GOVERNMENT BY OLD ETONIANS
SIR,—May I pass a few comments on the letter of Mr. W. E. Kaye who so fervently defends public schools and their products? Britain vitally and ur- gently needs scientists and technicians, and the need becomes more pressing with every passing year. And yet the tone of our educational system is taken largely from public school men and graduates from the older universities who insist that classics, history, languages and philosophy are the basic subjects for a proper education, while scientific subjects are somehow plebeian and contemptible. The same
people insist that their own synthetic dialect is the hallmark of a sound education, and that those who do not speak it do not speak good English. Thus the false idea is widespread that the arts subjects and the synthetic dialect are all important. They are, so it is claimed, the things that make a gentleman. But the colossal folly of this educational snobbery is at last beginning to alarm those who look with hope and fear towards the future.
In this age of science Britain has fewer than- 60 graduate engineers per million of the population— thanks to the educationalists I have mentioned— while in the United States the number is 130 and 280 for Soviet Russia. Western Germany and even Switzerland have a better showing than we haVe with figures of 86 and 82. In Britain engineering and science are,not quite nice. In the eyes of Old Etonians they are non-U subjects. This stupid and snobbish notion is putting the brake on progress.
It is urgently necessary that in the future—the immediate future—every school in Britain from the highest to the lowest must encourage the study of science and technology. Every school must first and foremost be a technical school, for it is a fact that today the man who can read an engineering drawing is far more useful than one who can read every dead tongue from Sanskrit to Gaelic. And the notion that the mincing dialect of the so-called upper class is the hallmark of good breeding is both false and foolish. It is time that the rich dialects of England, Scotland and Wales were heard more often on the air and in our lecture rooms. They are primitive and beautiful and full of poetry.
Mr. Kaye says that such Old Etonians as he has met invariably impress him with their supreme con- fidence and good manners. But a fool can he con- fident in his folly and good manners are not the exclusive quality of Old Etonians. Today the Western world is reaping the poisoned harvest of rulership abroad by Old Etonians whose attitude to 'wogs, 'niggers,' dagoes,' etc., has resulted in revolt against Britain by people who might have been our good friends and allies.
Naturally Mr. Kaye resents gibes at 'the old school tie,' but since the old school tie has become a fit subject for comedy, and, in some places, absolute loathing, he must accept these gibes as they come. —Yours faithfully, R. W. WOOD 37 Cranbourne Terrace, Stockton-on-Tees
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