CLASSICS IX OUR SECONDARY SCHOOLS. 



By J. Brill, Litt.D. 



In connection with the re-organisation of our Secondary and 

 Higher Education, which is to be expected on the estabhshment 

 of Union, I wish to bring forward some suggestions concerning 

 the teaching of Classics in our Secondary Schools, and in connection 

 therewith certain alterations in the Matriculation Examination. 

 The suggestions I wish to submit are the following : — 



(i) That Latin be removed from the list of compulsory subjects 

 in the Matriculation Examination for all candidates who 

 want to obtain a degree, diploma, or certificate in Science, 

 Medicine, Land Surveying, Mining, Engineering, Commerce 

 or Agriculture. 



(2) That in the Matriculation Examination Latin and Greek be 



compulsory, and that the existing standard in these subjects 

 be considerably raised for all candidates who want to obtain 

 a degree in Literature or Divinity. 



(3) That Latin be a compulsory subject, and its standard con- 



siderably raised for those candidates who want to obtain a 

 degree or certificate in Law. 



(4) That, with a view to the preparing of candidates for these 



different examinations, two different types of secondary 

 schools be established, or, where this is not practicable, 

 two sides in one and the same school, the one having a 

 distinctly Classical, the other a pre-eminently Scientific, 

 Technical and Commercial character. 

 Now that the Union of South Africa has come to a happy con- 

 summation, one of the most important duties awaiting the first 

 Union Government will be the establishment of a complete system 

 of primary, secondary and University education, comprehensive 

 enough to embrace the whole of the Union, and at the same time 

 so elastic as to readily adapt itself to the local wants of the various 

 parts. 



To enable the Government to perform a task as difficult as it 

 is all-important, a good deal of preliminary work will have to be 

 done in collecting and arranging the necessary information, both 

 as to the systems thus far followed in the various States constituting 

 the Union, and as to those in vogue in other countries, in order to 

 find out what is worth retaining and what is to be rejected as 

 unsuitable to our conditions. 



Lender these circumstances it seemed to me not inopportune to 

 lay before this Section of our Association a few thoughts on one 

 small portion of the vast field, in the hope of thereby eliciting a 

 discussion which might at any rate prove a test of the unanimity 

 or otherwise among educationists on the points under debate. I 

 have naturally chosen that portion with which a long practical 

 experience has made me most familiar, namely, the teaching of 

 Classics in our Secondary Schools. 



