Memorandum from the Classical Association to the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education

Extract

This report is not concerned with the teaching of classical specialists in public schools and grammar schools with an established classical tradition, but rather with the classical teaching in the type of school which has come into being since the Education Act of 1902; nor is our primary object to discuss the full Classical course of Greek and Latin studies in a school in which pupils normally stay till the age of 18 or so. It limits itself in the main to the problems of the suitability of Latin as a subject to be included in the curriculum of boys who may (not necessarily must) leave at 16. The larger question of full classical studies has been discussed elsewhere, as, e.g., in the Prime Minister's Report; R. W. Livingstone, A Defence of Classical Education; F. W. Kelsey, The Position of Greek and Latin in American Schools. The more limited question, the desirability of including Latin as a subject in a four or five years' course from the age of 11+ or 12+, is a matter which has engaged the attention of the Classical Association for some years; not only has the Association helped very materially towards the statement of the aims and methods of such a course (as, e.g., in such publications as J. W. Mackail, The Case for Latin; Recommendations of the Classical Association on the teaching of Latin and Greek), but it has been in constant touch with teachers engaged in the work of the schools and may claim first-hand acquaintance with the problem and real knowledge of the results already achieved in the schools towards a satisfactory solution.