Public Schools and Social Service
[In this article the Head-Master of Harrow makes a striking contribution to a question all thinking men are asking them- selves to-day—how may the barriers of class prejudice be broken down ?] MOST thinking men and women must feel that one of the chief dangers, if not the chief danger, for the future of our country arises from the segregation of its social classes, and in particular from the utter separa- tion of the children of the well-to-do during the whole course of their education from all other children. Some would go on to say that they are separated also during all their school-life from the realities of the national existence, and that it is an inevitable result of the-system that it becomes difficult for those who grow up under it to realize that social status carries with it responsibilities, and wealth involves duties. The classes which once grew up together in natural and daily touch have now to make a deliberate effort to go out and find one another. They are the products of different educations, and they play different games : they live in different and widely separated quarters, and the motor-car divides them more than ever. It is not surprising that they do not make the effort needed for mutual understanding, and that there- fore mutual ignorance is ripening into mutual dislike. In giving rise to this difficult and complex problem Public School " education plays its part as one important factor, and by " Public School " education I mean the whole system by which boys (and to an increasing degree nowadays girls) are segregated as boarders in expensive Private schools till they are turned thirteen, and then Pass on to other schools which, though larger, are still Confined to the same social class. At all the stages the normal boy lives a life which is absorbing, strenuous, and happy, but which is artificially limited. The darker and harder sides of life are excluded. Cities and their indus- tries, the factory, the mill, and the mine, and all the Problems which they carry with them, -are beyond the horizon-; they are things about which a boy hears, but which he never sees. With the affairs of House and School to occupy all his thoughts in term, and the Swiss holiday, the new car, the first gun or the first rod to fill his thoughts in vacation, it is easy for him to grow to manhood with but slight sense of social obligation, and, if he has money, to become that which most excites the anger of Labour, the idle rentier. Mr. Tawney sums him up, " A Public School and then club life in Oxford and Cambridge, and then another club in town ; London in June, when London is pleasant, the moors in August, and pheasants in October, Cannes in December, and hunting in February and March ; and a whole world of rising bourgeoisie eager to imitate them, sedulous to make their expensive watches keep time with this preposterous calendar ! "
This is true of some who have more money than brains; and more wealth than taste. But the ordinary Public School man is very different, usually a hard-working professional man, with plenty of good will towards others, but not often at his ease with them. The solution of our difficulty will not come from hurling abuse at all the well-to-do as if there were none in their ranks save the idle and heartless, any more than from invectives against the poor as if they were all idle and predatory. We must not let this country drift on into becoming the arena for civil war between the " haves " and the " have-nots " : we want it to be the home of people who have the things worth having, which are by no means very expensive. But we ought to be more on our guard than we are against the danger of this unintended by-product of our elaborate and expensive education, this undesired and accidental social estrangement. The Public Schools ought to empha- size more than they do, or in some manner which would be more successful than those at present employed, the duty of social service. The Army is short of candidates for Woolwich and Sandhurst : the competition for India is meagre : Territorial battalions are short of officers. Public School men are rare on County and City Councils. The Scouts, the Boys' Brigades, the boys' clubs all ask for Public School workers, and are not satisfied. The demand is greater than ever, the opportunity greater : and the supply seems to be less.
At the end of the nineteenth century this call was met by a general movement for the establishment of School Missions, which was on the whole successful, so far as it went. But some of these Missions have now developed into quite ordinary parishes, and in many other cases it is hard to establish living ties between the present boys and the school settlement. All boys will give a subscription, but few can visit, and when they do they remain visitors. The call to-day is more urgent and more multiform than can be entirely satisfied in this way. It is desirable to establish contacts between the classes in more ways than one, and at all points to suggest comradeship and sym- pathy rather than patronage. The object is not' the charitable relief of those who are down and out, but to establish chances of mutual understanding between two classes which are each of vital importance to the country. The best means seem to me to be the club and the camp, particularly the latter, but they need to go together so that the ties which are easily formed in the unconventional camp-life can be strengthened in the more permanent quarters of the club by occasional visits.
This is the only criticism that I make of the excellent camp inaugurated• by the •Duke of York : it provides an excellent beginning, but it does not give the means of going on. The valuable experience which both sides gain remains in their lives too_ isolated an incident. The camp which is known as . the Marlborough-Swindon camp I think to be good ; boys from the G.W.R. works and elsewhere occupy Marlborough College for ten days in the summer under the leadership of Marlborough boys, and extend hospitality throughout the winter in their own club-premises to various Houses in return visits. But however it is done, I think it is necessary by all means to impress on every Public School boy that there is some- thing which he can, do and ought to do. If unable to go to a regular camp he could spare one evening to a club he might be a Scout Master ; he might be a leader in a men's society: He -Might manage - the games of his factory or his engineering works ; he might hold a Terri. torial commission, and take some interest in his men. In town or country he might find some work worth the doing : he would not have to look far.
I remember a trade union leader saying once rather plaintively to the Committee of the Head-Masters' Con. ference, that they felt in touch with the elementary and State-aided schools and in touch with the Universities, but the Public Schools were to them a strange and undis- covered country. That raises the great question whether the sons of- poor men cannot be brought to the Public Schools themselves. If they were carefully chosen, I am confident that they would be welcomed. Boys are not exclusive, and their values are 'not those of their elders. But the practical difficulties are great. The elementary school does not lead on to the Public School : French, Latin, Algebra, and Geometry are all necessary subjects for the beginner. The road, therefore, from the elemen- tary to the Public School must be through the Secondary School, and the Secondary School will not willingly give up the boy it has once received, and will not co-operate. A scheme which was once roughly worked out was debated among Head-Masters, and cast out after a discussion which I remember mainly as an exhibition of class prejudice between the schools themselves ; and if any scheme of this sort is to come into force at any time, it would have to be imposed on the schools from above. For my part I think such a scheme would be _good for the Public Schools, but I have grave doubts whether it would be good for the boy from the poor hothe. I think it would almost necessarily estrange him. from his class, make things hard for him, and perhaps do little to increase peace and good will. It must suffice here to place on record that, whatever the reasons which may make it inadvisable to attempt such a_ scheme, among them is not justly to be placed the supposed exclusiveness of the Public Schools.
CYRIL NORWOOD.
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