[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The Headmaster of Stowe
has explained the position of the Public Schools in respect of the reduction of school fees with great lucidity. The agitation which has been stirred up in the Press on the subject is much to be deprecated ; the schools, as I know, have had the matter in hand since the financial crisis, and " economy " was an item on the Christmas agenda of the Headmasters' Conference long before the popular Press took the matter up.
Whether parents will continue to want a Public School education for their boys will, I should say, be determined by the laws of supply and demand ; just now, while firms are marking time, there are few jobs for anybody, but as long as employers continue to value the label "Public School boy" as much as they do at present, the schools will presum- ably exist if only in order to supply it, and parents will make the necessary arrangements, whether by putting aside a small amount of capital on each child's birth or by taking advantage of one of the schemes which the insurance companies offer. The attitude seems to me to have been too freely taken up that the schools are an expensive luxury which parents subsidize in interests other than their own.—! am, Sir, &c., The Public Schools Careers Association. S. RADICE.
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