Some reflections on the teaching of Roman History

Extract

There are moments when conscientious teachers, and those in particular who have the responsibility of instructing the picked young men and women who pursue higher studies at a University, feel some doubt as to the value of the work on which they are engaged. Could not our pupils, they ask themselves, be better employed in acquiring knowledge of another kind ? Is the subject-matter of their studies of sufficient importance to occupy so much precious time ? Is the training in method which they receive from us superior to what they would derive from pursuing some other line of work ? Such thoughts are particularly apt to occur to teachers of classical subjects, for the claim that a classical education provides the best general training for life has ceased to be regarded as a platitude, and is in many quarters considered to be almost paradoxical. If the classical teachers of our schools and universities are not to be content to live by taking in each others' washing, the schools providing the universities with undergraduates and receiving schoolmasters in return; if they hope in the future, as in the past, to co-operate in educating men whose main activities will not be concerned with Graeco-Roman antiquity, it is absolutely necessary that they should not only be able to find arguments with which to defend the faith that is in them, but that they should justify their confidence by the excellence of their results.