jTo the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The Headmaster of Stowe
is always interesting, and I think that he has stated the most that can be said for the expensive Public School. The other side of the case, however, is over- whelming, both from the individual and the national aspeat.
Most of the leading Public Schools were founded by charit- ably-minded men for the education of poor boys. What a terrible shock many of the founders would receive, if they were able to revisit the objects of their charity ! I do not see how all the casuistry in the world can get round this central fact—a democratic system turned into a plutocratic system.
Is it not true to say that the Public Schools have set the fashion in expense in education ? At least one of them has increased its fees by nearly 100 per cent. during the last twenty years, with the result that old boys can no longer send their sons there. Napoleon told us that we were a nation of shop-
keepers. May it not be that the schools, with their expensive outlook on life, are justifying this gibe ?
It is not for the parents to examine the accounts of the schoolmasters, but when we are told that schools, founded for poor scholars, and having each incomes of anything from £80,000 to 1300,000 a year, cannot exist if they have to reduce their fees, it is really treating the public as though they were unintelligent half-wits.
The results upon the nation of a system of plutocratic education are serious in the extreme. For, not only does such an education set the pace, but it strangles before birth many thousands of the potentially best citizens of the Empire. Married officers, clergymen, civil servants, and other profes- sional men, who cannot afford children because of the high cost of education, do not write to The Times about it, they simply remain childless ; and the consequences to the nation are immeasurable. If the schoolmasters do not tackle the job themselves, the nation will do it in a thoroughly democratic way, and most of the Public Schools, while still having some boarders, will be also large day-schools with 2.5 per cent. of " free " places. They would at least be nearer than they are at present to the declared object and trust of their kindly founders. Indeed, a National Government will probably do it in any case. For, in a democratic country a system of exclusive plutocratic education is a national danger.—! am,
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