CLASSICAL EDUCATION.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12477, 12 April 1906, Page 5

CLASSICAL EDUCATION.

to thk xorroß or "thb rakss."

Sir,—As you have opened, your columns to the discussion on Classic—l Education, it may interest your readera to see the enclosed letter on tbe subject, signed, I am informed, by the majority of students at the Birm_igham University. It may bo noted that this institution was opened by Professor Huxiey twenty-Eve yeara ago cm the condition that no class—s of any sort should be taught there. The _a<rjowness of such, a D—_s of eduoauon has proved so insufficient In t_o opu_on of tt_• practical i_—ibitaaito of Birmingham that they very soun fou_de_ a chair of Latm, and axe now e_deavour-i-iig to found a -c—a_- of Greek; the student- of th— Huxleian bantbng express their views c_ classical erhioatic— as you may sco; and a largoly-a-Uended meeting was held for the purpose of founding a brunch of tbe Classical Association in Birmingham. Tho op—ions thus implied and expressed may perhaps have as much weight as these of a schoolmaster who spent twenty years in failing to teach boys tbe differ—k» betweenl a rule of Latin and Greek syntax ; who never varied his method all these twenty years; who was never known to utter a sound of objection to his own method all this time, and who now blames tho boys for his failure.— Yours, etc., F. W. HASLAM.

(Copy.) TO THE EDITOR OK THE BIRMINGHAM "DAILY rOST." Sir, —After reading Mr Benson's article in "The Speaker," your loader in the "Daily Post," and tho corrcspoai- • denco which it evoked, wo—voicing, we ; believe, tho opinion of many students j of "'ordinary , intelligence and attain- , ments"—wieh to say a few words on bo--half of classical education. The problems with which tihe wide curriculum of modern, education confronts .us are | indeed difficult to bolvOj_ but such a simplification ,of subjects as omits from public school education aJI instruoticn in the classics is surely undesirable. All, except tho most pessimistic, must admit that tho modern view of educa- j tion has departed from tho mediseval | tradition which regarded Greek » aaid j Latin as tho onOy gates to knowledge, I but, at the same time, lot us not forget j that they aro gates, and imporbaait ones j too. We are for from wishing to imply i that a« vast amount of instruction in the claeeics should be rigidly insisted : upon in evexy curriculum; each curriculum has Hα own requirements to fulfil, and amongst some of these the glassies fuKl—and rightly so—little or no place. But what we do ask is—Can, wo.afford to entirely negloot the classics.as elements in our nnblic school education, \ and hope to arrive at the best possible preparation for life? From the purely utilitarian standpoint, let us remember that a knowledge of Greek and Latin is necessary for various of the profes- | sions into which our boys from the public schools are destined to pass. We hear 'much about the value of mathematics as mental training. Have. not the classics intelligently and sensibly taught a value of the same kind? How wide a field for training in clearness and accuracy of perception, in orderly grasp of facts, does not the complex structure of the Greek and Latin tongues offer 1 In aiming at a literary appreciation of our own language, can we afford to overlook the additional capacities for appreciation with which a knowledge of Greek and Latin furnish us? *While in the acquirement of a foreign living language — French, for instance—some knowledge of' Latin unravels the mysteries of genders and forms.- Of eucb benefits as are to be derived by advanced students from a knowledge of the classics —the wider acquaintance with human nature, the delight of, so to speak, personal contact with the minds of the past, the familiarity with literary monuments whose beauty has survived time' and change—this. is perhaps not the place to speak. . But let us remember that these are the possibilities which lie before the minds of those who have had an early grounding in the classics. It seems to us that the system now adopted by many of our public schools is & good one—i,e., lower form instruction in the classics, then a certain level a branching off into divisions known as tho "modern" and . thq ''classical." When the average boy has. reached this branching of the roads his individual judgment and tastes are sufficiently developed for him to intelligently make choice of his own studies, which, however, is not previously the case. Is it really desirable that any public school boy, arriving at the point of intelligent selection, ehould find himself at a disadvantSge—should ■ be. debarred from either advantage or intellectual delight—simply because he has received nothing in the shape of a classical education? Such instruction in the classics need not involve the exclusion of those other subjects to which Mr Benson refers. «A system of parallel teaching by which the various branches of study are brought into relation with each other leads to a true conception of life, and we believe could be so arranged as to avoid overwork. Why attempt to deny that there is a> certain amount of drudiery in.the early ! staces of Greek and Latin? This charge holds good also with regard to nearly every other branch of study, and it is i not to the classics alone that there is I "no royal road to learning." If we abolish every sort of classical education i for the average publao school boy jre. ! are narrowing his horizon apd bringing him to a limited selection at the parting of the ways.—We-ere, sir, , W STUDENTS. University, Birmingham,'October,4th. ,