On 30th July 1763, James Boswell took a boat down the Thames with Samuel Johnson.
Boswell asked the great man if knowing Greek and Latin was ‘necessary’. Johnson had no doubt, replying, ‘By all means; for they who know them have a very great advantage over those who do not.’
Late in life I became a history teacher and found myself in a girls’ grammar school, where I lasted for nine years.
I was once standing in a classroom while two girls
