CHARACTER. AND SCHOOL
should like to make a few comm'mts on Hamilton Fyfe's article with the above-named title. He claims that the character training at our Public Schools is not finer and more honourable than that formed in other ways. Probably he is right in this, but he states that these schools formed the character of a"." Ruling Class " (that is, I take it, of men prepared to lead and shoulder responsibility) and he speaks of the Public School boy as inclined to be courteous, obliging, well-spoken and at his ease in any company, surely not too bad a tribute to the work of the Public Schools.
Then he argues rightly against another " catchword " ; that Public School boys are all .forced into one mould and turned out all of one pattern. The clannishness he speaks of is not confined to our Public School products, but rules from the top to the bottom of every nation,
in every office, factory and club, and even in our Universities, and is likely to continue so long as human nature is what it is.
Of course there will always be men and women of more than average ability and force of character in every social grade, who will rise to the top and be prepared to act as leaders and who will be accepted as such; always provided that we give them the chance of doing so and do not have every one " nationalised " from the cradle to the grave, and placed in a crawling queue from which there is practically no chance of escape except by the clannishness of some one who had gradually achieved (possibly through clannishness) a somewhat higher place in the line.—Yours faithfully, J. S. M. JACK. Foxbar, Paisley.
Previous page
