School History in the Melting Pot
Every generation, writes E.E.Y. Hales, will have to consider afresh the principles of selection and the paths that may be usefully followed.
In the nineteenth century, as everybody knows, it was supposed that those among the young who were destined to take any part in public affairs would obtain what they needed from a classical education. But after the First World War it became less usual to believe that everybody could be introduced to social obligation solely through the Classics.
Not only was some education in Modern History thought to be useful, but there was much to suggest that the new subject might ultimately take the place of classical studies by providing, if not the whole, at least the centre and core of the school curriculum on the Arts side. A kind of “Modern Greats” for schools, with Modern History as its framework, seemed likely to emerge.
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