ABSTRACT
The regulations of the 1890s treated ‘English’ as concerned solely with parsing and analysis, quite separate from reading, composition and literature, which might all be in the hands of different teachers. The Newbolt Report is thin on practical details about the kinds of teaching that might achieve its aims, or about the kinds of English teacher that might be needed. English teachers were not to be concerned with vocational or utilitarian training. To teach a subject that in many ways is more than a subject and that has major repercussions outside the classroom walls, has imposed a special responsibility on English teachers, and helps to explain why they are so vulnerable to criticism. Administrators are more comfortable with subjects that have clearly defined specialist knowledge with firm academic boundaries and that are remote from what is learned within the home and the community. It is hardly surprising that younger teachers expressed uncertainty about the nature of their subject.
