[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
Sul,—It appears to me that your correspondents on the subject of Mr. Clarke's article on Preparatory Schools have missed his chief point, which was that private schools are not necessarily subject to control of any kind, and it is a fact that hundreds of them prefer to remain uninspected.
Mr. Underhill states that 284 schools in the Preparatory Schools Association have been inspected. He is apparently unaware of the small proportion of existing preparatory and private schools represented by this figure. I can assure him from my own experience as a master in private schools, and from my connexion with a well-known educational agency, that £50 per annum as a resident salary is very common indeed.
It is Mr. Underhill again who declares that the prosperous headmaster in a private school is indeed happy. In my last school the headmaster was able to afford a life which can only be described as one of luxury, while his assistant staff were paid yearly resident salaries from £roo downwards, the lowest paid of them having £70 ; this in a school of some 70 pupils.
I can cite the example of another of my posts, where a school of a hundred boys supported its proprietors in comfortable circumstances, while the assistant masters drew upwards of £36 a year, working from 7o to 75 hours per week.—I am, Sir,
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