[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR, — The plight of the
smaller Public Schools may or may not be as -desperate as " A Headmaster " declares : but it appears to me both that he has misjudged the symptoms, and that the remedy he proposes would be disastrous.
As to the symptoms : the most serious is the shortage of boarders. ' This is due partly to the reduction in the size of families, partly to the competition of the day-school. Many parents do not consider that it is worth while to pay heavily to send their sons away to school when there is a perfectly good secondary school at their doors.
A compromise which has worked successfully in two schools at least within my own knowledge and which might be more widely adopted, is for the boy to attend as a day scholar for part of his school career, and to come in as a boarder for his last year or two. In this way he gains the experience of life away from home, the esprit de corps and the power of mixing with others which are the chief benefits of boarding, at com- paratively little expense to his parents ; while he retains for most of his school career the close touch with home and the contact with the outside world which are the main advantages of the day-school.
As to " A Headmaster's " remedy : in the first place, the number of schools which could enter into such amalgamations as he suggests is limited. But even if it were larger, there would still be strong objections to his proposals. The evils of specialisation in the sixth form are already causing anxiety, and they are at present mitigated by the presence together, in house and school, of boys who are specialising in different subjects, and who do something to broaden one another's interests and outlook. To segregate in separate schools those who are studying each subject would lead to the worst kind of narrowness, and incidentally would introduce a most undesirable break in the school life, with its friendships and associations, of many able boys.
In his method of solving the problem of headmastership, " A Headmaster " seems to me to be courting disaster. Of what benefit to a school is a " visiting " headmaster ? Either he will be an intolerable burden to the " acting " headmaster, who, being on the spot, should have full responsibility and authority, or he will be an unnecessary piece of eye-wash. This part of the scheme seems to be merely a covert attack on headmasters' salaries ; the latter may in some cases be unjustifiably generous, but I think most headmasters would prefer a frank reduction, where this is economically necessary, rather than a proposal which robbed them of independence and authority.—Yours, &c.,
ANOTHER HEADMASTER.
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