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etain it. If that be so, we would start every boy on Latin as his first foreign language. Those who showed little ability would abandon it at about the time they began French. In the case of boys with some real linguistic ability, we are happy to find ourselves thoroughly conservative. We believe firmly in the grand old fortifying classical curriculum, provided it is understood that the languages themselves are but means to an end, to the understanding of the classical civilisation. In fine, the goal of classics should be to-day, as it was for the Renaissance scholars, ultimately political. The classical student who, at the time when his schooling ends, is still doing no more than "settling Hoti's business" and "properly basing Oun," is in the position of Browning's "Grammarian," with this vital difference that he probably does not intend to employ his future life in building any superstructure upon the foundations thus laboriously laid. In mathematics there is probably a deeper cleavage than in any other subject between the real thing, as mathematicians understand it, and the elementary knowledge within the reach of all. "The real thing" is perhaps the most remote and specialised of all branches of learning. For a few it is the best, indeed, the only natural, line of development; but these are few and easily recognised, and even they should not be allowed to specialise too narrowly--that is a point which no one who is not a mathematician will dispute. At the other end of the scale comes the third of the three R's; and about that again there is no controversy, except as to the best methods of teaching it.[2] Yet the schools do not recognise sufficiently clearly this line of cleavage, and many boys who are presumed to have reached the end of the elementary stage remain for some time battering in vain at the doors of the inner temple. These should go back once over the elements again to see if they know them, and then give it up for good. This will mean a cheerful exodus from the upper-middle mathematical divisions. We confess to sympathy with the conservative-radical head master who said, "I shall not advocate the abolition of compulsory Greek in University examinations until I can get people to agree to the abolition of compulsory Algebra." There is perhaps a middle term between elementary and "real" mathematics; that is the mathematics that is the handmaid of physics, and leads us on to the natural scie
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