French & English

England and France have been governed, since the Renaissance, by the same ideas about intellectual education, though there have been certain differences in the application of these ideas.

Educators in both countries have persistently maintained the incomparable superiority of Latin and Greek over modern languages, not only for their linguistic merits, but also on the ground that the literature enshrined in them was infinitely superior to any modern literature whatever. French education insisted chiefly upon Latin. Frenchmen take “learning” to be equivalent to Latin. They call a man instruit when he has learned Latin, although he may have a very limited acquaintance with Greek, and they say that one a fait des études incomplètes when he has not taken his bachelor’s degree, which implies that bachelors have made des études complètes though they know Greek very imperfectly.

In England Latin was considered necessary, but Greek was the great object of achievement. A “scholar,” in England, means especially a Greek scholar. One may be a scholar without Hebrew or Arabic, but certainly not without Greek. The ordinary level of French attainment in Hellenic studies appears contemptible to the English of the learned class.

However, the principle was the same in both countries, and may be expressed in terms applicable to both. That principle was the choice of an ancient language that could be taught authoritatively by the learned in each country. They can never teach a modern language in that authoritative way, as in modern languages their degree of accomplishment must always be inferior to that of the educated native. When the teacher assumes great dignity it is essential to its maintenance that he should be secure from this crushing rivalry, and this security can be given by an ancient language alone. Besides this professional consideration there is the effect of antiquity, and of a certain mystery, on the popular mind. So long as the people could be made to believe that a lofty and peculiar wisdom, not communicable in translations, was enshrined in Latin and Greek words, the learned were supposed to be in possession of mysterious intellectual advantages. There was even an hieratic quality in the dead languages. Closely connected with religion, they were the especial study of priests, and communicated by them to the highest classes of the laity. They belonged to the two most powerful castes, the sacerdotal and the aristocratic. Even yet the French village priest not only says mass in Latin, but makes quotations in Latin from the Vulgate when preaching to illiterate peasants. He appeals in this way to that reverence for, and awe of, mysterious words which belongs to the uncultured man. He knows, but does not tell his humble audience, that the Vulgate is itself a translation, and that, were it not for the effect of mystery, he might equally give the passage in French.

In the same way a knowledge, or even a supposed knowledge, of Latin gave laymen an ascendency over the lower classes and over women in their own rank. It was easy for a Frenchman who knew no English to declare to a French audience equally ignorant that the whole vast range of English literature was not worthy of comparison with what has come down to us from ancient Rome. He could class English authors in the two categories of barbarians who knew nothing of antiquity and imitators who feebly attempted to copy its inimitable masterpieces. The only education worthy of the name was that which he himself possessed, and those literatures that he did not know were simply not worth knowing.

The intensely conventional nature of these beliefs, both in France and England, may be proved by their inconsistency. It was laid down as a principle that a knowledge of ancient books through translations was not knowledge, yet at the same time the clergy, with very few exceptions, were dependent on translations for all they knew of the Old Testament, and few French laymen had Greek enough even to read the Gospels. In either country you may pass for a learned man though destitute of any critical or historical knowledge of the literature of your native tongue. One may be a learned Englishman without knowing Anglo-Saxon, or a learned Frenchman though ignorant of the langue d’oil.

The close of the nineteenth century is marked by two tendencies that seem opposed yet are strictly consistent, being both the consequence of an increased desire for reality in education. One is a tendency to much greater thoroughness in classical studies themselves, and the other a tendency, every day more marked, to abandon those studies when true success is either not desired, or in the nature of things unattainable. The greater thoroughness of modern study is sufficiently proved by the better quality of the books which help the learner, and the most remarkable point in the apparently contradictory condition of the modern mind is that the age which has perfected all the instruments for classical study is the first age since the Renaissance to propose seriously its general, though not universal, abandonment. M. Raoul Frary, himself a scholar, has been so impressed by the present imperfection and incompleteness of classical studies that he has seriously proposed the abolition of Latin as a compulsory study for boys. “Only one thing,” he says, “could justify the crushing labour of beginning Latin, that would be the full possession and entire enjoyment of the ancient masterpieces, and that is precisely what is wanting to the crowd of students. They leave school too soon, and the later years are too much crowded with work to allow any time for reading.” For the same reason, the uselessness of partly learned Latin as an instrument of culture, Professor Seeley wisely proposes to defer the commencement of that study to the age of fourteen,[6] and spend the time so gained on English. Greek, I conclude, he would defer for two or three years longer. Not only M. Frary, but some other Frenchmen who appreciate Greek for themselves, would exclude it entirely from the lycées. “Amongst the young men,” he says, “who come out of our colleges, not one in ten is able to read even an easy Greek author, not one in a hundred will take the trouble. We will not discuss the question whether our youth ought to cease to learn Greek. They do not learn it, the question is settled by the fact.”

With my deference on these questions to those who are accustomed to teaching, I have submitted M. Frary’s book (La Question du Latin) to two or three masters in lycées, and their answer to it is this. They say: “It is quite true that, considered as an acquisition, the Greek taught in lycées does not count, and though Latin is learned much better the pupils gain a very small acquaintance with Latin literature, and that chiefly by fragments; nevertheless, we do unquestionably find that, as gymnastics, these studies cannot be replaced by anything else that we know of. There are now pupils who do not study Latin or Greek, and we find that when they are brought into contact with the others on other subjects their intelligence seems undeveloped and inflexible. It is difficult, and often impossible, to make them understand things that are plain to the classical students.”[7]

Here I leave this Question du Latin, regretting only that the quickened intelligence of classical students should fail to master their own particular study. The value of modern languages, as a discipline, cannot easily be ascertained, because they are rarely studied in that spirit. They have been systematically kept in a position of inferiority, by giving them insufficient time and by employing incompetent masters. They were established as a study in the French public schools by a royal ordinance, dated March 26, 1829, but M. Beljame[8] tells us that nothing was done to insure the competence of the teachers. These were picked up entirely by accident. “The masters of those days were generally political exiles, and even the best educated amongst them had never previously thought of teaching. When they were French no better qualifications were required. A member of the University told me that he had had for teachers of English in the State schools, first, the town hatter, who had a business connection with England, then the cook from the best hotel, who had exercised his art on the other side the Channel. These gentlemen were good enough to give some of their leisure moments to the University. No examination was required, either from foreigners or Frenchmen. Foreigners were supposed to know their language; as for the others, some functionary, usually quite ignorant of every European tongue, put the question, ‘Do you know German?’ or, ‘Do you know English?’ The candidate answered ‘Yes,’ and received at once the necessary authorisation.” Francisque Sarcey, in his Souvenirs de Jeunesse, tells us that in his time the hour nominally devoted to English was passed at leap-frog, that being the traditional way of spending it. Even at the École Normale the teaching of modern languages was entrusted to a pupil, and if no pupil happened to possess a knowledge of English or German some teacher was sought elsewhere.

These were the miserable beginnings. In the present year (1888) the study of modern languages is better established in France than in England. It is obligatory in secondary education. Teachers in the lycées are required to be either bacheliers ès lettres or to have a corresponding foreign degree, and it is hoped that before long the licence ès lettres (equivalent to the English mastership) will be exacted. They have to pass a special linguistic examination for a certificate before they can teach in the lycées. This examination is a serious test, but it is much less severe than the competitive trial for the agrégation. The certificate gives the rank of a licencié, the agrégation that of a Fellow of the University. Every year the candidates are of a better class. M. Beljame says that he knows thirty teachers of English who were already licenciés, and amongst the candidates in 1884 twelve had already taken that degree. In short, the teachers of modern languages are now rapidly assuming the same position in the University as the classical masters; and it is only just that they should do so, since they have the same general culture, and their special examinations are more searching. For example, the candidate for the agrégation has to lecture twice, before the examiners at the Sorbonne and in public, once in English and once in French.

In England the teachers of modern languages pass no examinations and have no dignity. They are often required to render services outside of their special work. They are wretchedly paid, have no sort of equality with classical masters, and are considered to belong to an inferior grade. When they are foreigners they are looked upon as poor aliens. The belief that modern languages are easy, although erroneous, is against them, the truth being that the pupils do not go far enough in these languages to become aware of the real difficulties. They think that Italian is easy, not knowing that there are two thousand irregular verbs, and they think that French is easy, not knowing that French boys, specially drilled and disciplined in their own tongue, have to be wary to avoid its pitfalls.

The results of the improved teaching of modern languages have not yet had time to become visible in France. Teachers tell me that amongst their pupils a certain proportion show a natural taste and aptitude, and take heartily to their work.[9] The rest count for nothing, and will retain only a limited vocabulary. In England some knowledge of modern languages is, as yet, much more general, but it seldom reaches the degree of what can be seriously called “learning.” The practical difficulty is that the unripe minds of young students, especially of young ladies, are not ready for the strongest books, and they take no interest in the history and development of a language, so they soon fall back upon the easy and amusing literature of the present, to the neglect of the great authors. That is the misfortune of modern languages as an intellectual pursuit.

It very rarely happens that a reader of either nationality has any appreciation of the poetry of the other. We may begin by setting aside that immense majority of prosaic minds which exist in all countries, and for whom all poetry must be for ever unintelligible. After them come those lovers of poetry who enjoy rhyme but cannot hear the music of blank verse. The French are in that position with regard to English poetry, though they claim an appreciation of blank verse in Horace and Virgil. Then, even in rhymed poetry, there remains the prodigious difficulty of pronunciation. Sound and feeling must go together in poetry, but the foreigner rarely has the sound. And even if he could imitate sounds exactly there would still remain the lack of those early associations to which poets are constantly appealing, both by subtle allusion and by the affectionate choice of words. The foreigner, too, has a difficulty in gliding over the unimportant expletive phrases; they acquire too much consequence in his eyes. The conventionalisms of the art strike the foreigner too forcibly. When an Englishman, in reading his own language, follows poetic ideas, a Frenchman is embarrassed by what seems to him the lawlessness of the versification, and he seeks for rules. On the other hand, the elaborate rules of French versification seem pedantic to an English mind, which perceives no necessary connection between such artificial restraints and the agile spirit of poetry. Was ever yet English scholar so learned that he could feel properly shocked by what shocks a French critic in verse? How is the foreigner to disengage the poetic from the conventional element? Since both English and French scholars believe that they have mastered all the secrets of Greek and Latin versification, it might be inferred that there is no insuperable difficulty in that of a modern tongue; yet where is the Englishman, except Swinburne, who in reading a French poem knows good technical workmanship when he sees it?

French ignorance of English literature would be amazing if it were not the result of a conventionalism. It is conventionally “ignorance” in France not to have heard of Milton; it is not ignorance never to have heard of Spenser. A Frenchman is ignorant if the name of Byron is not familiar to him, but he need not know even the names of Shelley and Keats. He is not required, by the conventionalism of his own country, to know anything whatever of living English genius. A London newspaper amused itself with sketching a possible Academy for England, and named some eminent Englishmen as qualified to be members. The names included Browning, Ruskin, Arnold, Lecky, and other first-rate men. On this, certain Parisian journalists were infinitely amused. Their sense of the ludicrous was irresistibly tickled when they saw that individuals like these, whom nobody had ever heard of, could be proposed as equivalents for the forty French immortals.

Independently of learning, modern languages are supposed to be useful for conversation. They are, however, very rarely studied or practised to the degree necessary for that use. The foreigner may be able to order his dinner at his hotel and ascertain when the train starts, but in cultivated society he only pretends to be able to follow what is said. His impressions about the talk that is going on around him are a succession of misunderstandings. He sits silent and smiling, and he endeavours to look as if he were not outside and in the dark; but he is in the dark, or, worse still, surrounded by deceptive glimpses. It would be better if French or English were like Chinese for him.

The future towards which we are rapidly tending may already be seen in the distance. Latin and Greek will be given up for ordinary schoolboys, both in England and France, but the study of them will be maintained by a small élite. This élite will have a better chance of existence in England, where superiorities of all kinds are not only tolerated but respected, than it can have in France, where the modern instincts all tend to the formation of an immensely numerous, half-educated middle class. When the classical literatures shall be pursued, as the fine arts are now, by their own elect, and not imposed on every incapable schoolboy, they will be better studied and better loved. Now, with regard to modern languages I have no illusions left. You cannot convert a Philistine into a lover of good literature by teaching him a foreign tongue. If he did not love it in his own language, he is not likely to take to it in another. Every man has his own intellectual level, and on that level he will remain, whatever language you teach him. To make a Frenchman appreciate Milton or Spenser, it is not enough to teach him English; you would have to endow him with the poetic sense, with the faculty that delights in accompanying a poet’s mind—in a word, with all the poetic gifts except invention. Neither are all men fit to read noble prose. Minds incapable of sustained attention read newspaper paragraphs in English, and in French they would still read newspaper paragraphs. What I mean is that languages do not elevate the mind, they merely extend the range of its ordinary action. Teach a French gossip English and she will gossip in two languages, she will not perceive the futility of gossiping. This explains the poor and mean use that is constantly made of modern languages by many who have acquired them, and the remarkable unanimity with which such people avoid every great author, and even all intelligent intercourse with foreigners, reading nothing and hearing nothing that is worth remembering.

In all things connected with education we are in a world of hollow pretensions. The speeches at prize distributions assume that pupils will make use of their knowledge afterwards. They are told that the wonderful literatures of Greece and Rome now lie open before them like gardens where they have but to wander and cull flowers. If they have studied modern languages they are told that European literature is theirs. The plain truth is, that both in England and France, and especially in France, there is a small studious class isolated in the midst of masses occupied with pleasure or affairs, and so indifferent to intellectual pursuits that the slightest mental labour is enough to deter them. Whatever reading they do is in the direction of least resistance. They have no enterprise, they find all but the easiest reading irksome, and the obstacle of the easiest foreign language insurmountable. They will play cards or dominoes in the day-time rather than take down a classic author from his shelf. A guest in a French château told me that on seeing the ennui that reigned there, whilst nobody read anything, she asked if there were any books in the house, and was shown into a library of classics formed in a previous generation but never opened in this. All testimony that comes to me about French interiors confirms the belief that the number of people who form libraries has greatly diminished. It was once the custom in the upper class, but nobody would say that it is the custom now. In twelve or fifteen country houses known to a friend of mine there was only one library, and, what is more significant, only one man deserving the name of a reader. Even in England, where people read certainly three times as much as they do in France, the expenditure on books bears no proportion to income, except in the case of a few scholars. How many English houses are there, of the wealthy middle class, where you could not find a copy of the representative English authors, and where foreign literatures are unknown!

Unknown—with one exception. The belief that Hebrew literature is one book, and that it was written by God himself, and that the English translation of it has a peculiar sanctity, has given the English middle class a familiarity with that literature which is a superiority over the French middle class. The French Catholic laity only knows the Bible through l’Histoire Sainte and selections; the unbelievers take no interest in it. Nothing surprises an Englishman more than French ignorance of the Bible; yet it is probable that if ever the English cease to believe in the dogma of inspiration they will neglect the whole Bible as they neglect the Apocrypha now.

Science has a stronger basis than literature in modern education because it offers useful results. In France the usefully educated young men are well educated in their way. The time spent on their education is strictly economised with a view to a definite result, and the effect of it is to turn out numbers of young men from the École Centrale and other schools who at once enter upon practical duties with a readiness that speaks much for the system. They are, however, so specially prepared that they have omitted the useless and the superfluous—“le superflu, chose si nécessaire!” In cutting away the superfluous the practical educator throws literature overboard. Well, without literature, it is still possible to sharpen the faculties and store the mind, but without literature education misses what is best and most interesting in the world. To a generation “usefully” educated Europe will be like a new continent destitute of memories and associations, a region where there are mines to be worked and railways to be made.

As the French system of secondary education extends over the whole country, an account of the most important changes in it may be worth giving in a few words.

The old system, from the time of Napoleon I. to the middle of the century, was founded on classical studies, with lighter scientific studies and those chiefly mathematical. After taking their bachelor’s degree, those students who were intended for certain Government schools (Écoles Polytechnique, Centrale, Normale supérieure pour les sciences) received further scientific instruction in special classes. This was the old system, but in 1853 an important change was introduced by M. Fortoul’s ministry, which invented what was long known as the bifurcation. On leaving the fourth class, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, pupils were required to choose between literary studies with a slight scientific supplement or the converse. Both kinds of students continued at that time to attend together the lectures on history and geography, and so much of modern languages as was then taught, besides the classes for Latin translation and the French classes. This was the system known as the bifurcation, but it did not work very well in practice, because the scientific students fell too far behind the literary students to follow profitably the same Latin classes.

In October 1864, under Duruy’s ministry, there was a new departure. He established the enseignement secondaire spécial. This scheme of teaching excluded Latin, which was replaced by a modern language, and it embraced rather an extensive programme, outside of classical studies, with such subjects as mathematical and natural science, political economy, and law.

Under the existing system the enseignement spécial includes two modern languages instead of one, and of these one is taken as “principal,” the other as “accessory,” at the student’s choice, he being more severely examined in that which he selects as “principal.” The present varieties of public secondary education may be described under three heads.

1. Ancient languages, with a little science and one modern language.

2. Scientific education, with a little Latin and one modern language.

3. Scientific education, with two modern languages, no Latin.

Enough has been already said in this chapter on the degrees of proficiency attained. My own belief is that no acquirement whatever really becomes our own until we make constant use of it for ourselves, and it is impossible to make a constant use of more than a very few acquirements. It is here, in my opinion, that is to be found the true explanation of that perpetual disappointment which attends almost all educational experiments. They may provide the instrument; they cannot insure its use. This is what makes professional education, of all kinds, so much more real than any other, and the scientific professions do certainly keep up the scientific spirit. There is not any profession (certainly not school-teaching or hack-writing) which maintains the pure literary spirit in the same way.