The case for Latin in secondary schools

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THE CASE FOR LATIN
!N SECONDARY SCHOOLS

BY J. W. MACKAIL

PRESIDENT OF THE CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

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I

THE CASE FOR LATIN IN
SECONDARY SCHOOLS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

LATIN LITERATURE

THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER
Translated into English Verse

Vol. I (Books i— viii)

Vol. II (Books ix— xvi)

Vol. Ill (Books xvii — xxiv)

All Rights Reserved

• « « ♦ ^» 94

THE CASE FOR LATIN
IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

BY J. W. MACKAIL

PRESIDENT OF THB CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1922

THE CASE FOR LATIN IN
SECONDARY SCHOOLS

This pamphlet is meant to set out, briefly and
simply, for the use not merely of those engaged in
organising, carrying on, and improving the work of
national education, but of ordinary people, and
particularly of parents, the case for Latin in Secondary
Schools ; that is to say, in schools which, as defined
by the Board of Education,^ offer a course of general
education suitable for pupils of an age-range extending
from 12 to 17 at least.

Three points should first be stated, and must be
borne in mind in order to make the scope of what
follows clear :

1. What is dealt with here is the case for Latin.
The case for Greek is a different thing, and is not
dealt with here : it would only confuse the issue.
For the same reason, the substitution of Greek for
Latin as a subject in the Secondary School course,
an experiment which has been advocated in some
quarters, and has here and there been tried, is not
discussed. '* The classics " in the ordinary use of
the term mean Latin and Greek, and therefore that
term will not be used at all except where it occurs
in quotations.

2. What is dealt with is Latin in Secondary Schools ;
not in Universities and Colleges, or in other organisa-

* Regulations for Secondary Schools, Chapter I, Articles i and 2.

5

J502J n

6 THE CASE FOR LATIN

tions for the pursuit of study by those who have left
school.

3. Secondary Schools are schools both for boys
and for girls. How far assimilation of curriculum as
between boys' and girls' schools should be carried,
and whether it is not in fact carried too far, are
questions of great importance, on which there is
much difference of opinion ; but they fall quite
beyond the scope of this discussion. Where the word
" boy " is used here, it is to be understood as meaning
" boy or girl " in so far as the education of boys and
girls is organised on the same lines and follows in
substance the same curriculum. It is taken for
granted that, with both sexes alike, the object aimed
at by education is equipment and preparation for a
life of full citizenship.

I. THE CASE IN SUMMARY

The case for Latin in Secondary Schools may be put
shortly thus :

X. What a Secondary School should provide
for its pupils is a large human education, its
object being so to develop and discipline their
faculties that they can be used to the best
purpose, for themselves and for the community.

2. Latin is an element of high value in such
an education ; and without Latin, however good
it may be, it is not as good as it might be.

3. Latin therefore ought not only to be placed
within the reach of those pupils who for special
reasons want to learn it, but to be an element
in the course which the whole body of the pupils
normally pursue.

IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 7

4. That this ought to be done means that it
can be done.

This is the case which is developed more fully in the
following pages.

II. THE FUNCTION OF THE SECONDARY

SCHOOL

Secondary Schools are the pivot of education.
Where our national system failed until a generation
ago was that, where there ought to have been the
pivot, there was a gap. Before the Industrial Revo-
lution, there had been a coherent system so far as it
went ; but it only applied to the small proportion
of the nation who had opportunity of access to it,
or who were able and willing to pay for it. More
than fifty years ago, the idea of an educated nation
was created. By a series of Acts of Parliament
from 1870 onwards, free elementary education was
provided for all children, and the duty of making
their children receive it was imposed on all parents.
During the same period, large provision was made for
advanced education by the foundation of Provincial
Universities, Colleges, Technical Institutes, and the
like. But it was not until the beginning of the present
century that we began to plan out and provide a
system of Secondary Schools. Towards this pro-
vision, all the material available in the way of existing
schools was utilised. But in order to be recognised
as Secondary Schools by the State, both existing and
newly founded schools had to provide for all their
pupils (as well as physical and manual training,
music, drawing, and for girls, needlework and some
elements of housecraft) a course which included (i)
English Language and Literature, (2) at least one

8 THE CASE FOR LATIN

language other than Enghsh, (3) Geography and
History, (4) Mathematics, (5) Natural Science.^

What was meant to be secured was a due combina-
tion for the pupils of the two sides of education
which are called (for fault of better words) humanistic
and scientific. The purpose was to lay broad and
solid foundations for full citizenship, by making the
pupils able to express themselves in speaking and
writing and to understand the spoken and written
language of others ; by giving them some knowledge
of the world on which they live and of what has
happened in it ; and by initiating them into the
processes and laws of nature. Throughout, the
object aimed at was not only to impart knowledge,
but to create the love of knowledge ; to train intelli-
gence ; to quicken and enlarge interest ; and to
develop the imagination by which knowledge is
made living and fruitful.

HI. CONFLICTING CLAIMS

Between the so-called humanistic and the so-called
scientific subjects there is no real opposition. The
conflict between their claims which was once acute
has now almost ceased to exist. It is recognised
that both are alike essential to a well-ordered educa-
tion, and not only so, but that each is the comple-
ment of the other and reinforces its value. All the
dispute that now arises is as to the amount of time
to be allotted to one or the other out of a total
number of school-hours, which tends for various
reasons to diminish. Geography and History are

1 Regulations for Secondary Schools, Chapter II, Articles 7-9. That
chapter also allows certain modifications, in particular cases, of the
general rules laid down.

IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 9

subjects which may be called either humanistic or
scientific, and which ought to be both. Even for
language teaching, scientific method is indispensable.
But in the field of the humanities another rivalry
has arisen, particularly as regards that part of the
field which is concerned with languages. It is here
that the place to be assigned to Latin comes into
question.

IV. LANGUAGE

Language, and what is expressed in language, is,
from a strictly practical point of view, the most
important of all the subjects of education. Language
is the vehicle of all thought, and the motive force
towards all concerted action. Without it, we should
be helpless ; without an adequate mastery of it,
we are almost powerless ; without appreciation of it,
we are cut off from the highest pleasures of the
mind. Language is in the first place an art, and one
which we all have to practise. It is in the second
place an instrument, and one which we all have to
use. It is in the third place a key, which opens to
us the doors of all knowledge, and enables us to
enter into the whole inheritance of our race.

English is our mother tongue : English literature
is our common heritage. To be able to speak and
write English so as to express our meaning clearly
and exactly, to be able to read English intelligently
and appreciatively, is the first object in our education.
But it is generally agreed that language teaching in
Secondary Schools should not be confined to English
unless in quite exceptional cases. In fact, we hardly
call anyone an educated man or woman who has no
knowledge of any language beyond the mother-
tongue. Partly, this is a matter of practical useful-

10 THE CASE FOR LATIN

ness. Many, though not most, people will have
occasion to use, and some will be obliged to use, one
or more foreign languages in the ordinary course of
their grown-up life. Not to have the power of
speaking and writing, and still more, not to have the
power of understanding, any other language than our
own is therefore a distinct loss ; and French, as the
most important for many purposes of other European
languages, is as a matter of fact taught in practically
all our Secondary Schools. But there is another
reason, of still more importance. It is this : that
^the feeling for language as such, and the power of
using our own language accurately and effectively,
are both immensely increased by knowing more
languages than one. Indeed, to get a grasp of the
principles of all language and a full control of our
own, it is very desirable to learn not only one but
two languages besides Enghsh. Latin has special
claims to be one of these.

V. THE IMPORTANCE OF LATIN FOR ENGLISH

English is a language of mixed origins, an alloy
made up out of several elements. The Latin element
in it is not only very large in amount, but of great
importance in giving it its quality. It has been
estimated that of the 100,000 words or thereabouts
in the current English vocabulary, no less than 60,000
are of Latin origin, as against 30,000 purely Enghsh,
and 10,000 derived from other foreign sources.*
The Latin element in English literature is of corre-
sponding importance. It was by receiving and
assimilating the Latin influence that English grew
from a provincial dialect into a world-language, from

* West, Revised English Grammar, p. 15.

IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS ii

an insular into a universal literature. The structure
of English prose is in substance that wrought out
and given permanent form by the great Roman
writers. English poetry, from Chaucer down to our
own day, has likewise developed under the direct, as
well as the indirectly transmitted, influence of the
Latin poets who created a standard and left a model
for the civiHsed world. To gain any historical grasp
of English language and Hterature, Latin is admittedly
necessary. Even in famihar daily usage, our speech
has embedded in it scores of Latin words and phrases
which have become almost parts of the English
language. Further, Latin by its logical precision is
invaluable towards forming a habit of clear thought,
and towards enabling people not only to think clearly,
but to express their thought accurately, in English.
The claims of Latin to a place in schools are often,
and quite reasonably, urged on the ground that it
is the common source from which French, Italian,
and Spanish are derived, and that accordingly a
knowledge of Latin puts one in the way of learning
these languages, or any one of them, quicker and
better. That is so. But it is still more important
to realise that for the study and mastery of English
alone, Latin is all but indispensable.

VI. THE FALLACY OF COMPULSION

Objection is raised to Latin as a subject of the
normal course in Secondary Schools on the plea that
Latin should not be compulsory, and that this would
give Latin some sort of privilege or monopoly. The
word " compulsory " is invidious, and is meant to be
so. What is claimed here for Latin is, not that it
should be compulsory, but that it is essential. No

12 THE CASE FOR LATIN

monopoly, no special privilege, is claimed for it :
it stands on its merits. The case for it is, that it
is of such high educational value for all kinds of
pupils as not merely to justify, but to call for, a place
in the curriculum followed by the school as a whole,
up to the point at which the pupils can properly
begin to specialise. The contention that Latin is a
proper and useful subject for pupils who have a turn
for it, but not for the majority who have not a turn
for it, is specious. But it involves the dangerous
fallacy that education is not a discipUne, but should
follow the line of least resistance ; it means premature
specialisation in its most insidious form. The Modern
Languages Committee's Report ^ lays down that those
pupils who ** elect and are permitted " to learn Latin
should be pupils of marked capacity for languages ;
as if the whole object of a Secondary School were not
to develop and train this capacity, among others,
in the whole body of its pupils. " For good Latin,"
that Report goes on to say, " a considerable sacrifice
is not too great ; for bad Latin even a small sacrifice
would be excessive." No doubt : but what is the
relevance of this truism ? and why confine it to
Latin ? The notion of " sacrifice " must be obliter-
ated before the Secondary School fulfils its aim and
function. Where we are convinced that any subject,
whether humanistic or scientific or both, is of essential
value towards large reahsation of human capacity,
towards opening the doors widely upon the world of
people and things and fitting the boy or girl to
proceed into it, we shall not speak of that subject
as compulsory, except as we may speak of compulsory
light and air, or of compulsory health.

1 Report, paragraph ii6

IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 13

VII. THE ALLEGED UNDUE PREDOMINANCE
OF LATIN

The belief that " the dead languages ** dominate
education in England lingers here and there ; it
must be mentioned, in order to set the facts in their
true light. It is said, with truth but with httle
relevance, that under the old PubHc School tradition
boys spent nearly all their time at school, from early
childhood, on Latin and Greek. But that tradition
is a thing of the past. Even in schools like Eton
and Winchester, where the classical tradition is
strongest, only about one-third of the school hours
are allotted to Latin and Greek except in those top
Forms which specialise on Latin and Greek, as other
Forms do on Mathematics, or Science, or History, or
Modern Languages.^ The complaint, so far as facts
justify it, only applies to Preparatory Schools which
are run as nurseries for the Public Schools. In some
of these it may still be true that " the main business
of life is the Latin Grammar." ' But in the great
mass of the Secondary Schools, Latin, so far from
being unduly dominant, has a very precarious footing.
In a good many of them, there is no provision for it
at all, and no teacher capable of teaching it ; in the
large majority, it is only an alternative subject,
with little time allotted to it, taken by a few pupils,
and even by them often dropped before any sub-
stantial progress has been made with it. But the
same people who, from ignorance or prejudice, assert
that Latin bulks too largely in the course of educa-
tion given in Secondary Schools, often go much
farther. They say that Latin has no place in a

* Prime Minister's Committee's Report on the Classics, Appendix G.

* Sir R. Rodd, Speech at the formation of the Parents' Association,
February 14, 1922.

14 THE CASE FOR LATIN

practical education ; that it cannot be learned
without injury to other and more important sub-
jects ; that it is neither necessary nor desirable
except for the few pupils who will specialise in it, and
continue its study after they leave school ; and that
for the vast majority of pupils a little Latin is useless,
and enough to be useful is impossible. These are the
claims or assertions, sometimes expressly made,
sometimes implied or taken for granted, which must
be examined.

VI I L PRACTICAL EDUCATION

Most parents would say that what they want for
their children is a good practical education. But
few of them have ever really tried to think what this
is. They are ready enough to complain that their
children are taught useless subjects ; but if pressed
to explain, they cannot say what it is they mean,
still less what it is they want. They are apt to forget
that the object of school is not to produce a " finished
article " for the market, but to train and bring out
capacity ; to form the habit of steady work, the
sense of accuracy, the desire and respect for know-
ledge ; to teach the love of learning and the way to
learn.

" Practical " means bearing on practice — ^that is
to say, on the conduct of life. Part of the conduct
of life is abihty to make a living by doing productive
work, or taking part in the machinery of an industrial
and commercial community. But another part, as
important, is to live interestedly and intelligently ;
to understand things ; to know what is good and
prefer it to what is bad. Unfortunately the word
*' practical " is often used in quite a different sense.

IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 15

and subjects are called practical which have, or are
thought to have, some immediate cash return, by
enabling the boy or girl to become a wage-earner
sooner or at better pay. The result has often been
that, for the sake of this immediate return, or rather
on the chance of it, education has been sterilised.
It has failed to bring up citizens ; it has turned out
low-grade machines for doing low-grade work. The
three R's are practical, because in a civilised com-
munity they all have to be practised daily by every-
body. Outside of them, the only practical subjects
of a school course, in the real sense, are those which
make the pupils into better human beings, develop
their intelligence and character, make life richer and
more interesting for them, teach them to value and
understand themselves, their fellow-men, and the
world in which they live. They are practical in the
measure to which they do this. As Mr. G. Sampson
very truly says in his plea for a humane system of
national education,* " I urge that all children shall
have a practical education that will fit them for their
station in life. . . . Their station in hfe is to be
citizens of the Commonwealth ; there is none higher,
and none lower. . . . The lift-man would work
his switch no worse if he were quite illiterate, and no
better if he were a Doctor of Science. It is not as a
lift-man that he is worth educating, but as a man."

IX. WHAT IS THE USE OF LATIN ?

This is a question which is often asked, and often
asked in a way which imphes that the answer is,
" Little or none." Defence of Latin has even some-
times been based on the paradox that its use is its

* English for the English (Cambridge University Press, 192 1).

i6 THE CASE FOR LATIN

uselessness ; the meaning implied being that, from
its being useless, it sets up a sort of ideal of knowledge
pursued for its own sake. In this fallacious argu-
ment, as in all widespread fallacies, there is an element
of truth, namely, that knowledge is an end as well
as a means. Knowledge is power, even if that power
be of a kind that is not or cannot be directly exercised.
But as to this, Latin is just on the same footing as
all subjects except those which are, like typewriting
or dressmaking, directly vocational. The boy when
he leaves school cannot sell his knowledge, such as it
is, of Latin ; but no more can he sell his knowledge,
such as it is, of geography or chemistry. What he
can sell is the capacity, the awakened and trained
intelligence, that education has given him. Whether
he sells it or not, it has become and remains his
possession.

But this is a very abstract way of looking at the
question ; we must get at the facts more closely.
First, a few testimonies may be cited ; it would be
easy, if space allowed, to multiply them tenfold.

Mr. Leaf, a former President of the Institute of
Bankers and Chairman of the London Chamber of
Commerce, says, " After a life's experience, in my
opinion there is no better training than the classics
for a man who hopes to go far in business." ^

This bears out the statement of the Prime Minister's
Committee on the Classics : *' The witnesses who
supplied us with evidence were representatives of
engineering, shipping, scientific industry, commerce,
and banking. They were unanimous that a classical
education was of the highest value, and that from
their point of view classics should be included in all
Secondary School Curricula up to the age of 1 6 or 1 7." *

The same testimony was given with equal emphasis

1 Proceedings of the Classical Association, 1921, p, 21.

2 Report, p. 255.

IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 17

by leading men in the United States, including
business men, lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc., and
has been collected in a very interesting volume,
which is well worth reading by all who want further
evidence.^

Sir Wilmot Herringham, Consulting Physician to
the Forces in France throughout the late war, at the
Conference of Educational Associations in December
last, made two further points : "If the study of
literature were to be diminished it would be a great
loss to the nation, and there is no such introduction
to the study of Hterature as the study of the classics " ;
and, " There could be no greater loss so far as art
went than the loss of the classical education."

To this may be added the words of a teacher of
History in the University of London : " Latin is an
invaluable means of mental training, and an indis-
pensable tool for advanced work in 'Language,
Literature, and History. University teachers of
History constantly complain that their students lack
a sound knowledge of Latin. They have certainly
learnt much more modern history at School ; but I
would rather they came up to college with less actual
knowledge and more vigorous minds." These remarks
bear a wider application. They apply not only to
University studies, but to the studies and pursuits
of ordinary hfe. The point can hardly be put better
than it has been put in the following words :

" Latin must be kept in schools, because it is the
greatest training that the boy can go through. The
average boy's mind is a pigsty ; he has got to be
taught what connected thinking is, and Latin is the
only instrument that will do that ; I am not going
to throw over Latin for anything in the world." *

These are the words of a teacher whose own

^ The Value of the Classics (H. Milford, 191 7).

> Proceedings of the Classical Association, 192 1, p. 47

i8 THE CASE FOR LATIN

subject is not Latin : and this is the great use of
Latin.

But perhaps there is one still greater, if we consider
what " use " really means. In a very real sense,
the most useful things in the world are those which
give the greatest amount of the highest joy. As to
this, one cannot better the words of Mr. Sampson in
the volume already cited. He has been speaking, in
terms with which all Latin scholars must entirely
sympathise, of a " cant of the Classics,' ' and denying
—perhaps rather superfluously, for no rational person
affirms it — that it is only through Greek and Latin
that humane education can be given. Then he goes
on : '* For some, for a few, the Greek and Latin
languages are the gates that open immediately into
Paradise." I have given the sentence in full, that
there may be no suggestion of garbling his words ;
but now it may be repeated so far as it bears on
this discussion. " For some, for a few, Latin is a
gate that opens immediately into Paradise." So far
as these few are concerned, any question as to the
use of Latin is answered before it is asked. But why
should they be few ? What right have we to assume
that any boy or girl in a Secondary School is not
one of them ? Why, but from lack of faith in human
nature, and the superstition of an irredeemable aad
ineducable proletariat ? Is it not our duty to see
that they shall not be few, but many ? Latin, we
are told, is proper enough for those who have capacity
for it. Do we teach reading and writing only to a
few children in whom, by some superhuman instinct,
we have ascertained capacity to read and write ?
Do we teach the multiplication table only to those
who have shown capacity for figures ? Quintilian,
the great Latin writer on education, knew better
than that : to cut down education, he says, to the
assumed scope of the pupil's capacity is treatment

IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 19

only fit for mental defectives. The case for Latin
in the Secondary School, at its highest issue, is that
the gate should be opened wide ; that Latin, once
a rare luxury, should be made a common possession ;
that education so far as it is carried should be for
all who share it, not only good (as it can be without
Latin) but the best.

X. OBJECTIONS TO LATIN

It is time now to set out the arguments used
against making Latin a subject in the ordinary
curriculum of Secondary Schools, so as to see what
they really amount to. The two which bulk most
largely have already beien touched upon. They are,
that Latin is useless, and that Latin is an elegant
luxury. Both of them are profoundly untrue. As
to the first, it has been shown that Latin is one of
the most practical subjects that a school course can
include. The second seems to be based on some
queer notion, either that Latin is something of which
there is not enough to go round, and which therefore
must not be shared among more than a few ; or else,
that it is something the whole value of which, like
that of a used postage-stamp, consists in its rarity.
But beyond these, there are more definite objections
urged. They are pretty nearly all included in the
following list :

(i) Latin is a dead language.

(2) It is the hall-mark of a social class.

(3) There is not a supply of competent teachers.

(4) Boys don't want to learn it.

(5) Those who begin it will seldom keep it up.

(6) There is no room for it in an already over-

crowded time-table.

20 THE CASE FOR LATIN

I. Latin is a Dead Language

What this means is, that Latin is not a language
which people, either in England or in other countries,
now speak or write as their ordinary means of com-
munication. But the word " dead " is so used as to
imply, not that the people who spoke and wrote
Latin are dead, but that their writings, and the
records of their thoughts and acts, are dead matter ;
that they have only an antiquarian interest. This
is not true. They are as much alive, as vital, and as
powerful as ever. Nor does this hold good merely
of the writings of Virgil or Horace, of Livy or Cicero.
The Latin language itself, no less than the master-
pieces written in it, is one of the greatest works of
human art. To speak of them as a dead language
and dead books is like speaking of the Elgin marbles
as dead sculpture, of the work of Titian or Velasquez
as dead painting, or of Bach's B Minor Mass as dead
music.

2. Latin is the Hall-mark of a Social Class

This is precisely the vice in national education
which must be got rid of so far as it may still exist.
Treated as the hall-mark of a social class, as to some
extent it once was, Latin was not only a dead but a
death-dealing subject. What is urged is that it
should cease wholly to be that ; that it should
become as widely as possible, without distinction of
class or wealth or occupation, a national possession.
Baths, windows, all the decencies of life, were once
the hall-mark of a social class. If anything is good
for the enrichment of life, why should people be
suspicious about sharing it ? Why should they
keep away from sources of enlightenment and joy
because those sources used not to be within their

IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 21

reach ? The accredited representatives of Labour
are sound here. They stand for " adequate instruc-
tion in Latin for every boy or girl who is quaUfied to
profit by it," ^ and this means a course of Latin in
all the Secondary Schools, to which in greater and
greater numbers the pick of their children go ; for
all these children are certainly qualified to profit by it.

3. There are not competent teachers.

This is true ; the supply is inadequate both in
quantity and in quality. It must be made adequate.
All those concerned with the study of Latin in
England would agree with Dean West, the President
of the American Classical League, when he says,
" The one problem which now gives us most concern
is to learn wherein the quality of our teaching is
poor, and to devise measures of improvement."
But if we keep Latin out of the Secondary Schools
because of this difficulty, we shall only aggravate
and perpetuate the difficulty. Latin, hke anything
else, must be learned before it can be taught. If it
is not taught widely and largely throughout the
Secondary Schools, we shall never get even the raw
material of men and women competent to teach it.

This is no new problem. When science was intro-
duced, and later when modern languages were intro-
duced, into the ordinary Secondary School curriculum,
there was exactly the same difficulty. In the
abstract, the conclusion is that, as no subject can be
properly taught by those who have not learned it
well, and as no one can learn a subject properly
without being taught it well, all education is con-
demned to immobility. It is the old sophistical
argument to prove that motion is impossible. The
answer is, in one of those pointed Latin phrases

' Prime Minister's Committee's Report on Classics, p. 21.

22 THE CASE FOR LATIN

which have become part of our own language,
Solvitur ambulando. Education, like other things,
does move. Progress may be and must be slow, but
with enthusiasm and patience it is certain. As has
already proved the case in our schools with French
or with physical science, each successive school-
generation will be better taught, and will produce in
due time better teachers. The first years will be
difficult, and may seem disappointing. But each
year will mark progress, and the progress will each
year be at a quicker pace.

4. Boys do not want to learn Latin.

The answer to this is, They do. It is of course
true that in a sense boys do not want to learn any-
thing. They are sent to school : they do not,
ordinarily, run away from home against their parents'
wishes or orders to go to school because of their
insatiable thirst for learning. But if it is a good
school, they enjoy learning. It is their job : if they
grumble over it (as, being human, they will grumble
over their job, whatever it may be, in later life),
they like it all the same. They feel the satisfaction
of knowing things, of becoming able to do things, of
feeling their own powers. If this objection, then,
means anything, it means that boys find Latin in
some way peculiar to itself disagreeable. This is
not so. Boys ordinarily take to Latin, unless it is
very badly taught, with real interest. They feel,
indistinctly, that it is an opening into a new region ;
they taste in it, often for the first time, the pleasure
of exact thinking and the joy of doing hard things
successfully. Many teachers vouch for it that
interest and proficiency in other subjects of school
work is notably increased when Latin is begun.

IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 23

5. Most boys who begin Latin at school will drop it
when, or before, they leave school, so that the time
spent on learning its elements is mere waste.

This is perhaps the commonest objection. It is
so irrational that some special reason must be sought
for its prevalence. And one reason at least is not
far to seek. It is to be found in the absurd grounds
on which Latin as a school subject (or more generally,
a classical education) has often been recommended.
A picture is drawn of the accomplished scholar, and
people are asked to beHeve that this brilliant creature
is the normal product of a school in which Latin and
Greek are taught. Naturally, they do not believe
it, because it is obviously untrue. Many of the
pupils will forget most of the Latin they have learned
at school ; few will carry it farther ; not one in a
hundred, perhaps, will take it up as a speciaUsed
study. But that is not the point. Nobody urges
that mathematics or science should be discarded from
the Secondary School curriculum because most of
the pupils will not keep them up, much less proceed
farther with their study, afterwards. These subjects
as taught in school do not turn out accomplished
mathematicians or chemists. Very few of the pupils
will have occasion in ordinary life to solve a quadratic
equation or to analyse a chemical compound. Much
even of the Uttle they have learned will gradually
fade away from them. But that does not mean that
education has been wasted on them. What they
have been taught has trained their minds, has
awakened their powers, has given them keys to
knowledge and shown them how to acquire it. And
this holds good of Latin with equal truth.

Further, even a little Latin leaves something definite
and permanent behind : this must be taken on trust

24 THE CASE FOR LATIN

by those who do not know it from their own experi-
ence. An Ode of Horace, or half a dozen Hnes of
Virgil, or even a single Latin sentence in which some
human thought or experience has found once for all
its most perfect expression, will keep its value
through life even if it be only a dimmed memory.

6. There is no room for Latin in a time-table which is
already overcrowded.

This is a practical point to raise. But it is one
which concerns school authorities themselves, and is
too technical for detailed discussion here. It is a
matter of conmon sense working on broad and clear
views of the aims and objects of education. No
time-table ought to be overcrowded. If it is, there
is something wrong with it, that ought to be and can
be put right. Head Masters and Head Mistresses can
solve the problem ; many have done so with great
success. To construct a time-table, intelligence and
even imagination must be applied. Too often it is
a hand-to-mouth piece of work, or a thing of shreds
and patches. The fault, in many schools, is timidity.
They try to get in a little of everything, without
sufficient regard to the course as an organic whole,
to the quality of what is taught and the method of
teaching, and to the relation of one subject to another.
The more that the unity of all knowledge, the con-
vergence and mutual reinforcement of all the elements
of a liberal education, is realised, the easier it is to
adjust them. Systematic work is being done in the
planning, of one-year and three-year Latin Courses
so as to secure the best combination of economy of
time with solid grounding and effective progress.
Model time-tables have been framed which are very
useful for suggestion. But each school must work
out a time-table for itself ; and no time-table need

IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 25

or should be stereotyped. Elasticity must be pre-
served ; the principle of growth must be kept in
view. Both may be secured, if the whole course of
education provided is always thought of as a living
organism, not as a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that will
not fit in. It must be remembered too, that for
learning many things (such as commercial subjects)
there are ample facilities after leaving school, and
that they can be easily and quickly learned, when
occasion arises, by anyone who has been through the
training of a good Secondary School course. But
Latin, if not learned at school, will probably never
be learned at all ; what it gives will have been
missed for life.

XL THE DOCTRINE OF SUBSTITUTES

It is claimed by some, who do not deny the value
of Latin and the importance of the Latin civilisation,
that all that is useful in Latin can be got from English
translations of Latin authors and from hand-books
of Roman history. This is the greatest mistake of
all. The use of hand-books is to give a sketch of a
subject as a guide towards studying it. The use of
translations is partly to help towards understanding
the originals, partly to excite interest in the originals
and a desire to know them. They are useful aids,
but are no real substitutes ; to know something
about Latin by means of them is not to know Latin.
The Latin masterpieces are works of art, in which
the form and the substance are inseparable. But
likewise (this is a point not enough realised) the
Latin language itself is a work of art ; in many of
the qualities of the highest kind of human language
it is unsurpassed, in some it is unequalled. To know

26 THE CASE FOR LATIN

even its elements is to have got a mastery not to be
got otherwise, of the structure and quaUty of language
itself.

Without learning Latin, it is impossible to under-
stand Rome, and the Roman civiHsation on which
our own world is based and by which our own citizen-
ship was created. Without learning Latin, it is
impossible to enter into the strength of Roman
character, the solidity of Roman thought, and the
precision of Roman language.

There are no substitutes, and no short-cuts. When
Ignorance in the Pilgrim's Progress comes down the
little crooked lane from the Country of Conceit into
the Highway to the Celestial City, and Christian
asks him, " How do you think to get in at the gate,
for you may find some difficulty there ? You came
not in at the wicket-gate that is at the head of this
way," he is very confident in his answer. " I hope
all will be well," he says ; " and as for the gate that
you talk of, all the world knows that that is a great
way off of our country. I cannot think that any
man in all our parts doth so much as know the way
to it ; nor need they matter whether they do or no,
since we have, as you see, a fine pleasant green lane,
that comes down from our country the next way
into it."

" It pities me much for this poor man," Christian
says when they have parted with him ; "it will
certainly go ill with him at last." And so it did.

XII. WHAT IS PRACTICABLE ?

Some people, themselves brought up in the old-
fashioned Public School tradition under which Latin
was begun at the age of 7 or 8, and continued, with

IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 27

the addition of Greek, as the staple of education for
ten years or more, still hold that anything short of
this is so inadequate as to be useless. Others,
noting that extravagant claim, and seeing its extrava-
gance, conclude (quite reasonably on the premises)
that to learn Latin for a few years only and then drop
it is mere waste of time. The conclusion is correct,
but the premises from which it follows are false.

What is the least amount of Latin that is of any
use is a point on which there are differences of
opinion. In the present writer's opinion, it can
hardly be put too low ; always provided that the
teacher is himself a competent scholar and knows
what scholarship is. In the hands of such a teacher, j
Latin is a live thing. He will make it a live thing
to his pupils, not by the amount but by the quality
of what he teaches them. It cannot be too often
repeated that the best quality of teaching power is
most needed for beginners. By the intangible ^
influence of his own personality and conviction, the
good teacher will not only awake the intelligence,
but excite the interest and imagination of the pupils.
A year of Latin so taught not only may be, but is,
of very great value.

But what is claimed as quite possible and as in
every way desirable is, that the normal curriculum
for the whole school should include a three-year, or
preferably a four-year, course in Latin, It would
ordinarily be begun at the age of 11 to 12, and
carried on up to the First Examination Stage. In
the first year there would be a daily lesson, however
short ; and afterwards, not less than three, and if
possible four, lessons a week. After the first year
those pupils, if any, who showed complete incapacity
could be switched off. With really good teaching,
these would be few or none. Even for them, the
time spent will not have been wasted ; it will at

30 THE CASE FOR LATIN

in later life the masters and not the slaves of their
work. Parents are realising this more and more.
They want the best for their children. They wish
their boy or girl to be able not merely to earn a
living, but to live. Local authorities and school
governors are honestly anxious to make their Secon-
dary Schools as good as possible. Parents, if they
see for themselves that a school is a good one, are
mostly very willing to accept the course of education
it provides, and leave its planning to those whose
business it is. Boys and girls in a good school do
the work they are set to do, without asking why ;
and they enjoy doing it.

XV. SUMMARY

To recapitulate :

1. The object of a national provision of Secondary
Schools is to supply, and to place within reach of
all classes of the nation, an education up to the age
of 1 6 at least, and up to the age of 17 or 1 8 so far
as practicable, such as will prepare and equip them
for:

(i) Advanced study, pursued by them no
longer as schoolboys or schoolgirls but as students.

(2) Intelligent interest in, and power of dealing
with, men and things.

(3) The privileges and responsibilities of
citizenship.

(4) The realisation of their full human
capacities.

2. Such an education, being directed towards
formation of character in trained habits, and mobilisa-
tion of capacity for practical use, must lay its foun-
dations largely, and not hurry for premature results.

IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 31

It must at once guide and follow the natural growth
of the faculties, by supplying them with the best
food and putting them through the best exercises.
It must teach the pupils to know the difference
between good and bad work, and to feel the joy of
good work, whether their own or that of others. It
must train them not only to work but to think, and
to be able to express their own thought and under-
stand the thought of their fellow-men.

3. This education may be very good, may very
largely attain its purpose, without Latin. But with
Latin it is better, and attains its purpose more
certainly.

4. Latin as an integral element In the Secondary
School course does not mean a disturbance, but a
tuning-up and reinforcing of the whole work of the
school. So far from there being any hostiUty between
Latin and EngHsh, or Latin and French, or Latin
and Science, all these subjects, Latin included, can
be better taught and better learned as elements
constituting an organic whole. As this is grasped
and carried into practice, many of the difficulties
that are the despair of teachers, the annoyance of
parents, and the stumbling-block of pupils, will
disappear of themselves.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
BERKELEY

Return to desk from which borrowed.
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.

JAN 8 1948

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