UPTON,
July 16, 1904.
DEAR HERBERT,--I declare that the greatest sin there is in the world is
stupidity. The character that does more harm in the world than any
other is the character in which stupidity and virtue are combined. I
grow every day more despondent about the education we give at our
so-called classical schools. Here, you know, we are severely classical;
and to have to administer such a system is often more than I can bear
with dignity or philosophy. One sees arrive here every year a lot of
brisk, healthy boys, with fair intelligence, and quite disposed to
work; and at the other end one sees depart a corresponding set of young
gentlemen who know nothing, and can do nothing, and are profoundly
cynical about all intellectual things. And this is the result of the
meal of chaff we serve out to them week after week; we collect it, we
chop it up, we tie it up in packets; we spend hours administering it in
teaspoons, and this is the end. I am myself the victim of this kind of
education; I began Latin at seven and Greek at nine, and, when I left
Cambridge, I did not know either of them well. I could not sit in an
arm-chair and read either a Greek or a Latin book, and I had no desire
to do it. I knew a very little French, a very little mathematics, a
very little science; I knew no history, no German, no Italian. I knew
nothing of art or music; my ideas of geography were childish. And yet I
am decidedly literary in my tastes, and had read a lot of English for
myself. It is nothing short of infamous that any one should, after an
elaborate education, have been so grossly uneducated. My only
accomplishment was the writing of rather pretty Latin verse.
And yet this preposterous system continues year after year. I had an
animated argument with some of the best of my colleagues the other day
about it. I cannot tell you how profoundly irritating these wiseacres
were. They said all the stock things--that one must lay a foundation,
and that it could only be laid by using the best literatures; that
Latin was essential because it lay at the root of so many other
languages; and Greek, because there the human intellect had reached its
high-water mark,--"and it has such a noble grammar," one enthusiastic
Grecian said; that an active-minded person could do all the rest for
himself. It was in vain to urge that in many cases the whole foundation
was insecure; and that all desire to raise a superstructure was
eliminated. My own belief is that Greek and Latin are things to be led
up to, not begun with; that they are hard, high literatures, which
require an initiation to comprehend; and that one ought to go backwards
in education, beginning with what one knows.
It seems to me, to use a similitude, that the case is thus. If one
lives in a plain and wishes to reach a point upon a hill, one must make
a road from the plain upwards. It will be a road at the base, it will
be a track higher up, and a path at last, used only by those who have
business there. But the classical theorists seem to me to make an
elaborate section of macadamised road high in the hills, and, having
made it, to say that the people who like can make their own road in
between.
How would I mend all this? Well, I would change methods in the first
place. If one wanted to teach a boy French or German effectively, so
that he would read and appreciate, one would dispense with much of the
grammar, except what was absolutely necessary. In the case of classics
it is all done the other way; grammar is a subject in itself; boys have
to commit to memory long lists of words and forms which they never
encounter; they have to acquire elaborate analyses of different kinds
of usages, which are of no assistance in dealing with the language
itself. It is beginning with the wrong end of the stick. Grammar is the
scientific or philosophical theory of language; it may be an
interesting and valuable study for a mind of strong calibre, but it
does not help one to understand an author or to appreciate a style.
Then, too, I would sweep away for all but boys of special classical
ability most kinds of composition. Fancy teaching a boy side by side
with the elements of German or French to compose German and French
verse, heroic, Alexandrine, or lyrical! The idea has only to be stated
to show its fatuity. I would teach boys to write Latin prose, because
it is a tough subject, and it initiates them into the process of
disentangling the real sense of the English copy. But I would abolish
all Latin verse composition, and all Greek composition of every kind
for mediocre boys. Not only would they learn the languages much faster,
but there would be a great deal of time saved as well. Then I would
abolish the absurd little lessons, with the parsing, and I would at all
hazards push on till they could read fluently.
Of course the above improvement of methods is sketched on the
hypothesis that both Greek and Latin are retained. Personally I would
retain Latin for most, but give up Greek altogether in the majority of
cases. I would teach all boys French thoroughly. I would try to make
them read and write it easily, and that should be the linguistic staple
of their education. Then I would teach them history, mainly modern
English history, and modern geography; a very little mathematics and
elementary science. Such boys would be, in my belief, well-educated;
and they would never be tempted to disbelieve in the usefulness of
their education.
When I propound these ideas, my colleagues talk of soft options, and of
education without muscle or nerve. My retort is that the majority of
boys educated on classical lines are models of intellectual debility as
it is. They are uninterested, cynical, and they cannot even read or
write the languages which they have been so carefully taught.
What I want is experiment of every kind; but my cautious friends say
that one would only get something a great deal worse. That I deny. I
maintain that it is impossible to have anything worse, and that the
majority of the boys we turn out are intellectually in so negative a
condition that any change would be an improvement.
But I effect nothing; nothing is attempted, nothing done. I do my
best--fortunately our system admits of that--to teach my private pupils
a little history, and I make them write essays. The results are
decidedly encouraging; but meanwhile my colleagues go on in the old
ways, quite contented, pathetically conscientious, laboriously slaving
away, and apparently not disquieted by results.
I am very near the end of my tether--one cannot go on for ever
administering a system in which one has lost all faith. If there were
signs of improvement I should be content. If our headmaster would even
insist upon the young men whom he appoints obtaining a competent
knowledge of French and German before they come here it would be
something, because then, when the change is made, there would be less
friction. But even a new headmaster with liberal ideas would now be
hopelessly hampered by the fact that he would have a staff who could
not teach modern subjects at all, who knew nothing but classics, and
classics only for teaching purposes.
It does me good to pour out my woes to you; I feel my position most
acutely at this time of year, when the serious business of the place is
cricket. In cricket the boys are desperately and profoundly interested,
not so much in the game, as in the social rewards of playing it well.
And my worthy colleagues give themselves to athletics with an
earnestness which depresses me into real dejection. One meets a few of
these beloved men at dinner; a few half-hearted remarks are made about
politics and books; a good deal of vigorous gossip is talked; but if a
question as to the best time for net-practice, or the erection of a
board for the purpose of teaching slip-catches is mentioned, a profound
seriousness falls on the group. A man sits up in his chair and speaks
with real conviction and heat, with grave gestures. "The afternoon," he
says, "is NOT a good time for nets; the boys are not at their best, and
the pros. are less vigorous after their dinner. Whatever arrangements
are made as to the times for school, the evening MUST be given up to
nets."
The result is a pedantry, a priggishness, a solemnity about games which
is simply deplorable. The whole thing seems to me to be distorted and
out of proportion. I am one of those feeble people to whom exercise is
only a pleasure and a recreation. If I don't like a game I don't play
it. I do not see why I should be bored by my recreations. An immense
number of boys are bored by their games, but they dare not say so
because public opinion is so strong. As the summer goes on they avail
themselves of every excuse to give up the regular games; and almost the
only boys who persevere are boys who are within reach of some coveted
"colour," which gives them social importance. What I desire is that
boys should be serious about their work in a practical, business-like
way, and amused by their games. As a matter of fact they are serious
about games and profoundly bored by their work. The work is a relief
from the tension of games, and if it were wholly given up, and games
were played from morning to night, many boys would break down under the
strain. I don't expect all the boys to be enthusiastic about their
work; all healthily constituted people prefer play to work, I myself
not least. But I want them to believe in it and to be interested in it,
in the way that a sensible professional man is interested in his work.
What produces the cynicism about work so common in classical schools is
that the work is of a kind which does not seem to lead anywhere, and
classics are a painful necessity which the boys intend to banish from
their mind as soon as they possibly can.
This is a melancholy jeremiad, I am well aware; but it is also a frame
of mind which grows upon me; and, to come back to my original
proposition, it is the stupidity of virtuous men which is responsible
for the continuance of this arid, out-of-joint system.--Ever yours,