[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sia,—Dr. Norwood and Mr. Lionel James have started a ball which deserves to roll far. May I give it a shove with some disconnected comments, captious and otherwise ?
Would the difficulties between employers and employed really be much simplified by a common education ? If so, we should expect the employer who has risen from the ranks to get on much better with his employees than the Public School man. Does he ?
Whether he does or not, we are probably all agreed that the division of classes is an evil, and that it must be attacked from as many angles as possible.
The value of the Duke of York's camps and similar institu- tions, admirable though they are, is limited by the fact that the fortnight spent at them is entirely unlike the rest of the lives of both sections ; also, perhaps, by the assumption (which Mr. James also makes verbally though not, I think, really) that a duke and a dustman are separated by a " great chasm." It is not a chasm, but a crowded high road. If his Grace always crosses by the bridge to have a chat with the dustman, he will never feel so much at home with him as if he walks across the road, hobnobbing on the way with all the baronets and bagmen, barristers and bank clerks, brewers and bricklayers that he will meet there.
I fully share the belief that a number of free places at the Public Schools would be an excellent thing, but ex hypothe,si they would be filled by the creme de la creme of the elementary schools, who would be almost certain to rise to the pro- fessional classes. Their value would be not in the bridging of a gulf, but in the cultural and aesthetic environment which they would give in boyhood to the new recruits of the professional classes. They would not result in the chimney-sweep who goes to clean the squire's chimneys being able to greet him with : " Hullo ! Weren't you in old Todger's form with me at Barchester ? Do you remember. . .," which is, I imagine, the sort of thing that we want.
Though the Public Schools are still grossly ignorant of the lives of other schools, they are far less wilfully snobbish than they were a generation ago. One could not hear to-day this evening greeting that was uttered in an O.T.C. camp before the War : " Good-night, Eton ! Good-night, Winchester ! Good-night everyone except — " (the name of a small school that was apparently thought to have crept kto the Public Schools' Year Book by false pretences). But much more might be done to increase mutual understanding and regard if Public Schools and neighbouring Secondary Schools
organized matches, joint lectures, debates, scientific and historical expeditions, holiday tours, Scout rallies, &e. The same applies to the preparatory school and its elementary school neighbour.
The Grammar Schools and other aided or maintained Secondary Schools are the most successful agents in bringing different classes together, just because they do not cover the whole range ; the mingling of doctors' and dock labourers' sons in them is complete and natural, and their products are found in all professions from the Bar to the retail counter ; but they do not teach the sons of the squire, nor do they train the future artisan.
The municipal day schools have less opportunity in this direction than the combined boarding and day Grammar Schools, and it is lamentable to see so many of these (Mon- mouth is, I imagine, a notable exception) dwindling into inefficiency and poverty for lack of numbers, and all their beauty and historical associations being wasted, just when the country is being covered with new schools, expensive and often ugly. Everything should be done to help them.
As Dr. Lyttelton pointed out some time ago, a wealthy patron of education could set six of these schools on their legs with the money he spends in founding one new and expensive Public School. Then an enterprising L.E.A. or the State might give boarding allowances at these schools instead of paying the travelling expenses of country free- place boys. It would be rather more expensive but well worth it in order to preserve a unique part of the English heritage of education. For the decay of these schools is not due to incompetence, and many of them, so far as their numbers and means allow, preserve traditions no whit inferior to those of some of the Public Schools. Moreover, they could feed and house their pupils well, if plainly, for about £50 a year (apart from tuition fees), if only their boarding houses were full. Again, the founding of Rendcomb College seems to have been a very successful experiment. Who will endow some imitators ?
A bigger problem even than the co-education of boys from different kinds of home is the wider co-education of boys destined for different walks in life. A school adequately equipped for training future statesmen, scientists, business men, engineers and craftsmen would have to be enormous, and would be in danger of losing the family atmosphere of the smaller school ; yet such Schools would be so full of possibilities for the future unity of the nation that it would be a pity to dismiss them as impracticable dreams. Some experiments in developing a full house and tutorial system in a municipal day school have led me to think that there may be a possible solution in the creation of a school of some thousand boys divided for teaching purposes (above a certain stage) into " sides "—classical, modern, engineering, industrial, &c. ; and for social, moral and disciplinary pur- poses into houses, much more self-contained and self-governing than the usual day school " houses." This division would
correspond more or less to the division of a University into faculties and colleges ; the house tutors, lice the college authorities, would rather than the head-master be the real overseers and guides of their pupils' lives. I should like to see an experiment on these lines combining day boys and boarders in fairly equal proportions, but it would be expen- sive to start and it might not be easy to get " upper class " parents to make use of it unless it could be grafted on to an already aristocratic school. Here is another opportunity for the enthusiastic millionaire, or the enterprising local authority.
I apologize for the length of this letter, but I hope it may have started some active hares.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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