‘’To
bring before the children the lives and work of English people
who served God in Church and State, to show that they did this
by courage, endurance and self-sacrifice, that as a result, the
British Empire was founded and extended and that it behoved
every child to emulate them.’
|
J.
W. Willis Bund, Education Chairman, Worcester County Council
1908, quoted in Batho, G. ‘From a test of memory to a training
for life’, in M. H. Price (ed) (1986) The
development of the secondary curriculum: 224.
|
‘Why
cannot we go back to the good old days when we learnt by heart
the names of the kings and queens of England, the feats of our
warriors and our battles and the glorious deeds of our past?’ |
John
Stokes M.P., Hansard, 1990
|
‘An
educated man must have a certain minimum of general knowledge.
Even if he knows very little about science and cannot add or
subtract, he must have heard of Mendel and Kepler. Even if he is
tone deaf, he must know something about Debussy and Verdi; even
if he is a pure sociologist he must be aware of Circe and the
Minotaur, of Kant and Montaigne, of Titus Oates and Tiberius
Gracchus.’ |
Robert
Conquest, (1969) Black Papers in Education I. Quoted in Ballard,
M. (ed) New movements in
the study and teaching of history: 3.
|
‘All
children must
understand such key concepts as empire, monarch, crown,
church, nobility, peasantry…
Public education systems contribute to a willingness of
persons to define themselves as citizens, to make personal
sacrifices for the community and to accept legitimate decisions
of public officials.’ |
John
Patten, (1994) Television broadcast, BBC1, 12 May.
|
‘The
motive (for school history) is very largely moral, because it is
a matter of introducing them to their responsibilities. If the
soldiers and sailors who followed Marlborough and Wellington,
Drake and Nelson, had defended the independence of this country
form foreign danger, they in turn might be called on to do
likewise.’ If the yeomen who supported Pym and Hampden had won
parliamentary liberties, they might be called upon to defend and
also exercise these liberties.’
|
Ministry
of Education (1952) Teaching
History: pamphlet no. 23, HMSO, London.
|
‘In
days gone by there was a saying that certain events and
historical facts were matters "which every English
schoolboy knows". Today, sadly, it seems that most of that
knowledge is a blank page to very many schoolboys and
schoolgirls alike.Today I announce a plan to revitalise
history's place in our schools. The distinguished historian and
biographer Andrew Roberts has agreed to chair a panel of
academics who will draw up a simple but clear list of the key
facts, personalities and dates which every child should be
taught. |
Tim
Collins (as Shadow Secretary of State for Education) (2005)
Address to National Catholic Heads Conference, 27 January.
Online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2005/jan/27/schools.uk3,
last accessed 21 August 2008.
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’The
difficult thing about history is that, except for Harold
Stassen, everybody who knows anything about it first hand is
dead. This means that our only source of historical information
is historians, who are useless because they keep changing
everything around.’
|
Barry, D.
(ed) (1988) Dave Barry’s Greatest hits, New York, Crown: 177.
|
‘From
its (history’s) study, the mature reader may gain a wider
intellectual outlook and a saner judgement, but for children it
is pre-eminently an instrument of moral training’.
|
Board of
Education Handbook for history teachers (1927).
|