SCHOOLS AND THE FUTURE
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
SIR,—It is a pity that so much of the correspondence on this subject should be written with a partisan feeling, for the arguments on both sides are well founded. What' is needed is a weighing of advantages against disadvantages, and suggestions for eliminating the latter without sacrificing the former.
On the one hand, there is a real fear of the perpetuation of a privi- leged class, entered through the lobby of a public school and possessing a first claim to positions of authority and leadership in the community. This danger would only be intensified if the public schools were thrown open to boys of all classes, selected for the qualities of leadership they showed. The question " What public school were you at? " would become, even more than it is now, a rough-and-ready first test of fitness for a position of authority, just as before the war " Have you matricu- lated? " was a first test of fitness for a business post. Even if the methods of selection were infallible, I doubt whether the segregation of leaders from led is the right way to train leaders for democracy. I am sure that fear of this privileged class is the main cause of the bitterness shown by opponents of the public schools.
On the other hand, I believe (after a good many years' experience in both types of school) that the faith expressed in the value of boarding- school life, and of the freedom from State control (especially, perhaps, as regards religious education) enjoyed by the independent schools is justified. But in a democracy these benefits are just as important for the rank and file of the community as for its leaders.
What, then, should be the Government's policy? First, I believe it Should leave the independent schools alone. Those will survive which can inspire such faith in parents as will persuade them to make real sacrifices in order to give their children this education, but not, I hope, with enough artificial prestige to monopolise the most important positions in the life of the community. Such schools will continue to provide a valuable field for experiment and a stimulus to the State system.
Second, apart from the special cost of technical or professional training, the resources of the State (and local authority) should be equally avail- able for promoting what may be called the character-training side of education for all its children. Already the maintained secondary schools owe much to the standards brought into them by their original staffs, who were themselves educated mainly at the old grammar schools like Manchester or King Edward's, Birmingham. There are welcome signs that these standards are being demanded for all schools.
Third, the State and local authority will learn from the independent school; the value of variety, and of the freedom of each school to develop its own character, a variety and freedom largely dependent on each school having its own governing body taking a personal pride in the school. Here, too, there are, I think, encouraging signs. Experiments such as the migration of day schools into a boarding-school environment for a term or two are being keenly watched, while there is one boarding school known to me which, though not in the Public Schools Year Book, shows as true a public-school spirit as one could wish for. 'It is a school for mentally defective boys from poor homes and is maintained by a local authority.
The stream is beginning to flow in the right direction. Let it be broadened and deepened, without any of it being diverted into a channel reserved for fry specially selected for leadership. Meanwhile, let the independent school that can do so hold its own in competition with the State system. As this improves it will need more than a snobbish exclu- siveness to keep an independent school alive ; but those will survive, and only those, which can make a real contribution to the varied life of the
people.—Yours, &c., R. F. BAILEY. Quarry Bank High School, Liverpool,
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