Views On A Classical Education
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Mr. Gladstone to Lord Lyttelton
Penmaenmawr, Aug. 29, 1861.—-Thanks for the brief notice which you recently took of the Public Schools Commission. I was heartily glad to hear that you had formed a drastic set of questions. I take the deepest interest in the object of the commission, and I have full confidence in its members and organs; and at all times I shall be very glad to hear what you are doing. Meantime I cannot help giving you, to be taken for what it is worth, the sum of my own thoughts upon the subject.... The low utilitarian argument in matter of education, for giving it what is termed a practical direction, is so plausible that I think we may [pg 647] on the whole be thankful that the instincts of the country have resisted what in argument it has been ill able to confute. We still hold by the classical training as the basis of a liberal education; parents dispose of their children in early youth accordingly; but if they were asked why they did so, it is probable they would give lamentably weak or unworthy reasons for it, such for example as that the public schools and universities open the way to desirable acquaintance and what is termed “good society.” Your commission will not I presume be able to pass by this question, but will have to look it in the face; and to proceed either upon a distinct affirmative, or a substantial negative, of the proposition that the classical training is the proper basis of a liberal education. I hope you will hold by affirmation and reject negation.
But the reason why I trouble you upon the subject is this, that I think the friends of this principle have usually rather blinked the discussion, and have been content with making terms of compromise by way of buying off the adversary, which might be in themselves reasonable unless they were taken as mere instalments of a transaction intended in the long run to swallow up the principle itself. What I feel is that the relation of pure science, natural science, modern languages, modern history, and the rest of the old classical training ought to be founded on a principle and ought not to be treated simply as importunate creditors, that take a shilling in the £ to-day, because they hope to get another shilling to-morrow, and in the meantime have a recognition of their title. This recognition of title is just what I would refuse. I deny their right to a parallel or equal position; their true position is auxiliary, and as auxiliary it ought to be limited and restrained without scruple, as a regard to the paramount matter of education may dictate.
But why after all is the classical training paramount? Is it because we find it established? because it improves memory or taste, or gives precision, or develops the faculty of speech? All these are but partial and fragmentary statements, so many narrow glimpses of a great and comprehensive truth. That truth I take to be that the modern European civilisation from the middle age downwards is the compound of two great factors, the Christian religion for the spirit of man, and the Greek, and in a secondary degree the Roman discipline for his mind and intellect. St. Paul is the apostle of the Gentiles, and is in his own person a symbol of this great wedding—the place, for example, of Aristotle and Plato in Christian education is not arbitrary nor in principle mutable. The materials of what we call classical training were prepared, and we have a right to say were advisedly prepared, in order that it might become not a mere adjunct but (in mathematical phrase) the complement of Christianity in its application to the culture of the human being formed both for this world and for the world to come.
If this principle be true it is broad and high and clear enough, and supplies a key to all questions connected with the relation [pg 648] between the classical training of our youth and all other branches of their secular education. It must of course be kept within its proper place, and duly limited as to things and persons. It can only apply in full to that small proportion of the youth of any country, who are to become in the fullest sense educated men. It involves no extravagant or inconvenient assumptions respecting those who are to be educated for trades and professions in which the necessities of specific training must limit general culture. It leaves open every question turning upon individual aptitudes and inaptitudes and by no means requires that boys without a capacity for imbibing any of the spirit of classical culture are still to be mechanically plied with the instruments of it after their unfitness has become manifest. But it lays down the rule of education for those who have no internal and no external disqualification; and that rule, becoming a fixed and central point in the system, becomes also the point around which all others may be grouped.
Mr. Gladstone to Sir S. Northcote
Nov. 12, 1861.—The letter I wrote to Lyttelton about the classical education suggested topics, which as you justly perceive are altogether esoteric. They have never to my knowledge been carefully worked out, and I think they well deserve it; but clearly your report is not the place. I will not say you are not prudent in suggesting that you should not even give an opinion upon the great question: What is the true place of the old classical learning in the human culture of the nineteenth century? I am far from venturing to say the contrary. But one thing I do think, namely, that it is desirable that, as far as may be, the members of the commission should have some answer to that question in their minds, and should write their report with reference to it. For centuries, through the lifetime of our great schools this classical culture has been made the lapis angularis of all secular culture of the highest class. Was this right or was it wrong, aye or no? I think it much to be desired that the commission should, if they will, proceed upon the affirmative or negative of that proposition, and should also make their choice for the former. This would be a long note to their report; but it need not be distinctly and separately heard in it. Such is my notion. As to particulars I have little to say that is worth hearing; but I think these three things. First, that we give much too little scope for deviation from what I think the normal standard to other and useful branches, when it has become evident that the normal standard is inapplicable; just as was the case in Oxford before the reform of the examinations, or let me rather say the new statutes. Secondly, I am extremely jealous of any invasion of modern languages which is to displace classical culture, or any portion of it in minds capable of following that walk. (I take it that among the usual modern tongues Italian has by far the greatest capacity for strict study and scholarship; whereas it is the one least in [pg 649] favour and the whole method of dealing with them is quite alien to strict study.) Lastly, I confess I grieve over the ignorance of natural history which I feel in myself and believe to exist in others. At some time, in some way, much more of all this ought to be brought in, but clearly it would serve in a great degree as recreation, and need not thrust aside whatever hard work boys are capable of doing.