BOARDING SCHOOL OR DAY SCHOOL ? [To the Editor of
the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—A large part of the cost of the boarding-schools is borne by the day-schools, and the demand by one of your corre- spondents for evidence of the "alleged superiority of the day- boy over the boarder " may justify a reminder of the fact. Nine out of ten boys at secondary schools—the figure is approximate—are day-boys, and it is not untrue to say that numerically we have an almost universal day-school system, - whether we " deserve " it or not—what, by the way, did Mr.
Roxburgh mean by this word ? And the day-Schools have a pedigree at least as long and honourable as that of the boarding-schools : they, too, have " sprung out of our soil." But, for reasons which are social as well as educational, the powerful minority of boarding-schools has first pick of boys and masters in this country and a direct comparison between them and the day-schools is thereby made inequitable.
In Bordeaux or Hamburg or Philadelphia it is normal for
all the best as well as all the average boys to attend the local day-sehool. But the more prosperous and more self-sacrificing professional and other solid middle-class people of Liverpool or Birmingham or London send their boys to Rugby or Stowe —and the day-schools are deprived of their natural leaders. Not one in twenty—probably not one in a hundred—of the best men entering the teaching profession from Oxford or Cambridge or some other University would take an appoint- ment in a day-school if he could have a post in a Public School. The boarding-schools have every initial advantage : if they are great schools—and few deny their greatness—they have every reason for it, and they ought not to complain if some- times they are reminded of what they cost and who has to pay. They may be worth what they cost, but the onlooker's admiration is at least as much demanded by the fine work done by the day-schools under far more difficult conditions.
If Mr. Tootell wants evidence of what the day-sehool can do, he must go back at least fifty years before comparison can be fair. A copy of Who's Who of about twenty-five years ago or the Dictionary of National Biograpky will supply material for what he asks ; and even as things are to-day,,a fair answer
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