2 JUNE 1933, Page 6

The visit of the Prince of Wales to Stowe on

its tenth anniversary is a tribute to the most successful of post- War public schools. Its success (gauged numerically) has been striking. At its foundation in 1923, the school had 99 boys. Five years later it housed 500. This was no doubt due to the ability of the headmaster, Mr. J. F. Roxburgh, much more than to the advantages of its natural setting. The transformation of the eighteenth- century house into a school was no small task ; for Stowe exactly fitted Swift's line on its contemporary, Blenheim a house but not a dwelling." Thirty miles of pipihg and an emphasis towards history and modern languag s rather than the classies did much towards turning Lord Cobham's "fashionable retirement' into a modern