The curriculum of modern education, and the respective claims of classics and science to be represented in it considered : being the substance of two lectures delivered at the monthly evening meetings of the College of Preceptors, April 11th, & May 9th, 1866 / by Joseph Payne.

  • Payne, Joseph, 1808-1876.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The curriculum of modern education, and the respective claims of classics and science to be represented in it considered : being the substance of two lectures delivered at the monthly evening meetings of the College of Preceptors, April 11th, & May 9th, 1866 / by Joseph Payne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    lation is the first principle, and special preparation the second, he hopes to gain the thanks of all judicious and really competent authorities in science; of all who mean by teaching science, training the mind to scientific method, to habits of investigation, and the diligent search after truth. There can be little doubt that the recent Report on the results of classical teaching in our public schools, and especially in the case of Eton, has done miTch to strengthen the cause of those who wish to see a reform in the curri- culum. Few men, perhaps, at the head of public institutions have ever stood in a more humiliating position than that occupied, about four years ago, by the Head-Master of Eton, who, being under examination before the Commission on Public Schools, could only sa}’, in reply to the following pungent remarks of Lord Clarendon, the chairman, that he was “ sorry —thus allowing the full force of the charges implied. “Nothing can be worse,” said his Lordship, “ than this state of things, when we find modern languages, geography, history, chronology, and everything else which a well-educated English gentleman ought to know, given up, in order that the full time should be devoted to the classics; and at the same time we are told, that the boys go up to Oxford not only not proficient, but in a lamentable state of deficiency with respect to the classics.” It is not to be wondered at, that those who were before discontented with the established course of study in our public schools, became, after such a state- ment of facts, amply borne out as it was by the evidence, so indignant, as to demand, in the interests of philanthropy as well as science, that the system which had borne such fruits should be not only degraded, but deposed. This violent reaction cannot, however, be sustained. The abuse must not be con- founded with the use. It may be true that very little besides classics is taught at Eton, and that they are not learnt; but this is no argument against either the theory or the.practice of classical instruction. But while the present writer, who has had long experience in teaching, defends generally that theory and practice, he believes that the time is come for such a modification of its working, at least in middle-class schools, as will admit of the honourable intro- duction of science into the curriculum. It is then as a friend, and not an enemy, to science, that he has endeavoured to clear the ground of some of the frivolous and damaging arguments which theorists have imported into the discussion, and to plead that it shall be so taught as to make it a real mental exercise. Thus introduced as a coordinate discipline, it would prove a most valuable ally in education, and take its proper place among the great elements which are moulding the civilisation of the age. 4, Kildaee Gardens, Bayswater, July 1, 1866.