My views on the relations between scientific and classical education were lately given in an Essay which appeared in the Cambridge Essays on Education, 1917. I regret I have no spare copies.

Education is often represented as a process by which boys originally homogeneous are converted into specialised types. I submit that all schemes of education should be planned in accordance with the physiological fact that living material is, as regards aptitudes, naturally heterogeneous. To provide adequately for those who have these various aptitudes—which may often be latent until puberty—the teaching should be as varied as possible, including elements of every kind of knowledge, to be presented in their most attractive forms, without pedantry, mysticism or prudery.

Classical teaching should, in my opinion, be maintained for all who can afford a complete education. I have continually supported compulsory classics at Cambridge, being convinced that without this requirement by the Universities they will cease to be a staple of education even in the Public Schools. Whittled as it was to nothing the Greek test became ridiculous and has now disappeared, with Latin soon to follow.

The classical teachers are themselves very greatly to blame for the contempt in which their subject is usually held by scientific and practical men. They have steadily refused to put grammar anywhere but first. It is possible to know a language enough for many purposes both of use and enjoyment with very slender equipment in grammar.