THE recent establishment of a modern side at Rugby is another proof that the movement in favour of a more liberal and varied system of public school education bas not lost any of its vitality. The upholders of the old classical curriculum would do well to note this significant event; for it seems probable that the other public schools will follow the example of Harrow and Rugby, and that we shall eventually see the reformers victorious all along the line. That this may be the result of the conflict must be the wish of all those who have realised the disastrous effects of the present classical monopoly. The unjust preponderance of classical teaching is fatal to all true progress in our schools, and the removal of this anomaly is one of the first objects to be aimed at.
For it is important to remark that the desire to establish modern sides need by no means imply any hostility to classical learning. It is not the study of Latin and Greek which has been found to be at fault, but the exclusive and tyrannical method under which that study has been conducted I would urge, therefore, the necessity of setting classical learning free from the false position in which it has long been placed, and of saving it from its so-called friends by a timely “disestablishment,” the object of which would be its perpetuation, and not its destruction. The classics have of late been brought into undeserved disrepute by being forced on a great many boys who ought to be learning other things, and by being taught in a manner which makes failure well-nigh inevitable. Those who are most strongly impressed with a sense of the great value of classical literature ought to be the first to join the party of reform. In the present article I wish to say a good word for classical learning, as distinguished from what is ordinarily known as a “classical education.”
Let us begin by finding out the cause of the present reaction in favour of modern studies. For centuries the votaries of the classics have had it all their own way. Why are they now being ousted from the privileged position they have so long enjoyed? It is because they have not really taught what they professed to teach, but have relied too much on the immemorial belief in the virtue of a classical education, whether that education be a real one or a sham. Very touching and very long-suffering has been the confidence reposed by the English nation in the representatives of classical learning. We all remember how powerfully Mr. Tulliver was impressed by the reported accomplishments of the tutor recommended for his son, the “thoroughly educated man,” who was “at no loss to take up any branch of education.” But when it is found that a boy may remain several years at school without acquiring any apparent knowledge of Latin or Greek, it must eventually dawn on the parental mind that something has gone wrong. Tutors and friends may suggest the charitable supposition that in some mysterious and invisible manner the boy has “improved his mind,” and, though he has not actually learnt anything, has been “learning how to learn.” Yet, after all, this consolatory theory is very far from being satisfactory or self-evident. It may have passed muster in former times, but it will not do nowadays, when the British parent expects some practical results from the money expended on his son’s education. Hence it is constantly happening that when an elder son has been initiated into the classical mysteries, and has come out with no more definite acquisition than an “improved mind,” the disgusted parent determines to send his younger boys to a modern school. It is impossible to deny that there is already a widespread distrust of classical education, and that this feeling is always on the increase. It finds expression in the sentiment so constantly heard, that modern studies are much “more useful” than classics.
On the one hand, then, we have the assertion of the classicists, unsupported by any definite evidence, that the old classical system affords the best mental training; on the other hand, modern studies are very commonly recommended on the ground of their superior utility. Which party are we to believe? It seems to me that there is serious error on both sides, and that the essential points on this educational question are in considerable danger of being overlooked. The classical apologists seem to forget that the object of instruction is that the pupil may learn, and that it is idle to take refuge in farfetched pleas of “improving the mind” and “learning how to learn,” unless there is some practical sign of substantial progress. The average school-boy devotes five or six years to the study of Latin and Greek, and at the end of that time is found to be almost a stranger to those languages. When those who are responsible for this state of affairs are called to account, having no practical results to point to, they are compelled to advance a fallacious reason—a mere after-thought, in fact—in justification of their system, and to argue that their object was to subject the boy to a severe mental exercise, and not to teach him to read the classics with facility. By thus degrading classical learning to a fruitless drudgery they play into the hands of the advocates of modern studies, and by the palpable uselessness of their own method enhance the apparent utility of the modern one. I say the apparent utility, for there is a great fallacy underlying the common assertion about the superior usefulness of modern studies. In what sense are modern languages more “useful” than the classics? To some people, no doubt, a knowledge of French and German, mathematics and science, as the case may be, is of the very highest professional value, or even necessity; yet from a purely educational and intellectual point of view it is at least as beneficial, and therefore as useful, to study the classical masterpieces as anything else.1 Is it of no use to read Homer and Virgil? Even the most zealous opponent of the present classical method would hesitate to say that. The truth is that all subjects which are in themselves worth studying are useful, in the best sense of the word, for the purposes of education. Classics, as at present taught (i.e. not taught at all, unless the word “teaching” is to be understood in a very elastic and Pickwickian sense), are undoubtedly less useful than modern studies, in which some sort of progress is looked for and exacted, but they are not necessarily inferior in utility. Once let classical teachers grasp the fact that progress is a vital feature of successful education, and they will be well able to hold their own against the rivalry of modern studies. But to effect this, I believe that two reforms will be found inevitable.
First, it will be advisable not to inflict the study of classics on all boys in our public schools, since many find more congenial occupation in French, German, and the various modern subjects. Secondly, those who still continue to learn Latin and Greek must be taught by improved methods, so as to ensure some practical result. But before discussing remedies it may be well to say a little more on the subject of the disease. Mr. Cornish, in his interesting article on “Eton Reform,”2 I very truly remarks, “There must, one would think, be something wrong in the methods of teaching.” He suggests that the cause of failure may be found in the recent tendency to substitute strict grammatical accuracy and “Attic usage” for the more literary, though less exact, teaching of a quarter of a century ago. That Mr. Cornish is here touching on the root of the evil, viz. the attempt to turn ordinary school-boys into commentators and grammarians, I fully believe, but I cannot help thinking that this unhappy method of instruction is of a less recent date than he seems to imply. This sacrifice of the end to the means, this exaltation of the instrument at the expense of the object of education, has long been the bane of our public schools, and is not the result of any recent importation from a Cambridge lecture room. Sydney Smith, in his essay on education, published over seventy years ago, brought all the force of his ridicule to bear on this same absurdity:-
“The epithet of scholar is reserved for him who writes on the Æolic reduplication, and is familiar with the Sylburgian method of arranging defectives in ω and μ. The picture which a young Englishman addicted to the pursuit of knowledge draws—his beau idéal of human nature, his top and consummation of man’s powers—is a knowledge of the Greek language. His object is not to reason, to imagine, or to invent; but to conjugate, decline, and derive. . . . . Scholars have come, in process of time, to love not the filbert but the shell; not what may be read in Greek, but Greek itself. It is not so much the man who has mastered the wisdom of the ancients that is valued, as he who displays his knowledge of the vehicle in which that wisdom is conveyed.”—Too much Latin and Greek, pp. 191, 192.
Such was the classical system in 1809, and if there has been a change since then, I believe it has been for the better. But a glance at the methods of instruction even now in vogue at our public schools will show that there is still need of a very real and drastic reform, unless classical learning is to be finally smothered and done to death by the dead, dull weight of lexicon and grammar. The ordinary curriculum may be conveniently considered under the following heads:—
(1) Construing.—Here we find that, as if despairing of the possibility of any rational interest and intelligent grasp of the subject, classical teachers have confined their efforts almost entirely to verbal and textual criticism. A “lesson” of Homer or Virgil, or whatever the subject matter may be, both in its preparation and performance, is, in nine cases out of ten, a deplorable record of wasted time and energy. .The vast majority of school-boys are quite unable to “make sense” of the passages set before them, consequently, all that can be exacted from them is practically no more than to look out some unknown words in their lexicon or dictionary. This manual task of thumbing a detested school-book—a sort of educational oakum-picking—they perform with more or less diligence, according to the character of each individual, but with a singular uniformity of result. The lesson is then gone through in the class-room, where the unfortunate students, instead of being enabled to realise the true meaning and significance of the literature which they are supposed to be reading, are bewildered still further by the introduction of various perplexing and arbitrary rules of grammar and syntax, an ordeal from which, like the Northern Farmer, they “come away” in a state of mental stupor and stolid resignation. They have not learned anything, neither have they “learned how to learn”; on the contrary, they have been impressed with the idea that all such learning is unattainable, for, as Sydney Smith remarks, “the boy who is lexicon-struck in early youth looks upon all books afterwards with horror, and goes over to the blockheads.”
(2) Repetition.—This supplementary and subordinate, but nevertheless most valuable, branch of education, is rendered almost useless in the classical routine, because its success is dependent on that of construing. If boys do not understand the sense of a Latin author it is of but little use to attempt to make them learn the words like a parrot. School-boys’ memories are seldom very tenacious, and when the passages which they are invited to repeat are, to them, meaningless, the struggle becomes almost hopeless, and had better be abandoned at once. Under proper conditions repetition might be as pleasant and helpful as it is now wearisome and fruitless.
(3) Grammar.—All that is said of the excellence of grammar as a vehicle of education may theoretically be true, yet in practical dealing with ordinary boys I believe the excessive amount of grammatical teaching does far more harm than good. In studying grammar, as in every other pursuit, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. We have all heard how a grocer, to check the untimely appetite of a new shop-boy, purposely regales him at the outset of his career with a surfeit of sugar-candy. One would think that classical teachers had a similar object in view, and that they wished to fill their pupils from the very beginning with a disgust for everything connected with Latin and Greek, so studiously do they tease, and bully, and bewilder them with all the complexities of accidence and syntax. To this process they have given the name, in bitter mockery one would imagine, of grounding, and certainly the boy who is thus treated is, in one very significant sense, “grounded,” “floored,” “grassed,” and laid low at the very commencement of his educational training. He is so effectually grounded that he is not very likely to get up again, but is content to grope and grovel in darkness through the many intricacies of “Parry’s Greek Grammar” and the “Public School Latin Primer,” or some of the numerous grammatical school-books which learned men unhappily persist in compiling.3 Grammar, if it is to be taught successfully, should be kept in the background until the pupil has some knowledge of vocabulary and idiom; then, and not till then, the study of grammar can be introduced in a rational and profitable manner. It is almost equally important that the books employed should be short, simple, and popular in the extreme. Exactly the contrary system to this prevails in most public schools, where grammar is taught at a period when it can be nothing else than meaningless, and through the medium of books which are models of pedantry and circumlocution.
(4) Composition.—This, too, is a cause of much trouble and lamentation to the unfortunate school-boy, who, in nine cases out of ten, is naturally incapable of learning to write Latin, still less Greek. It may be rash to assert that any study, however misguided, is absolutely and entirely useless, because, by the beneficence of nature, every sort of mental occupation seems to yield some small grains of profit; yet, surely, this “composition,” as it is grandiloquently called, is the nearest approach of anything hitherto discovered to sheer, downright waste of time. Still worse than that, it is positively mischievous, for, like grammar, it has a most disheartening effect on the minds of those who are compelled to labour at it in vain.
Even in the case of really clever boys it is not difficult to see that their time might be far better employed in other branches of learning than in this most precarious and unprofitable pursuit. “ Versification in a dead language,” wrote Lord Macaulay, “is an exotic, a far-fetched, costly, sickly imitation of that which elsewhere may be found in healthful and spontaneous perfection.” This is true, not only of versification, but also of prose writing, and, indeed, of all those niceties and elegances of composition, the ignes fatui of education which have lured so many a benighted school-boy into a veritable slough of despond and hatred of everything intellectual.
This, in plain words, is the state of the case as regards a large majority of English school-boys. They are taught for several years, at the time of life when their minds are most impressionable and docile, to construe, say by heart, parse, and compose, the classic languages of Greece and Rome; and when they leave school they are still conspicuously destitute of these accomplishments. A few clever boys, of course, meet with some success; though, when one considers the large amount of time devoted to a classical education, there seems to be little room, even here, for congratulation. But with ordinary boys, of whom I am now speaking, the result is certainly deplorable; the more so, because many of those who are at present forced into the groove of classics might stand a far better chance of making progress if they were allowed some latitude in the choice of their studies.4 Antiquated methods of teaching, and a total disregard of individual tastes, have lowered classical learning to the level of a dull and dreary task. If it is not to be allowed to fall gradually into total discredit and disuse, we shall be compelled to have recourse to the two remedies which I have already mentioned, and of which I may now proceed to speak.
The following is a copy of a report written by one of my late colleagues at Eton, on the work of a boy then in the middle division of Fifth Form:—“He knows no Latin and Greek, and never will. He seems a good honest lad, behaves very well, is punctual, so I do not grumble at him, but pity him for being put down to learn ancient languages, to him an impossibility.” Comment is needless.
First, we must not claim the right of making the classics compulsory on all school-boys; we must let go those who are incapable and those who are unwilling. Such was the wise plan of Leonidas before the battle of Thermopylæ; and such must be our principle of action if we hope to defend our time-honoured camp against the imminent attacks of the barbarians. When the very existence of classical learning is at stake, it is no time to weaken our own resources and to play into the hands of our opponents by filling our lines with malcontents. In other words, we must do our best towards furthering, instead of opposing, the establishment of “modern sides.” I am aware that the attempts already made in this direction have not been invariably successful, and that some experienced teachers dislike this system of dividing a school into two portions, viz. classical and modern, on account of the loss of unity and completeness. Mr. Cornish has advocated, in preference to a modern side, a system of “bifurcation,” under which the bulk of the teaching would be the same for all the boys, though at certain fixed hours they would part company, some studying Greek, others German. If this can be arranged without involving too great a complexity of organisation, I do not see why it should not effect .all that is required; and educational reformers need not rigidly insist on the adoption of any one remedy to the exclusion of others, since they are enamoured not of the mere name of “modern side,” but of the general principle thereby indicated. It is worth remarking, in passing, that if the members of the “German branch” are to continue to do their Latin lessons in company with their classical school-fellows, there will be an increased necessity of improved methods of instruction in this part of their training; for nobody who is supposed to be having a modern education can possibly find time to study Latin in the manner at present in vogue, with its full accompaniments of grammar and composition. That, however, appears to be a matter of detail, the main object that we desire to secure being this: that any boy may be able to drop the study of Greek (and, I should be inclined to add, Latin also) and substitute that of modern languages and science. Those who are most devoted to classical learning ought to welcome heartily the prospect of some such reform, which would rid them of their present encumbrances, and give them a free field for proving that Latin and Greek are really first-rate subjects of education—a contention which, if we are to judge by results, it must be confessed they have not hitherto demonstrated very satisfactorily.
Secondly, it is at least equally important that where the classics continue to be taught at all, they should be taught effectually. Improved methods are an absolute necessity, if we wish to do justice to classical literature. Life is short, and in all other human enterprises the value of time is well-nigh universally recognised; yet, where Latin and Greek are concerned, schoolmasters seem inclined to forget that we are not immortal. “There is no royal road to knowledge,” they say, and forthwith plunge their unfortunate pupils into a “seven years’ war” of grammatical drudgery, an unequal and dispiriting contest between a sulky boy on the one side and an interminable array of nouns, pronouns, verbs, particles, augments, reduplications, accents, and what not, on the other. Now, it is true that in every branch of education difficulties must inevitably arise, and that these difficulties must be fairly met and mastered; but this surely is no reason for deliberately increasing the number of obstacles that beset the path of a youthful scholar, as is the case in the present public school system, as if the object were to create difficulties rather than to overcome them. Let us avoid cant in this matter, and trust a little more confidently to the touchstone of common sense. A school-boy has only a limited time to devote to the study of Latin and Greek, and it is, therefore, the paramount duty of his teachers to turn that time to good account. What would be thought of a teacher of modern languages if his pupils could not read an easy French sentence? or of a mathematical master if his class were puzzled by a rule-of-three sum? In classics only do we tolerate such a spectacle as that of a number of boys unable to read or translate the authors with whom they are supposed to be conversant. I would strongly urge the desirability of altogether discontinuing the study of Latin and Greek composition in the ordinary curriculum, and of postponing the teaching of grammar until the pupil is so far advanced as to be able to read an easy text-book with some facility. This, to my mind, would be a far truer and sounder method or “grounding” a pupil than that which is at present in favour; for it would at least insure some substantial basis of knowledge to which the refinements of “scholarship,” if deemed desirable, might be afterwards added.5 But it may here be asked, how is a boy to be taught this elementary knowledge of Latin and Greek idiom? Under the present system of preparing lessons by the extremely laborious process of word-hunting in a dictionary, boys can only be taken through a very small portion of an author in a school time, and seldom succeed in getting a clear and connected view of the subject, or an accurate knowledge of the text. By what “improved method” are we to effect a result which to the ordinary school-boy has hitherto proved unattainable? I reply by the “Hamiltonian system”—a term which possibly requires some further elucidation. “Hamilton’s Method of Teaching Languages,” which formed the subject of an essay by Sydney Smith,6 was based upon the use of interlineal translations instead of grammar and dictionary. Through the enormous saving of time and labour thus effected, the pupil is enabled to go over far more ground, acquire a far more extensive vocabulary, and grasp the meaning of the Latin or Greek far more thoroughly than is possible at English public schools. The object of the system is, in fact, to teach the ancient languages by a modern and rational method; and this, as I have attempted to show, is precisely what has now become necessary, if we hope to preserve the study of classical learning, and to prevent Latin and Greek from becoming “dead languages” in an unpleasantly literal sense. The prejudice that exists against “cribs” on the part of public school teachers is, I know, very strong, and not wholly unreasonable. A translation is, of course, a very bad thing for a young boy, unless he is taught how to use it; still more so when he can only study it furtively, and when the translation happens, as is usually the case, to be a villanously bad one. No wonder that under these circumstances a “crib” is a contraband article in all public schools, to be seized and confiscated whenever detected by the vigilance of the master, or betrayed by the awkwardness of the boy. It may chance that a backward boy construes his Virgil on some particular occasion with unwonted and suspicious fluency. “Did you learn that lesson with a translation?” inquires the tutor. “No, sir,” replies the boy. “Run and fetch it,” continues the master, well versed in this kind of controversy, and in a few minutes the boy produces a well-thumbed volume of Mr. Bohn’s educational series. All this is perhaps unavoidable as long as the present manner of teaching prevails; but it should not blind us to the fact that, though a bad translation may deserve to be condemned, a good one is an extremely valuable instrument of education. If schoolmasters, instead of troubling themselves to appropriate the worthless “cribs” that at present circulate among their pupils, would arrange for the authorised use, under proper supervision, of really good translations, they would soon find signs of unwonted progress in their class. Instead of stumbling helplessly through a very few lines of the school-book, and forgetting them as soon as read, the boys would be able to prepare five or six times as much in amount, and would understand it infinitely better. They would grasp the sense and proportions of a classical book, instead of puzzling themselves in vain over grammatical trivialities; in short, the whole process would be changed from dull and disheartening drudgery into a pleasant and rational labour. Nor need there be any fear that by relieving our pupils of the most irksome part of their present work, we shall be taking away a valuable stimulus to mental exertion, and so weaken their intellectual powers; for it would be always easy to set them, as an occasional exercise, to translate unseen passages without the use of a translation, though the bulk of their reading would still be carried on in the Hamiltonian method. When some considerable progress had been made, the study of grammar might be introduced; repetition would certainly be found a very valuable adjunct; and, in exceptional cases, composition might also be taught, but it would be best to treat this as an extra and voluntary study, a “curiosity of literature,” rather the a material part of education.
If some such system as that which I have just sketched out were adopted in our public schools, I believe we should find that classical learning would be able to hold its own in fair rivalry with modern studies. The classical students would not be obliged to devote nearly the whole of their time to that particular branch of study, as used to be the case; but they would be able to give proper attention to history, geography, mathematics, and certain other subjects which at present fare but indifferently. It is true that many educational reformers advocate the entire disuse of Greek in the ordinary school curriculum, and certainly the wretchedness of present results would quite justify such a course. Personally, I confess I should be sorry to see Greek altogether drop out, especially if Latin still continued to be taught in the old, reckless way; for I believe that the two languages might be acquired, under a rational method, in less time than is now sacrificed to getting a smattering of either. But, after all the question of the use or disuse of Greek is one of detail rather than principle, the essential points which I have tried to enforce being these—that we must cease to claim for classical learning more than its due share of attention, but, at the same time, must do it the justice of teaching it in a way which does not preclude all possibility of success. The Universities might do much towards a successful solution of the difficulty if they would cease to make classical subjects obligatory in any of their examinations, and thereby pave the way for a general adoption of modern sides, or some similar arrangement, in the public schools; while head-masters, in their turn, might render invaluable service to the cause of education by the introduction of simpler and more sensible methods of teaching Latin and Greek.
I fear it is undeniable that this latter reform is much less certain to be carried out than the former. That the demand for the just recognition of modern studies will somehow or other be satisfied is now beyond all doubt, and may be regarded as merely a question of time; but one cannot feel equally confident that the classics will ever be taught rationally and successfully, although the very existence of classical learning may depend upon this being done. Would that the upholders of the old system could realise the fact that their position is now a critical one, and that instead of insisting on the full retention of ancient privileges, they would do wisely to secure a safe retreat while they can! The old classical coach lumbers bravely on its course; but it is sadly over-weighted and top-heavy, and the wolfish pack of modern studies is gathering closely in the rear. If anything is to be preserved, something must evidently be sacrificed. What can we best afford to cast out? “Nothing!” cry the headmasters in chorus. “We carry nothing that is not absolutely necessary to a gentleman’s education.” It would be wiser, I think, if they could bring themselves to throw away that particularly heavy portion of their baggage which consists of grammar, gradus, and lexicon; a sacrifice which would not only materially lighten their time-honoured vehicle, but would also provide their importunate pursuers with very substantial matter for rumination and delay.
1 Mr. Marindin, in his article on “Eton in ’85,” published in the Fortnightly Review last May, claims a practical utility for the study of Greek which I fear is hardly borne out by the facts of the case. His idea of “the average sixth-form boy” landing at the Piræus, and at once utilising his Greek learning by reading the newspapers and conversing with the natives, is ingenious, but scarcely convincing. One begins to wonder if it is not Lord Macaulay’s schoolboy, rather than Mr. Marindin’s, of whom we are speaking. And the tragic fate of the ship-wrecked monkey, when, in answer to the dolphin who was bearing him to shore, be pretended to a knowledge of the Piræus beyond that which he really possessed, should be a warning in this particular.
2 Nineteenth Century, Oct. I885, p. 591
3 The publication of a new “Eton Latin Grammar” marks the latest addition to the educational chamber of horrors—a resurrection which is not likely to be very welcome to those masters of preparatory schools who will be compelled to use it as well as the ordinary text-books.
4 It may be objected that at many public schools French and other “modern subjects” are taught, side by side with the old classical system. This is nominally tile case, but practically it is hardly worth considering; as, unless an equivalent amount of classics be dropped, the modern subjects must necessarily be a mere smattering. If they are seriously enforced, the impossibility of teaching so many things at once furnishes another strong argument for the establishment of a modern side.
5 “If grammar ought to be taught at any time, it must be to one that can speak the language already; how else can he be taught the grammar of it?”—Locke on Education.
6 Edinburgh Review, 1826.
H. S. Salt
The Gentleman’s Magazine, January to June 1886, pp. 135-146