Published in 1975, Margaret Mathieson has drawn on her experience both in schools and in the training of English teachers to relate the discussions and writings of the previous two centuries to the debate, probably livelier than ever before, among English practitioners about the role of their subject.

Of all subjects ‘English' can be the most stimulating and also the most problematic. In order to assess the continual discussion and controversy about English, its nature, purpose and place in the curriculum, an understanding of its development as a subject and its entry into the...