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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

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.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1935

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References

page 114 note 1 In this connexion cf. resolution passed at the Annual Meeting of I.A.H.M. (1934). ‘That in the opinion of this Association recent developments have in no way diminished the importance of Latin as an essential feature in a good general education.’ The sincerity of the resolution is shown by the figures given in pp. 5 and 6 of Latin and Greek in Secondary Schools in England; between 1920 and 1929 the number of schools in which no Latin was taught fell from 107 to 68.

page 116 note 1 The general ability of the pupils, the difficulty of providing for the subject as an alternative in a small ‘one-form entry’ school must be taken into account (besides other matters). The arguments given above suggest that in certain circumstances Latin may be taught as the only language in schools where only one foreign language is taught.

page 118 note 1 Cf. particularly Barton, Educational Year Book, 1934.Google Scholar