THE RUGBY HEADMASTERSHIP should like to invoke the hospitality of
your columns to raise my voice in the controversy that has surrounded the appointment of a new headmaster of Rugby. I may claim to speak with some authority upon the matter, for I was appointed to succeed the late Waverley Frobisher as headmaster of Silcoates, at the beginning of the century. Frobisher, whose name is still remembered in Yorkshire scholastic circles, was a man of unique business ability which he had previously shown as owner of a large brewing concern. However, despite his -undoubted
integrity, his lack of teaching experience became increasingly evident to both masters and boys. His inability to appreciate the merits of the prefectorial system and his consequent abolition of it stirred up the flames of antagonism between master and boy. Although his administra- tion of the school finances showed a streak of genius, and succeeding generations of Silcoatians have every reason to be grateful to him for the splendid new buildings which were erected during his headmaster- ship, it was generally recognised that the scholastic standard of the school had dropped to an unprecedentedly low level, and, indeed, during the eight years that he was . headmaster no awards were won either at Oxford or at Cambridge. I have no wish to disparage the achievements of my predecessor, but after his resignation at a comparatively early age he confided to me that he thought that his appointment had been a tragic blunder. It is by the standard of scholarship and the character of the boys it produces, rather than by material prosperity, that a school must submit to be judged. It was for these reasons that I read of the appointment of a London solicitor as headmaster of Rugby with some
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