ABSTRACT
The Board of Education’s Circular 753 was instrumental in establishing the nature of English as it came to be in school. The Circular envisages its own literary canon: a body of great literary works to which pupils needs to be introduced. Startlingly perhaps for teachers the Circular has this to say: ‘Novels, indeed, though occasionally points for discussion, are rarely suitable for reading in school’ and ‘Boys and girls will read of their own accord many books—chiefly fiction. Oxford educated and Professor of Poetry from 1911 to 1921, Newbolt is, perhaps, now best remembered for his poem ‘Vitae Lampada’, which details the virtues of self-sacrifice for one’s country and contains the refrain: ‘Play up! play up! and play the game!’ Other Oxford men on the Committee were John Bailey, F. S. Boas and Professor C. H. Firth, whilst from Cambridge came Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch and John Dover Wilson.
