Articles From The Classical Teacher

Goodbye Mr. Chips
by James Hilton, 1934

     Many people don't know that the more difficult "classical pronunciation" of Latin is, historically, a fairly recent phenomenon.  This passage from Goodbye, Mr. Chips, an English literary classic, recounts that period around the turn of the century when schools were being transformed from centers of cultural literacy into what the author calls "factory" schools.  It was at this time that the Christian pronunciation of Latin--which had been in use for a thousand years--was suddenly deemed inadequate, and teachers were forced to conform to this new product of scientific study from ivory tower scholars of the period.  Teachers such as Mr. Chips were concerned about the students, not the latest ideas of ivory tower elitists, many of whom had never set foot in a classroom.

     "Yes, look at the gown you're wearing. I happen to know that that gown of yours is a subject of continual amusement throughout the School."

     Chips knew it, too, but it had never seemed to him a very regrettable matter.

     He went on: "And you also said-umph-something about insubordination?"

     "No, I didn't.  I said that in a younger man I should have regarded it as that. In your case it's probably a mixture of slackness and obstinacy. This question of Latin pronunciation, for instance--I think I told you years ago that I wanted the new style used throughout the School. The other masters obeyed me; you prefer to stick to your old methods, and the result is simply chaos and inefficiency."

     At last Chips had something tangible that he could tackle. "Oh, that!" he answered scornfully. "Well, I-umph-I admit that I don't agree with the new pronunciation. I never did. Umph-a lot of nonsense, in my opinion. Making boys say 'Kickero' at school when-umph-for the rest of their lives they'll say 'Cicero'--if they ever-umph-say it at all. And instead of 'vicissim'--God bless my soul--you'd make them say, 'We kiss'im!'  Umph-umph!" And he chuckled momentarily, forgetting that he was in Ralston's study and not in his own friendly form room.

     "Well, there you are, Mr. Chipping--that's just an example of what I complain of. You hold one opinion and I hold another, and since you decline to give way, there can't very well be an alternative. I am to make Brookfield a thoroughly up-to-date school. I'm a science man myself, but for all that I have no objection to the classics--provided that they are taught efficiently. Because they are dead languages is no reason why they should be dealt with in a dead educational technique. I understand, Mr. Chipping, that your Latin and Greek lessons are exactly the same as they were when I began here ten years ago?"

     Chips answered, slowly and with pride: "For that matter-umph-they are the same as when your predecessor, Mr. Meldrum, came here, and that-umph-was thirty-eight years ago. We began here, Mr. Meldrum and I, in-umph-in 1870. And it was-um-Mr. Meldrum's predecessor, Mr. Wetherby, who first approved my syllabus. 'You'll take the Cicero for the fourth,' he said to me. Cicero, too--not Kickero!"

     "Very interesting, Mr. Chipping, but once again it proves my point--you live too much in the past, and not enough in the present and future. Times are changing, whether you realize it or not. Modern parents are beginning to demand something more for their three years' school fees than a few scraps of languages that nobody speaks. Besides, you boys don't learn even what they're supposed to learn. None of them last year got through the Lower Certificate."

     And suddenly, in a torrent of thoughts too pressing to be put into words, Chips made answer to himself. These examinations and certificates and so on--what did they matter? And all this efficiency and up-to-dateness--what did that matter either?  Ralston was trying to run Brookfield like a factory--a factory for turning out a snob culture based on money and machines. The old gentlemanly traditions of family and broad acres were changing, as doubtless they were bound to; but instead of widening them to form a genuine inclusive democracy of duke and dustman, Ralston was narrowing them upon a single issue of a fat banking account. There never had been so many rich men's sons at Brookfield. The Speech Day Garden Party was like Ascot. Ralston met these wealthy fellows in London clubs and persuaded them that Brookfield was the coming school, and since they couldn't buy their way into Eton or Harrow, they greedily swallowed the bait. Awful fellows, some of them--though others were decent enough. Financiers, company promoters, pill manufacturers. One of them gave his son five pounds a week pocket money. Vulgar...ostentatious...all the hectic rotten-ripeness of the age...And once Chips had got into trouble because of some joke he had made about a boy's name. The boy wrote home about it, and his father sent an angry letter to Ralston. Touchy, no sense of humor, no sense of proportion--that was the matter with them, these new fellows...No sense of proportion. And it was a sense of proportion, above all things, that Brookfield ought to teach--not so much Latin or Greek or chemistry or mechanics. And you couldn't expect to test that sense of proportion by setting papers and granting certificates...

     All this flashed through his mind in an instant of protest and indignation, but he did not say a word of it. He merely gathered his tattered gown together and with an "umph-umph" and walked a few paces away. He had had enough of the argument. At the door he turned and said: "I don't-umph-intend to resign--and you can-umph-do what you like about it!"