THE REPORT OF THE HIGH SCHOOL COMMISSION.

Evening Star, Issue 3249, 19 July 1873, Page 3

THE REPORT OF THE HIGH SCHOOL COMMISSION.

To the Editor . Sib,—l am reluctant, as a new comer, to .obtrude my opinions on any matter of local interest not belonging to the profession of which I have the honor of being a member. The management of the High school is, however, a question which concerns me personally, as I have a son studying there, and another who will go there when old enough, provided the recommendations in Mr Sale’s report are not attended to. Gratitude, also, for the progress made by my son during the short time he has been at the school, induces me to protest against the treatment iMr Hawthorne pas received in Professor Sale’s report. I may say, in limine, that I have no private i acquaintance with either of these gentlemen —Mr Hawthorne I have only spoken to officially, Mr Sale I do not even know by sight. In what I may write, therefore, I cannot be actuated by any personal feeling. I do not know whether politics are in any way mixed up with this matter, but if they are I may say I have no political feelings whatever. During the four months I have been here the only political principles I can discover are that everybody wants as much of the public moneyas he can get. Moreover, among my reasons for writing are the facts that I am an old public schoolboy myself, and 1 have still a vivid recollection of my school days, although more than a quarter of a century has passed since that happy time. Since I left school I have been obliged to renew my knowledge of the classics, and to acquire for conversational and other purposes several other languages, so that I have some practical knowledge of how best to learn a language. But what 1 value far more than any book-learning, I acquired at a public school of 650 boys—an English love of fair-play; and I don’t think the Rector of the High School has had fair-play either from Professor Sale or the editor of the Otago Daily Times. As some proof of tbe feelings that animate the latter, I may mention that I sent a letter in reply to his first leader on the subject of the School Commission (before I had read the report) in favor of the Rector. That letter the editor has taken no notice of. I have, therefore, to appeal to your sense of justice to allow me in your columns to make some remarks on Mr Sale’s report. I call that report harsh and unfair. I shall be able to prove that Mr Sale grossly exaggerates the importance of the boys’ mistakes, and slurs over in a few sentences what he adjnits they did ‘ ‘ fairly well. ” I say Mr Sale’s report is unfair, because he mislead his readers by omitting all mention of the fact that there are two modes of teaching Latin and Greek : the one, exploded by all good teachers, which he himself prefers, and the other adopted in all the best schools in England, and followed by Mr Hawthorne. To show how completely old-fashioned Mr Sale’s pet method is, of cramming into a boy’s head the whole of the accidence and syntax before he begins translation, allow me to mention that twenty-eight years ago, when I was a City of London schoolboy, it was not in use there either for Latin or Greek. In the third form or class, we were reading Virgil and Livy, and doing Arnold’s exercise, at the same time that we Were learning syntax and accidence. In the fourth class, which was the highest I reached, we began Greek and were reading Xenophon’s Anabwie, at the same time that we were learn*

ing the very verb tupto of which Mr Sale says “ no one could give me the imperative of the Ist aorist tense.” I venture to say that out of thirty-seven or thirty-eight boys of which our fourth form consisted, he would not have found above two or three who could have answered the question. Yet the result was satisfactory. The number of ■mr boys who go up to the Universities of * 'xford and Cambridge is small compared wii hj the number in the school, because the City school is pre-eminently a middle class one. composed almost entirely of the sons of tradesman aud professional men, few of whom send their sons to the Universities ; but of those who do go up, a very large proportion lake scholarships in their colleges, and honors afterwards. In the sixth form the boys used to write Greek verses, and the head boy of the school always made an oration in Greek at the distribution of prizes. Our Head Master was the Rev. Dr. Mortimer, an Oxford man of the days when Oxford men prided themselves exclusively on their classics. All our masters of classics were University men. But the school was essentially a modern school, on an old foundation, and French and German were taught to all the boys above the third form, besides Latin and Greek.

If Mr Sale ban paid us a visit, he could no doubt have written a slashing report, but the result is—pace, Mr Sale—very satisfactory. Instead of six hundred and fifty (the limit fixed for the school) they might have a thousand, I make no doubt. When I wanted to get my sons in, although as an “old boy” I should have had a preference, I found that there was no possibility of getting them in without waiting a term. Yet precisely the same system (to some extent the very same books) was in use as that adopted by Mr Hawthorne, and condemned so strongly by Mr Sale.

The system is successful; it answers the purposes for which it is intended. For what is our object in giving our sons a classical education ? I take it that it is, with the large majority of persons, simply to enable their sous to take a position among educated and cultivated men, and to give the n that tone which nothing but a classical education can give—that tone, the absence of which makes the Americans at once the bes educated (as to numbers), and the most vulgar people in the world. It is to enable them to read with something of ease and pleasure the Latin authors, and to be not totally ignorant of Greek, so as to be able to construe any common quotation they may meet with in books ; and this may be attained much more quickly, much more easily, and far more pleasantly to the boys, by the method adopted at the High School than by any other. And if tho boys have time and inclination, there is nothing to prevent them from subsequently attaining to a minute accuracy in accidence, and syntax, and Latin composition which would satisfy even Mr Sale. I don’t despise scholarship because I don’t possess it, and 1 should be very glad if I could write good Latin verses and Greek prose ; but I do say that a man may relish the wit and the beauty of Horace, and the stately hexameters of Virgil, and the sonorous periods of Cicero, without that minute and exact acquaintance with the rules of Latin composition which Mr Sale requires from boys of fifteen. To use the beautiful language of Macaulay—“To how many have they (classical studies) been wealth in poverty, liberty in bondage, health in sickness, society in solitude ? . . Wherever literature consoles sorrow or assuages pain —wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fill with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the long sleep,—there is exhibited in its noblest form the immortal influence of Athens.” To the few who may be intending their sons to enter one of the learned professions, I have only to say that the course of study at the High School would be amply sufficient in classics—of course, the modern languages must be added. The preliminary examination for medical students would present no difficulties, as far as classics are concerned, to boys who had passed through the curriculum of the High School. Before concluding this letter, which is so long that I have left myself no room to go particularly into Professor Sale’s report—for which purpose I must ask you to allow me room for another communication—permit me to quote a few sentences from the writings of John Locke. I quote it second-hand from a very clever article by the Rev. Sydney Smith prebendary of St Paul’s, published in the collection of his writings that appeared in the Edinburgh Review. The article is on the subject of classical education, and is throughout strongly condemnatory of Mr Sale’s views, which were then (nearly fif-y years ago) in vogue. Locke says, “If grammar ought to be taught at any time, it must be to one that can speak the language already; how else can he be taught the grammar of it? . , . I know not why any one should waste his time, and beat his head about the Latin grammar, who does not intend to be a critic or make speeches and write despatches in it. . . . If bis use of it be only to

understand some books writ in it, without a critical knowledge of the tongue itself, reading alone, as I have said, will attain that end without charging the mind with the multiplied rules and intricacies of grammar.” (Locke on Education, p. 78). Professor Sale, who, however, is not yet quite such an authority as Locke, says, “The boys in the High School ought, in my opinion at once to cease reading Greek or Latin authors and to return to their grammar’s.”— I am, &c., R. H. Bakewkll, M.D. Belgrave Chambers, Princes street, Dunedin, July 14.