Poisonous Passions
I have always thought of the Salem system of education for boys as neither more nor less than the English public school pushed still farther towards absurdity. Dr. Kurt Hahn, as a friend of mine maintains, is truly the Dr. Arnold of our day. Certainly he has been successful; and the peculiar rigours of Gordonstoun are more likely to be admired than criticised, especially now that the Prince of Wales is receiving his edu- cation there. I was sorry to see the press seizing on the more trivial aspects of an attack on the Hahn system launched recently in Granta by Endyrnion Wilkinson, a former head boy of Gordonstoun. Some of these reports gave the impression that Mr. Wilkinson was intent only on fouling the nest he had flown out of only three years ago. This is far from the truth. I don't suggest that all the parts of his long attack are equally well argued; but he is never less than serious and thoughtful in his criticisms of some of the basic assumptions on which Gordons- toun is founded: that our civilisation is in con- tinuous decay, for example, and that it is only segregation from the wicked world during puberty that keeps boys healthy and free from poisonous passions. I don't myself hold the view that any old stigma will do to beat a dogma; all the same, I like Mr. Wilkinson's suggestion that there might be a study of Gordonstoun old boys to see just how stoutly they act as pillars of moral strength among that 'decay of enterprise' said to mark the rest of us.
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