Ancient History and the Modern Citizen

Extract

In the preface to his third volume of Thucydides, dated January 1835, Thomas Arnold referred to ‘what is miscalled ancient history, the really modern history of Greece and Rome’. The great headmaster went on to express the hope that ‘these volumes may contribute to the conviction that history is to be studied as a whole and according to philosophical divisions, not such as are merely geographical and chronological; that the history of Greece and Rome is not an idle inquiry about remote ages and forgotten institutions, but a living picture of things present, fitted not so much for the curiosity of the scholar, as for the instruction of the statesman and the citizen’. Today, with education so subject to the demands of utility, it is a vital duty for us to stress these claims. If we are to preserve in our schools the study of antiquity we must show how it can help us to face the problems of modern life.