THE PLACE OF CLASSICS JX MODEkX 

 EDLX'ATIOX. 



Hy Professor Ri:iniiold Friedkicij Alfrkd Horrxlf,, 

 M.A., I5.Sc. 



• § I. The major premise, which I lake for granted in my 

 argument, is that the control of education helongs to the corh- 

 munity. Education, in the illuminating phrase of a recent 

 American writer, is man-making. 'Jhe State is profoundly 

 interested in education l^ecause on the manner and suhstance of 

 the training which is obtainable in its scliools and universities 

 will depend the intellectual and moral qualities of its citizens. 

 I like to think of education, as Plato thought of it more than 

 two thousand years ago, as a preparation for efiPective citizt-nship. 



^ 2. Granted this premise, it follows at once that nothing 

 deserves and requires the watchful care of the community more 

 than the subject-matter of the teaching imparted in it,^ educa- 

 tional institutions. What subjects are to be taught? At what 

 stages in the child's development? In what manner? To what 

 extent? All these are questions of which the periodical recon- 

 sideration is of the utmo.st importance. For there is always a 

 danger that an educational tradition establishes itself which: 

 gradually gets but of touch with- the living needs of a people. 

 And whilst this is more apt to happen in the schools than in the 

 universities, it is also more fatal in the schools just because by 

 far the greater number of men and women get their only pre- 

 paration for life there, and do not go to a university at all. 



§ 3. Anyone wlio takes the troirble to read the signs of the 

 times, especially in the English-speaking world, is well aware 

 that the time has come when once again an overhauling of our 

 educational system has become necessary. More especially, the 

 teaching of Classics is the burning question of modern edu- 

 cational reform. Berkeley once said of philosophers that " they 

 first raise a dust and then complain that they cannot see." The 

 same rebuke may be applied even more fitly to the antagonists in 

 the debate on the educational value of Classics. There is hardly 

 any other question of national importance in which both sides 

 have so often spoilt a good case by bad reasons. And in the 

 dust of controversy some of the fundamental points have been 

 neglected. 



§ 4. An educational system, once established, is hard to 

 criticise. Outside criticism is necessarily more or less ignorant 

 and ill-informed. Inside criticism is inevitably biassed in 

 favour of things as they are. An educational system is an 

 organisation of experts who claim, just because they are experts, 

 to be the sole judges of their own efficiency. With the sincerest 

 ihterition of judging fairly, they are yet prejudiced in their own 

 favour. They have to meet a criticism and a challenge, and 

 they retort by calling in question the competence of the critic. 



