LATIN OR ENGLISH ?
By E. H. F. MORRIS EIGHTEEN HUNDRED hours is a large slice out of the school life of a boy. At the grammar school where I teach, and at similar schools throughout the country, about half of the boys spend about twelve hundred hours on Latin and all the boys spend about twelve hundred hours learning a modern foreign language. There- fore the average boy spends about eighteen hundred hours learning one or more languages other than English. The boys who spend this time learning languages are those from the primary schools who have shown the most intelligence at the age of eleven. They are the boys who are most able to benefit from education, and therefore the boys whose time the nation can least afford to waste. Those boys who go to the public schools spend even more time on languages, but as they usually go to private schools first and to universities afterwards they are not included in the scope of the present argument.
There are two main reasons for teaching languages to boys. With regard to Latin, it is useful for developing accuracy of thought and for aiding the subsequent study of other languages ; with regard to modern languages, they again develop accuracy of thought and they are also useful in themselves. There are three main reasons in my mind for not teaching languages other than English. First, that English can also be used to develop accuracy of thought and that it is strangely neglected at the present time ; second, that mathematics and science can be used to develop accuracy even more efficiently than languages, and that they are actual necessities in the modern world ; third, that some familiarity with the ideas of philosophy would be of more use to boys going from school into full citizenship, into political and, probably, parental responsibility and into life in the complex and difficult world of today.
Nobody wants to people this country with eloquent rhetoricians, but nobody can deny the need of clear and accurate speech in the ordinary affairs of life. It is also useful to be able to write a letter which conveys to the reader the precise meaning intended by the writer, without annoying him by clumsy expressions or by the loath- some jargon which oozes out of the bureaucratic pen. Most of us prefer Churchill even when he is wrong to our present leaders even if they are right, because Churchill is a master of the English language, while the others, however noble and elevating their ideas, lack the power to express them with clarity or to persuade the listener to be interested in them at all. It is possible that Churchill may owe some part of his command of English to the study of Latin, but the indica- tions in favour of this theory are not very strong. Even less con- vincing would be the suggestion that his English eloquence derives from any profound acquaintance with French. Most probably Churchill speaks accurate, powerful and persuasive English because he was compelled in his youth to learn English grammar and because he has read many books by the best English authors and the speeches of the great English orators. If five hundred hours were to be spent on English grammar and a thousand on the study of English litera- ture, future generations would be able to explain their thoughts and would probably acquire some thoughts more worth while to explain. The grammar of mathematics and science is as accurate as the grammar of any verbal language. The boy who has been led to
a real understanding of algebra, trigonometry, calculus and quantum physics has developed his analytical and logical powers to better effect than the boy who can with difficulty construe bits of Caesar and Virgil and explain the ablative absolute or the uses of the sub- junctive mood. The boy who has gained a real insight into mathe- matical methods and a modest familiarity with the technique of laboratory work is an invaluable asset to a country which depends for its very existence on scientific and technical skill. Britain can never export ut with the subjunctive, but every possible ounce of theory and practice is needed to produce the inventors, designers and research men who are vital to successful industry and trade.
It is all very well to raise shocked hands and murmur "Philistine!" It is as well to remember that Piero di Cosimo, the temperamental artist, died because of a monotonous diet of eggs—and we have none too many eggs. It is first of all necessary to ensure that our civilisa- tion shall survive: then, perhaps, we shall be able to afford Latin and French. There is more real poetry in the works of Planck, Schrodinger and Dirac than in most of the unrhythmical blubber- ings of the puling psychopaths who profess and call themselves apostles of the arts today. Poetry is most successful when poets are grammatical and familiar with the works of previous native poets. There is no evidence that Aeschylus and Euripides were compelled to learn Hebrew and Persian as a necessary prelude to their poetic careers. There is every evidence that they really did know Greek. English is a world-wide language at the present time: it is reason- able to suggest that Englishmen should learn English before they dabble with smatterings of Latin and French. If, after mastering English, they could learn to enjoy reading Seneca and Cicero, Voltaire and Montaigne, well and good ; but this is beyond the range of the secondary schools. It is not beyond their range, given eighteen, hundred extra hours, to help boys to learn to enjoy Shakes- peare or to appreciate the musical language of Shelley and Keats.
Now that religion has ceased to be the general background of English life, boys need some help in forming a scale of values before they leave school to take their places in the world. It is quite .obvious that they have not been getting it till now ; the incidence of V.D. in the forces is evidence enough, or the conduct of the miners or the chaos in the Cabinet. Philosophy is the goal towards which all science leads. The mind is naturally inquisitive, and boys welcome philosophical argument with evident delight. A few hundred hours stolen from languages can well be spent in a quite informal approach to the great speculations about human destiny, from Socrates and Plato down to the present day. No better intro- duction to the problems of the workaday world can be found than the realisation that these problems are as old as the hills and have been discussed with candour, courage and truth by the greatest minds for more than two thousand years.
Previous page
