Education, Vol. 32 : A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Science, Art, Philosophy and Literature of Education; September, 1911-June, 1912 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Education, Vol. 32: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Science, Art, Philosophy and Literature of Education; September, 1911-June, 1912<br/><br/>If this were to become the test of secondary school English what difference would it make in present conditions? In the first place the whole problem of the list of required classics would disappear. With a test of ability and not memory to prepare for, no binding list of books would be necessary. Adequately to prepare his stu dents, a teacher could not slight the subject nor disregard books Of varying kind and difficulty. A list of recommended books might well be issued but no great trouble would result if it were not followed. And this is as it should be. Merely because a boy has not read Comus is no reason that he should not enter college; what does matter is a total ignorance of mythology and an inabil ity to understand verse of the same difficulty as that of Comus. A teacher could each year adapt his course to his students; the vital conditions of spontaneity and variety would be secured without any confusion. The examinations themselves would be easier to give. All the examiners would have to do would be to select fair passages of modern English and then to consider the actual ability manifested. There would be no fear of cramming nor of anything but the baldest kind of copying; a fair examina tion easy to give and easy to grade, would at once result.<br/><br/>About the Publisher<br/><br/>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br/><br/>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.