SIR,—How far is the Tory party in its heart of
hearts genuinely committed to the democratic prin- ciple of equality of opportunity within a free society? To what extent does it represent more than a minority class interest placating the lower orders with charity that leaves its own citadels untouched?
To resist universality is to stand before social evolution as Canute did before the waves. Progress, it seems to me, cannot be the monopoly of a single political party; any party harbours beds of reac- tion. It may be a comfort to Tories to contemplate trade union conservatism, but does this help them to seize the initiative and be more than the neces- sary brake on runaway progress? If it is to succeed in this, the Tory party must turn a deaf ear to the gouty rumblings of its own right wing and ally itself unequivocally with universal and democratic processes, giving them the stamp of continuity rather than of iconoclasm. What better place to start than the independent schools?
So as not to destroy their tenets, the Tory, party ought to adopt the principle of supervision rather than control. This means that it must insist on some scheme whereby the cake is shared on the lines that Oxbridge is shared. It must be definite about this; to waver is to hanker after minority privilege, to be victim of indecisive nostalgia. In- creasingly Oxbridge is becoming a microcosm of our social hierarchy. Why not our leading public schools? This means more than a broader social intake of pupils, but of staff too. The public schools appear to be drastically short of teachers trained in modern methods; men and women who know a little about the sociology of English education as well as how to operate a tape-recorder or a slide- projector.
I don't demand the total obliteration of the right of parents to choose their children's place of edu- cation, but a modification of that choice and its extension to a wider clientele. Elites are inevitable in any advanced society. We ought to establish ours on criteria more relevant to our times.
C. J. ARTHUR C/o 37 Rectory Gardens, Hontary, London, N8
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