But you had to read De Bello Gallico, right? "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres..." Boring old git... We had to learn the first sentence by heart. I looked it up, and I made one error, so I'm thankful it at least leaves my head slowly. I did prefer reading "Asterix Gallus". 😁
Weirdly, we didn't! Juvenal, Iliad, Odyssey and the Aeneid were the top ones, and actually really good. Also dashes of Marcus Aurelius, Aristophanes (love him!), and, of course, Seneca. It was a pretty rounded classical education, if a little too Roman for my Greek sensibilities 😉
You were lucky! It was an extremely outdated curriculum for me, but it was also my first foreign language (from 5th term), so we were rather stupid little kids.
Oh that's harsh! Jumping straight into Latin is brutal. We at least did French and German before Latin. Not sure many schools still bother these days. Ancient Greek sadly came in as I left. Bastards 😂
It was brutal, and I could speak better English and French otherwise. I missed the chance to learn Greek. My favourite history teacher taught ancient Greek (8 pupils) and ancient Hebrew (2 pupils). It was a very cosy atmosphere. 😁 After my time, they had Dutch and Mandarin. I'd have liked that.
Oh wow! Ours was a very old and traditional school, so it was just French, German, and Latin. I think they added Spanish and ancient Greek as I left, but I'd hope they offer more choice now. Mandarin is a useful one.
Mine was too. I was in the last boys-only form. 🙄 Half of the teachers were *very* old and conservative. The other half were young and pretty left-wing, coming from the student revolution in the 60s, so I was good. My parents didn't read a local paper, so no warning about these communists. 😁 /2
It started as a seminar for priests in the 16th century. Luckily that spirit was gone when it became a regular state school in the 19th century. They modernised a lot after my time and even have a Montessori strand now. I can thank the school for my left-wing stance.
I was actually the first girl to be accepted - it was boys only before that. Did you have to stand when a teacher came in, and get called by your surname? 😅
You were probably in high demand. 😁 Yes and yes, but only with the old teachers. There was the "Lyceum" (girls only) relatively nearby, where some of the older boys were standing in the recess. Both schools dropped that after my class, so I thankfully didn't get that 19th-century experience.