SPEECH DAY °
By A. VICTOR MURRAY
THE headmaster's report was of inordinate length—eleven fools- cap pages—and he insisted on reading the whole of it. It was a regional survey rather than a report, for it covered not only academic successes and sports but the doings of old boys for some years back, the intake into local industries, the composition of the Local Education Authority, the overwhelming of the universities by ex-Service men, the educational implications of the Conscription Act and everything else you—or rather he—could think of. The clock in the hall stopped soon after he had begun, and he may have had the impression that he had taken only five minutes, whereas it was really half. an hour. There were 5,5oo people present to listen to it.
It was worth listening to. This was a Local Authority day-school, not yet forty years old, in an industrial area where there was con- tinual pressure on parents to withdraw their boys from school and turn them into wage-earners. Yet out of 417 boys it had a sixth form of no less than ninety-two, which is a higher proportion than many public schools. Moreover, out of that same 417 fifty were doing 'Greek as well as Latin, and of the staff of twenty-five three were classics masters. Last year two Headmasters' Conference schools, one a day-school and the other a boarding-school, announced that they were dropping Greek because no boys could be induced to take it. Yet in this town of clogs and shawls Greek was saved for fifty's sake ; indeed not only saved but secure.
Nor was it as if the Science side was neglected. Open scholarships in science had been gained at Oxford apd London and elsewhere, and there was an open physics scholarship to record at Trinity College, Cambridge. There were eleven distinctions in physics and chemistry in the Higher School Certificate. The borough is so generous with grants that any boy who gets a place in a university, whether he holds a scholarship or not, is assured of enough money to carry him through.
The school was well supplied with societies—classical, historical, scientific, modern languages and a few more. The modern-language society conducted a quiz in French which showed no lack of spontaneity. The senior-school debating society was very popular and effective, and one indication of this was a quite admirable ex- tempore vote of thanks moved by one of the senior boys to the dis- tributor of the prizes. Societies met on certain afternoons for an hour only, from 4.55 to 5.15, and seemed to be very well attended. The games record was also good. Every boy was encouraged (there could be no compulsion) to put in an appearance four times in the term on Saturday mornings, and as this was done on a rota system he could always be sure of getting a game. Apart from three school rugger fifteens and three cricket elevens over a hundred non-team boys were able to play regularly at cricket or football.
There appears to me to be a moral to this story which was not pointed by the headmaster. What can a public school of the day- school type—such as Dulwich or Manchester Grammar School— offer that this Local Authority school does not offer? And if it be said that the boarding schools, such as Rugby and Repton, offer in addition the benefit of a communal life and of tradition, it may be asked whether the advantages of sex and class segregation between the ages of twelve and eighteen outweigh the advantages of association during those years with a natural and not an artificial community. And as to tradition, has Stowe, for example, as long a tradition as this north-country school? In other words, are not the alleged advantages of the independent schools something which the boys bring with them from their homes rather than something which they take away?
On educational grounds the value of the public schools may be summarised as follows : small classes and consequently plenty of varier and a high ratio of staff to pupils ; friendly and easy relation- ship between masters and boys ; good sixth-form work ; a close con- nection between the school, the homes and the old boys (there are disadvantages also in this) ; a freedom of experiment and teaching ; freedom from interference by a Local Authority. In the case of this school in question all these advantages seemed to be present. With twenty-five masters to 457 boys it was being reorganised as a three- stream instead of a two-stream school, and there was plenty of the necessary sub-division of work. It was interesting that one boy (English) had taken Norwegian in School Certificate and got through. Masters and boys were on a very friendly footing, and there was a surprising amount of keen voluntary work going on out of school by both masters and boys. It was anything but a 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. school. The sixth-form work I have already mentioned. The old boys' association had been got going again after the war, and sup- ported the school in every way possible and reasonable. The head had an absolutely free hand to teach and organise in any way he liked. And as for control by the Local Authority, the Local Authority was so proud of the place that it was only too glad to let it develop on its own lines. There was much less interference than some public schools receive from their old boys and from their governing bodies, and there was as generous a provision of scholarships as in any public school.
What then is the moral? It is this. Given an enlightened and pro- gressive headmaster and given an enlightened and progressive Local Authority, the Local Authority schools have the future with them. They have learned from the public schools all that they could teach them, and they can universalise it in the interests of all classes and not just of one. Meanwhile, as all headmasters are not yet enlightened and as many Local Authorities come very far short of the ideal, the witness of the public schools is still inevitable and necessary, and the Minister of Education would do a great dis-service to education at the present time by discouraging independent and direct-grant schools. But when the Local Education Authorities and the heads do together rise to the height of this great argument we shall get a national system worthy of the name.
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