The language of the ancients has informed radicals for more than 2,000 years. It must not be squeezed out of the state school curriculumNews that a London comprehensive, the Camden School for Girls, is considering ending the provision of A-level Greek is, you might think, pretty small beer in the scheme of things. Only three students, after all, were hoping to take it from September. But it is a symbolic moment: Camden is the last non-selective state school in England to offer the examination. This blow, were it to fall – there is hope that funding will be raised to save Greek at the school – would help calcify it into a toffs’ subject, outmoded as the empire. As rare in state schools as the Sumatran tiger.Latin is in a shade better nick. State school students who took it at A-level in 2013 numbered 367 (and more than 3,000 took classical civilisation). There are plenty of schools that are enthusiastic about offering classical languages, but funding is squeezed so tight that many can’t – a problem contributing to a general narrowing of the curriculum. The truth is that the ancient languages have few political friends. Michael Gove, when education secretary, gave with one hand, making Latin and Greek part of the EBacc and promoting them as key stage 2 primary languages; but took away with the other by not allowing for the training of enough specialist teachers and cutting funding for A-levels. His successor, Nicky Morgan, is busily promoting Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects above the humanities. Meantime, Labour politicians often regard classical languages as emblematic of the privileged classes (demonic poster boy: the Homer-quoting Boris Johnson). They have forgotten the radical history of thinking with the Greeks: how classicist Karl Marx’s ideas on historical materialism had their roots in his PhD on the ancient atomist Democritus. How George Grote, in the 1820s, forged his campaigning stance on universal suffrage in the crucible of his thinking on ancient Greece. How the suffragettes recited the great speech from Euripides’s Medea, “I would rather die in the battle line three times than give birth once!” Related: Death becomes her: how Juliette Binoche and Ivo van Hove remade Antigone Continue reading...
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