CLASSICS AND LIFE
Siu,—In view of the discussion which I have aroused, both in your columns and elsewhere, will you allow me to clarify my attitude towards classical education? I regard a thorough classical education as the best prelude to life. I do not place a high value on the teaching of Latin alone if it does not begin before the age of twelve and ends at seventeen, sixteen or even earlier. Where opportunity for a thorough classical education does not exist, I prefer a thorough training in English, mathe- matics and science to any more complicated syllabus, because I have a horror of meretricious superficiality as a training for life. I advocate the introduction of philosophy beca.ise it provides a chance to bring boys into touch with the ideas of Socrates, Plato, Epictetus and many others, and to inoculate them against the danger of loose generalisations and
jumping to hasty conclusions.—Yours, &c., E. H. F. MORRIS. Bexhill.
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