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EDUCATION, SCIENCE
AND THE
‘ HUMANITIES
BY
A. W. PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE
FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE
®gtorb
B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET
MCMXVI
One Shilling net.
EDUCATION, SCIENCE
AND THE'
HUMANITIES
(0 BY
\ _,
I‘ \\F/ \
Af W."\‘_I_’ICKARD-CAMBRIDGE
FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE
micro
B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET
MCMXVI
I
051/ I‘eeur/
PRELIMINARY NOTE.
No one who is not already in the public eye has any
right to take part in an important controversy without
giving his credentials. The writer has been a Classical
Tutor at Oxford for twenty-one years, but his earlier
education included some study of Natural Science, for
which he has never ceased to be grateful; for nearly
twenty years he has acted continually as an examiner and
inspector of schools (among which have been a consider-
able number of the great Public Schools, as well as many
lesser ones) for the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Ex-
amination Board, and has been at pains to familiarize
himself with the curricula, time-tables and methods of
these schools, and to study their ﬁnished products, sent
year by year to the University, in part at least as illus-
trations of the failure or success of the methods followed
in their earlier education. He has also been a member
of the Examination Board above mentioned for many
years, and is now one of its Secretaries. It is in the
light of this experience that the following pages have
been written, but neither the Examination Board nor his
College are in any degree responsible for the opinions
expressed.
The ﬁrst essay is an expansion of an Article which
appeared recently in the Oxford Magazine: the second
is based upon one published twelve years ago in the now
extinct Independent Review; but great alterations have
been made in both. The two inevitably overlap and
repeat one another in some points.
June 21, 1916.
EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND THE
HUMANITIES.
1.
SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES.
‘ THE manifesto of the ‘Committee on the Neglect of
Science,’ the speeches by which it was supported at the
Conference at Burlington House on May 3rd, and a large
number of letters and articles to a similar effect in jour—
nals and periodicals, have given expression to the very
widespread belief that the educational system under which
the Public Schools and Universities work needs a tho-
rough revision, and that in particular room must be left
for the introduction of a much larger amount of Natural
Science than has been customary up to thegpres-ent.
The strength of the demand lies in the general belief
that our rulers have made many grave mistakes in the
years preceding the present war, partly from mere ignor-
ance of the most important results of the scientiﬁc work
of the last quarter century or more, partly from a failure
to pay attention to these results and their practical corol-
laries when they were laid before them. It is argued
that this is largely due to the neglect of science in the
education of those classes from which rulers are mostly
drawn, and to the consequent want of appreciation of
6 SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES.
scientiﬁc methods and results by scientiﬁc opinion. Not
only Ministers of State, but the members of the Civil
Service at home and in India, the House of Commons,
and the ofﬁcers of the Army are brought within the same
condemnation.
According to the Committee’s diagnosis, the root of
the mischief lies in the examinations which give admission
to the Universities and to the Civil Services and the
Army. It is supposed that it is these which really deter-
mine the curriculum of the Public Schools, and by the
predominance assigned in them to Classical Studies oust
the Natural Sciences from their proper places.
The present writer is substantially in agreement with
the demand thus presented; but he feels strongly that in
certain respects the ‘diagnosis is not correct, nor the
remedies proposed capable of effecting their object un-
aided; and that the demands are presented, at least by
some of their supporters, with a one-sidedness which is
quite as dangerous as that which they seek to correct.
The Committee appear to be not far wrong in their
account of ‘the mistakes mad-e by statesmen, and of the
ignorance, and still more the neglect, of Science which
those great men have shown. At the same time it is not
mere want of knowledge that has been the root of the
evil. Statesmen more than other people can always com-
mand the services of those who have the highest special
and technical knowledge; and if they have failed to make
use of them, it must have been largely from a want of the
moral courage to face new facts and alter established
methods—a thing which really needs courage, when you
are already hard-driven and saddled with a machinery
constructed almost entirely on old-fashioned lines; and
no mere addition to the amount of knowledge actually
' possessed by themselves ‘can give statesmen the inspira-
tion and the courage needed for this. The difﬁculty is
perhaps increased by the hopeless entanglement of public
SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES. 7
administration with personal and party questions: and
this, too, cannot be cured by any increase in scientiﬁc
knowledge.
On the other hand, the Committee are doubtless right
in expecting that a great increase in the knowledge of the
results and methods of science on the part of the majority
of educated men will help to create a public opinion which
will be more critical of any reluctance on the part of
statesmen to take advantage of new light, and less ready
to jib at expenditure upon experiments and research
which may lead to great public advantage.
But what exactly is the ‘ science ’ which the Committee
wish to see introduced into the school curriculum and
demanded in examinations for the Universities and public
services? Have they thought out any plan for the
teaching of science to boys from the ages of eleven to
nineteen, which will give to each age what it can assimi-
late, and in the end produce a knowledge of ‘ the ascer-
tained facts and principles of mechanics, chemistry, phy-
sics, biology, geography and geology P’ There are few
indications of this in their speeches, except that Lord
Rayleigh insists on simplicity and an abstention from the
attempt to cover too much ground. It does not appear
how far the more ambitious projects of some of the
other speakers are in line with Lord Rayleigh’s modest
desires, and in any case it would have been much easier
‘ to discuss the Committee’s proposals had they made it
a little clearer what they collectively wanted.
Again, it is doubtful if the Committee are entirely right
in their account of the inﬂuence of examinations upon
the school curriculum. It is probable that the inﬂuence
of the Home, Indian and Colonial Civil Service examina-
tion is very small. This examination was constructed
in such a way as to catch the best students of the Univer-
sities, to discover how far they had done well what they
had hitherto professed to do, and to follow rather than
8 SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES.
to direct the course of the candidates’ studies.’1 Nor, in
all probability, have the Army Entrance Examinations
much effect upon the general course of school studies,
since Army Class work is almost always a thing apart
from the main courses of the Classical and Modern sides
of a school. The real determining factors are (I) the
examinations which give entrance to the Universities,
including the examinations conducted by University
Boards for Certiﬁcates; (2) The Scholarship Examinations
of Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge; and the latter are
perhaps the more powerful inﬂuence of the two. For in
the present condition of competition between schools, one
of the principal aims of the schoolmaster is to keep up
his scholarship list; parents also naturally want their
boys to win scholarships; and it is most unlikely that
any but a very few boys will win scholarships without a
considerable period of comparatively narrow specialism.
Hence the work of the highest Forms—which would pro-
ﬁt most of all by a broader general education—comes to
be unduly specialized in the hope of winning scholarships.
The specialism is, of course, very much worse in the case
of candidates for scholarships in Mathematics and Science
than in that of their classical and historical brethren; and
it is remarkable that no allusion to the gross neglect of
humane studies by mathematical and scientiﬁc specialists
1 In a point of detail also the Committee is not quite just. It is true that
‘in Latin and Greek alone (including Ancient History) candidates can obtain
3,200 marks, while for Science the maximum is 2,400, and to obtain this
total they must take four distinct branches of Science.’ But Latin, Greek,
Roman History and Greek History are, equally, four distinct branches of
study; and no candidate who takes Natural Science—at any rate the phy-
sical and mechanical parts of Science—is likely to be unable to offer at least
Lower Mathematics (1,200 marks), which may be reckoned under Science at
least as fairly as Roman History may be reckoned under Latin. The special
knowledge of Indian aﬁ'airs, which Indian Civil Servants require is of course
partly supplied in their probationary year, and they are rigorously tested at
the end of the year. Some of the speakers appear not to know this.
SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES. 9
has found its way into the manifesto of the Committee.
But fundamentally the mischief is the same throughout,
viz. that University Scholarships are very much over-
specialized, and an unduly narrow education is thus
forced upon the schools. The Certiﬁcate Examinations
(e.g., those of the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Ex-
amination Board, with which the writer is most familiar)
act in some degree as a corrective. They have been
deliberately framed, and, when necessary. revised, with
the intention of insisting on proﬁciency not in one
subject alone, but in a sufﬁcient number to ensure at
least some kind of general education; and the standard
of general education which they have set before them
has, it may be said with some conﬁdence, been steadily
and deliberately higher than that required by Responsions
and the Previous Examination, from which they give
exemption under certain conditions. The effect of the
Higher and School Certiﬁcate Examinations of the Ox-
ford and Cambridge Board (and, no doubt, that of most
of the corresponding examinations of other Boards), has
almost certainly been good, although they have been to
some extent inﬂuenced in their requirement of certain
subjects, as necessary for a Certiﬁcate, by the list of
subjects required by the two older Universities in their
Entrance Examinations. The real mischief lies in the
Scholarship Examinations, and of these it must be said
that they appear to be constructed on the assumption
that the candidates are all going to be specialists in a par-
ticular subject all their lives, whereas this will probably
not be the case with ﬁve per cent. of the successful com—
petitors. Some few will become schoolmasters; a con-
siderably larger proportion will take part in public life
and in the administration of the State and Empire; most
will not improbably have the opportunity of taking a lead
in some larger or smaller sphere of life; and it is above
IO SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES.
all important that these abler men should have had a good
all-round education, and should know something of the
world in which they will probably play a more intelligent
and conspicuous part than others. As it is, many an able
man has been to a great extent cut off from much of the
knowledge that an intelligent citizen ought to possess,
for no better reason than the fact that he is to be
examined by specialists, who tend continually to increase
the difficulty of their examination and the amount of work
required for success. A comparison of the standard of
scholarship papers, e.g., in Classics, at the present day
with the standard of forty years ago will show this
clearly; and a similar, and not unconnected, increase in
difficulty and in the volume of work required is very
marked in the Honour Schools of the University. Indeed
it is here that the mischief probably begins. Most
University teachers are, very properly, advanced stu-
dents of their subjects; they Work upon new or special
lines with great thoroughness; they seek recognition for
their own and similar work by publishing books and
expecting young students who are preparing for examina-
tions to read the latest books on all sorts of recondite
topics, which are very often of little importance from the
standpoint of a general education; they choose scholars
partly with a view to their capacity for large amounts of
such work, and so the evil descends from Degree Exami-
nations to Entrance Scholarship Examinations. It is not
intended to deny that some lines of research and discovery
in the ﬁeld of Classics have brought new interest and
value to Classical studies as a whole. but it is by no
means universally true ; many loudly acclaimed dis-
coveries and new ‘ points of view ’ are discredited Within
a few years (with the result that the unlucky young stu-
dent has to get up two sides of a controversy which had
better not have arisen at all\ and the overloading of
SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES. II
examinations without any clear idea on the part of the
examiners as to what is or is not of educational value
for young men from the ages of eighteen to twenty-three,
is most distressing. More will be said later on this
subject, with special reference to Classics; and there
seems to be little doubt that the same over-specialization
affects examinations for scholarships in other subjects,
and makes a good general education difficult or impos-
sible.
It would probably be well if scholarship examinations
were more closely assimilated to the revised Higher Cer-
tiﬁcate Examination of the Oxford and Cambridge Board.
That examination, while allowing a candidate to throw a
considerable part of his weight into one of four groups of
studies—Classical, Modern (Languages and Literature),
Mathematical, Scientiﬁc—at the same time requires the
candidate to qualify in subsidiary subjects (and it is to
be hoped that the number required will be raised) belong-
ing ordinarily to different lines of study from his main
group: and the group-studies are not to be so specialized
as to exclude other interests. (It is expected that most
of the candidates will already have taken the School Cer-
tiﬁcate Examination,—a test of general education pre-
vious to any specialization at all). An examination of
this type does not encourage any excessive specialism,
nor does it run into the opposite and very real danger,—
that of giving boys a smattering of many subjects without
encouraging them to learn anything well: for it is recog-
nized that by the time they reach the Sixth Form they will
probably have shown special capacity in one direction or
another, and that so long as they do not neglect other
subjects, they will do well to devote more time to fol-
lowing their special bent.
There is another way in which Scholarship Examina—
tions are probably mischievous. A very large proportion
12 SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES.
of the scholarships and exhibitions offered at Oxford and
Cambridge are offered for Classics,1L and a great many go
to boys whose attainments do not really justify the award.
Thus of the Classical Scholars and Exhibitioners elected
at Oxford in 1909 (just over 100 in number), only thirty-
seven obtain First Classes in Honour Moderations, eleven
in Literae Humaniories, and two in other Final Schools.
There were forty-six Seconds and twelve Thirds in M0-
derations, thirty-two Seconds, thirty-seven Thirds and ﬁve
Fourths in Literae Humaniores. (Three or four men who
came up a year late and would probably have got Firsts
in the Final School were prevented by the War). The
proportion of failures to get First Classes is rather
smaller in Mathematics and Modern History, and norm—
ally (though not in this particular year) in Science. Of
course the natural inference is that many of the scholar-
ships and exhibitions actually given ought not to be given,
or, if given at all, only on eleemosynary lines; but it may
also be suspected that one consequence of the large num—
ber given to Classics is to keep boys on the Classical side
for whom modern studies might be of greater educational
value. However this may be, the distribution and the
conditions of tenure of scholarships and exhibitions
plainly need a very thorough scrutiny. N o tinkering of
Responsions and the Previous Examination will be of
much use unless this even more difficult task is taken in
hand at the same time.
Indeed, it is not certain that the introduction of Science
into Responsions and the Previous Examination would
really secure the object which the Committee have in
view. The effect of these examinations, so far as they
1 At Oxford in 1909, 103 for Classics, 25 for Mathematics, 27 for Natural
Science, 26 for Modern History (78 in all for non-classical subjects). These
numbers are correct within two or three in each case; but there are a few
awards (mostly of close scholarships) in the case of which the subject is not
announced.
ScIENcE AND THE HUMANITIES. 13
have any, is probably to keep down the standard of school
work in any subjects which fall within the scope of the
examinations. The abler boys, of course, aim at Certiﬁ-
cates and Scholarships, and comparatively few of them
enter for Responsions or the Previous Examination at
all, since they get exemption by other means. But for
the less able the minimum demanded by these examina-
tions tends to become the maximum aimed at: and there
are many teachers who think that the low standard re-
quired by these examinations in Latin, Greek and Mathe-
matics is partly responsible for the low standard attained
by a very large number of boys; and that the standard of
attainment in Science would also be tied down to the
minimum required for a safe pass, if Science were intro-
duced into these examinations; if for no other reason,
because a Form tends to be kept down to the level of its
weaker members, and the latter necessarily require and
receive more time and attention than others.
The outlook of the Committee is in some respects a
distressingly narrow one. Some of the members, indeed,
in their speeches at Burlington House, disclaimed any
desire to get rid of Classical and Literary studies alto-
gether; and the tone of most of the speakers was reason-
able and moderate. But almost all appeared to assume
that it was only more Natural Science that was wanted,
whereas in fact the ordinary school-boy needs far more
than this, if he is to be much better qualiﬁed than he is
at present for intelligent citizenship. It is only in a very
few schools that a serious attempt is made to give him
that knowledge of the present conditions of the world-—
economic, political and social—and of the recent history
of his own country, which not rulers alone, but ordinary
citizens should possess if they are to have the chance of
forming opinions based on knowledge. (Geography—
the meeting point of much useful knowledge of this
kind—is seldom taught in the highest Forms). The aver-
14 SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES.
age boy is left at present to pick up from newspapers or
casual conversation his knowledge of how his country
is actually governed, how and whence it is fed, what are
the economic and social conditions and problems of his
own time, what are the relations of his country to others
and to its colonies, and many other matters of which an
intelligent citizen ought to have some systematic know—
ledge. Students of Modern History at the University
(and to some extent at a few Public Schools) learn some-
thing of these things, but no one else need do so, and
many never do. Yet these are topics in relation to which
the acquisition of knowledge and the practice of clear
thinking were never so imperatively demanded as they
are at the present time. A high degree of scientiﬁc know-
ledge must always be for the specialist; but this other
kind of knowledge and clear thinking is needed by all ;
and no introduction of more science into the curriculum
can take the place of an improvement in the teaching and
learning of subjects upon which every intelligent citizen
ought to be informed.
Now if not only Natural Science, but also this necessary
historical, political and economic knowledge is to ﬁnd a
larger place in the curriculum, then not only must the
Classical and Modern sides ﬁnd room for more Science,
but the Scientiﬁc and Mathematical ‘ specialists ’ (as well
as the Classical and Modern sides) must ﬁnd room for
history, politics and economics; and the discreditable
neglect of literature in many schools by these ‘ specialists ’
ought also to be corrected.
The present writer is not competent to discuss in detail
the modiﬁcation of any but the classical curriculum,
though the work must plainly be undertaken in any
general scheme of educational reform; but in the Essay
which follows he ventures to put forward reasons for
the maintenance of a classical curriculum as a substantial
part of a general system of education, and t- suggest
SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES. 15
ways in which Classical Studies as pursued at the present
time might be modiﬁed so as to make more room for the
studies which rightly claim admission.
It is plain that any reforms of this kind will be con-
fronted with some great difficulties. The shifting in any
degree of the balance of subjects means the introduction
of new teachers and the displacement of old, and the
ﬁnancial problems to which this must give rise are con-
siderable. Moreover, the increase in the amount of
scientiﬁc teaching means a great increase in laboratory
accommodation, unless some of the most valuable ele-
ments in scientiﬁc study are to be lost. But if every boy
is to keep up his scientiﬁc studies—as he almost certainly
ought to do—to the end of his school career, these ﬁnan-
cial problems must be faced. Probably at some stages—
especially at early stages—the teaching might centre
round the History of Science and Invention, and the lives
and work of the great discoverers ; nothing is more likely
to bring about an understanding of the true scientiﬁc
spirit as this; but of course practical work is sooner or
later essential, and the money must be found.
One ﬁnal comment must be made upon the manifesto.
It appears to look for the production of the ‘ scientiﬁc
temper ’ too exclusively to the study of Natural Science.
It must be insisted that the one does not necessarily pro-
duce the other; and that the scientiﬁc temper—if by this
is meant the openness of mind to new evidence and new
truth, from whatever source, and the capacity of estimat-
ing evidence accurately—is not always found when
scientiﬁc men stray beyond the limits of their science,
e.g., into politics or other ﬁelds of discussion; and that
it is often found in a very high degree in those who have
been bred up to humane studies. It will be argued in the
next Essay that at least the more advanced and better
trained students of these are perpetually practising them-
selves in the accurate estimation of evidence and in the
16 SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES.
accuracy of thought, without which the correct use of lan-
guage is impossible. The truth is that the scientiﬁc temper
is as much a moral as an intellectual quality, and that, in so
far as it is such, it cannot be ‘taught ’ directly, but may
often spring into life through contact with the inspiring
personality of a great teacher, whose intellectual honesty is
beyond suspicion, or of a good friend. It is here that the
teacher’s highest opportunity lies, and no mere rearrange-
ment of subjects can effect what is most of all required.
Although therefore, too much must not be expected from
it, the sweeping reform of the curriculum, which our
present needs seem to require, may still be productive of
great good.
II.
THE USE AND ABUSE OF CLASSICAL
STUDIES.
IT will be generally agreed that if the study of the
Classics and Ancient History is to retain an important
position in the education of the future, it must be shown
to be not only a good basis upon which a knowledge of ‘l
the modern world can be built, but also itself a training
in real and important sides of life; it must be proved
capable of contributing a store of ideas and habits of
mind which are of present value; and much that is of
interest to specialists may have to be excised from a
Classical course which is to be part of a general educa—]
tion for ordinary people. His Classical work must not
occupy so much of the student’s time as to leave him
no opportunity for acquiring that knowledge of modern
life and thought which will make him a useful and intelli-
gent citizen. He ought not to have to pick up his know-
ledge of the institutions of his country and the reasons
for their existence, of its relations to the rest of the
world, and of the social and economic conditions of his
time, from newspapers coloured by party concerns, from
casual conversation, or from such books as his whim may
lead him to read. He ought not to remain almost en-
tirely ignorant (as at present the best Classical student
may) of those methods and ideas of modern science which
are transforming, not only practical life, but the whole
texture of modern thought—to know ‘all about pious
Aeneas and Caesar,’ and‘ ‘nothing of Dalton, Darwin,
Faraday, and Liebig,’ and many more recent scientiﬁc
discoverers. Further, it is becoming increasingly clear,
18 THE UsE AND ABUSE 0F CLASSICAL STUDIES.
that the value of a thorough knowledge of at least one
or two modern languages has hitherto been greatly under-
estimated in England. There is no side of education in
regard to which the superiority of Germany to ourselves
has been shown more clearly than it has in regard to
this. It is undeniably possible for a boy to pass several
years on the Classical side of a great Public School, to
obtain high honours at the University, and yet to know
very little of his own country, and next to nothing of
modern languages, of the natural world, and of scientiﬁc
method. No doubt those who attack such a state of
things sometimes use exaggerated expressions; they
often neglect the real educational possibilities of the
studies which they incriminate, and the genuine cultiva-
tion of the intelligence which at least a few of the great
schools effect on their Classical side. But they have so
strong a case, that it is imperatively necessary for the
friends of the Classics to justify and, if necessary, to
reform their methods, in view of modern needs.
The justiﬁcation of Classical studies has been so often
repeated, that a brief recapitulation of the main points
will suffice. The study of the Classics, as most fully
pursued in this country, consists of (I) the reading and
translation of Classical literature, comprising (to sum up
roughly) poets, orators, historians, philosophers, and
literary critics; (2) the study of the history and civiliza-
tion of Greece and Rome; (3) the acquisition of some
clear principles of literary criticism—of standards of judg-
ment in matters of style and taste, in relation to both
poetry and prose; (4) the study of Ancient Philosophy,
particularly of Plato and Aristotle; (5) grammar, and
composition in the Greek and Latin languages, mainly
in the form of translation from English prose and verse
into Greek and Latin prose and verse, original composi-
tion in the ancient languages being now comparatively
seldom practised. In the Public Schools, composition,
THE UsE AND ABUSE or CLAssIcAL STUDIEs. 19
grammar, and translation occupy most of the time, to-
gether with occasional study of periods of ancient his-
tory. History, philosophy, and literary criticism belong
mainly to the later stages of the student’s career: the
ﬁrst half even of his University course is, for the most
part. an extension of his school work, though a higher
standard is aimed at than when he was at school.
In the ﬁrst place, such a set of studies may provide
an invaluable discipline in the use of language—in ac-
curacy of usage and reﬁnement of taste—and the Greek
and Latin languages are peculiarly suited for this purpose.
The teaching of them admits of greater exactness than is
possible with a living language, in which usage is con-
tinually ﬂuctuating, so that there is no absolute standard,
either of accuracy or taste. The data, in a Classical
language, are virtually as complete as they can ever be;
the standards of style are acknowledged; the principles
and rules of the language are worked out with scientiﬁc
accuracy; and hence, to a greater degree than in any
modern tongue, it is possible to say with conﬁdence what
is right or wrong, good or bad. When it is remembered
that to acquire the accurate use of language is to acquire,
unconsciously, exactness of thought, and the habit of
constant reference to principle, and that, as a matter of
experience, these habits extend far beyond the particular
sphere (whether that of language or any other) in which
they have been acquired, the importance of the service
which the study of the Classics may render will be plain.
The comparison of the idioms of different languages is
itself a training in method, and the progressive know-
ledge of English acquired by the Classical student is often
as great as his knowledge of the ancient languages, if his
teacher makes the most of his opportunities. It must be
generally admitted that nicety of taste and a feeling for
idiomatic expression in English and other modern lan-
guages are more readily acquired and most often found
20 THE USE AND ABUSE OF CLASSICAL STUDIES.
(in spite of some conspicuous exceptions) in those who
have had that preliminary training in those qualities
which a Classical education claims to give; while the fact
that Latin, and in a less degree Greek, are the basis of
large parts of most European languages, gives the Clas-
sical scholar a readiness in dealing with the latter which it
commonly takes his neighbour on the ‘ modern side ’ con-
siderably longer to acquire.
In the second place, a Classical student may become
familiar with literature which is on all hands admitted
to be quite ﬁrst-rate, if not the best, in its several kinds,
and without which an intelligent appreciation of much
modern literature is not completely possible. There is
no need to insist on the importance of maintaining and
inculcating some standards of good and bad literature, in
an age when ephemeral and inferior writings form the
greater part of our mental sustenance, and poetry and
oratory are marred by every kind of vulgarity. A real
knowledge of the great Classics was never more needed
than now.
In the third place, a knowledge of Greek and Roman
history and civilization may become a thing of the highest
worth. Included therein is the record of nearly every
simple type of constitution that is conceivable; and,
though modern civilizations have blended these types into
many strange combinations, there is no other sphere in
which the essential features of each, and the laws of
their growth and working, can be so clearly discerned.
It is a commonplace of scientiﬁc logic, that laws of nature
working in combination are only intelligible if the opera-
tion of the separate laws is known. This is as true in
politics as in science; and the study of the aristocracies,
the plutocracies, the tyrannies, the democracies of Greece,
and of the Republic and the Empire of Rome, is an educa-
tion in political ideas that can scarcely be so well supplied
r1 any other way. Careless as the ancient historians
THE UsE AND ABUSE OF CLAssIcAL STUDIES. 21
sometimes were in matters of detail, they are marvellously
vivid and accurate in seizing the broad features of the
times whose history they narrate; and some at least of
them were conscious that they were presenting a picture
of those workings of human nature, which (as Thucydides
says) are the same wherever human nature exists. In an
age like our own, when moral and political principles are
being perpetually combined and contrasted in an endless
variety of ways, and the issues at stake are involved in
bewildering confusion, the familiarity with those ideas
and laws which a careful student may ﬁnd realized con-
cretely in the object lessons of ancient history may well
be a thing beyond price; and it can be obtained in full
degree only from the direct study of the orators and
historians themselves.
Nor is the value of ancient history limited to this.
The store of experience contained therein concerns the
individual no less than the political life; and those who
are conscious of the value of biography in education—of
familiarity with great typical men—will not willingly
sacriﬁce the knowledge, which in some cases may be
gained at ﬁrst hand, of some of the greatest personages
who have inﬂuenced the course of human history. The
intimacy with political and moral principles, thus obtained
from ancient history, is of special value, because it is free
from any admixture of the passions and prejudices which
inﬂuence the judgment when it is exercised even upon
comparatively remote periods of modern history; and it
thus forms a sound basis upon which to found the neces—
sary knowledge of modern life. It need hardly be said,
that the enlargement of the outlook and the sympathies
which is a result of all w’o‘rthy historical study, is to be
won from Classical history, as from any other.
The growth of ideas. in the several ways described, is
the most important educational gain to be got from the
pursuit of Greek and Roman history. A second claim
22 THE UsE AND ABUSE OF CLAssICAL STUDIEs.
may be made for it, of almost equal weight, though it is
not a claim which separates it from many other branches
of study—that it affords practice in the estimation of evi-
dence, and in drawing conclusions from given material——
a practice which is a necessary part of all progress in
scientiﬁc method. It is an unfortunate thing that the
advocates of a fuller scientiﬁc training than is now
ordinarily given in schools and Universities often speak
as if scientiﬁc methods were the peculiar property of some
or all of the physical sciences—whereas, in fact, the
pursuit of history and of literary criticism may be just as
scientiﬁc, both in theory and in practice, as chemistry or
biology. The general rules governing the estimation of
evidence are the same in both; the same logic applies in
either case. It is only the greater complexity and con-
creteness of the historical subject-matter which makes it
more difﬁcult in many cases to draw conclusions with the
precision desired in science; and the scientiﬁc habit of
mind may be acquired in a great measure through the
investigation of the past. A good teacher of history
constantly sets his pupils on the track of evidence, and
bids them collect all that they can and draw their con-
clusions therefrom; their minds are exercised in discovery
and in scientiﬁc inference just as much as in the labora-
tory; the formation and testing of hypothesis is their
daily work; and, in the case of Ancient History, there
is this advantage (especially for young students) that the
evidence usually falls within a reasonable compass, and
the issues are not so confused as to be bewildering.
It cannot indeed be maintained that the' study of any
and every aspect of ancient civilization, or of fully de-
tailed evidence in every department, is of value for the
ordinary student, however interesting to the specialist.
The attempt, for instance, to force a quantity of special
archaeological learning into the regular curriculum of the
Universities, on the plea of giving a training in scientiﬁc
THE UsE AND ABUSE or CLAssIcAL STUDIEs. 23
method, is probably a mistaken one. The study of the
most important aspects of ancient life—those which con-
tribute ideas of high value and signiﬁcance to modern
men—will itself, if rightly conducted, afford ample train-
ing in method and exercise for the imagination, without
any penetration into obscure regions. The archaeo-
logist’s work is highly interesting, and must indeed be
done by someone, in order that the more general picture
presented to the ordinary student may be true, and based
on a sufficiently wide range of investigation; and it is
indisputable that the study of ancient art has been too
much neglected. But, if ‘Classical Research’ of a
minute kind is to occupy much of a student’s time, it
is not easy to see when he will have leisure to acquire
that modern knowledge which is imperatively demanded
in modern men. The study of Ancient History, there-
fore, needs to be kept within bounds; but, with this
proviso, the study is an invaluable training in ideas, and,
incidentally, in scientiﬁc method.
Finally, it is, perhaps, from the study of ancient philo-
sophy, and above all of Plato and Aristotle, that the ﬁnest
fruits of Classical study are to be gathered. As is the
case with the historians, so it is with the philosophers.
The ideas and laws which seem to play in inextricable con-
fusion in modern life, are presented by Plato and Aris-
totle in a form which is as free from confusion as matters
of such complexity can be. Nearly all the problems
which bewilder us by their mutual entanglements in
modern thought and writing, we ﬁnd attacked straight-
forwardly by the ancient Greeks. The questions raised
by the Greek Sophists are, in a great measure, the ques-
tions of to-day, whether they are concerned with morals,
or politics, or the nature of knowledge; and it is an
inestimable advantage to study them in their plain and
straightforward form, before discussing the complex
combinations which they assume in the present. As a
24 THE USE AND ABUSE OF CLASSICAL STUDIES.
school in which a knowledge of man can be acquired,
the ancient Greek writers are without a rival; and, great
as has been the progress of modern philosophic and
scientiﬁc thought, the broad lines of both were laid down
in Greece, and from Greece they can best be learned. If
the Student can extend his studies to the later schools——
the Epicureans and Stoics and others—so much the
better; but most of what is fundamental can be found,
it is not too much to say, in Plato and Aristotle. The
necessity of some study of philosophy is all the greater
nowadays for educated men, ﬁrst because the great ex-
pansion of Scientiﬁc knowledge has led very many to
estimate too highly the value of science by itself, and the
range within which the methods of the natural sciences
are applicable, so that the wider view of the philosopher
is required as a corrective; and, secondly, because many
of the questions.termed religious, the most fundamental
questions that man can ask, are in their essence philo-
sophical, and must be met on philosophical grounds.
And if some study of philosophy is thus necessary, there
can be none more valuable, at least as a sound basis for
all future study, than that of the philosophy of the ancient
Greeks.
Much more might be written on the educational value
of Classical studies; but it is time to pass to the further
question, whether room cannot be found in a course
based mainly on these studies, for those forms of modern
knowledge which ought to be part of the education of all
boys and young men, whatever their special subject. It
is clear that Classical Studies must sacriﬁce a considerable
amount of time, if a boy’s general education is to be
kept up to the end of his school life, and not to be aban-
doned to a great extent in favour of special studies. (The
same problem is even more urgent in the case of the
Scientiﬁc and mathematical specialists at Public Schools,
whose education is far narrower ard less useful as a
THE UsE AND ABUsE OF CLAssIcAL STUDIES. 25
preparation for life, but that is a matter for separate
treatment). What can be sacriﬁced P
(I) It is not necessary that every author read in class
should be so minutely studied as the present practice of
examiners demands. The students ought to follow the
matter and thought of the author, and for this some brief
explanatory notes must be given concurrently with the
text; they should see him in the setting of his time and
circumstances, and for this teachers gifted with imagina-
tion, but not a great many hours, are needed; they cer-
tainly need not be led to regard every sentence as a
source of grammatical conundrums, as is the case at
certain schools where every classical lesson is little more
than a lesson in grammar, and the most glorious litera-
ture is robbed of all that constitutes its highest value.
just enough grammar for accurate translation, and no
more (though, of course, no less) should be required.
There is no time to treat grammar as an end in itself.
The elaborate getting up of notes, exegetical and gram-
matical, as demanded by examiners, is wasteful of time
and deadening to the interest of most young students.
They cannot read enough at a time, on this system, either
to get any general view, or to appreciate the literary
qualities of the work, and such a method of treating, let
us say, a Greek play, is perhaps the most futile that can
be conceived.
(2) Far too much time is given to Greek and Latin
Composition—undoubtedly a valuable training in accuracy
of thought and expression, but not to be treated as an
end in itself and allowed to absorb, both at school and at
the Universities, from six to eight hours a week all told.
The value of Composition is generally agreed to be three-
fold:
(a) It is a test of accurate knowledge of the language,
and so a very useful weapon in the teacher’s
hand;
26 THE USE AND ABUSE OF CLASSICAL STUDIES.
(b) It balances the receptive attitude required for
the understanding of an author by providing a
ﬁeld for creative effort and artistic work;
(6) The comparison of the idioms of two languages,
and the rendering of one into the other, afford
an exercise in accuracy, and help towards the
understanding of the real meaning of words in
both and the acquisition of the art of using lan-
guage effectively.
But it needs little argument to show that all these
advantages could be obtained from translation into Eng-
lish, if only teachers would insist upon good English as
they insist upon good Latin, and would regard a good
piece of English as a work of art in no less a degree
than a good piece of Latin; and much time might be
saved if all that is taught by means of composition were
taught in connection with the translation-lessons. Com-
position of a very simple kind is at best a useful means
of testing accurate knowledge of the language in the
earlier stages of the learner’s career.
At the Universities in particular the waste of time on
Composition is terrible. The average Classical student,
if he is not a born scholar, is rewarded for his many hours
of labour during the ﬁve terms of his reading for Honour
Moderations, by ﬁnding that his Compositions have risen
from the ,8— with which he started to ,8 or ,8?+, or have
not risen at all. Very few pass from the Second Class
into the First. There is no intellectual gain proportioned
to the time spent, and the joy of artistic creation is
almost wholly wanting. Again, the most advanced stu-
dents, who turn out artistic work at times and take some
pleasure in it, spend far too much time and effort (at least
if they are candidates for the higher Classical prizes) in
performing tours de force, rendering into Greek and Latin
very difﬁcult passages of English, quite unlike the best
Classics in style and thought,——a good gymnastic display,
THE UsE AND ABUsE OF CLAssICAL STUDIEs. 27
but not to be compared, as an education for life, with the
acquisition of that modern knowledge which the ablest
men, above all, ought, as citizens, to possess. Compo-
sition is very necessary in the case of living languages,
which we want to speak and write ; not in that of dead
languages, which we only want to read; and it might well
be dropped for most boys during their last years at
school——let us say, when they have obtained or are
qualiﬁed to obtain a School Certiﬁcate.
(3) Classical Studies at the Universities are greatly
over-specialised and over-loaded. Teachers strike out
on their own lines of study and research, and add to the
sum of knowledge contributions of greater or less value:
but the only way in which they can obtain the recognition
which they claim for their work seems to be the forcing
of their results, important or not, into examination ques-
tions : so the unhappy student has to work up yearly
more and more of the results of research, interesting to
specialists and doubtless throwing light on particular
points, but often very unimportant from the point of
view of the student’s general education; and he is ex-
pected to know the contents of more and more books,
many of them of quite ephemeral value, and destined to
be upset by the books of the next decade. The mischief
is great in the study alike of History and of Philosophy
and of Literary History and Criticism. In regard to
none of these have teachers or examining bodies shown
any clear conception of what is or is not of value. Any
one who compares the Classical examinations at Oxford
at the present time with those of thirty or forty years ago
cannot fail to be struck with the immense increase in the
amount of matter which a candidate who aims at a high
class must know, and the rise in the standard of difficulty:
and much of the additional matter is of value only to
those who are going to be dons or specialists, and not
to those who want simply a general education to ﬁt them
28 THE USE AND ABUSE or CLASSICAL STUDIES.
for the duties of citizenship or of leadership in public life.
The mischief is greatest in the case of the ablest scholars,
whose general education ought to be better in proportion
to their greater ability. The higher the prizes at which
they aim, the more of the inferior or fragmentary litera-
ture of Greece and Rome they are expected to read; the
Hertford, Ireland and Craven Scholarships are not in-
frequently decided, in the last resort, by papers which
test the student’s familiarity with all kinds of out-of-the-
way knowledge, otherwise of little value, or his pro—
ﬁciency in translating bad or eccentric authors. It can-
not be too Strongly contended that the permanent value
of Classical literature is to be sought, not in all Classical
writers, nor yet (roughly speaking) in the hardest, but
in a few great authors only, and not necessarily in the
whole even of their writings.1 We have, in any case,
ample inferior literature of our own, and need not go
back thousands of years for more. But the great Clas—
sical writers ﬁll a place that nothing else can take; and
to be relieved of the necessity of considering any Clas-
sical authors but these would be an inestimable boon to
the ablest young scholars, and would enable them to for-
ward their education in other ways to a degree now
impossible.
For the study of the Classics, however thoroughly
pursued in all its branches, will not by itself make a
man into an educated citizen of an imperial democracy,
in an age of rapid progress in scientiﬁc thought and in
every part of life. He needs systematic instruction in
modern political and economic conditions; he must know,
far more exactly than many school-boys are enabled to
do now, how he is governed, how his country is fed,
what is its place in the world, and'on what its prosperity
1 After nearly 2,000 years’ study it Should be possible to say with fair
accuracy what is really ﬁrst-rate in the Classical Literature and what is not.
THE UsE AND ABUSE or CLAssIcAL STUDIEs. 29
depends. He must have followed the development of
industrial and social changes, and know something more
of the great questions of his own time than can be picked
up casually. He needs to be abreast of the main currents
of scientiﬁc thought. Still more, he needs a training of
his powers of observation, such as no literary education
can give; and which is not given at all by many of the
educational methods now in vogue. For all this, time
must be saved by the severe limitation of the Classical
curriculum to what is really of ﬁrst-rate value: and only
under such conditions is it worth while to ﬁght for educa-
tion on a Classical basis.
It is easy to see that even the limited claim here made
for Classical studies is not likely to pass unchallenged.
The objector can almost be heard protesting: ‘ Let it be
granted,’ he will say ‘that Classical studies afford the
best students the training in accuracy of mind, in the use
of the imagination, in scientiﬁc method, in the correct
and artistic employment of language, that you ascribe to
them; but how many students of the Classics actually
reach this point? Is it not the case that after six or
eight years, most boys who are bred up on Latin and
Greek are still unable to translate a simple piece of easy
prose in those languages with sufficient accuracy to pass
an easy examination; and that of the boys who come up
to the University, after having spent a larger amount of
time on the Classics than on any other subject, so large
a number display an astounding want of accuracy, thor-
oughness and interest P’ The question needs serious con-
sideration. and deserves a fuller answer than a mere tu
quoqne, though it might be urged that the same boys
would probably do equally poorly whatever subjects they
studied, and that in fact young students of other subjects
do not invariably show that high standard of proﬁciency
which our not altogether imaginary objector assumes to
accompany the study of these subjects. The truth is that
30 THE USE AND ABUSE OF CLASSICAL STUDIES.
the Classics are neither better nor worse than any other
subject of study, so long as they are badly taught and
learned; and that in spite of the great—the very great—
improvement discernible all round in the teaching at the
Public Schools in the last ﬁfteen or twenty years, there is
still not nearly so high a standard in School-work in many
schools as there should be, and the teaching is still far
too apt to follow rigid and conventional lines. But this
does not apply only to Classical studies, and the objector
has no right to assume that it does. The problem is a
general one, affecting all school work, and there are
many causes of the backwardness that is deplored.
Probably classes are generally too large; but smaller
classes mean a larger staff, and a larger staff means more
money. Probably again intellectual interests are, even
now, more unfashionable than they should be both with
boys and masters—~in comparison for instance with ath-
letic pursuits; though there has been a tremendous im-
provement since the present writer ﬁrst saw anything of
Public Schools, and probably most of the blame is to be
laid on the parent, who is very frequently far more proud
of his son’s athletic distinctions,l and of the notice which
they receive in the newspapers, than anxious for the
growth of his mind. Some further stimulus than that
of examinations is needed, and that can only be given by
a change in the tone of public opinion, or by some kind
of external control. If there were at least a limited
State-control over all Public Schools; if teachers whom
repeated inspection or other tests showed to be incom-
petent could be disqualiﬁed, before they had been so long
at work as to have no other resource and had so ac-
1 Nothing that is said here must be taken to imply any depreciation of the
value of school athletics. It is only the exaltation of them above the training
of the intelligence and of those sides of character which are best brought out
through mental work, that is deplored. No one expects human boys to en-
joy play less than work.
THE UsE AND ABUSE or CLAssICAL STUDIEs. 31
quired a right to permanence ex misem'cordz'a; if the
results of examination and inspection, conducted by com-
petent authorities, were compulsorily published, so that
parents could judge schools better on their merits as
teaching institutions, some little improvement might be
effected. The standard of the Entrance Examination to
the Universities is probably too low, and might be raised,
if a larger choice of subjects were given, so that boys
could take those in which they were most proﬁcient; for
so long as all boys are required to offer any particular
subject (e. g., Greek), the standard in that subject must be
kept very low indeed. But the real root of the diﬂiculty
is probably the need of many more inspiring teachers:
and it is fairly certain that this is, partly at least, due to
the low stipends offered for teaching,—so low that a
great majority of ‘live ’ men prefer other careers; and
it is only a few of such men whose sense of vocation is
enough to carry them to school-work at considerable
sacriﬁce. We shall pay our teachers better (not merely
as hotel-keepers, but as teachers), when as a nation we
come to believe in the importance of mental training;
but that may not be for some time; and until British
statesmen have the courage to insist upon a very gener—
ous endowment of secondary and higher education at the
country’s expense, and the British nation believes enough
in education to provide the money, we shall continue to
get what we deserve.
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