Some considerations about the classical education in Victorian England

Abstract

The History of Classical Education in Britain began in the second half of the first century AD when the Roman governor Agricola promoted actions to maintain their subjects near to Rome. Under the Roman Empire, a system of education based on the study of imitation of the best models of literature had been established, beyond which, the Greek language and literature. The England of XIX century, inherited the Grammar Schools system’s, but it was distributed unevenly in the country. At the beginning of the century, Victorian education was already developing in public schools, but the teaching methods were different between schools. The grammar school has survived since the Roman Empire through the Middle Ages and Humanism, but the purpose of the institution began to be questioned. In this sense, our main objective through this paper is to present some characteristics and methodologies used by the Victorians in the teaching of Classical Culture, as well as to investigate the importance of classical studies for the formation of the English population of the period.