs are summarised in the following tables:

TABLE A.

TABLE B.

*In 1919 the percentage of pupils in Grant-earning Schools who were below the age of 12 was 29.3 per cent.


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3. SCHOOLS PROVIDED BY LOCAL EDUCATION AUTHORITIES.

A further questionnaire addressed to Local Education Authorities (i.e.j to the Education Committees of County Councils and County Borough Councils) in England and Wales furnished us with information which supplements as regards Provided schools that given in the previous sections. Whilst it is known that in October 1919 there were about 450 provided Secondary Schools in England, returns were only forthcoming as regards 358 of them. Among them were 120 schools in which there was at least one teacher capable of giving instruction in Latin only, and 224 schools in which there was a teacher capable of giving instruction both in Latin and in Greek.

From the information supplied to us by the Authorities it appears that in most areas the number of boys and of girls learning Latin has increased in the last few years. This increase is, however, small in proportion to the increase in the total number of pupils between the ages of 12 and 18 in Provided Schools.* Below the age of 12 Latin cannot be generally begun in schools of this type. There is not sufficient evidence to show whether there has been a corresponding increase in the number of pupils learning Greek, though we know from other sources that in one area at least it has increased.

It is perhaps desirable to point out that it is with the schools provided and maintained by the Local Education Authorities that the future of national education lies. Their number is

*From the following table it will be seen that the average increase of such pupils in all Provided Schools taken together between the years 1913 and 1919 was 29 per cent, boys and 35 per cent, girls on the average number in the earlier year.


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likely to be considerably increased in the immediate future and to continue to grow with the growth of population and the lengthening of school life. No similar increase is to be looked for in schools of the older type, while the process which has transferred many of the old Grammar Schools to the provided . list threatens to end before very long in their complete absorption. It should also be noted that in some areas schools which, though not maintained, are aided by the Local Authority are required to accept the same conditions of staffing as are imposed on the Provided Schools, so far at least as the proportion of teachers to pupils is concerned. The importance therefore of the attitude of the Local Education Authorities towards classical education is paramount.

4. "FIRST" EXAMINATIONS.

In 1919 the total number of candidates who entered for an approved "First Examination" was 28,472. Of these 10,102 (or 35 per cent.) offered Latin and 1,215 (or 4 per cent.) offered Greek. Of those offering Greek 865 were candidates for the Certificate of the Oxford and Cambridge Joint Board, i.e., were for the most part pupils from schools which maintain a close connexion with the older Universities.

In 1920 the total number of candidates was 31,774, of whom 11,216 (or 35 per cent.) offered Latin and 1,367 (or 4 per cent.) Greek. Of those offering Greek 962 were candidates for the Joint Board Certificate.

It is clear, therefore, that in 1919 only about one candidate in three offered Latin and only about one in 24 offered Greek, while in 1920 the proportion was in both cases the same. It must be remembered, however, that in those years many of the schools had not yet completely recovered from the dislocation due to the war, and also that candidates do not necessarily offer for the Certificate Examinations the whole of the subjects which they are taught at school.

5. "SECOND" EXAMINATIONS.

In 1919 the total number of candidates entered for a "Second" Examination was 2,058. Of these 411 offered Classics (i.e., both Latin and Greek) as their main subject; 347 were from schools examined by the Oxford and Cambridge Joint Board, i.e., generally speaking from the Public Schools.


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In addition 256 offered Latin and 17 Greek as "subsidiary" subjects, and 114 offered Latin as a main subject in the Modern Studies Group.

In 1920 the number of candidates was 3,147, of whom 476 offered Classics, 482 "subsidiary" Latin, and 29 "subsidiary" Greek, while 146 other candidates offered Latin as a main subject in the Modern Studies Group. Of those offering Classics 411 were from schools examined by the Joint Board.

The number of boys in the Classical Sixths of the Public Schools is actually very much greater than these figures imply. On the other hand the small number of candidates in Classics from schools not examined by the Oxford and Cambridge Joint Board is further proof of the small amount of advanced work in Classics that is done in the Secondary as contrasted with the Public Schools.

6. ADVANCED COURSES.

The number of Advanced Courses at present recognised in all subjects is 385, of which 35 are in Classics, 142 in Modern Studies, 208 in Mathematics and Science. Of the courses in Classics 24 are in large town Day Schools, most of these schools being of ancient, but a few of modern foundation. Eleven are in smaller Grammar Schools which, being largely boarding schools, are for this reason generally less accessible to the children of poorer parents. Only two Girls' Schools have a Classical Advanced Course. We were informed that in 1919-20 the approximate number of pupils in the Classical Courses was, 1st year pupils, 129 boys, 11 girls; 2nd year pupils, 141 boys, 2 girls. A glance at Appendix B will show that there are wide areas (such as the Eastern and Southern Counties) and large centres of population (such as Newcastle, Hull, and Portsmouth) in which no Advanced Course in Classics is recognised. Generally speaking such a course is found only in schools of ancient foundation which, however much their curriculum has been liberalised, still retain something of the tradition of the schola grammaticalis.

There are, of course, other Grant-earning Schools which without having an Advanced Course yet do advanced work in Classics and even prepare successfully for Classical Scholarships, and some others do good work in Latin, though they teach no Greek.


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7. STATE SCHOLARSHIPS.

One further piece of evidence may be adduced from the schools. A.S already stated (p. 42), the number of State Scholar- ships awarded in 1920 to pupils whose main subject was Classics was much smaller than that of those awarded for other subjects. The actual figures are as follows:

England.

Wales.

It must however be observed that in 1920, owing to the fact that very short notice was given of the awards, many schools were unable to enter candidates. Some pupils thus precluded from competing might, if they had been able to enter, have been successful in Classics.

8. COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS AT OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

All our witnesses who have dealt with the subject are unanimous on the immense influence exercised by the award of Classical Scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge in creating and maintaining a classical tradition in the schools. This influence is most continuous in the Public Schools, but it may be hardly less strong in schools not so closely connected with the older Universities. If such a school is successful, though only occasionally, in winning a scholarship, this does more than anything else to secure in it a constant, if small, supply of pupils who from the first take Classics seriously.


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(a) Oxford.

According to figures which must not be regarded as official and are not quite complete, at Oxford in the years 1906-1915 a total of 1,777 Scholarships and Exhibitions was awarded, of which 1,062 were awarded for Classics (676 Scholarships and 386 Exhibitions). These figures are consistent with those given in Lord Curzon's "Principles and Methods of University Reform" (p. 77), published in 1909, which stated the average number of annual elections to open Classical Scholarships at Oxford to be 75 and the average number of annual elections to Exhibitions to be 30. These last figures may be assumed to be official, so far as any general statement is possible where the facts vary from year to year. According to a return made to the Hebdomadal Council for the year 1911-12 (the last year for which the figures are available), out of 177 open Scholarships and Exhibitions awarded in all subjects, 62 Scholarships and 30 Exhibitions were awarded for Classics and one Scholarship and one Exhibition for Classics and History. Out of 75 Scholarships and Exhibitions with some limitations as regards birth or place of education, 28 Scholarships and 21 Exhibitions were awarded for Classics and one Exhibition for Classics and English.

(b) Cambridge.

At Cambridge during the same period the total number of first awards, both Scholarships and Exhibitions, is stated to have been 1,703, of which 64l were awarded for Classics (415 Scholar- ships and 226 Exhibitions). These figures take no account of the awards made, according to the Cambridge practice, to under- graduates already in residence.* The number of annual awards in Classics at Cambridge fluctuates more than at Oxford, as the Cambridge Colleges, unlike many of those at Oxford, do not offer beforehand a specific number of awards in different subjects, and it would therefore be unprofitable to attempt to arrive at the annual average.

There is no doubt that a large proportion of these awards at both Universities fall to candidates from the Public Schools.†

*Owing to the fact that some Colleges appear not to publish their results regularly in the Cambridge Reporter these figures are incomplete and probably considerably below the mark.

†The following statistics are based on figures published early in 1921 in the Oxford Magazine and the Cambridge Review:
At Oxford out of 101 Scholarships and Exhibitions awarded in December 1920 and January 1921 in all subjects, 25 were won by pupils in Grant- [Continued on next page.


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We have not thought it desirable to undertake the very extensive inquiry necessary to ascertain what number of them during the whole period in question fell to candidates from Grant-earning Schools, and still less what number fell to candidates who had received their early education in Public Elementary Schools. A large proportion of them are known, from the information which we have received, to have gone to candidates from schools of the Head Masters' Conference, but even in 1906 several of the Conference schools were in receipt of grant and the number had increased considerably by 1915. Nor is the Conference itself a stable body, as the main condition of membership has been the existence of a certain number of old pupils of the school in residence at Oxford or Cambridge, and there may be therefore constant accessions to or even removals from its membership. It would accordingly have been necessary to follow up the antecedents of successful candidates over a series of years, and the result would probably have been merely to confirm by statistics what is generally known, that so far as the award of Classical Scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge acts as an inducement to the serious study of Classics in the schools, the inducement operates most strongly in schools of the Public School type

9. CLASSICAL EXAMINATIONS AT OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

Oxford and Cambridge encourage the study of Classics as a University subject mainly through the medium of their Classical Honour Schools. These are at Cambridge the two parts of the Classical Tripos and at Oxford Classical Honour Moderations (an examination mainly in classical literature and scholarship) and the school of Literæ Humaniores. Literæ Humaniores, though ordinarily reckoned as a classical school and requiring a knowledge of both Greek and Latin, is a School of Philosophy and Ancient History based upon a study of classical texts; but in Philosophy at any rate it includes a survey of the whole

Continued from previous page.] earning Schools and 76 by pupils in schools not earning grant. Of 62 successful schools 36 gained one Scholarship or Exhibition each.
At Cambridge out of 191 Scholarships and Exhibitions awarded in 1920 in all subjects, 76 were won by pupils in Grant-earning Schools and 115 by pupils in schools not earning grant. Of 89 successful schools, 42 gained one Scholarship or Exhibition each. King's College awarded one Scholarship in Greek, apparently without Latin.


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subject down to the most recent date. It may be assumed that all Classical Scholars and Exhibitioners still normally take the first of these schools at their respective Universities.

We have seen that the average number of Classical Scholars and Exhibitioners annually elected at Oxford is something over 100. The total number of candidates for Classical Moderations in the years indicated was as follows:

1904216, including 10 women.
1912157, including 9 women.
1913204, including 8 women.
1914185, including 7 women.
1921183, including 14 women.

The figures indicate that since 1904 there has been a decline in the number of candidates other than Scholars and Exhibitioners who enter for the school. But this merely means that those men whose classical attainments are weakest have been diverted to the study of other subjects, probably to their own profit and certainly with little or no loss to the cause of Classics.

The number of students taking the school of Literæ Humaniores remains fairly steady at about 150 a year, and the school is at least as attractive as it ever was to most of the ablest undergraduates, although the numbers entering for it may be affected by the establishment of the new school of Philosophy, Politics and Economics, for which Greek will not be required. It is however probable that an increasing, though still small, proportion of those who now take Literæ Humaniores have not first taken Classical Honour Moderations.

At Cambridge, as we have seen, it is impossible to state an average for the annual Classical Scholarship elections. The total number of candidates taking Part I. of the Classical Tripos in the years indicated was as follows:

1904126, including 12 women.
1912104, including 12 women.
1913108, including 18 women.
1914109, including 21 women.
1920:
    Under the old Regulations32, including 12 women.
    Under the new Regulations79, including 17 women.


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We have not gone into the question of what proportion of them were Scholars or Exhibitioners.

The second part of the Classical Tripos has been till recently for all practical purposes a post-graduate examination of a highly specialised kind. Accordingly the number of those entering for it (seven men and nine women in 190i, eight men and three women in 1914) is no indication of the general condition of Classical studies in the University.

It is still too early to judge what effect the abandonment of the requirement of Greek as a compulsory subject in Responsions and the Previous Examination will have upon the number of entries for the Classical Schools.

At both Universities studies of all kinds were almost entirely suspended during the war, and at neither has a normal state of things yet been re-established. Roth at Oxford and Cambridge there are at present very many more students than at any other time within living memory, but those of them who have served in the war and are therefore some years older than the ordinary undergraduate are, as a rule, naturally and rightly anxious to get on as soon as possible to their work in life and are consequently often taking shortened and special courses, particularly in History, Science, Medicine, Agriculture and Engineering. It is therefore encouraging that so many of them have been faithful to the Classics, despite of lost years during which they have been out of the reach of books. This is some indication that Greek and Latin literature have retained their hold even in very unfavourable circumstances and independently of the degree of proficiency that can be reached in the study of them.

It should, of course, be remembered that at both Universities, apart from the Classical Schools, both Greek and Latin are required from candidates in the Honour Schools in Theology, and that a knowledge of Latin is required for the Honour School of Jurisprudence and in certain cases of History. A knowledge at least of Latin, if not also of Greek, is of advantage, though not specifically required, for the Honour Schools of English Literature and Modern Languages.

At Oxford a good many of those entering for any of these Final Honour Schools have first taken Classical Moderations. At Cambridge the new regulations will encourage them similarly to take Part I. of the Classical Tripos. But we notice with


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regret that as regards the Honour School of English Literature at Oxford, the original requirement that a candidate, unless he had already obtained Honours in some other Final Honour School, must have taken Moderations, which in most cases would have meant either Classical Honour Moderations or Pass Moderations, was abolished in 1915. If and when a "Previous Examination" in English Literature is established and becomes the normal avenue to the Honour School, we venture to hope that at least Latin will be one of the subjects required.

10. COLLEGES FOR WOMEN AT OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

It remains to describe the situation in the Colleges for Women at Oxford and Cambridge. It may be assumed that the best classical students and many of the best students in literary subjects generally from the Girls' Schools are at least ambitious of entering one of these Colleges.

There are signs that the classical courses at Oxford and Cambridge are in themselves attractive to women; e.g,^ at Cambridge the proportion of candidates who have gone on to Part II. of the Tripos is higher among women than among men. Some students, however, have no doubt been deterred at the outset by the comparatively high standard required for Classical Honours. The Cambridge Colleges, moreover, cannot and the Oxford Colleges as a rule do not admit candidates who propose to read only for a Pass degree. The percentage of students reading for Classical Honours in the years 1904, 1914, 1919, and 1920 is given in Appendix C. In one College it was on one occasion as high as 18 per cent., but, speaking generally, it fell seriously during the period as a whole.* The further fall between 1914 and 1920, which is in most cases noticeable, is in part due to the fact that since the war many more women students than formerly are looking forward to entering the medical profession. Towards the end of this period the influence of Advanced Courses probably begins to be felt.

*It is remarkable that in the years 1881-1920 as many as 68 students of Women's Colleges at Cambridge were placed in the First Class in Part I of the Classical Tripos and 51 in the First Class in Part II. Of the latter more won a First Class in Philosophy than in Archaeology. Comparison with the number of First Classes won in Classical Moderations at Oxford would be misleading, as Part I of the Tripos was ordinarily taken in the ninth, Moderations in the fifth, term of residence.


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11. MODERN UNIVERSITIES.

The statistics supplied to us from modern Universities in England are dealt with in detail in a later Section (pp. 179 seq.). Here it is sufficient to say that the number of students studying Greek in seven of these Universities (excluding London) and in the University Colleges of Nottingham and Reading, which in 1904 was 188, in 1914 was 170 and in 1920 was 207; and that the number studying Latin, which in 1904 was 498, rose in 1914 to 763 and in 1920 to 1,149. These figures are those of the total number of students studying Latin or Greek for any examination whatever, whether Pass or Honours, and include a few who were studying them for the M.A. degree. It will be seen that while the figures for Greek are steady those for Latin show a very large increase.

For London we have been supplied with the following figures giving the number of Internal and External candidates offering Classics for degree examinations in the same years:

It will be noted that the abolition of the requirement of compulsory Greek has been followed by a reduction of about 90 per cent, in the number of External Students who offer it for the Pass B.A. We have discussed elsewhere the question of Greek as a compulsory subject in examinations for a degree. With regard to the London figures, it must be remembered that the External Students of the University include a large number from all parts of the United Kingdom, from the Dominions and the Colonies and from India, who could hardly be brought within the national system of education with which our reference is concerned. It must also be remembered that the period since


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1904 has seen the creation or further development of new- Universities both in this country and abroad, to which many who would formerly have been External Students of London University now resort.

12. QUESTION OF SUPPLY OF CLASSICAL TEACHERS.

We have already called attention (p. 43) to the fact that on the number of students, both men and women, at the Universities who read for Honours in Classics depends the supply of those who are well equipped to teach Classics in the schools. It is probably true that most of the students in the Women's Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge who take Honours in Classics become teachers, and the majority of them teachers in schools. The same is probably true of the Classical Honours students, whether men or women, at the Modern Universities, but many of these, as we shall see (pp. 183 seq.), will not have carried the study of Greek to the same point as that of Latin. But the men graduates in Classical Honours at Oxford and Cambridge enter many other walks in life, and probably the best of them, if they do not become College tutors or accept teaching posts elsewhere, join the Civil Service or one of the learned professions. The annual supply, therefore, of good classical scholars from Oxford and Cambridge who are willing to become schoolmasters is hardly more than sufficient to fill the annual vacancies on the staffs of the Public Schools from which most of them originally came. Yet few things are more desirable in the interests of classical education than that a considerable proportion of teachers of Classics in the Grammar and Municipal Schools for boys should be graduates in Classical Honours at Oxford and Cambridge.

13. PRESENT POSITION SUMMARISED.

We wish to emphasise the fact that the value of the figures given in the above paragraphs lies not in their statistical accuracy, which indeed cannot always be guaranteed, but in the general impression that they give of the extent to which classical studies are flourishing at the Universities and in the Schools. They disclose a situation which, though undoubtedly serious, is not irremediable. It will be our duty in what follows


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to suggest the remedies which should be applied. We wish, therefore, to state at the outset our general attitude to the problem.

We have no desire to restore Classics to their ancient predominance, to the neglect or exclusion of other subjects. The reluctance of some responsible authorities in the past to admit the claims of such subjects has done great harm, not least perhaps because it has resulted in the creation of a distinct type of school with a definitely non-classical or anti-classical bias and has estranged the sympathies of many teachers and students and of a large portion of the general public. The consequence has been that, broadly speaking, though opportunities for education beyond the elementary stages have in the last twenty years been liberally provided, one ideal of education has been set before the children of what is overwhelmingly the largest social class and another before the children of other classes, with results which have tended to emphasise those social divisions and antagonisms which it is the main task of statesmanship to counteract. The problem now is to reconcile these divergent ideals. The solution should be on the one hand to secure that Greek or Latin or both are assigned a substantial position in the general education of pupils in Secondary Schools, and on the other hand that full opportunity is given to selected pupils everywhere to carry their study of them to the highest point of which their capacity will admit. We shall offer some considerations on the methods which appear to us most suitable for the attainment of this purpose. But we also desire to bring some contact with the classical spirit within reach of those who, whether children or adults, have had and can have no opportunity of learning the languages.

We must however distinguish. Latin so far occupies a fairly secure position. It is taught in all Preparatory Schools and in the middle and lower forms of most Secondary and Public Schools. Its position in the Universities is not seriously impaired, and in some at any rate of the new Universities it is studied to a high Honour standard, in partial or complete dissociation from the study of Greek. It is, however, threatened by a movement to make compulsory in the earlier stages the attainment of a definite standard in Science and by the strong support given in some quarters to the theory that only one foreign language should generally be taken before the age of 16.


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The position of Greek is much less favourable and is indeed critical. Its hold on the Preparatory Schools is, as we shall see later, precarious; it is not taught to an increasing proportion of boys in Public Schools. In the Secondary Schools and in Girls' Schools it can generally be begun, if at all, only at a late age and frequently not till the post-matriculation stage is reached, while in many schools and in some areas there are no facilities for teaching it at all. In consequence there is a large number of pupils, some of whom at least may be of first-class ability, who are altogether shut out from the study of the subject. But the limitation of a knowledge of Greek to a few specialists, mostly in one type of school, would be an incalculable loss to the political, social, and spiritual life of the nation.




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PART II.

THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM.

From the practical point of view our problem falls mainly under two beads, as it affects the schools and as it affects the Universities. It is different, however, in the Public Schools and in the Secondary Schools, in Boys' Schools and in Girls' Schools, and in the ancient and in the modern Universities. We propose to discuss the problem in detail. Under the first head we shall consider the influence exercised by the Board of Education, the Local Educational Authorities and the Governing Bodies, and the effect of the various examinations for which the schools must prepare their pupils. These conditions are all external to the work of the schools and cannot be directly modified by any action on their part.

Within the schools the determining factors are the pupils and their teachers. Wo shall consider the material with which the teacher has (o deal, the degree to which circumstances admit of a full or partial classical course for pupils of different types, and the conditions necessary for its success. We shall then discuss the qualifications of the good classical teacher, and consider how far such teachers are at present available and the steps which can be taken to maintain and improve the supply. We shall conclude by offering some considerations which bear on method and curriculum.

Under the second head we shall sketch the provision made for classical courses in the Universities of various types, and consider how far they are adapted to meet the changing circumstances of the time, with special reference to the requirements of students who know little or no Greek, to those of women students, and to the need for a constant supply of University graduates to take teaching posts in schools.

External Influences affecting the Position of Classics within the Schools.

(a) BOARD OF EDUCATION.

(i) GRANTS.

The Board of Education exercise their influence principally in two ways; directly through their Regulations for Secondary


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Schools, to which all Grant-earning Schools must conform, and indirectly through the medium of Inspection, which, while a necessary condition of grant, has for some time been sought by a number of schools not in receipt of grant. The influence of the Board, direct and indirect, in fact now extends to almost all the Schools in which Classics is or can ever be a serious subject of study. In schools inspected "for efficiency" it does not extend beyond the offering of expert advice; in Grant-earning Schools it is naturally paramount. These latter schools in October 1920 contained over 335,000 pupils.

(ii) REGULATIONS.

The Regulations of the Board require that certain subjects should be taught in all Secondary Schools. The subjects prescribed are the English Language and Literature, at least one language other than English, History, Geography, Mathematics, Physical Science and Drawing, to which for girls must be added practical instruction in domestic subjects. We have no desire to criticise this list of subjects, but we notice that neither Latin nor Greek finds a place in it. The Regulations for 1904 laid down that where two languages other than English were taken and Latin was not one of them, the Board would require to be satisfied that the omission of Latin was for the advantage of the school. But in 1906 the Regulation was altered. It is now laid down that a curriculum including two languages other than English but making no provision for instruction in Latin will only be approved where the Board are satisfied that it is to the educational advantage of the school that Latin should be omitted. We were informed that this Regulation is interpreted by the Board to mean that unless, as sometimes happens, Latin is prescribed by the school scheme, it may be omitted where the omission is for the advantage of the school, so long as there is access to another school in the area with reasonably low fees where Latin is taught. A s hitherto little or no provision has been made for children to attend such schools as boarders, this implies that the Latin-teaching school should be accessible to day scholars at the cost of only a short journey by train. The intention of the Board therefore is that provision should be made for the teaching of Latin in at least one school in each small geo- graphical area. It appears, however, from the statistics quoted above (pp. 43 seq.) that there are at present 118 schools in which


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no Latin is taught. It becomes therefore important to inquire whether in all these cases the omission of Latin appears to be justified.

The geographical distribution of the schools returned as at present teaching no Latin is given in Appendix D.* No geographical county is entirely without a school in which Latin is taught. Of the total of 118 (91 Boys', 27 Girls' Schools) which do not teach it, we are informed that 11 are not Grant-earning Schools nor have they been recognised by the Board as efficient; the Board therefore has no influence whatever on their curriculum. Six others have been recognised for grant or as efficient only since 1919. Of the rest, 16 Boys' Schools and 2 Girls' Schools have less than 100 pupils; it is not necessary to point out that, as a rule, the smaller the school, the greater the difficulty of including in the curriculum subjects which only some of the pupils can appropriately be taught. Most of these are schools in rural districts. One or two other schools are of the Polytechnic type. Of the remainder, 40 are situated in or in the immediate neighbourhood of a town containing one or more other schools in which Latin is taught. Deducting these schools from the whole number of 118, it would appear that there are only some 40 out of 955 schools from which returns were received in which the absence of Latin from the curriculum prima facie precludes children of school age living in the neighbourhood from the opportunity of learning it. We do not feel ourselves justified in supposing that in each of these cases the absence of Latin, with what must be presumed to be the consent of the Board, may not be satisfactorily defended on the ground of local circumstances with which we cannot be familiar. It must also be remembered that many of the schools have not yet

*It should perhaps be added that from the answers returned to the questionnaires which we addressed to Boys' and Girls' Schools (pp. 43 seq.) it would appear that there is no Boys' School in which Greek is taught as a form subject in the Counties (including the County Boroughs) of Cornwall, Huntingdonshire, and the North Riding of Yorkshire, and no Girls' School in which Greek is taught in the Counties (including the County Boroughs) of Cumberland, Herefordshire, Huntingdonshire, Norfolk, Nottinghamshire, Suffolk, Westmorland, and the North Riding of Yorkshire. The whole question, however, of local provision for the teaching of Greek, which does not depend on the Regulations for Secondary Schools, is discussed elsewhere in this Report.


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completely recovered from the effects of the war, and in particular that competent teachers of Latin are still difficult to secure.

It is, however, noticeable that of the 91 schools classed as Boys' Schools in which no Latin is taught, no fewer than 51 are in fact "mixed" schools, attended by both girls and boys. We do not think that it can be inferred that their mixed character is prejudicial to the teaching of Latin. Where, however, the mixed school is not, as it is in some areas, the only school accessible, it is probable that the bulk of its pupils of both sexes tend to leave at a somewhat earlier age than is usual in schools of another type. We shall have occasion later on (pp. 118, 169) to point out that for Latin to flourish as a school subject it is important, if not essential, that the average length of school life after 12 should not be less than four years.

No doubt a certain number of children who do not find opportunities for classical teaching in the schools which we have been considering are nevertheless getting what they want in Private Schools. Some 7,000 "Private" schools of various types are known to exist, but at present very little information about them is obtainable. Most of them probably do not carry the instruction which they give much, if at all, beyond the stage reached in the Elementary Schools. Others no doubt teach efficiently and up to a high standard, and it is possible that in large towns they may do something to fill the gaps to which we have called attention. They are not likely to contribute much towards the solution of the problem in the rural areas.

It should be noticed that the Board, having prescribed the main subjects of the curriculum, do not object to but rather encourage the addition of other subjects, so far as is consistent with efficiency and the maintenance of a proper standard. They impose no uniform time table, though steps are taken to secure that all the prescribed subjects are in fact taught and that adequate time is allotted to each, and they welcome experiments in the direction of saving time by combining two or more subjects (such as History and Geography or Mathematics and Physics) or by dropping one subject for a term or longer in order to devote intensive study to another.

We see therefore no reason to think that the Board in their general policy are not fully alive to the importance of Latin as an element in general education. We may add that as long ago


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as 1907 they issued a special circular (574) on the teaching of Latin and another (707) on the pronunciation of Latin. But we note with regret that they have apparently not thought it possible to take effective steps for upholding the study of Greek in schools under their control or preventing its lapse.

(iii) INSPECTION.

We may distinguish between the Full Inspections (held normally about every five years) of all Grant-earning and some other schools and (he personal influence of the District Inspector on the schools in his area. In schools in which Classics are taught we learn that at a Full Inspection they receive as complete and careful consideration as any other subject. It is, however, inevitable that some District Inspectors should be specially interested in other subjects than Classics, and we have reason to apprehend that the interests of Classics, which, as compared with the compulsory subjects of the curriculum, occupy an exposed position and are in special need of encouragement, may at times be prejudiced by this. All matters of principle are, however, referred by the Inspector to the Board.

(iv) ADVANCED COURSES.

(a) The existing Regulations. The Board's policy in the matter of Advanced Courses has provoked a good deal of criticism. The Advanced Course scheme was issued in 1917 (Circular 1023), though the underlying principle had been outlined in the Board's Circular of 1913 (No. 826) on the curricula of Secondary Schools.

The main subjects of study in any Advanced Course must be selected from one or other of three groups, viz., (1) Classics, (2) Modern Studies, and (3) Science and Mathematics. The syllabus of any course in Science and Mathematics must provide for substantial work in language, literature or history, and that of a course in Classics or Modern Studies for substantial work in subjects other than language, literature or history. In respect of each Advanced Course recognised a special grant not exceeding £400 per annum is payable to the school. Some particulars as to the number of schools recognised for Advanced Courses in Classics have already been given (p. 48), .and it is sufficient to recall the fact here that there are in the whole country only 33 recognised Advanced Courses in Classics in Boys' Schools and 2 in Girls' Schools,


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(b) Recommendation of the abolition of the existing system. Though the special grant for an Advanced Course is on a liberal scale and though it has been conceded to classical courses on terms perhaps more easy than those which arc required for other subjects, we are nevertheless of opinion that the whole of the existing system of Advanced Courses is fraught with danger to higher education in the schools, and in particular to the future of the subjects which are our immediate concern. The majority of schools can only hope to maintain a single course, and the substantial character of the grant means that it must be a primary consideration with the Head of a school that the number of pupils taking the course should be kept up. As pupils of potential classical ability may be expected to do almost equally well in Modern Studies and in many cases also show promise in Mathematics and Science, at any rate in the earlier stages, it seems to us certain that in a great number of schools individual pupils of this type are being diverted to one or other of the non-classical courses; and we are of opinion that the total number of these pupils will be greater, and probably far greater, than those who will be preserved for Classics by the few recognised Advanced Courses in that subject. Nor will this right itself in time by the growth of Classical Advanced Courses in new schools. For a variety of reasons which will be apparent in the course of the subsequent discussion, it seems to us clear that the development of Advanced Courses in Classics, where they have not existed before, will be extremely difficult in Boys* Schools and in Girls' Schools almost impossible. A system of transfer, even if it were successful, would check the diversion of promising students of Classics only in very partial measure.

We are also opposed to the present policy on general grounds, because it leaves little freedom to the schools and is in its effects too rigid and repressive. Our discussion of the present position will show how varied are the cases for which provision ought fairly to be made, how difficult it will be to fit these into any hard and fast system imposed from without, and how serious are the indirect and unintended consequences of the present arrangements. We believe that the right course is to leave the schools free in the organisation of their higher work, and if it is argued that this would mean that the work would become incoherent and disorganised, we would point out that it would still rest with the Board of Education to approve


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every scheme of higher work on which the special grant was claimed.

If things remain as they are, we foresee two very serious consequences for classical education. The first arises from the fact that in Girls' Schools Latin is at the present moment in process of being killed by its exclusion from the Modern Studies group; and even if Latin is restored as a Group subject Greek will still be left without a chance of development, or possibly even of survival. The second is that in Boys' Schools it is already very difficult to start new classical courses, and it will be hard to maintain the old in face of the competition of possible Latin-History and Latin-English courses and the attractiveness of those new Honour Schools in which only Latin is offered to an Honours standard, which are now beginning to appear in some of the Universities. Therefore in the Boys' Schools also the future of Greek would seem to be almost equally dark.

Accordingly, believing that the Advanced Courses have done their work and that they cannot continue without serious danger to the future of the highest classical studies, we recommend, not only in the interests of our subject but in the general interests of higher education, the abolition of the system and the substitution of a generous grant for all the approved higher work of a school done by a pupil in the two years following the stage of the School Certificate. In this recommendation we believe that we have overwhelming support both among Head Masters and Head Mistresses.* At the same time we recognise that the danger

*The following resolution was passed by the Incorporated Association of Head Masters at the Annual General Meeting, 1918:
That the schemes for Advanced Courses require considerable extension and modification, particularly in relation to ... the recognition of a greater variety of combinations of subjects as capable of being taught in organic unity.
A similar Resolution was passed at the Annual General Meeting, 1919. The following Resolution was passed (with only one dissentient) at the Annual Conference of the Association of Head Mistresses held on June 11 and 12, 1920:-

"That in order to secure complete liberty during the last two years of school life, when corporate activities and responsibilities play so large a part and it is of paramount importance to adapt the course of study to the tastes and capacities of individuals, the restrictions imposed by the conditions on which the Advanced Course grants are made should be removed and Head Mistresses should be entrusted with the duty of arranging, subject to the approval of the Board of Education, the work of the Sixth Forms."

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will remain of all pupils being swept into the dominant studies of the school; and, if only to discourage a narrow uniformity in the curriculum, we recommend that the grant given should be at a higher rate, when the advanced work in a School is of a varied character involving sub-division into several classes.

We have, however, to deal with the Advanced Course system as it stands, and we must therefore consider it in somewhat greater detail. It is the more desirable to do this because, even if the existing system of Advanced Courses is abolished, the suggestions which we are about to make are fully applicable to such organised methods of advanced work as those which we have just advocated.

(c) The Advanced Course in Classics. Subject to what has already been said, we are quite satisfied with the Regulations governing an Advanced Course in Classics and the spirit in which the Board have administered them. Only a small number of pupils are at present forthcoming in most Grant-earning schools who are willing and competent to take such a course. It might therefore have been feared that many schools would be excluded from the benefits of the grant by rigid requirements in respect of numbers, though experience has shown that in the past from small classes great scholars have come. But we are glad to learn that in Classics quite small classes have been accepted as justifying the grant. We also wish to call attention to the provision in Section 22 of the Board's Circular 1112, by which in Greek a lower standard will be accepted than in Latin as qualifying for a Classical Advanced Course, and in special cases a course in both languages may be recognised in which pupils begin the study of Greek. We realise, however, that this last concession is at present likely to be attractive mainly to pupils who wish to proceed to one of those modern Universities in which Honours in Classics may be obtained in Latin, with Greek as only a subsidiary subject (see p. 183). But so far as the conditions of an Advanced Course in Classics are concerned, we think that, if such a course is to be recognised at all, the policy of the Board is wise and liberal.

But their policy with regard to the Advanced Course in Modern Studies has been less satisfactory.

(d) The Regulations for the Modern Studies Advanced Course. The Regulations of 1917 defined the Modern Studies Group as including (a) two languages other than English, of which Latin might be one, with their literature, and (b) Modern


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History, including the History of England and Greater Britain. The Explanatory Note prefixed to the Regulations stated that Latin, as the common language of Europe till comparatively recent times, and as necessary for the effective study of History up to the I7th century, might he one of the two languages taken in the course.

In Circular 1023 (issued in December 1917) the Board, in discussing the schemes for Modern Studies which had been so far submitted to them, used the following words:

"It has been generally assumed by the Schools submitting proposals for Advanced Courses that [the Latin in a Modern Studies Course] will be of the same kind as Latin in a Classical Course, with the result that it is left unrelated to the other subjects. To secure this relation stress should be laid on acquiring the power of reading Latin rather than on prose composition or minute grammatical work. Among works of the classical period those should be selected which have had the most important influence on the literature of Modern Europe, and provision might be made for the reading of some amount of mediæval and later Latin, particularly of works which are concerned with History and are indispensable towards its adequate study."

The Board, therefore, at that time appeared to have in view, besides Virgil and Ovid, works like the Tragedies of Seneca and the mediæval chronicles. But in 1918 the Regulation was altered. It now prescribes "the advanced study of one modern foreign Western European language and literature with the relevant history, together with the History of England and Greater Britain". The course must also include "either the study of a second modern foreign language or work of good scope and standard in English language and literature". Accordingly, Latin can now be offered only as an additional or subsidiary subject in the course. As it is elsewhere laid down that in any Advanced Course not more than three quarters nor less than two-thirds of the school time must be allotted to the main subjects (Circular 1112, Section 9), it would appear that in practice little time is now left in a Modern Studies Advanced Course for the serious study of so difficult a subject as Latin, which is therefore disappearing from the curriculum.

(e) The Aim proposed by the Regulations. The Board have officially announced (Circular 1112, Section 1) that the Regulations for Advanced Courses are still in a sense provisional


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and tentative, and the evidence of their witnesses, whether administrative officers or inspectors, has convinced us that they are alive to the difficulties of the situation. We understand that the object which they had in view in establishing the tripartite division of Advanced Courses was twofold: first, to secure that the advanced student of science and mathematics should not by premature and too exclusive specialisation be deprived of at least some tincture of humaner studies nor the advanced student of language, history and literature of some tincture of science; and, secondly, to inaugurate a comprehensive, definite and organic scheme of Modern Studies which should be in its results a not inadequate alternative to advanced work in classical languages, literature and history. Few greater benefits could be conferred upon education than the successful evolution of such a course, and so far as the policy of the Board has been successful in attaining this object, we are in sympathy with it. We have, however, already shown grave reason to fear that the Regulations in their present form have, no doubt unintentionally, done great harm to the study of Classics and we have recommended the adoption of a completely different method in the payment of grant for advanced work in schools. But on the assumption that the present method is continued, we propose to consider at some length the arguments that have been addressed to us in favour of a radical alteration in the present Regulations.

(f) Their practical effect. The question requires consideration from two points of view which have already been touched on. On the one hand we are* informed that in a number of schools Latin can be and is taught up to a high Honours standard, but Greek cannot be carried to the same level, partly owing to the lack of qualified teachers and partly because it can only be begun late and often not till after the First Examination. In such schools accordingly there is prima facie difficulty in starting an Advanced Course in Classics. On the other hand a number of schools, largely though not by any means exclusively Girls' Schools, are competent and desirous to carry on the advanced study of Latin (without Greek) in combination with some subject or subjects of the Modern Studies group, but are debarred from doing so by the recent Regulations of the Board. In neither case, therefore, are the needs met of those schools which can teach advanced Latin but cannot teach advanced Greek.


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(g) Detailed criticism of the present Regulations. We have received unanimous testimony from all our professional witnesses who had practical experience of the working of the Regulations that the exclusion of Latin as a main subject from a Modern Studies Advanced Course is highly detrimental to its study in lower as well as in upper forms. The same opinion was expressed by teachers who were specialists in Science and Mathematics, and by Dr. J. W. Mackail, a distinguished ex-officer of the Board. It is desirable to make the point at issue absolutely clear. The existing Regulation requires that the course should include -

(a) the History of England and Greater Britain,
(b) the advanced study of one modern foreign language and literature with the relevant history. (This is in most cases French.)
(c) either (i) the study of a second modern foreign language, or (ii) work of good scope and standard in English language and literature.
(d) some substantial work in subjects other than language, literature and history; e.g. mathematics, physical science, art and music.
(e) adequate provision for the study and writing of English, either in connexion with the main subjects of the course or otherwise.
The course is spread over two years and is intended for pupils of 16 to 18 years of age. Not more than three-quarters nor less than two-thirds of the time in school must be allotted to subjects (a), (b) and (c). It is, we think, plain that even a clever and industrious boy will find difficulty in adding to this syllabus any substantial work in Latin, even if it is confined to the reading of texts, and that girls, who are generally less able at that age to stand the strain of severe application, who have often shorter school hours and in addition home duties to perform, will find it still more difficult. Indeed, it is from the Girls' Schools that the most urgent protests come.*

*It is fair to say that those Schools which applied for the recognition of an Advanced Course under the Regulations of 1917 and submitted a syllabus in Modern Studies with Latin, as was then possible, as one of the main subjects, are understood to be still working, with the consent of the Board, under the syllabus originally accepted. This is in itself an indication that the Board does not hold the exclusion of Latin from the main subjects of a Modern Studies Advanced Course to he a vital matter of principle.


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Resolutions have been passed on two occasions by the Head Mistresses' Association,* expressing their wish that Latin should be restored to its original place in the course, and we have received a memorandum to the same effect signed by all the Head Mistresses of the Schools of the Girls' Public Day School Trust.

We attach great importance to these representations. For there is evidence that in many of the Girls' Schools, if Latin were not discouraged, Classics might flourish. The education of girls of the upper and middle classes was based originally on modern languages and literature, and it is in these subjects that Girls' Schools are still probably most successful. Even apart from the natural affinity of French with Latin, we are told that Latin is a popular subject with girls. Moreover, it has a vocational value for them which it often has not for boys. In some of the schools in the North more girls than boys are learning it. The boys, who are looking forward to entering the local industries, naturally take to science; the girls desire to enter the University and either to take an Arts degree, for which Latin is required, or to study medicine, for which it is at least desirable and sometimes prescribed. Some at least of them would be suitable candidates for the new Honours degree in Latin with subsidiary Greek now granted by some of the modern Universities, and some might further supplement a course in Latin by taking an Honours Course in Greek as well. We think therefore that on this ground alone, as far as girls are concerned, a good case is made out for the reinstatement of Latin as a main subject, and in our opinion the same opportunity

*The Annual Conference of the Association of Head Mistresses adopted the following resolution on 7th June 1918:

"THAT the Association of Head Mistresses assembled in conference considers that Latin should be restored to its position as a main subject in the Modern Studies Group, as the limitation of advanced work in Latin to Schools having an Advanced Course in Classics would seriously undermine the study of Latin throughout the whole secondary school system".
On February 6th, 1920, the Examinations Sub-Committee carried and the Executive Committee adopted the following resolution:
"THAT in all Examinations recognised by the Board of Education as Second Examinations ... Latin should have a place among the main subjects of the Modern Studies Group".
This was endorsed at the Annual Conference in June 1920 by the adoption of the Report of the Executive Committee and of the Sub-Committee.


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ought to be extended to boys. Whether the new Course is called a Modern Studies Course or an alternative Classical Course is unimportant.

(h) Some further considerations. It has been objected that the proposed reinstatement of Latin, even if it encourages the study of that language, will tend to destroy that of Greek. On this point such evidence as we had was conflicting. But Greek is firmly rooted in a few of the Grant-earning Schools, and where this is the case, its intrinsic merits and attractiveness will ensure its preservation. In the bulk -of the schools it is not taught and there is no immediate prospect of its becoming a regular part of the curriculum. And in any case our evidence goes to show that the wisest course at present in the interest of classical studies as a whole is, wherever Greek cannot be introduced, to strengthen in every possible way the position of Latin in the Grant-earning Schools.

A further consideration may be briefly mentioned. The rehabilitation of Latin in the Advanced Course is likely to have a favourable effect on its study in the middle and lower forms. At present it has not the protection of being a compulsory subject in any First Examination and is therefore likely perhaps to receive less attention than subjects of greater "utility". But if the pupils who are looking forward to entering an Advanced Course know that Latin will be one of their main subjects, they are likely to work harder at it in the preliminary stage.

(k) Conclusions. Our conclusion therefore on this important and much debated question is as follows:

We recommend the abolition of the Advanced Courses and the substitution of the recognition by a special grant of advanced work in any combination of subjects approved by the Board of Education. If this step is not immediately possible, we recommend that the Board should lose no time in restoring Latin to the position in a Modern Studies Course which it occupied under the Regulations of 1917. We do this because we believe an Advanced Course in Latin alone: with one or more modern subjects to be in itself educationally sound, and because we are convinced that the restoration of Latin as a main subject in such a course is essential to its preservation as a serious subject of the curriculum in a large number of schools.


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We further think that Greek should be allowed In the Modern Studies Advanced Courses as an alternative main subject to Latin. We make this recommendation, following the principle which we adopt throughout this Report, that, where there is room for one only of the classical languages, a choice should be offered between Greek and Latin; but we make it al 50 on the ground of the intrinsic claims of Greek. In a sense the modern world is descended from Rome; but its obligation to Greece, if different, is not less. The stream of the intellectual life of Europe rises in Greece, even where its waters reached posterity through Roman channels. As the Greeks bequeathed to our vocabulary the names of epic, lyric and elegiac poetry, of tragedy and comedy, of philosophy and history, so they created for us what these words denote; they have left us unsurpassed models in nearly every branch of literature; they have inspired some of the greatest writers in every western country. This is in itself sufficient justification for those who wish to study English, French or German literature in connexion with Greek. And we consider that no obstacle should be placed in the path of those who desire to read these literatures and to study Milton and Shelley, Racine, Moliere and Chenier, Goethe and Schiller by the side of the Greek originals which were their models or inspiration. From the actual circumstances and past traditions of English education it is certain that, where one ancient language is taken in the Modern Studies Advanced Courses, it will generally be Latin, and for this reason we have dwelt at greater length on the place of Latin in them. But we do not wish the claims of Greek as an alternative to be underestimated and we should be glad to encourage experiment in this direction.

(1) Discussion of the Problem of Transfer as essential to the organisation of Advanced Work in Schools. There remains the further problem of bringing the opportunity for an education comprising both Greek and Latin or either of them within reach of pupils in schools of all types who are capable of profiting by such studies and desire to pursue them. This problem is closely bound up with the question of the transfer of pupils from one school to another. The position of Latin in Secondary Schools is still strong enough to ensure that only in a few districts is the opportunity for learning it not within reasonable reach of pupils desirous to do so. But the case is altered when


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Greek is brought into account, and the occasions will be frequent in which the desire of a pupil to learn Greek can only be met by transfer to another school.

In considering the question it is impossible to overlook the natural reluctance of Head Masters and Head Mistresses to part with promising pupils. The way no doubt will be smoothed if there is some reciprocity in the matter; if, for example, two schools offering special facilities for advanced work in different branches of study can accommodate one another in interchanging pupils by transfer. But the danger remains that by such transfers the corporate life of both schools may suffer to some extent, and there will be general agreement that anything that tends to weaken the successful development of corporate life in schools of all types is to be deprecated. Moreover, the wishes of parents have to be considered. Many of them may be reluctant to assent to their children's transfer to a distance solely in order to enable them to begin classical studies or to continue them to a higher stage. Nevertheless, a broad view of the needs of the community and the individual and of the organisation of education on a national basis will render it inevitable that facilities for transfer should be provided under reasonable safeguards.

The onus of solving these and other difficulties must rest with the Local Education Authorities, who are bound by the Act of 1918 to provide that no children or young persons should "be deprived from receiving the benefits of any form of education by which they are capable of profiting through inability to pay fees". In addressing themselves to the problem they will realise at the outset the necessity of securing the good will and co-operation of Governing Bodies and of Head Masters and Head Mistresses.

In certain localities the principle of transfer is already in operation. We were informed that in one county borough boys who showed promise in Classics were in fact transferred from one school to another, and both schools were of old foundation. In another case the Head Master of a school in East London regularly passed on his cleverest boys to another school, and their acceptance by that school was rightly recorded on the Honours Board of the school from which they came. We have reason to think that there are other cases which were not


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brought specifically under our notice. But short of complete transfer there is another method of co-operation between school and school which in practice has been found possible. In the first year of the Advanced Course scheme the Head Mistresses of two Girls' Schools in a County Borough, finding that neither of their schools was strong enough to provide the two Advanced Courses for which each had suitable candidates, came to an arrangement with the consent of the Board that each school should set up a different Advanced Course, attendance at which should be open to pupils from the other school. Under this system, which is applicable to advanced work generally, the pupils remain for every other purpose members of their own school, but attend for certain lessons in another building. It is only possible where the schools are within easy reach of one another, but in large towns this is not uncommon. It entails the minimum of interference with the corporate life of either school, it is a sensible arrangement, and we hope that it may be adopted elsewhere.

The question should be comparatively easy of solution in many of the most populous areas. Here there is often a Grammar School in which the old classical tradition still survives. Secondary Schools of modern foundation are more likely to be developing on the sides of Science and Mathematics or of Modern Studies. If the organisation of education within the County Boroughs is regarded as a whole - and organisation implies differentiation of function - there should be no difficulty in the transfer of individual pupils, when it is clearly to their advantage, from one school to another, especially if, as suggested above, there is some reciprocity in the matter. But in the great towns it is probable that there will be more than one school large enough to provide a section doing advanced work in Classics as well as other sections doing advanced work in Science, Mathematics and Modern Studies. In London, where some system of transfer would appear to be practicable between Provided Schools of the London County Council, it is worthy of note that none of these schools at present offers facilities for the advanced study of Classics. This is the more surprising since we have had evidence from many parts of the country of the eagerness with which a certain number of ex-Elementary School pupils take up the study of Classics when the opportunity is offered them, and ultimately profit by it, and we should have


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thought that in London the same intellectual curiosity would display itself and ought to be satisfied.

In the country districts the problem is more difficult. We have seen that, with some exceptions (see p. 61), there are few thickly-populated urban areas in which a Boys' School with an Advanced Course in Classics is not accessible even to day scholars. In rural areas even where such a school exists it is not accessible except to children living comparatively near. This is the more unfortunate that we have had evidence to show that country children are quite as capable as town children of deriving benefit from a classical education, as is proved by the history of many a country school in Scotland. The problem therefore in rural areas can only be solved by a system of scholarships, and funds for these must prima facie be provided out of the rates. It is further complicated by the fact that the most convenient school may be outside the area of the Local Education Authority in which the child is domiciled. Here, however, we may look for assistance from the Statutory Rules and Orders issued by the Board of Education in connexion with the School Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1918. To enable schools to take advantage of the Superannuation Act, the Statutory Rules provide as follows, viz.:

"The Governing Body must make reasonable and suitable arrangements approved by the Board for co-operating in the public system of education by admitting as day pupils or boarders -

"(a) Pupils nominated by Local Education Authorities, especially pupils who intend entering the teaching profession.
(b) Pupils nominated by the Governing Bodies of schools in receipt of grants from the Board in order that they may receive the type of advanced or special education which is advantageous to them.
Such arrangements shall provide that in respect of pupils nominated under this Article no higher charge by way of fees or otherwise shall be made and no higher standard of attainment shall be required as a condition of admission than is made or required in respect of other pupils."
It is thus possible that some at least of the Public Schools and non-local Grammar Schools as well as of the large town


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Grammar Schools will be prepared to offer tuition to a certain number of pupils from selected areas who desire a classical education and give proof of their capacity to profit by it. Some of these schools are so situated as to be the natural centre for the surrounding educational areas; others are so situated that they serve several adjacent counties. In this connexion we would urge that any school, whether it be a Boarding School or a Day School, which is a natural centre for Advanced work in Classics, should, if it be situated near the meeting point of several educational areas, be expected, so far as its accommodation will allow, to serve all, and not be jealously restricted to the area in which it is actually situated. The national interests ought to outweigh those of one locality.

We may now pass from the discussion of the fundamental questions raised by the present Regulations for Advanced Courses to consider some points of detail.

(m) Latin suitable for an Advanced Course in Modern Studies. We do not desire that our recommendation for the rehabilitation of Latin in the Modern Studies Course should involve a revival of the suggestion of mediæval Latin that was made in the Board's Circular of 1917. We do not claim that the Latin of a Modern Studies Course should be identical with that of a Classical Course; we should be content, for example, that composition of all kinds should be omitted and that little stress should be laid on linguistics. But we think that a student should be brought into contact with the literature of the best period of any language that he takes, whether ancient or modern, The study of works which, however valuable as historical "documents", have no claim to be considered great literature cannot compensate for the omission of Virgil and Cicero and Tacitus. Erasmus is much pressed upon our attention. While not disputing the permanent interest and charm of his writings, we are doubtful whether they can be regarded as an adequate substitute for the writings of those authors who served him as a model. In any case a pupil who can read Virgil or Cicero with ease will have little difficulty in reading Erasmus or even, with some practice, a mediæval chronicler. The degree to which historical documents written in Latin need be consulted by pupils still at school is a question rather for specialists in History, but the detailed study of them is probably better postponed to the Universities.


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(n) Question of the combination of Latin or Greek with (i) Modern Languages. On the assumption that a course is recognised which includes Latin or Greek and at least one Modern Language as main subjects, it is perhaps right for us to offer some considerations on the selection of the second language. That Latin and French form a desirable combination requires no argument. From every point of view the two languages with their literatures and the history of their respective peoples are complementary to each other and constitute a subject which can and should be treated as a coherent and organic whole. The combination, therefore, satisfies one of the principal requirements of an Advanced Course. The conception of the unity of Latin civilisation is one which has played a great part in the history of Western Europe and may still play a greater. In this connexion we would point to the importance of Spain and Portugal and to the development which awaits the Latin States of Central and South America, and would urge that the study of Spanish and Portuguese be not divorced from that of Latin. The joint study of Latin and Italian speaks for itself.

(ii) English. A similar co-ordination of Latin and English has attractions of its own. Our language, literature and history do not, of course, stand in such close relation with those of Rome as do the language, literature and history of France. But the influence of Rome is felt throughout, though it has been more predominant in some departments and at some periods than at others. We- wish, however, to consider the subject from a rather different point of view. We have kept in touch with the Board of Education's Departmental Committee on the teaching of English. We do not attempt to anticipate their Report. But given the fact that English must be the staple of the humanistic education of the people as a whole, there comes a point at which the study of English, including the literature and the history, can be carried no further without embracing the study on the same plane of the language and literature of another people. For the study of certain aspects the second language should be Spanish, Italian or German. For others it should be French. But for a wider purpose which embraced the whole range of English literature or any considerable part of it down to the present day no one modern language can compete with Latin. Accordingly for many of those who, as we join with the Depart-


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mental Committee in hoping, will by the stage of the First Examination have reached a relatively advanced point in their study of English, the best augury that they will carry their study of it still further is that they should combine it with advanced work in Latin. We have already given reasons for their being allowed the alternative of Greek.

In quitting the important topic of Advanced Courses we wish once more to lay stress upon the fact that the various combinations of subjects which we have discussed and any others which experience may show to be desirable can only be adopted in most Grant-earning schools if the present system of three strictly defined and mutually exclusive courses is abandoned.

(v) STATE SCHOLARSHIPS.

On the policy of the newly established State Scholarships we wish to raise only one point. Though the number awarded for any one subject is roughly proportionate to the number of candidates presenting themselves for examination in that subject, at present and for some time to come the great majority of them must inevitably be awarded for Mathematics, Science and Modern Studies. The annual number of awards - 200 in 1920 - may be compared with the recent annual average of approximately 200 awards in Classics made by Oxford and Cambridge Colleges, and to this in itself we offer no objection. But the value of a State Scholarship may be much greater than that of a College Scholarship. It carries the payment of all tuition fees, together with a "maintenance grant" not exceeding £80 a year, which is assigned after consideration of the financial circumstances of the holders. Few classical scholarships at Oxford exceed £80, and most classical awards at Cambridge are in the first instance considerably less. In practice, therefore, the State Scholarships amount to an endowment out of public money principally of non-classical subjects. And as most boys and girls at school who are good classics could become equally good in Modern Languages, many of them may be tempted early in their career to abandon Latin and Greek for the larger expectations which other subjects hold out to them. We cannot but think that the effect may be in many schools to weight the scales unduly against Classics. But whether this is so or not, the policy of throwing open State Scholarships for competition in all subjects it' sound, and we should strongly deprecate any departure from it.


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It is only fair to add that many Local Education Authorities make maintenance grants (in London up to a total of £120 a year) to pupils in Secondary Schools who are proceeding to a University in any subject, including Classics, but cannot do so without further assistance. In areas where a sufficient number of such grants of an adequate amount is available and they are not burdened with restrictions as to the University at which they are tenable, the difficulty anticipated above will not arise. But at present many Authorities have not made provision to meet all the cases which occur in their areas.

(b) POLICY OF LOCAL EDUCATION AUTHORITIES AND GOVERNING BODIES.

(i) Local Education Authorities. In the majority of cases neither the Local Education Authorities nor the Governing Bodies exercise much direct influence over the curricula of the schools with which they are concerned. Both of them are administrative bodies whose duties are limited, in the case of the Governing Bodies by the Scheme or Instrument of Government of the school, in the case of the Education Committees, through whom the Local Education Authorities act, by the general policy of the County or County Borough Council whose delegates they are. The Education Committees are generally assisted by a Director of Education, whose personal views undoubtedly have great influence on the schools of the area, fn most cases, however, there is little direct interference with the discretion of the Head Masters and Head Mistresses in matters of curriculum, subject to any general regulations controlling their action.

We have no reason to believe that the Local Education Authorities fail to give Classics a fair chance as against other subjects. Their scholarships, for example, are awarded without reference to the subjects offered. But few, if any, of them seem to be alive to the essential importance of the Classics or to the dangers which threaten their existence; certainly none has extended to them any special protection. And elected as the Authorities are by the ratepayers, it is no doubt difficult for them to be far ahead of local public opinion, and it is unlikely that any body of ratepayers would consent to special financial provision for the encouragement of Classics. Under the Act of 1918, however, the Local Education Authorities have the duty


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of providing for every type of education that is required by the needs of their area, and of making provision to secure that children and young persons shall not be debarred through inability to pay fees from receiving the benefits of any form of education by which they are capable of profiting. We have seen (p. 72) that as regards Classics this condition can only be met in many areas by the transfer of pupils to another school, not necessarily within the area of the same Authority. How important the matter is may be illustrated by the fact that in the whole of the area controlled by the London County Council there are only two Boys' and one Girls' School with an Advanced Course in Classics. Boys in that area can often get admission with scholarships or Free Places to one or other of the great Day Schools with a strong classical tradition; for girls hardly any similar opportunities are available.

(ii) Governing Bodies. The solution of the question of transfer rests, however, mainly with the Governing Bodies. They exercise a general jurisdiction over the subjects taught in the school and they approve all new appointments to the staff. Where it is known that a full classical training, including Greek, is not obtainable within the area in which the school is situated, it is for the Governing Body to consider whether theirs is not the school in which it may best be provided and to take steps accordingly. The problem has already been discussed (pp. 74 seq.); but we would add here that, if it is to be solved, it will often be necessary for Governing Bodies to take a somewhat wider view than they have done hitherto, and to consider what function their school can best discharge in relation to the educational system of the area as a whole. It is neither economical nor educationally advisable that in the same town there should be half a dozen pupils doing advanced work in a subject in one school and half a dozen doing the same advanced work in another. Staff and equipment have to be unnecessarily duplicated and the pupils lose the advantage of the stimulus that competition on a larger scale would bring. Ideally no doubt a leading school should undertake Advanced work in all three subjects. Classics, Modern Studies, Mathematics and Science. This is not everywhere possible, especially where the school is small. But wherever a point has been reached at which a school has as many pupils doing advanced work in one of these branches as it can conveniently deal with, a similar Advanced Course may


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properly be started in another school. Until this stage is reached, it is better in the interests of the pupils, the teachers, the schools, and, we may add, the ratepayers, that the pupils in any one subject should be concentrated in one school. For such concentration reciprocal action between the schools is necessary, which it rests with the Governing Bodies in the first instance to bring about.

(c) EXAMINATIONS.

We now pass to consider the influence upon the schools of the examinations for which their pupils enter. So far as the schools as a whole are concerned, these are now practically reduced to three: the Entrance Examination, the "First Examination" at about 16, and the "Second Examination" at about 18. Individual pupils are affected by matriculation examinations, the examinations for scholarships to the Universities and those for entry to the various professions, including the Navy, the Army and the Civil Service. The presence in the school of candidates for these examinations has an important effect on its organisation.

(i) ENTRANCE EXAMINATIONS.

(a) To Secondary Schools.

We need say little about the Entrance Examinations to the Grant-earning Schools, In some cases the subjects of examination are determined by the scheme of the school, in others the Head Master exercises his own discretion. But in any examination held as an entrance test of candidates from Elementary Schools for Free Places, for which all Grant -earning Schools must make provision, candidates between 10 and 13, unless circumstances make a lest of their relative merit advisable, "must only be required to qualify in English and Arithmetic". (Regulations for Secondary Schools, Appendix 6 (c).) The recently published Report of the Departmental Committee on Scholarships and Free Places (Section 64) would confine the written examination even for scholarships to these two subjects. This regulation has a very important bearing upon the question of the age at which such candidates can begin the study of Latin.

(b) From Preparatory to Public Schools.

The examinations for entrance to the Public Schools are entirely in the hands of the authorities of each school, who are


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free to act independently of every other school, but the minimum requirement is sometimes laid down by the scheme governing the school. While, therefore, in the admission of ex-Elementary Scholars a Grant-earning Secondary School is required to have strict regard to the Elementary School Code, as between the Public and the Preparatory School the situation is reversed.

Preparatory Schools are peculiar to England: they are unknown in Scotland and Ireland except as preparatory to English and one or two other schools. They are nearly all private ventures, often entailing very heavy financial responsibility, and their success depends largely on passing boys into the Public Schools and often on their candidates winning scholarships at them. They are under no public control nor subject to any form of inspection, though about 30 of them have at their own request recently been inspected by the Board. They discharge a vital function in the education of a very important part of the community, but they have attracted little attention from independent educational reformers and their existence is not mentioned in the most recent History of Education.*

Boys enter a Preparatory School at about 9 and go on to a Public School at about 13. Some of them on entry already know a little French and Latin; in any case they are taught both languages throughout their stay in the Preparatory School, sometimes apparently beginning both concurrently.

At the end of four years a Preparatory Schoolmaster is expected to pass every boy, whether as a scholar or not, into the particular Public School which is selected by the parent. Formerly each Public School held its own entrance examination, but at present most of them, though not quite all, have combined to set up a Common Entrance Examination. This Common Examination is controlled by a Board of Managers consisting of three Representatives of the Head Masters' Conference and three of the Association of Preparatory Schools.† The papers are set by examiners appointed by the Managers, but the

*A Report by Sir Michael Sadler on "Preparatory Schools for Boys - their place in English Secondary Education" was issued by the Board of Education in 1900 (Vol. VI. of Special Reports on Educational Subjects).

†The Head Masters of about 430 Preparatory Schools are members of this Association. The Common Entrance Examination has been adopted by about 70 of the Conference Schools.


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answers are looked over at the Public School concerned, which accordingly determines the standard in each case.

We were informed that a feeling existed among Preparatory School Head Masters that different Public Schools, in spite of their adoption of the Common Entrance Examination, tended in fact to attach a different value to each subject and to place successful candidates accordingly. When it is remembered that the original placing often determine for boys of only average ability whether they can ever rise to the top of the Public School, it will be clear how much this perhaps inevitable difference of point of view adds to the difficulties of the Preparatory Schools. They rarely have masters free for work with individual boys, for probably none of them is overstaffed, and it may happen that in the same form boys are being prepared for entrance to as many as eight different Public Schools. In such cases it is said to be difficult to prevent the hurried preparation of individual boys from degenerating into cramming.

Papers are set in the Common Examination in Latin (Translation, Composition and Grammar), French (Translation, Composition and Grammar, Dictation), English (Grammar, Composition, Literature), Mathematics (Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry), General Subjects (Scripture, History, Geography), and Greek (Translation, Composition and Grammar). No school expects candidates necessarily to offer all subjects. Latin, French, and Arithmetic are usually obligatory. Greek is no longer compulsory at any school, but most schools accept it as an optional subject. Dictionaries are allowed for the Latin Translation Paper and Lexicons or Vocabularies for that in Greek Translation. For Eton Latin verse is required.

We are of opinion that the Common Entrance Examination is as a whole well suited for the purpose for which it is designed, but we had evidence to the effect that as a test of the work that might be expected in the top forms of a good Preparatory School, the standard of the classical papers set is very low. If this is true, it would seem that in their last year or so at a Preparatory School the abler boys among those who are not candidates for scholarships "mark time".

Some of us doubt the desirability of requiring Latin verse composition at this stage, but we think that boys who have read some Latin hexameters and elegiacs may reasonably be expected to be able to scan them. The ear cannot be too early


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trained in a sense of rhythm, and what is naturally expected in regard to English verse should also be required in regard to Latin.

We are glad to notice from the specimen examination paper supplied to us that candidates are expected to know the principal tales of Greek mythology and legend. It was perhaps an accident that the paper included no similar question on the great legends of Roman history.

(i) Position of Greek in - (a) the Common Entrance Examination; (b) Entrance Scholarship Examinations. From our point of view the most important question that arises with regard to the Common Entrance Examination is the place that should be assigned in it to Greek. This can only be fully discussed in connexion with the wider question of the proper age for beginning each of the three languages- French, Latin, and Greek, and the order in which they should be taken. Certain general principles have, however, been agreed upon by the Public Schools in consultation with the Preparatory School- masters which go a long way to determine the lines on which the latter must work.

The Head Masters' Conference of 1908 resolved that in their opinion the average boy cannot undertake the study of more than two languages besides English before 13 without detriment to his general education, and that, as experience had shown that a high standard of Greek scholarship could be attained by 18 or 19, even though Greek had not been begun till 14 or even later, it was the duty of the Public Schools to provide classes in which Greek could be begun. A Committee was appointed to confer with Preparatory Schoolmasters as to a scheme of studies for boys from the age of 9 to about 16 and to draw up a report on the subject. The Committee came to an agreement on the principle that a boy should not be allowed to begin Greek till the foundations of Latin and French had been securely laid and till he had received systematic training in English. The Conference of 1909 approved this Report and it was again approved in 1911 and, with some modifications, in 1916. It may be taken that the principle on which it is based now governs the Entrance and Entrance Scholarship Examinations at most of the Public Schools.

The Report, by recommending that boys should not be introduced to Latin until they have a sound preliminary training in


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English, fixed the stage, though not the age, at which Latin should be begun. No opinion was expressed as to whether French or Latin should be begun first, but the Committee were convinced that Latin must be begun before Greek.

They also emphatically asserted the view that Greek should be taught only in the later stages of Preparatory School education and to comparatively few boys, who in most schools should be treated as exceptional cases, and that the standard of Greek expected in Entrance Scholarship Examinations should not be of an advanced character. But on the other hand they were of opinion that boys who showed exceptional linguistic ability might not unreasonably begin it in their last years at a Preparatory School.

With these views we substantially agree. But while we think it most important not to lay the burden of learning a new language on boys who have not successfully mastered the initial stages of French and Latin, experience shows that boys of decided linguistic ability can with profit begin Greek at their Preparatory School. And there is an obvious advantage in such boys beginning it at a stage where classes are small and where more individual attention can be given than is generally possible at a Public School. We may also add that if the abler boys in a Preparatory School begin Greek in the last year or two before they go on to a Public School, the danger of their "marking time" in the top forms, to which reference has already been made, is largely obviated.

If the tendency of the Common Entrance Examination is at times to keep boys back, a frequent effect of Scholarship Examinations is to force some of them on too fast. The best boys at a Preparatory School will, no doubt, suffer but little by carrying on their work to higher stages more suited to the age of the Public School; they have the ability to master the elements rapidly and respond well to the stimulus of more interesting work. But for various reasons it is often found essential to group other boys of less ability along with them, and these may suffer very seriously from premature excursions into ranges of work too high for them. Thus it is difficult for Preparatory Schools to avoid a dangerous form of "cramming". The Examiners in the Public Schools' Examinations may do their best to keep the standard of the Unseen Papers or the Latin Prose on simple and reasonable lines; but it is still


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essential to provide some test which will discover the genuine scholar. So the level of requirement rises inevitably, and in the course of preparation the less able boy is carried beyond his depth. Yet both for him and for his more capable competitors a sound and general grounding is the right thing at this stage. The excessive concentration on a single branch of study - such as Unseen Translation - cannot but be unhealthy, and real promise shown in a variety of subjects should be as true an index of ability as extreme proficiency in one. For this reason we should not discourage the teaching of Latin verse to the better boys. Other subjects - Mathematics, History, Geography, and French - should carry weight; and, if the promising Classical scholar is not of necessity proficient in all these, it is at least essential that he should understand the use of his own mother tongue. Quality of English, whether in original composition or in translation from the Classics, is an all-important object to aim at in a boy's early training. Its requirement is a deterrent to one-sided scholarship; nor after all is there any better test of real ability than the task of re-casting Greek or Latin in good English style while preserving the exact significance and logic of the original.

(ii) FIRST EXAMINATIONS.

The School Certificate or "First" Examinations are conducted by seven University Examining bodies and by the Central Welsh Board, all of them approved for the purpose by the Board of Education. One or other of the examinations is taken by the great majority of the Grant-earning Schools and also by almost all the Public Schools of England and Wales. For the most part, and invariably in the Grant -earning Schools, forms as a whole and not individual candidates are presented for the examination. Every candidate is required to offer a minimum of five subjects covering three groups, viz., English Subjects, Languages other than English, and Science and Mathematics; most candidates in practice offer more. The policy of the Board of Education is to encourage the schools to submit their pupils for examination in all the main subjects of the curriculum, and the examinations are so devised as to require no special preparation and to entail the minimum of disturbance of the ordinary work of the school. The standard of them is such that success should be within the reach of a candidate of average capacity and industry about the age of 16. The better candidates can


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obtain "credits" in individual subjects, and a certain number of credits, provided that other conditions are satisfied, carry exemption from matriculation and from some professional examinations. Recognition of the Certificate Examinations by the Board of Education is conceded or withheld on the recommendation of the Secondary School Examinations Council, on which acting school teachers are represented. A recent investigation of their standards and methods, in which teachers took a prominent part, will, we hope, have secured that they are as a whole well adapted for the purpose for which they are designed. In particular, the fact that a school can select any one of eight examinations, not identical in character though all of approximately the same standard, should offer equal opportunity for schools which can provide only a four-year Latin course and for those whose pupils have begun Latin at a Preparatory School.

These examinations have therefore now become the recognised test of the attainments of a very large number of pupils in schools of widely different types at the age beyond which only a small minority at present continue at school. It will be observed that no one subject is compulsory and that only one language other than English need be offered. In existing circumstances, no more stringent requirement is possible, if a considerable number of Secondary Schools are not to be excluded.

In practice only a small minority of the candidates at present offer Latin and hardly any offer Greek (p. 47). It is important to consider how far the test imposed on those who offer either or both is suitable and calculated to encourage the best kind of teaching.

(a) Character of the Examination in Classics.- In Classics the examination generally consists of: (a) English sentences for translation into Greek or Latin, and also an English passage for translation into continuous Latin prose; (b) easy unprepared passages, both verse and prose, for translation into English. Questions are also often set on points of grammar and syntax arising out of the above, but there is generally no separate paper on grammar. Most of the examining bodies also require a paper on set books. It is understood that candidates are not required to pass separately in each of these papers, but that within certain well-defined limits compensation is allowed between one part of the subject and the other, and that a candidate stands or falls on the examiners' estimate of his work as a whole.


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(b) Recommendations as to (i) Set Books. We think that this scheme is well calculated to ensure that a successful candidate has a sound knowledge of the ordinary grammar, syntax and vocabulary, and has acquired some facility in using this knowledge for translation both from and into the language. This is all important. But by this stage he should have read a certain number of classical texts, and to secure that he has read them, and read them intelligently, we think that he should be required to offer one or more of them for examination. If a sufficiently wide choice of texts is allowed, this requirement need not unduly hamper the discretion of the teacher in the choice of authors to be read in class; indeed, it would be a fundamental mistake to suppose that the study of the prescribed texts need occupy the whole even of the year preceding the examination. It is true that at this stage an examination on a text cannot go much beyond the setting of passages for translation along with incidental questions on the subject-matter, and that such an examination may lend itself to "cramming", which in extreme cases has sometimes taken the form of committing the translation to memory. But a skilful examiner should be able to detect the difference between "cramming" and legitimate preparation. It is also to be remembered that an examination solely in unseen translation lends itself to "cramming" of an equally objectionable kind, by the substitution in the schools of collections of short extracts and specimens of different authors for a continuous work We have, therefore, little hesitation in agreeing with the published recommendation of the Investigators of the First Examinations that set books should be required, wherever the examining body cannot satisfy itself that the reading of continuous texts is a normal part of the school curriculum. The passages set for unseen translation, especially if in verse, should be chosen from writers of the same general character and standard of difficulty as those prescribed for set books.

(ii) Ancient History. But the reading of a text is robbed of half its value, unless the pupil has some knowledge of its author's personality, of its historical background and of the general conditions of ancient life. Ancient history is, however, not prescribed by any examining body as part of the examination in Classics. It is the practice of some examining bodies to ask for the elucidation of such historical points as happen to


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occur in the passages set for translation, but it is obvious that such questions tend to be casual and incidental and do nothing to secure that the candidate has any adequate knowledge of ancient history or ancient life. Those parts of the de Bello Gallico which deal with Caesar's invasions of Britain and which are almost universally read at this stage may, if treated without reference to anything else, easily leave a boy under the impression that these invasions were the most important events in the life of Caesar. In view of what has been said, we are inclined to believe that it would be well to add to the set books paper a choice of one or two simple questions of a more general character than those arising directly out of the passages set for translation but relevant to the author and period concerned. The inclusion of such questions would have a stimulating effect on the work of all the candidates, and particularly of those of them who might afterwards proceed to advanced work in Classics or Modern Studies.

(iii) Greek. We have considered the question whether anything can be done to allow weight in the School Certificate Examinations to such knowledge of Greek as a candidate may possess who has begun it about two years before the examination but has not yet brought it up to the stage required for the Certificate. We are, however, unable to recommend any method by which, in an examination of this Kind, such weight should be allowed, nor do we think that any statement by the Head Master or Head Mistress that the pupil at some date subsequent to the examination has completed a' three years' course in Greek can be taken into account by an Examining Body. But pupils who at this stage are already well advanced in Latin might be encouraged to pay special attention to Greek and to offer it instead of Latin in the examination. The experiment might also be tried of permitting candidates to offer in the examination Latin-and-Greek as a composite subject, each on a lower standard than that allowed for either language offered separately. A similar composite subject of Physics-and-Chemistry or "General Science" has proved satisfactory in the Science Group. But although "credit" is awarded on General Science, it would hardly be possible to award it on the composite Classical subject.

It should be noticed that the fact that Greek has generally been studied for a shorter time than Latin is already recognised by the Examining bodies, most of whom require continuous


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prose composition in Latin, while none of them requires it in Greek.

(iv) Compulsory Subjects. The position of Latin and Greek in the First Examinations may be seriously affected by any proposal to make a pass in one or more subjects compulsory. At present, as we have seen, the only requirement is that at least one subject must be offered from each of the three groups. But if, as the Committee on Science recommended,* a pass in Science is made compulsory in Group III., a serious situation would arise. For, as all candidates are taught elementary mathematics, which is also a subject in Group III., the great majority of them will naturally offer that subject for examination, and they would be tempted to satisfy the Regulations by offering only one language in Group II., which in the majority of cases would be French. We have every wish to see Science establish itself as a normal part of the curriculum, but we think that to put pressure on all candidates to bring their knowledge of it up to the standard of the examination would weight the scales unduly against the pupil of literary tastes and inevitably lead, in some schools, to the partial or complete neglect of Latin. There are some pupils who may reasonably omit Latin altogether. But for the great majority Latin no less than Science is an essential part of a good secondary education, and we should deprecate any proposal that would tend to favour one at the expense of the other.

We wish also strongly to emphasise our view that in this and all other general school examinations, while the syllabus of the examination should be adapted to the school curriculum and not the curriculum to the examination, it is unnecessary and often undesirable that every subject of the curriculum should be offered for examination by the candidates. The curriculum should, generally speaking, be wider than the examination; and though the better candidates may often reach the examination

*The Council for Humanistic Studies and the Conjoint Board of Scientific Societies adopted in 1918 a Resolution that the First Examination should consist of (a) English Language and Literature as a compulsory subject; (b) Four Groups, viz. (i) History and Geography; (ii) Languages other than English; (iii) Mathematics; (iv) Science. Ail groups to be compulsory, but excellence in two with evidence of adequate training in all four to compensate for weakness in one group. (See Education, Secondary and University: a Report of Conferences between the. Council for Humanistic Studies and the Conjoint Board of Scientific Societies.) (Murray, 1919, p. 36.)


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standard in all or nearly all the subjects of the curriculum, we deprecate any proposal to omit Latin or Greek from the curriculum on the sole ground that it is known beforehand that these subjects cannot be brought up to examination standard.

(iii) SECOND EXAMINATIONS.

The Second or Higher Certificate Examinations are also approved by the Board of Education and are intended for Sixth Form pupils of about the age of 18. They conform generally to the scheme for Advanced Courses, which has been already described (p. 63). The examination in Classics includes the languages, literature and history of both Greece and Rome, and is intended to lead up to an Honours Course at the University. In its general conception we find nothing to criticise.

Relation to Advanced Course Syllabuses. It should, however, be noticed that the subjects prescribed by the Board's Regulations for Advanced Courses and those for the Higher Certificate Examinations are at present grouped on rather different lines, though most students in Advanced Courses do in fact enter for one or other of the Higher Certificate Examinations.

The Regulations for the Higher Certificate Examinations, most of which were drawn up in their present form about 1917, allow, except in the case of one examination,* Latin to be offered in the Modern Studies Group, and further do not require the subsidiary subject for candidates in Classics or Modern Studies to be a subject other than language, history, or literature.† Accordingly, under these Regulations a candidate for a Higher Certificate, can generally offer English and Latin as main subjects, with French as subsidiary. Under the Advanced Course Regulations, the subsidiary subject could not be a language.

We think that it is of great importance that some substantial work should be done during this period in subjects other than Classics, and we would therefore encourage a classical student to continue his work in science or in mathematics or in

*The Higher School Certificate Examination of London University.

†Two of the Examining Bodies do not at present require a subsidiary subject to be offered for examination, though they require it to have been studied.


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both to the end of his school life. We should, however, consider it disastrous to require at this stage pupils with no taste for science or mathematics to continue what is likely to be a purely formal study of them; such a requirement is likely to lead either to overwork or waste of time. By the age of 16 or 17 the abler pupils, who alone will take the examination, should have given signs of special capacity for further work either on literary or scientific lines. Such work should not be unduly specialised, but neither should it be hampered by a requirement to continue the study of alien and often wholly uncongenial subjects. We therefore recommend that candidates for a Higher Certificate in Classics, if still required to offer in the examination one or more additional subjects, should be free to select them from any of the subjects either in the Modern Studies or in the Mathematical and Science Group.

We further recommend that on the principle that equal opportunities should everywhere be afforded to both Classical languages, the Regulations for all Higher Certificate Examinations should allow Greek as a main subject alternative to Latin in the Modern Studies Group.

It should be noted that the Regulations of some Examining Bodies allow candidates in Mathematics, Science or Modern Studies to offer Latin or Greek as a subsidiary subject and on a lower standard. We cordially welcome this provision, which should do much to encourage pupils specialising in Modern Subjects or even in Science and Mathematics nevertheless to keep up their Classics. As regards students of English, History and Modern Languages we think that the provision is of the first importance for the proper pursuit of their special studies. We discuss later (p. 160) the question c»f the method appropriate to the classical studies of such candidates.

(iv) PROFESSIONAL EXAMINATIONS.

Though no school curriculum should be dominated by the requirements of any examination, however well devised, we are nevertheless of opinion that the School Certificate Examinations as a whole suggest schemes of study to which the curriculum of Secondary Schools may well conform. These Examinations secure that the successful candidates have the basis of general education which should be demanded from all those entering upon professions or careers which can in any


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respect be classed as learned. It is also the right of every child with aptitude and ambition for such careers that a general education up to this standard should be within his reach.

Accordingly, in any reconsideration of the qualifications for entrance into various careers, whether in the service of the State or in other professions, the chief stress should be laid on the importance of the "First" Certificate Examination. The desideratum is that every candidate for an examination qualifying for entrance upon a professional training (e.g., for the Army or a scientific profession) should produce evidence of a good general education. The "First" School Examination should be accepted as evidence of this, and those who have not passed this examination should be required to pass a qualifying examination of the same kind and standard. In the subsequent professional examinations, possibly of a competitive character, emphasis could then safely be laid on the more technical subjects. We think, however, that those professions in which the average age for admission to professional training is over 16 may reasonably demand something more than a bare pass in any examination accepted as qualifying for admission, and also some evidence of competence to pursue such special lines of study as the requirements of the profession may demand.

The most important of the professions with which the schools are concerned are the Navy, the Army and the Junior Branches of the Civil Service, though there are other professions to which admission is possible during the years ordinarily covered by school life.

(a) Examinations for entrance to the Navy. Latin is one of the subjects that must be offered in the qualifying examination for admission to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. As however the syllabus of that examination is devised to suit the ordinary Preparatory and Junior School curriculum, no special comment is required.

The scheme of special entry to the Navy for candidates between 17½ and 18½ years of age is likely to be made permanent. We notice that among the six subjects which must be offered in the competitive examination (English, English History and Geography, Latin or French or German, Elementary Mathematics and Science) only one language other than English is allowed.


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On the assumption that a considerable number of vacancies will be offered annually for competition, we are of opinion that candidates should normally be required to have obtained a School Certificate before proceeding to those more specialised studies which the requirements of the Service now demand and in which they may properly be tested in the competitive examination. This will enable them to pursue up to the stage of the First Examination the ordinary school course, including both Latin and French, and will avoid the necessity of setting up special Navy classes, with results not less unhappy than those which for many years have attended the existence of special Army classes. In the specialised course candidates for the Navy might probably be taught along with candidates for Woolwich.

(b) Examinations for entrance to the Army. Candidates enter the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, between the ages of 17½ and 18½ (or till further notice 19). The examination for Woolwich is necessarily of a somewhat specialised character. It is possible to offer either Latin or Greek, but not both; as a matter of fact few candidates offer either. For Sandhurst we understand that it is not intended to prohibit candidates in future from offering both Greek and Latin, though this is not at present possible. We welcome the decision of the Army Council to assimilate both examinations to the scheme of the approved First Examinations. As this policy is carried out, it should be worth the while of candidates in the schools from which the bulk of the entrants to Sandhurst are drawn to carry at least Latin to the same level as their other studies. We were expressly informed that it was the intention of the Army Council that boys destined for the Army should pursue at school the same curriculum as those destined for a University, and it should consequently be un- necessary for them to be taught in special classes. We must, however, assume that under any system at least the weaker candidates will concentrate on the five subjects (English, History, Geography, Mathematics and a Modern Language) which have a direct bearing on their subsequent professional work, and that only a few of them will do serious work in Latin, and still fewer in Greek.

We would express the hope that as for candidates by special entry to the Navy, so also for candidates for Woolwich and Sandhurst the possession of a School Certificate (or some


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similar Certificate) may be made a necessary qualification for admission to the Entrance Examination. We believe that this would greatly improve their work, and they would be able to devote the time after gaining a Certificate to any special subjects on which the Authorities might desire to lay emphasis. There is otherwise a danger that they will be "marking time", if they are taking at a later age as a competitive examination an examination very similar to that taken by other boys at an earlier age as a pass examination. If this proposal were adopted, arrangements would have to be made for the recognition of Certificates awarded by Scottish and Irish and even perhaps by other Examining Bodies on terms similar to those for the recognition of the English and Welsh "First" Certificates. Cases in which for accidental reasons a candidate otherwise well qualified had not been able to obtain a Certificate could be dealt with on their merits or by a special qualifying examination.

(c) Examinations for admission to the Civil Service. The examination for Class I. of the Civil Service comes at the end of the University period and does not concern us at this point. The conditions of admission to the Junior branches have been recently revised and the Regulations have not yet been published. We understand that some 1,000 junior clerical appointments open both to boys and girls of 16 to 17 years of age may be made each year, and that there will eventually be other appointments open to candidates of 18 to 19. In many parts of the country, and particularly perhaps in London, the examination will exercise a powerful influence on a candidate's school studies, and the security of the position offered by the Service is said to attract many boys and girls who might with profit proceed to a University.*

It is of course to be remembered that a Public Examination of this kind must be devised to offer equal opportunity to candidates of different types in schools in Scotland and Ireland as well as in England and Wales, and indeed to candidates who are no longer in attendance at any school. It would accordingly be impossible, in the present state of classical education in the three kingdoms, to require either Latin or Greek as a compulsory subject, and all that can be expected is that the Classics should not be put at a disadvantage in comparison with other subjects.

*See Interim Report of the Consultative Committee. 1916, sections 42-44.


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We think, however, thai the Examination might well conform to the general scheme of a First Certificate Examination and allow the same wide choice of subjects. If candidates are to be allowed to offer only one language other than English, then a free option should be permitted between Latin, Greek and any one modern foreign language. But if, as in the interests both of the schools and of the Service we think highly desirable, two languages other than English are allowed, then no obstacle should be thrown in the way of candidates offering both Latin and Greek. In making this suggestion we are only asking that the ancient languages should not be put at a disadvantage as compared with the modern. The great majority of candidates, if only one language is allowed, will select French. If two are allowed, French will still generally be one of them. But if a candidate knows from the first that he will not offer a classical language, then even if one or both of these languages are retained in his time-table, he will have every inducement to pay little attention to them; and the presence of a number of such candidates in a school cannot but exercise a prejudicial influence on the classical work of the school as a whole. In particular it must be remembered that along with candidates for Civil Service appointments there will be pupils in the school of the same age, if not in the same form, who are candidates for a School Certificate. If it is impossible for those of the first category to offer Latin as well as French in their examination, considerations of time-table and school organisation will tend to discourage the offering of Latin by candidates for a Certificate, and this in turn will react on the teaching of Latin in lower forms.

We have thought it reasonable to enter this caveat about an examination the conditions of which are not yet announced, because it appears from what has been said in the last two paragraphs that the Civil Service Commissioners, who conduct the examinations alike for the Navy, the Army and the Civil Service, are not inclined to allow the classical languages, as compared with the modern, what we consider to be their proper weight in the examinations which they conduct.

(d) Other Professional Examinations. We mention the examinations admitting to professions other than the Army, Navy and Civil Service, only for the sake of completeness and because they are taken by a large number of pupils towards the end of their school course. The conditions attaching to them


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differ with each profession, but the great majority of the most important professional bodies now accept the Certificate of a First Examination as exempting from their own Preliminary Examinations, with such provision as to standards and subjects as they think suitable. The only professional body that at present requires Latin, and that not for all candidates, is the Incorporated Law Society, and they are understood to have this requirement under consideration. We shall speak later of the views held by some professional men of the value of Classics as a preparation for their profession (p. 250 seq.).

(v) MATRICULATION EXAMINATIONS.

Most Universities in England lay down their own conditions for matriculation; a joint matriculation examination is held by the Universities of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Birmingham. Exemption from a matriculation examination is allowed to holders of Certificates awarded on a First Examination (and in some cases on a Second Examination or a combination of the two) on conditions which vary with the University. Latin is almost universally required for an Arts degree and sometimes for matriculation in a particular Faculty, and this latter requirement may often be met by obtaining a pass with credit in Latin in a First Examination. For Responsions at Oxford candidates are required to offer either Latin or Greek, and may offer both. In the Previous Examination at Cam- bridge candidates may also offer both, but in any case are required to pass in Latin. We understand, however, that exemption from the Previous Examination may be obtained by means of a Certificate of a "First" Examination with credit in either Latin or Greek. We hope that the University will see its way to allow Greek as an alternative to Latin in the Previous Examination itself.

(vi) EXAMINATIONS FOR LEAVING EXHIBITIONS.

Leaving Scholarships or Exhibitions to the Universities or other places of higher education are awarded by the Governing Bodies of a large number of schools, and there are others the award of which is determined by the terms of the trusts which established them. In some cases they are awarded for specific subjects, in others there is no such restriction. Their value and


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the conditions attached to them vary greatly and it is impossible therefore to make any general statement that will cover all cases. Modern schemes for the government - of Foundation schools normally make provision for the establishment of leaving exhibitions where provision does not already exist, but do not as a rule specify the subjects for which they should be awarded. A common practice is to award them on the results of the annual Sixth Form examinations.

(vii) SCHOLARSHIP EXAMINATIONS AT OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

(a) The importance of College Scholarship Awards. Many of our witnesses emphatically declared that the award of Classical Scholarships by Oxford and Cambridge Colleges is the most potent and sometimes the sole influence promoting the study of the Classics in Boys' Schools of every type, and that consequently the method of their award largely determines the character of the classical teaching both in Sixth Forms and indirectly throughout the school. The Head Masters of Secondary Schools were in full agreement on this point with Public School Head Masters. The best classical pupils in the former type of school seldom proceed to a modern University; they aim at Oxford or Cambridge, but cannot for the most part g there without winning a scholarship. That the best classical pupils in Sixth Forms in Public Schools are candidates for these scholarships is well known, and the effect of this is felt far down the schools.

(b) Normal Conditions of Election: Age Limits Tenure, and Value. These scholarships are, as a rule, awarded by open competition among candidates under 19 years of age. They are tenable, subject to good conduct, till the degree is taken, i.e., for a period of three or four years, which in special cases may be further prolonged. At Oxford they are usually of the value of £80 per annum; at Cambridge their value has varied from £40 to £80, but the initial award may be increased to a scholar who continues to do well after coming into residence. At both Universities a large number of exhibitions is also awarded, which, in some cases at any rate, differ from scholarships chiefly in being of a lower value. Candidates for exhibitions are, however, sometimes required to give proof of needing


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financial assistance, and the limit of age for an exhibition is often higher than for a scholarship.

(c) Scope of the Examinations at (i) Oxford. In all classical elections at Oxford other subjects play an important part. Both an English Essay and a General Paper are everywhere - or nearly everywhere - required, and to good work done in these papers great importance is attached. In particular the General Paper, in which not so much knowledge as general intelligence is looked for, is devised to include "essay questions" on History and Literature (ancient and modern), Politics, Sociology, Economics, Æsthetics, and Science. Passages for translation into Greek and Latin verse are always set and appear to be sometimes required. More often verses are treated as additional or optional subjects, for which at some Colleges other subjects may be substituted. Modern Languages and Modern History, though nowhere required, may often be offered as additional or alternative subjects, and two Colleges allow a paper on Natural Science, Mathematics, or English Literature as an alternative to optional verses.

It appears that only one College definitely expects a scholar to read for Honours in the subject in which he was elected.

(ii) Cambridge. An English Essay is required by all Colleges at Cambridge from candidates for classical scholarships, but a General Paper appears not to be universal. We have been informed that great importance is attached to the General Paper where it is set, and that it often exercises the determining influence in doubtful cases. Greek and Latin verses are required by four Colleges; ten others allow as an alternative further Prose Composition, including essays in Greek or Latin.

Translation from French and German is included in the General Paper where set, and five Colleges require a candidate in Classics to qualify in at least one of these languages. Combination of Classics with other subjects is allowed within the limits of the time-table of the examination.

Seven Colleges reserve the right of revising the tenure and emoluments of a scholarship if the candidate abandons the subject in which he obtained it. We understand, however, that in practice change to another subject is freely permitted.

(d) General conditions which should govern elections. It will be generally admitted that a primary, if not the sole function of the scholarship system is to give opportunity for a University


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education to those candidates who are best qualified to profit by it, whatever subject or subjects they offer. It will also be admitted that at the age of 18 or 19 those candidates are best qualified who combine the elements of a wide general culture with some special training and a relatively high degree of attainment in one branch of knowledge.

We have no desire, even if we had the requisite knowledge, to criticise the machinery which any one College or group of Colleges has found it convenient to employ to secure the election of such candidates. We recognise that undue specialisation either in science and mathematics or in purely linguistic studies is ordinarily to be deprecated, but we think that in exceptional cases marked ability in one or the other or in both may be allowed to compensate for some deficiency in other respects.

(e) These conditions generally satisfied. Generally speaking it may be said that provision is made at both Universities to discourage excessive specialisation and to give opportunity to a candidate to show acquaintance with other than classical subjects. The principle of this provision is the same as that underlying the Regulations for Advanced Courses and the Higher Certificate Examinations, though the College electors, wisely as we think, do not require or necessarily expect candidates to show acquaintance with subjects wholly alien to their main line of study. We consider that the classical papers set in the examinations are, as a rule, well calculated to encourage in the schools a classical education on broad and liberal lines. We received, however, expressions of opinion from several witnesses, both from the schools and the Universities, that the standard required in technical and linguistic scholarship was sometimes unduly high and likely to divert the attention of candidates from the broader and more humane aspects of classical study. A proper emphasis on the Essay and General Paper is perhaps the best way of meeting this danger.

(f) Existing method of election at Oxford and Cambridge. The fact that the award of scholarships is in the hands of some forty independent societies, each having, subject to its statutes, complete discretion in the matter, even as regards the number of scholarships that are assigned at any one time to particular subjects, makes it impossible to say anything which will apply to all cases. Each University, and indeed each College, has its own tradition. The electors to Classical


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Scholarships and Exhibitions are naturally in the first instance on the look-out for candidates who will do well in the Classical Honour Schools of the University; but the qualities which lead to success in the Cambridge Classical Tripos are so different from those demanded by the Oxford Classical Schools - especially that of Literæ Humaniores - that it is hardly too much to say that some candidates are elected at one University who would have had little chance at the other.

(g) Grouping of Examinations at (i) Cambridge. It should also be noted that the practice at Cambridge is for each group of Colleges in the election of scholars to examine in all subjects simultaneously. No scholarships are allotted beforehand to any one subject or subjects, but those candidates are elected, according to the total number of awards available, who are considered best qualified, whatever the subject that they offer. At some Colleges the same General Paper and Essay (or choice of essay subjects) are set to all candidates, and questions on Science as well as on other subjects are included in the General Paper.

(ii) Oxford. - At Oxford the general practice is for the Colleges to announce beforehand that a specified number of scholarships and exhibitions, or not more than a specified number, will be awarded in each subject, and the Colleges tend to enter into different combinations for the examinations in each subject. Under this system it would appear difficult to secure that all candidates, whatever their subject, do in fact give the same proof of general intelligence and liberal culture, since the candidates in Science or Modern History are not submitted to a test identical in this respect with that imposed on candidates in Classics and their work may not be judged by the same examiners.

(h) Recommendation of a common General Paper. We think that it is desirable in the interests of higher education generally that an identical test of this character should be imposed on all candidates, though we recognise that students of different subjects will respond to it in different ways. It is of great importance that the best pupils in Sixth Forms, whatever the main subject of their studies, should possess as far as possible a common basis of wide general culture. This end will best be promoted if all alike are required in College Scholarship Examinations to take the same General Paper and are offered


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the same choice of essay subjects. Both papers should be so drafted as to give all candidates alike an opportunity of showing acquaintance not merely, as is common in General Papers at present, with Ancient and Modern Literature, History and Politics, with Economics, Æsthetics and Art and modern Science, but also with Greek thought on scientific subjects. This last should be ground common to the specialists in Classics and the specialists in Natural Science. The knowledge expected in these papers would of course be relatively elementary, nor do we suppose that the whole of the ground indicated would necessarily be covered in every paper set. Work done in the Essay and the General Paper might in doubtful cases properly turn the scale, in the sense that where two candidates for a scholarship did work of approximately equal value in their special subject, the scholarship should be awarded to the candidate who did best in these two papers.

(i) Classics and Ancient History in History Scholarship Examinations. We may add to this recommendation another of a more detailed character. We have had evidence that many pupils with an aptitude for the Classics, who have no taste or no time for advanced composition, at any rate in both Greek and Latin, have been compelled for this reason to abandon classical studies. Though they would not win Classical Scholarships and would be unlikely to do well in the Classical Tripos or in Honour Moderations, they should continue at school their classical studies. For they are often of a type excellently adapted for such courses as "Greats" at Oxford, and our witnesses from both Universities have spoken highly of the value of the Classics as a preparation for the Honour Schools of History, EngIish and Modern Languages. We think that the case of some of these pupils would be met by allowing them to offer in History Scholarship Examinations Ancient History in substitution for some part of Modern History. Such candidates might be allowed the opportunity of taking papers in translation from Latin and Greek in lieu of or in addition to translation from Modern Languages. We are glad to know that some Colleges already arrange for this.

We were, however, struck by the argument strongly pressed by some witnesses that it would be undesirable to award scholarships definitely on a combination of Classics and Modern History


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treated as of equal value. For if this is done, one of two things will happen. Either the standard reached by successful candidates both in Classics and in History will be lower than that reached in either when offered, as at present, as independent examination subjects, and in particular, candidates from schools in which Latin, and still more Greek, is necessarily begun late will find it very difficult to reach a good standard in Classics, if they must also reach a corresponding standard in History. Or on the other hand, if the present standards are maintained, it will only be at the expense of excessive strain on the candidates. Either of these results would be disastrous. We feel indeed that, however attractive may be the proposal to favour the "all-round" candidate, it is not the function of scholarship electors to reward second-rate ability and superficial knowledge spread over a wide field. Specialisation, or rather concentration on a limited but organic group of studies, is a necessary and proper characteristic of a University course, and the interests of learning, research and education generally are best promoted by a limited specialisation in the last two or three years of school life. From another point of view all boys worthy of election to scholarships have by that time shown special taste and aptitude for particular lines of study and less aptitude for others, and it is to the national interest that these aptitudes should be fostered and encouraged. It should also be remembered that the student of Classics is called upon by the nature of his subject to study not only the language but the history and literature of two peoples, and if he is properly taught, his "specialisation" goes far toward providing a liberal education.

While, however, we cannot hope to see a very high standard in Classics reached by candidates for History Scholarships, it seems nevertheless of great importance that such candidates should be encouraged to keep up the study of Classics to the end of their school life. Early specialisation in History, while providing an excellent stimulus to the pupils' general interest and imagination, has nevertheless its dangers. At worst, it is apt to lead to vague and facile generalisations and to the acceptance of conclusions at second hand without the effort of individual thought; at best, it can scarcely provide the discipline in strict and accurate reasoning which, even during the later years at school, should not wholly be dispensed with and which, in History as in any other subject, is the only sure


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passport to ultimate success. For this reason many of our witnesses have emphasised the peculiar value of the Classics as complementary to the study of History for pupils still at school. We therefore express a hope that in the award of History Scholarships real importance will be attached to a candidate's proficiency in Classics, even though that proficiency should fall far short of the standard normally reached by the purely classical scholar. In this connexion we have further been impressed by the value which teachers of History, whether at Universities or schools, place upon the study of Roman and Greek History. There is no doubt in some quarters a growing tendency to claim that the proper introduction to the study of Modern History should include some acquaintance with the civilisations of Babylon, Egypt and other ancient countries and to deprecate the exclusive importance that has been attached to Greek and Roman History. But many of our witnesses, though anxious that some study of Mediterranean civilisation as a whole should be included in the school curriculum, have nevertheless laid stress on the special value for the Modern Historian of a sound knowledge of Greek and Roman History. University teachers too seem to be agreed that a candidate for Honours in Modern History should, if possible, have read his Greek and Roman History thoroughly at school. Some Colleges lay emphasis in their scholarship examinations on the advantage of such knowledge; others do not. We have already expressed our opinion (p. 102) that the former are well advised. But at any rate it is clear that in the interests of his own studies the future History specialist should be given, while at school, every reasonable inducement to make a knowledge of Classical History a part of his preliminary equipment. In that case the advantage of maintaining in Modern Sixths the study of the classical languages themselves would obviously be doubled. To read Greek History with the aid of Herodotus or Thucydides or Roman History with that of Livy or Tacitus would be a more effective training for such a pupil while at school than the study of mediæval Europe in a text-book or even than the study of thirteenth-century England with the aid of Magna Carta and ecclesiastical chroniclers. To expect the candidate for a History Scholarship to show some knowledge of Ancient History lays no unfair burden on him, so long as the candidate for a Classical Scholarship is expected, as he already is through the operation


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of the General Paper, to show some knowledge of modern subjects.

(j) Influence of the Examinations on Secondary Schools. So far we have been considering College Scholarships mainly as they affect the Public Schools. There is, however, another point of view from which the problem of the conditions of their award must be regarded. The large number of scholarships in Classics annually awarded at Oxford and Cambridge are also the main prop of classical studies in the Secondary Schools. They constitute in fact a "vocational" inducement, analogous to that offered by Science. A boy elected to a Classical Scholarship can see his way clear ahead up to the age of 22 or 23, and after that if he has done well, he has - or had in the past - a specially good chance of election to the Home or Indian Civil Service or of obtaining a teaching post in an important school. These considerations, combined with the prestige of winning a scholarship (a prestige shared by the whole school) and with the charm of University life, are a potent influence in maintaining a classical tradition in the few Grammar Schools, urban and rural, in which it still survives and may go a long way towards creating 'it elsewhere.

(k) Effect of Establishment of State Scholarships. It is, therefore, of the first importance that the present number of annual awards in Classics should not be diminished. We are well aware of all that can be and is said about the undue proportion at present awarded to Classics, though we do not think that there is evidence that the emoluments have been wasted on candidates of too low a standard. But in any case we are of opinion that the recent establishment of State Scholarships has gone far to change the situation. The value of these scholar- ships and the fact that, as we have seen, they will at present generally be awarded for non-classical subjects may possibly attract to Science and Modern Subjects candidates in Grant-earning Schools who might otherwise have studied Classics. It is, on the other hand, possible that the nominal value of College Scholarships may in present circumstances be found quite inadequate. Failing other provision, their value can only be increased by reducing the total number of scholarships awarded. We should, therefore, strongly deprecate any reduction if not in the number of Classical scholarships at least in the total sum of money specifically allotted each year by the Colleges to


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Classics. There is no fear of any injustice being done to other subjects, for they are now effectively though indirectly protected, at any rate as regards Grant-earning Schools, and we are convinced that, if there should be any reduction in the present total number or still more in the total value of Classical awards, a subject of unique importance to the national life would rapidly tend to disappear from the national system of education. But while no reduction in the total value of the emoluments for Classics is desirable, it is possible that some change might with advantage be introduced in the method of their allocation.

(l) The Value of Scholarships. It is, however, no part of cur duty to discuss the vexed question whether every scholarship should ipso facto carry with it the right to a fixed stipend, independent of the financial position of the holder. We would only say that since the war it has become more important than ever that no money available for scholarships should be wasted, and we should welcome any equitable and practicable scheme which would secure this in the award of scholarships for Classics.

(m) Limit of Age. The question was raised before us whether the limit of age for the election to a Classical scholarship, which is at present ordinarily 19, might not with advantage be reduced by a year. Many elements, economic and social as well as educational, enter into this question. There is one, however, which seems to us decisive against such a change. We were assured that a reduction in the age would press very hardly on candidates from Secondary Schools who begin Greek late, and we think that the claims of these candidates deserve the fullest consideration. Some or us also feel that if, as would follow, the Final Honour School were taken at an earlier age than at present, the results might be serious, especially as regards the School of Literæ Humaniores at Oxford. The profitable study of philosophy can only be undertaken when a man has reached a certain stage of intellectual development. It is, as Plato and Aristotle knew, no subject for the immature. Even an able man, if he entered for the examination at 22, would generally fail to get the same benefit from his course of study as he now gets at 23. Those of us who have passed through or taught for the School feel strongly the force of this argument. We believe it also to be true of the philosophical element in the study of History and to some extent of the study of Modern


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Literature. It has, however, been suggested that a candidate elected to a scholarship in December, as most now are, should enter on residence in the following January. This would involve some adjustment of the standing at present required for entry for the Honour Schools. In favour of the change it is alleged that boys elected in December are apt to waste their last two terms at school and even to deteriorate in the interval. The experience of some of us points in the opposite direction. The period of preparation for a scholarship is often one of great strain for a boy who has all his future at stake, especially if his early training has been inadequate; the subsequent period. of relaxation is often extremely valuable to him. The next examination is in a comparatively remote future; he can expand in all sorts of different directions and take the prominent part in the general school life to which his position entitles him, but from which in many cases preparation for the scholarship examination has to some extent shut him out. Both he and the school often greatly gain by this; and it should not be difficult for the school or his prospective College to take steps to secure that leisure does not breed idleness.

(n) Facilities for transference to another study. We notice with satisfaction that neither at Oxford nor Cambridge is there ordinarily any obligation on a scholar to read for Honours in the subject in which he won his scholarship. It is in itself highly desirable that a boy whose main study up to the age of 18 or 19 has been Classics should then have the opportunity of turning to Science or Modern Studies, and we venture to think that these subjects will gain by his doing so. But it is also important that parents should understand that a Classical education at school does not debar their sons from taking to other subjects later on. We have reason to believe that the public is not well aware of the facilities offered by the Colleges for such transfer.

(o) "Close" Scholarships. We have not thought it necessary to consider the effect of "close" scholarships tenable at a particular College by candidates from a particular school. We wish, however, to call attention to the very valuable influence exercised by foundations such as the Hastings Exhibitions at Queen's College, Oxford, which are open to candidates from certain Grammar Schools in Yorkshire, Cumberland, and Westmorland. These scholarships have done much to maintain a high standard of education in the specified schools and have


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given many clever boys a chance which would have otherwise been denied to them. The system is obviously capable of extension, and this would only be a reversion to the practice of mediæval founders. The Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge have between them a traditional connexion with nearly every county in England and Wales. Might it not be possible for each College in the election to one or more scholarships to give some preference to candidates coming from schools in such areas? In this way the greater part of the country might eventually be covered. The stimulus so given could not fail to be' felt throughout each area, and many a struggling Grammar School, particularly in the rural districts, might gain prestige and encouragement from such a connexion, with results that would react favourably on the standard of education in all subjects and on the supply of students from the area who were working with the definite aim of proceeding to a University. It is of course understood that no lowering of the standard at present required for election is contemplated, nor do we suggest that the provision should be limited to Classics.

One advantage of such scholarships would be that candidates, especially those from poorer homes, would be to some extent relieved of the anxiety consequent upon the uncertainty of the open competitions, an anxiety very unfavourable to intellectual development. The success of the system would depend upon the ability of the selected schools to produce candidates of the standard which should be required from the holders of such emoluments. Accordingly the allocation of endowments to the selected schools or areas should be subject to periodic revision.

(viii) CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIPS AT MODERN UNIVERSITIES AND UNIVERSITY COLLEGES.

Particulars with regard to the provision made for the award of scholarships in Classics in the modern Universities and University Colleges of England and Wales cannot be given with the same detail and precision as for Oxford and Cambridge. Some account of them will be found in the section on Modern Universities (p. 187) and some figures in Appendix D. Very few of these institutions award more than one or two scholarships in Classics and some have no specific provision for such awards. Those awarded (except by Women's Colleges) are tenable by men and women alike.


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In the University of London, University College awards two and King's College one scholarship in Classics, and there are some half-dozen others for which Classics is an optional subject. The East London College awards four scholarships and four exhibitions for Latin with optional Creek. King's College for Women awards one scholarship and one or two exhibitions for either Latin or Greek. The other three Women's Colleges (Bedford, Holloway and Westfield) award no scholarships for Classics as such, but Classics may generally be taken as an optional subject in the examination.

Manchester University awards two and Liverpool and Birmingham one scholarship each in Classics. Leeds, Sheffield and Bristol Universities, and the University Colleges of Reading, Nottingham. Bangor, Cardiff and Aberystwyth award none, but Classics may be offered among the optional subjects.

It is clear therefore that the specific provision for Classics in all these Universities and Colleges is of the most meagre kind. It is all the more to their credit that Classical studies are in many of them in a flourishing condition. The authorities, being faced with the fact that their best Latin scholars have on entry little or no knowledge of Greek, have taken steps, often with good results, to remedy this deficiency in the University itself. (See page 183.)

(ix) CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIPS AT THE WOMEN'S COLLEGES AT OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

The statistics of classical awards in the Women's Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge are given in Appendix F. Of some 40 annual awards by all the six Colleges taken together only about seven scholarships and perhaps one or two exhibitions are awarded in Classics, of which some five are usually awarded by Girton and Newnham. The Oxford Colleges require an Essay and a General Paper, the Cambridge Colleges do not. We have already (p. 101) laid stress on the value we attach to these papers, and we venture to suggest that the Women's Colleges at Cambridge might well consider their introduction. Latin and Greek verse is sometimes allowed at Oxford but is rarely, if ever, offered. At both Universities candidates generally have the opportunity of taking a paper of translation from a modern language.


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The Women's Colleges at the two Universities contain at present about 1,100 students. It is obvious that for such numbers the total supply of scholarships for all subjects is very meagre, and that the supply available for Classics is à fortiori quite inadequate.

It is important to notice that of the 24 successful candidates for these Classical scholarships in the five years for which we have information only two came from Municipal and County Day Schools (including Grammar Schools), though these schools are much the most numerous and contain much the largest number of pupils.

(x) CITY AND COUNTY MAJOR SCHOLARSHIPS.

The Major Scholarships awarded by the Local Education Authorities are open to qualified candidates of either sex, what- ever their subject, and have been awarded sometimes on examination, sometimes purely on record. In either case Classical Studies are at no disadvantage as compared with other subjects.

In some areas, as in London, the provision of Major Scholar- ships has been sufficient for all qualified candidates; in other areas they are awarded by competition. The holder is generally free to proceed to any approved University or place of higher education; but sometimes the scholarships are tenable only at the local University or other limiting conditions are imposed. We think that it is of great importance that all hampering restrictions should be abolished, in order that deserving candidates may reap the full advantage of the scholarship award.

(xi) SCHOLARSHIPS AWARDED BY CITY COMPANIES, &c.

In addition to the scholarships already dealt with, a large number is awarded by City Companies and other bodies, some of them in whole or in part for Classics and tenable at a University or elsewhere. It would have been impossible for us in the time at our disposal even to draw up a list of all of them. But we think that, in the interest of possible beneficiaries, all the Local Education Authorities should take steps to make more generally known the conditions of tenure of such endowments as are available in their own area.


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PART III.

Internal Conditions affecting the position of Classics in the Schools.

1. SCHOOL ORGANISATION.

We have so far considered the extent to which the teaching of the Classics is hampered or assisted by external conditions not alterable by the schools. We now proceed to consider those conditions which are under the control of the schools or are determined by their internal organisation.

(a) THE CURRICULUM IN RELATION TO SCHOOLS OF DIFFERENT TYPES.

The Public Schools are fed by a supply of pupils from the Preparatory Schools, who enter at about 13½ and stay till 17 or later. They will already have made a beginning in most of the main subjects of the curriculum, including Latin and in some cases Greek, and they come from educated homes. The Secondary Schools (whether for boys or girls or both) are fed largely by pupils from the Elementary Schools, who enter at different ages between 10 and 14, while the great majority of them at present leave at 16 or sooner. Their home surroundings are not often favourable to any form of literary education. Most of them have previously been taught only English subjects, Arithmetic and some elementary Science, though a few have begun French. Both types of school may also receive pupils from Private Schools, and some of these have been very badly taught. The pupils in Girls' High Schools have often been taught at home, but many of these schools and some of the Secondary Schools have Kindergarten or Preparatory Departments. Up to the age of about 16 the curricula in schools of all types are now very similar and all the schools normally take one of the First Examinations. Music and Art occupy more time in the education of girls than in that of boys. Domestic Subjects form an ordinary part of the curriculum of Secondary Schools for Girls and Manual Work in that of those for Boys, and Physical Training in that of Secondary Schools for both sexes. In the Public Schools Physical Training is now common, but Manual Work finds little place. The actual number of hours per week in school


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does not differ much in Boys' Schools or either type, and may be taken as about 24 hours in Public Schools, 27 hours in Secondary Schools; in Girls' Schools it varies from about 18 to 27, according as there is or is not a regular afternoon session.*

In the Secondary School the knowledge that most of the pupils must begin to earn their living at 16 is necessarily a dominating factor. In such schools accordingly those subjects which have a direct bearing on the subsequent occupations of the pupils must have a special importance both in their eyes and those of their parents; nor can the teacher and especially the Head Master be blamed if he does not altogether ignore this point of view. This does not, however, discharge the school from the duty of educating its pupils to be good citizens as well as efficient workers and therefore of encouraging the study of Classics, so far as they contribute to this result. And apart from the fact that a narrowly vocational trainings is in the long run not the best preparation even for vocational success, this duty will be the more urgent as workers of all classes command more leisure time. But humane education will not be satisfied with this. It is its business also to call out the best that is in a man, not merely as a member of a community but as an individual, and both on the intellectual and on the emotional sides. It is the highest claim of the study of the literatures of Greece and Rome that they combine these appeals in a harmony which no modern literatures can evoke in the same completeness.

(b) ENGLISH IN THE PRELIMINARY STAGE AND THE TEACHING OF GRAMMAR THROUGH ENGLISH.

Few will deny that a common foundation for the study of any foreign language, ancient or modern, must be laid in English, and this not merely by linguistic training, /.e., training in the elementary concepts of grammar and syntax, but also by the cultivation of literary appreciation, including the power of speaking and writing with correctness and facility. In principle there is no disagreement in this matter between the Preparatory and the Elementary Schools. In the Common Entrance and the Entrance Scholarship Examinations to Public Schools stress is

*It should be added that in a Boarding School much can be done out of school hours which is impossible in a Day School.


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laid on English, and we have little doubt that, as the candidates come from cultivated homes, a reasonably high standard in it can in fact be exacted. In examinations for Free Places in Secondary Schools (as no doubt from all other candidates for admission) English as well as Arithmetic is everywhere required. We have no means of knowing what proportion of Free Places are awarded on these qualifications alone. We are however informed that, in many areas at least, the knowledge of grammar possessed by ex-Elementary School pupils is lamentably small and in particular that many of them prove to have no real grip of the simplest syntactical concepts; the consequence is that before a pupil can begin any foreign language and particularly Latin it is often necessary to put him through a preliminary grammatical course.

The question of the teaching of formal grammar in Elementary Schools has been a vexed one for many years and we understand that the subject was till recently tending to disappear from the curriculum. We have great sympathy with the desire of Elementary teachers, who have known that the great majority of their pupils will not continue their education after they leave the Elementary School, to secure that they should during their school years have acquired at least some acquaintance with the simpler masterpieces of English Literature and if possible some admiration for them. We think, however, that it is of at least equal importance that they should have had some training in clear and logical thinking. This training can only be given at that age and under the conditions of Elementary School life by such exercises as the analysis of sentences. Even therefore for those who will hereafter pass from the Elementary to the Day Continuation School a solid grounding in elementary grammar is of great importance, while for those who are to proceed to a Secondary School it is absolutely vital. We were accordingly glad to learn that more attention is now being paid to formal grammar in the Elementary Schools. In the Preparatory Schools the fact that French and Latin are both being learnt makes insistence on formal grammar taught through English less important.

(c) FRENCH NORMALLY THE FIRST FOREIGN LANGUAGE.

We pass to consider what foreign language should be learnt first. The choice in ordinary cases lies between Latin and


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French. For the average pupil whether in a Preparatory or a Secondary School there is much to be said for the view that the first foreign language to be learnt should be a living modern language, since by universal agreement in the teaching of the first foreign language speech rather than writing ought to play at the outset a principal part. Even the initial stages of French afford scope for self-expression in a very simple form, and a sense of language is thereby developed which serves as a foundation for the future study of more highly inflected languages. Further, a sound knowledge of French acquired by continuous study for some four or five years is of great practical value to almost all pupils in Secondary Schools, especially to those who leave school early; it facilitates the learning of cognate modern languages; there is on the whole sufficient provision in the schools for teaching it; and, what is not unimportant, it is a subject in which in the early stages rapid progress can be made. The encouragement provided by a consciousness of progress and a measure of early success is a valuable stimulus to teachers and pupils alike. Nor can a good pronunciation easily be acquired except by making an early start. We think therefore that in ordinary cases the balance of the argument is in favour of beginning French before Latin. On the other hand, it is the practice of some Preparatory Schools to begin Latin first. Most of their pupils will, continue at school till the age of 18 or 19, and it is urged that Latin, in its earliest stages, provides a more vigorous logical training than French, requires greater mental effort, which nevertheless is not too severe for young boys, and gives a firmer grasp of the principles which are common to all the Indo-European languages, while it is not complicated by the learning of a difficult intonation. We would do nothing to discourage liberty of experiment in the schools, and for that reason would not suggest in such cases a disturbance of the existing practice in opposition to the considered opinion of the responsible authorities.

(d) TEACHING OF LATIN.

(i) Age for beginning.

(a) In the Preparatory School. There is now general agreement that with children a substantial interval should elapse before a second foreign language is begun. The proper interval is often said to be two years, though we do not find complete


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agreement among experts on the point and we strongly deprecate any hard and fast rule which would compel the quicker-brained pupil to keep pace with the slower. Our own view is that, apart from the practical difficulty of insisting everywhere on so long an interval, especially where, as is the case with most Secondary School pupils, no foreign language can be begun till a relatively late age, the period may be sensibly reduced as the pupil grows older, and that after 12 it may sometimes he permissible to begin two languages simultaneously.

As regards Preparatory School boys it must be remembered that nearly all of them have done some French and a great many of them some Latin before they come to school at all. But assuming that either French or Latin is begun in the Preparatory School at about 9, the second language need not be begun before about 10½. This will allow for the ordinary pupil three years for Latin before he goes on to a Public School and should provide, ample opportunity for laying a sound foundation in English, History, Geography, Scripture, Mathematics and Drawing. The cleverer boys can with advantage begin the second language earlier and after a shorter interval, and will then be able to begin Greek as well, before going on to Public School. But for the average boy, who is never likely to become a good Latin scholar, we are satisfied that 10| is early enough. Many such boys have suffered in the past by being taught Latin year after year without making any commensurate progress; in a large number of cases this is traceable to the fact that from the first they have been carrying on the study of two foreign languages concurrently, without getting a real hold of the elements of either. For such boys it is important to secure as long an interval as possible, and we are satisfied that in the end their Latin will not suffer.

(b) In the Secondary School. In the Secondary Schools both Latin and French may have to be begun ab initio. The ordinary age of entry to the Secondary School is at present about 12, though we are glad to notice that in some areas it is lower. We have reason to hope that some of the schemes prepared by the Local Education Authorities under the Education Act, 1918, may make provision for normal entry at about 11. Moreover a certain number of Secondary Schools have Preparatory departments which receive children at an earlier age.


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A principal difficulty however in many Secondary Schools is that they are obliged to admit pupils at two ages - holders of Free Places at about 11½, and other pupils, whether from Elementary or from Private Schools, at about 13. This difficulty can never be entirely surmounted, as many children, and those not necessarily the least able, for one reason or another develop late. But the result is that children of widely different ages and at different stages of advancement in other subjects have in languages to be taught together. The County Scholars, who in English, Mathematics and some other subjects are qualified to be placed in a relatively high form, are at the bottom of the school in French and Latin, where they have to be taught with the late entrants, who are less adaptable to new conditions. This involves grouping the pupils for these subjects in "sets", and sometimes two such "sets" are taught concurrently by the same teacher. No doubt the cleverer children soon leave the rest behind, but the difficulty recurs with each annual entry. The only solution is a general reduction of the age of entry. We have some sympathy with the natural reluctance of the Elementary teachers to part, as they think prematurely, with their best pupils, but we are convinced that it is in the interest of the pupils that they should do so. We have reason to fear that under the present system many of the abler children are not profiting as they might by remaining in the higher standards of their schools, which they hare reached early and in which they are only going again over work already done. This is equally bad for their intellectual and for their moral development. Where therefore they cannot readily be transferred at an early age to Secondary Schools, they may properly begin French in the Elementary School, and we are glad to learn that they can sometimes do so. Time will then be saved in their education and a more real opportunity given for the development of those of them who may have a bent for language and literature.

The rest, at whatever age they enter the Secondary School, must begin French at once, and it is to be hoped that there will be no need for a preliminary course of formal grammar. It may even be possible for some of them to begin French and Latin in the same term. In any case time will not allow the beginning of Latin to be postponed for more than a year; the shortness of the interval is not so serious a matter as it would have been for younger children,


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It follows that in the Secondary School French will be begun in the most favourable case at 10½ or 11, and in the least favourable at 13 (ignoring the possibility of some still later entrants), and Latin at 11½ or 12 and at 14 respectively.

(ii) Importance of frequent Lessons.

At whatever age a foreign language is begun, it is of great importance that, if possible, a daily lesson should be given in it. Not merely is this the easiest way to surmount the initial difficulties and bring the pupil as soon as possible on to what he can enjoy, but in the long run it is an economy of time. The memories of young children, though in one sense strong, are in other ways very weak. They find comparatively little difficulty in the mastering of verbal forms and in what may be called the mechanical act of memorising, but they do not readily carry over from one period to another the rules and principles of language, which must therefore be revised whenever a fresh start is made. Where a daily lesson is impossible, in no case should less than four periods a week be allowed for a new language, and five is much better. Those schools - and there appear to be many such - which allow only three periods or even less are not giving the language a fair chance. It is not for us to prescribe the method by which the time can best be found. But supposing that on the consideration of the curriculum as a whole it proves impossible to arrange for a daily lesson in Latin as well as in French, then for those pupils who are beginning Latin time should be taken from other subjects in which they have already made substantial progress. Similarly, when Greek is begun, it should be possible to diminish the time given to Latin. It is to be feared that the advantages of "intensive study" of a new language are not as widely recognised as they should be. Neither educational theory nor the Regulations of the Board of Education require that the whole of the subjects included in the normal Secondary School curriculum should be studied without intermission up to the stage of the First Examination. The curriculum should be "balanced", but the equipoise to be maintained should be calculated in relation to the period as a whole. It must, how- ever, be urged again that the only real solution of the difficulty caused by the crowding of the curriculum is by the admission


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of pupils into the Secondary Schools at an age not later than 11.

(iii) Importance of a Course of not less than Three Years.

Both Latin and Greek are hard subjects, and unless the pupil enjoys exceptional advantages no substantial progress can be made in the mastery of either in less than a three years* continuous course. The ability to read an easy Greek or Latin author with a dictionary and enjoy what is read can hardly be acquired in ordinary cases and under the ordinary school system in less than three years; yet the acquirement of this ability is a primary object in teaching the languages at all. We do not however say that less time than this is of no value; on the contrary we believe with one of our scientific witnesses that even a smattering of Latin and still more a smattering of Greek may be of real use to students of all types. There are many subjects in which the most learned or accomplished man is a smatterer, which are not therefore useless to him.

(iv) Should no Latin he taught to some Pupils?

We may however admit that there are some children, occasionally of marked ability in other directions, who appear to have no capacity or taste for languages, just as others have none for Mathematics or Science. Allowing that all of them who are admitted to Secondary Schools will be taught French - for if they are incapable of learning even one foreign language they are not qualified for admission to normal courses of study at a Secondary School - there yet remains a not inconsiderable number with whom the attempt to learn a second language seems to result in their making no substantial progress in either.

We have, therefore, to consider whether there are not some pupils in schools of all types who should either not begin a second foreign language at all or drop it after actual trial has proved their incapacity to assimilate more than one.

(a) In Public Schools. The problem is not quite the same in the Public as it is in the Secondary School. Boys of the type we are considering who leave a Preparatory School at about 13½ must get further education of some kind, and indeed it may shortly be a statutory obligation that they should do so. Many of them get from the Public School much of great value


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which they would not obtain elsewhere, and they often contribute much of value to the general life of the school. But as Latin scholars they seem predoomed to failure. We must postpone the question how far their failure is due to defective methods of teaching. But, as we have seen, all of them will have made a start with Latin before entering the Public School, and in spite of much that might be urged on the other side we think that the presumption is that they should continue to study it after entry, at least for the earlier part of their time. If it were possible to teach each pupil separately, another course might be open. One of the main difficulties of school education is to reconcile what is best for the individual pupil with what is best for school organisation as a whole; some compromise is inevitable. But if no attempt is made to continue the teaching of Latin to unpromising pupils, this may often entail the denial of opportunity to latent capacity. If Latin is made an optional subject from the first at the Public Schools, it is certain that not a few will be turned aside to another subject who might have made creditable and even good classical scholars. And though the majority of such boys may never reach the point of being able to read a Latin author with ease and intelligence, they will have been put through a process which in itself may be of real value to their mental development. Without laying stress upon other important considerations, such as the help that is given by even a small knowledge of Latin towards the understanding of English and other modern languages, there is also the question of the intellectual discipline involved in the exercise of faculties which might otherwise remain dormant. Any success in the study of Latin, however small, must be the result of real mental effort, of the application of some accurate, if limited, knowledge and of some power of adapting general rules to particular cases, and that of a kind which no other study can so well provide. Tills result cannot be got out of French, which in the initial stage is at once too easy and too idiomatic. For the most part a simple French sentence "translates itself", while on the other hand there are numerous familiar phrases which can only be rendered by the corresponding English phrases and do not lend themselves to analysis. Nor can it be got out of English, which has a less formal and complicated syntax. It may perhaps be added that those critics who urge that a boy who prima facie is deficient in linguistic ability should not


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attempt Latin would probably not admit that a boy deficient in mathematical ability should never proceed beyond Arithmetic. In both cases the process is more valuable than the result obtained. Latin therefore should in our opinion retain its position as a necessary subject in the lower forms of Public Schools, though we do not suggest that it should be taught to all pupils beyond the point at which the results indicated have been attained or have proved in special cases unattainable.

(b) In Secondary Schools. In the Secondary Schools the problem is different. The Public School boy has an education which in range of subjects may be described as secondary for the whole period from his ninth to his seventeenth year or longer; for the Secondary School pupil the period is generally limited to some four or five years. On the whole we think that for the Secondary School the same arguments hold good as for the Public School and some of them with even greater force, as most of the pupils on entering a Secondary School have begun no foreign language and their capacity for languages is wholly unknown. Where, however, a pupil proves after trial to have little such capacity, we are willing to admit that, subject to the general considerations of school organisation, he should confine himself to French, especially if he will not continue at school after 16. French will be of practical value to him in many walks of life, and it is better that he should end in being a fairly good French scholar than that he should merely add very poor Latin to very poor French. We are willing also to admit that in large towns, where the great majority of the Secondary School pupils are absorbed at a comparatively early age into the local industries, there is room for schools which teach French (with or without a second modern language) but no Latin, provided always that one or more Latin teaching schools are accessible in the same area (see p. 60). In the rural districts the question is more difficult. We think, however, that in certain of these areas there may well be schools which should make it their sole or main duty to train their pupils to play an intelligent and competent part in the staple occupation of the neighbourhood - the schools recognised by the Board of Education as having a "rural bias". The development of scientific agriculture is a matter of great national importance and the training for it is as markedly a specialised branch of education as is that for the mercantile marine. In such schools


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therefore it may often be unwise to make any foreign language but French a normal part of the curriculum. It is, however, of the first importance that, wherever an individual pupil shows capacity for languages, he should by some means or another be given his opportunity.

(e) TEACHING OF GREEK.

Assuming that Latin, in addition to English and French, should form part of the ordinary curriculum under the conditions already described in the lower and middle forms of all Public and Secondary Schools, it remains to consider the provision that should be made in them for the teaching of Greek.

At this point we should like, even though at the risk of some repetition, to emphasise our view of the special value of Greek in a literary education. We have no wish to re-open past controversies, but we feel that, owing to the way in which they have been conducted on both sides, an unfortunate impression has been left on the mind of the public that Greek is a luxury. We would appeal to all those who are interested in education to dismiss past prejudices from their mind and to consider the position as it is to-day.

(i) In Public Schools.

In all Public Schools Greek has ceased to be a compulsory subject for the average boy, and we have no desire to quarrel with the fact, but it seems to us clear that many boys are now ceasing to learn it or are given no opportunity of beginning it who are eminently fitted to profit by the study. We believe that most masters who teach classics and many boys who learn them greatly prefer Greek lessons to Latin, and we find the preference easy to understand. For Greek literature provides more authors who can be read in school with enjoyment, and opens far more avenues into all regions of thought. We therefore cannot profess to feel satisfied with the prospect that Classics may increasingly come to be associated in the public mind with Latin alone. Accordingly our object is to secure that, as far as possible, all boys of literary promise should be given the opportunity of acquiring some knowledge of Greek, and if they have no time to pursue both subjects, of making the choice between it and Latin.

We have seen that all boys will know some Latin when they come to a Public School, and we think it of the highest importance that those of the intellectual standard with which we


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are dealing should be actively encouraged to begin Greek. They will be able to spare some time from Latin and some from English; in the latter they naturally make quick progress, and experience shows that classically trained boys rapidly gain the power of dealing with their own language from intelligent work in translation. Two years in which little attention was given to composition though much to grammar would be enough to show whether a boy had any real taste for the subject, and at their end he could decide, if the decision was necessary, whether he proposed to offer Greek in preference to Latin in the School Certificate Examination. This method is being tried at more than one Public School. Some of our members inspected its working at Eton, where Greek is taught to boys of linguistic ability for at least two years. They satisfied themselves that with good teaching rapid progress was made. Boys of 15 and 16 in their second year of Greek were reading Herodotus with profit and enjoyment, and showed very fair facility in translating it unseen viva voce. We desire to commend the experiment to the consideration of other Head Masters. Their experience ought to enable them to say what boys are fitted to profit by it. We do not believe that parents as a whole would resent a decision founded on expert knowledge, though we are aware that there are some who, while they will tacitly allow their children to continue at the Public School any subject which they have already begun, yet if confronted on their entry with the option between Greek and a modern subject, will wish them to be taught the latter.

We do not ignore the fact that our proposal would involve some difficulties in the arrangement of time-tables, but we think that all teachers who have a real belief in the Classics will find the trouble well worth taking. In making these suggestions we are thinking of that large class of boys who are capable of appreciating great literature, whether their main subject of study is History. Modern Languages, Science or Mathematics.*

*We wish to call special attention to the very interesting; experiment which is now being made at Wellington College. Boys in the four lowest forms, who have already done some Latin but no Greek at their Preparatory School, drop Latin altogether for the time and begin Greek. At a later stage they will have the opportunity of resuming Latin and of continuing Greek. The experiment is too recent for its results yet to be forecast, but we are informed that so far they promise to be excellent. In one or two Girls' Schools the pupils are offered from the first the alternative between Latin or Greek.


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(ii) In Secondary Schools.

Conditions prevail in some of the Secondary Schools which go far to make it impossible for Greek to be taught to all who would profit by it or to be taught for a sufficiently long time to allow of substantial progress. One of the most important of them is the opposition of some of the parents. We wish, however, to call attention to cases in which the difficulty appears to have been successfully surmounted. In July 1920 at Bradford Grammar School all the boys who took Latin up to the First Examination were also taking Greek: at St. Olave's, Southwark, 40 boys out of a total of 470, at Wolverhampton Grammar School 44 out of 520, and at Bristol Grammar School 80 out of 700 were learning Greek, a proportion which compares favourably with that in some of the non-local Public Schools. Moreover, those pupils who began in an Elementary School prove sometimes to be the best material: for example, at Bristol Grammar School in the same term out of 15 boys in the Classical VIth nine were ex-Elementary School pupils, a proportion much larger than that in the Modern VIth. Similar evidence was laid before us with regard to a rural Grammar School. It is therefore the more to be regretted that so large a number of ex-Elementary Scholars are in those Secondary Schools in which no Greek is taught.

We have also abundant evidence that there is no prejudice against the Classics, and still less against Greek, on the part of many of the parents of Elementary School children. Some of them, especially perhaps those who have come under the influence of such bodies as the Workers' Educational Association, have a real interest in Greek civilisation from certain points of view; more of them are genuinely anxious to get the best possible education for their children, and believe that the best education is that which has been traditional for the "governing classes" in the past; more still accept unquestioningly the advice of the teacher.

We feel therefore that even in those schools which are necessarily and properly sensitive to local opinion there is evidence to show that, where the School Authorities are alive to the importance of the issue, the difficulty of securing that Greek is taught to those pupils who are really fitted to profit by it has been proved to be by no means insuperable. Here,


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therefore, as also in the Public Schools, the responsibility for the introduction and maintenance of Greek teaching rests primarily with the Head Master.

But if economic pressure makes it necessary for the professional classes to send their sons to the local Grammar or Secondary School - thus reverting to the practice which was common a hundred years ago - this circumstance may greatly strengthen the position of Classics in these schools, besides introducing into them a proportion of pupils coming from homes of a higher traditional culture, who cannot fail to exercise a powerful effect on the whole atmosphere of the school.

(f) TEACHING OF CLASSICS IN GIRLS' SCHOOLS.

The Girls' Schools fall into two main groups: those which have been established by the Local Education Authorities since 1902, or have been taken over by them; and those which are independent of the Local Authorities. In the latter class may be included a few large boarding schools. Schools of the first class receive a larger proportion of pupils from the Public Elementary Schools; those of the second class receive fewer or none. There are unfortunately no accepted terms by which these two types can be distinguished, but their problems are in some respects so different that it has been necessary for us to devise them. We shall accordingly, as explained in the Preface, speak of schools of the first class as "Secondary Schools" and those of the second as "High Schools".

It is common to schools of both types that girls, as contrasted with boys, must be trained for domestic duties, in which indeed many of the pupils, especially of the Secondary Schools, are often actively engaged, and their health and physical development requires perhaps more constant attention than that of boys.

(i) In Secondary Schools. In Secondary Schools for Girls the problem of Classics is not essentially different from that in Secondary Schools for Boys, except that hardly any scholar- ships at Oxford and Cambridge are available for girls. But it is a significant fact that an increasing number of girls are found to be desirous of taking an Arts degree or of studying medicine, for both of which Latin is either compulsory or desirable. The fortunate result is that, in some populous areas


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at any rate, Classics have proved not less attractive to girls than Science has in the same areas to boys.

(ii) In High Schools. The "High School" education was originally based on Modern Humanistic Studies, since 50 years ago all educated girls were expected at least to know French. French led on to Latin, which was early introduced into the curriculum, and this in turn to Greek. The Classics were also encouraged by the fact that both Greek and Latin were required till 1873 for the London matriculation examination, to which girls were early admitted, and for entry at Oxford and Cambridge till the other day, and that Latin was required at London till 1902.

In schools of both types there is often a great deal of genuine enthusiasm for the Classics, particularly on their literary and artistic sides.

(iii) Difficulties peculiar to Girls' Schools. There are certain difficulties common to Girls' Schools, though they affect the two types of schools in different degrees. In the first place, when they were started, no woman teacher existed who had taken a degree in Classics, and this defect necessarily took some time to remedy. Girls' Schools also probably suffer more than Boys' Schools from an influx of pupils from inefficient Private Schools who come only for a year or two. Further, many of the schools are subject to Regulations primarily devised for Boys' Schools, and their success or failure is largely judged by the result of examinations also, in the first instance, intended for boys. Again, in some of the "High Schools" at any rate, the school hours are shorter than in Boys' Schools, and there is often no regular afternoon session. Finally, there is a widespread feeling among teachers and parents that girls, especially as they get older, need more scope for the development of their individuality and for their personal tastes than is generally thought necessary for boys. This complicates the problem of school organisation.

But if Girls' Schools have necessarily inherited no long- standing classical tradition, the teachers in them are at least not committed to traditional methods of teaching, with such drawbacks as they may entail; and it is in the Girls' School's that some interesting experiments are being made, especially in the teaching of Classics to non-specialists and late beginners and in the use of translations. Such experiments are of real value. On


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the other hand, the teachers in Girls' Schools are sometimes tempted to try short cuts, but partly from too much reliance on the analogy of Modern Languages, partly from an excessive desire to avoid anything that savours of dullness and monotony, their attempts to bring their pupils on rapidly to the point at which they can grasp something of the aesthetic and emotional value of classical literature are sometimes premature. If how- ever they have not on the whole succeeded in laying a sound foundation of accurate scholarship, they have often succeeded in awakening a genuine and lasting interest and enthusiasm which, while less easy to assess than "scholarship", are of no little educational value.

We are aware that from the nature of the case there can be few pupils in Girls' Schools, unless their home circumstances have been especially fortunate, who correspond to the best type of Public School boy from a good Preparatory School, though it is with such boys that the best girl scholars may be required lo compete in public and University examinations. But the enthusiasm of girls is often such that we see no reason why under more favourable conditions they should not reach, as they have sometimes done, the same standard as boys, though possibly in rather different branches of the subject.

(g) TIME TABLES: PROPORTION OF TIME ACTUALLY ASSIGNED TO CLASSICS IN SCHOOLS OF DIFFERENT TYPES.

There is no subject on which the ordinary critic of a classical education is less well informed than on the amount of time that is now actually devoted to the teaching of Classics in schools of different types. The idea seems ineradicable that in the Public Schools at any rate it occupies the same large share of the timetable that it did a generation or two ago. We think it therefore desirable to show by actual figures what is the real condition of things.

The circumstances of the Public Schools differ so widely from one another that no statement can be made that applies to them all. The time tables printed in Appendix G will, however, show the existing practice in some of the more important schools. It will be seen that in these schools the time allotted to Latin in the lower and middle forms does not ordinarily exceed six out of a total of from 25 to 31 periods a week and that the time allotted to Greek, where taught, is on the average about one


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period less. These figures show conclusively that, even in what are popularly regarded as the hereditary homes of an exclusive classical tradition, the time actually allotted to the teaching of Classics before the stage of specialisation is generally little more than would reasonably be claimed for any other subject of similar importance and difficulty, especially when it is remembered that the complete classical course should comprise the languages, history, and literature of two peoples. The time allotted to Classics should therefore be compared not with that allotted to French, but with that which is or might reasonably be allotted to French and German taken together. Nor for boys in Classical Sixth Forms who are "specialising" in Classics is the proportion of time allotted to classical work greater than that which is required for "Group Subjects" by the Board's Regulations for Advanced Courses.

In addition to these selected time-tables of Public Schools which we have been allowed to print, we addressed a questionnaire on the subject to all the schools of the Head Masters' Conference, Head Masters' Association and Head Mistresses' Association. The answers received are tabulated in Appendix G. They include returns from the Public Schools already mentioned.

Those tables, being calculated on the average throughout the schools, do not give a satisfactory picture of the time-table for Classics in any one group of schools. But they justify the drawing of two conclusions.

First, it should be remembered that the very great majority of the 452 Boys' Schools and 278 Girls' Schools do not teach Greek, and the periods reckoned as allotted to Classics may therefore in practice be regarded as periods allotted to Latin only. It would appear therefore that the time allotted to' Latin in those Public Schools whose time tables are given in Appendix G, does not greatly exceed the average of that allotted to Latin in those Secondary Schools which are not ordinarily charged with giving too much time to Classics.

Secondly, the figures show how little time is found for the teaching of Classics in Girls' Schools. We have already expressed serious doubts whether any foreign language can be profitably studied if less than four periods a week are allotted to it (p. 117). We repeat that a table of averages must in such a case be misleading, as in some parts of the school the allotted time may of course be in excess and in others in defect


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of the average. But we cannot think that so difficult a subject has a fair chance in those schools where the average of the weekly periods allotted to it is so low as three, unless it is supplemented by ample time for preparation and private study.

2. TEACHERS.

The future of all education depends in the last resort on the character of the teaching, and this is specially true of the teaching of Classics, which seem to offer comparatively few material inducements to the pupil and must therefore depend for their attractiveness largely on the method of presentation. An alternative to a full course in Classics is noAv offered in one shape or another in practically all the schools of the country; it rests with the teacher and for the most part with the teacher alone to secure that the alternative is chosen only by those pupils for whom it is plainly best suited. It is therefore of the first importance that classical teachers should possess the qualifications which will make their teaching at once effective and attractive.

(a) TEACHERS IN DAY AND BOARDING SCHOOLS.

The influence of the teacher operates in different ways according as the school is a Day or a Boarding School. In a Day School the teacher, and particularly the Head Master or Head Mistress, is or may be in close personal contact with the parents; in a Boarding School this contact is occasional and then often only by letter, which is frequently addressed to the Housemaster. This consideration is, however, double-edged; for if the teacher in a Day School has the better opportunity of pressing upon the parent the value of a classical education, on the other hand, more constant pressure is brought to bear upon him by the parent to have regard to the pupil's future occupation; and the parents of day scholars, being generally of smaller means than the parents of boarders have on the whole more definite plans about their children's future occupation. Much in either case depends on the teacher's own convictions and personality, but on the whole the Boarding School is the more favourable atmosphere for studies which are not directly remunerative.


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(b) TEACHERS IN PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.

We have already seen (p. 82†) that there are some 430 Preparatory Schools the Head Masters of which are members of the Preparatory Schools Association, and there are many more of various types. The Assistant Masters in most of them are poorly paid, and it almost inevitably follows that many of them are inadequately equipped for the work of teaching. In a number of important respects they discharge their duties efficiently and conscientiously, but they are not often men of high scholarly attainments or strong intellectual interests. Most important of all, few of them have had any special preparation for the exceedingly difficult work of teaching boys between the ages of 9 and 14. The increasing employment of women in the earliest stances of Preparatory School work is probably a step in the right direction, but it hardly affects the Classical teaching.

For the difficulty as to salaries we have no solution to offer, since it is perhaps impossible to bring schools conducted for private profit within the scope of grants from the Government or the Local Education Authorities. But those Preparatory Schools which have sought inspection by the Board of Education - and their number is growing rapidly - will no doubt get good advice on the way to improve their methods and increase their efficiency. It must also be remembered that Preparatory Schools - so far at least as they are day schools - will necessarily be taken into account in the schemes prepared by the Local Education Authorities under the new Education Act.

It has been suggested to us that one method of improving the standard of teaching in the Preparatory Schools would be the transfer of selected teachers from their staffs to those of the Public Schools, service in the Preparatory School ranking for seniority, salary scale and pension in the Public School. This method, it is thought, would attract better men to Preparatory School work, and it might be supplemented by the occasional lending of a Public School Master for temporary service in a Preparatory School. We fear that there are insuperable difficulties in the way of such an arrangement between private and public institutions. But good results are obtained where the Public School has its own Preparatory Department or a Preparatory School closely associated with it, the curricula of


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the two dovetailing. We should not despair of seeing this system extended, at any rate by more complete co-operation between one or more Public Schools and a group of Preparatory Schools.

(c) TEACHERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

The Headmasterships of nearly all the Public and of some at least of the older Grammar Schools are still held by men who have had a classical education. Almost all of them are graduates of Oxford and Cambridge in high Classical Honours and some of them are scholars of distinction. They have doubtless as a body done and are still doing their best to maintain the classical tradition of which they are trustees, though we are not blind to the difficulties of their task, which in some cases they appear to have been unable to surmount.

They have, however, little difficulty in securing the assistance as members of their staff of a sufficient number of well qualified classical scholars from the older Universities. The classical teaching in these schools is consequently as a whole of a high standard, especially in the top forms, and it is in Classics that the majority of their successes are won. It must however be said that the teaching is too often on purely traditional lines and that there are many teachers who have an instinctive distrust of educational theory and are shy of experiment. We hope that an effort will be made to keep them in touch with what is done in other schools, especially those of modern foundation.

(d) TEACHERS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

In the Municipal and County Schools the situation is different. The majority of the Head Masters are graduates of the younger Universities and often have taken a degree in Science. This is in itself both natural and desirable, though we should be glad for many reasons to see a larger proportion of the posts filled by Classical scholars, whether from those Universities or from Oxford and Cambridge, who have learnt their work in Schools with a long classical tradition behind them.

We have abundant evidence that in these schools the creation or maintenance of a classical tradition depends very largely on the Head Master. There is no reason to believe that many of the Head Masters show any active hostility to Classics, but it is to be feared that some of them are indifferent to their


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value or inappreciative of it. There is nothing to be surprised at in this. Till quite recently there were many classical Head Masters, and there may still be some, who, knowing little or nothing of science, were slow to adopt it as a normal subject of the curriculum of their school. It is therefore no wonder that other men, trained in science and mathematics, should show small interest in subjects with which they have little acquaintance. For the Head Master however another consideration emerges. In view of the future careers of most of the pupils the school will have a bias in the direction of science, mathematics or modern subjects. In filling a vacancy on his staff he is therefore naturally inclined to appoint ceteris paribus a man whose strength is in these subjects. But it is of the utmost importance to observe that owing to the dearth of properly qualified men, good classical scholars are rarely available for masterships in Secondary Schools, and the Head Master, whatever his own predilections, may therefore be compelled to appoint men whose only qualification in Classics is that they have taken Latin as one of several subjects in an Arts Course. Their later work has been wholly in other subjects, and most of them have never learnt any Greek. They are therefore in no real sense of the word classical scholars, and it is inevitable that even if their knowledge of Latin is adequate, their teaching of it, as our evidence goes to show, should often be uninspiring.

Again, when the question arises in such schools of establishing an Advanced Course in Classics, though, as we have already seen, the Board's requirements as regards the minimum number of pupils in such a course have been interpreted liberally where Classics are concerned, yet the success of the course may entail the appointment of a specially qualified teacher. It may not be easy to fit such a man into the staff, and in any case Advanced Courses in Science and Mathematics and in Modern Subjects are probably already in existence. It naturally causes less . disturbance if, instead of an Advanced Course in Classics being started, the aspirant pupils are drafted off into the Modern Studies Course, where, it may plausibly be argued, they will get a good literary education up to an Honours standard, without dislocating the organisation of the whole of the top of the school. It is difficult to complain if the Head Master, with the multifarious and increasing burdens laid upon him, has followed the line of least resistance. We are however aware that some


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Head Masters have shown themselves in the past ready to make the necessary effort, and we appeal to others to follow their example wherever the opportunity offers.

(e) TEACHERS IN GIRLS' SCHOOLS.

In the Girls' Schools the situation is not essentially different, but there is perhaps a larger proportion of Head Mistresses with an Arts degree or its equivalent. It is also, we think, true that those women teachers whose own classical education has not proceeded very far are nevertheless more interested in the Classics than men teachers of corresponding attainments. It is therefore likely that in some areas Girls' Schools offer a more promising field than Boys' Schools for the development of classical teaching. But well qualified women teachers in Classics, as we have seen, hardly existed when the great development of Secondary Schools for Girls began, and the supply has never kept pace with the growing demand. The teaching is therefore here also. too often in the hands of graduates with low Honours in Classics or of other graduates who know no Greek and have taken Latin only as one of the subjects for an Arts degree.

(f) THE QUALIFICATIONS OF THE TEACHER OF CLASSICS.

The most pressing need therefore in schools of all types, not excepting the Public Schools, is a better supply of competent and enthusiastic teachers, especially for the work hi lower and middle forms. An enthusiastic teacher will often carry the pupils and the parents with him, and it may be hoped that he will have the full support of his Head Master. Enthusiasm must however be founded on knowledge and tempered with discretion. Knowledge, to be really adequate for the purpose, must include knowledge of Greek as well as of Latin; it should also include some knowledge of ancient history and civilisation as a whole and some power of literary appreciation. Enthusiasm must not sacrifice a thorough grounding in the elements of the language to a premature appeal to the aesthetic emotions. A great scholar and great schoolmaster used to say that no funicular railway could be built up Parnassus. And to knowledge and enthusiasm must be added some acquaintance with the technique of teaching and with the way in which young minds work.


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The qualifications last named are essential to all good teaching, but we wish to develop the argument that for the teaching of Latin beyond the earliest stages some knowledge of Greek is of the first importance. Latin literature of the period to which school studies are properly confined is the literature of a civilisation that had come to owe nearly as much to Greece as to Rome, and all the authors studied are saturated with the influence of Greek philosophy, Greek rhetoric and Greek poetry. We realise of course on the one hand that a man may read Caesar or Livy competently with a middle school form without knowing any Greek, and on the other that much of the literature of Greece that exerted the most direct influence on that of Home has either perished entirely or exists in a few scattered fragments familiar only to advanced scholars. And we do not deny that though Rome borrowed from Greece nearly all the forms in which her literature is cast, what is greatest and most characteristic in her poets, her orators and her historians is essentially Roman. But for all that, the literature of the Ciceronian and the Augustan ages stands in such close relation to Greek literature, Homeric, lyric, Attic, Alexandrine and contemporary, and Roman civilisation of tills period is so thoroughly impregnated with Greek influence that neither can be adequately dealt with by a teacher ignorant of the Greek language.

The Regulations of the Scottish Education Department require that all recognised principal teachers of Classics in Secondary Schools should be qualified in Greek as well as Latin. The situation in England wi.! not be satisfactory till a similar requirement can be enforced.

3. TRAINING OF TEACHERS.

We proceed to consider the question of the training of a teacher of Classics. There is a little experience to go upon, for training has played a smaller part in the preparation of teachers of this than of any other subject. The Public and Preparatory Schools have always been sceptical about the value of training for the teaching of any subject. Where new methods have been introduced into them, as has happened in regard to Mathematics and Modern Languages, it has not been through the influence of the Training Colleges, and in Classics most teachers have either worked out their own method, not necessarily with any bad


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results, or have been content simply to follow that on which they were themselves taught. Such teachers are however in general adequately equipped in all essential knowledge for the work they have to do. In other types of school it is only rarely that a teacher teaches mainly Classics, and such training as he has had has generally been in other subjects. Indeed, only a small proportion of the Classical teaches even in Secondary Schools and in Girls' Schools have received any training at all.

(a) THE FUNCTION OF THE TRAINING COLLEGE.

We have had the advantage of hearing the evidence of some of the Officials of Training Colleges and that of the Board's Chief Inspector. They informed us that Colleges for the training of teachers are of two kinds: those in which the normal course covers two years during which academic study and professional training are pursued concurrently, and those in which professional training is confined to a post-graduate year.

The Two-year Colleges train teachers almost wholly for Elementary Schools. In some of them a considerable number of students, in others very few or none, read for a University degree in Arts or in Science. The Final Examination of the Board of Education, which is taken at the end of the two-year course, includes Latin as a possible subject; but extremely few students offer it. Latin is, however, studied by some of the students who are preparing for an Arts degree. From these Colleges, which have principally in view teachers in Elementary Schools, it is unreasonable to expect to procure teachers of Classics and impossible to anticipate a supply of men or women competent to take advanced classical work. It is understood that some of the Two-year Colleges are being linked up with Universities and that they will be empowered to admit students for four years, three of which will be spent upon degree work. Even with these additions it is unlikely that many good teachers of Classics will be forthcoming from this source.

The post-graduate courses of training are usually attached to Universities, but some of them are conducted in independent Secondary Training Colleges. The University Training Departments contain a large majority of students with Pass degrees. If they are intending to enter Secondary Schools, it is usually to teach English, History or Science. Those who have Honours degrees may elect to "specialise" in Classics,


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and a few, but not many, do so. Where a classical scholar offers himself for training, opportunity is sought for giving him practice in a School where Classics are well taught and from time to time classical tutors or classical masters give short courses and lectures on the methods of teaching Classics. Practice in good schools is to be systematised by the Oxford Delegacy and the Cambridge Syndicate, by including a term's work at a Public School in the course of training.

We recommend that the attention of the University Training Departments and the Secondary Training Colleges be drawn to the vital importance of encouraging the training of teachers in Classics. Neither the Board nor the T'raining Colleges nor the Universities desire Classics to disappear from the school curriculum, but in the last resort their survival depends on the quality of the teaching. Poor teaching in a subject which carries few material advantages means few pupils; a falling off in the number of pupils will ultimately entail a still greater falling off in the number of well-qualified teachers.

The arrangement by which at Oxford and Cambridge a student's training is associated with a term spent under a good teacher in active work should be attractive to young men and women who, after passing through the University, have deliberately made up their mind to become teachers and have not, as must sometimes happen with ex-Bursars, had it made up for them at the age of 16 or younger. But for its success two conditions must be satisfied. Provision must be made by the Training Colleges or the Board to meet the cost of the additional year at the University, and the schools must make it worth while for the students to take the additional year, either by officially announcing their preference for a trained as against an untrained applicant for appointment, or by allowing the year spent in training to rank for seniority for all purposes on the staff, or by both methods. Where intending teachers cannot afford the time and expense of a full year, as may well be the case with many who have already spent four years over their degree course, something might be done by means of a two or three months' course specially directed to their particular subject.

We believe training to be of specific importance for. the teacher of Classics, and that not merely on theoretical grounds.


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It should enable him to avoid a too strict adherence to traditional methods, to raise the efficiency of his teaching to a higher level and to handle his subject in the most attractive and expeditious way. Training will not supply knowledge or enthusiasm, but it may help the teacher to make the best use of both. But the qualities required for teaching the elements of a subject are not the same in all respects as those required for teaching more advanced work. In the early stages constant attention to the psychology of the pupils is necessary; for their progress, while it depends on the exact knowledge which they laboriously acquire by their own efforts, depends hardly less on the atmosphere of interest with which the teacher succeeds in investing the subject. The direct recognition by the teacher of the part to be played by him will add dignity and interest to his task.

(b) THE FUNCTION OF THE SCHOOL.

Provision of facilities for training will however in itself do nothing to promote the supply of teachers; nor will a teacher, even if trained, continue to put his heart into his work and retain his freshness, unless he is free from financial anxieties and has reasonable professional prospects, and is constantly enlarging his knowledge and widening his outlook. Elementary teaching of any subject may easily become a monotonous task. To continue to teach the five Latin declensions and the four conjugations year after year, unless the right outlook is maintained, has turned many a promising teacher into a bad one, and the only real remedy that he can find for this is in himself. He may however get some assistance from external sources.

Classical teachers in Provided or Aided Schools will reap the same benefit as teachers of other subjects from any general improvement in salary scales. There are, however, as matters at present stand, few Head Masterships, though not perhaps Head Mistressships, open to them in Secondary Schools and few posts in connexion with Advanced Courses. In some at any rate of the Public Schools the financial outlook is even less cheerful, though Public School Masters must live and marry and bring up children like the rest of the world. Some of them however, even from the financial point of view, might find better openings in the Secondary than in the Public Schools, which at present absorb so many Classical graduates, and there they might also find better opportunity for higher specialised work.


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The transfer of even a few such teachers to posts in Secondary Schools would do much, apart from other incidental advantages, to raise the standard of classical teaching in them. It seems not unlikely that the relatively favourable salary scales now recommended for Provided Schools may do something to promote such transfer.

But though the advantages of free interchange of teachers are obvious and in the case of classical teachers particularly important, it is to be feared that the indirect though probably unintended results of the Teachers' Superannuation Act, 1918, and the Statutory Rules and Orders for its administration will throw great obstacles in the way. The benefits of this scheme as it applies to England and Wales are almost entirely confined to those teaching in State-aided Secondary schools, and the effect of this cannot but be on the whole to retain teachers in the type of school in which they start. There are at least three directions in which interchange would be valuable and in which, because of the Pensions Scheme, it will be difficult. Movement in both directions will be checked, if not stopped, between teachers in schools and teachers in Universities, between teachers in England and Wales and teachers in Scotland, between teachers in State-aided Secondary Schools and teachers in non-aided Public Schools, whether they are Assistants or Heads. This undesirable result seems to us to require the serious consideration of the Board of Education.

The conscientious teacher will, however, not allow his energies outside the class-room to be absorbed by questions of salary scales. For the proper discharge of his duties it is above all things necessary that he should be constantly widening his experience and his outlook, and this in his line of work is specially difficult. Those who can afford to spend a year after their degree or a "grace-term" at the British School at Athens or at Rome will be well advised to do so. For others less fortunate there are now available vacation courses, such as those held by the Association for the Reform of Latin Teaching, or those held under the auspices of the several Universities, the Board of Education or the London County Council. In London and elsewhere courses on Classical subjects are often included in the University Extension schemes. It is moreover important that the teacher should keep himself in touch with the work do in other schools. Classical teachers too often plough a


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lonely furrow, and they have at present no professional organisation which quite corresponds to those established for other subjects.

We look to voluntary bodies like the Classical Association and the Hellenic and Roman Societies, either individually or by joint action, to do even more than they have done in the past to spread in the country a knowledge of the meaning of Greece and Rome to the modern world and to improve classical teaching. In connection with the latter point we may remark that the Hellenic Society has an admirable lending-collection of lantern slides and that the Classical Association publishes in "The Year's Work in Classical Studies" a summary which should be of great service in keeping the classical teacher abreast of the progress of knowledge in his subject. But neither seems sufficiently known or used. It might also be possible to organise a central Classical Lending Library, to meet the needs of teachers who may not know what books are published in their subject and in any case may be unable to afford to buy them. To effect these various aims larger financial resources are needed, and we strongly recommend teachers and supporters of the Classics to join the Classical Association and the Hellenic and Roman Societies.

In any case a young teacher should not be turned loose in a form room to find his own feet unaided. In Secondary and in Girls' Schools the Head Master or Head Mistress generally exercises some regular supervision over the work of tiros, but the practice is probably less common in Public Schools. New recruits should also have the opportunity of seeing their more experienced colleagues actually at work and be encouraged to consult them on all their difficulties. The principle is well recognised in many other professions. It should also be possible to arrange for any member of the staff who is likely to profit by it to pay observation visits to other schools. In Grant-earning schools special grants from the Board of Education are available for this purpose.

4. METHOD AND CURRICULUM.

In this section of the Report we have drawn no distinction between Boys' Schools and Girls' Schools. Subject to the general considerations already stated, we are of opinion that


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methods and curricula that are suitable for boys are also suitable for girls at the same stage of attainment.

(a) PRELIMINARY: THE NEED FOR A NEW OUTLOOK.

It is often objected that while the methods of instruction in nearly all other subjects have in the past few years been fundamentally reformed, so that an ordinary school lesson in French or History or Geography or Mathematics is something quite different from what it was twenty years ago, no similar change except for one notable experiment has been made in Classical teaching. It is urged that in most schools with a classical tradition pupils of 14 or 15 are still construing Caesar or Ovid in the same way as their fathers and grandfathers did, and are writing the same kind of sentences or continuous prose and learning the same rules of grammar and syntax, often out of the same books. There is some force in this objection, but from one point of view encouragement may be derived from the fact that teachers of Latin and Creek, though for many years on the defensive and now often fighting for their lives, have not generally found it necessary to avail themselves of any other weapons than those which served their predecessors well. For it must be admitted that as a whole they continue to serve well the present generation both of pupils and teachers, and that the traditional method, where time suffices, still produces good results.

The object of classical teaching has always been that the pupils should learn to understand and use the classical languages, to appreciate the literature and to study the history with intelligence. Many generations of skilful teachers have forged an instrument for this purpose which has proved to be in many respects admirably effective; and while the object which it was devised to accomplish remains on the whole what it always was, it would be folly entirely to discard a well tried and familiar tool, because in unskilful hands its edge is sometimes blunted, though it may require to be reinforced by other instruments of more recent design. The objects of teaching Modern Languages, Mathematics and Science are on the other hand no longer quite what they were a hundred years ago; and new requirements have naturally led to the development of new methods.

There is, however, another side to this. On the one hand we have already noticed that there is some reluctance on the


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part of classical teachers to avail themselves of experience gained in other subjects or even to acquaint themselves with experiments that are being made in their own. On the other hand there is some inability among them to realise that, though the main body of classical learning always retains its essential value, certain aspects of it become more important as the social, economic, aesthetic, and even ethical needs of the time vary. One result of too rigid an adherence to traditional methods and topics is that, even if the teachers know that their subject was never more alive and progressive and never more rich in lessons of practical value than it is at the present time, their pupils and, what is worse, the general public fail to understand this. The advance made in the last thirty years in knowledge of the ancient world is comparable to that made in physical science, and yet we have it on the authority of one of those best entitled by his own contributions to speak that in some branches of classical learning "nothing has been done and everything remains to be done."

We do not mean that in the lower and middle forms much or any direct teaching can be given on the Hittites or on Minoan or Mycenaean civilisation, but we think that the ordinary classical teacher would handle his subject with greater freshness and better results if he had more acquaintance with the work that has been done in these fields. We cannot but suppose that every teacher of Physics in the country has heard of the names of the founders of the electron theory and at least knows what that theory is about; we doubt whether the names of Arthur Evans, W. M. Ramsay and J. G. Frazer are equally familiar to classical teachers. And though all science is international, yet the creation of the sciences of Anthropology and Archaeology has been largely the work of Englishmen, and their countrymen might reasonably take some pride in this fact. What is true of the progress made in Archaeology is hardly less true of Art, of the discovery of new literary texts, of the knowledge of ancient, social, and economic life and even to some extent of literary criticism.

It is impossible within the limits of this Report to do more than indicate in the briefest outline the importance of the work that has been done in all these departments in the course of the last half century. In purely Classical Archaeology the excavators at Troy, at Mycenae and Tiryns, in Crete, at Olympia, Delphi, Sparta, Corinth, Pergamon


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Miletus, Ephesus, Melos, Samos and Delos, on the Acropolis at Athens and in the Roman Forum, to name no other sites, have added new volumes rather than new chapters to our knowledge of the history and civilisation of the Greek and Roman world, on which also a strong light has been shed by the excavations in Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia and Turkestan and at prehistoric sites in the Mediterranean area. To our Art collections have been added the Charioteer of Delphi, the Victory of Samothrace, the Hermes of Praxiteles, the Sarcophagi of Sidon and the Ara Pacis. New types of Art have been discovered in the archaic statues of the Acropolis and the Graeco-Buddhist sculptures of the Swat Valley. Inscriptions have added much to our knowledge of Greek history and have revolutionised our knowledge of the organisation and administration of the Roman Empire. Papyrology has enriched classical literature with a new work of Aristotle, a new Greek historian, the poems of Bacchylides, the mimes of Herondas and the Logia, and with considerable fragments of Alcman, Sappho, Pindar, Sophocles, Euripides, Menander and Callimachus.* The large mass of papyri recently discovered which deal with the ordinary life of the Graeco-Roman world has shed a new light on Hellenistic Greek and has profoundly affected the study of the Septuagint and the Greek Testament. It would be impertinent for us to attempt to estimate the value of the work done during the same period in this country and elsewhere by scholars living and dead, in the interpretation of classical texts, whether philosophical, historical, or literary; in the elucidation of ancient myth, custom, ritual and religion; in the comparative study of languages; and more generally, through the medium of translations and otherwise, in bringing a knowledge of ancient life and thought within the reach of those who are not professed students of the Classics.

In calling attention to these subjects we do not forget that literature is more important than archaeology. But we think that a complete system of classical education even during school years should take some account of the newer knowledge, not merely for its intrinsic interest and the conviction that it carries

*Reference may be made to two papers, on Greek Papyri and their contribution to Classical Literature by Sir Frederic Kenyon, and on Recent Discovery In Classical Archaeology by Prof. Percy Gardner, communicated to the Leeds and District Branch of the Classical Association in 1918 and 1919.


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that classical learning is progressive, but because we are beginning to understand that Greek and Roman civilisation is not wholly intelligible apart from its historical background. The main motive, however, for studying these civilisations at all is no longer quite what it was. Years ago they were studied as a thing apart with minute attention to the forms of their languages. One of the things that will save the study of them now is the realisation that they have something to contribute to the problems of the present day and the permanent life of man. To get at this we must bring the pupil on as soon as possible into actual contact with the literature in which the thought of the ancients is expressed and their historical experience described,

(b) GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON METHOD.

The first essential therefore is to acquire as expeditiously as is consistent with accuracy a sound knowledge of a sufficient number of ordinary words and of the ordinary grammar and syntax to enable a simple text to be attacked. Other considerations must be subordinated to the attainment of this end and to the gradual extension of the amount of the literature which is covered, till in the last years at school it constitutes the systematic study of a period or a subject. In no case should any text be read without some reference to its historical setting, and so far as possible the general study of the history should be pursued along with that of the language. At a later stage and for individual pupils composition and a study of the niceties of language may be specially encouraged, and for many advanced pupils they have a value which nothing else can supply, but for the great majority excellence in them should be only a subordinate aim.

(c) THE "GRAMMATICAL" METHOD.

What method then is in the earliest stages at once the most expeditious and the soundest for accomplishing this end? The traditional method consisted in learning the grammar and syntax rules by heart and then writing exercises upon them. We do not think that this method is yet entirely abandoned, nor do we desire that it should be. The verbal memory is very strong up to 12 or a little later, and there is no reason why advantage should not be taken of this fact, while written work is the only sure test that knowledge is really being assimilated.


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But while all language teaching must necessarily start from an accumulation of facts, in which memory must play the principal part, and while the exactness both in observation and recollection that this process requires is in itself a valuable mental discipline, too much emphasis has in the past been laid upon this aspect of the matter. The cause of classical education was seriously injured during the last half century by teachers who saw that the study of the classical languages was unsurpassed as a mental training and were so dominated by the ideal of an austere and difficult discipline that they sometimes forgot that Latin and Greek contained other things besides grammatical and linguistic points. One need only glance at some of the school books issued during this period to see that their writers betray little interest in the Classics as literature, and indeed seem not always to be aware that they are literature at all. This spirit has given way to more liberal ideas, though there are places where it still lingers; but we pay for our sins in the fact that to many members of the older generation Greek and Latin still mean little but a dreary wilderness haunted by linguistic problems. At the same time it would be disastrous if we escaped from narrow scholarship to be lost in literary dilettantism. With all its defects the old method at its best did train its pupils to a scrupulous exactness in the use of language.

(d) ORAL WORK.

But even in the most conservative schools more oral work is now done than formerly, and more still might be done with advantage, at any rate in the early stages. Language is speech, and any method of teaching a language, whether ancient or modern, which fails to take account of this aspect of it seems to us to be so far wanting. We have had evidence that University students, even good scholars, in their reading aloud of Greek and Latin are often lamentably deficient in any sense of the beauty and expressiveness of those languages. This is, to some extent, due to careless enunciation. But there is no doubt that pupils can be taught both to pronounce their Latin clearly and intelligibly and to understand it readily when so pronounced by others. It is, moreover, a common experience that the use of the spoken word conduces to greater liveliness in teaching, though it requires skill on the part of the teacher to ensure that


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the whole form is alert and that each member of it is making his contribution to the lesson. We urge therefore the importance in the teaching of Greek and Latin of oral in addition to written work. Nevertheless it is vital to check at every stage the oral by written work; otherwise, that absolute sureness and accuracy which is the most important object to be aimed at in the first stages of learning a language will not be attained.

(e) THE "DIRECT" METHOD.

We have paid considerable attention to this question, not only because the Direct Method is the one innovation in classical teaching which can be compared with those recently introduced in the teaching of other subjects, but because of the deservedly high reputation of the school with which it is identified. We had the advantage of oral evidence from Dr. Rouse and one of his assistants, we have considered the printed documents with which he was good enough to furnish us,* and some of us paid a visit to the Perse School and to Clapham County School for Girls, and saw the method in operation.

The Direct Method as employed for Latin and Greek is confessedly based on the method which had already been found valuable in the teaching of Modern Languages, both here and on the Continent. The pupils are from the first led to employ the language as a spoken tongue, the material being. drawn from common objects and actions and the sentences used being those which illustrate, one after another, the elementary grammatical types. This method is gradually extended to cover a wider field, the whole of the work being throughout transacted both by teacher and pupil in the classical language. The rules, if ever taught as such at all, are taught only after the idiom which they embody has become thoroughly familiar through actual use. Immense pains are taken at every stage by an ingenious series of dialogues, short stories, plays, &c., written for the purpose,

*These were, The Teaching of Classics and Classical work and method in the Twentieth Century, both by Dr. W. H. D. Rouse; Latin Teaching, the Journal of the Association for the Reform of Latin Teaching; and specimens of the work done at the Perse School.
See also The Teaching of Latin and Greek at the Perse School, Cambridge; Nos. 20 and 28 of the Educational Pamphlets issued by the Board of Education.


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to encourage the active co-operation of all the pupils, and in some schools to assimilate the conditions, even as regards the topics dealt with, to those under which the modern languages are taught. No classical texts are read till a relatively advanced stage is reached, and even then, except in the most difficult passages, they are never rendered in English. Very little "composition", in the sense of translation from English, is done either in prose or verse, even in the highest forms, but the pupils are practised in writing in Latin or Greek short original essays on subjects suggested by their work.

It is claimed that by this method every pupil is kept throughout on the qui vive; that he entirely escapes tedium and never looks back upon the time spent on Latin as wasted; that after three or four years the better boys are able to read ordinary Greek and Latin authors with facility and intelligence and with a high degree of literary appreciation; that they have picked up as much of the technique of "scholarship" as boys taught on the other plans; and that they have reached this stage with many fewer hours of school time given to the subject and with much less expenditure of distasteful labour on the part both of teacher and of pupil.

We do not doubt that in the hands of teachers so expert as Dr. Rouse and his staff much success can be attained. Those members of the Committee who saw his method in actual operation were agreed that in skilful hands it promotes a greater and more spontaneous concentration than is usual in pupils taught on the traditional method, and that, as the pupils build up for themselves a knowledge of the language and in particular of the vocabulary from materials gathered in the course of each lesson, it tends to produce a more constructive and independent type of mind. They were, however, of opinion that these advantages are to a large extent exhausted by the time at which a Latin author is begun, and that there is great danger from the outset that only the more intelligent pupils are really learning.

It is admitted that only a good teacher can use the method successfully, and to this we feel bound to add that he must have a much better knowledge of Latin than the average teacher in a Secondary School can probably claim, though even then much of the language used will hardly satisfy a classical standard. These considerations alone would be a decisive objection to the general adoption of the method, though we are inclined to


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regret that so few good teachers in other Schools who are also good scholars have shown themselves willing to give it a trial and so perhaps discover the modifications which might make it more generally effective.

But there are more fundamental objections. Those who are taught on the Direct Method would appear to miss two things, to both of which we attach importance.

The first loss is that entailed by the omission of translation into English. For most pupils the practice of translation even of simple narrative Greek and Latin into really good English should be the most valuable part of their classical discipline and the exercise which has the most beneficial effect on the whole of their literary work. We do not believe that the ordinary teacher can afford to dispense with such an instrument. In fact, a translation of a Latin or Greek passage which is accurate, is written in good and natural English, and to some degree represents the literary spirit of the original is perhaps the highest possible testimony of the competence of the teacher and the attainment of the pupil.

There is, moreover, a second loss inherent in the method. If the lesson on a Latin text is conducted wholly in Latin, it is impossible to deal with all the incidental points, literary, historical, geographical or even grammatical, which are essential for the intelligent reading of the text and for the general education of the pupil. If these are passed over, the apparent progress made is no doubt rapid, but is in fact to a great extent unreal. This would seem to be inevitable where all comments, whether by master or pupil, are made in a language which even the best cannot hope to speak with anything like the fluency possible in French and still less with the fluency of English. Even therefore when more ground has been covered by use of the Direct Method, it is only by neglecting some of what we believe to be the most important objects in teaching the Classics, and the pupils have been left with a very misty and imperfect knowledge of what they have read. We do not therefore think that the claim that much time is saved by the use of the Direct Method is established.

But while the method is no panacea for the present difficulties and we cannot recommend its general adoption, it must be acknowledged that its promoters have done great service in


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emphasising the value of oral work. It is of special importance in the early stages, as indeed is now widely recognised. And even at a more advanced stage much might be done in practising pupils in reading aloud, with proper emphasis, passages which they already thoroughly understand. In this way their ear can be trained to an appreciation of the rhythm both of verse and prose, and they may so attain to a better aesthetic appreciation both of the poets and of the orators. Further, there seems to be no reason why dictation should not occasionally be employed in Latin and Greek, as in Modern Languages, as a test of ability to follow the meaning of a passage when read.

(f) GRAMMAR, SYNTAX AND VOCABULARY.

The necessity of a sound grounding in elementary grammar and syntax has been sufficiently emphasised in preceding paragraphs. By general agreement it is the only sure foundation of a know- ledge of either Greek or Latin. We may, however, make two observations. It is seldom possible to devote as much time to grammar in Greek as in Latin; but this should not be necessary, as beginners in Greek will generally be of some special linguistic ability and will have already made a good deal of progress in Latin grammar. Secondly, the time devoted to it as a separate subject should be reduced to the lowest possible limits, and it should be taught from the first in connexion with very elementary translation from and into English, graduated according to the stage reached. Care should be taken to confine the teaching at first as far as possible to forms and constructions in common use: some examinations in the past gave too much encouragement to a knowledge of the abnormal.

Not less important than grammar and syntax is the acquirement as soon as possible of a good working vocabulary. The early exercises should be constructed from this point of view and should not be restricted too narrowly to variations on a few nouns and verbs, and the vocabulary of a continuous text should receive as much attention as its grammar. This point we believe to be still much neglected. It is difficult to take pleasure or even intelligent interest in a language while every fourth or fifth word has to be looked up in a dictionary.

The continued study of grammar and syntax as a substantive subject in the higher forms has fallen into disuse, with some injury, as we are informed, to the grammatical accuracy even of


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the best scholars. We regret this, as affecting not merely the standard reached in composition but the real appreciation of the niceties of the language. But though it should never be entirely lost sight of, we are not disposed to press for the revival of the study, except for pupils of a distinctly linguistic as opposed to a literary gift.

(g) COMPOSITION.

Composition long played a predominant role in classical teaching and was regarded as of increasing importance as the higher forms were reached. Indeed it is perhaps not too much to say that till a comparatively short time ago the teaching of Greek and Latin composition was the principal task of many Sixth Form masters, and young classical scholars from Oxford and Cambridge were sometimes specially engaged for the purpose. Endless pains were spent on it both by teachers and pupils; it occupied a large part of their energies and time; and College Scholarships were, rightly or wrongly, believed to be mainly awarded on the work done in Latin and Greek verse and prose. To the ultimate attainment therefore of a high standard in composition much of the classical work in the lower Forms was directed. Recently there has been some reaction against this tradition, but composition still plays an important part in school and University examinations, and failure to reach a high standard in it, and particularly in Latin prose, tells heavily against a candidate.

(i) Prose Composition.

We must distinguish between the part that may properly be played by composition in the earlier and in the later stages, and also between the relative positions that should be assigned to composition in verse and in prose for pupils qualified to do both.

Up to the stage marked by the First Examination a good deal of practice in prose composition (not necessarily continuous) is essential. The only certain way of securing an accurate knowledge or understanding of the ordinary rules of grammar and syntax (including at least the elementary syntax of the compound sentence), without which progress in the language is impossible, is by constant practice in the translation of English sentences devised to illustrate them, though, as we have already said, in the earliest stages the direct method in the hands of a skilful teacher may well play a considerable ])art. We have


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already emphasised the value of the training in logical thinking, apart from training in the mere uses of the language, which such practice, if properly conducted, must entail. This is true both of Latin and of Greek, though in the early stages of Greek more depends on the memory.* In Latin, however, we think that before the stage of the First Examination it is at least highly desirable, if not essential, to go a little further and practise the pupils in some easy continuous prose. Even the simplest piece of English narrative takes a quite different shape when recast in a Latin form, and for any success to be attained the passage must be conceived of as a whole and not merely as a string of isolated sentences connected, if at all, by conjunctions. This is perhaps less true of Greek (at least of ordinary narrative Greek), and in any case the shorter time available for Greek does not generally allow of the same stage being reached in it by the time when the First Examination is taken. But for all pupils, whether likely to be scholars or not, some practice, up to the stage of the First Examination in continuous Latin Prose and in the translation of English sentences into Greek, is a highly desirable part of their training. We must not, however, be taken to suggest that a candidate offering Latin in a First Examination should be required to reach a prescribed standard in continuous Latin Prose composition as such.

After the stage of the First Examination only those who show some definite linguistic ability should attempt more advanced composition. The great majority, having once made sure of their ground up to a certain point, will be better employed in acquiring a power of reading the language and in enlarging their knowledge of the literature and history of Greece and Rome than in attempting tasks beyond their reach. Still less should they be employed in merely going over the same ground again and again, though occasional practice in composition is a convenient means of securing that they do not lose their hold of elementary grammar. For this reason we earnestly deprecate the practice, not yet extinct, of requiring elementary composition from older pupils, either in school or still more in University examinations.

On the other hand, pupils with a literary gift will derive the greatest benefit in the latter part of their school career from practice in relatively advanced composition. There is nothing

*The most common Greek verbs and nouns are, generally speaking, more irregular than the corresponding words in Latin.


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else that will give them the same insight into the essential spirit of the Greek and Latin languages and, we may add, into the spirit of their own. Their work, which begins by being merely imitative, becomes with the best of them really creative; their literary judgment is strengthened, their taste is purified, high powers of intelligence and imagination may be brought into play, they are constantly grappling with literary problems which many of them find fascinating, and in the attempt to solve them even failure itself is educative. The problem should not however be too far beyond their powers of solution nor should it occupy too much of their time. There are boys so highly gifted that they can deal with astonishing success and with great delight to themselves with passages in modern authors of which the whole colouring is entirely foreign to Greek or Latin. Such boys can be safely left alone: they will look after themselves and will go far in that particular line. But in no general examination should the passage set for translation be too unclassical in tone.

We notice that some Cambridge Colleges give candidates for Classical Scholarships au opportunity of writing Greek and Latin essays on the lines which have long been followed in the University Scholarships. We have no information of the results of this provision, but we think that it is an interesting experiment which might occasionally be employed with advantage in the Sixth Forms of some schools, to supplement, but not to replace, composition of the ordinary kind.

(ii) Verse Composition.

Verse Composition has ceased to be obligatory both in Scholarship Examinations and in University Examinations necessary for a degree and is now generally confined to good scholars. Greek and Latin verse used to be regarded as the fine flower of scholarship, and with good reason; for, to be successful, verse composition requires in its higher forms, in addition to all that prose composition requires, an ear trained to a sense of rhythm and an intelligence that can to some degree penetrate the secret of the language of Virgil or Sophocles and, however imperfectly, reproduce their style. Such a point is not to be reached without long and even arduous study, for which only a few" have time and taste. But while under modern conditions there is generally no room for verse composition for all pupils, we think that those teachers are wise who allow it to be taught


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to those who show special taste for it, even though it can be begun only at a comparatively late stage. Once started such pupils will make rapid progress. Sometimes even those who do not achieve success in waiting verse will yet find stimulus in the attempt.

But everyone who reads Ovid or Virgil or Horace should at least be taught how to scan them. An understanding of the structure of the verse may very well be best attained by young pupils if they are practised in constructing a few hexameters and pentameters simply by re-arranging given Latin words in metrical order. Nor do we deprecate the practice of building up a Latin verse from an English prose original. Classics are at a disadvantage as compared with mathematics because the pupil in the early stages can never prove to himself that he has got the answer right; in verse-making of this kind he can be absolutely sure that if the line scans he has done a bit of work as well as it can be done. Such small encouragements to unaided effort are not to be despised. But too much time should not be spent over the business and the great majority of pupils should certainly not go further than such elementary work. It should not be difficult to add to this, for those who learn Greek, some knowledge of the laws of the iambic trimeter and even of the Homeric hexameter. But in all such formal exercises the ultimate object should be rather the training of the ear than a mechanical insistence on the observance of metrical rules.*

It is with some reluctance that we have recommended that composition of all kinds should play a more subordinate part than it has in the past. We think that by this subordination some material loss will be entailed. But we recognise that under modern conditions something must be sacrificed, that under the old system many boys wasted much time over profitless exercises, and that even for those with a natural gift for language there are many aspects of classical study, hitherto ignored or kept in the background, for which room must now be found. The time saved can be partly devoted to reading the original languages, and with indirect benefit to the composition itself; for in the ultimate event the best composition springs spontaneously from living in

*Even a young pupil might be got to appreciate the difference made in the rhythm of the first line of the Æneid by transposing qui and Troiæ, as Lucretius would perhaps have done. Yet the line "scans" equally well either way.


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the atmosphere of the language, and not from a mere effort of conscious art. Two pieces of composition a week, whether prose or verse, are probably sufficient, and experienced teachers have assured us that the standard need not suffer. It would be well, however, if some distinction could be made even in the Sixth Form between boys who have a gift for composition and boys who have none, and if the latter were restricted to composition in one language, in order that they might have more time to spend in acquiring the power of reading fluently.

(h) TEXTS.

We have already emphasised the importance of proceeding at an early stage to the reading of a continuous classical text, This is especially important where the pupil is likely to leave school early: he must not leave, if it can be avoided, without having made some acquaintance at first hand with at least one or two of the principal classical writers. For this reason the exclusive use of books of Latin sentences to be translated into English should be abandoned as early as possible. For the same reason we deprecate too much use of the numerous ingenious school books containing little scenes or stories of modern life cast into Latin or similar scenes of ancient life. The matter is apt to be either puerile or else overweighted with recondite learning. Such books have their place, but it is at an early stage and for only a brief period.

(i) Latin Texts.

Complaints have been made that it is difficult to find Latin authors suitable for reading in lower forms, but with sufficient trouble a satisfactory choice can be made. Nepos, Phedrus and Eutropius do not satisfy all requirements, but easy selections from Catullus, Tibullus and Livy can be used, and the reading of Caesar and Ovid is sanctioned by the successful experience of good teachers in many generations. From them it is a long step to Cicero, Virgil and Horace, authors who are certainly often read at present before all their qualities can be appreciated. Horace is probably the most manageable, as it is easy to read only selected Odes, and he is generally popular in schools. A full appreciation of Cicero and Virgil is possible only for advanced students, but even in middle forms a sympathetic teacher can read them with a class to its great gain and enjoyment.


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Even if the whole of a speech of Cicero is too severe a task at this stage, selections might be made of the simpler narrative parts, and there are passages in the de Officiis, the de Natura Deorum and other of his works which are quite suitable for middle forms, though anything of the nature of philosophical discussion must of course be avoided. Some of Pliny's Letters also serve the purpose admirably, and we would not deprecate an occasional trial of Sallust.

It will be seen that while laying stress on the reading of a continuous text we do not wish to imply that a whole book must necessarily be read from end to end. Indeed, we see no reason why in the early stages even a book of the Æneid should necessarily be read from the first line to the last. To say nothing of the earlier books, there are episodes in the last six books - Nisus and Euryalus, Lausus and Mezentius, Camilla, the death of Turnus - which lend themselves admirably to selection, and this method would introduce the pupil to characters who, owing to the rather unintelligible practice of confining him to the first six books, are at present often unknown to him. We do not imagine that objection would be raised to similar excerpts from Paradise Lost. Whatever method is adopted, no pupil should be allowed to read any part of a classical text without some understanding of the story of the poem or book as a whole. Even at this stage an attempt might be made to give the pupil some acquaintance with Latin poets other than those mentioned. An anthology of Latin Verse might well be used in middle forms, as the Golden Treasury has long been used in them for the teaching of English.

(ii) Greek Texts.

In Greek the problem is easier. In many schools the Synoptic Gospels or the Acts can be read in Greek at a very early stage, for the simplicity of their syntax and the familiarity of their subject matter make them from this point of view alone very suitable as an introduction to harder Greek. Older pupils may read some of the easier of the Epistles. Of classical authors Xenophon - generally the Anabasis - occupies the position in Greek that is occupied by Caesar in Latin. In many ways he is well suited to the purpose, (though extracts from the Hellenica might be even more suitable), but to go no further than


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Xenophon is to throw the whole of the pupils' work out of perspective. No author has, however, suffered more than Xenophon from the schoolmaster's habit of using him as an exercise book in Greek grammar; no author can be made more living, if the teacher will take the trouble to explain the story in relation to modern experience of marching, of equipment, of desert and mountain scenery, of snow-blindness and the temper of a democratic army. Lucian is frequently read at this stage, but he is not a good author for giving an insight into Greek life at its best. Those who learn Greek will, however, be picked pupils with a sound elementary knowledge of Latin, who may be expected to make rapid progress. We have evidence that with skilful teaching it is possible to introduce them at an astonishingly early date to the easier narrative parts of Thucydides, and the same thing might probably be done with some of the dialogues of Plato. Nor do the difficulties of the dialect offer insuperable obstacles to an early introduction to Homer and Herodotus, who from the linguistic point of view can be treated as Chaucer is treated in English; i.e., with the minimum of attention to philological points. But we do not disapprove of reading Herodotus at this stage in an atticised version. In poetry preference is usually given to Euripides on account of the simplicity of his Greek, and no doubt it would be wrong for a pupil to omit the dramatists altogether even from a course extending over only three years. But to hurry on young pupils prematurely to the reading of Greek plays is a mistake which has been too often made.

(iii) Texts suitable for Higher Forms.

In the higher forms two main objects should be kept in view. In the first place, the curriculum should be so organised as to give the pupils in the lime available, which will normally be at least two years, as complete a picture as possible of Greek and Roman literature at its highest. In the best schools this aim is very fairly well accomplished. But as so much ground has to be covered, the problem is to combine this wide survey with a minute study of one or two of the great master- pieces. If all the difficulties are slurred, if nothing is done anywhere to penetrate the secrets of style or to elucidate the profundities of thought, the result will be a vague impressionism destructive of all real literary scholarship. Fortunately Homer and Herodotus at any rate lend themselves to rapid reading,


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though this is not to say that all they have to tell us is thereby exhausted. By relatively advanced pupils Demosthenes, Cicero's speeches and Livy can be treated in the same way, and even Virgil, though there is no author who better repays the minute study of every line. On the other hand, Æschylus, Sophocles and Tacitus and much of Thucydides and Plato cannot. We suggest therefore that two authors might be read concurrently, one rapidly and one with careful attention to detail. Where difficulties arise, the pace must, of course, everywhere be slower.

In the selection of authors to be read in any one term some care should be exercised. They should stand in some relation to one another, either by way of similarity or contrast. The books prescribed for Higher Certificate examinations are often chosen without enough attention to this point. Thus the 11th Odyssey might be read in connexion with the 6th Æneid, Theocritus with the Eclogues, the de Corona with the 2nd Philippic, a book of Thucydides with a book of Herodotus or Livy or Tacitus, Sallust with Cicero's Catilinarian orations, and so on; but the best field for such experiment is to be found in the Greek tragedians. Some authors, such as Aristophanes, stand apart by themselves, but even Aristophanes might gain by comparison with the Roman satirists. Lucretius, who also stands apart, will be mentioned in another connexion (p. 159). Plutarch will illustrate as no other writer can do certain periods of Ancient History; the life of Alexander is specially important in this respect. It should be needless to add that the authors read and the period of Ancient History studied should, wherever possible, correspond, and that an approximately equal amount of prose and verse should be read every year.

It should be unnecessary, but almost certainly is not, to lay emphasis on the importance throughout the whole course, so soon as the reading of continuous texts is begun, of the pupils committing to memory selected portions of the authors read and being trained to recite them with the proper emphasis. "Repetition" is a traditional and most valuable part of the classical curriculum, though probably less attention is given to it than was once common. Nor should it be forgotten that such lessons may be something more than a mere exercise in verbal memory; they may amount to the interpretation of a passage as it would be interpreted by an actor. This can no doubt be effectively done


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only by elder pupils, and even then only by those who have ti)6 imagination and the courage to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the part. But even those who fall below this level will at least have stored their memory with passages that they will never forget, while those with something of the real dramatic, rhetorical or poetic instinct will find in the practice under proper guidance a key to the real meaning of a passage which no commentator can give them. Viewed in this way "repetition" becomes even more important in the higher than in the lower forms, and "repetition" of prose not less important than that of verse.

(j) ANCIENT HISTORY.

Of the subjects connected with classical study which are now claiming increased attention the most important is Ancient History. It has, of course, always been taught in a greater or less degree in schools with a classical tradition and some know- ledge of it has been expected in all examinations for classical scholarships. But there are certain aspects of Ancient History which have lately assumed greater importance. On the one hand, there is the conception of the history of Mediterranean civilisation stretching back from the present day into that remote past in which history merges in Archaeology and Anthropology, and there is a growing consciousness that the whole record forms one continuum, of which the latest product can be scientifically explained only by an understanding of the ultimate origins. On the other hand, for us the lines of communication pass through Greece and Rome, and we are beginning to realise more fully than ever that most of the questions that press upon us at the present day, in politics, sociology and economics, in law and government, in literature and art, and even in science first presented themselves to Greek and Roman thinkers and statesmen. Many of the problems of democracy, of internationalism, of industrialism, to name no others, were known to the ancient world. Because the forms in which they then emerged were much less complex, because they can now be studied without reference to the passions excited at the time, and because Greece and Rome offer the spectacle of civilisations running their course from start to finish, the study of their history may form the best preparation for that of our own difficulties. For the children of the present day, who are to be


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the voters of the next generation, we cannot afford to ignore the experience of Greek political thinkers and Roman administrators in any form in which it can be made intelligible to them.

If the first duty of a teacher of history is to excite the interest of his pupils, the tales of Greek and Roman mythology and historical tradition are for young children the best possible instrument; they should certainly be familiar to pupils in Elementary and Preparatory Schools and in the lower forms of Public and Secondary Schools. From this they may go on to historical biography, and so be led up to the continuous treatment of events grouped round the life history of certain outstanding men. Classical History lends itself particularly well to this treatment. Room should be found for some such teaching of Greek and Roman History in the middle and lower forms of all schools, though only in the broadest outline. We believe that pupils should have acquired a knowledge of the outlines of Greek and Roman history, including the age of Alexander and the first century of the Roman Empire, before proceeding in the higher forms to the intensive study of such periods as the 5th century B.C., or that from the Gracchi to Caesar.

We have no suggestion to offer on the more advanced teaching of political history as practised in the best schools, though we doubt whether it is not sometimes too exclusively concerned with constitutional detail and confined within too limited a period of time.

The teaching should always be brought into close relation with the literary texts that are being read, which should be selected with some reference to this, and no opportunity should be lost of illustrating ancient history by modern. Indeed it would be well if Classical and History specialists could in part be taught history together. If this were done, the classical pupils would get more insight into mediæval and modern history and the historians more insight into ancient history than is common at present. The contact thus established between able pupils who are studying two different parts of the same subject would be beneficial to both sides.

The time saved from the over-minute study of constitutional history might well be devoted to social history or the history of the civilisations of Greece and Rome in the widest sense, including the arts and sciences, the social habits and modes of life and the simpler economic problems. Geography, properly


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treated, will play an important part in this. Few schoolboys probably realise what was the food and dress of the ordinary Athenian, where Athens got the timber to build her ships, what to her was the economic significance of the olive or of her manufacture of Attic "vases", and how all these things affected her policy. Yet many of them have read some Aristophanes and Demosthenes. There seems, indeed, every reason why some part at any rate of the geographical teaching in middle and lower forms should be devoted to the geography of the Mediterranean area, with special relation to its bearing on ancient life.*

It is difficult to see what time can be found for the vast subject of Mediterranean history except in its broadest outlines. But in the earlier stages the attempt should be made to bring, wherever possible, the historical parts of the Old and New Testament (including the Maccabean period) into relation with any knowledge that the pupils may have of other contemporary history. In the later stages it is probably not possible to do more than give occasional lectures, which might be attended by pupils from different sides of the school, and to encourage private reading. Some excellent books are now available, which should be in every school library. But any comprehensive treatment of Babylonian, Egyptian, Hittite, Ægean and Italian civilisations in their inter-relations must be postponed to the University. Such books, however, as Professor J. H. Breasted's "Ancient Times" and Professor G. W, Botsford's "History of the Ancient World" should be in the hands of every member of a Classical Sixth.†

The history of ancient thought is perhaps more properly a University subject. But the reflective portions of Thucydides and some parts of Plato's Republic are admirable for Sixth Forms and the admission of the tragic poets requires no apology.

*Our witnesses from the Geographical Association were of opinion that "a proper study of man's conquest of nature in the Mediterranean lands in which civilisation has grown up is impossible without a knowledge of records contained in the Classics, and this knowledge must include for a proportion of the students a knowledge of the actual languages."

†J. H. Breasted: Ancient Times: a History of the Early World (Ginn & Co.) (see also by the same author A Survey of the Ancient World); G. W. Botsford: A History of the Ancient World (Macmillan & Co., New York, 1911).


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On the other hand logical and metaphysical matters are better let alone, though some of the simpler ethical dialogues of Plato and books like the de Officiis are often stimulating to young readers But we wish to emphasise the point that a premature introduction to the higher branches of philosophy is bad both for school and for University studies. There is, however, one promising vein which has been very little worked, the history of Greek scientific thought and discovery. It is greatly to be desired that the ablest boys on the classical and the science sides of a school should come to understand and respect each other's point of view. They may find common ground in Lucretius and perhaps in some selected parts of Plato. The Greek and Latin texts will be too hard for the scientists, but an occasional hour in or out of school might be put aside for joint discussions of the subject matter. We would even venture to suggest that members of the Science staff should be invited to take part in them. Lectures open to the whole upper school might also occasionally be given on such subjects as Greek mathematics and mechanics. An interchange of ideas between the pupils - and we may add, the teachers - in upper forms on the classical, modern and science sides of a school could not fail to have a good effect on their attitude to each other's subjects in after life; it is on the ground of history that they can best meet.

(k) THE USE OF TRANSLATIONS.

We have discussed fully in the Introduction to this Report the degree to which a translation can be regarded as a substitute for the original text (p. 21 seq.). Admitting that it can never be a complete substitute, we nevertheless recommended that, with proper safeguards, the use of translations in classical education should be greatly extended. It remains to consider the part that the use of them may properly play in schools" of different types, and in the education of boys and girls of different tastes and capacities who are following different curricula.

(i) In Non-Classical Schools.

We have laid stress elsewhere on the need of a more widespread interest in the history and culture of antiquity in schools where no classics are taught. This may be attained by the reading of translations or extracts from translations far better


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than by text-books, provided always that the teacher is competent. Homer, Herodotus, Plutarch, Greek plays; Virgil, parts of Cicero, Livy, Tacitus or Pliny all afford good reading for boys and girls. Even for younger children extracts from some of these authors may take their place beside the Lays of Ancient Rome and Kingsley's Heroes.

(ii) For Non-Classical Specialists.

Again, boys and girls who have dropped Latin and Greek and perhaps never got very far in either may, nevertheless, derive great benefit if they supplement their work in Modern Subjects, Science or Mathematics and perhaps correct its preponderant bias by the study in translation of an ancient book or books. In some cases the book may well be selected for the contrast that it offers to their main studies, in others for the light that it throws upon them. This method has been found useful even in the Universities: for instance, candidates for the Modern History School at Oxford have long read the Politics of Aristotle in this way, and the method is spreading in the University (see p. 189). Tf it is adopted in the higher forms of schools, it will be absolutely necessary that the teacher should himself be a good scholar, and of great advantage that the pupils should have some knowledge of the language of the original. But ex hypothesi their knowledge will not be great, and they will lack that power of imaginative adjustment which the classical scholar has been gradually and almost unconsciously acquiring during his years of linguistic study and which will save him from being misled by a translation in which the language and style of the original is wholly recast in the mould of modern English. It is possible therefore that the translation most suitable for the purpose we are contemplating will go to greater lengths than is now approved in reproducing not only the substance but the form of the original. Or it may be found best, as has been tried in France, to use two translations at the same time, one literal and one idiomatic. But such a method of teaching is to a large extent new, and though we think it in every way worthy of trial, only experience can show how far it will prove successful.

(iii) In Schools with a four years' Latin course.

Thirdly, the use of translations may be of invaluable aid in those schools which, like the majority of the new Secondary


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schools, can indeed teach Latin but cannot afford more than a three or four years' course. In such a course it is not possible to turn out finished composers or linguistic scholars; but it should be possible, by frankly abandoning the unattainable and concentrating on the practicable, to turn out boys and girls who have a fair power of reading Latin and a considerable interest in Roman life and culture. How this may best be done is discussed in detail below (p. 168 seq.). The suggestions there made seem to us capable of adaptation to meet the needs of "modern side" pupils in the Public and Grammar Schools. It is especially suggested that a translation may be used by the teacher as a means of giving pupils their first apprehension of the classical text, with a view to making their task of mastering its grammatical structure easier.

(iv) In Schools with a full Classical Course.

Lastly, translations may also be useful in schools with the full classical tradition. Not every chapter of a historian or every passage in a poet is of equal value and interest. In an English book no one would think of spending the same amount of time on each passage. Yet this is in fact what happens when every sentence in a Greek or Latin text is construed with the same scrupulous care. An experiment is being made of publishing a series of school texts partly in Latin or Greek and partly in English. The text is printed as a continuous narrative, but only selected portions are in the original language. This method goes some way to solve the problem of enabling a lower or middle form to read widely and with appreciation of historical values without sacrificing the disciplinary and educative value of exact scholarship. It lends itself, however, to prose better than to poetry and to some prose authors better than to others.

A poet can indeed be least inadequately translated in verse, though even here some use might perhaps be made of such prose translations as Butcher and Lang's of the Odyssey. It would be an advantage for a boy to have come to know large portions of the Odyssey while still at school, even though part were read only in translation; and for Homer a prose translation is perhaps not so unsatisfactory as for Virgil. Again, if a class is not yet ready to cope with a Greek chorus in the original, it would be better that they should read a verse translation than that they should ignore the existence of the choruses altogether. To use


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a prose translation of a chorus would give the ordinary pupil a quite erroneous idea of the original, unless indeed the skill of the translator were quite exceptional.

In no case however should the study of the original and that of the translation be confused. Editions like the Loeb Classics, with the original and the translation on opposite pages, are quite unsuitable for use in form. And where a passage is reserved for translation and detailed study, no difficulty - grammatical, literary or historical - should be shirked, due regard being had to the attainments and capacity of the pupils. It need hardly be said that for anything like advanced work translations should be used very sparingly, if at all, in class; for school purposes their value diminishes as the knowledge of the original language increases. Finally, we may repeat what we have said elsewhere, that their use cannot in any case be profitable where the teacher himself is ignorant of the original language.

(l) PRONUNCIATION.

A few words may be said on the question of the reformed pronunciation of Latin, It has established itself without any difficulty in the Secondary Schools and the Girls' Schools. It has been officially adopted in most of the Public schools, but in only a few of them is it consistently and uniformly used. Each Preparatory school probably goes its own way in the matter. The essential thing is that one uniform system should be employed in all the Universities and schools of the country; the want of uniformity leads to great waste of time and produces inconvenience and confusion. There are forms in Public schools in which half-a-dozen different pronunciations are used by the pupils, often none of them consistently, and it must be confessed that the pronunciation of one master sometimes differs from that of another. Such anarchy is not likely to result in, e.g., a consistent differentiation between qui and quae. The reformed pronunciation is now in far more general use, and it is, of course, a much closer approximation to that of the Romans than the unreformed pronunciation. The universal and whole-hearted adoption of it would remove a serious obstacle to a pupil's progress. It is hardly necessary to add that precise and careful uniformity in pronunciation is the more important, the more oral methods of teaching are employed.


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On the question of the desirability of a similar reform in the pronunciation of Greek we are divided. Some of us do not wish to add to the many difficulties under which Greek labours by abandoning the pronunciation traditional in this country, others feel that the reform in the pronunciation of one language will inevitably and rightly lead to reform in that of the other.

(m) TERMINOLOGY OF GRAMMAR.

We desire to emphasise the importance of adopting from the first, in all grammatical teaching, a terminology which should be capable of being employed, with the minimum of variation, for the purposes of any other language that is subsequently learnt. In this matter, important work has been done by the Committee for Simplified Grammar, under the guidance of Professor E. A. Sonnenschein, whose Parallel Grammar Series is coming to be well known. It is unnecessary to labour the point. Clearly, much time is saved and much confusion avoided, if, e.g., a syntactical phenomenon which is called the accusative in one group of languages is called by the same name in every other language in which it occurs.

(n) "MATERIAL AIDS" - ARCHAEOLOGY AND ART.

We have so far been dealing exclusively with the part to be played in a classical education by the study of the language, literature and history. But in a complete curriculum for higher forms room should be found for some teaching of Ancient Art (including Architecture) and of Archaeology, not merely for their intrinsic importance, but because they exercise other faculties, such as those of sight and touch, the employment of which is recognised as of high value in the training of the scientist and should not be ignored for the scholar. If one of our aims is to make boys and girls realise vividly the conditions of ancient life, there is no way so effective as to allow them to see and handle objects that were in daily use, nor is there anything that for many pupils is so great an assistance to their memory or so great a stimulus to their interest. If the objects besides being interesting are also beautiful, another faculty is brought into play which has been too much neglected, at any rate in the education of boys.

A student of modern history gains great advantage from visits to historic sites an«l historic buildings. Photography and the


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lantern have brought such visits in a sense within the reach of the student of ancient history. The ancient atlas and wall maps have long been recognised as essential for all classical teaching, and many schools supplement them by photographs or raised plans of one or two of the most famous ancient sites. But in addition to the pictures of the Forum and the Acropolis, which now commonly hang in class-rooms, every school should have its collection of photographs of classical sites, which should be as complete as possible, be easily accessible, and be added to from time to time.*

Finally there is perhaps nothing that will more readily help the pupil to realise the progressive character of classical study than to get some acquaintance with the romantic history of modern archaeological research,† and to follow step by step the stages by which the discoveries were achieved and the great finds were related to one another. Nor is some knowledge of the history of classical research without its appeal for the student of science. The type of ideas which emerge in the researches of classical archaeology are those which are likely specially to interest science students with artistic or historic aptitudes.

We think, therefore, that every encouragement should be given to the formation in schools of collections of photographs, casts, coins, models, and objects of all sorts illustrating ancient life and civilisation. Of some objects the models might actually be made by the pupils themselves, with the co-operation of the Art Master and the carpenter's shop; of others, reproductions can be procured at a comparatively small cost; in not a few cases it might be possible to obtain, from museums or elsewhere, surplus examples of the originals either on loan or otherwise. A school that is within reach of even a small archaeological museum can often make arrangements for visits under special guidance, while at the British Museum competent lecture-guides take parties round the great Greek and Roman collections. Some schools are so fortunate as to be situated in the neighbourhood of an important ancient Roman site, and roads and camps which, if not built by the Romans, were at least used by them are

*The British Museum issues a series of photographic postcards of classical sculpture, vases, coins, &c. specially designed for the use of schools.

†See Archaeological Discoveries in the XIXth Century by A. Michaelis, translated by Miss Bettina Kahnweiler, (Murray. 1908.)


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found in most parts of the country. Again, there is now available a considerable number of well and judiciously illustrated editions of classical texts, &c., some of them suited for the use of quite young pupils, and the British Museum has published a cheap and excellent Guide to the Exhibition illustrating Greek and Roman life.

All this needs no doubt expenditure both of money and time. With regard to money we would urge that, as every school which teaches science is expected to provide funds for the erection and equipment of laboratories, so every school which teaches classics should be expected to make at least some provision for the formation of a classical collection. This need entail very little initial expenditure, and the collection might indeed be more accessible in a class-room than in a school museum.

We understand that a scheme is under consideration to form a collection, for purchase or loan, of photographs of all the principal classical sites, accompanied by short descriptive statements which would enable them to be profitably used even by teachers with no training in archaeology.

It will, no doubt, be difficult to find time for any teaching of Classical Archaeology and Art as separate subjects in a school curriculum, nor do we recommend that this should be done. For Classical Art, however, some time might be found in that given to Drawing. Archaeology as a special study is hardly suitable for pupils of school age, but there are many ways in which its results may be utilised in schools. In particular, occasional lantern lectures may well be given, which should be open to the pupils on all sides of the school. In form work it is difficult to do more than illustrate the incidental points which occur in the reading of a text. But it should not be impossible in some schools to hold occasionally a debate in the senate or a Roman trial, with such properties, costumes and accessories as may be available. We especially welcome the occasional acting of a Greek or Latin play, not only in the rather oppressive atmosphere of "speech day", but as a domestic performance offered to the school. Not to speak of the Westminster play, the performances of such plays at Oxford, Cambridge, Bradfield and elsewhere have had a wide educative influence. The aims of an ordinary school should probably be less ambitious, but we have had evidence of the success which has attended such performances in many schools both for boys and girls.


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All this will, however, fail to effect its purpose, unless there is at least one teacher on the staff who has the necessary expert knowledge and the necessary enthusiasm. Unfortunately such teachers are rare, though our evidence has shown that they exist. Archaeology, however, plays a very small part in the ordinary classical courses at the Universities, and the number of teachers even at the Public schools who are familiar with the contents of the University collections or the British Museum is lamentably small, while the number of those who have studied at the British Schools at Athens or Rome is still smaller. We are aware of the many difficulties in increasing their number. But those teachers who wholly ignore the claims of Archaeology and Art are seriously impairing their own effectiveness and refusing to use an instrument which is likely to be increasingly powerful in exciting and maintaining an interest in ancient life and manners.

It may not be amiss to call special attention to the educational value of the study of classical architecture. No branch of art more directly expresses the character and mind of a nation than that which regulates its building, whether religious or secular, and this is nowhere truer than in classical architecture. Further, the remains which have survived for us are of the highest interest and readily lend themselves to illustration by the lantern or photography.

Leaving matters of technical detail for experts to deal with, the ordinary teacher might well point out to his pupils that within very narrow limits the Greek architect achieved a perfection of simple beauty which has never since been rivalled, and that this effect was due not, as appears, to the use of straight lines, but to very subtle departures from regularity and symmetry. Again, the well-known distinction in points of detail between the leading orders of Greek architecture corresponds to ethnic differences in aims and ideals, the Dorians desiring massiveness and dignity, the lonians something lighter and more graceful.

In like manner, when the Romans cultivated this art, their excellence did not consist in the imitation or modification of Greek styles, but depended on the fact that they largely emancipated themselves from Greek influence by departing from (apparent) straight lines and adopting in their stead the principle of the arch and the dome, thus profoundly influencing the history of architecture for succeeding ages. Not to speak of


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their religions structures, which were more conservative in aim, they have left us in their aqueducts and amphitheatres, their triumphal arches and public baths, many of which have withstood the ravages of time, standing memorials of the strength and majesty of Rome. Finally, good authorities hold that Santa Sophia at Constantinople, perhaps the finest building in the world, though undoubtedly it inspired the "Byzantine" style, may in reality be regarded as the last word in Roman architecture properly so called.

(o) SCHOOL LIBRARIES.

It is not possible within the limits of this Report to discuss in detail the part that should be played by the School Library. Two main objects should be kept in view - that it should be readily accessible and that it should be attractive as a place of resort. It is not unreasonable that of the sum, often inadequate, annually available for its upkeep a definite proportion should be assigned to the Classical department. In particular, it is to be hoped that every school in which the Classics are taught up to a high standard will see to it that the Library contains, besides the ordinary standard editions and books of reference, the publications of the Hellenic Society, of the Society for Roman Studies, of the Classical Association, and of the Schools of Athens and of Rome. It should be one of the main functions of the Library to interest the best scholars of the school in the work that is actually being done in the various fields of classical learning. In this respect it should not be allowed to fall behind the Laboratory or the Science Museum. But, in addition, it should contain as complete a collection as possible of classical texts and of standard editions of classical authors. Many of them will no doubt remain undisturbed upon their shelves. But for the real scholar - and one such may be thrown up at any moment in any school - the mere presence of books, though the time has not yet come when he can read them all, has an educative influence which is not without its value. Not every object in a museum is a source of constant interest, yet none should on that account alone be excluded. It is to be feared that the classical department in school libraries is too often starved on the ground that no one would look at the books if they were bought. In the selection of books for purchase, the needs of the classical teacher as well as of the classical pupil should be kept in view, though by neither should the


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school library be regarded as a complete substitute for books privately owned. Whatever the advantages of the not uncommon arrangement by which books used in class are the property of the school and handed on from one pupil to another, it is not favourable to the training of a scholar. A schoolboy should have his own Virgil, as he has his own Bible, and every encouragement should be given to him to form while still at school the nucleus of a collection of books which may be his companions through life.

With a view to encouraging the interest of pupils in classical subjects lying somewhat outside their daily work, we desire to call especial attention to the admirable series of handbooks and photographs of Classical Archaeology and Art which are issued by the British Museum at very low prices. These should be within the reach of all pupils in a Classical Sixth, preferably as part of a Sixth Form Library. Such a Library should also contain some at least of the ordinary standard books of reference on Classical History, Archaeology and Antiquities, and some of the standard classical texts. The student of science, apart from the work in which he is at any moment engaged, gains something from working constantly in a laboratory in which he is surrounded by scientific apparatus of all kinds. It may be difficult or undesirable to create in a Sixth Form room the atmosphere of the Bodleian m- the Ashmolean; but no opportunity should be lost of suggesting to Sixth Form pupils the immense field of interest which is opening to them in every direction, and of tempting them in spare moments to step aside from the beaten track which they must ordinarily pursue. It is much to be desired that the Classical Association would undertake the task of issuing from time to time a priced list of books on classical subjects for the guidance both of teachers and of students. Finally, even in schools where no advanced classical work is done, the School Library should, nevertheless, contain some books on Classical History, Literature and Antiquities.

(p) CLASSICAL STUDIES IN THE NEW SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

In the discussion of Method and Curricula we have laid down principles which, in our opinion, are valid for a full classical course. They will, however, need in practice considerable modification as applied to one very important type of


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school. The problem of classical studies in the new Secondary Schools, which have been such a hopeful feature in the development of education since the passing of the Education Act of 1902, forms a vital part of our inquiry. But it presents great difficulties. We feel bound, even at the risk of some redundancy, to bring together in one section the questions that arise in connexion with it, though they are touched upon elsewhere in our Report, and to suggest how in our judgment the main problem may be solved. We must recognise that these schools contain the vast majority of those boys and girls who pursue a full-time education after the age of 14, and that, large as has been the increase in their numbers since 1902, they will continue to increase year after year. These young people will play a leading part in every activity of national life in the future. The time is short within which to give them the equipment that we should desire. Most of them do not enter the Secondary Schools until about 12 years of age,* and of those entering at that age the majority leave school at 16 or earlier, so that not many remain to pursue their studies to 18. Thus we have normally but four years as against the eight or nine at the disposal of those who have to plan curricula for the boys attending Preparatory or Public Schools, or for the girls who attend the comparatively few Girls' Schools that correspond to the Public Schools. Moreover, in most schools it will be necessary to teach together in the lower and middle forms both those who intend to leave at 16 and those who intend to stay on until 18 and to specialise on one subject or another during their two additional years. A curriculum designed to form the basis of that sound general education up to the age of 16, which by common consent is desirable, must include a large number of subjects. In the last fifty years some of these subjects which previously did not receive proper attention have been securing more and more consideration, until, at the present moment, the danger is that the classical languages may be regarded as luxuries which can be dispensed with. Such a view we regard as profoundly wrong. The study of English, Modern Languages, History, Geography, Science and Mathematics must form a staple part of the Secondary School curriculum, and will give much that is required, but not all. We have been at pains, in the Introduction to this Report, to state the claim for the study of

*See, however, p. 115 and Recommendation No. XI. 2 (p. 274).


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the Classics. We are convinced of the truth of that statement, and we do not think it right, now that the opportunities of Secondary Education are widening, that any members of the community should be deprived of facilities for taking up a study which recent experience shows that many of them are anxious for and are eminently adapted to profit by, but which have been denied to them in the past.

(i) Aim in teaching Latin.

In the first place we believe that Latin can maintain, and ought to maintain, an important place in the scheme of general education for most girls and boys in Secondary Schools, and we shall proceed to indicate what are, in our opinion, the conditions under which it can do so. The Latin language survives for us in a classic literature, and the aim that we have set before us of studying the mind and character of Rome through its language requires that we should push on to this literature as quickly as possible. This of course should not be done prematurely; such a procedure would defeat its own end and might easily lead to a dangerous literary dilettantism. In the learning of any language the pupil must master the essentials of the grammar before he ventures on a study of literature, though even in this early stage we believe that a Reader consisting of Roman Stories simply told should be introduced as soon as possible as the basis of instruction.

At the end of the second year, however, or perhaps before, a good form will be ready for a Latin author. Whichever be the first author chosen, and this we suppose will generally be Ctesar, certain definite principles should be observed in introducing pupils to their first Latin classic and in selecting the portions of it to be read. In the first place a complete work or, if that is too long, a substantial portion of a work should be taken for study, and its general drift and subject matter and its historical setting should be explained to the pupil; in other words, he should be led from the beginning to conceive the work as a whole. Many a boy whose knowledge of Caesar is limited to the Invasion of Britain must have been puzzled to know why the work is so perversely named the War in Gaul. In the second place, the portions of this whole which are selected for study should be such as go to form its essential body. It will rarely happen that any of these portions coincides


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with the "book" which is so frequently read by a class or prescribed for examinations; if it does it will be a happy accident. Much of any one "book", especially of a history, may not be in the main stream of the narrative at all and by a beginner may even be omitted with advantage.

An example will make our meaning clearer. Let us assume that the selected book is Caesar's Gallic War. This is the story of the conquest and settlement of the country told by the great soldier and statesman who achieved it. Its theme is there- fore an enterprise typically Roman; and any boy, under even moderately intelligent guidance, should be able to get from it some notion of what men mean when they speak of the civilising mission of Rome. The teacher will naturally make it his first business to explain who and what kind of people the Gauls were, what their country was like, who Caesar was and how he came to be in charge of the campaign, what his difficulties were both at home and in Gaul, &c., &c. He will then select those portions of the text which for his own purpose he wants his pupils to read. No two teachers are likely to make the same selection, and the following is not intended to be more than a specimen:

(i) The Helvetian campaign (or, alternatively, the Belgic campaign),
(ii) The Sea campaign against the Veneti;
(iii) Britain and the mode of life of the Britons;
(iv) Political and religious institutions of the Gauls;
(v) Vereingetorix, the hero of Gaul, and the siege and surrender of Alesia; and possibly
(vi) Caesar's return to Rome and political life, and his welcome in the towns of Italy.
All this amounts to no more than 60 small octavo pages of Latin text, and should certainly be within the powers of any average form as its year's work, while leaving time for the reading of a certain amount of verse. It provides ample material for lessons on the politics, military organisation, provincial system and imperial policy of Rome. It will not be amiss but altogether appropriate if the pupil makes his first acquaintance with Virgil by reading concurrently and learning by heart some passages from his works, e.g., the "praise of Italy" and "the genius of Greece and Rome". It need hardly be said that the authors read in those two years should be those


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who illustrate best the spirit of Rome, such as Caesar, Cicero, Livy, Virgil and Horace.

(ii) Method.

(a) Grammar and Syntax. The first task of the teacher is to lay a firm foundation of linguistic knowledge. This should embrace the regular and normal accidence and syntax, and a high standard of accuracy should be required. Limitations of time may forbid the teaching of continuous prose composition, but drill in the fundamental constructions is of the first importance, and whatever is learnt here should be learnt thoroughly. No language teaching is worth anything which is not rigorously exact as far as it goes.

At this stage a good deal of oral work in Latin is possible and most advisable; if properly managed it saves time and lends to the subject a lively sense of reality. Further than this we see no reason to dogmatise on the question of method; that method which in the hands of any teacher leads in the shortest time to the secure laying of the foundation is the best.

The syntax may with great advantage be taught on a basis of Pure Grammar, founded on the analysis of thought as such. It is easy to show even a young pupil that the subordinate clauses of any language whatever can b3 classified, according to the functions which they perform, as Noun, Adjective and Adverb clauses; that these again can be sub-divided according to their intention, Noun Clauses into Statement, Question, Command, &c.; Adverb clauses into those describing time, manner, cause, purpose, &c.; and that therefore the possible types of clause are strictly limited in number. Such knowledge is both an intellectual and a moral gain; it places in the pupil's hands an instrument which will serve him well in the study of any other language, and it convinces him that his task has definite bounds and that he can therefore attack it with confidence.

(b) Literary Texts. There will be general agreement among teachers that it is just at the point where the transition is made from simplified texts to authors that the greatest difficulty and the chief risk of failure arises: the difficulties are especially great in a four years' course, where time forbids the grading of texts which is possible in a longer course. This difficulty need not be due to the subject-matter, which may be eminently


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suitable to young minds, but is more frequently caused by the style in which the author wrote. Pupils for whom no one would dream of prescribing a chapter of Gibbon are set, with a far more slender linguistic equipment, to read a book of Livy; and it is still apparently not uncommon to launch the pupil, thus meagrely equipped, on his Latin text with no help but a dictionary and a greater or smaller mass of notes. The method in fact is open to the same objection as any other method which proceeds "per ignotum ad ignotum".

Even the practice, common with many good teachers, of giving judicious help with the text beforehand, does not meet the essential difficulty. In learning any new thing it is an accepted rule that the pupil should proceed from the known to the unknown; the difficulty here is that the known is so small in amount and the unknown so disproportionately large. More- over the task is of a quite special kind, viz., to master both the substance and the form of a piece of literature. This is a task for a scholar; it is quite beyond a boy or girl still struggling with the elements of the language. We believe that in the early stages the remedy may be found to lie in a reversal of the usual procedure, viz., in conveying beforehand to the pupil the substance of what he has to prepare. This substance then becomes part of the "known", the unknown is the form in which the substance is expressed.

What we suggest then is that the last part of any lesson should be devoted to the preliminary preparation of the next one. This may be done in various ways. For example, the teacher may first read to the class a good idiomatic translation of the passage to be prepared, and then read the Latin text, the pupils following him in their own copies. In doing so, assuming that he knows his business, he will give them their first notion of the Latin form and structure, and incidentally he will clear out of the way such difficulties as they cannot be expected to cope with themselves. The advantages which we see in this method are these: first, the pupil, when he sets about his own task, will be in possession of the substance of the passage which he has to prepare; secondly, he will, if the translation is worth reading at all, have had at least a foretaste of the form; and thirdly, what is of great educational importance, he will have a standard of performance for his own work. In fact, his task will be reduced to the linguistic elements; it will be sufficient to call


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forth all his energies and yet definite enough to exercise them effectively. Interest moreover will have been awakened, and in education this is paramount.

We must, however, utter a caution against the danger of this method degenerating into a mere exercise in verbal memory. And in any class a stage will inevitably be reached at which the pupils may be expected without any previous help to prepare a simple narrative by themselves or even to try their hand at it unseen. But we wish to insist that there are two processes in the study of a classical author: the critical analysis by translation and comment, and such an appreciation of the work as a whole as will enable the pupil to realise its value, either as a fine piece of literature or as an informing narrative. We would insist that the two cannot be pursued simultaneously, because a mind occupied with detailed analysis cannot at the same time form an impression of the whole, and because the two processes involve a difference of pace - the former being slow and the latter requiring a perusal at the natural pace of reading. There is grave danger that the critical analysis may so dominate the situation that an appreciation of the work in its entirety is ignored. But both are indispensable, and no teacher should be satisfied until his pupils have not only mastered the details of what they are reading but also appreciate it as a whole. And we believe that, at least in the earlier stages, this full appreciation can be secured only if the author is approached through the pupil's own language, though it will not be complete until to this is added a detailed knowledge of the original.

Those who cannot carry their Latin studies beyond the age of 16 would, we believe, gain great benefit from such a course as we have sketched; they would have acquired a working knowledge of the Latin tongue, they would have read some portions of a classic literature, and they would have received a definite first-hand impression of the genius of the great people from whom one of the main streams of modern civilisation springs. They would, in fact, have tasted the first fruits of a liberal education.

(iii) The Method as a preparation for Advanced Work.

We must now consider for a moment the case of those who will continue their Latin studies, with or without Greek, up to the


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age of 18; some of them, we hope, will go on to the Universities to pursue a complete classical course. These pupils, we must remember, will have been through the same four years' course as these first mentioned; will they be handicapped by this fact, or will they have laid a foundation solid enough for a super- structure of good scholarship to be built upon it? We believe that they will have laid it, though by comparison with the Public School boy they will lack skill and experience in com- position and unseens. But we have had some evidence that such skill and experience has been acquired by clever pupils in the last two years of their school life; indeed some boys of exceptional ability have passed through the preliminary stage in less than four years and eventually gained classical scholar- ships at Oxford or Cambridge.

(iv) Application of the method to Greek.

What we have said about Latin applies mutatis mutandis as regards both aims and methods to Greek also. The problem of Greek in the Secondary Schools is, in its purely educational aspect, a simpler one than that of Latin. In the first place, only those are likely to begin Greek who have already shown some ability in their Latin studies; and, in the second place, these pupils will be appreciably older than when they began Latin and will have been trained by their experience of Latin for the study of a second classical language. They will thus have -the double advantage of greater maturity and of proved capacity: and it should be possible for them, beginning at about 14, to complete even in two years what in Latin takes four, or at least to fall not far short. Those who desire to carry their classics up to a University standard will then have two more years in which to do so.

We have still to ask however whether boys who do not intend to specialise in Classics can gain anything worth having from a Greek course extending over two, or at most three, years only. This is to ask, in other words, whether they can in this period of time be brought to the point of reading something characteristically Greek. We believe that this question can be answered with confidence in the affirmative. It is possible to master the elements of Greek and get through a simplified Reader in the first year and so to be ready for a Greek author in the second; and it happens fortunately that there are


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pictures of Greek life drawn for us by Greek writers which are presented in images of such simplicity and beauty that they are intelligible and attractive even to boys of 15 or 16. If then it is true of Greek that "a man gets as much of it as he can", the effort is surely worth making to get even a little rather than none at all.

For pupils who hope to become scholars it may be sound policy to keep to Attic Greek until the foundation has been securely laid, and reasons of organisation will generally make it necessary for non-specialists, at any rate in Secondary Schools, to follow the same course of study as those specialising in Classics. But, where the school organisation permits, we should encourage the experiment of taking non-specialists straight on to Homer or Herodotus. We have heard of more than one attempt of the kind which promises success, and it should be remembered that there are school editions of these authors which greatly lessen the difficulties of dialect.

We have now concluded the most difficult and responsible part of our task in laying down the principles which in our opinion should govern the teaching of the Classics in Secondary Schools of different types and in suggesting the methods which appear to us to be most effective for carrying them out. For those pupils who after a serious study of the Classics extending over the greater part of their school life then proceed to the Universities we are confident that, whether or not they continue their studies on the same lines for some years longer, the work that they have done will have a permanent effect on their intelligence, their sympathies, their character and their tastes. The detailed suggestions that we have made are the result of careful consideration of the evidence which has been laid before us compared with the results of experience gained by individual members of the Committee in many different fields of work. But we do not claim that we have solved all the problems which confront the Classical teacher. Many of them are peculiar to individual schools and even to individual pupils, and the best teacher is he who, possessing the necessary knowledge, enthusiasm and sympathy, has worked out his own method with a due sense of what he owes to his subject, his pupils and himself.


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PART IV.

Universities.

We now propose, as indicated on p. 59, to describe in some detail the existing provision made for the teaching of Classics in the Universities. We shall deal with them much more briefly than with the schools.

It is perhaps better to begin with those of modern foundation. Their problems are simpler, their regulations more elastic, and their students on the whole a more homogeneous body.

1. MODERN UNIVERSITIES.

A few details have already been given (p. 34) of modern colleges founded in England and Wales as local centres of higher study. Nearly all these have been raised to the status of Universities, so that now all over the country a network exist of new Universities quite different in character and organisation from the older ones, but singularly homogeneous among them- selves.

(a) THEIR ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT.

Among modern Universities the University of Durham, as already mentioned (p. 34), stands somewhat apart from the rest. In its early days it followed closely the lines of the University of Oxford, but the subsequent incorporation of the Armstrong College at Newcastle-on-Tyne has assimilated it in some respects to other modern Universities, though it still retains some of its original features.

The modern Universities began in England with the foundation in 1828 of London University (later named University College) on the model of the Scottish Universities as a place for teaching and study with no lodging for students. The almost contemporaneous foundation of King's College followed the same type. The charter of the University of London, which was granted in 1 836, did not destroy the original character of the two Colleges, but the University itself continued to be for many years an examining and degree-granting but not a teaching body.


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All subsequent foundations of University Colleges in England and Wales have preserved the type of the Scottish Universities, first introduced into South Britain by Thomas Campbell the poet, Lord Brougham and the other founders of London University. Thus the foundation of teaching Colleges in many of the largest English towns prepared the way for the Victoria University of Manchester (1880), to which Liverpool was federated in 1881 and Leeds in 1887, and for the separate Charters granted to these three Universities at the beginning of the present century. Birmingham received a charter in 1900, and later Sheffield (1905) and Bristol (1909) received theirs; while Nottingham, Reading and Southampton are still unchartered.

The University of Wales, consisting of the Colleges of Aberystwyth, Bangor and Cardiff, had received a federal charter before the end of the century (1893). In Ireland on the other hand the Royal University (1882) was replaced in 1909 by the University of Belfast and the Federal National University (Dublin, Cork and Galway).

Being largely financed from local sources and reflecting the social conditions of their environment, the modern Universities are naturally bound up with the character, the ideals and the special needs of their own locality. For economic reasons they have frequently started by laying emphasis on the Faculties of Applied Science, of Engineering and sometimes of Medicine. Literary culture and certainly classical learning were often little thought of, as being of no urgent importance or as provided for elsewhere. This implied some neglect of the more literary view of education to which some at any rate of the University Colleges owed their origin.

But it almost invariably happens that such one-sided institutions outgrow their original narrowness. Literature, Art, History and Philosophy cannot be denied their due, answering as they do to deep and lasting needs of the human spirit. Thus, sooner or later, a strong current towards humanism begins to set. Nowhere has this tendency been better illustrated than in the modern State Universities of America. They were frankly founded with the special view of exploiting the material resources of the individual States, whether agricultural, mineral or industrial; yet several of them, especially in the States known as the Middle West, are rapidly becoming important


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centres of humanism, by no means excluding higher classical education.*

If then we are to appraise rightly the importance of the newer Universities in our educational system and particularly in regard to problems of classical study, we must bear in mind their progressive character and must weigh their statistics not merely as a record of work done, but also as a promise of something better to come.

It would of course be idle to suggest that such academic centres could hope to repair the national loss that would be involved in a lowering: of standard in the ancient homes of classical study whose pride it is to be not only ancient but modern. These with their traditions and equipment will, it is to be hoped, continue to do abundant work of an excellence which purely modern Universities can very rarely hope to rival. But another function, and one scarcely less important for the well-being of Classical Humanism in a democratic age - the wide diffusion among the people of interest in their own intellectual ancestry - falls especially within the scope of modern Universities situated in populous districts, and should never be left out of account by those responsible for the education of the country. If they will scrutinise the results obtained in this field even within a comparatively short time, they will find many encouraging indications; among them we may point to the flourishing Branches of the Classical Association at work in connexion with the new Universities and to the assistance they have already rendered to the parent organisation.

(b) ACTUAL CONDITION OF CLASSICAL STUDIES IN MODERN UNIVERSITIES.

We will now consider in detail the actual position of Classical Studies in the new Universities, a task in which we have been much assisted by Professor R. S. Conway of Manchester, than whom no one has a more intimate acquaintance with the subject. The figures which are given in Appendix E. and have

*We should like to draw attention to a volume edited by Professor Kelsey of Michigan (State) University, entitled Latin and Greek in American Education (The Macmillan Co., 1912) and to Mr. Allan Kevin's History of the University of Illinois (New York: Oxford University Press 1917).


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been already summarised on p. 55 cover most of the present century and give a comparison between the years 1904, 1914 and 1920 of the number of students learning Latin and Greek in the Universities of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Durham and Bristol, the University Colleges of Nottingham and Reading, and Holloway College.

The figures are not in themselves unsatisfactory. It will be noticed that Greek is holding its ground and that there is a large increase in the students of Latin, though allowance must be made for the much larger numbers since the war of University students of all kinds, including candidates for degrees in Arts. We have no evidence that the proportion of students taking Latin shows a relative increase. Still the mere fact that a larger number of students than before is now studying Latin and Greek is in itself encouraging.

It will be noticed that the figures do not include the University of London as such, though Holloway College is a recognised School <-)f the University and Nottingham and Reading send in some of their students for its examinations. The number of candidates who offered Classics in London degree examinations in the years in question has already been given (p. 55): but the number of London matriculated students who were studying Latin or Greek in those years cannot be ascertained, owing to the fact that so large a proportion of them were "external" students unconnected with any of the recognised schools of the University. The omission of any more precise information with regard to London must not be taken to imply that we forget the now well established record of London as a nurse of classical studies, the excellence of the work that it has accomplished and the distinction of its teaching staff.

Further information regarding the Universities of Scotland, Ireland and Wales is given in the respective sections. The evidence about them naturally varies, but upon the whole the Classical outlook in these countries is Considered by many competent judges to be favourable.

One fact ought certainly to be noted as bearing upon the classical standard attained in these Universities. They have been as a rule staffed by competent scholars, mostly trained at the older Universities, and in not a few instances by men who have made notable contributions to classical learning. Many


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of these Professors have also acted in the sister Universities in the capacity of External Examiners and are thus able to speak with authority as to the comparative quality of their own students. They tell us that, at any rate when high honours are awarded, the level of attainment is comparable with that ordinarily demanded for First Classes at the older Universities. This view is confirmed by External Examiners chosen from the teaching staffs of Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. What is much insisted upon, particularly by Professor Conway, is that remark- able results are often obtained, especially in Greek, by students who begin the subject late but who by native talent combined with genuine enthusiasm have gained a real insight into Hellenism.

(c) THEIR RELATION TO SCHOOLS IN THEIR AREA.

In considering the situation as a whole, it may be said that the bulk of the students, many of whom are women and most of whom reside at home, are drawn from local schools, where most attention is bestowed upon scientific and modern subjects, where at present it is hardly possible to expect a high quality of classical education and where too little heed is given to the special opportunities offered by the local University for classical study. We have noted elsewhere that many day-schools in the greater cities have been and are remarkably successful in competing with the Public Schools for classical scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge, an achievement of which they are justly proud. The importance of this, whether we consider its effect upon the schools or upon the Universities, we should be far from under-rating. But we think it is equally important for the due development of humane education that every effort should be made to foster in Classics that close connexion between the modern Universities and the schools in their respective areas which is already secured in science, technology, law and medicine, as well as in some of the Arts subjects.

This end would undoubtedly be most readily attained if at those day schools which can provide an adequate classical training scholarships and exhibitions in classics tenable at local Universities could be founded by private benefaction. It must not be thought that this policy would tend to weaken any existing connexion of the schools with the older Universities, for these will attract the best prepared classical pupils. But it would go


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some way to meet the needs of those pupils who possess a natural aptitude for the Classics but have not had the preliminary grounding which would enable them to win a scholarship at Oxford or Cambridge. To these the modern Universities offer opportunities which the older Universities cannot provide. After they have completed their course, some of them may be able to proceed to Oxford or Cambridge for senior or post-graduate work. Migration from one University to another, familiar to those acquainted with education in Scotland, is by no means unknown to the modern Universities of England, Wales and Ireland. But a direct connexion between the University and the schools in the area in which it is situated should operate powerfully to guide the instincts of the locality and to broaden its outlook. The conditions attached to the award of any local scholarships hereafter founded should accordingly be such as best suit the circumstances of candidates of the type described.

(d) THEIR PROVISION FOR GREEK.

In considering further problems of the encouragement of Classical learning in modern centres, there more than elsewhere those relating to Greek and to Latin study must be separately dealt with. Inasmuch as students of Greek almost invariably know Latin and thus are classical in a full sense, it will be more convenient to consider them first. In most of the modern Universities, though not in all, elementary classes are provided for those who, not having offered Greek for matriculation, desire to begin it at the University. This practice has its drawbacks - in particular, because it may tend to the acceptance of a low standard and perhaps to the spreading of the idea that Greek is unnecessary as a subject in modern schools. On the other hand there is evidence that those beginning Greek late sometimes take to it with special enthusiasm and before graduating reach a high standard of knowledge. Professor Conway supplied us with particulars of 10 students (6 of them women) who, beginning Greek at 17 or later, had reached considerable and in some cases high distinction in the subject. And as long as there is a dearth in any given area of schools teaching elementary Greek, we do not see how Universities can refuse to supply the want, so far as they find it practicable. Sometimes moreover it may be found possible to compensate for deficiency at the beginning by further work at the end of University education. It is


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indeed most desirable that, where practicable, a fourth year subsequent to the degree should be taken not merely for thesis writing: but also for further study of texts and other advanced work. Even where a high standard of linguistic attainment is not reached, much might be gained by a further study of Greek from the point of view of philosophy, history and aesthetic appreciation.

(e) THEIR PROVISION FOR LATIN.

We now come to a large and difficult problem, the study of Latin taken separately and not as part of a complete classical education. As the subject has been already treated in this Report in relation to the curricula of Advanced Courses in Secondary Schools and as the problem there is fundamentally the same as that in Modern Universities, we shall have less to say than would otherwise be necessary.

The difficulty relates wholly to Honours. There can now be no question of compulsory Greek, as Greek is little taught in Secondary Schools; and as Latin is required, at least at some stage, for degrees in Arts, it follows that Passmen can and ordinarily do take Latin without Greek. In regard to Honours the case is quite different, and many have shrunk from agreeing to a divorce which seems to involve the abandonment of a principle, namely, that the two classical languages and literatures are inseparably connected and that by Honours Students classical life must be viewed in its entirety. In theory this position appears to us to be unassailable, but in the present circumstances of the Secondary Schools it cannot be put in practice. Ah in the schools, so also in Universities there is a great need of the intensive study of Latin, and we ought not to weaken the prospects of one side of classical education to safeguard the interests of the other. It is, moreover, most important to rem^ember that an extended study of Latin often disposes students to proceed to Greek studies and even to demand systematic instruction in the Greek language.

(f) HONOURS IN LATIN WITH SUBSIDIARY GREEK.

Several of the Universities have recently taken steps to meet this situation. In order to satisfy the needs of students who haV4 carried the study of Latin to the end of their


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school course but have learnt little or no Greek, they have created two separate Honour Schools, in Greek and Latin respectively. A student can take Honours in one of these languages, provided that he reaches a good Pass standard in the other, while any student who has taken Honours in one of these languages in his third year may take Honours in the other in his fourth.

The important fact here is that the separation between the two languages is by no means complete, since both must be taken, at least to a Pass standard. Provided that this standard is kept sufficiently high, we think that no serious objection can be taken to the scheme, although it cannot be regarded as completely satisfactory.

(g) HONOURS IN LATIN WITHOUT GREEK.

On the other hand, there are grave objections to any system by which a Classical Honours degree can be taken with no knowledge of Greek except such as is obtained through the medium of English, though including of course translations of Greek authors. This is not a satisfactory arrangement and it should not be adopted if at all avoidable. We are, however, of opinion that nowhere is there a more urgent necessity for diffusing an interest in ancient life than in modern Universities, where the vast majority of students cannot hope to obtain any thorough knowledge of the classical languages. Courses of lectures on various aspects of Greek and Roman civilisation and art have been recently instituted in them and we received interesting evidence of their success, especially in connexion with London University, where the audiences have been surprisingly large and have included considerable numbers of students from non-classical faculties. Similar experiments are now being made, e.y., at Aberdeen and Liverpool. The importance of such a secondary knowledge of classical matters was abundantly emphasised by witnesses representing the studies of Natural Science, History, Geography, English, Modern Languages, Economics and Education. As classical staffs are usually over- worked, the difficulty of providing courses to meet this growing demand is considerable. A possible solution of the difficulty as regards Art and Archaeology would be to arrange for lectures which might suit the needs of classical candidates and at the same time be generally intelligible to those less definitely


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prepared. We see no reason why they should not be open to persons outside the University or similar lectures be provided for them.

(h) MODERN UNIVERSITIES AND THE SUPPLY OF TEACHERS.

It must be remembered that it is to the modern Universities that we must chiefly look to supply a sufficient number of thoroughly well qualified classical scholars to meet the requirements of the Secondary Schools. The Public Schools will probably continue to absorb the great majority of such classical scholars from Oxford and Cambridge as are desirous of becoming school masters or school mistresses. For the maintenance and development of classical teaching in the Secondary Schools recourse must be had to other sources of supply. It is therefore not too much to say that the future of classical education in the country as a whole depends more on the number and quality of the students of classics at the modern Universities than it does on their number and quality at Oxford and Cambridge.

(i) RESEARCH IN MODERN UNIVERSITIES.

Students who pursue classical research at the newer Universities must not be discouraged if the conditions under which they work are in many ways inferior to those which prevail at Oxford and Cambridge. With the enthusiasm born of a free choice of subject and with the growth of their critical faculty they can at all events make a good start. Oxford, Cambridge and London offer in some respects unique opportunities; but failing one of these, students should proceed elsewhere. It is most desirable that Research Scholarships should be provided for them, so that they may be able to pursue their researches either at their own University or elsewhere as post-graduate students, or to spend a year or more in Greece and Italy, or perhaps to visit some of the greater museums and libraries of Europe and America. One or more years would be required for specialists in Archaeology, but even a single term abroad would prove an immense boon to the ordinary teacher of Latin and Greek. Later on in this Report the foundation of more Scholarships at the British Schools of Rome and Athens is advocated, and these are required with special urgency in connexion with modern Universities.

On the whole, therefore, we claim that the history of the modern Universities offers a good augury to those who are


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interested in the spread of classical study. It is an encouraging fact that the Classics have been called and welcomed into many strongholds of pure and applied science and that, once there, they have proved themselves to be no mere survivals of an out- worn tradition. The students of Greek and Latin, mostly drawn from sources hitherto untapped, have not only increased steadily in number but have held their own in the field of education and, so far as opportunity has been given, in that of research. If in all the circumstances shortcomings of various kinds are found to exist, we view them chiefly as an argument that further steps should be taken to safeguard and strengthen the ancient learning in these new academic territories. Without trenching upon the rights of self-governing institutions, we venture to make a few suggestions as to ways in which ground may be held or gained.

(k) RECOMMENDATIONS.

(i) Latin in the Arts Course. In all modern Universities as well as in the older some knowledge of a classical language, which will usually be Latin, should continue to be required as part of all degree courses in Arts. In making this recommendation we are touching upon a controversial subject; but by far the greater weight of evidence which was submitted to us by teachers of literary and historical subjects outside the classical field went to prove that the desire to preserve Latin as an essential element in modern humanistic education was almost as strong among them as among the members of our Committee.

(ii) Endowment for Classics. The present period of increase in the number of classical students is the right time for modern Universities to remedy weaknesses which can only damage their academic standing and efficiency. Accordingly we regard it as of the highest importance that, where the classical staff is still inadequate, separate Chairs of Latin, of Greek and of Ancient History, together with a due complement of assistants, should be provided at the earliest possible date, as well as. Lectureships in Classical Archaeology and Art.* Additions to teaching power will, however, fail to obtain their due effect unless corresponding

*We were informed that the classical staff at Manchester University, which in 1903 consisted of 2 Professors, 1 Assistant Lecturer and 2 other part-time teachers, in 1920 consisted of 3 Professors, 4 Lecturers, 4 Assistant Lecturers and 1 part-time teacher.


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attention is given to the provision of endowments, whether for undergraduates or, what is equally important, for those graduates who have proved Themselves fitted either for Travelling Student- ships or for Research Scholarships and Fellowships to be held at suitable centres of advanced study. Some portion of the funds obtained from University grants might be devoted to these objects. At the same time we hope that those benefactors who in the, past have freely bestowed their substance on the older seats of learning may find in the immediate future many imitators ready to foster all Universities and all subjects alike. We are informed that at Manchester the Oliver Heywood, the Bishop Fraser and the Victoria Classical Scholarships have been a great aid in the development of an Honours School of Greek and Latin; that at Sheffield the Edgar Allen Scholarship, of the value of £100 per annum, for which candidates are allowed to choose their own subjects, was in 1919-20 won by a boy who offered Classics; and that at Leeds the Bodington Memorial Fund has, by periodical grants for such purposes as the purchase of books, enabled graduates to pursue some branch of advanced classical study long after they have left the University. Over and above the various means which we have indicated, much may be, and we hope will be, done to promote classical study in the Universities themselves by a more generous provision of first rate Classical Libraries, Teaching Museums and other modern apparatus.

Finally, we wish to remind our readers that, even more than the age of Elizabeth, the age of Victoria and her successors has been an age of educational advance. It will be memorable in history for the new opportunities, at school and University, offered to large sections of the population, and especially to women. Those who desire the spread of classical education should never forget this vast field lately thrown open. If the number of other essential subjects has increased, the number of potential students of the Classics has multiplied exceedingly.

2. OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

In the ancient Universities the problem of the provision for classical study is less simple. Their students are drawn from many different classes of the community, their curriculum includes a large number of rather rigidly specialised Schools, and they are naturally somewhat reluctant to abandon traditions which have


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served them and the nation so well in the past. They have, however, recently taken a momentous step in the abolition of Greek as a compulsory subject in Responsions and the Previous Examination, and they either have already introduced or are contemplating other changes of great importance.

(a) THE ABOLITION OF COMPULSORY GREEK.

The abolition of compulsory Greek is represented to us from many quarters as a deadly blow to classical education; in particular, we are assured by many Headmistresses that it will lead to the complete disappearance of Greek as a subject in the curriculum of a large number of Girls' Schools. It does not fall within our province to discuss the reasons which led to its abolition: we are only concerned with the result on classical studies in the schools and the Universities. There may be a serious, though we hope temporary, falling off in the numbers of those who learn some Greek while at school, and we realise the probably insuperable difficulty of beginning at Oxford and Cambridge the instruction in Greek of those students who may desire to learn it.

But even from the point of view of Greek itself the situation is not without compensating advantages. No schools will any longer be forced to devise means of teaching their best Science and Mathematical pupils the required modicum of Greek, and so far as any action by Oxford and Cambridge is concerned, the future students of Greek will be willing learners. Although we have no desire to revive the ashes of a past controversy and are indeed by no means unanimous in our feelings towards it, even those who most warmly deprecated the abolition of compulsion feel it an advantage that Greek will be freed from a prejudice which, rightly or wrongly, attached to it. It can still be offered at Oxford either along with or as alternative to Latin, though at Cambridge Latin (with or without Greek) is at present required. It will therefore be possible at both Universities for candidates to continue to offer both languages, and those of them who wish to substitute Greek for Latin will find that Oxford, at least, interposes no obstacle. We have already expressed the hope (p. 97) that Cambridge will see its way to offering the same option. But the abolition of compulsion makes it the more necessary to provide means by which the willing learners in the schools may be taught.


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(b) ACTION TAKEN OR PROPOSED AT OXFORD WITH REGARD TO -

(i) The study of Greek texts in translation.

We welcome with interest; the provision at Oxford that candidates for any Final Honour School except Mathematics, Natural Science and Jurisprudence, though not required to pass in Greek at Responsions, must, if they do not do so, pass at some subsequent stage an examination either in the Greek language or else in a period of Greek History or Literature together with a Greek book studied in a translation. The policy of the University is that some knowledge either of the Greek language or of a Greek text acquired through a translation should be demanded from all students proceeding to a degree in Honours in Modern History, English and Modern and Oriental languages. We have already expressed our view (pp. 21 seq., 159) on the inherent limitations of the study of ancient texts in translations. But this is a wholly new educational experiment, which is no doubt fertile in possibilities.

(ii) Classics in Preliminary Examinations.

Either Latin or Greek of a relatively high standard is already required in the Preliminary Examinations which lead up to the Schools of History and Jurisprudence. We understand that there is likely to be a similar requirement in Preliminary Examinations which may hereafter be established in connexion with other Final Honour Schools, except those in Science, Mathematics and Oriental Languages. Such a provision would have our warm approval.

(iii) Pass Schools.

Proposals affecting the various Pass Schools, such as must necessarily follow on the abolition of compulsory Greek in Responsions, are understood to be in contemplation, and indeed the Regulations for Pass Moderations have been entirely recast by a statute which has received the approval of Convocation as we go to press. We hesitate to criticise a measure which has commended itself to the considered judgment of the University. We venture, however, to refer to our previously expressed opinion (p. 149) that it is inadvisable that undergraduates should be required to write exercises in Latin Prose of a kind appropriate only to much younger students.


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(c) CLASSICAL HONOUR SCHOOLS AT OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

Any remodelling that may be desirable in the Classical Honour Schools at Oxford is bound up with the question of an alternative full Honours course in Classics to be completed in three years, the period normally occupied by almost all the other Honours courses except that in Chemistry.

While we do not feel called upon to make detailed criticisms on the Classical Honour courses either at Oxford or Cambridge, we assume that they (like the Pass courses) should be governed by the principle that the work required is a marked advance on what has been done at school. Whereas at school it is inevitable that books should be read and authors studied individually and in a certain isolation, at the Universities a wider field should be covered, and an attempt be made to view the classical literatures and civilisations as a whole. In saying this we do not counsel the mere reading of text books. We mean such a view as may be got from the association of a group of texts with a period of literary history or some other subject. A University classical course must be considered unsatisfactory if an insufficient variety of authors is read, and if the examination to which it leads is not a test of knowledge extending over a wide field.

We consider further that while the ordinary degree courses may be more general in their scope and suited to the capacities of the average student as well as of the professed scholar, provision should be made for giving some specialised training in archaeology, philology, comparative grammar and textual criticism, particularly to those who will be teachers of advanced classics at the schools or in the Universities.

But while each University should make provision both for the average student and for the professed scholar and also for the future teacher and the researcher, it is neither necessary nor desirable that each University should employ the same methods for the attainment of these ends. It is well known that the traditions of the classical Schools in Oxford and Cambridge differ materially and even fundamentally from one another. Each of them has strong points which the other lacks, but each of them is admirably suited to meet the requirements of students of different and even contrasted capacities, and betwEen them they provide adequately for the needs of all classes.


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(i) Classical Honour Moderations.

The Oxford School of Honour Moderations does not profess to be more than introductory to the full Honours course and is indeed an ofF-shoot of the original Honour School of Literæ Humaniores. That School in its original form, which dates from 1800, comprised the study of texts of ancient Philosophers, Historians, Poets and Orators; some 50 years later the Poets and Orators were removed from it to constitute the nucleus of the new First Public Examination, leaving the study of the Philosophers and the Historians to constitute, as it still does, the essential requirement of the degree examination. Moderations, which is almost always taken in the fifth term of residence, is accordingly in its original conception a school definitely limited in scope and based upon the study of a small number of continuous texts. Later changes have enlarged its scope and widened the choice of texts that may be offered; but it still retains the marks of its origin and its critics would urge that any future development should be on the lines of encouraging wider reading and a more comprehensive view of ancient literature. With the spirit of this criticism we are in agreement, though we recognise the difficulty of providing such a course in the time available.

(ii) Literæ Humaniores.

The Honour School of Literæ Humaniores at Oxford enjoys a unique reputation, and we certainly have no desire to criticise it. Its attraction for the ablest students in the University, not excepting some of those who actually read other Schools, will, it may be hoped, leave its position unchallenged even by the foundation of the new School of Philosophy, Politics and Economics We may, however, be permitted to repeat the view already expressed (p. 106) that any lowering of the ordinary age for coming into residence is likely to react upon it injuriously, especially on its philosophical side. On the other hand, any means that may be devised for the encouragement of post-graduate work would probably relieve it from the tendency to undue specialisation, particularly in History, as to which we have received some representations.

(iii) Classical Tripos.

The Classical Tripos at Cambridge was from the first (though it is so no longer) a degree examination. From 1881


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awards it could be taken not earlier than the end of the second nor later than the end of the third year of residence. It was therefore in conception less limited in scope than Moderations, and, the field of study being wider, though the reading of continuous texts has been a necessary part of the preparation for the Tripos, they have not always been prescribed for the examination. It was an old subject of criticism that the general trend of studies at Cambridge led to undue stress being laid upon composition and pure scholarship. We learn, however, that the Regulations which held for the Tripos between 1903 and 1920 did much to relieve the system of this reproach and to enable students to gain a more comprehensive grasp of classical life and thought.

The second part of the Tripos, which dates from 1882, was till 1921 a highly specialised examination in one or more at first of four and later of five special "sections". It afforded scope for a student to pursue his own special bent and in many cases provided the first stimulus to original work. It had, however, in late years been taken by few candidates and was in practice a post-graduate examination. Its character has now been greatly changed. It will not generally be taken in any other than the third year. Compulsory papers on Greek and Latin Literature, Philosophy and History along with one or more special subjects are included, but the intensive work of the old Part II. can no longer find a place. The scope of Part I. has been correspondingly reduced; it cannot now be taken later than the second year, nor does it qualify for the degree.

It will be seen that the recent changes at Cambridge are in the direction of assimilating the full classical course to that of Oxford. In both Universities the coarse now includes an intermediate and a final examination and the wider subjects of Philosophy and History are as a whole reserved for the second examination. Closer approximation than this is neither probable nor desirable, and it is not perhaps impertinent to say that either University will continue best lo discharge its proper function by remaining true to type. In each of them the full classical course, whatever minor adjustments may be desirable, satisfies our first principle, that it should be an attempt to view the classical literatures, history and civilisations as a whole, though each adopts its own independent standpoint.


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(d) PROVISION FOR -

(i) Specialised training in Classical Subjects.

The second principle was the provision for specialised training in certain subjects, and this seems to be adequately met by the requirement of one or more special subjects in Part II. of the Tripos. At Oxford there is not the same definite provision for specialised training in advanced scholarship, and we believe that candidates would be found for a diploma in Classical Scholarship, if it were established. Special subjects can also be offered for Literæ Humaniores, but, except perhaps in Philosophy, they very rarely are so offered. A diploma in Archaeology is already awarded by both Universities.

(ii) University Scholarships, &c., for Classics.

In both Universities provision is made, though more amply at Cambridge, by the offer of scholarships, studentships and prizes to reward work of a really high order in various branches of classical study. From the nature of the case such awards have acted as an incentive only to a small number of the best men in each year, among whom, however, have been found in the past, and will, no doubt, be found in the future, many of the most distinguished scholars and teachers.

(iii) Honours in Latin with subsidiary Greek.

We have seen (p. 183) that some modern Universities make special provision for those students who come to them with a good knowledge of Latin, but having learnt no Greek. We do not, however, consider that similar provision should be made at Oxford and Cambridge. Not only do the practical difficulties appear to us to be insuperable, but we regard a University course in Honours Latin, with only subsidiary Greek, as falling very far short of what a University Honours course in Classics should ideally be. We do not think that the ancient Universities, so long the homes of classical study, should abandon the true ideals, and we fear that if it were known that Classical Honours could be obtained at them on a much lower standard in one language than in the other, this would tend to discourage still further the study of Greek in those schools where it still exists. The modern Universities are performing good service in under-


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taking to teach the elements of Greek to students of a certain type, but the majority of such students would probably in no case be able to proceed direct to Oxford or Cambridge. It does not follow that it would be an advantage to classical education that the older Universities should adopt the same plan.

(iv) Correlation of College Scholarship Examinations with the syllabuses for Higher Certificate Examinations and for Advanced Courses.

We venture to suggest that consultation should take place between the Schools and the University and College authorities on the correlation of schemes for Advanced Courses (or any system that replaces them), the examinations for a Higher Certificate and those for College scholarships, and that the conclusions arrived at should l)e discussed with the Board of Education. As things are at present, pupils in the highest forms of many schools are working under three sets of requirements, which it is plainly desirable should not conflict with but rather reinforce each other. If, for example, in any scheme for Advanced work in the schools Latin or Greek becomes a main subject in courses in Modern Studies, the concession will lose much of its value unless these languages are allowed full weight in scholarship examinations in History, English and Modern Languages and in the corresponding Groups of the Higher Certificate Examinations.

In this connexion we may be permitted to express a hope that all those bodies which examine pupils in Secondary schools will keep in close and constant touch with the authorities of the schools presenting candidates for the examination. We are aware that teachers are represented on some of the Examining Bodies which conduct Certificate Examinations, and that other Examining Bodies hold periodical conferences with teachers and welcome suggestions from them on the conduct of the examinations. We are not, however, satisfied that all that is desirable in the way of co-operation has jet been done; in particular, no satisfactory machinery has been devised for establishing and maintaining contact between the schook and the electors to College scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge. Such a question, for example, as the date for holding a scholarship examination should not be determined solely with reference to the convenience or interest of an individual College.


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(e) EFFECT ON THE CLASSICAL SCHOOLS OF THE REGULATIONS FOR ADMISSION TO THE HOME AND INDIAN CIVIL SERVICES.

Before leaving the question of Oxford and Cambridge, we desire to draw attention to action recently taken or proposed by Government authorities which is likely to exercise a serious influence on the position of Classics in these Universities.

A considerable number of the best classical scholars from the Universities have in the past obtained posts in Class I. of the Home Civil Service, the majority of them coming from Oxford and Cambridge. The syllabus of the examination for admission has recently been revised, partly, as it is understood, to meet the complaint that it was unduly favourable to those who had taken the classical Schools. We do not wish to argue the vexed question whether the success of classical men in the past has been due to the fact that the examination has been weighted in their favour, or to the fact that those with a classical education have given better proof in the examination of possessing the qualities desirable in a Civil Servant. But the new schedule not only makes it difficult for a classical candidate to offer for examination the whole of his subjects, but fails to allow sufficient credit for some which have occupied much of his attention.

We desire to make the following criticisms and recommendations:

(a) Under the new schedule candidates who offer two modern languages among their optional subjects are allowed in addition to offer Latin, but are not allowed to offer Greek. We have urged throughout this Report that in all examinations equal opportunity should be given to both the classical languages, and we recommend that here also Greek should be placed on a level with Latin as an optional subject.

(b) We have had complaints that in the case of Latin and of Greek the combination of literature and history as a single subject will act unfairly. A reference to Appendix H will show that the candidate who offers European History can get 400 marks for it; if he also offers French Literature and History he may get 200 additional marks for what is in part the same work over again. No such advantage is allowed to the


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classical candidate, for he cannot make such double use of his historical knowledge.

(c) A similar advantage is given to the Modern Historian, since a total of 800 marks is assigned to English, British and European History and, as it would seem, only 100 marks to Greek and 100 to Roman History. We fully realise that Modern History is the wider subject and that this should be recognised in the marks assigned to it, but a difference of 600 marks seems to us unjustifiable. We have reason to apprehend that, as no one can be sure of success in the examination and as the security of the position offered by the Civil Service, to put it on no higher ground, will make it increasingly attractive in the future, the result of the new Regulations will be that many good candidates at Oxford and Cambridge may think it more prudent to desert the full Classical course for Modern History, in which higher marks may more easily be gained. We cannot but believe that this will be injurious not merely to the interests of classical education but also to those of the Service itself. We hope, therefore, that it may not be too late to press for a reconsideration of the new proposals.

It is understood that the upper limit of age for admission. to the Indian Civil Service will shortly be lowered from 24 to 23, the examination being held as heretofore on the same syllabuses as that for Class I. in the Home Civil Service. The effect of this will be that for many candidates from Oxford and Cambridge, if not from other Universities, the examination will fall before the completion of their full University course; for prudence will suggest that they should enter for the examination at the earliest age at which they are eligible, i.e., before their 22nd birthday. Such candidates, if successful, will not proceed to a degree, and will therefore be likely to desire from the time that they come into residence to read for the Indian Civil Service Examination rather than for Classical Moderations or the Classical Tripos. It should be noted that in the past a large proportion of the successful candidates have been classical scholars or exhibitioners at Oxford or Cambridge. The requirements of the Public Services are of course the paramount consideration, but it seems possible that we may have to reckon in future with the premature disappearance from University courses of a considerable number of good classical scholars.


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3. WOMEN'S COLLEGES AT OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

(a) CLASSICAL HONOUR MODERATIONS.

The students at Women's Colleges at Oxford are now subject to the ordinary regulations of the University which govern examinations for degrees and must therefore take the Honours examinations within the periods they prescribe. Hitherto it has been possible for them to avoid following the strict course, though most of them have latterly preferred to do so. We had evidence from two experienced women tutors in Classics that the obligation to take the strict course might press heavily upon them. These witnesses agreed that women are at a disadvantage in Classical Moderations as compared with those men who come from schools with a long-established classical tradition. One of them was of opinion that Honour Moderations fell too soon in the University course for any but the ablest or best prepared women candidates, and that the "set work" even of those of them who got good classes was in advance of their real knowledge of the languages. Our evidence of the late period at which Latin and still more Greek can be begun in Girls' Schools, and of the short time available in them for either, supports this opinion, and it is confirmed by the fact that women have seldom obtained a First Class in Honour Moderations.

We are not, however, prepared to suggest that any special provision should be made to meet the requirements of women candidates, and we have every confidence that, as the teaching of Classics in Girls' Schools improves, the best women candidates will no longer find themselves at a disadvantage as compared with the best of the men.

(b) CLASSICAL TRIPOS.

It would appear that at Cambridge women students are more successful in the Classical Honour Schools than they are at Oxford. We have already called attention (p. 54*) to the fact that since 1881 women have gained 68 First Classes in Part I. of the Classical Tripos, and 51 in Part II. This is no doubt partly due to the fact that Classics were well established in the Cambridge Women's Colleges before 1884, when Classical


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Honour Moderations at Oxford was first opened to Women. At Cambridge women had been examined some ten years earlier. A further reason is that the Cambridge examination has been better suited to the special circumstances of women candidates. Under the old Regulations, which continued in force till 1920, candidates normally entered for Part I. of the Classical Tripos at the end of the third year, whereas Honour Moderations come at the end of the fifth term. The third year's work was of especial value to girls, who commonly begin Greek, if not Latin, later than boys, but improve rapidly at the University. With the new system, under which Part I. of the Tripos must be taken not later than the end of the second year, these advantages are diminished.

4. POST-GRADUATE WORK.

On taking their degrees the great majority of University students will necessarily go straight to their work in life. It is, however, eminently desirable that a select number should spend at least a year on post-graduate work. This does not mean that any large proportion of them should aim at devoting themselves to research, still less that they should begin research at once. The number of persons who are capable of doing really valuable research in the classical field is always small, and only those of exceptional ability can qualify themselves for such work much before thirty, though the methods of research can, and should, be learnt earlier. The comparative worthlessness of much that is published under the name of classical research may serve as a warning. But most of the better students, whether they are to be teachers or not, after a classical training extending over some ten years or more but always with an examination in view, will gain much from such a course as that prescribed for the Oxford B. Litt., in which the candidate, without professing to make any new contribution to learning, is free to deal in his own way, though under supervision, with a subject of his own choosing. For this reason we regret that the changes in the Classical Tripos, Part II. leave for the present less opportunity for the training in research which the Regulations allowed and encouraged between 1883 and 1920.

(i) Prolongation of the tenure of College Scholarships.

The student, however, must have definite encouragement to spend such an additional year, for not only is he put to expense


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but he is losing seniority and experience in the profession which he may subsequently enter. Some Colleges in Oxford and Cambridge are willing and able to prolong the tenure of a scholarship, but not all are in a position to do so. Nor will a scholarship cover the expense, and all other emoluments, such as school leaving exhibitions, will have lapsed. We are glad to see that the new State Scholarships may be prolonged for a fifth year, but apart from these it would appear that the need can only be met by new endowments. Both Oxford and Cambridge, however, have a few endowments (such as the Craven Studentships) which are available for this purpose, though special conditions are attached to them.

(ii) Senior Scholarships.

Some Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge award senior Scholarships or Studentships tenable for one or more years and open, though not always restricted, to candidates who desire during that period to pursue a definite line of study. With some notable exceptions they have for the most part been awarded for subjects in which the openings extend beyond the teaching profession, nor indeed are classical candidates generally forth- coming. This is due partly perhaps to the fact that their value is usually not sufficient for maintenance without aid from other sources; but more probably possible candidates are afraid of being left stranded when the scholarship expires or of losing some years of seniority as a school teacher. We think that arrangements should be made by the schools for these years to count towards a pension; and we hope that in the future Head Masters and Governing Bodies will attach greater value to teachers who, instead of settling down immediately to school work, have spent some time in extending their knowledge and equipping themselves better for their profession.

5. PROVISION FOR RESEARCH.

(a) Oxford and Cambridge. Fellowships are available at Oxford and Cambridge for research in Classics, as in other subjects, and scholars of proved capacity are from time to time elected to them. In the case of men of recognised distinction who are continuously engaged in research re-election almost regularly follows. The number of such Fellowships appears to be smaller at Oxford than at Cambridge. The holder of a


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"Prize" Fellowship awarded on examination will also often use it to pursue research; but at Oxford for some years before the war (apart from the All Souls' Fellowships in Law and History) only one prize Fellowship on an average was available for all subjects in each year. Such a Fellowship when given at Oxford for "Classics" (i.e., after examination in all the subjects of the two Classical Schools, Moderations and Literæ Humaniores) is apt to be given largely on the papers in Philosophy. The output in research by holders of these Fellowships has varied a good deal from time to time. They are tenable at Oxford for seven years, at Cambridge generally for six; but in at least one Cambridge College a recent statute limits the tenure of a "Prize" Fellowship to three years instead of the original six, unless the holder produces evidence that he is actually engaged in research which promises to be of value. At the expiration of the tenure the holder will often be taken on the staff of his own or another College.

It is not for us to offer detailed suggestions for proTiding opportunities for research, but we feel that more provision is necessary. There is a growing danger that Oxford and Cambridge may cease to be "places of learning" and become centres for mere professional training conducted by overworked teachers. In this connexion we regret that it has been common in the past for Colleges to elect for tutorial work those who have just taken their Final Schools. The result is that no encouragement is given to students to devote themselves after their degree to advanced work, from which they might later pass to teaching, and that young men, instead of having time to fill up the gaps in their knowledge and train themselves thoroughly for their future task, are plunged into work for which they are not sufficiently prepared. If a man is elected immediately on taking his degree, he should never be given full tutorial work at once but be left time to pursue his private studies. This, we are glad to learn, is already the practice of certain Colleges.

(b) Modern Universities. Several of the Modern Universities in England award either post-graduate scholarships or scholarships the tenure of which may be prolonged after graduation: some of these are available for students in the Faculty of Arts or are specifically limited to them, while a few are definitely assigned by the deed of foundation


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to Classics. On the other hand four of the modern Universities appear to have no provision for such scholarships. Where they exist they have been productive of good advanced work, and in not a few cases their holders have made serious contributions to classical learning.

(c) The Women's Colleges. It is encouraging to find that at the Women's Colleges in Oxford and Cambridge some provision for classical research already exists. Girton and Newnham award annually from two to four post-graduate studentships tenable for one year and one to three Research Fellowships tenable for three years or more. About one quarter of the awards in each case have so far fallen to students of Classics. At Oxford the only provision appears to be the two Research Fellowships at Somerville, neither of which has yet been given for Classics.

(d) Voluntary Associations for the encouragement of Classical Research. As offering an encouragement to research in the classical field it seems proper to mention here the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies which, founded in 1879, has now for forty years through its meetings and its Journal given ample opportunities for scholars to devote themselves to original work in every branch of Hellenic research. Directed as its energies have been from the first by leading scholars at the Universities and at the British Museum, it has proved a powerful instrument in vitalising Hellenic studies and in enabling students to keep abreast of the progress of knowledge. Greek Art and Archaeology have naturally played a predominant part in its activities, because it may fairly be said that through its organisation these subjects obtained for the first time in this country full scope and recognition. It was this Society which gave Sir William Ramsay his first opportunity of exploration in Asia Minor, and afterwards assisted other explorers in Cyprus and Crete and on the Greek mainland. But literary and historical papers have always been welcomed, if any new points were to be made.

In 1886 the foundation of the British School at Athens at last gave to British students the opportunity which had long been enjoyed by French and German students of working out their problems on Greek soil and of realising the great events of Greek history and studying the monuments of Greek art in their natural surroundings. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge promptly recognised the educational value of the School


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by making annual grants towards its maintenance and by sending out students under the Craven, Worts and other trusts to pursue in Greece various branches of research under competent guidance. In 1895 the School obtained recognition from the State in the form of a grant of £500 a year, which has been periodically renewed. Important work has been done by successive directors and students in excavating prehistoric and classical sites both on the Greek mainland and in the islands, and the Annual of the School was privileged to publish the preliminary results of Sir Arthur Evans' discoveries in Crete, which have revolutionised our knowledge of the origins of Greek civilisation. More recently the British School at Rome (1901) and the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies (1911) have been founded with the object of stimulating research in Roman art, literature and history by the same methods, including the issue of a Journal and other publications. Excellent work has already been done by both these bodies, and the School at Rome receives a Government grant.

In our opinion the Hellenic and Roman Societies deserve the active support of all who wish to see the study of the Classics continue as a vital force in education. We have already expressed the view (p. 137) that it is highly important that as many students as possible, and especially those who intend to teach the Classics, should avail themselves of the opportunities offered by the Schools at Athens and Rome, and to this end we should like to see the number of scholarships tenable at them increased and made available especially for students from the modern Universities.

In addition to the Societies already named the Classical Association also does much through its journals to promote research which has for its sphere the literature and the languages of Classical antiquity, including the new records which are continually being discovered. The range of this Association's activities is, however, so wide that we think it best to describe them in a separate Appendix (J), to which we invite attention. Membership of the Classical Association seems to us one of the best practical ways of furthering the interests of classical education.

Classical research however suffers from the belief held even by some young scholars that in Classics nothing remains to be done. It is very important that they and the general public should be disabused of this idea. We were told by Sir William


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Ramsay that in Classical Geography everything is yet to do. When the Balkans and the Middle East are opened up fresh opportunity will arise, and there are many classical sites in Greece itself which remain to he excavated. It has been announced that some 80 cases of papyri are waiting at Oxford for examination, and archaeology provides innumerable unsolved riddles. There exist in Great Britain hundreds of Roman sites, of which some have not been explored at all, while others require further examination in the light of our rapidly increasing knowledge of the subject. Nor can we forget the gaps that the last few years have made in the ranks of competent researchers. We were, therefore, glad to learn that it is proposed to issue at Oxford a list of subjects in which research, archaeological or literary, is specially called for.




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PART V.

SCOTLAND.

1. Historical Sketch.

During the Middle Ages the system of education in Scotland did not differ in principle from that we have described in dealing with England. Such differences as there were seem to have been due to the comparatively late development of the diocesan organisation and to the fact that there were no Universities before the 15th Century. Latin was taught in the ecclesiastical and burgh schools, though mainly for practical purposes: Greek was, of course, unknown. Even in the 15th century, Scotland was hardly affected by the Revival of Learning. There is no trace of classical study in the old Statutes of the Faculty of Arts of St. Andrews (founded 1411), or of Glasgow (founded 1450). It is only at Aberdeen (founded 1494), where the first Principal of King's College was Hector Boece, a friend of Erasmus, that we can detect a humanist tradition from the first. Elsewhere the mediæval scholastic tradition maintained itself. James Melville, who was a student at St. Andrews from 1571 to 1574, sums up the result of his study there by saying that all he had got from it was "some terms of art in Philosophy without light or solid knowledge". He describes his teachers thus: "As for languages and the Arts and Philosophy, they had nothing at all but a few books of Aristotle" (of course in the Latin version), "which they learnt pertinaciously to babble and flyte upon, without right understanding or use thereof."

It was rather to the Court and to the great Churchmen than to the Universities that Scotland owed the beginnings of classical study as we understand it. Even in the 15th century* the King of Scots needed Secretaries who could write a Latin dispatch which would pass muster in foreign courts, and men like Bishop Elphinston of Aberdeen were in the same case. This appears to be the real explanation of the celebrated Act of James IV. (1496) which ordained that all barons and free- holders of substance should put their eldest sons and heirs to the schools from the age of eight or nine and keep them there "quhill they be competentlie foundit and have perfite Latyne". The limitation of the obligation to the eldest sons of a small


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class is significant. This courtly tradition maintained itself throughout the 16th century. It became the custom for young noblemen to travel abroad with a "pedagogus", and they soon found that they could not go far without Latin. A typical figure of this period is the "admirable" Crichton. He took his B.A. at St. Andrews in 1572, when he was twelve years old, but his knowledge of classical Latin was acquired subsequently in France and Italy. In 1593 a new "College and University" was founded at Aberdeen by the Earl Marischal, where Greek, Hebrew and Syriac formed a regular part of the curriculum, '

It is true that the earliest Reformers were brought into touch with continental scholars and there were some unsuccessful attempts to introduce the New Learning into the schools and Universities. In 1534 Erskine of Dun brought a Frenchman, Pierre de Marsiliers, to teach Greek at Montrose, and it was from him that Andrew Melville learnt the language. When he went to St. Andrews in 1559 he was the only member of the University who could read Aristotle in the original. Melville, however, left St. Andrews for Paris in 1564 and remained in France for ten years. It does not appear that Pierre de Marsiliers had any successor at Montrose, and the study of Greek failed to establish itself at St. Andrews. In 1566 a scholar of European reputation, George Buchanan, whose life shows that domestic straits did not prevent the Scots from getting all the Latin and Greek in Christendom, when they wanted it, was made Principal of St. Leonard's College, and did his best to improve matters. How little he was able to effect is best seen from the Diary of James Melville, the nephew of Andrew Melville, who entered St. Leonard's College in 1571. He says:

"I would have gladly been at the Greek and Hebrew tongues, because I read in our Bible that it was translated out of Hebrew and Greek; but the tongues were not to be gotten in the land. Our regent begun and teached us the A, B, C of Greek and the simple declinations, and went no further."

The "First Book of Discipline" (1560-61) had indeed prescribed that no student should enter a University till after some years' instruction in both Latin and Greek; but its generous ideals were thwarted by the adherents of scholasticism.


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In 1574 Andrew Melville, himself no mean scholar, returned to Scotland and was made Principal of Glasgow University, which had almost become extinct. By superhuman efforts he was able to introduce a reformed curriculum there, so that even graduates of St. Andrews were glad to go to Glasgow as students. la 1580, however, he was brought back to St. Andrews as Principal of St. Mary's College, and there he met with a far more determined opposition than he had to face in the decayed College of Glasgow. In fact, there was no room in the Universities for justice being done to classical studies.

One important reservation must, however, be made. The University of Aberdeen had, as we saw, a humanist tradition from the beginning, and there is no doubt that the teaching of Latin in many Scottish schools during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries must have been very thorough. At any rate, a native school of Latin versification arose which carried on the tradition of Buchanan. The best-known name is that of the Aberdeen physician and scholar, Arthur Johnston, who had resided for a time with Andrew Melville at Sedan, where he was living in exile. Nevertheless Latin was not yet recognised as a proper subject of University study, or Greek as a possible subject for the schools. It was not till 1620 that Sir John Scot of Scotstarvit, a St. Leonard's man, conceived the idea of founding a chair of Humanity in his old college at St. Andrews, but his scheme was bitterly opposed by the Regents of the University, and his professor was not allowed to lecture within the walls of the college or to share in its revenues. The foundation was accordingly revoked by the donor (who had been careful to insert a "clause irritant" in his deed of foundation), and it was not till 1644 that he succeeded in getting the Scots Parliament to force his professorship on the reluctant University. After this experience. Sir John Scot decided to retain the patronage of the chair in his own hands and those of his heirs, with the curious result that the power of appointing the Professor of Humanity at St. Andrews passed into the hands of the Dukes of Portland, with whom it remained till 1889. The present professor is the first to be appointed by the University itself.

By the end of the 17th century the teaching of Latin had become firmly established in the Universities, but Greek had still a long struggle before it. The elements of that language were taught in the Universities, and in 1699 Parliament ordained


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that there should be a regular teacher of Greek in each of them, a thing hitherto unheard of. Here again we see that it was Parliament that took the initiative against the open or concealed hostility of the Universities. The "ordinary year" of Greek was made compulsory for intending students of "philosophy" (i.e.. Arts). As, however, few students had any opportunity of learning any Greek before they entered college, it is plain that the "ordinary year" cannot have amounted to much. Some attempts had indeed been made to introduce Greek into the schools, but these were stoutly resisted. In 1672 the Privy Council had, "in the interest of the advancement of learning", forbidden the teaching of Greek in the schools altogether. They held that the practice prejudiced the Universities "by rendering some of their professors altogether useless". In 1695 the Regents of St. Leonard's College complained that "there are a number of silly men who, having hardly a smatter of Greek themselves, do take upon them to teach others to the great disadvantage of many good spirits". Even as late as 1782, when Dr. Adam, the Rector of the High School of Edinburgh, ventured to teach Greek in a surreptitious fashion, the Principal and Professors of the University protested to the Town Council (who then managed both the University and the High School) against this "innovation", which they regarded as an "encroachment on the province of the University". In this way Sir Walter Scott was deprived of any real opportunity of learning Greek, "a loss never to be repaired", as he wrote later on. It is interesting to note that, when Scott and his friends founded the Edinburgh Academy in 1825 as a rival to the High School, Greek was given a prominent place in the curriculum from the first.

It is really from this date that we can trace a steady growth of the teaching of Greek in Scottish schools. It advanced, in fact, by leaps and bounds, so that by the middle of the nineteenth century there were regularly three years of Greek study in all the important town and burgh schools. The introduction of "Modern Sides" somewhat later did little to diminish the prestige of Greek. In the main, however, this development was confined to the towns. Many country schools, indeed, prepared their best boys for college by giving them a start in Greek, and this was especially so in the North, where the influence of the Aberdeen Bursary Competition was strongly felt and the Dick


[page 208]

Bequest encouraged teachers to do higher work. Nevertheless it remained true that about half the students entered the Scottish Universities with practically no knowledge of Greek, though Greek was now compulsory for a degree in Arts.

This had come about in a curious way. The custom of graduation had fallen into desuetude in most of the Universities, with the result that students became free to attend such classes as they or their parents thought proper. In consequence it grew to be the custom of many of them to attend the Latin and Greek classes throughout the whole four years of their course, and these classes were usually far larger than any others in the University. This is a case in which the absence of compulsion operated favourably to Classics. The Commissioners under the Act of 1858, who once more made graduation the normal goal of a University course, accepted the situation as they found it, and made two years of Latin and Greek compulsory, except for such as could pass an entrance examination entitling them to graduate in three years. These were allowed to take only one year of Latin and Greek. That was really the beginning of "compulsory Greek" in the Scottish Universities, and it only lasted till 1892. In that year an Entrance Examination was introduced for the first time, and Latin and Greek were then made alternatives for entrance to the Faculty of Arts.* This Regulation still holds good. A proposal has, it is true, been made by the Entrance Board, which would have the effect of abolishing the test in Latin (or Greek) for the Faculty of Arts, but it has been rejected by the University Courts, with whom the decision ultimately rests.

It will appear from this brief and necessarily imperfect sketch that the Classics have never enjoyed anything that can be called a privileged position in Scotland, except, perhaps, for a short time in the nineteenth century. There is, therefore, no great classical tradition such as exists in England. On the other hand, there is no doubt that such classical education as existed was accessible to a far wider section of the community than in most other countries. The Scottish Churches require some knowledge of Latin and Greek from entrants to a theological course, and though the standard required is by no

*It was this Entrance Examination that crippled Greek and at the same time discouraged the former frequent use of the Universities by students who did not trouble about degrees and had no professional ends in view.


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means high and the ministry is no longer so attractive to the Scottish people as it once was, there can be no doubt that this suggests the idea of classical study to some who would not otherwise have thought of it. At the present day, there is a strong interest in Classics in Scotland. The Classical Association of Scotland was founded in 1902, two years before the corresponding Association in England, and still flourishes. There remain, however, many obstacles in the way of the development of classical scholarship, the nature of which will be better understood when we come to details.

2. The Present Position.

(a) SCHOOL ORGANISATION.

The existing system of secondary education in Scotland has developed gradually from the date of the Education (Scotland) Act of 1872 to that of the Education (Scotland) Act of 1918. The Act o 1872 did little directly for Secondary Education, but its framers respected Scottish tradition by refusing to recognise any distinct class of "Elementary" schools. There were already, of course, especially in the towns, a number of Schools which were definitely Secondary in character. Those of them which were under Town Councils or similar bodies were transferred to the new School Boards, and classified as "Higher Class Public Schools". Secondary Schools under private management were not affected by the Act at all. There were also certain endowed Secondary Schools, and these were ultimately organised under schemes made by the Commissioners under the Educational Endowments (Scotland) Act of 1882. In principle, however, there was nothing to prevent any school in the country from giving education of a secondary character, and it was expressly provided in the Act of 1872 that any school managed by a School Board might at any time, with the approval of the Education Department, take rank as a "Higher Class Public School" (i.e., as what is now called a Secondary School). The Act also contained a direction to the Department that, in constructing their minutes for the distribution of Parliamentary Grants, they were to take due care "that the standard of "education which now exists in the Public Schools shall not be lowered". The whole conception of an "elementary education" intended for a particular class of the community was


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thus ruled out, and no insuperable barrier between Primary and Secondary Education was erected. It is necessary to bear this in mind, in order to understand the existing organisation of the Higher State-aided Schools in Scotland.

These Schools are at present classified as follows:

1. Secondary Schools (56 in number).
2. Higher Grade Public Schools (103 in number).
3. Intermediate Schools (93 in number).
The distinction between Secondary and Higher Grade Schools is now mainly historical. The latter have mostly developed out of schools which did not originally give a complete secondary education and which have hitherto been separately administered by the Department. Most of them, however,' are now doing practically the same work as the Secondary Schools, and, by the operation of the Act of 1918, the distinction between the two classes of school will disappear.*

For our purpose it is, therefore, correct to say that there are 159 state-aided schools in Scotland providing education up to the age of eighteen, and presenting candidates for the Leaving Certificate Examination.

In addition to these state-aided schools, there are ten other schools (seven boys' and three girls') which provide a full secondary education but do not receive grants from the State or the Education Authorities. Most of them are, however, inspected by the Education Department.

There are comparatively few girls' schools, as most schools are mixed, except in large towns. There are seven state-aided Secondary Girls' Schools with 4,500 girls, and a certain number of Higher Grade Schools for girls, mostly Roman Catholic. There are also some girls' schools administered by Governors, with about 1,250 girls, and 35 Proprietary Schools with about 2,300 girls.

The Intermediate Schools have only a three years' course, the successful completion of which is marked by the Intermediate Certificate. This certificate does not entitle its holder to enter a University, but it is accepted as a qualification for many

*Since the above was drafted, the Scottish Education Department has classified the schools afresh in accordance with the existing situation, and all Higher Grade Schools providing a five years' course now rank as Secondary. This raises the number of schools recognised as Secondary to 148.


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careers. Latin is taught in most of these schools, but not Greek. When the provision of the Act of 1918, which raises the compulsory age from li to 15, becomes operative, the number of such schools will necessarily be largely increased, and many of them will no doubt become Secondary Schools in time.

(i) THE INTERMEDIATE STAGE.

The most important point to notice from our point of view is that all state-aided schools must present candidates for the Inter- mediate Certificate, and that the Intermediate Certificate must be gained (except in very special cases) as a condition of presentation for the Leaving Certificate two or three years later. This means that the first three years of the curriculum in a Secondary or Higher Grade School are occupied by the Intermediate Course, which is governed by the same regulations as the course of the Intermediate Schools. Schools which are independent of State aid are not, of course, bound by this regulation; but, if they do not conform to it, their pupils cannot be awarded a regular Group Leaving Certificate. They only get passes in individual subjects, which may amount collectively to an equivalent qualification for entrance to the Universities and similar purposes.

The great majority of secondary scholars must, however, have taken the Intermediate Course, extending over at least three years (12+ to 15+), and comprising at least five subjects viz.: (1) English (including History and Geography), (2) one language other than English, (3) Mathematics, (4) Experimental Science, (5) Drawing.

(ii) THE POST-INTERMEDIATE STAGE.

The Intermediate Course may be followed by a more specialised course of Post-Intermediate study leading up to the Leaving Certificate. This extends over at least two years and in most cases over three. The curriculum must provide for the study of (1) English on the Higher Grade level, together with History as a subsidiary subject; and what is called "The Normal General Course" comprises also (2) at least one language other than English on the Higher Grade level, (3) Mathematics or Experimental Science on the Higher Grade level, and (4) at least one other subject (which may be another language) without restriction as to grade.


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(iii) COMPARISON WITH THE ENGLISH SYSTEM.

A comparison of the English and Scottish systems shows that there are certain features in the latter which are more favourable to Classics than the corresponding arrangements in England, and certain features which are decidedly less favour- able.

Foremost among the former is the requirement, which applies to girls' schools as well as to boys', that no teacher can hold what is called the "Chapter V. Qualification" unless he or she has taken Honours at a University in the subject for which the qualification is given. The Chapter V. Qualification is required for the "Principal Teacher" of any subject in a Secondary School, and this affords a strong inducement to the intending secondary teacher to take Honours, since otherwise he may be placed on a lower salary scale and find his promotion barred. The Department does not recognise any other Honours group than Latin and Greek for the Principal Teachers of Classics, so that a teacher who has taken Honours in Latin and French, for instance, can only get a qualification as a Principal Teacher of French. No one can become a Principal Teacher of Latin as such without Greek. This is based on the view which, we were informed, is strongly held by the Department, and which we consider to be perfectly sound, that Latin cannot be properly taught, except perhaps in the elementary stages, by anyone who is not a competent Greek scholar. The result is, we were informed by the Assistant Secretary of the Scottish Education Department, that there are over 150 Schools in Scotland with a teacher who is capable of teaching Greek, even if Greek is not actually being taught in them at a particular date. According to a census taken in 1919 by the Department of Education in the University of Aberdeen,' Greek was then being taught in 41 Secondary Schools and 42 Higher Grade Schools, and it must be remembered that this census was taken at a time when the schools had not completely recovered from war conditions. Their stalls had been depleted, and many boys who might otherwise have taken up Greek had been preparing themselves for military service up to the date of the armistice, and had thus been prevented from doing so. Some schools reported expressly that at present there were no pupils in Greek, though they were ready, and would be glad, to teach it. Even


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without allowing for this, these figures are, in proportion to the population, more satisfactory than the corresponding figures for England. We endeavoured to ascertain what were the circumstances which determined whether Greek was taught in a school or not, and we shall have occasion to call attention to some which are decidedly adverse. These, however, operate generally, and our evidence certainly suggests that a great deal depends on the Headmaster. We were told, for instance, of a school at Stornoway in the island of Lewis (the Nicolson Institute) attended largely by the children of fishermen and crofters, in which nearly 30 pupils were learning Greek (five in the highest class, six in that below, and sixteen beginners), and those in the highest class were reading Homer, Æschylus, and Plato. We inquired whether this result was attained by neglecting other subjects, and were told that this school was well equipped for the teaching of Science also. No doubt there are "Greekless areas", and the fact has been brought into prominence by the devoted labours of Professor Harrower of Aberdeen; but they are neither so large nor so important as those of England, where whole counties and cities are Greekless. Moreover, it must be remembered that there are some very small schools in Scotland with only one teacher and a handful of pupils. In former days, Greek was taught in some of these, and is taught no longer. They are now necessarily attended by all children of school age within reach, and for the bulk of these Greek is impossible without excluding other subjects. The teacher has no longer time to teach Greek, even if he be competent to do so, to the few pupils capable of profiting by it. A certain degree of centralisation has, therefore, been inevitable. The solution of this difficulty must be found, as in England, by transfer at the appropriate age - it cannot well be before 12 - to a school where Greek is taught (see p. 72 seq.). On the other hand, it is very satisfactory, from our point of view, to have it clearly recognised that it is the duty of every State-aided Secondary School to provide instruction in Greek for those pupils who desire it. This is distinctly laid down in the regulations for Secondary Schools issued by the Scottish Education Department in 1920. These provide that, in normal circumstances, every Secondary School in receipt of a Grant must provide instruction under competent teachers in Latin, Greek, French, and German. They further provide that, if this is not done, the Department, after giving


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due notice, may withdraw the grant. It is clear that this regulation affords a certain security for the continuance of classical teaching in the Secondary Schools of Scotland.

But, while Scotland appears to have the advantage over England in these respects, there are other features of the system which, in our opinion, go far to neutralise that advantage.

(a) Age for beginning a foreign language.

The average age for beginning the study of a language other than English seems to us to be too high. This was admitted by Dr. Macdonald, the Assistant Secretary of the Scottish Education Department, who told us that he "would like to see the first language begun soon after 11 or, at all events, before 12". At present, the average is considerably over 12, as may safely be inferred from the Aberdeen census of language teaching to which we have already referred. Even if we take the average age in England to be 12, yet there is a large number of pupils, including Junior County Scholars and holders of free places, for whom the age is distinctly lower. In fact, the Scottish boy or girl who intends to take up Classics, starts in most cases with' a handicap of about a year.

(b) The Intermediate Examination.

A still more serious disadvantage arises from the regulations for the Intermediate Course, which occupies, as we have seen, the first three years of the Secondary curriculum. If we compare the requirements of the Intermediate Certificate with those of the English School Certificate, with which it roughly corresponds, though it is taken at a rather earlier age (on an average between 15 and 16), we see that, though only one language other than English is required for either Certificate, the Scottish candidate must offer both Mathematics and Science and also Drawing, and for the last two subjects, but for no others, a definite time table is prescribed in the curriculum. No School Examination in England at present requires candidates to be presented in both Mathematics and Science, and none requires Drawing. Indeed, this privileged position of Science and Drawing is really a survival from the days of the South Kensington Science and Art Grants, the administration of which was transferred to the Scottish Education Department in 1899.


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Even under the Act of 1908, when the different grants from public moneys were consolidated, the Department seems to have felt itself under an obligation to maintain this privileged position, and this has had the effect of making Science and Drawing compulsory for all pupils instead of only for those who had previously been earning Science and Art Grants. The Board of Education does not appear to have felt that it was under any such obligation with regard to England and Wales, and it does not seem right to us that a purely educational question should be determined by what is, after all, a mere administrative tradition. The Grants are all derived from public moneys, and should be distributed without too nice a regard to their history.

The consequence of these requirements is that many candidates take only one language other than English in the Intermediate Certificate Examination, and that is usually French, which they have studied for a longer period and which they imagine to be easier than Latin. Where a second language is taken, it is nearly always Latin. Greek is practically excluded. Our witnesses from the Scottish schools and Universities were quite unanimous in declaring that the present rigid requirements of the Intermediate Course are seriously prejudicial to the teaching of Classics, and, in particular, that they make it difficult though not impossible to begin the study of Greek before the Post-Intermediate Stage. According to the Aberdeen census, out of the 56 Secondary Schools 2 began to teach Greek in the first year of the Intermediate Course, 11 in the second year, and 19 in the third. In 22 schools it is postponed till the Post-Intermediate stage, while in 15 Secondary Schools no Greek at all was taught in 1919, though that was certainly due in part to War conditions. In the Higher Grade Schools the proportion of schools which postpone Greek to the Post-Intermediate Stage was still higher (about 90 per cent.), though one Higher Grade School began the teaching of Greek in the first year of the Intermediate Course, 7 in the second, and 11 in the third.

Now it is clear that the line of least resistance is for candidates to offer the same subjects for the Leaving Certificate as they have already taken for the Intermediate, and it was represented to us that if Greek was to have a fair chance, it was vital that more elasticity should be allowed in the choice of subjects


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for the Intermediate Certificate. With these representations we heartily concur. Indeed, we see no sufficient reason for compelling pupils who are to be presented later for the Leaving Certificate to take the Intermediate Certificate at all, and it is very significant that those schools which, not being in receipt of grants, are free to arrange their curriculum as they think best avoid the Intermediate Course altogether, even though that excludes them from receiving a regular Group Leaving Certificate. This gives them a great advantage over the State-aided schools. Schools like Fettes College and the Edinburgh Academy are able to present their pupils for the Leaving Certificate Examination in the second-last year of their course, leaving a year for free study, which easily brings them up to the standard required for Oxford and Cambridge Scholarships in Classics or in other subjects. The Intermediate Course is in fact a severe handicap on those Schools which are obliged to take it.

It must not be supposed that we do not cordially agree with the principle underlying the regulations, viz., that a broad general education in which English, Languages and Mathematics advance abreast should be provided for all pupils. It is, in fact, identical with the principle underlying the First Examination taken by English schools. We think, however, that it is possible to sacrifice the interests of individual pupils to a pedantic adherence to the theory of the "balanced curriculum". Every young boy or girl should have a chance of showing in which direction his or her capacities lie; all therefore should begin languages, science, and mathematics, and the average pupil will probably do best to carry them all on pari passu till about 16. This does not mean, however, that he should be required to bring all these subjects up to examination standard. When a boy shows marked incapacity for languages, or marked incapacity for mathematics or science, it is waste of time to insist on his! continuing to study beyond a certain point a subject in which he is making no progress, and to put hindrances in the way of his studying one in which his progress may be confidently predicted. The Education Department has recently allowed Greek to be substituted for Science or Drawing in the third year of the Intermediate Course. Though this is a step in the right direction, it does not seem to us that it goes far enough to produce much effect.


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(c) The Leaving Examination.

The Regulations for the Scottish Leaving Certificate do not, on the face of them, allow the same degree of specialisation, either in Classics or in any other subject, as is encouraged by the English Higher Certificate. That applies at least to what is called the "Normal General Course", which is described above (p. 211), and which is the only course specifically laid down in the Regulations. It is true that the Department does not confine its Certificate to those who have passed through the Normal General Course. In Circular 340 (dated 19th October, 1914) there is a provision that "curricula which fail to include a study on the Higher Grade level of (a) one language other than English, and (b) either Mathematics or Experimental Science, must be submitted for approval", whereas curricula which conform to the "Normal General Course" may be taken as approved and need not be submitted. It will be seen that this opens up wide possibilities, and we have had evidence that the Department interprets this provision in a very liberal spirit. For example, we find that the following "Special Post-Intermediate" Course has been approved in an important school:

This, it will be seen, is a purely literary course, but, on the other hand, the Department has also approved the following combination:


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No public intimation appears to be made of the courses which are approved, and in consequence most people seem to be quite ignorant of the Department's practice in the matter. There is, we were informed, a strong feeling among Scottish schoolmasters that every Leaving Certificate issued by the Department should be accepted without further question as entitling its holder to enter a University; but it is obviously impossible to ask the Universities to accept the Certificate based on the second of the courses described above, however good a course it may be for the class of girls for whom it is presumably intended. It appears to us that the whole conception of a "Normal General Course" has hopelessly broken down, and that it would be far better for the Department to publish a list of the alternative courses which it is prepared to recognise. It would then be for the Universities and similar bodies to decide which of these they were prepared to accept for their own purposes.

The chief feature of the Classical papers set in the Leaving Certificate Examination is that they consist entirely of unseen passages (verse and prose) with prose composition and a few grammatical and "general" questions. This appears to us to be unsound. The absence of set books and of all but the very slightest requirement of a knowledge of Ancient History reduces the Examination to a mere test of proficiency in the language, and this is wholly inconsistent with the true ideal of classical teaching as we have endeavoured to describe it in this Report. The Examination, in fact, provides no test of the power of grasping a piece of literature as a whole, and it must inevitably discourage teachers from trying to make their pupils regard their work in its true perspective. If the principles we have argued for are sound, the Leaving Certificate Examination must be condemned, so far as the Classics are concerned.

In addition to the Regulations of the Department, there are other circumstances which militate against the standard of Classical attainment reaching the same level in Scotland as it does under the most favourable conditions in England. There, a large proportion of the best classical scholars have begun Latin, and even Greek, at an early age in the Preparatory School. In Scotland the pupils of such Preparatory Schools as exist generally go on to schools in England, or to schools in Scotland, like Fettes College, which are more or less of the


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English type, and are not under the control of the Scottish Education Department. Moreover, the boys in these schools, for reasons which have been explained, are able to reach the Scholarship standard of Oxford and Cambridge, and generally go to one or other of these instead of to the Scottish Universities. This, of course, depresses the standard of the other schools in Scotland, and of the Scottish Universities, and it certainly tends to accentuate class distinctions. It may be, however, that the present economic situation will to some extent counteract this tendency.

(b) UNIVERSITIES.

The recent history of the Greek question in the Scottish Universities is as follows. In 1892 Greek and Latin were made alternatives for graduation in Arts, instead of both being compulsory. This practically meant that Greek was made optional while Latin remained compulsory. Since then Latin has also been made optional for graduation in Arts, though Latin (or Greek) is still required in the University Preliminary Examination for Arts, and no Leaving Certificate which does not include Latin (or Greek) will admit to the Faculty of Arts, though French or German maybe substituted by candidates for admission to the Faculty of Science.

The standard of the Preliminary Examination was fixed by the Commissioners under the Universities (Scotland) Act of 1889 as that of the Leaving Certificate, and in 1919 the Leaving Certificate was recognised as what it had in fact become, the normal means of admission to the Universities. It is, therefore, true to say that for a generation the conditions of entrance to the Scottish Universities have depended on the Education Department. It is alleged and, in our opinion, with reason, that the standard of the Leaving Certificate Examination is exorbitantly high for a University Entrance Examination, and we have had evidence, both from the Universities and the schools, that this has produced two bad results. On the one hand, it has discouraged candidates from taking Greek at all, and has squeezed the subject out of schools in which it was formerly taught. On the other hand, we are assured by witnesses from the Universities, who are in a position to judge the results, that the standard is not in fact attained, and that much slovenly and inaccurate work is allowed to pass. It seems to be admitted that this applies in a less degree to Greek


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than to Latin, but that may only mean that all but the very best pupils have been deterred from taking Greek at all.

Most of our witnesses held that the effect of this system of entrance to the Universities has been disastrous, especially as it affects the pass students. Under the old system there was always, we were assured, a large number of pass men who, without being Greek scholars, had a competent knowledge of Greek. Students of this type now tend to take subjects which they believe to be easier. We were told by those in a position to judge that the quality of those passmen who still take Greek is decidedly worse than it used to be. It is true that the number of Classical Honours Students has increased, but there is no evidence to show that their quality has improved. Moreover, the increase in their numbers only means that, while there are more students who specialise in Classics, the decrease in the number of passmen taking Greek has lessened the general influence of Greek culture in University education. We were also told of cases in which students who were excellent Latinists and were anxious to take Honours in Classics, had come to the University without any knowledge of Greek, and had therefore been obliged either to i^tart Greek from the beginning at the University or to abandon the studies in which they were most interested. That is a state of things which, in our opinion, might be remedied if Inspectors of Schools were instructed to use their influence to secure that promising pupils in Latin were induced to begin Greek in good time. Some of our witnesses seemed to think that the institution of an Honours Degree in Latin and French might provide a substitute for the old classical course, and such a degree is already recognised in some of the Scottish Universities. As we have seen, however, the Education Department rejects this view, and refuses to accept such a combination for its own purposes. We certainly concur in the Department's opinion on this point, and we think that the remedy must be sought elsewhere. It seems to us that, in the circumstances we have described, it is necessary to lower the standard at present required of those who take Greek in an Examination preliminary to the Arts Course. Considered as a matriculation standard it is very much higher than anything required by any University in England, and indeed it is said to be higher than that required for a pass degree in most of the Universities


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of the English-speaking world. So long as this standard is set up it must deter candidates who, in many cases, are prevented from beginning Greek before the Intermediate Examination, from beginning it at all. Some of our witnesses were in favour of recognising a Lower Grade pass in Greek as sufficient evidence of fitness to study Greek at a University. Even that would be at least equivalent to what is required in the English Universities.

The gravity of the situation described by the witnesses from whose evidence we have been quoting, so far as Greek is concerned, is shown by the figures given in Appendix K.

In one Scottish University a three-term course in the History, Literature and Art of Greece has been instituted for students who have either no knowledge of Greek or whose knowledge is inadequate for admission to the class of Greek Language and Literature; and this course is recognised as an optional part of the curriculum for the Degree of M.A. in the Department of Law and History. In another University a thorough study of the Agricola of Tacitus in the original and of British Antiquities in the Roman Period is recognised as an alternative to advanced Latin Prose Composition. Such options, intended only for students who are not to be teachers of the Classics, have already been taken advantage of by a number of students from nearly all the Faculties.

(c) SUMMARY.

In our opinion it has been completely established by the evidence laid before us that Greek does not get a fair chance in Scotland at the present time. The difficulty is not, as it is in many parts of England, that the school staffs are not qualified to teach Greek. As we have seen, Scotland is much better off than England in that respect. The mischief is rather that in many schools, which have one or more graduates with Honours in Classics on their staff, there is only a handful of pupils who learn Greek, and in many cases not even one. Yet we have had evidence that, where it is taught, the subject is very popular, and it is certain that the decline of Greek is not to be attributed to the teachers or t-he pupils. Moreover we find that in schools which are independent of State aid and State control Greek appears to flourish even more than in the past. These schools,


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however, are few in number, and most of them are too expensive for the children of parents with moderate means. Some of the State-aided Schools have a long and honourable tradition of Classical teaching in the past, and when we find that this tradition has almost disappeared, as our evidence shows it has in many cases, we are forced to the conclusion that this must be due to the conditions under which these schools have to work, conditions from which the independent schools are free. We should regard it as a great misfortune if classical education were to become associated with a particular social class, a thing which would surely violate the best Scottish tradition, and we look upon it as a matter of urgent importance that steps should be taken to check this tendency before it has gone too far. This can only be done by setting up a more modest standard in the Leaving Certificate Examination and by insisting that it shall really be attained. This would at the same time make it easier to include in the classical curriculum the historical and literary studies without which a classical education is robbed of what gives it most of its value. All our evidence goes to show that classical study would flourish in Scotland if the Secondary Schools were freed from the rigidity of the Intermediate Course and if the Leaving Certificate Examination were reformed on the lines we have advocated.



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PART VI.

IRELAND.

1. Historical Sketch.

It is impossible to begin even the briefest sketch of the history of classical education in Ireland without some reference to the debt due to the Irish scholars who from the sixth to the tenth centuries preserved the tradition of classical learning in their own country and founded schools in France, Italy and Switzerland. To their labours we owe not merely the perpetuation even in the darkest ages of the tradition of the old world but the preservation of texts of ancient authors which might otherwise have perished entirely. We shall have occasion to notice that the tradition of that golden age of Irish scholarship has even to-day considerable influence in keeping alive an interest in Greek and Latin in Irish Schools and Universities. But for our present purposes we need not go back further than the Reformation, and even from that point we can sketch only in the briefest outline the tangled history of the subsequent centuries.

Beginning with the Secondary or, as it is more usually called in Ireland, Intermediate system, it will be necessary, following official Reports, to deal with the Protestant and the Roman Catholic schools under separate heads.

(a) Protestant Schools.

In a Return for 1919, twelve non-Catholic Schools are given as having not fewer than 100 Intermediate pupils (boys and girls), 36 as having fewer than 100 but not fewer than 50, and 25 fewer than 50 but not fewer than 25.

A large number of the schools enjoy some public or quasi- public endowment, of which we may distinguish the following classes in order of foundation:

1. Diocesan Free Schools were ordered to be founded in every diocese by Statute of Elizabeth (1570). After nearly three centuries (1858) a census was taken from which it appeared that, excluding those with fewer than 10 pupils, there were only nine such schools in existence, and these were


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educating less than 300 pupils, of whom 38 were Catholic and 22 Presbyterian.*

2. The Royal Free Schools founded by James I. (1608), which were less unfortunate, were confined to the province of Ulster. Of these there were seven. Ten years later than the census referred to above they contained in all 311† scholars, of whom only three were Catholics. In three of them (Portora, Armagh, Dungannon) there were last year 195 Intermediate pupils.

3. The Erasmus Smith Schools (founded 1657) and other Endowed Schools (mostly founded before 1696) to the number of 20, had, according to the Endowed Schools Commission (1858), a total of 458 scholars, of whom 50 were Catholics. The High School of Dublin, one of the largest and most important Classical Schools in the country, is on the Erasmus Smith foundation, but is of much later date. There are in Dublin and Belfast and probably elsewhere quite a number of important Intermediate Schools of modern foundation, often under Boards of Governors; many of them, like the Wesley College, St. Andrew's College and Alexandra School in Dublin, and the Campbell College in Belfast, belong to religious denominations.

4. There are also many Chartered Schools of eighteenth century foundation, a few of which are important, and the Model Schools of the nineteenth century. Some of these may, perhaps, do Secondary work, but, as a rule, they are not concerned with the teaching of classics. It must be understood that Elementary and Intermediate work is more generally combined in Irish schools than in those of England and Wales.

The above survey, imperfect as it is, will serve to show how large and complicated is the system of Irish Protestant Intermediate Education.

*On this subject, the Rt. Hon. Mr. Justice Madden, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dublin, wrote: "The Statute became a dead letter. The educational zeal of Sidney's Parliament did not go beyond the pious wish that Free Schools might somehow be established somewhere, at the expense of the diocesan clergy, and interest in the matter seems to have vanished with Sidney's departure". (Early History of Classical Education in Ireland, 1908.)

†They had increased by about 50 per cent, since 1788, when they were returned as 211.


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(b) Catholic Schools.

It will be understood that up to the very end of the eighteenth century, when the Penal Code began to be relaxed, all Catholic education was forbidden under the severest penalties. Prior to 1781, when the worst features of the Code were repealed, there is good evidence that there was a large amount of Catholic teaching carried on illegally; but it is not always easy to discern how far it was of a Secondary type. When we remember that at least one main object of Catholic teaching was the early training of future priests and that the schools were frequently conducted by the clergy, we should conclude that at least Latin was commonly taught in the hedge-schools and other private schools of the penal times.*

After the relaxation of 1781, and much more after 1793, we are on clearer ground. Between these two dates private school openly multiplied, and in them, especially in the towns, a sound classical training could be obtained. Soon after the French Revolution classical education of a more public character was brought within the reach of Irish Catholics. By an Act of 1795 Maynooth College was founded and endowed, and this event, as we shall see later on, profoundly influenced the higher education of the people. Originally, the intention was to make Maynooth a centre for lay as well as for clerical education, a project frustrated only through lack of funds. Its main object was to provide in Ireland seminary education for clerical students who previously had been trained in France and Belgium, with results disapproved of by Parliament. We shall have to consider not merely the amount of classical learning pursued in Maynooth but also the reflex effect produced by it upon schools more distinctively Secondary.

The number of Colleges† that sprang up within a comparatively short time was very great. Even two years before

*In answer to an inquiry held by the Irish House of Lords (1731) into illegal Popish Schools it was stated that two Latin Schools existed in a single parish of Dublin; that in the County of Cork "there are some petty schools where they only fit great numbers of Irish boys to be Mass-Preists, who become more Pragmatical Biggots than the old Romish Preists ever were". In the diocese of Killaloe two schools are mentioned as each having "one Latin and English master".

†Though called Colleges (after the continental style) they were mainly Secondary Schools in type. Only a comparatively small number of them included courses of Divinity, but in all the Humanities were taught.


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the Maynooth Act, Carlow had been founded (1793); and in the half century before 1845 (the date of the founding of the Queen's Colleges) 20 diocesan or other colleges had been founded. Before another generation elapsed (1869) no less than 47 Classical Secondary Schools were working in Ireland, controlled by the secular clergy or by the Religious Orders.*

The Diocesan Colleges were especially concerned with the supply of clergy; the schools of the Regulars to a less extent. But it is important to note that in the so-called seminaries of Ireland there is usually a large proportion of lay boys. Apart from other advantages of such a mingling of elements, economy demands it; and, what is most important, boys too young for choosing a state of life are included.

In the year 1870 a careful census was taken of the above 47 schools, which showed that they contained 4,950 boys, almost equally divided as boarders and day boys.† At this date the education given was of course mainly (though by no means exclusively) classical. In the returns 61 per cent, of the students were noted as actually studying Latin and Greek; but this percentage does not include the senior students, who, though doing Philosophy, at least continued their study of Latin. If they are included, 70 per cent, would be a closer estimate. Again, at least 10 per cent, were under 10 years of age, and these would not as yet have begun their classical course.

None of the above schools had hitherto, like Maynooth, enjoyed any public grant, and the inequality between them and the Protestant Endowed Schools was so glaring that it had to be adjusted. This led to the Intermediate Education Act of 1878, by which £1,000,000 from the Disestablished Church Fund was voted as an endowment available on equal terms for Irish Intermediate Schools, Protestant and Catholic, whether of boys or of girls. This sum was subsequently largely increased, and from the first the grants were administered by the Commissioners of Intermediate Education; with the result that Secondary Education has for a generation been entirely dominated by what

*Twenty-two were diocesan, twenty-five under Regulars; of the latter five were under Jesuits, five under Carmelites, three under Vincentians, two under the Holy Ghost Order, five under other Orders, five under Teaching Brothers.

†More than two-thirds of the schools (32) were entirely or partly hoarding schools; only 15 were purely day schools.


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was for many years exclusively and is still largely merely an examining body. In all no less than 350 schools benefit by the Intermediate Grants, about 250 of which are Catholic.

But a disturbing element was introduced by the establishment in 1899 of the new Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. The first grants out of public money in aid of Secondary Education had been those of the Science and Art Department, South Kensington. The grant was allotted on the same principles as in Great Britain, and with such success that in 1868 it was declared that scientific instruction had gone ahead in Ireland faster than anywhere else. Among its other functions the new Department took the place in Ireland of the Science and Art Department; but by that time the teaching of Science had fallen to a very low ebb, only 673 boys being presented for the Intermediate Examination in that subject as compared with 2,885 in 1891. We shall discuss later the impetus given to scientific education since that date and the way in which it has reacted unfavourably on the teaching of Classics.

What we may here observe is that large grants were made by the Department in aid of laboratories and science teaching in Intermediate Schools, which profoundly influenced their curriculum; so that a dual system of control has arisen which has not always proved harmonious and is certainly prejudicial. But it so happened that at a time when the Intermediate Commissioners had not obtained the limited powers of inspection which they now enjoy they were glad to avail themselves of the services of the Science Inspectors of the Department.

We have seen that the Intermediate Grants, and of course those of the Department, were fully applicable to Girls' Schools. In consequence there has been an important development during the past 40 years on this side of Irish Secondary Education. Neither in Protestant nor Catholic Girls' Schools are Classics taught on any considerable scale, though of course elementary Latin is very commonly taken for Matriculation in the Universities, all of which are now open to women. The Catholic Schools, whether Boarding or Day, are almost without exception under the control of Religious Orders, by whom, however, secular mistresses are frequently employed.

During the whole period since 1793 a great deal of the education of Irish Catholic boys has been in the hands of the Christian Brothers and similar organisations. The Christian


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Brothers, who do not work under the Elementary Board, though much of their work is of a primary nature, present a large number of boys for the Intermediate Examinations, and with very marked success. Although in certain centres they have done excellent work on the classical side and they teach Latin to a considerable number of pupils, on the whole their schools are stronger on the scientific and commercial side.

(c) University Education.

When we turn to higher education we find again in the University system a marked cleavage between types of institutions, but not now merely on lines of religious belief. Dublin University (founded under the auspices of Cambridge in 1592) is closely analogous to the older Universities of England, and is the only University enjoying mutually with them the privilege of "ad eundem" graduation. On the other hand there are two Universities in all essentials similar to the newer English Universities: the National University (with constituent Colleges in Dublin, Cork, and Gal way) and the Queen's University of Belfast.

(i) Trinity College, Dublin.

Before 1592 there had been several attempts or proposals to found in Ireland a Protestant University. The Deanery of St. Patrick's, Dublin, had been thought of as its seat, as also Armagh, Trim, Drogheda, and even Clonfert. When Trinity College was at last founded, it was intended to be "Mater Universitatis"; in point of fact the University and the College have been always co-extensive, and indeed the University, as distinct from the College, was not incorporated till 1857. Till 1793 admission was denied to all but members of the Established Church; since that year a series of steps have been taken to remove this restriction, and in 1873 all tests were abolished except for Professors and Lecturers in Divinity. Women have been admitted to full membership of the University since 1904. At the present time there are about 1,403 students on the books, but residence is not necessary for a degree and more than half the students are non-resident. A steady stream of Catholic students, mostly the sons of professional men, according to a long established tradition enter the University but rarely reside in the College.


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All scholars are familiar with the important contributions that have been made in recent years to classical knowledge by members of Trinity College, but almost equally distinguished work has been done in other branches of learning. The first school of Engineering in the United Kingdom was established there in 1841.

(ii) Modern Universities.

The two modern Universities have a somewhat complicated history, both of them having, like many of those in England and Wales, been founded out of pre-existing elements. The National University < 1908) replaced the Royal University (1880). The latter was mainly an examining body, an arrangement which had been frankly conceded as transitional and makeshift. It, however, did good work in preparing the materials for a better system, having provided endowments for the unendowed Dublin College as well as additional financial aid for the Queen's Colleges of Belfast, Cork, and Galway.

University College, Dublin, has always been distinctively Catholic, representing as it does the older so-called Catholic University which had been established under Newman's presidency by the Irish Bishops in 1854, but which never received a Charter from Government.* Four years earlier (1850) a Royal Charter had been granted to the Queen's Colleges as a Federal University, but this was also absorbed in the Royal University at the date of its foundation.

It has been stated that there are but three constituent Colleges of the National University, but the Senate subsequently recognised Maynooth so far as Arts and Science are concerned, admitting its matriculated students to Internal Degrees and granting to it representation on the Board of Studies. Maynooth is not, however, a constituent College, does not receive any University money, and is not directly and officially represented on the Senate.

Queen's University, Belfast (1908), was originally a Queen's College and subsequently a constituent College of the Royal University. It is as predominantly Presbyterian as the College

*It enjoyed a Papal privilege of conferring degrees in Divinity, which gave some colour to its title, but was otherwise considered to have merely ecclesiastical significance.


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in Dublin is Catholic* It is considerably smaller than the Dublin College, but is larger than Cork or Galway. All the Colleges are open to women, and may have women on their staff; Dublin at least has a considerable number.

As all the Irish Universities are open to women, there is less need for women's Colleges in the full sense, as distinct from hostels. Alexandra College is an important institution which has always included classical study among its courses and used indeed to enter students for (external) classical degrees, until the new arrangements made this impossible.

(iii) Training Colleges.

A word may be added as to Training Colleges, which, though all elementary, do not entirely exclude Latin from their curriculum. Two of these are non-Catholic; both of them are in Dublin and train men and women, one for the Church of Ireland schools, the other largely for Presbyterian schools. Of Catholic Colleges there are five in all, three for women (Dublin, Limerick, Belfast), two for men (Dublin and Waterford). All are under the management of Religious communities.

2. The Present Position.

We shall now proceed to discuss the present condition and the prospects of classical education in Ireland. We were fortunate in securing thoroughly representative evidence, as the witnesses included members of the teaching staffs from all the Universities. One of them is President of the Classical Association of Ireland and also of the Workers Educational Association of Belfast; two were members of the recent Royal Commission on Intermediate Education (the Moloney Commission); and Miss Olive Purser, as Dean of the Women Students in Trinity College, Dublin, was well qualified to report on the education of women and girls. We may also note that their evidence was remarkably consistent and in many respects, considering existing conditions, not discouraging.

In saying this we bear in mind that, quite apart from problems of a political nature, there is practically a unanimous

*It will be understood that all constituent Colleges are officially undenominational, being financed out of the public exchequer.


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consensus that the Irish educational system will have to be radically reorganised in the near future. This, however, does not include any proposed change in regard to the Universities, which now appear to be generally on a satisfactory working basis. But among other anomalies the fact that the Elementary, Intermediate, and Technical Systems, while overlapping at every turn, are yet absolutely separate and independent of one another, is so disastrous to educational efficiency that it surely will not be much longer tolerated.

In these circumstances it might appear almost superfluous to offer any criticisms or suggestions as to existing arrangements; on the other hand, when the time for reconstruction arrives, an opportunity will possibly be found for taking special steps to safeguard the interests of classical learning in Ireland.

(a) In the Schools.

The first point emphasised by our witnesses was the weighting of the scales in favour of scientific as against literary education, owing to the duplication of Boards to which we have referred. We were informed that while an annual total of £48,000 is paid by the Intermediate Board in connexion with the Intermediate Examinations on all subjects, including Science, a further £30,000 is paid by the Department of Technical Instruction for Science alone. We were further informed that till very recently no examination was held in Science and Drawing, the pupils qualifying in these subjects solely on attendance supplemented by occasional inspection. The school time-tables in Science are still prescribed by the Department. In these circumstances it is not surprising to learn that technical and scientific studies are a formidable rival to Classics in Irish Schools.

The following are the statistics of the candidates offering Greek and Science in the Intermediate Examinations of 1898, 1908, and 1918:


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On the other hand, it must be noted that a pass in Latin or in Greek counts practically as a pass in two subjects for the award of the Intermediate Certificate, and that Classics are in a favourable position as regards the award of prizes, exhibitions, &c., on the examination. But the dominating principle inherent in the system from its inception in 1879 down to the present time, viz., the payment of grants to schools on the results of the written examinations of individual pupils, is injurious to the true freedom and progress of classical as well as of other teaching. The principle has long been abandoned under the English system, and has been partially modified in Ireland since 1908 by the introduction of inspection.

We now come to a topic which has excited much controversy - the Gaelic Revival and the study of Irish in schools and Universities. A knowledge of Irish has been made compulsory for matriculation in the National University and its teaching is practically universal in Catholic schools. It will be readily understood how this has handicapped the study of Greek, and in girls' schools even that of Latin.* Whatever is thought upon this subject, it cannot be denied that the influence of the Catholic Church in Ireland has strongly operated to preserve classical studies. Seeing that the higher studies of Catholic clerics are entirely conducted in Latin, it is obvious that its teaching must be maintained in schools where the early training of the clergy is provided. As to Greek studies, which have held their ground in Catholic better than in Protestant schools, the action of the Catholic Hierarchy in 1911 in making Greek at Matriculation or Senior Grade compulsory for entrance into Maynooth secured that it must be carefully taught up to this standard† in a large number of Diocesan seminaries and other schools.

In the Protestant schools for boys the position is not favourable; and indeed we learned with regret that in Dublin and Belfast very little Greek is being studied in schools of any denomination.

*Professor Corcoran, however, gave it as his opinion that the introduction of Irish had a more prejudicial effect upon French than upon Classics.

†The Senior Grade standard is a really good one, and for reasons of convenience this examination is the one more frequently taken in schools. Some knowledge of Greek was always compulsory for entrance at Maynooth.


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In the girls' schools the situation is more serious. Greek is practically unknown, except as an "extra" taught out of school hours. Latin is taught as a normal part of the curriculum in only three or four Protestant schools, and in 1918 the percentage of girls, whether Protestant or Catholic, offering it in the Inter- mediate Examination was only 15 per cent. The special conditions allowed to girls, however advisable in themselves, discourage the learning of Latin. There is, however, evidence that where the opportunity is given a good standard of attainment is often reached.

There are two difficulties which are common to Irish schools of all types, and which, though not unknown in schools in other parts of the United Kingdom, weigh specially heavily in Ireland. The first is the late age of transfer from the Primary to the Secondary schools, which in Ireland may be as late as 15. The second is the lowness of the salary scales, which not only is a deterrent from entry to the profession but leads teachers to seek posts in England. This influence would not, however, be so operative in the case of members of Religious Orders. It appears also that the papers set in the Intermediate Examination encourage too exclusively a merely linguistic knowledge of Latin and Greek, and that little attention is consequently paid in the schools to history or to the subject- matter of the texts read. We have dealt with the subject in speaking of the English First Examination (p. 88).

(b) In the Universities.

The evidence from the Universities, particularly from that of Dublin, shows that the pendulum has been swinging strongly against classical studies, though Trinity College inherits a classical tradition as strong as that of Oxford or Cambridge. Up to 1903 Greek was compulsory for Matriculation at Trinity College and throughout the course for the Pass Degree. It is now optional and is in practice only taken as a Pass subject by actual or prospective members of the Divinity school. Nor is Latin an obligatory subject beyond the Little-go. The effect of this change has been startling. At the Midsummer Entrance Examination in 1902 (one of five such examinations held each year) the number of candidates offering both Latin and Greek was 52; at the same examination in 1920 Greek was offered by 4, Latin l)y 82, and a modern language by 78. In 1902 the


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number of students attending Pass Lectures in Classics was 418 and of those attending Honours Lectures 166. In 1918 the numbers were - Pass Lectures: Greek 65, Latin 350, French 229; Honours Lectures, Classics 68, French 179, German 80. In considering these figures it must be remembered that since 1904 women have been admitted to the University.

In the modern Universities, where there is naturally less tradition of classical study, the situation is different, but ground does not appear to have been actually lost. Neither in Belfast nor the National University has there been so far any permission to divorce the higher study of Latin from that of Greek; both languages must alike be taken for the Honours Degree. The system of providing elementary Greek for beginners has been quite recently adopted in the Dublin College, with a promise of good results. In the National University generally Greek students are not diminishing in quality or quantity, but Greek studies, and therefore Classics, are tending to become specialised as a branch of clerical study, a process which if not checked will inevitably cause injury to humanistic studies as a whole. One weak point was specially brought before us, and that is defective teaching in Ancient History, and especially in the appeal to the eye and the imagination in the use of archaeological and other material aids to teaching, a defect which exists also in Great Britain and to which attention is called elsewhere in this Report.

The future of classical study in Ireland is, we trust, really assured, however disturbing may be certain educational conditions, many of which are by no means peculiar to Ireland though they are there accentuated as a result of the eager and widespread desire of the people for improvements in the material order. The achievements of Irishmen of all denominations have been intimately bound up with literary and humanistic aspiration; and if the study of Classics in the country is somewhat depressed, there is good ground for believing that it will not be allowed to disappear.


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PART VII.

WALES.

1. Historical Sketch.

(a) ROMAN INFLUENCE.

The modern Englishman possesses reminders of the Roman occupation of Britain in ancient roads, forts, "villas" and walls - above all, in Hadrian's Wall stretching from Tyne to Sol way. The modern Welshman has inherited from Rome no single monument so impressive as the Wall built by Hadrian about the year 122. But many Roman roads and forts and a few "villas" are found in his country from Caergybi (Holyhead) in the north to Caerdydd (Cardiff) in the south. And in his daily speech he uses a large and varied stock of words borrowed directly from the Roman invaders, which where they exist in modern English have generally come through the French. As engineers and campaigners the Romans lent him names for wall, bridge, trench, tent; as men who knew the sea and watched the skies and seasons, for ship, oar, harbour, fish, net, sky, cloud, season; as farmers, for pitchfork, flail, mill; as financiers, for shilling; as builders and furnishers, for pillar, cross-beam, chamber, partition, window, knife, dish, candle; as thrifty managers of time, for the days of the week; as lovers of reading and writing, for book, letter, script, literature, and author.* This many-sided influence did not mean absorption; no Romance language established itself in our islands; the British tongue held its own, thanks to mountain barriers and to the brave stand made by men like Caratacus ("Caractacus"), who not in name only was the forerunner of the Cradock who fell at Coronel in November 1914.

*The Welsh words are mur, pont, ffos, pabell; llong, rhwyf, porth, pysg, rhwyd, ffurfafen, cwmwl, tymor; fforch, ffust, melin; swllt; colofn, trawst, ystafell, pared, ffenestr, cyllell, dysgl, cannwyll; dydd Sul, dydd Llun, dydd Mawrth, &c.; llyfr, llythyr, ysgrif (also ysgrifennu 'to write'), llen (='what is read': llenyddiaeth is now the usual word for 'literature'), awdwr (this appears as author in English also). Further details may be found in J. E. Lloyd's History of Wales from the earliest times to the Edwardian Conquest and J. Morris Jones's Welsh Grammar, Historical and Descriptive: two standard Welsh works written in our day by Welshmen of classical upbringing.


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(b) EARLY VESTIGES OF GREEK.

The Welsh appear to have had no native alphabet or system of writing. We are told by Caesar that the Druids of Gaul used Greek characters, - derived doubtless from the Greek colony of Marseilles, - for purposes of business, but thought it wrong to commit their doctrines to writing.* In Britain the Roman alphabet was used for inscribing the primitive coins of the Britons; and even after the Roman occupation had ceased British tombs continued to bear Latin inscriptions. Whether Greek was effectively studied in the early Christian schools of Wales and Ireland is a disputed question on which light may well be thrown by further research.† The modern Welsh words for Christian, apostle, churchy bishop, monk,‡ were probably taken not direct from their Greek originals but through almost identical Latin forms. This may be said too of ysgol (schola), which is still used for 'school', as its compound Prifysgol is still used for 'University'.

(c) SAINT DAVID: GIRALDUS.

Saint David (Dewi Sant), the patron saint of Wales, is commonly supposed to have been born about 520. Welsh would be his mother tongue; Latin he would learn later. Of Greek his knowledge would be small, if any. In the twelfth century, we meet a Welsh ecclesiastic who certainly knew some Greek, though it may have been only a smattering. Giraldus Cambrensis (Giraldus de Barri: born about 1147) wrote his works in Latin, the world-language of the day.§ His acquaintance with Greek can be proved from Book I., chapter 8, of his Itinerarium Kambriae, and Book I., chapter 15, of his Descriptio Kambriae. He there refers to υδωρ, αλς, επτα, δεκα, and their congeners in the

*Caesar, Bell. Gall., VI. 14.

†At present the doubters are in the ascendant. Cp. Hugh Williams, Christianity in Early Britain, p. 452 (as to Gildas, in the sixth century) and L. Gougaud, Les Chretientes celtiques, p. 247 ("Ce n'est pas avant le neuvieme siecle que Ton rencontre parmi les Irlandais des hellenistes serieux.")

‡Cristion, apostol (Old Welsh abostol), eglwys, esgob, mynach.

§ His Liber de Invectionibus has just been edited for the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion by W. S. Davies, B.A., Senior Classical Master, Swansea Grammar School.


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British and other languages. At the end of his Description of Wales he records a prophecy made in the year 1163, which seven hundred years and more have not proved false. Welsh still holds its ground in Wales, where the vitality of the ancient tongue side by side with English is a distinctive and important factor in the problem of classical education now before us.

(d) Tudor Times.

In Tudor times Welshmen moved freely outside Wales and Great Britain, and thus learnt other languages while not forgetting their own. In London and elsewhere they tried to catch something of the spirit then breathing afresh from ancient Greece and Rome. Shakespeare, in the printing of whose plays Welshmen had a considerable share, has made one of his Welsh characters, Fluellen, keenly interested in 'the disciplines of the pristine wars of the Romans' and in the character and career of Alexander the Great. The original of Shakespeare's Fluellen seems beyond a doubt to be the Welsh soldier of fortune, Sir Roger Williams, who served with distinction in the armies of Henry of Navarre, as well as in those of Queen Elizabeth, and wrote 'A Briefe Discourse of Warre'. North's Plutarch may have helped Williams, as it helped Shakespeare. And surely Shakespeare had in mind a Welsh teacher of Latin at Stratford-on-Avon when he makes Sir Hugh Evans soften his final c as he declines hig, hag, hog; hung, hang, hog.

(e) WELSH TRANSLATIONS OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT.

The age of Elizabeth and of James was an age of translations. Of all Welsh translations from Greek or Latin that of the Greek Testament takes the first place. Among the early Welsh translators of the Bible was William Morgan (1588), afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph. William Morgan holds that special place in the regard of his countrymen which William Tyndale holds in England. Both men were good Grecians: Morgan had studied Greek at St. John's College, Cambridge; Tyndale at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and subsequently at Cambridge. The beautiful and idiomatic Welsh, or English, into which they rendered the Greek has affected all later versions and most later literature in the two countries. As the English Authorised Version of 1611 rests on Tyndale's rendering, so does the Welsh Authorised Version of 1620 rest on that of William Morgan.


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OTHER WELSH TRANSLATIONS.

Other translations from Greek or Latin into Welsh are to be found at various epochs. The Welsh Laws, attributed to King Howel the Good (Hywel Dda), are extant in both Welsh and Latin, and it has been disputed which text (neither is earlier than 200 years after Howel's death in 950) is the original and which the translation. The likelihood seems to be that the Latin text is a translation or adaptation, of a Welsh original. Translations or imitations of ancient classical literature belong to much later times, when schools and colleges had begun to make their influence felt in Wales. In the eighteenth century the poet Goronwy Owen (educated at Friars School. Bangor, and Jesus College, Oxford) imitated Horace and the verses attributed to Anacreon, while Edward Rhisiart wrote pastorals after the manner of Theocritus and Virgil. Welsh verse-translations from Homer were, in the nineteenth century, made by Lewis Edwards, and the Alcestis as a whole was rendered into Welsh verse by David Rowlands and David Edward Edwardes. In 1899 the late John Owen Jones, who had been one of the first students to enter the new University College opened at Bangor in 1884, brought out a volume containing Welsh prose translations from the works of 'the earliest historians of Wales', viz. Caesar, Tacitus, Gildas, Nennius, and Asser. The title of this book is O Lygad y Ffynnon, or From the Fountain-Head.

(f) EDUCATIONAL ORGANISATION.

(i) Grammar Schools.

We turn now from classical tastes and activities to educational organisation. In the last forty years of the sixteenth century and the first thirty of the seventeenth some twelve grammar schools were founded in various Welsh towns; the first being the Friars School at Bangor in 1557*, and the last the Ruaboii School in 1632. Greek and Latin were taught in these schools, and in one at least of them it was expressly provided that they should be treated as living languages. The statutes of Ruthin School were drawn up in the last quarter of the sixteenth century by its founder, Gabriel Goodman, Dean of Westminster, a Welsh- speaking native of Ruthin who, as we know from William

*Date of founder's will 1557; date of statutes 1568.


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Morgan's Latin preface, had helped him in his Welsh translation of the Bible. The statute in question runs: "Pupils admitted to the upper forms are to speak Latin or Greek in school."*

(ii) Growth of a larger System of Secondary Education.

These new Grammar Schools gave a sound education, but they were too few and their influence was too much confined to the towns and to members of the Established Church. For the mass of the Welsh people, especially in country districts, there was little or no education; and Griffith Jones, Vicar of Llanddowror in Carmarthenshire, is still held in honour as the founder, in 1730, of a system of "circulating schools". These peripatetic schools (for so they may be called, since the teachers literally "walked" from place to place, spending only a short period of each year in any one centre) taught many children and still more adults to read. Even more pervasive was the influence of the Methodist revival in the same century, which originating, as in England, within the Church, resulted in a separate religious organisation. If looked at only in its educational effect, the revival helped to make the Wales of 1830 altogether different from the Wales of 1730. Not only were Sunday Schools started by Thomas Charles of Bala, but theological seminaries were established for the training (in elementary classics and other subjects) of Nonconformist students for the ministry, excluded as these were by religious tests from Oxford or Cambridge and from the grammar schools of their own country. Within as well as without the Church the need for a more comprehensive scheme of secondary and University education was increasingly felt. By an Act passed in 1889 the co-ordination of Welsh secondary education was, to a large extent, secured, and many new Intermediate or County Schools have since been founded. The public provision for secondary education in Wales now comprises more than a hundred Intermediate Schools inspected and controlled by the Central Welsh Board. All the Intermediate Schools send in their pupils for the Senior and Higher Certificate Examinations of the Central Welsh Board, which correspond in scope and standard to the First and Second Examinations taken by English

*In classes superiores adscripti Latine aut Graece in schola loquuntor.


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Schools (see pp. 86, 91). All candidates for a Senior Certificate must accordingly offer at least one language other than English. Several of the newer schools and certain older endowed foundations, Brecon School and Llandovery College conspicuously, have often won open scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge. This practice will, we hope, continue and grow. Yet we must recognise that Welsh boys and girls will, in the main, be educated within Wales itself, in schools which so far have little or no classical tradition and in a University which is still young. Our good hopes for the Classics are based on such considerations as the aptitude which the Welsh have shown for languages, the fact that educational opportunities have till recently been few, especially in rural districts, the keen interest in humane studies and especially in the Greek Testament left behind by the Methodist revival, and the earnest desire of Welshmen to have an efficient and complete system of education in their own country.

(iii) University of Wales; Jesus College, Oxford.

The University of Wales (Prifysgol Cymru) received its Charter on St. Andrew's Day, 1893. It has been the slow birth of time, having been projected by Owen Glyndwr at the beginning of the fifteenth century (a few years before the oldest Scottish University, St. Andrews, was founded) and discussed between Oliver Cromwell and Richard Baxter in the seventeenth. In the meantime, the foundation of Jesus College, Oxford, in 1571, at the instance of Dr. Price, Treasurer of St. David's, marks an epoch in Welsh education. Many of the Scholarships and Fellowships were reserved for Welshmen; and the long and honourable connexion which the College has maintained with Wales, was signalised by the work of that distinguished scholar the late Sir John Rhys, its Principal, which contributed to the foundation of the national University. Here, as so often in England, the University College preceded the University, and it is noteworthy that in Wales much of the funds necessary for the foundation of the Colleges at Aberystwyth (founded 1872), Cardiff (1883), and Bangor (188i), was collected in very small sums from workpeople at the doors of churches and chapels far and wide over the Principality. The College at


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Swansea (1920) followed the establishment of the University.* We are the more anxious to lay stress at this point on the bond between Wales and Oxford as, in what follows, we must confine ourselves chiefly to classical education as related to the new University and to the new secondary schools from which it draws most of its students.

2. The Present Position.

(a) LATIN IN SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITY.

The witnesses who appeared before us from the Welsh Intermediate Schools and University Colleges were agreed that the present position of Latin in the Welsh educational system is, on the whole, satisfactory, whereas that of Greek is precarious in the extreme. They were also agreed that the co-existence in Wales of two home-languages is a very special element in the whole problem of language-teaching within the Principality. Latin, we were told, is holding its own and is a regular part of the curriculum in all the schools under the Central Welsh Board, though somewhat at a disadvantage owing to the lack of specialist teachers and to the late age of entry from the Elementary Schools, which appears to be normally about 12. It comes to some extent into competition with Welsh, and this competition may become serious in the future. On the other hand we were assured that though, where Welsh was taught, it meant the addition of another subject to the curriculum and consequently left less time for other languages, an able pupil who already spoke both Welsh and English was at au advantage when he began Latin and particularly when he began Greek. An un- fortunate movement, of which there are some signs, to make Latin no longer a necessary subject for the Arts Degree of the University of Wales, would certainly weaken its position in the schools, and that position would be still more seriously weakened if a candidate offering both Welsh and English in Group I. of the Senior Certificate Examination of the Central Welsh Board were to be allowed to obtain a certificate without offering any language in Group II.

*The six associated Theological Colleges of the University have their seats at Aberystwyth, Bala, Bangor, Brecon, Carmarthen, and Cardiff St. David's College, Lampeter, is a well-known educational institution (mainly theological) founded nearly a hundred years ago and not as yet directly connected with the University.


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(b) GREEK IN SCHOOLS.

The position of Greek in the Welsh schools is deplorable. Not more than six Welsh secondary schools, whether within or without the Intermediate system, teach Greek up to University scholarship standard. In 1920, 33 pupils took Greek in the Central Welsh Board's Examinations* out of a gross total of 21,932 boys or girls attending the schools concerned, of whom 6,183 took one or other of the examinations, but 16 of them offered it only for the Junior Certificate Examination. In 1919-20 there were recognised in the Intermediate Schools of Wales (Boys and Girls) the following Advanced Courses: in Science (including Mathematics), 18; in Modern Languages, 3; in Classics, 1 (Monmouth Grammar School). In 1920 there were in Wales only 5 classical candidates out of a total of 144 for 22 State scholarships open to candidates in all the above groups of subjects.

(c) TRANSFER: LATIN-GREEK TEACHERS.

The school provision for the advanced study of Greek might be improved, to a considerable extent, if a system of transfer such as we have already (pp. 12 seq.) described were established, so that pupils capable and desirous of learning Greek could be concentrated at centres adequately staffed for teaching it. Wales seems to lend itself excellently to such an experiment. There are a few schools in different parts of the Principality which have inherited or are building up a classical tradition. One of them - Swansea Grammar School - is situated in a region which already contains nearly one-half of the whole population of Wales and has an excellent system of communications. In many of the rural districts it would be necessary to establish boarding scholarships, though even there the railways following the river valleys, in which most of the centres of population lie, make travel easier than in many parts of England.† But more effective

*9 took Greek in the Higher Certificate Exam out of 525 examined.
8 took Greek in the Senior Certificate Exam out of 2,761 examined.
16 took Greek in the Junior Certificate Exam out of 2,897 examined.
33 took Greek in all Examinations out of 6,183 examined.

†A system of visiting teachers moving from school to school would also accord well with Welsh traditions.


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than transfer alone would be a requirement, such as exists in Scotland, that the principal school-teacher of Classics should have studied Greek as well as Latin at the University. The result of this provision for the supply of specialist teachers of Classics is that in Scotland there are over 150 schools in which an apt pupil can make a beginning in Greek.* In too many Welsh Intermediate schools, as in England, the teacher of Latin knows no Greek, with grievous loss to bis pupils, whether they begin the Greek language or not. This dearth of Greek teachers leads us to consider the position of classical education in the University of Wales.

(d) GREEK AS SEPARATED FROM LATIN IN THE UNIVERSITY, AND AS BEGUN THERE.

In the Pass Degree Courses of the University Latin can be studied apart from Greek. A large number of Arts Graduates have consequently taken Latin without any Greek at all, and often pursue their Latin for a single session only. Latin Honours can be taken without Greek Honours, though not without some knowledge of Greek as tested in the Pass Courses. We have already said that we must regard this break in the traditional association of Greek with Latin as regrettable, inevitable as it may be under present educational conditions. To begin Greek at the University is also, in our opinion, a second-best course imposed by what we must hope to be merely temporary necessities. Our desire is that Wales should in the future be able to secure for its best Latin pupils at least two years' school-study of Greek before they enter the University.

(e) SUPPLY OF TEACHERS.

In the evidence which he was good enough to tender to us one of our witnesses from a Welsh University College laid special stress on the insufficient supply of well qualified teachers of Greek and Latin and on the urgent need of increasing their

*The whole section (pp. 204 seq.) of our Report which treats of Schools and Universities in Scotland will, we feel, be found full of suggestion for Wales, and so will the brilliant part, glanced at on page 233, which Trinity College, Dublin, has during the last 70 years played in the advancement of Classical learning.


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number if, in the words of our reference, "the proper study of these subjects" is to be "maintained and improved". We share his view, and particularly in regard to Greek. Another witness, who was for many years Head Master of an important Grammar School which has sent many boys to Oxford and Cambridge as well as to the University of Wales, told us that the Welsh boy who does his Latin well does his Greek still better. He shows, we were assured, greater aptitude and desire for it; and, given relief from subjects alien to his own, he makes up for a late beginning by a remarkably rapid progress. We are, however, persuaded that there are, especially in the Welsh-speaking countryside, many boys and girls who never have a chance of developing their inborn powers and of discovering, with the old Roman poet, that each new language brings a new outlook with it.

(f) STUDY OF GREEK BY TEACHERS OF RELIGION.

For the abler pupils the early possession of two tongues, Welsh and English, is, as we have already said, regarded as a distinct advantage in the acquirement of others. We wish to indicate some ways in which Welsh bilingualism, and Welsh conditions and interests generally, may be made to advance the study of Greek and Latin and incidentally to supply some of the teachers needed in Wales and in England. We think first of the New Testament. Sunday by Sunday the New Testament is studied, in the fine Welsh version already mentioned, by pupils young and old attending the vigorous Sunday Schools attached alike to Church and Chapel. This study would be quickened greatly if clergymen, ministers, and laymen could have more often than now the chance of beginning Greek in the Welsh Secondary Schools, and were thus able to take, and to excite in others, an intelligent interest in points of interpretation raised by the various renderings, old and new. Welsh and English, of the Greek Testament. The revised English version of the Bible is much used in Wales. We hear also with interest that the Oxford University Press has just published a new Welsh version of St. Mark's Gospel, prepared in Wales by eight collaborators who have endeavoured to bring out the full meaning of the Greek in pure and idiomatic Welsh.


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(g) WELSH AS A HELP TO LATIN AND GREEK.

But there is another characteristic of the Welsh people which is hardly less important for our purpose. The bardic tradition, of which the modern Eisteddfod is a living embodiment, has kept alive in the nation as a whole a keen literary spirit. A Welshman bred in this tradition takes in language for its own sake a delight which is rare among other peoples, and is there- fore, more likely to be alive to the attractions of the classical languages and particularly Greek, with which indeed his own has some noteworthy similarities. Where the pupils are Welsh-speaking, we would take full advantage of this fact.* When Greek is taught to Welsh pupils, such parallels between the two languages should be pointed out as the flexibility of word-order; vestiges of dual, or of middle, forms; diminutives; verb-prefixes; two negatives; "accusative of respect"; "impersonal construction"; and in general a syntax which in its elaboration is nearer to Greek or Latin than to English or French. Again, the Welsh boy should not be taught to pronounce Greek after the traditional English fashion when his own Welsh instincts would in some respects bring him nearer to what we believe to be the original pronunciation, nor should he be denied practice in class-exercises which make a special appeal to him, such as taking down Greek by ear, reading Greek expressively himself, conversation in Greek, Greek verse-repetition, and retranslation into Greek from various languages including Welsh.

(h) ADULT EDUCATION. POPULAR INTEREST.

The study of the New Testament in Welsh Sunday Schools is, as we have pointed out, one of the chief ways in which a popular demand for good Greek teaching in the interest of learners, young and old, can be aroused. Other activities will help to win their due for both the classical languages. In South Wales Professor Gilbert Norwood has produced Greek plays, and they have attracted large audiences; he has also lectured with success to miners and quarrymen on characteristic features of Greek Drama and Greek History. In the summer of 1914

*Professor E. V, Arnold's Forum Latinum: a First Latin Book specifies throughout Welsh words which are derived from, or cognate with, the Latin words used in the book.


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Professor E. V. Arnold addressed members of the Workers' Educational Association at Bangor on "Trade Unions and Friendly Societies in the Roman Empire";* and in the same district Professor T. Hudson-Williams and Mr. D. Emrys Evans have given courses of Extension lectures, in Welsh and English, on various classical subjects. Such popular courses for adults might well be multiplied, together with Summer Schools and Conferences for Teachers. Other useful lines of effort will be suggested by Appendix J on the work of the Classical Association, of which there are now three Welsh Branches - at Aberystwyth, Bangor, and Cardiff. It is pleasant to note, as a token of growing popular interest in Greek and Latin, that prizes will be awarded, at this year's meeting of the National Eisteddfod to be held in Carnarvon, for (1) Detholiad o chwedloniaeth Roeg ar gyfer plant, or A Selection of Greek Mythology suitable for children, and (2) A translation from Latin into Welsh or English of the Record of Carnarvon. We could wish that some competent scholar would write in Welsh a short and readable sketch of the Graeco-Roman world for use in schools and elsewhere, and also a First Greek Book for Welsh beginners. A popular Welsh History of Greek Philosophy (Owen's Hanes Athroniaeth y Groegiaid) already exists. In reference to this book and its expected influence on adult Welsh readers Sir Henry Jones has written, "The debt of modern civilisation to the thought of Greece, and especially to its philosophical thought, is immeasurable, as every educated and intelligent man knows."

(j) CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.

At Carnarvon the Roman fort of Segontium is now being excavated under the supervision of Dr. R. E. M. Wheeler. Archaeological investigations of this kind are bound to excite popular interest and to lead to important historical conclusions. They should be extended all over Wales, which possesses some twenty unexplored Roman forts, placed from 15 to 25 miles apart and covering the chief strategic points in the entire country. In view of this large and important field of study, we submit for the consideration of the Welsh University Colleges that lectureships should be established in Classical Archaeology, and also

*Arnold's War-Time Lectures, 1916.


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(where separate provision has not already been made for this need) in Ancient History.* As we have elsewhere indicated, we attach great importance to archaeological study. It teaches respect for concrete fact, brings home the importance of seeming trifles, and serves as a laboratory for ancient history. At the same time, as embracing Art, it quickens the sense of beauty by introducing the learner to the sculpture and architecture of the ancients. The archaeological lectureships would probably be held by men who had studied at Rome or Athens, had learnt Italian or Modern Greek, and would be ready to report upon the latest discoveries made in those Mediterranean lands which are, like Pliny's Africa, always offering some new thing. The existing Research Fellowships of the University of Wales would help its best classical graduates to pursue a two years' course in the British School at Athens or Rome.† Short of this, the student who devotes himself to Roman Britain will wish to visit, in order that he may compare them with Welsh finds, various Gaulish and Germanic remains, or to see the forts in the North of England which correspond closely to those in Wales.

(h) CELTIC, IN RELATION TO CLASSICAL, STUDIES.

Such classical studies will fit in excellently with the new and comprehensive School of Celtic Studies now being organised by the University of Wales, and a sound knowledge of Latin is indispensable for advanced work in this field. In his masque For the Honour of Wales, Ben Jonson alludes to the Welsh as "great antiquaries". He is probably thinking of their love for their own national history and individual pedigrees. The School of Celtic Studies takes a wider range. It wishes to view the entire Celtic civilisation in reference to others, continental as well as insular, ancient as well as modern. This seems to us the right ideal. An education which, on the side of the humanities, confined itself to the Welsh and English languages and to British history would hardly give to Wales the wide vision that she seeks or keep sufficiently in mind the many ancient things which Europe has in common.

*At Cardiff we understand that the College has recently joined with the National Museum to appoint a Lecturer in Archeology.

†The University of Wales has, from the beginning, provided Research Fellowships which are open to graduates in all Faculties and have been attended by the most encouraging results.


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(l) LINGUISTIC STUDIES.

Few among Welsh scholars have made their mark in classical archaeology. Their special field has rather been comparative philology, based on a Celto-Classical foundation. Freeman has gone so far as to call Gerald of Wales the "father of comparative philology".* That designation was better deserved by Edward Llwyd (b.l660), of Jesus College, Oxford, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, and author of an elaborate treatise on the Celtic languages; or still better a century later by Sir William Jones, who was the grand- son of an Anglesey farmer, and who by his discovery and comparative study of Sanskrit laid the foundations of Indo-European Philology as known to-day. Sir William Jones's philological achievements rested on a sound classical training; imd this is true also, among scholars of our time, of Sir John Morris Jones and the late Sir John Rhys. The concurrent use in youth of two languages (each possessing various dialects) no doubt helps to make a comparative philologist or a phonetician of the Welshman.

(m) LITERARY STUDIES.

The value of classical study to Wales may be abundantly illustrated in the fields of archaeology and philology: it is even more vital in that of literature. We have indicated above in general outlines the influence which is exercised on education by the literatures of Greece and Rome: such influence may be of special moment and importance to Wales at the present time. For some years there has been among Welsh scholars a continuous movement towards the revival of a national literature; a movement fostered largely by the late Sir Owen Edwards and now spread through the length and breadth of the country. It has already borne fruit in the production of some remarkable lyric poetry and in drama of great ability and promise: it is being received with enthusiasm and shows every sign of further progress in the future. If it is to attain its full development it must, like other western literature, base itself largely on the Classics - it must learn the same lesson which England, France,

*E. A. Freeman, Norman Conquest, V, 579: cp. his Comparative Politics, p. 486.


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and Italy studied at the Renaissance, and the more so because, as we have stated elsewhere in this section, there is a close connexion between the Welsh language and the languages of Greece and Rome. The genius of the Welsh people, its love of beauty and its keen sense of scholarship are all pledges that the study of the Classics, if duly encouraged and supported, will permeate the whole course of its literature, and through this will enhance its contribution to the civilisation of western Europe.





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PART VIII.

Post-Graduate Professions.

There are three professions, Ministry in the Churches, Law and Medicine, which may be appropriately dealt with at this point, since though admission to them is not restricted to those who have taken a degree, they are entered by a large number of graduates and, generally speaking, not till the age of graduation is reached. But articles in a solicitor's office may be, and frequently are, taken up at a considerably earlier age, and the first Examination at any rate for the degree of M.B. is often passed before graduation.

1. LAW.

It is plain that for these professions a knowledge at least of Latin has a real vocational value. The Incorporated Law Society have recognised this by reducing the period of service under articles for graduates in Arts as well as in Law. They also require a Pass in Latin in their own Preliminary Examination and in any Examination exempting from it, except so far as they are otherwise directed by Act of Parliament. The Council of Legal Education require that Latin should be included in the Certificate of some at least of the Examinations which they recognise as qualifying for admission to an Inn of Court.

On the general question of the value of a classical training as a preparation for the legal profession we were furnished with memoranda from the late President of the Law Society and from the Chairman of its Legal Education Committee. Their view was that Latin combined in a marked degree the qualities of clearness and brevity of expression, and that consequently those who have studied it are better fitted for the practical work of a solicitor than those who have not. The same considerations apply equally to the other branch of the legal profession, for admission to which indeed some knowledge of Roman Law is definitely required.

2. MEDICINE.

The policy of the General Medical Council is a very clear illustration of the indirect result of a concession made by external bodies on general grounds but which, it may be presumed, was


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not intended to discourage the study of Latin by entrants to particular professions. Till 1916 all applicants for admission to the Register of Students of Medicine were required to pass an examination in which Latin was a compulsory subject. But in the early years of this century Latin ceased to be compulsory in the matriculation examinations at London and the northern Universities and in the Preliminary Examination of the Conjoint Board of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. The consequence was that large numbers of medical students either learnt Latin for the sole purpose of admission to the Register or did not seek admission to it at all. As the Council have no powers to insist on registration and the licence to practise medicine is not vested in their hands, the very existence of the Register was thereby imperilled. Accordingly, the Council, though with some reluctance, have adopted a compromise. They now accept for registration evidence of having passed an examination accepted by any University in the country for matriculation, whether Latin was included in the examination or not. The responsibility of maintaining a good standard of general education among the applicants for registration is therefore thrown upon the Universities. We think that the Council do well to lay on them the onus of determining how best to secure that a student of medicine has received in his general course of education a mental training sufficient to enable him to pursue with profit his professional studies, but we understand that many medical men regret that the result of this policy is that a knowledge of Latin can no longer be required.

3. THEOLOGY.

Greek and Latin are of course of the first importance for all students of Theology. We have, therefore, inquired how far the Theological Colleges find their work hampered by the inadequate knowledge possessed by the students who enter them.

(a) CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

The clergy of the Church of England are required by the Canon to be "learned in the Latin tongue", but by o resolution of Convocation a knowledge of Greek may be waived in the case of men who do not propose to proceed beyond the diaconate, though this resolution is seldom acted on. Till recently, all


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candidates for ordination were required to offer for examination a Gospel and Epistle in Greek and a short theological or historical treatise (e.g.^ of Augustine or Bede) in Latin. At the present time ex-Service candidates must offer special books of the New Testament either in Latin or in Greek, and other candidates these books in both languages. The concession to ex-Service candidates will eventually be withdrawn, but it is uncertain whether the patristic author will be substituted for the Latin New Testament book. For the moment, therefore, men are being ordained on their knowledge of Greek without any Latin.

Some of the Theological Colleges are attached to Universities and the students are encouraged to read for an Arts degree before proceeding to their theological studies. The bulk of the students in the Diocesan Colleges are already graduates. We had the advantage of the evidence of the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford on his experience as Principal of King's College, London. Many of the students enter King's College knowing no Latin or Greek, and take three years to reach the standard for ordination. They are all required to learn some Hebrew. Some of them take the London Intermediate Examination in Arts, offering classical Greek and Latin, and those who proceed to the London B.D. acquire a good knowledge of Greek. Our witnesses were, however, of opinion that, while a classical education was the best preparation for Holy Orders, other subjects should not be eliminated in favour of it. In particular, some training in science is desirable, and stress should be laid on modern and social history and on economics.

It is probable that in future the clergy of the Church of England will be drawn from schools of the Secondary type to a much greater extent' than has hitherto been common. Even at present the average standard of knowledge of Latin and Greek possessed by students in Anglican Theological Colleges, though they come largely from the Public schools and the older Universities, is not high. Anything therefore that affects prejudicially the teaching of Latin and Greek in either type of school will have serious results as regards the clerical profession as a whole.

(b) OTHER PROTESTANT CHURCHES.

The Principal of Mansfield College informed us that the number of applicants for entry to that College who knew no


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Greek is on the increase, and arrangements are consequently made by the College for teaching it from the beginning. A few come with no knowledge of Latin. All of them are graduates, often of the modern Universities, and most of them have been educated at Grammar or Municipal schools. The College course includes Hebrew as well as Latin and Greek, and consequently, unless students have at entry a fair knowledge of the last two languages, their ignorance is a very serious hindrance to their progress. Many of them, however, have been compelled to take to Science at school for lack of opportunity to study the Classics. We understand that the requirements at Hackney and New Colleges are somewhat less stringent than at Mansfield.

In the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland and England the great majority of applicants for admission to the Theological Halls are University Graduates in Arts. Those who have not taken a University degree or whose courses leading to their degree have not included Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Moral Philosophy, must pass an Entrance Examination on these subjects. The Scottish Churches have set to candidates for ordination an essay subject stated in Latin, and they are encouraged to write a Latin essay.

We have not investigated the requirements of the other Free Churches, but we understand that all alike find the work of preparation of candidates for the Ministry seriously hampered by their lack of adequate previous study of Latin and Greek, and that they regret the want of proper provision in the schools for teaching both languages.

It is worth noting that in some at any rate of the Free Churches the Ministry is open to women, and that this is there- fore one of the professions for which a classical training has for women a vocational value.

(c) THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

In the Roman Catholic Theological Schools the course covers seven years, of which three are given to Philosophy and four to Theology. Latin is an integral part of the course throughout and Greek is normally included, but is only actually required from students who have begun it at an earlier stage. It is probable that there is no difficulty in maintaining a good standard in


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Latin, as the students are for the most part drawn from Catholic Secondary Schools in which Latin is well taught. But it is worthy of notice that the Abbot of Downside, though insisting on the pre-eminent claims of Latin, deplored emphatically the disappearance of Greek from the school curriculum.

In Ireland, however, considerable stress is laid upon Greek for orders in the Catholic Church, and it has always been compulsory for admission to Maynooth College.

4. BUSINESS, INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE.

Passing now from the Classics as a preparation for the "learned" professions we propose to consider their value as a preparation for commerce and business.

There is a widespread belief that success in business depends on technical knowledge. It is thought that because an engineer in the full practice of his profession must know all about mechanics, a banker about the money market, a clerk about bookkeeping, that knowledge of other subjects contributes but little to their success. Technical knowledge is of course necessary, and in some professions, like engineering, it can only be acquired by comparatively early specialisation. We have, however, the unanimous testimony of witnesses occupying high positions in the world of commerce that these qualifications will in themselves carry a man only a very short way. In the higher branches of industry and commerce what is demanded is character, breadth of view, judgment, grasp of principle, and the power of clear thinking and clear expression. Modern business is a matter of immense complexity, and success in it depends largely on a man's power of dealing with his fellow men, whether as colleagues, competitors, or employees. In particular the business man is called upon every day, after having clearly thought out a problem, to express himself in speech or writing in terms of unmistakeable lucidity; the lack of this power has led in innumerable cases to difficulty and friction or to actual failure.

It is plain that many of these qualities are not the direct product of an education in science and mathematics but are inseparably bound up with the humanities. It might be supposed that for the purpose in hand they could be best obtained through an education in modern humanities. Our evidence, however, points emphatically in the opposite direction. It is not of course


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denied that Science, Mathematics, and Modern Languages are in various degrees essential in commerce and there is strong evidence of the injury that the country has suffered by neglect of them. But our witnesses testified to the value of the classical element in education in developing within the limits of a single branch of study the habit of clear thinking and lucid statement, the sense of perspective and discrimination, the faculty of sustained concentration, the combination of observation and judgment, and the power of initiative which are invaluable in business. We were also much struck by the argument of the importance to a business man of a sympathetic imagination and of the power to appreciate the point of view of those whose interests are different from or even antagonistic to his own. It is just because the circumstances of ancient life were so different from our own, though human nature has remained essentially unchanged, that the study of ancient history and literature can foster this insight and sympathy; in the literatures and history of modern foreign countries there is for this purpose too much that is common to our own.

The witnesses who supplied us with evidence were representative of engineering, shipping, scientific industry, commerce and banking. They were unanimous that a classical education, carried for some purposes even as far as the Honour schools of the Universities, was of the highest value, that premature specialisation was a fundamental mistake, and that from their point of view Classics should be included in all Secondary School curricula up to the age of 16 or 17. They quoted instances in which business firms were starting Continuation Schools on strictly non-vocational lines and even encouraging in them the study of Latin and Greek.

This evidence which, however important, could only cover a limited field of experience was supplemented by that of the Secretary of the Cambridge University Appointments Board. In his experience graduates in high classical Honours, provided that their interest was not too much concentrated on the linguistic side of their subject, often proved to have marked capacity for the administrative side of business, and he supported his opinion by particulars of the highly successful business careers of more than a hundred such men. If however, a man's natural ability was not really first-class, it was desirable for his success that his classical training should be supplemented by


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some special study of Economics, Modern Languages, Applied Science or other subjects, though such special study might well come at the end of his classical course.

A different point of view was put before us by a representative of the Appointments Department of the Ministry of Labour. He had found that", while many employers are anxious to take men who had had an education of the best type and believed that type to be the classical, there were some who desired their employees to have had the same kind of education as they had received themselves and who imagined that a man with a classical education would be deficient in "common sense", while he had no technical equipment to make up for that deficiency. We do not doubt that employers of this type are numerous, and indeed a successful business man who has never learnt either Latin or Greek can hardly be expected to appreciate the advantages of the training that can be derived from them. It is however just such prejudice that the weighty opinions we have quoted should be effective in overcoming.

For appointments in commercial houses, banks, &c., open to young persons of about the age of 16, we understand that the best employers in the great centres of industry lay more stress upon character and upon evidence of good education and general intelligence than upon any particular subject in the curriculum. We do not mean that a knowledge of bookkeeping or shorthand or commercial French counts for nothing, but that a candidate who has been at a school with a good local reputation for efficiency and who has a good school record will find no difficulty in obtaining a promising opening, even though ignorant of all these subjects. Some, however, of the leading banks attach definite value to the possession by applicants of a First Examination Certificate, and there are signs that its value is coming to be recognised in business circles generally.

We are justified, therefore, in concluding, on the evidence of those who are themselves at the head of great commercial undertakings and of those who are engaged in placing applicants in commercial houses, that those parents are making a great mistake who refuse to allow their children to learn Latin and Greek simply on the ground that other subjects will be more "useful" to them in business. Such parents, if their children show linguistic capacity, are really depriving them of one of their best chances of success. No doubt, if they are content that they should


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remain permanently in the technical and clerical branches of the business, other considerations come in: but if they are ambitious that they should rise to the higher administrative and directive posts, our evidence shows that a strong classical element in their education will foster in a high degree the qualities which such positions demand. Unfortunately too many parents are still inclined to "play for safety", and to prefer for their children an immediate and assured but relatively humble position to what they think to be a more uncertain chance. For no doubt a young man who enters a business at 20 or 25 with no technical training at all must generally begin at the bottom of the ladder and his initial salary may often be lower than that of a man of the same age who has been in the firm for some years. The true test is their relative position at 30 or 35.

5. JOURNALISM.

Finally we have considered the question of Classics as a preparation for Journalism. We have approached this subject with special interest, because the enormous and rapidly increasing influence of journalism makes the education of the journalist a matter of national importance. So far as it is the function of the journalist merely to disseminate news, no more is required of him than the faculty of collecting it - which in some circumstances may call into play qualities of a very high order - and of embodying it in attractive and lucid English. A training in the exact use of language, such as a classical element in education can best supply, should be of obvious value for this latter purpose. But the higher function of the journalist is to form reasoned views on public questions and endeavour to impress them upon his readers. To this end he must no doubt have a thorough knowledge of Modern History and Geography, and probably, according to the circumstances, of one or more Modern Languages. These things are essential for the proper understanding of the problems with which he deals. But he deals with them in reference to the first principles of politics and through the medium of language. If Latin and Greek provide an incomparable training in the exact and skilful use of language, it is plainly desirable that he should have studied these languages, and that with a thoroughness which can only be attained at the cost of much time and pains. We are not of course arguing that persuasive, logical and effective English cannot be written


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except by classical scholars, but merely that for most men the classical 'languages are the best instrument for acquiring the requisite skill and precision. On the other hand it is not too much to say that the first principles of politics can best be studied in the political history and the political philosophy of Greece and Rome. Almost all modern political, economic and social problems are found there in embryo, but in a form removed from the passionate atmosphere of modern party feeling. We were therefore not surprised to learn that, at any rate till recently, a large majority of the leader-writers on the great daily newspapers were classically trained and that in the opinion of one of our witnesses the utilitarian value of a classical education was far greater in journalism than in any other profession.




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PART IX.

Classics for those outside the Universities and Secondary Schools.

We have based the claim of the Classics to a secure and permanent position in the national system of education upon two main grounds: the unique contribution that a study of the language, literature, art and history of Greece and Rome can make to the moral, intellectual and aesthetic development of the individual, and the assistance that a knowledge of classical history and classical culture can give towards the solution of urgent modern problems. The question therefore arises how far their influence can be brought within the reach of those who do not pass through a Secondary School or a University, but who have an equal claim to anything that can promote their individual development and train them for the duties of citizenship.

1. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.

It might seem Utopian to suggest that the Classics can play any part in Elementary Education. But the fables of Greek mythology and stories of famous characters in classical history have been found excellent for young children of the Preparatory School age, and it is satisfactory to know that teaching of this kind is becoming increasingly common in Elementary Schools.* Further than this it will not generally be possible to go. But we were glad to hear that in London and Lancashire and elsewhere an experiment had been made of taking classes of Elementary School children to the local museums and giving them some ideas about ancient life. Some of the lectures were given by Elementary School teachers who had taken degrees at a University. This is an experiment which may well be imitated and be supplemented by visits to any Roman remains in the neighbourhood. The lessons in History, Scripture and Geography also provide opportunities which should not be neglected. The same general considerations apply as have been already been noted on p. 157.

*The Elementary School Code §2.7 states that the teaching of History in Elementary Schools need not be limited to English or British History.


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Such teaching will, of course, be greatly facilitated if the teachers themselves have some knowledge, at least of Latin. We earnestly hope that the time is not far distant when such knowledge may be regarded as part of the ordinary equipment of Elementary School teachers.

2. TECHNICAL SCHOOLS.

In Technical Schools of different grades, if subjects of general education are included in the curriculum, we think that opportunity should be given to suitable pupils to learn something of Ancient History and, if possible, the elements of Latin, aid some of our witnesses agree that this is a feasible proposal. That the opportunity should be given is the more important that there are certainly some pupils in the Junior Technical Schools who have good literary capacity.

3. CONTINUATION SCHOOLS.

The arrangements for the literary and general education of pupils in Continuation Schools have not yet taken a final shape. But two witnesses who had given much attention to the subject were desirous that opportunities should be provided here also, wherever possible, for the teaching of Latin and Ancient History. With this opinion we heartily concur. It will no doubt be necessary to create the demand, for pupils who are already wage-earners will naturally be interested mainly in subjects bearing on their occupations. We are confident however that the parents of pupils in Continuation Schools are, as a whole, much less biased in favour of purely utilitarian subjects than are many parents in other classes, and agencies like the Workers' Educational Association have done much to excite in them an interest in certain aspects of ancient civilisation and culture. It may be more difficult to convince the pupils themselves, with whom at that age and in the circumstances the choice must lie, but no opportunity should be lost of putting the subject in its most attractive form before their notice, and a single convert is likely to bring others in his train. We have evidence that the concentration of interest on utilitarian and even on economic subjects is causing anxiety to many of the workers themselves, who are eager to secure for suitable pupils a humane and literary education on the broadest basis.


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It is of the first importance that both in the Technical and the Continuation Schools a sharp look out should he kept for pupils who show promise of benefiting by education of a different kind, and that arrangements should be made for their transfer to other schools. This problem will, no doubt, be dealt with by the Local Education Authorities in their schemes under the new Act. Children who come from poor or illiterate homes and who have been dealt with in the large classes which are still common in the Elementary Schools often develop very late. No educational system can be satisfactory which, on a choice at an early age or on the result of a single examination, condemns a child definitely to a particular type of education. There is abundant evidence that an aptitude for the Classics is to be found among children from humble homes as among those of the more prosperous classes; the biography of many a distinguished scholar from Scotland proves this, nor are instances wanting from other parts of the Ignited Kingdom. Recent legislation should secure that more of such children get their chance.

4. ADULT EDUCATION.

The Act of 1918 contemplates the establishment of a national system of public education available for all persons capable of profiting thereby. Such a system must make pro- vision for the education of persona who are past the school age, and the Act may be taken to require Local Education Authorities to frame their schemes accordingly. The question of the pro- vision of opportunities for the Classics in adult education has become therefore of practical importance, not merely from its bearing on the education of individual students but because, if some part of the enthusiasm now largely concentrated on social and economic subjects can be extended to include the Classics, this will greatly strengthen their position in the schools. If the parents come to believe that Latin and Greek have a value which no other subjects possess, they will be eager that their children should learn them.

(a) THE WORKING MEN'S COLLEGE.

The earliest organised effort for the education of adults was the foundation of the Working Men's College by F. D. Maurice


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and others in 1854. At present it contains considerably over 1,000 students, about half of whom are engaged in manual and half in clerical occupations. Greek and Latin have always been taught, and in 1905 out of a total of 548 students 15 were learning Greek and 45 Latin. This proportion has hardly been maintained in later years.

The students are free under guidance to choose their own subjects. Many of them are naturally in the first instance interested only in questions bearing on their occupations, but we are assured that in the liberal atmosphere of the College their outlook is speedily broadened to include wider problems affecting larger groups of the human race over longer periods of time. The motives that induce them to learn Greek or Latin are various. In some cases they are no doubt purely vocational, as Latin is useful, e.g., for law clerks and chemists, though vocational considerations are excluded so far us possible from tho College syllabus. But some students have come to be genuinely interested in classical literature or in the light that classical history can throw on modern social and political problems. Another and very interesting class is that of the parents who desire to help their children's education. Generally speaking, however, the success of the classical courses depends on the manner in which the importance of the subject is brought home to the students by individual teachers and on the degree of sympathy which the teachers have with the workers' point of view. We earnestly hope that University graduates will continue to give these courses with the same devotion and success as in the past.

It is not the object of the College to turn out trained scholars in Classics or in any other subject, though as a matter of fact in English and History work of a high order has been done. The curriculum is not bound by any of those considerations which determine it elsewhere, and indeed, the co-operation of the students is sought in the choice of text-books and subjects. The principal aim in the classical teaching is that the students should acquire as early as possible a facility in reading Latin or Greek, and in this respect remarkable results have been achieved. We were even told of students who after one term's work wore able to read Tacitus. No effort is spared to create an academic atmosphere and a common corporate life, though the classes can only be held in the evenings. Some of the students continue


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members of the College for life and themselves become teachers in it.

We think that this is a very remarkable record or work successfully carried on for more than a half century and we were glad to learn that the membership of the College is now larger than over before.

(b) WORKERS' EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION.

If we say little about the Workers' Educational Association it is not from any want of appreciation of the great work that it is doing or of admiration for the devotion, skill and enthusiasm that has inspired it. From the nature of the case the students of the Tutorial Classes have been mainly interested in present social and economic questions, and in history and literature principally as illustrating them. But the discussion of such questions under the guidance of a tutor who is a graduate in Classical Honours cannot continue long without trenching on Greek political theory, and the interest of some students has been so keenly aroused that they have begun the study of the Greek language on their own account. A good deal of use, too, is made of translations of books like the Republic of Plato to gain some insight into Greek political and philosophical thought. We understood, however, that no classes have yet been held anywhere in the Greek language, and little interest appears to be taken in the literature and history of Rome.

The movement, though it has already extended far beyond the United Kingdom, is still only in its infancy. As it develops it will launch out in other directions, and many of its leaders are anxious to widen the scope of the studies pursued. It is inevitable that the last few years should have given a setback to literary subjects, and the desire for knowledge of the ancient world and in particular of ancient literature perhaps at the moment requires stimulating. But, in the words used by Mr. Mansbridge at a deputation to the Minister of Education, "It is not too much to say that there are to-day working people in all parts of the country who associate the name of Greece with the cause of humanism and who eagerly seize every opportunity of extending their acquaintance with classical civilisation; and this in spite of deep-rooted prejudice against a nation which had such a sharp division of the classes.


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All this will have its influence in shaping the form of education which working people desire for their children and will in time produce a widespread, if not intense, demand for the study of the classical languages."

It would probably be overstating the case to say that there is at the present moment a keen interest in Greek subjects as such, apart from the light that they throw on the problems of government and from a widespread feeling that a knowledge of Greek has been and still is denied to all but the children of the wealthier classes. But an Association inspired by so lofty an educational ideal will inevitably come to include some further teaching of Greek history and thought within its immediate practical aims, even though the claims of other subjects are exerting at the moment the greater pressure. We do not doubt that the leaders of the Tutorial Classes, most of whom are Greek scholars, are only waiting for their opportunity, which the "Summer Schools" may perhaps give.

Though, however, the members of the Association may come to desire the study of the Latin and Greek languages for their children, we cannot suppose that they will ever themselves undertake it in any considerable numbers. The learning of a highly inflected language which is no longer in conversational use is a task of almost insuperable difficulty for a grown man who knows no language other than his own.

Mention may here be made of the Adult School organisation, which includes nearly 1,800 schools and has a membership of about 80,000.* Its teaching, which was in the first instance chiefly concentrated on Biblical study, has now extended over a wide range of other subjects, literary, philosophical and sociological, in which it organises not only lectures but debates, study circles, &c. In one or two centres lectures on Greek Philosophy have been successfully given, and it would seem that there is still further opportunity in this direction.

5. UNIVERSITY EXTENSION.

The University Extension movement was formally inaugurated by Cambridge in 1873 and has since been adopted by most other Universities. The lectures given ordinarily include some on classical subjects, most frequently on History, Art and Archaeology, but it is seldom that actual instruction is given in

*See Report of the Committee on Adult Education, pp. 211-12.


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the Greek and Latin languages, though they have been taught successfully in London.

The most elaborate and complete organisation is perhaps that of London University, which awards Diplomas in History, Literature, in Economics and Social Science, and in the History of Art, on an examination following a four years' course. One year's work in Ancient History is required for the Diploma in History; and Ancient Literature and Ancient Art may be taken for the Diplomas in Literature and Art. Sessional Certificates in Honours are also awarded for essays, many of which have been on classical subjects and have been described as of real value as pieces of independent work. We are informed that in the years 1902 to 1920 the aggregate number of students attending lectures in classical subjects was 3,592, and the number of certificates awarded was 539. We were also furnished with a list of some 150 courses of lectures which had been given on classical subjects during the same period.

It will be seen therefore, that in London there is a very considerable demand for classical teaching through the medium of Extension Lectures and that it is very completely met. In the Oxford and Cambridge centres Classics would appear to be less popular, but such demand as there is for them is said to be fairly constant. In some other areas a demand is beginning to show itself.

We must not omit to mention the Summer meetings organised by the Oxford Delegacy and the Cambridge Syndicate, which are held for three or four weeks every year and have been attended by from 800 to 1,500 students. The lectures are grouped round a central subject: "the genius of Greece and its influence upon the Modern World" was the subject for 1915; "the place of Ancient Rome in the history of civilisation" will be that for 1921.

In all Extension Work opportunity is given for discussion and care is taken to guide the reading of the students. The students attending Extension lectures belong mostly to the professional and commercial classes and are over school age; it is therefore natural that they should prefer a broad and general treatment of wide subjects to the study of a language or the reading of texts. In this perhaps some danger lies, though every precaution is taken by discussions, weekly papers and terminal examinations to counteract it.


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It seems possible that some closer co-operation between the University Extension Authorities and the Workers' Educational Association might facilitate the introduction of Latin and Greek, or at least of Greek and Roman History, into the Tutorial Classes of the Association. It is rather extravagant that one set of organisations should be engaged in bringing ancient culture within the reach of adults of one class of the population and another within the reach of another class. But we have not enough information to know whether this co-operation is feasible, and we realise that the qualities which make a good Extension lecturer are different from those which make a good leader of a Tutorial Class.

6. ARMY EDUCATION.

Provision for adult education has hitherto been dealt with by the voluntary agencies already mentioned. But recently the Government itself has undertaken this responsibility as regards one section of the community. In August, 1919, the Secretary of State for War announced in the House of Commons that it had been decided that education was henceforward to be an integral part of Army training. The details of the Government scheme have since been published and it is already in operation. Besides provision for education of lower standards, a special certificate will be awarded on an examination which may include languages ancient and modern, and this certificate is accepted by most of the British Universities as exempting from matriculation and by several Professional Bodies as exempting from their Preliminary Examinations. It is not, of course, likely that many soldiers will offer Latin or Greek, but perhaps some will do so. Any necessary arrangements for teaching these languages will be made through the Officers of the newly constituted Army Educational Corps. It is encouraging that the Military Authorities, who cannot be said to have given special encouragement to Classics in the past as part of the preliminary training of officers, should now be placing opportunities for learning them within reach of the rank and file. Those who avail themselves of them are likely to desire on their discharge that the privilege which they have enjoyed themselves should be extended to other sections of the community and secured to their own children.


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CONCLUSION.

In the preceding pages we have to the best of our ability discharged the task laid upon us by our reference of inquiring into the position to be assigned to the Classics in the educational system of the United Kingdom and of advising as to the means by which the proper study of them may be maintained and improved. Other Committees have already reported or are reporting on the position to be assigned to English, to Modern Languages and to Natural Science. In all cases those responsible for the Reports have been specially interested in the teaching or promotion of the subjects on which they were commissioned to advise, and in all cases, our own included, it is inevitable that this interest should to some extent affect the conclusions reached and the recommendations to which these conclusions lead. Yet in comparing our own Report with its predecessors we are more impressed by their fundamental agreement than by their differences. All alike concur in holding that the subjects of which they respectively treat can contribute something to the welfare of the nation; all alike agree that other subjects than their own should find due place in our educational system, and that pupils who show special aptitude for any one subject should receive every encouragement and assistance to carry the study of it, at school or at the University, to the highest point which they are capable of attaining. None of us desire to impose the same time-table on all schools or believe that precisely the same curriculum is suitable for all pupils.

But it is with the Classics that we are specially concerned, and it is their place in the educational system of this country that we desire to vindicate. In this purpose we have been aided not only by the significance but by the variety of the evidence presented to us. As our inquiry proceeded we have found that there is no sphere of national activity, of national life and thought, which does not in some way touch the object that we have in view. Ancient thought is inwoven in the fabric of our modern life. In our political theory and principle, in the habits of mind and imagination which make the man of science, in the laws of thought which animate Philosophy and Theology, in the impulse, sympathies and apprehensions of the poet, in the wisdom and forethought of the administrator, the work, the aim and the spirit of Greece and Rome are vital to the highest development of our civilisation. That it would be a national disaster if classical


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studies were to disappear from our education or to be confined to a small class of the community is conceded by men of every school. It is not a matter which concerns our leaders alone. That which contributes to the development of the finest minds should not be denied to any of our people.

It is to this end that we have put forward the recommendations which will be found below. They are addressed on the one hand to the Board of Education and to Education Authorities, and on the other to those who have a yet more living contact, because more personal, with the youth of our country: the teachers in the schools and colleges and Universities of Great Britain and Ireland. Behind all these there stands, and has ever stood, a stronger power, the public opinion of the country, and to public opinion we have in the last resort to make our appeal. It is the task of the classical teacher to see that his pupils carry with them from school or University a sense of the meaning of Greece and Rome, of their influence on the history of the past and the life of the present. It is the task of everyone who has derived anything of training, of culture, of happiness from the study of classical learning to take a part in enlightening public opinion, and we believe enough in our subject and in our fellow-countrymen to be convinced that the endeavour will not be in vain. No one who has given serious attention to the matter can doubt that the economic, political, social and moral welfare of the community depend mainly on the development of a national system of education which, while securing for every child in the country the equipment necessary for playing his part amid the complex conditions of modern society, will also provide his leisure with ennobling occupation and his life with a spiritual ideal. And we would submit that in such an education the study of the literature, art, science, history and philosophy of Greece and Rome cannot be replaced by any other which in both respects is so comprehensive and so effectual.



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RECOMMENDATIONS.

The evidence that has been laid before us on the present position of Classics in the educational system of the United Kingdom shows that -

(1) In the Public Schools Greek and Latin occupy no preponderant or undue position.
(2) The position of Latin, though in some schools not discouraging, in others presents very disquieting features.
(3) In the majority of Secondary Schools Greek is not taught, or, where it is taught, is threatened with extinction.
The evidence points to the conclusion that the position of Latin needs strengthening and that steps should be taken to make the study of Greek accessible to every class of the community and to preserve it as an integral element in national education.

The measures taken should, in our opinion, be directed towards the attainment of three ends:-

(1) To secure for the Classics (Greek or Latin or both) at a sufficiently early stage a substantial position in the general education of pupils in Public and Secondary Schools.
(2) To provide full opportunity for all pupils with the requisite tastes and aptitudes to carry the study of both languages to the highest point which they are qualified to attain.
(3) To bring those (including adults) who are and must for good reason or of necessity remain ignorant of the classical languages into some contact with the classical spirit.
We have classified below under convenient heads the recommendations scattered up and down the foregoing Report, indicating the pages of the Report on which the more detailed of them are based. We wish, however, to make it quite clear that, wherever any recommendation touches on the function of the teacher as regards syllabus, time-table, curriculum, or method, our desire is that he should be secured all reasonable freedom in dealing either with the school as a whole or with a particular form or with individual pupils. Up to the stage of the First Examination both theoretical and practical considerations


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demand that the staple subjects of a general education should normally be common to all, though even here account should be taken of the circumstances and needs of individuals. Beyond that stage the largest possible measure of freedom should be allowed in the combination of subjects.

We recommend therefore -

I. GENERAL.

Page.

1. (a) That in all public examinations wherever Latin can at present be offered, it should be possible to offer Greek as an alternative subject.

(b) In all curricula of Secondary Schools and Universities where only Latin is at present allowed, Greek should, wherever possible, be allowed as an alternative.

2. That wherever it is impossible under existing conditions to introduce Greek into a curriculum, everything should be done to strengthen the position of Latin.

3. That since there is imminent danger of Greek failing to obtain a footing in a large number of Grant-earning Schools, or disappearing altogether from the curriculum of those in which it has hitherto been taught, the Board of Education should take the matter into immediate consideration, with a view to devising measures for remedying this defect.

4. That organised efforts should be made by Universities, museum authorities, literary and antiquarian societies, &c., to encourage in every way and in all parts of the country, as opportunity offers, a widespread interest among all classes of the community in ancient life and thought, and that it is desirable that the Board of Education and the Local Education Authorities should co-operate with them in this effort.

II. TRANSFER.

1. That Local Education Authorities should be urged to take steps to secure that in each area a school with a full classical course should be acces-


[page 271]

sible to all pupils in Secondary Schools in their area who are capable of profiting by it and where necessary to co-operate with Governing Bodies for the purpose of facilitating the transfer of such pupils, but that for the full advantage of transfer to be reaped, it should take place at an early age, and, if possible, not later than the pupil's fourteenth year

73 seq.

2. That those Schools (including Public Board- ing and Grammar Schools) which are natural centres for this purpose in any area or district should be specially urged to provide facilities for such transfer

76

3. That opportunity for the transfer of suitable pupils, who desire to change the direction of their studies, should also be provided:

(a) from Secondary Schools in which no Latin is taught to schools which teach Latin

60, 72 seq., 80

(b) from Technical and Continuation to Secondary Schools

260

4. That Head Masters and Head Mistresses of schools of all types should take all possible measures to secure that no pupil with the requisite tastes and aptitude is deprived of the opportunity of an education which will enable him to carry the study of Classics to the highest point of which he is capable

73

III. ADVANCED COURSES.

1. That for the existing system of three mutually exclusive Advanced Courses should be substituted the recognition by the Board of Education of advanced work in any combination of subjects approved by them; and that where in any School the advanced work so recognised involves the distribution of the pupils into several classes, the grant payable should be on a correspondingly higher scale

64 seq.

2. That if the existing system cannot be immediately abandoned, then for the present the Board should recognise Courses which include


[page 272]

Latin along with English or a modern foreign language as a main subject, and that Greek should similarly be allowed as a main subject in such Courses

71 seq., 77 seq.

3 (a) That the Regulations for Higher Certificate Examinations should, where necessary, be modified to conform to these recommendations; and

92

(b) That Latin and alternatively Greek should be allowed as subsidiary subjects in all but the Classical Group

92

IV. LOCAL EDUCATION AUTHORITIES.

1. That the fewest possible restrictions should be imposed on the tenure of Major County Scholarships, &c.

110

2. That all Local Education Authorities should publish lists of the endowments tenable at Universities and other places of higher instruction available for residents in their areas

110

V. FIRST EXAMINATIONS.

1. That the examination in Classics should include a paper on a "set book" wherever the Examining Body cannot satisfy itself that the study of continuous texts is a normal part of the school work

88

2. That, so far as possible, opportunity should be given for candidates to show a knowledge of the outlines of Greek and Roman History

88 seq.

3. That the requirements of the examination in other subjects should not be so exacting as to dis- courage the average candidate from offering at least Latin as well as one modern foreign language, and in particular that Natural Science, while it should be a regular part of the curriculum, should not be required as a compulsory subject in the examination

90

VI. PROFESSIONAL EXAMINATIONS.

1. That for admission to the Navy (by special entry), the Army, the Civil Service, and the Professions candidates should be required before taking any competitive examination to pass a School


[page 273]

Certificate Examination or another qualifying examination of the same standard

93

2. That the Civil Service Commissioners should be asked to reconsider their Regulations for admission to the Home Civil Service (Class 1.) and the Indian Civil Service in the light of the arguments adduced

195 seq.

3. That the forthcoming Regulations for admission to the Clerical Class of the Civil Service should allow candidates to offer two languages (ancient or modern) other than English

95 seq.

VII. STATE SCHOLARSHIPS.

That no "State Scholarship" should be restricted to Science, Mathematics or Modern Subjects to the exclusion of Classics

78

VIII. COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS AT OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

1. That, where the arrangements of the examinations permit, the same Essay and General Paper should be set to candidates in all subjects

101

2. That while it is undesirable that scholarships should be awarded on Classics and Modern History treated as of equal value, yet candidates for History Scholarships should be given an opportunity -

(a) to show a knowledge of Greek and Latin; and

(b) to substitute a paper on Ancient History for some part of the examination in Modern History

102 seq.

3. That steps should be taken to promote consultation and co-operation between school teachers and the electors to College Scholarships, with a view to harmonising as far as desirable the requirements of College Scholarship examinations and the schemes of education current in the schools

194

4. That neither the present total number of annual awards of Classical Scholarships nor the total sum of money annually available for Classical Scholarships should be diminished

105


[page 274]

5. That the present limit of age for election to an Entrance Scholarship should not be lowered

106

6. That an elected Scholar should be permitted to read for his degree in a subject other than that in which he was elected, as is now generally the rule

107

IX. CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIPS AT MODERN UNIVERSITIES.

1. That all possible steps should be taken to provide at the Modern Universities a larger supply of scholarships available for Classics

109

2. That those provided at Modern Universities should be designed to encourage pupils of schools in the area to proceed to the local University

181

X. CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIPS AT WOMEN'S COLLEGES AT OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

That all possible steps should be taken to provide at these Colleges a larger supply of scholarships available for Classics

110

XI. CURRICULUM AND ORGANISATION.

1. That as the foundation of all language study should be laid in English, some teaching of formal grammar is desirable in Elementary Schools

112 seq.

2. That the normal age for the entry of pupils to the Secondary School should be not later than 11

115 seq.

3. That (a) while French will normally be the first foreign language, liberty of experiment should be encouraged and Latin be begun first, where the responsible school authorities so desire; (b) a second language should not normally be begun by pupils under 12 till good progress has been made in the first

114, 115, 116


[page 275]

4. That Latin should be a normal subject of the curriculum for all pupils in Public and Secondary Schools, though exception may be made in the case of (a) individual pupils, (b) schools working under special conditions

118 seq.

5. That below the stage of the First Examination a daily lesson, or at least not less than four periods a week, should be allotted to the teaching of a foreign or classical language; and that the course should, wherever possible, extend over four years and never less than three

117, 118

6. That -

(a) the time now ordinarily allotted to Classics in the middle and lower forms of Public and Secondary Schools should not be further reduced

126 seq.

(b) the time allotted to the teaching of Classics in the middle and lower forms of many Girls' Schools should be substantially increased

127

XII. PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.

1. That the abler candidates should not be discouraged from offering Greek in the Common Entrance Examination

85

2. That while great importance should be attached to good work done by candidates for Entrance Scholarship Examinations to Public Schools in other subjects and especially in English, those of marked linguistic ability should be encouraged to offer both Greek and Latin in those Examinations

85 seq.

XIII. METHOD.

1. That -

(a) great stress should be laid on the subject-matter and the historical background of the texts read, though not to the prejudice of exact training in the language

139 seq.


[page 276]

(b) the opportunity should be taken, wherever possible, of giving the pupils some acquaintance with the main results of archaeological discovery; and that to this end (i) it is desirable that a member of the staff should have a competent knowledge of the subject; (ii) school libraries and museums should be suitably equipped; (iii) encouragement should be given to visits to museums, Roman sites, &c.; (iv) there should be organised co-operation between schools and Education and Museum authorities

163 seq.

2. That -
(a) while the "traditional" method of teaching the Classics has been amply justified by results, it should everywhere be strengthened, especially in the lower forms, by the use of oral methods

142 seq.

(b) the Direct Method, though in the early stages it has proved to be in many respects successful when employed by specially competent teachers, is not suitable for general adoption

144 seq.

3. That the teaching of grammar and syntax should be closely associated with the translation lessons, and in the early stages be restricted to the commonest forms and types

147

4. That simple prose composition (at least in Latin) should be taught as a regular subject up to the stage of the First Examination, but advanced composition, whether in prose or verse, only to pupils of definite linguistic ability

148 seq.

5. That the texts read in Upper Forms should, where possible, be chosen to illustrate one another

155

6. That the study of Ancient History should be associated with that of the corresponding literature, and include in Upper Forms social and economic history and some study of Mediterranean history and of the history of scientific thought

156 seq.


[page 277]

7. That, subject to the considerations stated in this Report, (a) more use might be made than at present in form work of translations of classical texts; (b) some knowledge of ancient thought and civilisation should be given by the use of translations to pupils who cannot study the originals

159 seq.

8. That since a large proportion of pupils in Public and Secondary Schools do not pursue the study of a classical language for a longer period than four years, terminating at about 16, the responsible authorities should devise for their benefit courses of study complete in themselves, though capable also of providing a solid foundation for more advanced classical studies.

168 seq.

XIV. TEACHERS.

1. That every encouragement should be given to prospective teachers by all Authorities concerned to go through a course of systematic preparation for their work; and in particular that students in Training Colleges, if they propose to become teachers of Classics, should have the opportunity of continuing their classical studies

133 seq.

2. That steps should be taken to secure that all teachers of Latin should have a knowledge of Greek

133

3. That the Teachers Superannuation Acts should be so administered and, if necessary, amended as further to facilitate the free interchange of teachers between schools of different types and in different areas

137

4. That time spent in post-graduate study and research should count as qualifying service in regard to salary scales, pensions, &c.

199

XV. UNIVERSITIES.

1. That -

(a) the Honours courses in Latin with subsidiary Greek established at some Modern Universities should be regarded only as a temporary expedient

183 seq.


[page 278]

(b) Classical Honours courses in Latin alone without Greek should not be instituted

184

2. That Latin should be retained or restored as a necessary subject in all Arts courses, but that Prose Composition should not be compulsory in Entrance Examinations

186

3. That steps should be taken -

(a) to establish separate Chairs of Latin, Greek, and Ancient History in all Universities where they do not already exist

186

(b) to provide in all Universities further endowments for Classical Research

187

(c) to establish diplomas in advanced Classical Scholarship at any University where qualified candidates are likely to be forthcoming

193

4. That the power of admitting occasional students to classical courses should be retained under proper safeguards.

XVI. THEOLOGICAL COLLEGES.

1. That the authorities of Theological Colleges of all Churches should use their influence to encourage the teaching of Classics, especially in the Secondary Schools

252 seq.

2. That ability to read the New Testament in the original should, when possible, be required of entrants to Theological Colleges

252 seq.

XVII. CONTINUATION SCHOOLS.

That opportunity should be given in Continuation Schools for instruction in Latin and Ancient History, and that those pupils who give evidence of aptitude for these subjects should have the opportunity of being transferred to Secondary Schools

260 seq.


[page 279]

XVIII. ADULT EDUCATION.

That the University Extension Authorities, the Workers' Educational Association, and other associations for adult education should further promote some definite study of Greek history and thought

261 seq.

The preceding Recommendations have in view the educational system of the United Kingdom as a whole, though the conditions prevailing in any one country may make modification desirable or necessary.

The Recommendations which follow have reference to conditions peculiar to Scotland, Ireland, or Wales respectively. Where they repeat recommendations already made, the Committee desire to lay emphasis on their special connexion with the circumstances of the country concerned.

XIX. SCOTLAND.

We recommend:

1. That it should be made possible for the Intermediate Course to be begun not later than the age of eleven, and that the course should be rendered much less rigid in character. In particular, we recommend that -

(a) the Scottish Education Department specifically encourage the teaching of a second foreign language, to be begun not less than one year after the first

214 seq.

(b) where more than one language other than English is taken, the requirements in Science and Drawing be considerably reduced

215

2. That with regard to the Post-Intermediate Course the term "Normal General Course" should be abandoned, and that a list should be published of all the Special Courses recognised from time to time by the Education Department

218


[page 280]

3. That with regard to the Leaving Certificate Examination -

(a) the present practice of setting only unseen passages in Latin and Greek should be abandoned

218

(b) a wide choice of prescribed books should be given and far greater importance should be attached to the literary and historical aspects of classical study

218

(c) the standard of the examination in Classics, and especially in Greek, should be considerably lowered, and the candidates' papers should be more strictly marked

219

4. That Latin (or alternatively Greek) should continue to be required from all candidates for admission to the Faculty of Arts

208

XX. IRELAND.

We recommend -

1. That the overlapping in the functions of the different Boards controlling Intermediate Education should not be permitted to continue

231

2. That in fixing the standard of salaries for Secondary teachers care should be taken not to drive students and teachers of capacity and promise to other professions or to other countries

233

3. That in the teaching of Classics the historical side should be regarded at every stage as of importance equally with the literary and linguistic, and that material aids should be adequately provided

233,234

4. That, with a special view to the provision of well qualified teachers for Schools, adequate endowment should be secured for teachers of Latin, Greek, and Ancient History and Archaeology in all Universities and University Colleges

234

XXI. WALES.

While welcoming the indications of the advanced school-study in Wales of scientific and mathematical subjects, we are convinced that Welsh linguistic gifts are altogether unworthily reflected


[page 281]

in the corresponding record of classical and modern language courses. It is, in our opinion, indefensible that in the new Welsh Secondary Schools, which serve pupils drawn from wide circles hardly reached before, ignorance of Greek should in effect be almost universally compulsory. With the loyalty of Wales to her best national characteristics we are in sympathy, but we feel that the deeper knowledge of other peoples, past and present, which comes through the channel of acquired languages would make her thought at once more national and more international.

We recommend:

1. That every effort be made to excite throughout Wales an interest in ancient life and thought by such means as the following: Welsh and English lectures for workers and the public at large on the literature, art and history of Greece and Rome, a more scholarly study of the New Testament in the Sunday School, performances of Greek plays in the original or in English and Welsh translations, excavations of Roman sites and the careful investigation of Roman remains generally, and Eisteddfod essays on classical subjects or translations in Welsh or English from classical authors

244 seq.

2. That in the Secondary Schools of Wales no arbitrary limit be set to the number of languages learnt by pupils possessing linguistic talent, and that a boy or girl thus gifted be everywhere afforded a chance of learning Latin and Greek, preferably through the provision in each educational district of at least one school offering regularly a complete classical course, or by a system of visiting teachers

241 seq.

3. That in the University of Wales -

(a) Latin be required for an Arts Degree

241

(b) the traditional association of Latin and Greek in a classical course be maintained to the utmost

243


[page 282]

(c) all possible steps be taken, as in Scotland, to send out students qualified to teach Greek as well as Latin in the Secondary Schools

243

(d) the establishment of separate Professor- ships in Greek and Latin and of independent Lectureships in Classical Archaeology (including Art) and in Ancient History be considered by the authorities concerned

246

(e) the best classical graduates of Wales be enabled by means of Research Fellow- ships or Travelling Studentships to pursue post-graduate studies at other seats of learning in the United Kingdom and abroad or at the British Schools in Rome and Athens

247



XXII. That the Board of Education, Local Education Authorities and the Educational Associations should be invited to take into consideration the four Reports on Science, Modern Languages, English and Classics, with a view to working out schemes based upon the elements of agreement in them

267

CREWE.
C. A. ALINGTON.
S. O. ANDREW.
M. DOROTHY BROCK.
HENRY BROWNE.
JOHN BURNET.
T. R. GLOVER.
W. H. HADOW.
K. JEX-BLAKE.
W. P. KER.
J. G. LEGGE.
R. W. LIVINGSTONE.
GEORGE A. MACMILLAN.
GILBERT MURRAY.
CYRIL NORWOOD.
W. RHYS ROBERTS.
CYRIL E. ROBINSON.
GEORGE ADAM SMITH.
A. N. WHITEHEAD.

CHR. COOKSON,
Secretary.
7th June 1921.


[page 283]

APPENDIX A.

The following Resolutions were passed at a Conference held on 26th January 1917 between the Sub-Committee on Education of the Board of Scientific Societies and the Council for Humanistic Studies. (See Education Scientific and Humane: a Report of the Proceedings of the Council for Humanistic Studies, edited by Frederic G. Kenyon, Chairman of the Council (Murray, 1917), pp. 20-22.)

1. The first object in education is the training of human beings in mind and character as citizens of a free country, and any technical preparation of boys and girls for a particular profession, occupation, or work must be consistent with this principle.

2. In all schools in which education is normally continued up to or beyond the age of 16, and in other schools so far as circumstances permit, the curriculum up to about the age of 16 should be general and not specialised; and in this curriculum there should be integrally represented English (language and literature), Languages and Literatures other than English, History, Geography, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Art, and Manual Training.

3. In the opinion of this Conference both Natural Science and Literary Subjects should be taught to all pupils below the age of 16.

4. In the case of students who stay at school beyond the age of 16 specialisation should be gradual and not complete.

5. In many schools of the older type more time is needed for instruction in Natural Science; and this time can often be obtained by economy in the time allotted to Classics, without detriment to the interests of classical education.

6. In many other schools more time is needed for instruction in Languages, History, and Geography; and it is essential in the interests of sound education that this time should be provided.

7. While it is probably impossible to provide instruction in both Latin and Greek in all Secondary Schools, provision should be made in every area for teaching in these subjects, so


[page 284]

that every boy and girl who is qualified to profit from them shall have the opportunity of receiving adequate instruction in them.

The Executive Committee of the Board of Scientific Societies, to whom these Resolutions were referred, amended Resolutions 2, 5, and 7, to run as follows:

2. In all schools in which education is normally continued up to or beyond the age of 16, and in other schools so far as circumstances permit, the curriculum up to about the age of 16 should be general and not specialised.

5. In many schools of the older type more time is needed for instruction in Natural Science; and this time can often be obtained by economy in the time allotted to Classics, with advantage to the best interests of education.

7. While it is impossible and undesirable to provide instruction in both Latin and Greek in all Secondary Schools, provision should be made in every area for teaching in these subjects.

APPENDIX B.

The number of Advanced Courses recognised in England and Wales since their establishment in 1917 has been:

The schools in which there was on 31st December 1920 an Advanced Course in Classics are:


[page 285]

They were distributed as follows:

Counties.

Bedfordshire.
Berkshire.
Cambridgeshire.
Devonshire.
Essex.
Herefordshire.
Hertfordshire.
Lancashire.
Rutland.
Shropshire.
Surrey.
Monmouthshire.




London (3).

County Boroughs.

Birmingham.
Bradford.
Bristol.
Croydon.
Gloucester.
Halifax.
Leeds.
Leicester.
Liverpool (2).
Manchester (3).
Nottingham.
Plymouth.
Sheffield.
Wakefield.
Wolverhampton.
Worcester.
York.



APPENDIX C.

Percentage of Number of Students reading for Classical Honours at the Colleges for Women at Oxford and Cambridge.


[page 286]

APPENDIX D.

Geographical Distribution of Secondary Schools in England returned as not teaching Latin.





[page 287]

APPENDIX E.

Statistics of Students of Classics in Modern Universities and University Colleges.

I. STATISTICS SUPPLIED IN ANSWER TO A QUESTIONNAIRE SENT OUT IN FEBRUARY 1920.


[page 288]

II. STATISTICS SUPPLIED BY PROFESSOR R. S. CONWAY, OF MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY

LATIN

[click on the image for a larger version]


[page 289]

GREEK

[click on the image for a larger version]


[page 290]

III. STATISTICS SUPPLIED BY PROFESSOR R. S. CONWAY OF THE GROWTH OF CLASSICAL STUDIES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF WALES SINCE THE GRANT OF ITS CHARTER IN 1894

Students studying Latin in a Degree Course

Students studying Greek (including Elementary Classes


[page 291]

APPENDIX F.

I. Number of Entrance Scholarships and Exhibitions awarded at the Women's Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge.

(It is understood that few, if any, of the Scholarships and Exhibitions are reserved for Classics.)

[click on the image for a larger version]


[page 292]

II. Previous Education of Students at Women's Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge.

[click on the image for a larger version]


[page 293]

APPENDIX G.

A. We asked the Head Masters of Winchester, Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Charterhouse, Cheltenham, Marlborough, and Wellington, as these are representative of different types of Public Schools, for permission to print the time-table for Classics at present in operation in their schools. We are much indebted to them for giving the permission.


[page 294]


[page 295]


[page 296]

B. Analysis of School Time-tables, showing the average number of School Periods a week allotted to Classics in those Secondary Schools from which returns were received.

The figures are calculated for Boys' Schools on a basis of 35 periods and for Girls' Schools an a basis of 25 periods a week, and give the average number of periods a week allotted to Classics in those forms in which it is taught, including the forms specialising in Classics. The periods, if any, allotted to Greek are included in the calculation.

The returns from the Girls' Schools have been adjusted to a basis of 25 periods a week, because many Girls' Schools do not hold a regular afternoon session.

*All these schools are known to have strong classical sides and the high average is chiefly due to the existence of a Classical Upper School in which a large proportion of the School periods is allotted to the three subjects of Latin, Greek and Ancient History. The proportion so allotted should be compared with the minimum of two-thirds of the total number of School periods which under the Board's Regulations must be allotted to the main subjects of an Advanced Course. In some cases it is specifically stated that the return is based solely on the time-table of the Classical side, that of the Modern side pupils, which would substantially reduce the average, being ignored.


[page 297]

APPENDIX H.

The following tables show the marks assigned to the subjects with which we are immediately concerned under the old and the new Regulations of the examination for Class I. Clerkships in the Home Civil Service:

A. UNDER THE OLD REGULATIONS.

Candidates could offer any of the scheduled subjects, provided that the maximum number of marks that could be obtained from the subjects chosen did not exceed 6,000. The scale of marks in the subjects in question was:

GREEK (not less than two subdivisions, of which one must be translation).
    Translation400
    Prose Composition200
    Verse Composition200
    Literature, &c.800
LATIN. (As for Greek.)
FRENCH, GERMAN AND ITALIAN:
    Translation, Composition and Conversation400
    History of the Language and Literature200
GREEK HISTORY500
ROMAN HISTORY500
ENGLISH HISTORY (either or both Sections might be taken)
    to A.D. 1485400
    A.D. 1485 to A.D. 1848400
GENERAL MODERN HISTORY500
LOGIC AND PSYCHOLOGY600
MORAL and METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY600
POLITICAL ECONOMY and ECONOMIC HISTORY600
POLITICAL SCIENCE500

B. UNDER THE NEW REGULATIONS.

The examination will include the following subjects:

(i) To be taken by all Candidates.

ESSAY100
ENGLISH100
PRESENT DAY. (Questions on contemporary subjects, social, economic and political)100
SCIENCE. (Questions on general principles, methods, and applications of Science, including Geography)100


[page 298]

TRANSLATION (from one of the following not taken in § (ii), viz. French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian Swedish, Danish, Russian; Latin being an option for those who take two modern languages in § (ii))100
A VIVA VOCE EXAMINATION300
Total800

(ii) Optional Subjects.

Candidates are allowed to take subjects in this Section up to a total of 1,000 marks.

LATIN, translation, and prose or verse composition200
ROMAN HISTORY and Latin Literature200
GREEK, translation, and prose or verse composition200
GREEK HISTORY and Literature200
FRENCH, translation, free composition, set composition and conversation200
FRENCH HISTORY and Literature200

GERMAN, ITALIAN, SPANISH, RUSSIAN:
The same scale as in French applies to the corresponding examinations in these languages.

In all these subjects the history and literature subjects associated with a language can only be taken by candidates who also offer themselves for examination in the language itself.

ENGLISH HISTORY to 1660 (social, economic, political and constitutional)200
BRITISH HISTORY, 1660-1914 (social, economic, political and constitutional)200
EUROPEAN HISTORY:
    either (i) 400 to 1494200
    or (ii) 1494 to 1763200
EUROPEAN HISTORY 1763 to 1914200
GENERAL ECONOMICS200
ECONOMIC HISTORY100
POLITICAL THEORY100
MORAL PHILOSOPHY100
METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY100
LOGIC100
PSYCHOLOGY100

Extra Numerum Subject. Candidates may take, in addition to the above, one of the translation papers of § (i) in a language not already taken by them in either section, not more than one of the Scandinavian languages nor more than one of the three, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, being offered by the same Candidate either in § (i) or extra numerum; for this 100 marks will be awarded, not included in the 800 of § (i) or the 1,000 of § (ii).


[page 299]

APPENDIX J.

THE CLASSICAL ASSOCIATIONS.

The Classical Association (England and Wales) has been in existence for seventeen years. It held its first General Meeting at Oxford in May 1904, and meets this year at Cambridge, with representative scholars from America taking part in the proceedings. Its present executive officers are:

PresidentDr. WALTER LEAF.
Chairman of CouncilSir FREDERIC KENYON.
TreasurerMr. E. NORMAN GARDINER.
SecretariesRev. G. C. RICHARDS, Oriel College, Oxford.
Prof. A. C. PEARSON, The University, Liverpool.
Chairman of Journals BoardProf. R. S. CONWAY.

Its District Branches, in the order of their foundation, are: Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Nottingham, London, Bristol, Northumberland and Durham, Cardiff, Leeds, Sheffield, Aberystwyth, Bangor, Kent, Oxford, and Cambridge; and it is in friendly alliance with the (classical Associations of Scotland, Ireland, Bombay, New South Wales, South Australia, and Victoria. The objects and scope of the Association are, in its own words, "to promote the development and maintain the well-being of classical studies, and in particular (a) to impress upon public opinion the claim of such studies to an eminent place in the national scheme of education; (b) to improve the practice of classical teaching by free discussion of its scope and methods; (c) to encourage investigations and call attention to new discoveries; (d) to create opportunities for friendly intercourse and co-operation among all lovers of classical learning in this country ... The Association appeals for support to all who are interested in the study of the Classics: to teachers and students and, not less, to all those who, though actively occupied in business, politics, or the work of the learned professions, retain their interest in the classical literatures and civilisations, and a belief in their


[page 300]

humanising influence ... Membership of the Association is open to all persons of either sex who are in sympathy with its objects."

The Association may fairly claim to have worked steadily towards the attainment of the objects thus set forth; but still more remains to be done year by year. The methods it has so far adopted can best be judged from its annual volumes of Proceedings. In these volumes the activities of the several Branches are also indicated; such as illustrated lectures (for schools, working men and the general public), printed papers, educational discussions (in concert, often, with the teachers of other subjects), reading circles, performances of Greek or Latin plays, excavations on Roman sites. The Association further publishes The Year's Work in Classical Studies, a survey of new books and papers for the use of classical teachers and students. Moreover it has, since the year 1910, maintained, with the friendly and generous co-operation of the Philological Societies of Oxford and Cambridge, the Classical Review and the Classical Quarterly. The Classical Review and the Classical Quarterly both appear normally in four numbers a year. The Review provides expert criticism of new books contributing in any way to classical study; articles on literary and educational aspects of the classics; short original articles and notes intended to interest the general reader as well as classical students; and brief summaries of the contents of similar journals in other countries. The Quarterly is a chief organ of British classical research, and its articles embody fresh knowledge of the thought, language, text, and interpretation of the Greek and Latin writers. The publication of these various volumes and journals has been continued throughout the war. We understand also that there is great pressure upon their space, and that the circulation of the Review and the Quarterly has recently risen in a marked degree.

The Classical Association has been widely recognised as representing the best opinion of all who are interested to any extent in classical study in this country. Recommendations which it has made have been often quoted or adopted by the Board of Education, and it is constantly consulted on practical questions relating to classical study by a great number of individuals and public bodies. For example, during the war it


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took a leading part in constituting the Council for Humanistic Studies; and, since then, in the foundation of the new popular journal of knowledge called Discovery. It has had no small influence on the methods and spirit of classical study throughout the country and the empire.

One of the best means of assuring, according to the terms of our reference, the position of the classics in the educational system of the United Kingdom would therefore appear to be that the membership of the Classical Association, and of its sister Associations in Scotland and Ireland whose aims and efforts are like its own, should be maintained and increased. Sir Archibald Geikie, then President of the Royal Society, was President of the Classical Association in 1910. A Fellow of the Royal Society, the late Professor L. C. Miall, once wrote "Every friend of learning rejoices to see what the Classical Association is doing to vivify studies which not many years ago seemed to be losing their hold on the attention of the English people."* Professor Miall was another of the many eminent men of science who have become members of the Association. Classical studies must look specially to the young in each successive generation for the ever-renewed life which his words suggest. The Association has now Branches at Oxford and Cambridge, as well as in all the seats of the newer Universities; and classical students everywhere should be urged to join these Branches, to continue their membership after graduation, and to subscribe to the Classical Journals. In active life they will find opportunities of advancing the classical cause as teachers, as members of School Governing Bodies and Local Education Authorities, and in many other ways. Concerted action between all friends of classical education would be easier if a Classical Institute were formed in London to serve as the headquarters of the Classical Association and other kindred societies. Here new books, current journals and photographs of recent discoveries, could be seen; standard works and lantern slides be obtained on loan; and joint action be taken to improve classical teaching and to spread in the country a knowledge of the meaning of Greece and Rome to the modern world.

*Classical Association Proceedings, Vol, VI. p. 48.


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The Classical Associations for Scotland and Ireland were founded in 1902 and 1908 respectively. They are smaller but not less active bodies working on the same lines. Their present officers are -

Scotland:

President - Professor John Burnet, LL.D.
Treasurer - Mr. P. McGlynn.
Secretary - Mr. G. T. Pringle, Hutcheson's Grammar School, Glasgow.
Ireland:
President - Professor P. Semple.
Treasurer - Professor R. A. H. Macalister, Litt.D.
Secretaries - Mr. E. H. Alton, Trinity College, Dublin; Mr. M. Tierney, University College, Dublin.





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APPENDIX K.

SCOTTISH UNIVERSITIES.

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SCOTTISH UNIVERSITIES - continued.

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APPENDIX L.

Leaving Certificate Examination of the Scottish Education Department.


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The increase m the number of schools presenting candidates in Greek, which went on up to 1906, is due to the admission of state-aided schools other than Higher Class Public Schools to the Examination. The drop in the number, which begins in 1907, is mainly due to the abolition of the Pupil Teacher system and the centralisation in certain schools of pupils intended for the teaching profession.

The decrease in the Higher Grade passes, which is noticeable since 1911, is attributable to the fact that the marks assigned to Greek in the Bursary Competition of the Universities were assimilated to those assigned to French, though nothing was done to ensure that the standard of the papers set in these subjects should be the same. As the schools can seldom give more than three years to Greek, this handicaps that subject unfairly, as explained in the body of the Report.




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APPENDIX M.

Statistics of Students of Classics in Irish Universities and University Colleges.

I. TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.

1. Attendances at Honour Lectures.

2. Award of Scholarships.

(Excluding non-Foundation Scholarships which are awarded to Women Students.)

3. Classical Moderatorships. (Honour Degrees.)


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II. OTHER UNIVERSITIES AND UNIVERSITY COLLEGES.