The Hidden Curriculum: An Empire ‘Anglicised’

Caitlin Price Hand (University of Oxford)

Introduction

“Discuss the part played by the Anglo Saxon race in the history of civilisation.”

“England is the one purely German nation that arose upon the wreck of Rome.”

The explicit nationalism of the above exam questions, which were presented to pupils at Rugby in 1892 and 1899, was far from accidental. They evoke a historical ‘English’ race; one that ‘arose’ not from the wreck of Rome, but irrespective of it. Adjudicators of civilisation, ‘Englishness’ joins the ranks of this ancient imperial power. This begs the question: what necessitated the need for Rugby students to be examined upon this? Why were boys, potentially as young as 13, being asked to explore the ‘purity’ of the English or the civilising capabilities of the ‘Anglo-Saxons’?  

A cursory examination illustrates that, of those who gained leading positions in managing the Empire, an overwhelming majority were recruited from public schools. The Clarendon Report, a royal commission that sought to observe the management and studies of said schools, was carried out in the nine leading public schools in 1868, one of which was Rugby.

Upon analysing the results, it became evident that there was a ‘hidden curriculum’ at play. They were places of incessant ritualism, a practice that was mimicked in the governance of the Empire. Exams became an aspect of this very same ritualism, adopting more so an administrative than educational purpose. They wove a sense of competition into the very fabric of public school life. They required students to think under intense time constraints. And, through being overtly focused upon empire, they raised the stakes of the students’ answers. In Macaulay’s ‘Defence of the India Bill,’ which opened Indian appointments to competitive examinations, he notes that this ‘idea of competition was in accord with the spirit of the new age.’

Why then, when schools such as Rugby were so preoccupied with constructing a microcosm of the British Empire, was there an innate focus on it being contained within a distinctly English national consciousness? By 1918, the British Empire covered 1/5 of the world’s territory and accounted for 1/4 of the world’s population. As a direct result of this, ‘Britishness’ had long surpassed the need for ‘Englishness.’ With nationalism historically a solvent of empire, ruling authorities had crafted loyalties, not to a people, but to its institutions. Britain was the Monarchy, Protestantism, and the British Empire.

Nevertheless, as the twentieth century approached, it became apparent, as Krishan Kumar suggests, that the ‘coming world was a world of nation states.’ For far too long ‘Englishness’ had been subsumed by ‘Britishness.’ A rise in nationalism throughout Europe however, undermined the very foundations of this British identity established first in 1541 (Wales), then in the Unions of 1701 (Scotland) and 1801 (Ireland). The empire needed to be reinterpreted in ‘English’ terms. Its achievements needed to be clarified as the achievements of an ‘English’ people.

Educating the Empire’s next generation, this reinterpretation was, therefore, etched into the very consciousness of the nine leading public schools. C. H. K Marten, Provost of Eton, and future tutor of a young Queen Elizabeth II, believed that teaching, particularly teaching history, ‘should provoke patriotism and enthusiasm: it should help to train the citizen or the statesman.’ On the specific history of the ‘English’, he said that ‘no people has a nobler or more inspiring story […] our history has a continuity which is lacking in that of many other countries.’ The teacher’s role – and thus that of the examiner – became that of the nationalist. Empire, progress, science, civilisation – these terms needed to become fused under the umbrella concept of ‘English.’ It is the ‘English,’ a people united through a ‘continuity’ of national heritage, of imperial lineage, that led the Empire and, thus, serve as inspiration for the future ‘Englishmen’ represented by the boys in these schools, sitting these exams. How, then, did a school like Rugby go about infusing its curriculum with these ideals at the turn of the century, in what appeared to be a crucial moment for the British Empire?

Translating empire

Constructing subconscious comparisons between this ‘English’ empire and previous imperial ‘greats’ became a recurring task in exam papers at Rugby between 1880 and 1930. ‘English History’ became an exam paper in itself; studied alongside the boys’ traditional classical learning. In a History paper from July 1891, the Upper Middles at Rugby were asked to:

“Write a life of one of the following – Napoleon I, Marlborough, Julius Caesar”

And then in 1920 to:

“Give an account of any one great reform in English, or Roman, or Greek History”

In both questions English history is seen as a natural companion to that of the Roman, Greek, and French empires. To be English is emphatically separated from being ‘British,’ but it is not separated from the leadership of the British Empire, occupying the same role that Napolean and Julius Caesar played for the French and Romans, respectively. The historical weight of these fellow imperial titans was transferred onto the English for those taking this exam. This act of transferring empire was also embedded in exam papers on ‘Classical Learning.’ In the translation aspect of this paper, students were not merely asked to translate Latin or Greek into English but were instructed to translate both literary and historical English extracts into the classical languages, the imperial undertones of which permeated examinations of all academic abilities. In 1899, those in the Lower School were asked to translate simple phrases: ‘The friends we saw yesterday have gone to Africa;’ ‘It is said that the Boers were driven on by whips to enter battle;’ ‘The duty of the soldier is to fight.’ However, for those in higher years, these statements progressed into entire extracts. In 1917, the ‘Latin Prose’ translation was an extract of Clarendon’s speech on Lord Falkland, a politician who served as the Lord Deputy of Ireland on behalf of the British crown in the early seventeenth century. In 1921, there featured an extract from Canning’s ‘On the Union with Ireland’. This passage discussed the 1801 parliamentary act which united Great Britain and Ireland under British sovereignty, in an attempt to subdue the Irish Catholic threat to the stability of the empire following a 1798 Irish rebellion. In an article from the July 1835 edition of ‘The Rugby Magazine,’ titled ‘On the Method of Translation employed in Rugby School’ the writer quotes Coleridge – ‘translation is far more difficult than original composition, and requires if not higher, at least far more rare qualities of the mind.’ This laborious task of translation encouraged a constant rumination upon empire, albeit sometimes subconsciously. It crafted a kind of linguistic power transaction between the historical weight of Latin and Greek and the contemporary importance of English, particularly in terms of the imperial stage. The power of the English language was granted the longevity of that of Latin. The author of the article in ‘The Rugby Magazine’ goes on to state that ‘there have been three great cycles of literature, the last of which is now being accomplished: those of Greece, Rome and Europe.’ To consolidate ‘England’ firmly as a player within ‘Europe’ these translation papers often included famous literary works from English writers. The fact that poems by Coleridge and extracts from Milton were meticulously translated into Greek and Latin artificially historicised English literature. Through this, the students were able to unearth a kind of patriotic pride as this exchange of language fathoms a national consciousness as old as that of the Romans or Greeks.

So how did they seek to realise this? The primary method was to alter national mythology. One of the first studies into British History was Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 1136 account of ‘The History of the Kings of Britain,’ in which the Britons, an imperial people, were depicted as the descendants of Brutus, grandson of Aeneas the founder of Rome. This pseudohistorical account created an ‘England’ that existed in the shadow of Rome. However, the act of translation in these exams attempted to re-cast England as an historical equal of Rome. In a ‘Classical’ exam of Christmas 1901, the Upper Middle set were asked to translate an extract on the life of King Alfred of England. Nicknamed ‘Alfred the Great,’ his rule oversaw considerable military reforms and administrative change. In the act of translating this extract in a ‘Classical’ exam from English into Latin, a historical, distinctly ‘Anglo-Saxon’, England appears, one that is purified of Roman influence. The pupils’ apparent destinies as architects of the British Empire does not appear as a random occurrence, but as a consequence of a continuous and cumulative growth and expansion from the time of the Anglo-Saxons. This ideal is reinforced through the recurring format of Rugby’s history exams throughout the years. Boys of all abilities were asked to ‘explain’ or ‘give dates’ of chronological events in English history. For example, in October 1920, a history question was phrased thus: ‘give dates of – the First crusade, the death of St Louis, the Battle of Bosworth, the Act of Union, the Suez Canal, the Battle of Mukden.’ The use of these asyndeton lists served in creating a sense that (English) history was continuous; that each aspect of it worked towards an imperial destiny that was now being realised.

A competitive edge

The English were wary, however, of crafting complete comparisons between their Empire and ones that came before it. For example, there was a decided avoidance of too heavy a reliance upon the ‘Roman Model.’ Rome had crumbled at its height of power, corrupted by its own imperial greed. And was this not now, at the turn of the century, the moment in history where the British Empire surpassed that of Rome? Edward VII’s coronation was described by a commentator as dripping with an ‘imperial idea,’ which ‘blazed forth into prominence as the sons and daughters of the Empire gathered together from the ends of the earth to take their part.’ Seemingly indestructible, the Empire had much to lose. Was this not also the point at which Britain’s rivals – France, Russia, Germany, and their old colony the United States – were growing more prosperous and powerful? England could not maintain mere equality with other empires. The English had to compete to be better in order to legitimise their own Empire’s place within the English national consciousness. They also had to ensure that what had happened to previous empires did not happen to them. It was throughout this particular period of bravado and concealed anxiety that the students of Rugby were not only being asked to craft subconscious comparisons between empires, but deconstruct other imperial powers and weigh up their comparative merits and weaknesses. In April 1919, both Upper and Lower Fifths were asked to answer the following questions concerning the Roman Empire:

“What were the limits of the Roman Empire at the death of Augustus?”

“What had happened to discourage further extension?”

“What additions were subsequently made?”

Analysing ‘limits,’ preventions of ‘extension’ and colonial expansion that result in having to change an initial idea or plan, the boys were encouraged to think like generals. These exam questions mimic imperial positions and decisions in the competitive environment of the exam hall, forcing critical evaluation under pressure. The fear of correlation with Rome was also evident in how the students were asked to analyse past issues in the British Empire. In July 1918, the Modern Upper Middles were asked in their paper on ‘English History’ to ‘describe the events which led up to the Boer war,’ a war in which contemporary writers constructed comparisons between the British Empire and Rome. A critic of empire, J.A. Hobson stated that the Roman Empire had, like the British, been taken over by a ‘moneyed oligarchy’ which had ‘steadily sucked the moral and material life away from the empire.’ With a view to boys becoming future statesmen, an ability to intellectualise the empire was crucial. They were made aware of the controversial realities of empire and, in being forced to ‘describe the events’ which led up to divisive moments such as the Boer war, they were subliminally studying how to pacify future reactions to said realities. Having a constant awareness of the vulnerability of their empire in particular was further exemplified in the creation of new exam papers. These included papers like ‘Current Events,’ where students were asked questions of an evaluative nature such as ‘how successful’ was ‘Lord Kitchener’s Proclamation’. Another, entitled ‘Round the Empire,’ quizzed pupils on issues such as ‘the advantages and disadvantages’ of being an ‘oceanic empire.’ At this time, Rugby exam culture was increasingly competitive – the ability to rise up in the school depended not on age but on academic attainment. This meant that having a firm grasp on issues of empire directly related to academic success at school - performing well in these exams and advancing up year groups almost mimicked promotions in imperial ranking.

A newly emerging prize culture at Rugby furthered the intensity of competition. The Bowen History Prize was founded in 1887 ‘to encourage the study of modern history’ and The Guedalla Prize was founded in 1902 for the examination of ‘general knowledge’. Both prize competitions were often explicit in their questions on empire. For the Bowen History Prize, boys were regularly asked to analyse the destruction of international empires. The October 1899 exam featured the following questions:

“Describe how France gained and lost her colonial empire”

“What times and for what reasons were Sweden, Denmark, Spain and Holland most prominent in European history”

“Describe the decline of the Ottoman Empire.”

This theme of asking the boys to deconstruct the rise and fall of colonial powers was recurring. In October 1922 they were asked: ‘to what causes is Germany’s failure to take her place among the Great Powers till the second half of the 19th century to be attributed.’ In October 1925, they had to ‘describe and account for the breakup of the Carolingian Empire.’ However, these evaluative questions were not limited to other empires. In October 1920, the boys sitting the exam for this prize would have to answer how England ‘lost Dunkirk, Tangier, Ionian Islands, Heligoland’ and then in the following year ‘how far England was responsible for the loss of the Colonies’ in North America. Asking these types of questions in exams used to award prizes gave the students at Rugby an incentive to try to outdo one another, to think more deeply about the idea of empire – its successes, its failures, its historical vulnerability. This ritualistic and repetitive need from the examiners for the students to observe, analyse and then pull apart other empires engendered a future generation of ‘Empire’ with the knowledge of where previous empires, as well as previous nation states, had ‘gone wrong.’ In studying previous losses of the British Empire alongside this, these investigations into the successes and failures of empire became almost cautionary or preventative, the students able to transpose the current state of the British Empire and England onto the timeline of past empires.

Conclusion

In their exam papers between 1880 and 1930, Rugby fulfilled its patriotic duty as identified by Eton’s C.H.K Marten – teaching was there to ‘provoke patriotism and enthusiasm’ and aid in the training of the ‘statesman.’ Students were inculcated with a need to compete against one another on the basis of their ability to assess empire, thereby inadvertently preparing them to go on and take roles in its international administration. Placing the British Empire in tandem with those of the Romans or the Greeks attributed an almost legendary, mythical quality to what it meant to be English – the architects of ‘civilisation’ in the ‘New World.’ The maintained strength of the British Empire relied on this ritualistic training of boys like those at Rugby. These students needed to understand the stakes they had in the Empire in regard to this shared sense of ‘Englishness’ that was steadily becoming interchangeable with it.

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