W. H. D. Rouse

William Henry Denham Rouse (30 May 1863 – 10 February 1950) was a British educator, academic administrator, editor, and translator. He was the master of Rugby School and headmaster of The Perse School. He was a pioneering teacher who advocated the use of the "direct method" of teaching Latin and Greek. He was a founding editor of the Loeb Classical Library.

Early life

Rouse was born in Calcutta, British India on 30 May 1863. After his family returned home on leave to Britain, Rouse was sent to Regent's Park College in London, where he studied as a lay student. In 1881, he won a scholarship to Christ's College, Cambridge. He achieved a double first in the Classical Tripos at the University of Cambridge, where he also studied Sanskrit. He became a Fellow of Christ's College in 1888, and later received the degree Doctor in Letters from the college in early 1903.

Career

After brief spells at Bedford School (1886–1888) and Cheltenham College (1890–1895), Rouse became a master at Rugby School, where he encouraged Arthur Ransome to become a writer, against his parents' wishes. Ransome later wrote: "My greatest piece of good fortune in coming to Rugby was that I passed so low into the school... that I came at once into the hands of a most remarkable man whom I might otherwise never have met. This was Dr W. H. D. Rouse."

Rouse was appointed headmaster of The Perse School in Cambridge in 1902. He restored it to a sound financial footing following a crisis. He believed firmly in learning by doing as well as by seeing and hearing. Although the curriculum at the Perse was dominated by classics, he urged that science should be learned through experiment and observation. He was described by the school archivist as the school's greatest headmaster: "Rouse was strongly independent to the point of eccentricity. He hated most machines, all bureaucracy and public exams." He retired from teaching in 1928.