Privilege in Education
SIR,—The better quality of teachers in schools other than State schools is not and has not been by any means a matter either of salaries or formal qualifications. Many boys are very well taught in private preparatory schools where, except for the scholarship forms, neither men nor women teachers have good honours, or any degrees; until fairly recently, the staff of boys' preparatory schools were poorly paid compared with State school teachers of children of the same ages; for the private school staff has much work out of classroom hours. The small classes have much to do with it. Many women, educated in the best sense, were taught as girls by devoted but unqualified and mostly underpaid governesses.
What few people have emphasised is that until recently much more was expected of parents of children at private schools. if there were fewer out-of-school activities, it was because these were (not always rightly) left to parents during the holidays. Some of these, such as foreign travel, are expensive. Others, such as visits to art galleries, cost practically nothing except to remote country dwellers. Could not parental emulation be aroused in both State and private schools ? Not in expenditure, but in parental effort to encourage out-of-school activities. That would give teachers more time to instil the three Rs.—
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