ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS:

HISTORY OF EDUCATION

THE T E A C H I N G OF ENGLISH
IN SCHOOLS 1900–1970
THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH IN
SCHOOLS 1900-1970

By
DAVID SHAYER

Volume 34
ROUTIEDGE

Routledge
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 First published in 1972
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The teaching of English
in schools 1900-1970
The teaching of English
in schools 1900-1970
David Shayer
Department of English, Caerleon College of Education

Routledge & Kegan Paul London and Boston

First published 1972
by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd
Broadway House, 68-74 Carter Lane,
London EC4V 5EL and
9 Park Street,
Boston, Mass. 02108, U.S.A.
Printed in Great Britain by
C. Tinling and Co., Ltd., London and Prescot
© David Shayer 1972
No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form without permission from the
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passages in criticism

ISBN 0 7100 7321 6

Contents

one Introduction Concepts and confusion -

the English scene in 1900 1
The state of English in 1900 – The fallacies: the
classical fallacy – The Old English fallacy –
Composition and the imitative fallacy – The moral
fallacy – Correlation and subject status – Grammar
and the content fallacy

two 1900-20 Progress or paralysis? Some voices in

the wilderness 26
Social implications: the Revised Code mentality –
New Board initiative 1902–10 – The fallacies
persist: grammar – Liberal advocates: Edmond
Holmes,0Montessoriand 'activity' – English and the
Recapitulation theory – Progress in attitudes to
writing: O'Grady, Greening Lamborn and Finch –
Caldwell Cook – Dorothy Tudor Owen and the
psychology of expression – School poetry 1900–20 –
Secondary English 1910–20 – The 1914 Suggestions:
progress 1900–20

three 1920-30 The Board reports – creative consolidation

and advance 66
The 1921 Report – New moves in speech work –
George Sampson – Textbooks: progress in composition
– Creative advances: Nunn, Lamborn and
Tomkinson Reaction: the progressives attacked –
The social context and the silent revolution – The
Scholarship problem – The Dalton Plan and 'content'
attitudes – Other Board publications 1920–30

four 1930-40 Reaction – old themes for new citizens 103

The Primary School Report – Further reaction:
conservative misgivings – Pritchard and the senior
schools – Textbooks: little change – English and the
School Certificate – The problem of essay marking –
Creative pressures: pupils' verse writing –
Achievements in the elementary schools – The New
Criticism: Richards and Leavis – English and the mass
media – A. J . Jenkinson's survey – Citizenship concerns
Contents
five 1940-70 The New English - priorities and purpose
in a democratic society 135
Creative criteria – Marjorie Hourd and the Romantic
view – A. F. Watts and the contribution of linguistic
theory – The grammar debate continued – The
challenge of the secondary moderns – The answer for
the moderns (1) A. E. Smith – The answer for the
moderns (2) David Holbrook – Creativity and
democracy: culture or anarchy ? – English or social
studies ? – Creative English and the grammar schools
– Some official views: SSEC, Newsom and Plowden
Reports – Children's poetry writing – Creative writing:
a definition – A new grammar ? Further linguistic
considerations – The new look in textbooks – Current
attitudes to literature: the relevance of 'the relevant'
– Texts and examinations: wider horizons ? –
Conclusion

Bibliography 188

Index 201
Each fresh improvement seems such an advance on what has
gone before that by and by the young teacher gets a little
frightened at his progress because of the shade into which his
present brightness casts his previous work. The disturbing
question forces itself upon him: If my past methods are so
inferior to my present, may it not be that my present will look
contemptible when I have reached a still higher level ? Then
comes the doubt: Am I really making progress after all, or am
I merely changing without necessarily going forward ?
Professor John Adams, The New Teaching, 1918

Until some general change occurs, the teaching of English will

not flourish as it should. There will be – as there have been –
small advances on particular sectors, partly offset by small
retreats on others. 'Appreciation' (officially recommended in
1921) replaced pure grammar (officially recommended in 1911),
but by now both these prescriptions have fallen into relative
disrepute… Dictation has disappeared, and exercises in
comprehension, with 'objective' answers, have swept the
board… Probably a slow general improvement is taking place
the whole time; but this is scarcely perceptible in any one
teacher's life-time and the improvement would be difficult to
demonstrate to a sceptic.
No substantial and permanent progress is likely to take place
until 'English', literature as well as language, is regarded by all
in authority as the central subject in the education of every
English child of every age and every grade of intelligence.
Language, Ministry of Education Pamphlet No. 26, 1954
Chapter one Introduction
Concepts and contusion—the English scene in 1900

English 'method' writers have for long been strangely reluctant to

look very far over their shoulders; for them the need to establish or
strengthen what they believe to be good present practice has over-
ridden the desire to dwell on the practices of the past, and perhaps
this deliberate concentration of vision is not surprising when some of
those past methods are recalled. At the same time there is always the
danger that following one's nose will lead one in circles rather than
forwards, with consequent impressions of considerable advance
when no such advance has been accomplished, and the justification
for this present study rests quite simply on the conviction that until
some kind of detailed long-term perspective is brought into the study
of English method, bad teaching habits will be perpetuated, good
practices will be shelved erroneously, and successful but old-
fashioned theory will continue to be periodically rediscovered to the
amazed cheers of the 'progressives'.
How can such a long-term view be acquired ? The answer is that
we must take a close look at the considerable body of historical
evidence that is still available, although it must be said at the outset
that this evidence will not necessarily provide us with the whole
story. It would be almost impossible to determine in exact detail (by
visiting several hundred schools over whole terms) the kind of
English teaching which is going on in this country now, in 1971;
still less is it possible to say exactly what kind of English work was
going on in the nation's classrooms in 1910, or in 1925, or through-
out the decade 1900-10. In the absence of such direct observation
we must fall back on other forms of evidence, almost wholly of a
written kind, which can provide information at second-hand. This
is not the most satisfactory procedure but it is the best we have, and,
as I hope to show, these secondary sources provide information
which is both consistent and reliable. I refer to such items con-
nected with English teaching as method books, textbooks, examina-
tion papers and syllabuses, Board and Ministry Reports, the
memoranda of other official and professional bodies, and the com-
ments and statements of informed contemporary opinion. Over a
period of time these sort themselves, as regards method attitudes,
into quite distinct patterns, which, if not always completely in touch
with the actual (to us hypothetical) classroom situation generally,
are near enough to be acceptable as a defining framework if not as
the actual working details at the centre.
The approach is basically descriptive, and although it is impossible
to remain on the fence when discussing such items as the positive
values of creativity, the influence of the examination system, or the

1
2 Chapter one Introduction
benefits (or not) of teaching formal grammar, the intention is to
clarify the issues as far as possible, both with regard to their present
form and also to their past nature and development, and in so doing
present today's teacher with the raison d'être for much of his method,
be it good, bad or indifferent. Once isolate the specific components
of 'English' as they have developed over the last seventy years in
this country, and lines of perspective can be drawn which can serve
to put our present vantage point into a clearer light. Why, in fact,
within the bounds that constitute 'English' do we teach what we do
teach, and why have certain practices become traditionally accepted
as sacred (sacred cows in some cases) where others have either never
been seriously tried or have been abandoned in the distant past ? To
what extent do teachers merely continue an established pattern
(experienced in their own and their teachers' education) without
considering that the spiral could and should be broken ? What must
disturb anyone who looks into the history of the subject in this
country is the extent to which (teaching) practices have been
established for reasons often only tenuously connected with well
thought out English theory, and have then assumed a permanence
generation after generation which is seemingly unshakeable.
Let it also be said at the outset that the notion of 'progress'
becomes an extremely tendentious one when English teaching
comes to be discussed, and it is not the intention of this study to try
and prove a graph-like upward curve of increasing enlightenment
from 1900 to the present day. This would be extremely difficult to
prove in any case, and I am not sure that the 'progress' key is the
right one to apply. It is true that much 'English' before 1920 was of
a very dubious nature; but this certainly does not mean – as some
present writers seem to think – that all pre-1920 English was so
much antiquated lumber; nor indeed does it mean that all post-1945
theory has been marvellous.

The state of English in 1900

The year 1900 – although quite arbitrary – is as good a starting
point as any, and English teaching at all levels in 1900 was in a
somewhat sorry plight. As a university discipline in its own right the
subject was making determined but slow progress. Outside Scot-
land, where it was approached very much as a study of rhetoric and
style, development had been late. London University's first official
English paper (for the Matriculation examination) was something of
a landmark in 1839, and the strong linguistic-grammatical bias of
that paper is an indication of the tendency at this time to equate
'English' with 'language'. ('Define a verb. Explain the origin of the
form of the preterite tense in English, and point out accurately its
signification, distinguishing it from the Aorist. Give the preterites

2
 Chapter one Introduction 3
and perfect participles of the following verbs: Ride, write, wash,
s i t … e t c . ' ) 1 Not until 1859 was English literature accepted as part
of the London B.A. course, and despite the efforts of men such as
F. D. Maurice and Henry Morley to encourage genuine literary
studies, English at London remained of the linguistic (and sub-
sequently 'historical') kind well into the twentieth century.
The newly-founded provincial university colleges such as Owens,
Manchester (founded in 1850), Leeds (1874), Birmingham (1880),
Liverpool (1881) and Nottingham (1881) were also teaching English
literature but as D. J. Palmer points out2 it lay very uneasily between
history on the one side and grammar and rhetoric on the other, with
classics hovering balefully in the background. Oxford resisted the
subject until almost the end of the century, and then admitted it
only grudgingly in the compromise form of philology and Old
English studies, while Cambridge, although emphasising the purely
literary side much more from the very beginning, was equally
cautious.3
In the teacher training colleges the situation in 1900 was very
unsatisfactory. A narrow range of literary texts was certainly
studied, but the 'payment by results' examination attitude had
reduced both teaching and study to a utilitarian minimum. Things
were not so bad in 1900 as they had been twenty years earlier, and a
small proportion of students was now reading for university degrees,
but Certificate study still often meant no more than memorising the
set texts for examination purposes. Indeed, it was not unknown for
the students to memorise the textbooks as well (invariably of a
potted, factual type), whole groups sometimes reproducing an
identical rote answer in the same examination.4 At the same time
the kinds of questions set in Certificate papers at this time were often
not really literature questions at all, being historical-biographical
('Write a short account of the life of Milton or Macaulay'), merely
reproductive ('What does Johnson say of Milton's juvenile produc-
tions ?'), or of the 'Write short notes on four of the following –
Bedivere, Merlin, Excalibur' variety (Certificate papers for 1901).
Parsing and clause analysis of passages of poetry – especially
Shakespeare's –was also common if somewhat misguided practice,
though the general standard of written work among students was
deemed to be exceedingly weak.
At secondary school level English was still in a dubious position,
so much so that in 1904 the Board of Education felt obliged to
include in its Regulations a directive requiring all State secondary
schools to offer courses in English language and literature. With a few
'modern side' exceptions the boys' public and grammar schools had
generally ignored English to plough their traditional classical fur-
rows, although in the girls' schools literature had for some time been
accepted as a subject in its own right. The 1921 Report, The Teach¬

3
4 Chapter one Introduction
ing of English in England, was not over-generous in its praise for
some of the teaching methods in the girls' schools,5 but literature
was encouraged for all that, helped also, for good or ill, by the
Oxford and Cambridge Local Examinations, begun in 1858, which
many of the pupils sat.
The following comments sum up the lie of the land in the second-
ary schools generally around 1900: 'is it not time to make it [the
study of English literature] a central subject in our schools, as it is
in France and Germany, and not a mere accessory to the time-table,
to be struck out before examinations or at other times of pressure ?'
(Alice Zimmern, 'Literature as a central subject', the Journal of
Education, 1900); 'it is a notable fact that… literature, as such, has
comparatively little recognition in English schemes of study. From
the syllabuses of a large class of important schools it is expressly
excluded.' (P. A. Barnett, 'English literature and English schools',
the Journal of Education, 1902).
As for English teaching at the elementary school level in the usual
standards, excluding the 'secondary' higher tops, we need only look
at the Board of Education's 1900 English Schedules to see the nature
of the instruction given.
Standard I (7 years)
Reading To read a short passage from a book not confined
to words of one syllable.
Writing Copy in manuscript characters a line of print,
commencing with a capital letter. Copy books to be
shown.
'English' Pointing out nouns.
Standard 2 (8 years)
Reading To read a short passage from an elementary
reading book.
Writing A passage of not more than six lines, from the same
book, slowly read once and then dictated.
'English' Pointing out nouns and verbs.
Standard 3 (9 years)
Reading To read a passage from a reading book.
Writing Six lines from one of the Reading Books of the
Standard, read once and then dictated.
'English' Pointing out nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,
personal pronouns and forming simple sentences
containing them.
Standard 4 (10 years)
Reading To read a passage from a reading book or history
of England.

4
 Chapter one Introduction 5
Writing Eight lines of poetry or prose, slowly read once,
then dictated.
'English' Parsing easy sentences, and showing by examples
the use of each of the parts of speech.
Standard 5 (11 years)
Reading To read a passage from some standard author, or
reading book, or history of England.
Writing Writing from memory the substance of a short
story read out twice; spelling, handwriting and
correct expression to be considered.
'English' Parsing and analysis of simple sentences. The
method of forming English nouns, adjectives, and
verbs from each other.
Standard 6 (12 years)
Reading To read a passage from one of Shakespeare's
historical plays, or from some other standard
author, or from a history of England.
Writing A short theme or letter on an easy subject; spelling,
handwriting and composition to be considered.
'English' Parsing and analysis of a short complex sentence.
The meaning and use of the most common Latin
prefixes in the formation of English words.
Standard 7 (13 years)
Reading To read a passage from Shakespeare or Milton, or
from some other standard author, or from a history
of England.
Writing A theme or letter. Composition, spelling and
handwriting to be considered.
'English' Analysis of sentences. The most common prefixes
and terminations generally.
What is interesting about these Schedules, and the deadening
hand of Lowe's Revised Code is still very apparent, is the careful
division of English into quite separate components – almost into
separate subjects – and the fact that the overall term 'English' is
applied to the grammar work. At the same time the term 'composi-
tion', as used in standards 6 and 7, has a seemingly unusual and
significant meaning, being applied not so much as we would apply
it today ('a' composition being something the pupil writes or makes)
but in the sense of 'expression' or manner of presentation – an
important distinction as we shall see when we come to consider
composition work in schools during the first two decades of the
century. The reference to Milton should not be taken to represent a
last-ditch attempt at some kind of literary humanisation, since the

5
6 Chapter one Introduction
chosen passage would be worked on for the entire year until it was
known by heart, grammar included.
Such a programme as that given above more often than not
represented the sum total of English work done by children in the
elementary schools at the beginning of the century, though we must
remember the nature and purpose of elementary schooling (not
'education') as it was conceived at the time and also the fact that the
overriding consideration was still to combat sheer illiteracy. The
diet remains incredibly unimaginative for all that.

The fallacies: the classical fallacy

When an overall view of English teaching at the beginning of this
century is taken, a number of interesting misconceptions appear
(they might well be called 'the great fallacies') and an attempt to
delineate them accurately is desirable if only because a number of
them are still active in subtle ways today and have shown over the
last seventy years the regenerative powers of a Medusa's head.
Broadly speaking they are characterised by the tendency to study
English in ways quite unsuited to that subject, or to study it for
entirely the wrong reasons, with consequent distortion of the study
material. Each fallacy operates through a tendency to excess, or the
unrealistic promotion of fringe concerns (not harmful in themselves
and when kept in perspective) to positions of central, perhaps
exclusive, importance. Thus to include within the fallacy framework
such things as grammar study, or Old English study, or figures of
speech study is not to dismiss these items out of hand but to insist
that we get our priorities right and strive not to lose sight of what
really matters.
The first misconception – and it was to dog English teaching until
the thirties – we may call the 'classical fallacy'. Its origin lies in the
uneasy transition from the almost exclusive study of the classics as
the one true literary discipline to the acceptance of English at the
turn of the century, with the belief that despite its pale substitute
nature it (English) could be respectable – providing (and only pro-
viding) it was treated 'classically'. While it was regarded by many as
an upstart, its advocates were too anxious to prove its integrity by
distorting its real nature, a somewhat ironic capitulation when one
considers that classical studies themselves were excessively biased on
the grammatical-linguistic side at this time. The situation was not
helped by the fact that the early teacher of English (certainly in the
secondary school) was more likely than not a converted classicist and
was prone 'to fall back upon the methods of the Classical curriculum
in which he had been trained'. 6 As a result literary study became
'allusion hunting', grammar (including clause analysis of texts, par-
ticularly poetry), figures of speech spotting and paraphrasing

6
 Chapter one Introduction 7
(Chaucer was eminently satisfactory since he involved 'construing');
editions of English texts were closely modelled on the format of
classical texts, with copious if often pedantic and irrelevant notes;
composition became the imitation of models and the mastering of
complicated sets of rules; and the verse composition of senior pupils
an arduous course in prosody (particularly scansion), poetic diction,
marking the caesurae (see Virgil), and stylistic ploys.
If, for example, a textbook such as L. C. Cornford's English
Composition, 1900, is examined, we find the business of writing
English expanded into an incredibly complicated and tortuous pro-
cess. Before even pen can be set to paper a score of difficult rules
must be mastered and sundry models carefully studied. Here, in
short, is English composition presented in the worst Latin manner,
with all the spontaneity crushed and an air of deadly aridity hanging
over the process. What is so false in such an approach is the assump-
tion that writing in one's own language is purely a matter of exter-
nals, the confronting of a mental obstacle course that the writer will
best get through if he keeps his personal feelings in abeyance.
When approaching the need for pupils to write verse A. E.
Roberts and A. Barter (The Teaching of English, 1908) are perfectly
frank on the matter; if students of the classics are required to write
Greek and Latin verses, students of English ought to do the same -
and along identical lines. 'Before any exercises in verse are attempted
by the pupil, some definite lessons in versification should be
given…' 7 (they include scansion and metres, phonic elements,
caesurae, enjambement, 'poetic' vocabulary - the whole box of
prosodic tricks).
As early as 1891 H. Courthope Bowen had pointed out in his
English Literature Teaching in Schools that the emerging study of
literature was suffering 'from the endeavour to transfer the method
used for Latin and Greek to the teaching of English',8 and in the
same year John Churton Collins in his The Study of English Litera-
ture (a plea for genuine literary - as opposed to merely philological -
studies at Oxford and Cambridge) had written:9
Since its recognition as a subject of teaching it [English
literature] has been taught wherever it has been seriously taught
on the same principle as the Classics. It has been regarded not
as the expression of art and genius, but as mere material for the
study of words, as mere pabulum for philology. All that
constitutes its value as a liberal study has been ignored. Its
masterpieces have been resolved into exercises in grammar,
syntax, and etymology. Its history has been resolved into a
barren catalogue of names, works, and dates. No faculty but the
faculty of memory has been called into play in studying it.
Really the transfer of method is not so surprising. If the classics

7
8 Chapter one Introduction
had represented the road to a liberal 'literary' education, so called,
then such treatment of any new equivalent subject was to be
expected – though the effect was merely to highlight the inadequacy
of the traditional classical methods rather than help the new studies.
After 1915, in fact, there was a strong (but not universal) move-
ment away from the use of classical-format editions of English texts
and the 'plain text' editions became more popular. A number of
letters to the Journal of Education at this time show the growing
impatience of some teachers for the pedantries of editors. In an
article in the Journal for May 1907 the writer describes a school
edition of Samson Agonistes; total pages 258; text 53; Milton's
biography 22; the background of Greek tragedy 68; 'allusions',
philology and grammar 115. Another typical school edition (of
Marmion, edited by F. Marshall, 1904, for Junior Local candidates)
supplements the 188 pages of text (and these include copious foot-
notes anyway) with a further 100 pages of material, including two
maps of the Flodden campaign with suitable logistic comments. A
typical note reads:
Plight (1) (M.E. 'pliht', danger; also engagement, pledge) =
pledge
(2) The feminine form of 'plait' (M.E. 'plait', a fold;
L. 'plicare' to fold) = a fold, to fold.
In the line 'Whose fate with Clare's was plight' II, xxviii, 3,
some editors substitute 'faith' for 'fate' as making better sense.
'But we plight our faith to another, not with another's faith.'
If we take 'plight' in the passage as the passive participle of
'plight' = to fold, we get an intelligible rendering. The meaning
then is that Wilton's fate was interwoven with that of Clare
because of their mutual love.
Candidates in the 'Locals' were questioned on this kind of thing,
for example 'Explain the following, giving derivations where neces-
sary: The barrier guard, pikes, brigantines, k i r t l e … e t c '
(Cambridge).
Above all the 'classical fallacy' dominated the attitude to grammar
teaching. Not only had the English language been tortured in
numerous nineteenth-century grammars into Latin form (con-
veniently fixed once and for all) but it was also assumed (as in
traditional Latin study) that the rules, tables, and diagrams of
grammar must be mastered first before actual reading or writing
was possible. The Board of Education emphasised the illogicality of
these attitudes as early as 1910 in Circular 753, The Teaching of
English in Secondary Schools, but they persisted well into the forties
and have not completely disappeared even now. Had the approach
to Latin at the time been exclusively of a 'direct' kind with pupils
reading simple texts from the very beginning and learning the

8
 Chapter one Introduction 9
grammar afterwards, there is no doubt that the approach to English
generally and to grammar study in particular would have been
different, with a consequent reshaping of much English teaching
method. It is no exaggeration to say that the attitude of British
schools to grammar has been firmly determined by outside other-
subject influences (the United States, for example, lacking the
classical heritage, took a slightly different line) which at base have
nothing to do with English at all. It may be that for a very long time
now (over 100 years) the schools have been barking up a wrong and
unimportant tree – promoting a form of grammar study which was
never relevant to English at any time.
Closely linked with this was the obsession with rhetoric – another
harking back to ancient practices – and the excessive emphasis upon
the rhetorical possibilities of the English language. Once again the
literary text was approached not as an end in itself but solely as a
repository of rhetorical bits and pieces. Perhaps the most obvious
result of this was what came to be the inevitable inclusion in the
standard school composition textbook of extensive lists of figures of
speech (Anacoluthon, Epistrophe, Prosopopoeia, Epanorthosis, etc.)
– a feature which remains in modified form today – with the assump-
tion that pupils must be able to spot these in their reading, and
indeed undertake reading merely for the purpose of spotting, an
exercise which is splendidly examinable. As with so many things,
what begins as a necessary (if at school level, minor) adjunct to the
assessment of an author's skill and his ability to say what he wants
to say, becomes the monster cuckoo that drives everything else out
of the nest.

The Old English fallacy

The second fallacy, which was more evident in university and sixth-
form English, we may call the 'Old English fallacy'. The earliest
university English courses placed considerable emphasis on the
importance of the study of Old and Middle English and philology
generally, frequently at the expense of literature. The nineteenth
century had seen considerable advances in philological study (par-
ticularly from Germany) with the formulation of the basic Indo-
European system, and British scholarship was anxious to maintain
the standard and scope of linguistic studies not only at research, but
also at undergraduate level with the consequent desirability of a
preparatory Old English section in the school Higher Certificate
course – totally unsuitable though such a course might be.
At the same time the linguistic emphasis came to represent a
further attempt to make English a respectable discipline (and not the
soft option of the aesthetic undesirables – the 'novel reading tripos')
and it was not surprising that at Oxford, for example, where Old
B

9
10 Chapter one Introduction
English and philological studies had already been functioning for
some time, English proper should be introduced only through a
forced and somewhat unhappy marriage with the existing subjects.
Despite the efforts of Walter Raleigh to reduce the Old English load
and/or make it optional before 1920, Old English remained (and
remains) strong in the Oxford English School. It is not that Old
English studies have no place in an English degree course, but that a
false emphasis (English 'really' being such studies) is patently
wrong. In fact Quiller-Couch was nearer the mark when (in Lecture
6 of his On the Art of Reading, 1920) he made the point that English
will be prevented from becoming respectable academically at any
level just as long as there is an excessive emphasis on Old English.
The second decade of the century saw an increasing number of
attacks on the Old English monopoly. Stanley Leathes in the English
Association's Pamphlet No. 26 ('The Teaching of English at the
Universities', 1913) demanded that Old and Middle English studies
be made entirely optional in all English degree courses. Leathes was
answered in 1922 by R. W. Chambers in Pamphlet No. 53, where
Chambers insists that all English students should be thoroughly
versed not only in O.E. and M.E. but also in Latin and Gothic for
good measure, the necessary study beginning at school level.
Old English was of course included in the Higher Certificate up
to the 1920s and a number of school Old English grammars were
published. The 1921 Report, considering both schools and universi-
ties, tends to face both ways on the matter to the point of downright
inconsistency, both criticising the subject adversely yet in effect
recommending its continuation. A rather strong attack becomes
'retain if used in moderation' becomes 'great importance o f
becomes 'but be careful' in the course of the Report's argument. 10
In fact the inclusion of Old English in the Higher Certificate school
courses had ceased by the mid-twenties, though the situation in the
universities with regard not so much to inclusion but as to emphasis
has been another matter.

Composition and the imitative fallacy

The pseudo-classical study of models was also a symptom of
another prevailing attitude of this time, and this attitude is revealed
most clearly when the general approach to written English in
schools is considered. 'Imitation' was not simply an isolated class-
room exercise, but a whole way of thinking that was taken for granted
by a great many teachers, if not by the vast majority, certainly until
1920 and even beyond. Briefly, the pupil (elementary or secondary)
is always expected to imitate, copy, or reproduce. Not only are all
composition subjects imposed upon him from above, but also
detailed outlines for each which must be filled out according to a

10
 Chapter one Introduction 11
carefully prearranged pattern; in fact, composition becomes the
expansion of pre-determined notes, the teacher's or textbook
writer's, not the child's, and the final mark awarded will depend as
much on the pupil's ability to keep to the straight and narrow of the
imposed framework as on his spelling, punctuation and handwriting.
Write on "The Cat": I. Where found. 2. Why kept. 3. Fitted to
be a beast of prey – (a) teeth, (b) claws, (c) pads. 4. Fitted for
night prowling – (a) fur, (b) eyes. 5. Fitted to be a pet. 6.
Habits.'
(Longman's Junior School Composition, 1901)
'Describe a cow; general appearance. Horns… teeth…
hoofs… tail. Food. Breeds. Uses.'
'Write on "Our Town" as follows: 1. Introduction – Name;
Meaning; Situation; Population. 2. Appearance – General
appearance, chief streets, buildings, parks, etc. 3. General
Remarks. Principal trades and industries. Any historical facts,
etc.'
(Nelson's Picture Essays, 1907)

'Write the story of a bluebell saying (i) where it was (ii) what
it thought (iii) what the wind said to it… etc.'
(E. Covernton, The Teaching of English Composition, 1909)

Expanding Aesop's Fables was also a common composition exercise.

Expand the following outline… into narrative:
1 Ass carrying salt – passing through stream – falls – salt
melts – ass relieved of burden.
2 Again fetches salt – this time lies down in stream.
3 Master determined to punish it – loads it with sponges –
ass lies down – burden made much heavier.
(D. Salmon, Exercises in English Grammar and
Composition, 1900 edition)
Sometimes the outlines were embellished with further suggestions
or warnings from the omniscient writer:
The Story of a Shilling
Hints
Where and when was it born ?
What did it look like ?
Who was its first owner ?
What did he do with it ?
Invent some adventures for it, and tell what became of it in
the end.

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12 Chapter one Introduction
Cautions
1 In writing an autobiography, take care not to begin every
sentence with 'I'.
2 It is still worse to use 'myself' or 'self' in order to avoid
saying 'I' .
3 Never use 'and which' where 'which' is sufficient. 'And
which' is only permissible when 'which' has preceded.
'The shilling which he gave me and which I lost' is right
but 'The old shilling and which was nearly worn out' is
wrong.
(J. H. Fowler, A First Course in Essay-Writing, 1902)
Along with this went a close study of model passages for the pupil
to imitate in stylistic as well as content terms, with such directions as
'Write a composition based on the events in the passage above; keep
as close to the original as possible'; 'Write out a conversation be-
tween the willow-tree and the wheat using the text as a model' (E. J.
Kenny, Composition from English Models, 1913). The wholesale
adoption of phrases or even sentences from the original was not only
permitted but encouraged by the teacher.
This imitative approach (did the majority of teachers know any
other ?) was wholeheartedly recommended in the Board's first (1905)
Handbook of Suggestions for Teachers. We even find E. Covernton
advocating a method of 'double translation' – the pupil expanding
the given outline, then comparing his version with the original full-
length passage from which the outline was extracted.11
The system also included the frequent use of dictation exercises
(another hangover from the Revised Code days). There was no
shortage of textbooks containing collections of 'suitable' passages for
dictation purposes, and it is interesting to see the kind of standard
which was expected of elementary pupils. In W. Williamson's A
Class Book of Easy Dictation and Spelling, 1902 (ominous title),
intended for seven- to eleven-year-olds, we find this:
Now as on a memorable evening when I had crossed the street
in a drizzling rain, and looked that way with foreboding, there
were two or three guards, in the Cardinal's livery, loitering in
front of the great gates. Coming nearer, I found the opposite
pavement under the Louvre thronged with people, not moving
about their business, but standing all silent, all looking across
furtively, all with the air of persons who wished to be thought
passing by.
Now granted that this is aimed at the eleven-year-old rather than at
the seven-year-old, it certainly represents a spelling level which, if
not difficult for some, is most decidedly not 'easy' for most. William-
son appends a table of 'suitable' words for this age range, including:

12
 Chapter one Introduction 13
accede, aerated, anemone, apparel, asthma, boudoir, burlesque,
catarrh, chamois, diphthong, eyrie, heinous, heliotrope, lieutenant,
lymph, meerschaum, mien, plebeian, privilege, succour, syringe and
wrought – all useful stuff for the budding elementary essayist.
When the children were not taking dictation, learning lists of
useful words by heart or expanding outlines, they might be replacing
the punctuation in passages such as the following from E. E.
Kitchener's English Composition for Junior Forms (1912):
o blithe new comer i have heard
i hear thee and rejoice
o cuckoo shall i call thee bird
or but a wandering voice
Equally popular at all levels was 'reproduction', where the chil-
dren had a short story or prose passage read to them, then wrote
down immediately afterwards as much as they could remember, this
memory exercise remaining standard 'English' procedure until the
1930s. (A collection of suitable reproduction extracts can be seen in
H. A. Treble's English Prose Passages for Repetition, 1913.) Repro-
duction was also enthusiastically recommended by the Board of
Education both in the Suggestions and in the 1910 Circular 753.
To complete the picture we find James Welton in a then much-
used training college textbook, Principles and Methods of Teaching,
1906, actually maintaining that it is extremely useful for pupils to
copy out passages from suitable books since this provides 'a direct
training in composition'.
Of course, the assumption that the child was merely a miniature
if unrealised adult, although no longer respectable psychology, was
still very strong in the classroom. Teachers assumed that pupils
should write like adults from the beginning, and every effort was
made, through the use of examples and suitable models, to impose
adult language structures upon them. The idea that a child must
master each separate stage of language development himself,
working out each stage to his own satisfaction and thus 'internalising'
it before progressing to the next rung of the ladder, was hardly con-
sidered. Thus the teacher, with the aid of a well-chosen Belles
Lettres style, did everything, the child - passively imitative –
practically nothing.
Edmond Holmes, a former Chief HMI, directed a bitter attack on
this mentality in 1911 {What Is and What Might Be), pointing out
that children are not even permitted to make mistakes in their
writing, being controlled and supervised at every phrase. 'The
golden rule of education', he writes, 'is that the child is to do nothing
for himself which his teacher can do . . . for him.' 12 If the pupil were
to start doing things for himself he would make mistakes, and this
could not be tolerated because 'successful' learning is seen as the

13
14 Chapter one Introduction
complete avoidance of errors, and the falsity of this notion (says
Holmes) is nowhere more false and inappropriate than when applied
to the necessary trial and error process of acquiring a reasonable
competence in written English.
Here again we see the 'externals' and the mechanical drills being
catered for, but without any genuine understanding, insight, growth
or personal application at the centre. 'Writing' becomes a series of
artificial gestures, the donning of adult clothes by the child, which
is going to appear forced even where it does not appear ridiculous.
If such attitudes strike us today as being very strange (or worse)
some excuse can be given from the point of view of the numbers of
children which teachers had to cope with at the beginning of the
century. Classes were very large indeed by present standards,
frequently in excess of 60 pupils, and classes of 70 or 80 were not
unknown before 1910. The LCC tried to initiate a '40 and 48' scheme
(to restrict infant classes to 48, 'junior' classes to 40 children) in
1912, but the War and subsequent economic troubles ensured that
classes of 50 and 60 were still to be found throughout the country
as late as 1930,13 so that some degree of regimentation was necessary
for purposes of sheer control, and 'writing by numbers', though
hardly satisfactory, is understandable in such circumstances. It is no
coincidence that increasing experiment in the subject has been
closely linked with a decline in class numbers – though one still gets
the impression that many teachers preferred a situation of rigid
control and kept to it long after physical classroom circumstances
allowed a freer, more relaxed approach.
When we look at the kind of children's writing that was con-
sidered to be above-average by educationists before 1910, we find a
synthetic artificiality which speaks eloquently of the mechanical
nature of the writing. E. Covernton reproduces three pieces by
seven– and eight-year-olds in The Teaching of English Composition
which are practically identical and evidently merit praise as much
for their accurate copying of the original notes and given outline as
for their very 'literary' style. One of them begins as follows:
Once upon a time there grew in a cool green wood the
prettiest blue-bell you ever saw. A pretty fairy dwelt in its bell.
When the blue-bell awoke it felt very happy; for had not
Spring, all clothed in green, come at last ? The Spring was
rather late that year, so the blue-bell arose later than usual…
W. J. Batchelder also reproduces pieces in a similar style in his
Notes on the Teaching of English, 1913, and even P. B. Ballard (who
took such a sensible view over grammar) gives us the following
essay by a fourteen-year-old girl, full of clichés and coy artificiality,
and calls it 'remarkable'.14

14
 Chapter one Introduction 15
The present is a time calculated to arouse the warmest feelings
of loyalty and patriotism in the coldest heart that ever beat in a
land governed by our beloved Queen. Sixty years of happiness,
peace and safety have rolled by under the sovereignty of the
greatest monarch England has ever known; and now we call
aloud to Britain's every son and daughter to celebrate the grand
jubilee of love and loyalty. From far-off Australia to mighty
India, from rocky Gibralter to icebound Canada, the glad
voices of a million happy subjects come in one great h u r r a h … .
Never has the throne of Britain been filled by one so loving, so
lovely, so truly queenly and withal so womanly…. Sorrow has
not spared her, Queen Empress as she is; Death has come and
asked her best-beloved at her hands …
Another good example can be seen in William Boyd's Measuring
Devices in Composition, Spelling and Arithmetic, 1924, where the
following (by an eleven-year-old) is offered as a criterion of excel-
lence with which to judge pupils' compositions generally (Boyd's
concern being to produce a reliable marking scale).
'A Day at the Seaside' – what pleasure is in those words – for
with them comes the echo of the waves lapping up on the
golden sands and the memories of those thrilling donkey rides.
To children who live in the smoky towns the experience of a
visit to the blue sea is delightful and one may well notice the
eager looks on the faces, pinched and pale, of the slum
children, as they are packed into the railway carriage, bound for
the seaside. Poor little mites, is it not sad to think that they
have come into this beautiful world to see the lovely country
and seaside once in so long a while ? However, after their
teacher (for doubtless they are some little flock belonging to a
Sabbath school) has seen that no one is lost, she points out the
shimmering sea in the distance and, laughing with glee, they all
march joyfully down the path, perhaps singing some glad
refrain …
Boyd's comment on this piece is extremely interesting (and re-
vealing) : 'This is a highly exceptional production . . . The elevated
style and the detached point of view . . . suggest an adult rather than
a juvenile mind' (my italic). Pupil X, who is unquestionably very
intelligent, has had 'detachment' instilled into him as a matter of
course since he first began to move from exercises with words to
exercises with clauses and phrases.
In case it should be doubted that this kind of thing was what
teachers wanted, the sceptic should take a look at the 'model' essays
which were offered to pupils in the composition textbooks as being
the required ne plus ultra of written work. Take for example the

15
16 Chapter one Introduction
specimen compositions given in John Eades's New English Course,
1914, presumably written by the author himself for Standard Four
children (ten to eleven years).
'Christmas Eve.' For weeks I have looked forward to this happy
night; and, now it is here, I do not think I shall be able to
sleep at all. Last year I tried to keep awake, to watch the
entrance of Santa Claus; but my eyes would not stay open, and
at last I dropped off to sleep. This year I intend to go to sleep
as soon as I can, so that the time will pass more quickly; and
when I wake up in the morning it will be Christmas… etc.
Spring is the first season of the year. It begins in March and
ends in June. It is the season of new life, when everything in
Nature looks sweet and lovely. It is very welcome, especially
after a long, cold winter.
This is the time of the year when the trees begin to bud, the
flowers begin to show themselves, and the grass once more
takes on a beautiful green.
During the springtime the snowdrops, crocus, primrose,
tulip, wallflower, pansy, iris, lupin and certain other flowers
may be seen. The snowdrop comes first and is followed by the
crocus, daffodil and hyacinth. The first wild flower is the
dandelion and that is soon followed by the daisy, buttercup
and bluebell… etc.
Of course, an intelligent pupil, by dint of careful copying and
imitating, can assume the style of a third-rate middle-aged female
novelist, though the process becomes entirely artificial and com-
pletely disconnected from his actual personality. The writing comes
from the top of the head, while the living child goes its own way
underneath, and as long as composition is only this, no pupil,
however intelligent, is ever going to see that writing can be a direct
and frank expression of something one really wants or needs to say
from the centre of one's interests, hopes, fears, beliefs, memories or
temporary absorptions. It is very doubtful whether any pupil
trained in this way would ever regard the writing process as being
anything more than an artificial classroom exercise, put on for
teacher's benefit, and would not relate the business with the 'real'
world, 'real' feelings or personally 'real' situations at all. What
happened to the less intelligent child who couldn't master the
system we can only guess at; presumably he trailed after his brighter
peers occasionally getting two or three consecutive sentences
together in the right style but for the most part producing work of
an inadequate and unacceptable standard.
Now it may very well be that pupils pre-1920 (or even pre-1930)
were better age for age on the 'technical' side (in their spelling,

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 Chapter one Introduction 17
punctuation, sentence construction and paragraphing) than their
descendants today, but if we have lost some ground here we have
almost certainly gained in making – or attempting to make – the
writing process personal and enjoyable, and therefore more real to
children, so that to sit down and write means something. There is
also the completely immeasurable long-term effect as regards
reading. Where writing is artificial the child's – and perhaps, later,
adult's – approach to reading is going to be slightly wrong; the
child who has learnt that to communicate through writing is as
natural as talking or gesticulating, may well approach other people's
written expression in a much more pleasurable and sympathetic way.
This is not to say that the technical aspects of written English do
not matter; on the contrary, they are as important now as they have
ever been, but it would be entirely false (and here, I think, lies the
beginning of the answer to those who claim that standards in school
English have fallen over the last fifty years) to compare written work
now with written work in 1910 or 1920 by merely totting up the 'tech-
nical' scores and spelling mistakes in each. The fact that pupils were
given and made to follow quite detailed outlines when producing
compositions should make us ask whether the written specimen
from 1910, say, is as original in terms of content and phraseology
as it appears. Our criteria for judging written work, together with
our philosophy of written expression, have changed, so that direct
comparison with earlier specimens is apt to give a misleading
impression. What is of pressing importance is that the present
teacher of English should retain the indispensable formal core
(without which expression becomes gibberish) and relate that to the
freer, more personal approach characteristic of pupil expression
since 1940. This ideal compromise has not yet been established in
enough schools.

The moral fallacy

If children are to be little adults, they must also be well grounded in
morality, and here the fourth fallacy appears – that of using litera-
ture primarily as a means of purveying 'moral' lessons. This has a
distinctly 'Victorian' sound, but was still sufficiently widespread in
1920 for The 1921 Report to fire a few parting shots at it. Elemen-
tary reading primers had traditionally included 'improving' material
but the fallacy had now extended into the reading material at upper
elementary and secondary school level also. Henley's Lyra Heroica
(a standard school anthology) is only one example of this tendency
with its 'Sound, Sound the Clarion, fill the fife' or 'It is not yours,
O Mother, to complain' approach. F. Langbridge's Ballads of the
Brave, 1890 ('Poems of Chivalry, Enterprise, Courage and Con-
stancy') is another. The poems and stories read to young pupils

17
18 Chapter one Introduction
should embody 'fine actions' writes James Welton15 and school
poetry is valueless unless it produces 'ennobling sentiments'.
One gathers from Arnold Smith's 1915 criticisms (Aims and
Methods in the Teaching of English) that this use of literature for
moral or patriotic purposes was quite common: 'The English cur-
riculum in certain schools has an ethical basis, so that a boy learns
patriotism one year and some other civic virtue the next. Shake-
speare's Henry V is supposed to inspire a love of the fatherland; we
have anthologies of verse to inculcate the same feeling, literature
being studied not merely for its own sake but for some didactic
purpose.' 16 As late as 1931 we find Macmillan producing a junior
class reader of blatantly moral passages – 'Helping mother',
'Personal Hygiene', 'Little Deeds of Kindness' – with the claim that
the book is designed 'to develop literary appreciation… to appeal
to pupils' sense of duty; to stimulate patriotism and a just
pride in the achievements of our countrymen…' Poems considered
suitable for this include 'Who Taught the Birds' (Jane Taylor),
'Which Loved Mother Best ?' (Joy Allison) and 'I Lie Down with
God' (Eleanor Hull).

Correlation and subject status

If English was not diluted by didactic concerns it was likely to be
diluted in a merger with geography or history. One of the magic
words in education for the decade 1900–10 was 'correlation', not the
statistical device, but an attempt to link subjects across the time-
table divisions. In practice this often meant that English virtually
disappeared or became a matter of second-rate texts which happened
to fit the study plan of the moment (with the use of such anthologies
as Ernest Pertwee's English History in Verse) while composition
tended to become purely a matter of 'other subject' topics. Litera-
ture was particularly vulnerable to the inroads of history and the
distinction between the two was not completely established until the
nineteen-twenties. We have already seen that the 1900 Elementary
Schedules admit readings from Shakespeare or from a history of
England and another obvious link lay in the use of works by Anson,
Macaulay, Carlyle, Gibbon or Southey (Life of Nelson) as set
secondary texts. There was also a strong bias towards studying any
literary text to discover the light it might throw on the historical
events of its time (this was a marked feature in the early School
Certificate literature papers) and at a more pedestrian level it was
common practice in the elementary schools for pupils to learn by
heart long lists of authors' dates as part of the 'literature' lesson.
This correlation was strengthened in the secondary schools by the
'grouping' principle advocated in the Board's 1904 Regulations –
English being only one in the group of literary subjects which in¬

18