1. Introduction
Public schools have always enjoyed a special position in British society and they seem to have substantially influenced many aspects of the life in Britain. From the pedagogical point of view, the institution of public schools seems fascinating. One could hardly find another educational institution that started to provide education long before the state and has managed to retain its unique characteristics for years. However, in spite of its long tradition, public schools still arouse discussions and politicians, educationalists and the public question the desirability of their existence in the British society of today.
The institution of public schools is very controversial. On the one hand, public schools are held in the highest regard as academic excellent institutions. On the other hand, they are criticised for their selectivity both on academic and financial grounds. In this work I have decided to focus on this controversial institution in more detail: I describe its development from the first foundations till nowadays, discuss its main features and engage in the ongoing debate that surrounds the existence of public schools. The aim of this thesis is to provide sufficient information about the subject in order to help the reader to form his/her own opinion on this issue.
The first part of this work is dedicated to the private sector of British education. It describes the position of the public schools in British educational system, explains the terminology concerning the private education and summarizes some of the main characteristics of British public schools. The second part of the thesis traces the origins and evolution of the institution of public schools from the 6th century till nowadays. It depicts how the public schools have been changing in the course of time, comprising their position in
British society, as well as their characteristics of an educational institution. In the third part I discuss some of the key aspects of their academic and social life, such as admission,
1 curriculum, extra-curricular activities, boarding and religion. A short chapter is dedicated to the academic excellence of the public schools and it suggests the possible grounds of this success. The last part of my thesis deals with the debate about the desirability of the existence of public schools in British educational system and society. I discuss the crucial antagonistic opinions that could serve as a basis for a further public school debate.
2 2. British Private Sector of Education
There are several types of schools that provide schooling in England and Wales: community schools, foundation schools, voluntary schools, community and foundation special schools and independent schools (Private education 124). Community schools are established and fully funded by local education authorities (LEAs), foundation schools, formerly grant-maintained schools, are owned either by the school governing body or by trustees of the school and they receive financial resources from the LEAs in a similar way to community schools. Voluntary controlled and voluntary aided schools are also owned either by school trustees or by the founding body of the school, e.g. the Church of England or the
Catholic Church. Although both types of schools receive full funding for revenue expenditure, voluntary aided schools are expected to contribute a small proportion of capital costs, usually around 10 per cent in England and 15 per cent in Wales (ibid.). Only independent schools are considered to be private schools. However, the term “private” is rather misleading, since most schools in membership of ISC1 are not privately owned (“What”). Therefore sometimes the term “non-maintained schools” is preferred (Private education 124). I will discuss the terminological issue in more detail in the following chapter.
The independent schools are defined by the Educational Act 1996 as “any school at which full-time education is provided for five or more pupils of compulsory school age
(whether or not such education is also provided for pupils over or under that age), not being a school maintained by a local education authority” (Private education 125). The same definition also applies to the independent schools in Northern Ireland, with the exception that it does not specify a minimum number of pupils (ibid.).
1 Independent Schools Council, an umbrella organization that draws together all the major associations serving the head teachers and governing bodies of private schools.
3 British private sector of education is characterised by diversity (Walford, “British public” 2). There are many types of independent schools in the United Kingdom, including day and boarding schools, schools that have both day and boarding pupils, single-sex and coeducational schools, schools for children of every ability up to the age of nineteen (“What”;
“Common”). The size of independent schools ranges from under fifty pupils to over two thousand. Some schools pride themselves on being highly academically successful, others such as the specialist schools focus on music, drama and dance and there are also schools catering for special needs (“Facts”).
As far as the age of pupils is concerned, the independent schools can be divided into two main groups: primary and secondary schools. The primary schools comprise two categories: pre-preparatory schools or departments, which are intended for children aged below seven or eight and junior or preparatory schools, the so-called “prep” schools, which are attended by pupils aged seven or eight to eleven or thirteen (Private education 132). The pre-preparatory schools, sometimes called nursery schools or kindergartens, correspond to nursery and infants’ stages in the maintained sector. At these schools children mainly learn to play. The pre-preparatory schools are often attached to junior schools (“Types”).
The preparatory schools, as the name suggests, prepare pupils for the next stage of education. They lead to admission to senior schools at 11+ or through the Common Entrance
Examination. They offer a full range of subjects: pupils learn the basic skill of reading, writing and number and they are introduced to art, music, sports and outside activities
(“Preparatory”). The last two years at the preparatory schools are often devoted to preparation for the Common Entrance Examination. The passing of this exam is required for entering the majority of the independent secondary schools (“Independent”).
4 There are on average fifteen to twenty pupils per teacher at the preparatory schools and the fees reach from about ₤600 to ₤1,500 per term2 for ages two to seven and ₤950 to
₤3,5003 for day pupils aged seven to thirteen. The fees for boarders are much higher reaching from ₤2,300 to ₤3,500 per term (“Independent”). According to the Independent School Fees
Advice, a typical cost for boarders ranged between ₤3,400 and ₤5,250 in autumn 2004
(“Financing”).
In order to enter a secondary or as it is sometimes called a senior school, pupils have to pass an examination. As I have already mentioned, the majority of schools use the
Common Entrance Examination that is taken at the ages of eleven, twelve or thirteen.
The senior schools are designed for pupils aged eleven or thirteen to eighteen. Pupils can choose between many different varieties of senior schools, including single-sex and coeducational schools. Many senior independent schools are much smaller than the schools in the maintained sector, while the larger ones are often divided into “houses” of forty to sixty pupils (“Senior”). The classes at secondary schools comprise between twenty to twenty five pupils. The figure is usually lower at sixth form level (“Independent”). Most senior school pupils continue their studies after reaching the age of sixteen and the majority of them (over ninety per cent) go on to higher education (“Senior”).
Fees at senior schools vary widely, from ₤1,300 to ₤2,700 for girls’ day schools per term and from ₤2,700 to ₤4,400 for boarding girls. The fees for dayboys are between ₤1,300 and ₤3,200 and between ₤2,800 and ₤4,600 for boarders per term (“Independent”). According to the Independent School Fees Advice, typical costs per term in autumn 2004 were between
₤2,400 and ₤4,500 for day pupils and ₤4,700 and ₤7,200 for boarders (“Financing”).
Besides these types of independent schools, there are also the so-called “all-through” schools that take pupils from early ages of two to five to sixteen or eighteen/nineteen and thus
2 ₤600 to ₤1,100 (“Independent”), between ₤1,000 and ₤1,500 (“Financing”) 3 ₤950 to ₤2,500 (“Independent”), ₤1,730 to ₤3,500 (ibid.)
5 have their own nursery, primary and secondary departments. In these schools pupils of different age are taught in separate departments or schools, but under the same management
(“Types”).
The sixth form refers to the last two years of secondary schooling during which students prepare for their GCE A-level4 examinations (“Sixth”). The term is also used to describe a separate college for pupils aged sixteen to nineteen (Mackinnon, Statham, Hales
204). These schools offer 2-year AS level courses5, International Baccalaureate, vocational courses or retakes of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (“Common”).
The British private sector of education is more heavily weighted by sixth-formers, and much less by children of primary school age than the state sector (Halsey, Heath, Ridge 13).
As far as the proportion of students in private sector is concerned, the figure has altered during the years. According to Glennester and Wilson, there were 2,5 million pupils in private schools in the 1850s (qtd. in Halsey, Heath, Ridge 10). The number had shrunk to 564,000 in
1951 (480,000 at independent schools and 84,000 at the direct grant schools), which comprises 9.2 per cent of the school population. And there was a further decline to 5.8 per cent in 1978. In 1982 there were about 522,000 pupils in 2,400 private schools in England and
Wales (5.9 per cent of the total school population) (Walford, “British public” 1).
In 2002 there were 1,271 schools that provided schooling for 500,966 children
(Walford, “British private” 2). In England this represented about seven per cent of the school age population. The proportion is of course lower in Scotland and Wales. The newest data show that 615,000 children attend about 2,500 independent schools in the UK, while over eighty per cent of these children are in 1,283 schools regulated by membership of an association represented by the Independent Schools Council (“Facts”).
4 General Certificate of Education A-level examination aims at the most academically able pupils (Mackinnon, Statham, Hales 152). 5 AS level, the Advanced Supplementary examination is taken alongside A-levels and aims at broadening the curriculum (ibid. 153).
6 Nowadays most of the schools are coeducational - only 11 per cent of schools are for boys only and 15.5 per cent provide only for girls (the relatively high number of girls’ schools is influenced by the British Muslims who desire to have their daughters educated separately from boys) (Walford, “British private” 2). The boarding proportion has steadily been declining for many years. By way of illustration, there were 27.7 per cent of boarders in 1982, while in 1997 their number decreased to 6.5 per cent of boarders of the 223,000 girls in independent schools and 9.9 per cent of the 250,800 boys (“Independent”). The majority of schools today are day schools, or schools with very few boarders. For example, in 2002 57 per cent of the ISC schools had no boarders at all and about 80 per cent had only twenty per cent of boarders or less. According to Walford, there were about fourteen (13.9) per cent of boarders in 2002 (“British private” 2).
As far as the internal organization of independent schools is concerned, there is a board of governors responsible for the overall direction of the school, and a bursar that cares for financial and other aspects of the school management. If there is a surplus in income, it must be used for the benefit of the school. The headmaster has the right to appoint staff, admit pupils and take day-to-day decisions. Nonetheless, he is responsible to the governors
(“What”).
Most private schools receive no funding from the state and they are financed through fees and charitable donations. They are allowed to register as charities and thus receive a tax relief on their income and a reduction on rates. In addition, they receive allowances to educate the children of government employees working abroad and the children of the armed forces members (Covington 2).
Still in 2000 there were pupils in England and Wales for whom the Government paid all or part of the fees6 through the Assisted Places Scheme. The Conservatives introduced the
6 Depending on parents’ income.
7 Assisted Places Scheme in 1981 in order to replace the Direct Grant7 that was abolished in
1974-9 (Covington 4). The APS offered places to children whose parents could not afford to pay the full fees. However, in 1997 the Labour government began phasing out the scheme and the last pupils to benefit from APS entered schools in September 1997. Some schools try to compensate for the loss of APS by offering a number of scholarships awarded from their own resources. These, however, rarely cover the full fees (“Independent”).
Private schools are not required to fully implement the statutory curriculum. The creation of the curriculum in independent schools is in the hands of the head teachers and governors of the school. Private school pupils can take the public examinations such as the
General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), the General Certificate of Education
Advanced-level (GCE A-level), and GCSEs in vocational subjects and other vocational qualifications. Their qualifications are comparable for further and higher education and for employment purposes (Private education 135).
Independent schools are inspected once every five years by Her Majesty’s Inspectors
(HMI) in England and Wales and by the Education and Training Inspectorate in Northern
Ireland. The boarding schools were previously inspected by the social services department of the local authority, however, since the passing of the Care Standards Act in July 2000, the responsibility for inspection lies with the National Care Standards Commission in England, and with the National Assembly for Wales in Wales (ibid.). Independent schools, which are members of the Independent Schools Council, are inspected by the Independent Schools
Inspectorate (ISI). ISI ensures that standards required by law are met, enabling the school to remain registered as independent school (ibid.).
7 Financial assistance that enabled some private grammar schools to provide a proportion of places free (Covington 4).
8 3. British Public Schools
3.1 Terminology and the Main Characteristics
As I have mentioned earlier, the terminology concerning the private sector of education is rather confusing. The range of vocabulary that is used to describe the British public and private schools is full of loaded terms. The advocates of the private sector of education prefer using the term “independent” schools, since it stresses the variety of provision available (Walford, “British public” 2). However, the critics often use terms, which emphasize the market basis of these schools, such as “commercial”8 and “fee-paying”9.
The definition of public schools has “shifted as the context of state and other private provision has developed […] even the financial and legal definitions have been ambiguous”
(Halsey, Heath, Ridge 10-1). Sociologically public schools are nowadays defined as “non- local endowed boarding schools for the upper classes” (Mack qtd. in Halsey, Heath, Ridge
11). However, originally the term “public” referred to the fact that the schools served as a form of education open to the public (ibid.). Besides, the term itself can sometimes seem confusing since it is used to describe state schools in e.g. Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada. In these countries the term implies public financial support and schools that are supported by private money are referred to as “private schools” (“Public”).
The British usage of the term “public schools” can be traced to the Middle Ages, when there was not any system of national state-sponsored education in England and Wales yet. The schools were founded and sponsored by towns, villages, guilds or by cathedrals and were independent charities that offered free education to the public, in contrast to private schools that were owned and operated by their headmasters to their own profit and private teachers
8 (Halsey, Heath, Ridge 9) 9 (Walford, “British public” 2)
9 that taught the children of aristocratic families (Crowther; Halsey, Heath, Ridge 11). It was only later when the public schools expanded greatly in size and included many fee-paying students that they acquired the upper-class connotations (“Public”).
The definition of public schools has shifted several times. When the Clarendon
Commission investigated the public school system in England between 1861 and 1864, it chose nine schools: seven boarding schools (Charterhouse, Eton, Harrow, Rugby,
Shrewsbury, Westminster and Winchester) and two day schools (Merchant Taylors’ and St
Paul’s). These nine schools are sometimes considered the only public schools, albeit mainly by those who attended them (“Public”; Halsey, Heath, Ridge 11). Since the last two mentioned schools are predominantly day schools, for some people only the first seven counted (McKibbin 235).
Which schools are to be considered public schools has subsequently been redefined in the direction of enlargement. The Taunton Commission (1864) added to the list of public schools some endowed grammar schools and some newly founded schools and the compilers of the first Public Schools’ Year Book (1889) agreed on twenty-five such schools (Halsey,
Heath, Ridge 11).
By 1962 the nuclear seven were still at he heart of the system. In his book on public schools T. W. Bamford suggested the maximum figure of 106 boarding schools (ibid.). In
1968 Newsom’s Public Schools’ Commission adopted less stringent definition of membership of the Headmasters’ Conference, or the Governing Bodies’ Association, or the Association of
Governing Bodies of Girls’ Public Schools, which comprised 288 schools. The definition shifted again in 1980s when John Rae decided for the criterion of the membership in the
Independent Schools’ Information Service (ISIS), which comprised over 1,000 schools (ibid.
11-2). However, Rae considers 210 members of the Headmasters’ Conference to be “the
10 oldest, richest and most prestigious boys’ schools” and he also uses the name “Great Schools” to label the Clarendon Schools (ibid. 12).
Today’s common definition of a public school is the membership in the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC), where the head teachers of major British independent boys’ and mixed schools belong (“Public”). However, even this definition does no satisfy everyone. For example, there has been a debate whether girls’ schools can be considered public schools (ibid.). According to Mackinnon, Statham, Hales, public schools are “independent fee-charging, but non-profit-making, secondary modern schools belonging to various highly prestigious associations” (84).
Public schools were often divided into “major” and “minor” public schools. These are not official definitions, since they are rather subjective, though one could say that some of the select schools would be included in any list of “major” schools. Eton, Harrow, Winchester,
Westminster, perhaps also Charterhouse and Ampleforth are usually at the top of the hierarchy (McKibbin 235).
Most public schools are highly academically and financially selective (“Public”).
Therefore only a relatively small proportion of children attend them. The majority of children at public schools come from wealthy families. In 1972 schools in membership of the
Headmasters’ Conference took as many as two-thirds of their pupils from the upper-middle class. Over one-quarter came from lower-middle class and there was only a tiny minority of pupils from working class (Halsey, Heath, Ridge 22). The situation remains the same today: according to Heath, Ridge and Halsey, at the 250 most prestigious schools over 90 per cent of the pupils come from the professional and managerial classes and above (qtd. in Covington
4). And what is more, 84 per cent of schools state that more than four-fifths of their students come from non-manual backgrounds (Sullivan, Heath 89).
11 It is widely known that pupils in the private sector of education in Britain have better educational results than those in the state sector, as far as the school examination results and figures on entry to elite universities are concerned (ibid. 77). By way of illustration, more than ninety per cent of ISC school leavers go on to university (“Facts”).
There is a tendency among the elites to be educated at boarding schools. In 1970 as many as 62 per cent of top-rank civil servants, 83 per cent of foreign ambassadors, more than
83 per cent of high court judges, 67 per cent of top-rank clergy in the Church of England and
83 per cent of directors of clearing banks had been educated at private schools (McKibbin
238). In 1982 42 per cent of the Members of Parliament in the House of Commons were educated in private schools, while most of them at the public schools, twenty per cent of these at Eton (Dod qtd. in Walford, “British public” 2). A high proportion of public school alumni are traditionally among the Conservatives. By way of illustration, in 1955 twenty per cent of backbench Conservative MPs came from Eton (Guttsman qtd. in McKibbin 238).
Public school alumni have occupied a disproportionate number of the top jobs for years (Dancy 111). It is often argued that public school boys have advantage when applying for jobs because of the old boy network, the so-called “old school tie”, the networks of relationships which are believed to be essential for the further career of public school graduates (Heward 155). How the network of local professional relationship can help one start his career is fittingly illustrated by one of Heward’s informants. Tony Case decided for the career in law. First he gained a School Certificate that was good enough to get exemption from Part 1 of the Law Society’s examination and then his father asked the family’s bank manager to which of the town’s solicitors his son should be articled (ibid. 155).
H.C. Dent wrote in 1944 that there existed “a group of schools having for social rather than for educational reasons, an implicit lien on most of the key points of our national life”
(Dent qtd. in McKibbin 238). In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries certain jobs and
12 positions were open first on class grounds to people who shared middle- and upper middle- class backgrounds (Gathorne-Hardy 412). However, according to the Economist, the situation is now changing and public schools and Oxbridge seem to be losing their impact (“How”).
The Economist chose 100 top jobs in Britain and looked at their educational backgrounds. It found out that there has been the first significant decline in the proportion of top-job-holders who were educated at the old elite institutions (“How”). The proportion of people who went to public schools decreased from 66 in 1992 to 45 per cent ten years later. The same change appeared in Oxbridge education. While in 1992 54 per cent of respondents were educated at one of these universities, in 2002 the figure was 35 per cent (“The Ascent”). I will discuss these issues in more detail further in this work.
13 3.2 Historical Background
3.2.1 The Origins of the Public Schools
Public schools are considered to be the oldest institutions in Britain: “Older than the
House of Commons, older than the Universities, older than the Lord Mayor, older than the
House of Lords, older even than the throne or the nation itself” (Leach qtd. in Gathorne-Hardy
27). The foundations of the first schools could be dated to the sixth and the seventh centuries and are connected with the arrival of Christianity in Britain. A school accompanied almost every church or cathedral that was built at that time. Since these schools were part of the
Church, their major purpose was to provide recruits for the new Church. There were two types of these schools: the song schools whose aim was to teach choristers to sing and the so-called grammar schools at which students learnt Latin for the services. The identification with the
Church was very strong. The King’s School in Canterbury founded by St Augustine in 59710 is considered the oldest of these institutions (Botsford 4).
Although public schools’ later image is quite the opposite, the original public schools, as the name may suggest, were intended for the “deserving poor”. As the majority of materials on the subject point out: “Public schools were founded to provide education for the poor […] ended by being anything but public and being reserved – with trifling exceptions – for the very rich” (Gathorne-Hardy 28). However, the education of the poor originally was not a matter of charity. The Church needed new people and since there was no incentive to learn among the nobility, whose children had their own private tutors, they had to choose the students from the poor social background.
10 According to Gathorne-Hardy it was founded around 598 (27).
14 The main subject at these schools was Latin. Nevertheless, in some schools the curriculum was surprisingly wide. For example, students at St Peter’s11 were taught, besides the Scriptures, Latin verse, rhetoric, law, music, astronomy, natural history and mathematics
(ibid. 27-8).
Christianity is spreading around Britain during the early Middle Ages. It is accompanied by the growth of grammar schools, some of which are attached to a cathedral, while others are founded independent of the Church (McDowall 41). At the end of the twelfth century Renaissance reaches Britain and the Church takes the lead in this new intellectual movement (ibid.). In spite of an increase in literacy, the majority of English people spoke neither Latin nor French. At that time two schools of higher learning were established in
England: Oxford and Cambridge.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the growing discontent with the Church causes the decline of both the Church and its institutions. However, more schools are required because of the growing need for educated people to administer the government, the Church, the law and trade (McDowall 65). The task of founding schools, formerly performed mainly by the Church, is now taken on by wealthy individuals and the Crown. William of Wykeham, who founded Winchester in 1382, can serve as an example. Although the schools are still strongly religious, the students find their professional fulfilment not only in the Church, but also in the civil service, or they continue their studies at the universities of Oxford or
Cambridge. The social background of the students is beginning to change and the recruiting of the poor is slowly becoming more a charitable obligation (Gathorne-Hardy 30).
The schools are growing in prestige. By the fifteenth century their founding and standing starts to be a matter of competition. When Henry VI founded Eton in 1442 he said that it “would excel all other grammar schools […] and be called the lady, mother and
11 In York Minster, founded by St Paulinus.
15 mistress of all grammar schools” (ibid. 30). The schools often become objects of self-interest of their founders. William of Wykeham, for instance, made a provision that some members of his family should be included among the scholars. The primary purpose of the foundation of
Eton by Henry VI was that its students would sing masses for Henry and his father (Chandos
23). The founders also founded colleges at the universities and/or provided considerable scholarships at them, e.g. Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, Westminster and Christ
Church, Oxford and Trinity College, Cambridge, Merchant Taylors’ and St John’s College,
Oxford (Gathorne-Hardy 30).
The sixteenth century is considered the golden age of grammar school foundation, which is not exactly true, since after the break with Rome and the following dissolution of the monasteries a great deal of education disappeared. Gathorne-Hardy (1977) points out that
Henry VIII in fact “destroyed far more than he created and for a long time after him, it seems, there were fewer schools than there had been before” (31). However, the Crown endowed new grammar schools or re-endowed the old ones and a large number of schools were also founded by merchants, e.g. Oundle, Blundell’s, Gresham’s, Tonbridge, or wealthy individuals, e.g. Repton founded by Sir John Port and Dulwich founded by Edward Alleyn. It was the great age of the merchant schools (ibid.).
Up to the middle of the sixteenth century nobility did not consider education to be important for their children. This is fittingly illustrated by a gentleman who said he should rather his son “should hang than be learned” (Chandos 21). Soon education begins to gain importance and the rich start to attend not only the universities but also the grammar schools.
A liberal education becomes fashionable. William Cecil12 considered higher education of the ruling classes so important that he proposed to force the nobility to educate themselves by the
Act of Parliament, as a result of which the ruling class became obliged to school their children
12 The chief advisor of Elizabeth I through most of her reign (“William”).
16 in learning at a university from the age of twelve to nineteen. There was not a fixed pattern to follow as far as schooling of the upper-class male before going to university was concerned and many of them were still inclined to keep their sons at home with tutors (Chandos 22).
Nevertheless, already by the sixteenth century the rich were outnumbering the poor at schools
(Gathorne-Hardy 32).
Since the second half of the seventeenth century there was a growing tendency to send upper-class sons to boarding schools, mainly to Eton, Winchester and St Peter’s. In spite of this, many members of the nobility continued to educate their sons at home before sending them to university or to travel in Europe. The fashion of sending sons to one of the “great public schools” prevailed only in the second half of the eighteenth century. These schools comprised Winchester, Eton, Westminster, Harrow and Rugby (Chandos 22).
Corruption and inefficiency were rising from the late seventeenth century. The grammar schools that survived by the end of the eighteenth century did so to a great extent due to the fee-paying students: “the wealthier the pupils, the wealthier the school, the better it survived” (Gathorne-Hardy 33). By way of illustration, of some 800 grammar schools that had been set up in England during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, only about a hundred had effectively survived the corruptions by the 1820s and 30s, including Eton, Winchester,
Westminster, Rugby, Charterhouse, Harrow, St Paul’s, Merchant Taylor’s (ibid. 55). This development had had, according to Gathorne-Hardy, three effects on the public schools. The first was cultural: since the major function of education is to pass on a society’s mores, customs and values, and fund of accumulated knowledge, the schools could not be expected to lead or to innovate. Second, the schools became independent of the public opinion and government and thus they were willing to change only if their “clients” requested. Third, the fee-paying system brought about the move to boarding, which makes the public schools unique and it becomes the root of their extraordinary power (ibid. 33-4).
17 From the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century the rising brutality transformed the public schools into riotous, chaotic, violent and cruel places. The boys were beaten by their masters. It often led to their maiming or even to death of the victim. Fagging13 and bullying were widespread and virtually ignored by the masters, sometimes even encouraged by them (Botsford 4). A man who had been a fag at Eton in 1824 recalled that:
The practice of fagging had become an organised system of brutality, and cruelty. I was frequently kept up until one or two o’clock in the morning, waiting on my masters at upper and indulging every sort of bullying at their hands. I have been beaten on my palms with the back of a brush, or struck on both sides of my face because I had not closed the shutter near my master’s bed tight enough or because in making his bed I had left the seam of the lower sheet uppermost. (Gathorne-Hardy 69)
According to Gathorne-Hardy, the regime at the public schools derived from a combination of the doctrines of Christianity and a lack of concern on the part of British wealthy parents. They believed their children to be “the fruit of original sin […] defective adults whose sins was to be beaten out of them” (ibid.). Parents seemed not to be interested in what methods were used at schools or what treatments their children received. The important thing was that they did not have to take care of their children. This situation led to a series of wild rebellions. The uprisings spread to local towns and sometimes they were so violent that the militia were called out to suppress them (Botsford 4).
Most public schools developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and played an important role in the development of the Victorian social elite (Victorian politics, armed forces and colonial government). By the 1830s the earlier mentioned processes culminated: the move to fee-paying and away from educating the poor, the growth of boarding and the teaching of Latin (Gathorne-Hardy 75).
By the early nineteenth century the industrial revolution and the expansion of trade had brought about a rise in the population and a significant number of people had improved
13 The older boys treated the younger ones as their personal slaves, often using physical violence.
18 their social status (ibid. 57). The numbers of the middle class grew enormously, and more quickly than ever before. It included greater differences of wealth, social positions and kinds of work: those in the professions, such as the Church, law, medicine, the civil service, the diplomatic service, merchant banking, the army and the navy, but also commercial classes
(McDowall 131, 139). The successful businessmen would often send their sons to public school as a mark of participation in the elite. The public schools helped them to join the upper classes as well as they helped the upper-middle classes, who wished to move their children into the aristocracy (Landow). From the mid nineteenth century the British business classes started to quickly assimilate to the social pattern of the gentry and aristocracy.
In the course of the nineteenth century public schools had changed a great deal. They were still the harsh and violent places, but their regime became organised and highly disciplined. It desired to condition every aspect of boys’ lives, their attitudes and behaviour
(Botsford 4). The former huge classes, loosely defined societies with a lack of discipline had been transformed into small classes, very tight and highly disciplined communities, that were class-conscious and snobbish, obsessed with games and intensively religious (Gathorne-
Hardy 248). The schools provided class confidence that was based on the fact that their pupils should and could lead. In 1869 the public schools were more or less set free from all government control and “set about elaborating that actively anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, games-dominated Tory imperialism which was to remain characteristic of them” (Landow).
The schools at that time were very much alike. As Gathorne-Hardy puts it, the individual public schools as well as the system, became a Monolith (219-48).
There were three types of schools at that time: the “great” schools, the revivified old endowed grammar schools and new Victorian foundations. The “great” schools comprised
Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Charterhouse, St Paul’s, Merchant Taylors’, Harrow, Rugby and Shrewsbury (Gathorne-Hardy 108). The schools were in the hands of headmasters who
19 set out to reform them. For example, the Long Chamber at Eton was destroyed and it was divided into cubicles, classes became smaller and the curriculum was extended. However, not all of the schools were reformed. Besides, many of them had to deal with endowment scandals. Therefore the Clarendon Commission was set up to investigate the great schools and as a result it suggested reforms in the organisation of governing bodies and the curriculum
(ibid. 108-9).
When the Taunton Commission examined and reported on the endowed grammar schools in 1864, it had found that only eight per cent of male children were getting any kind of secondary education. The Commission also uncovered a complete chaos among the old endowed schools, e.g. as many as 38 schools that were claiming to provide a classical education and were still receiving endowments, had in fact no pupils at all (ibid. 109). The
Commission attempted both to redistribute endowments and to create uniform statutes in order to maintain standards of teaching, discipline and organization (Everett). It had decided that the schools should be controlled centrally through a national exam system and regular inspection. The curriculum was supposed to be modern and the system of schools for everyone, while the poor would be educated free and the others would pay. Many public schools naturally spoke against and in response they formed the Headmasters’ Conference.
Although at the first meeting only twelve headmasters appeared and it was argued whether to include “the Nine”, after Eton and Harrow joined the Conference by 1874, the great schools dominated. The headmasters discussed and advised each other on discipline, the pronunciation of Latin, on the value of school magazines, on games, and on dealing with problems that arise (Gathorne-Hardy 109-11).
The new Victorian foundations differ from the previously mentioned schools. They were founded as a response to the growing market of boys. Unlike the first two types, the new foundations distinguished by specialization. Marlborough, for example, that was founded in
20 1843 aimed at clergymen’s sons, and Epsom was founded for doctors’ sons in 1855. By
1870s, 80s and 90s most of them had special courses for those entering the Colonial Service or the army (ibid. 112).
Some schools employed a method of “cashing in on the market” so that people could buy a share and then nominate a boy to the school. These schools were called the proprietary schools, e.g. Cheltenham, Marlborough, Epsom and Clifton (ibid.). It is believed that there was a political-religious force behind the new foundations, based on Thomas Arnold’s14 view that without a Christian education civilization would collapse. However, the schools had focused on the growing middle class:
Somehow or other we must get possession of the middle classes […] and how can we so well do this as through public schools […] Education without religion is, in itself, a pure evil […] making Communists and Red Republicans […] unless the Church, therefore, gets possession of this class at whatever cost, we shall reap the fruits […] of an universal deluge. (Woodard qtd. in Gathorne-Hardy 112-3)
According to Woodard, covering England with public schools would be the solution. As a result of this, Lancing was founded in 1848, followed by Hurstpierpoint and Ardingly.
The rapid growth of schools had led to many problems. The rebellions at Marlborough in 1851 can serve as an example of what was happening at many schools at that time. It all started with Marlborough setting its fees low in order to attract numbers. By way of illustration, there were about 200 clergymen’s sons at Marlborough in 1843, the numbers increased to 400 by 1846 and 500 by 1848 (Gathorne-Hardy 114). The new foundation schools, such as Marlborough, were not new in an educational sense, since they copied the current public schools. Marlborough had huge classes and violence and beating were common there. The boys slept in large dormitories and there was usually one large dinning-room, where the boys ate. The food was poor and the boys suffered from hunger. Anyone who dared
14 Thomas Arnold (1795-1842) was an educator, a headmaster of Rugby School.
21 to ask for more food was caned. The school architecture resembled the design of prisons and churches. The masters were inexperienced and since they did not dare to approach the boys outside the class, boys freely escaped, invaded towns, and got drunk and infuriated inhabitants. The culprits were seldom discovered, so the entire school was punished. In the years 1846-1850 the school had decided to remove almost all privileges. This measure resulted in rebellions by which the students demanded their privileges back. And they succeeded: pupils’ number declined and Mr Wilkinson, Marlborough headmaster, resigned.
Nevertheless, this rebellion was the last of any consequence (ibid. 114-7).
One can find the same situation as in Marlborough in other public schools, too. The number of students is very high and discipline becomes a problem. In order to keep the boys under control, they were crammed into dormitories, taught in small classrooms, schools were cut off from their surroundings, and they had to respect bounds and rules. This gave rise to autocratic headmasters. Gathorne-Hardy even calls this period the age of dictators: “The
Headmaster should have uncontrolled power of selecting and dismissing assistant masters; of regulating the arrangement of the school in classes or divisions; the hours of schools work
[…]” (the Public School Commission, qtd. in Gathorne-Hardy 117).
Although corporal punishments are used less and they are not as brutal as they used to be, flogging is still a universal punishment. At Arnold’s Rugby the canes were weighted with lead, in other schools thongs were used. The universal punishment was eighteen blows, nine top a hand: “Masters lost control of themselves and, in a frenzy, would reduce a naked back to pulp, spattering themselves with blood. One boy spent a whole night with his friend, easing the shirt off his back and pulling out ‘at least a dozen pieces of birch-rod, which had penetrated deep into the flesh’” (ibid. 121). Expulsion was considered the final punishment.
Some events even ended in suicides (ibid. 122).
22 One of the methods of keeping boys under control was to enforce uniformity, which the schools start to asset from the 1840s and 50s. The uniforms were discovered as a means of depersonalisation, a stamp with the image of the institution (ibid. 125). By 1900 most schools had a uniform of one sort or another. Individuality was not desirable at public schools. By the end of the century the public schools explicitly stated that their aim was to produce a type, a socially conforming unit. Individuality was found horrifying: “[…] one ceased to be an individual, to have any but a corporate identity, one was just a name, or rather a number, on the list” (Harold Nicolson qtd. in ibid. 125). The schools exercised the total control over what the boys wore, over their hair, they set rules about where the boys could move, with whom and when, when they go to bed, when they get up and even what language they use (ibid.
127).
Public school life very much reflected the Victorian and Edwardian social life, which was conventional, based on the system of graded steps of social rank. The schools taught the students their place in social hierarchy, which was at the top (ibid. 132-3). Their students were expected to lead, since the aim was to produce “men fit to rule” other individuals:
The dominant principle of British government became that the large majority of the population were not fit to run their own lives, and that the public school men should control and order them, while systematically robbing them to pay for it. The public schools reshaped the country in their own image. (Botsford 7)
According to Botsford, the public schools to a great extent created the British state, as we know it today (7). Although Britain already was a very hierarchical society in the eighteenth century, every individual had a value in his or her own right, regardless of rank: “the
Englishman […] was born without a master” (Samuel Johnson qtd. in Botsford 7). In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the public school system changed this conception.
Public school graduates considered themselves a superior group (“bred to rule”) with the right to control through the state the lives of the inferior majority (ibid. 7). Therefore the schools
23 had for a long time refused to accept boys whose fathers had made money through providing goods and services to people and only later were the sons and daughters of tradesmen admitted (Botsford 5). “It is the fact that during the later 19th and early 20th centuries English class consciousness in some respects and among a good number of people came much closer to what we today call racism that made it so odious” (Gathorne-Hardy 139).
School organisation was also based on hierarchy, which was encouraged by the so- called house system. In the prefect and house captain systems much of the discipline was (and still is) in the hands of senior pupils, who were usually known as prefects. This system worked as a means of reducing the staffing costs and it was considered a preparation for pupils’ later roles in public or military service (“Public”). Some schools were ruled by various houses and school prefect system, others by their sixth forms (from which heads of houses and school were appointed), in some schools the combination of both applied. The rulers elected themselves. Cyril Connolly considers this system an oligarchy (Gathorne-Hardy 130).
It was based on a regime of collectivism, violence and denial of individual rights, and offered many opportunities for abuse and punishment.
There had been almost no development in the curriculum of the public schools during the last two-thirds of the nineteenth century. Most of the time at school was devoted to the classics (Gathorne-Hardy 150). The reasons for that were clear. Firstly, the classics had been taught for over 1,200 years. Secondly, the schools were not supposed to train for a job nor were they supposed to be academic, since gentlemen did not need to learn anything in order to earn their living (with the exception of the navy, army, church and law). When the Rossall headmaster was asked by the Devonshire Commission about the departments of science which were preferred by parents, he answered this: “Parents exhibit complete indifference to the whole subject, with the exception they sometimes object to their sons devoting any time at all to it” (ibid. 151). The classics established that the academic point of schools was to teach a
24 relatively few scholars to a very high standard. This tradition continued even after other subjects such as history, English, maths, science were recognised and developed the English system of early specialization which later lead to a low standard of general education in
Britain (ibid. 377-8).
From the 1850s on organized games begin to spread and during the 1860s, 70s and 80s they become the schools’ obsession. By the 1890s the obsession is universal and to see a housemaster break down and cry after his house has lost is a common picture (ibid. 153-9).
Games soon became so dominant that, apart from the specialized sixth forms, the public schools were really institutions for learning cricket, rugger, football and sometimes hockey
(ibid. 326). By 1930s the athleticism is weakening and the emphasis returns to the academic subjects. The curricular developments and the history of games will be described in more detail further.
In the period between 1900 and 1939 public school system expanded. The schools grew both in size and prestige and enjoyed “unprecedented popularity”: four new boarding schools were founded and a large number of private schools appear to have changed into public schools (McKibbin 239). By way of illustration, there were 96 schools admitted as public schools to the Public Schools Year Book in 1900, while about forty years later in 1939 there were 190 such schools.
The First World War played an important role in this development. The British victory seemed to justify the entire system of public schools. Many boys from the public schools lost their lives in the war and the schools were proud of them. Changing the schools that produced such heroes was out of question. Besides, the war produced a large number of new rich that could afford to send their children to public schools. This strengthened the Monolith. The public schools are, according to Gathorne-Hardy, a perfect example of how “historical origins can both linger in, and continue to dictate aspects of an institution, long after the historical
25 relevance, and even dynamism, have vanished” (328). This greatly contributed to the public schools’ inability to change and thus their growing irrelevance to British social and economic needs (ibid.).
The economic depression halted the expansion of public schools in the 1930s. There was a steady fall in birth rate and people found the public schools too expensive. The changes in the social and economic structure of major towns affected the number of schools. The pupils moved into suburbs, which weakened the financial base and made the public schools physically less attractive. There is a talk about a “crisis” in public school finances (McKibbin
239-40). However, the economic depression had also a positive effect on the public schools.
As a result of a surplus in the profession, many high-quality scientists, mathematicians, historians, and other professionals became teachers, since there were no other jobs for them to take. This raised the quality of teachers.
There is not much generalisation possible about the public school system in this period. In spite of some similarities, the period between 1900-1940s is characterised by diversity. On the one hand, the main picture remains the monolith: public schools are still restrictive and snobbish, they consider teaching the classics important, they are strictly hierarchical, aim at conformity, they are full of bullying and beating, etc. On the other hand, there is some evidence of change. Former students and writers are no longer afraid of criticising the public schools; one can spot attempts to find less oppressive methods of discipline, more radical progressive schools and ideas are developing, etc. (Gathorne-Hardy
330).
26 3.2.2 The Recent History of the Public Schools
As it has already been mentioned, the inter-war years had been difficult for the public schools. The economic depression had caused financial insolvency of many parents who attended the public schools themselves, but the economic situation made them unable to pay the fees for their children. Some public schools, especially the smaller ones in the suburbs and in seaside towns, did not have enough pupils and were in danger of closure. By 1941 Miss
Goodfellow prepared a “strictly confidential” memo for the President of the Board of
Education in which she grouped the public schools into four groups. The schools that were most likely to survive financially belonged to the group A (among these were Eton,
Westminster, and Winchester), and the schools in the category D (such as Brighton and
Dover) were believed to be facing extinction (Griggs 40).
The public schools therefore turned to the state for help. Their aim was, of course, to receive aid from the state and at the same time not to lose the complete control over entry to and administration of the public schools. They asked the President of the Board of Education,
R.A. Butler, to appoint a committee to consider the relations of the public schools to the general educational system (McKibbin 240). In 1942 Butler set up a committee and invited
Lord Fleming to take the chair. The Fleming committee was appointed “to consider means whereby the association between public schools […] and the general educational system of the country could be developed and extended” (Griggs 41). According to Gosden, the aim of the Fleming committee was not driven by the desire for social justice nor was it to
“democratise” the public schools, even though it may have appeared to be its purpose, but the main motive was a fear of economic tightness. It was an attempt to save the financially unstable and threatened schools by public money, and state-supported pupils appeared to be a politically acceptable way to do so (ibid.). This assumption was confirmed in 1961 by the
27 Minister of Education, when he claimed that the public schools acted as they did “in order that they might both be financially solvent and draw their boys from wider sources” (Dancy 17).
The Fleming Committee agreed that there has to be some change in the system, since it is not desirable that the public schools were almost exclusively designed for the children of those who are able to pay full fees:
Conceded that the ‘trend of social development is leaving the Public Schools out of alignment with the world in which they exist’ and to leave them unchanged would make it impossible ‘to close in the world of schools a social breach that […] aggravates, if it does not actually cause, the much more serious divisions in society at large’. (McKibbin 241)
However, as to the direction of the change the Committee adopted different views. One extreme urged that the public schools should be abolished and their premises used for other educational purposes. The other extreme requested to leave the public schools entirely alone to survive or to die according to public demand for their services.
The Committee published a report in 194415 and applied scheme B, by which it was recommended that boys who had been for at least two years at a maintained primary school might get a scholarship from public funds at an accepted boarding school. The scholarships were supposed to be a contribution towards both tuition and boarding fees. “Schools […] should offer in the first instance a minimum of 25 per cent of their annual admissions” to such pupils. It was also suggested that the scheme should be reviewed every five years “with a view to the progressive application of the principle that schools should be equally accessible to all pupils” (Dancy 18). Some places offered by schools might be reserved by the Local
Education Authorities, but the rest would be paid for by the Board of Education (ibid.).
The Minister of Education, Miss Ellen Wilkinson, went even further by requiring a development of boarding education for all suitable pupils in 1946. However, most LEA’s 16
15 The Public Schools and the General Educational System, HMSO, 1944. 16 Local Education Authority.
28 and her successors were disinterested and unenthusiastic about it, so the Fleming Scheme was stillborn. It was only 13 years later after Wilkinson that a minister was ready to deal with the question of boarding education again, since education was in general low priority of the government (ibid. 21).
The Fleming Report was not particularly well received. Most local authorities thought it an expensive way of educating a small number of children. The public reception of the scheme proposed by the Fleming Committee was rather selective. Although the Report aroused a general enthusiasm, its details were in the eye of the storm. For example the figure
25 per cent aroused many questions. Some thought the figure was too high, while others considered it low. Questions were also asked as to who is to decide, and on what criteria, which boys are to be sent at public expense to independent schools. The age of transfer also caused difficulties since boys leave primary schools at eleven, whereas boarding schools take their boys at the age of thirteen. All in all, the public reception was rather disappointing (ibid.
18-9).
The scheme was initially well received by the public schools. However, it never came to effect, mainly because of the unwillingness of either central government or LEA’s to take responsibility for payments of the grants (Mackinnon, Statham, Hales). Besides this, the majority of public schools became rather unenthusiastic about this measure in the course of time since the conditions which led them to seek the Committee’s appointment in 1942 were fast disappearing and by the end of the war the schools became much more prosperous
(McKibbin 241).
The negotiations connected with the Fleming scheme B established contacts between the public schools and the LEA’s. Despite the former prejudices and ignorance, their relations soon took a form of partnership. Both sides were willing to cooperate and sometimes even friendly relations between the individuals were established. The public schools continued to
29 offer places to “draw boys from wider sources”. However, the schemes operated between individual LEA’s and the public schools and there seemed to be no willingness on the part of the “centre”17 to extend the schemes on a national scale (Dancy 22-3). It could serve as an excuse that the people working for the public sector of education were too busy with implementing a new Education Act.
The new Education Act, sometimes referred to as the Butler Act, was enacted in 1944 and it laid the foundation for the modern education system. Besides replacing the Board of
Education with a Ministry of Education and giving the Minister of education a creative function, a measure that influenced the public schools most was the introduction of the system of compulsory schooling from the age of five to fifteen. Thus the distinction between elementary and higher education was abolished and so were the fees at most state secondary schools, with the exception of the direct grant grammar schools. By this act the selective grammar schools were required to accept only publicly funded pupils who had met the entrance requirements. The schools that would not accept this measure would either close or become wholly fee-paying institutions (Tapper 14). The number of direct grant grammar schools was reduced and many of the schools became independent. This changed the character of the secondary grammar schools greatly. The grammar schools started to offer free places and they extended. The state schools and state-assisted schools became socially mixed and this of course had its social consequences as some of the pupils who entered the grammar schools were from homes, which were barely literate, others had:
very low standards of cleanliness and appearance; some seem to have had little training in social behaviour […] Children like these have very little to give to the social and cultural life of the school; the school itself has to provide much which, before the war, would have been regarded as the normal contribution of the home. (Davies qtd. in McKibbin 242)
17 Ministry of Education.
30 This situation resulted in driving fee-payers from the secondary grammar schools to the public schools. Nonetheless, in spite of the initial assumptions that the free-place system would lead to a “wave” of new public schools, it was a “flood which never came” (Bamford qtd. in
McKibbin 243). The numbers attending state secondary schools always grew faster, since the majority of the middle classes did not send their children to public or private schools and the middle classes did not suffer from working-class competition nearly as much as was expected after 1944 (ibid.).
On the one hand, the system was criticised because it deprived a number of children, who could in fact profit from grammar school education, of the possibility to attend a grammar school. On the other hand, the introduction of the compulsory system of schooling helped to bring grammar schools and public schools closer together: their students enter the same external examinations and go to the same universities. They also share a common academic and social prestige and according to Dancy, also the same political threat (35).
The after-war years became years of a new prosperity for the public schools
(McKibbin 241). There was a sharp increase in birth rate after 1943 and the exceptionally high levels of economic activity after 1940 permitted people who had always wished to send their children to public schools to do so. More pupils started to attend the public schools as a result of the changing character of the secondary grammar schools.
However, this period was also full of building and repairing, and many schools nearly broke (Gathorne-Hardy 401). And not only for this reason had been the period between 1945 and 1949 of a relative gloom for the public schools. Since 1944, two political parties had belonged to the mainstream of British political life and have had monopoly of government: the Conservative and Labour Parties. Their policies on the public schools differed. Generally speaking, the Labour Party did not find the public schools desirable. However, it should be
31 pointed out that their hostility to private schooling was usually more visible in opposition than in government (Tapper 13).
The Labour responses to private education were shaped by a broader context and the historical relationship between the Labour Party and the private schools. They talked about class, privilege and elite, and for much of their history they desired to maximise the equality of educational opportunity. Labour opposed the academic and social selection at public schools and the link of the public schools to the British ruling class (Tapper, Salter 185). They also criticised values that private schools instil in their pupils, such as the leadership, and the kind of educational experiences that the public schools offer and their social impact: “Perhaps the most obvious division between private and maintained schools is the superior facilities that parents can buy for their children in many of the public schools: expensive playing fields; well stocked libraries and – in recent years – new or modernized laboratories” (ibid. 186).
Labour saw the whole independent sector as playing a central role in the process of class reproduction. They even claimed that the character of the British class structure was a partial product of the selectiveness of the independent schools.
Our fundamental opposition to private schooling arises from the knowledge that their educational influence has resulted in attempts by parts of the maintained sector to emulate their narrow academic character and has endowed private schools with unearned and unfair reputations of educational superiority. (Tapper, Salter 185)
However, Labour policy on private schooling had been modified in the course of time.
Until 1950s they strongly believed that parents would abandon the private sector for an improving state sector and that the private schools will soon go down. The main task therefore was to increase resources available to the maintained sector and so to improve its quality.
Nonetheless, the independent sector retained the loyalty of a large segment of the British middle class and Labour had to change their policy on this issue (ibid. 182).
32 The 1950s and 1960s were prosperous years for the public schools. Conservatives brought about an ever-increasing number of public school candidates. There were two fundamental influences causing the prosperity: the rise of virtually free university education as a result of the government grant system, the growth of science and the increased orientation towards work and science, and deeper involvement of parents in education. Since the Colonial
Services, the army and navy collapsed as sources of employment, industry and science became acceptable for the middle class. However, law, medicine, accountancy and the foreign and home Civil Service were the first choices (Gathorne-Hardy 402). Economic explosion goes hand in hand with a strong flow of egalitarian ideas. As a result of this, giving children good education becomes one of the most certain ways of ensuring their future prosperity
(ibid.). And this is what the public schools do. They are academically excellent and in comparison with the state sector, they have better standard of pupils. Their pupils are highly successful at examinations and the majority of them go to university (ibid. 402-10).
The most rapid change in the development of public schools could be seen in the
1960s when the Monolith, as Gathorne-Hardy described the system of public schools, finally melted away. The bounds are loosened, privileges abolished, traditions are no longer considered so important. The schools open up, become relaxed and less total. Some public schools become coeducational. There are more activities outside the school and the schools keep extensive contacts with the outside world. The architecture of freedom is extended. The pupils go home far more, free time is allowed to be free, age groups and houses mix, boys are called by their Christian names (ibid. 430). The release has influenced the masters and the mistresses, too. They are getting married, divorced; they have friends outside the school. In the 1950s most schools instituted retirement for housemasters after 15 years to allow the advancement of the young. The public schools are enjoying a boom: the curriculum is
33 widening and the pupils are taught a range of subjects. Athleticism finally disappears and games cease to be a prime engine of education, though they are still popular (ibid.).
There had been significant changes in the authority structure, too. Fagging had virtually disappeared, though the system of power is still there. The pupils learn how to exercise authority over oneself and others. However, masters usually do not talk about the authority but they prefer using words such as self-confidence, self-esteem, they talk about learning to think independently, learning how to get along well with other people and about the social life (ibid. 409). The pupils are also beaten less, though beating remains the most frequent form of punishment. When Graham Kalton carried out a survey in 1966, he found out that beating was still extremely common. Uniforms are abandoned or they only serve as approximations to what is worn outside (ibid. 433).
Besides, parents rely on schools to impose the discipline they cannot impose themselves. As Dancy explains it: “Parents no longer pay for good teaching. They pay for short hair” (qtd. in ibid. 435). Because of the increasing number of divorces from about the
1960s on, more and more schools realized that they also had a role of providing a stable and secure background for children from broken homes. They became “a second home; stimulation for the bored, safe for the distracted, release for those under the nuclear pressure”
(ibid. 436).
In the 1960s the Labour policy on the public schools changed. It abandoned the comprehensive principle, the market version “leave-them-alone” solution as well as the possibility of abolition. There was a shift from the weak to strong definition of equality of educational opportunity (from enabling children to climb to the top of the educational ladder to developing their intelligence). Nevertheless, as the system favoured those with wealthy parents or/and with high intelligence, the Labour Party became committed to integrating the two educational sectors. In 1965 Tony Crosland, the Secretary of State of the Department of
34 Education and Science, invented the Public Schools Commission18 in order to advise on the best way of integrating the public schools with the state system of education and to assess the need for boarding education and “ensure that the public schools should make their maximum contribution to meeting national education needs and to create a socially mixed entry into the schools to reduce the divisive influence which they now exert” (Griggs 47). The integration floundered on three rocks: selection, independence and finance. The first report was published in 1968 and it recommended that the suitable boarding schools would give at least half of their places to assisted pupils who needed boarding education.
Nonetheless, the commitment of the Labour Party to weaken the private sector of education has culminated when they published a programme to abolish it within ten years. As a reaction to this, the private sector established the Independent Schools Information Service in 1972 and two years later the Independent Schools Joint Council (ISJC), to coordinate the policy of the whole sector (Fox 46). The abolition was averted after Conservatives came to power in 1979.
The Conservative government brought about a reversal of policy on private education.
Conservatives were openly supporting it. Their support and belief in parental freedom of choice were confirmed in 1980, when a new Education Act was released. In 1981 they introduced the Assisted Places Scheme that was intended “to help ‘able children from modest backgrounds’ to enter independent schools of high academic reputation through means-tested assistance with school fees” (Whitty, Edwards 164). By introducing the APS, Conservatives aimed at constructing a relationship and creating a bridge between the state and the private sectors of schooling. The remission of fees was arranged directly between the central government and the schools and the selection of pupils between the parents and the schools.
Thus an alternative to the maintained system was created for pupils who qualified for it
18 The Commission was led by Sir John Newsome and therefore it is sometimes referred to as the Newsome Committee.
35 academically and financially and it increased the number of parents who could choose between two alternative forms of provision. There were about 5,500 assisted places annually and almost all the 119 direct grant schools participated. However, the real numbers were a bit lower: 4,243 in 1981 and 4,417 in 1982. The first assisted pupils entered 229 participating schools in September 1981 (ibid. 163-4). The secondary schools within the private sector witnessed an increase of the order of six per cent in the size of their market (Fox 46). Some people claimed that certain fee-paying schools were so dependent upon the pupils with assisted places that they would become financially insolvent and be forced to close if the APS was terminated. However, the phasing out gave the schools enough time to adjust (Tapper 19-
20).
APS aroused a lot of criticism. It was blamed for having transferred academically able children from the state to the private sector and for enabling parents who would be able to pay the fees regardless of the APS to reduce some of the costs19. Although the scheme may have benefited families with comparatively small economic resources, the selected children were from “socially ambitious and culturally attuned” backgrounds. Besides, the system was open to abuse (Tapper 20).
New Labour came to power in 1997 with a radically modified relationship to the private sector of schooling. New Labour governments adopted the idea of diversification in the provision of schooling and they seem to have admitted that sometimes the market can provide social goods more effectively than the state. They even seem to be more ready to accept the idea to underwrite the private provision of social goods with state monies (Tapper
16-7). They have shifted their educational policy away from major structural change towards thinking how individual schools could be encouraged to raise their educational standards. In their General Election Manifesto of 1997 they state:
19 According to PAIE, the APS made no difference to the socio-economic profile of the schools, since none of the parents that benefited from APS indicated that the scheme was significant in their choice of independent education (Foskett, Hemsley-Brown 206)
36 Our task is to raise the standards of every school. We will put behind us the old arguments that have be-devilled education in this country. We reject the Tories’ obsession with school structures: all parents should be offered real choice through good quality schools, each with its own strengths and individual ethos […] Standards, more than structures, are the key to success. (Tapper 18)
Labour made two promises: to phase out the Assisted Places Scheme and to withdraw vouchers to pay for nursery education. Nevertheless, even during Blair’s second government there were still a few assisted place pupils in the private sector (ibid.).
After the Callaghan Government20 withdrew the official inspection of fee-paying schools (which enabled the schools to label themselves as “Recognised as Efficient”), the independent sector set up two inspection regimes of its own: Headmasters’ and
Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC) and for all other schools the Independent Schools
Council (ISC). In 1998 the School Minister Estelle Morris announced the government’s acceptance of these inspection regimes, which were unified in 2000 as the Independent
Schools Inspectorate. In 1998 HMC Conference set up a School Centred Initial Teacher
Training (SCITT) scheme that involved cooperation between the state and the private sectors and a document Open Access to Schools in the Independent sector (OASIS) started to be consulted.
The 2001 Labour Party Manifesto brought the idea of state/private partnership to the table: “Pupils will be given greater opportunities through the promotion of partnerships between schools. We will build on the partnerships established between the state and private sectors” (ibid. 21). The aim was to create a partnership that would help to reach the mutually agreed goals. The model of partnership has been put into effect on a number of fronts.
However, it has mostly applied to lower levels, such as the partnerships between individual
20 Leonard James Callaghan was the British Prime Minister in the years 1976-79.
37 schools. According to Tapper, there is probably more time needed before this model can show its potential (25).
38 3.3 Public Schools: Academic Life and Some Social Aspects
3.3.1 Admission
The boys’ boarding schools usually take children from the age of thirteen (Mackinnon,
Statham, Hales 83). The first thing the boys, or rather their families, have to do for entry at the age of thirteen is to register to or to apply for the school they have chosen by filling out a registration or an application form. Registration usually takes place at the latest two or three years before entry, depending on the school chosen21. Until 1960s in order to gain place at
Eton, parents had to register their children on the so-called Eton’s “House list” at birth and until recently the House List system accounted for half of the entrants (“Entry”). Nowadays the registration on the “Eton list” can be done at any time between the birth and ten years of age.
After the registration boys usually go through a selection procedure that is organised by the school. A boy can gain a place at the chosen public school after passing the selection procedure and on condition that he passes the Common Entrance Examination or possibly the school’s own examination22 before entry.
Boys can prepare for the Common Entrance Examination in preparatory schools, where the last two years are devoted to it. The exam is taken by children aged eleven or thirteen and comprises English, history, geography, scripture, Latin, French, arithmetic, algebra and geometry (“Common”). For entry at eleven, the pupils do tests in English, mathematics and science and for entry at thirteen, the boys may offer besides the compulsory subjects, which comprise English, mathematics and science, a wide range of subjects chosen from French, geography, history, German, Greek, Latin, religious studies and Spanish (ibid.).
21 e.g. Westminster requires registration two or three years before entry; Winchester at the age of eight. 22 e.g. at Winchester.
39 The schools generally expect the majority of boys to offer geography, history, religious studies and a language (“Making”).
The Common Entrance Examination is administered by the independent sector (the papers are set by the Independent Schools Examinations Board). The aim is to provide continuity and consistency within the sector (ibid.). The examination is set centrally and takes place three times a year: in February or March and June for boys and girls aged thirteen and above and the 11+ exam in January (“Common”). Although boys usually take the exam at their current schools, the answers are marked by the first-choice senior school (“Making”).
The exam is qualifying rather than competitive and the school for which the boy applies corrects the papers and decides on the pass score (“Common”; Dancy 39). Whereas the schools that have the pass mark above sixty search for pupils of a high academic standard, the pass mark fifty or below means that “the school is selecting a wider range of abilities or is able to allow for differences in earlier schooling” (“Common”). In case a child does not pass at one school, parents can send the papers to other schools.
Some schools may have their own entrance examinations or they may offer the so- called scholarship examinations. The scholarship examinations are generally more advanced than the normal entrance exams and they take place in March or May (“Making”). Academic scholarships are the most common, followed by scholarships for music, art, design and technology and sport (“Fees”). The proportion of students who enter the schools by the scholarship examination is usually from 10 to 30 per cent of the annual intake (Dancy 40).
40 3.3.2 Curriculum
At public schools the main stress has always been laid on classical education. Up to the sixteenth century Latin served as an international language and therefore it was taught for communication purposes. The knowledge of Latin was essential for the careers in law and the
Church. However, this Latin was a simple Latin, the so-called dog Latin (Gathorne-Hardy
36). The sixteenth century brought about a rediscovery of classical author and classical Latin that was more difficult to learn. Therefore the majority of people started to use the vernacular and soon the Church and the state, mainly as a result of the Reformation, were using English
(ibid.). Latin became a dead language.
Nevertheless, despite these and other changes in the society, the tradition of teaching
Latin and sometimes Greek at public schools survived and remained strong until the nineteenth century. It seems as if the long history of teaching classics alone served as a justification for teaching it further. The same applied to sciences. Although science had been developing during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the public schools remained generally indifferent to it (ibid.). A headmaster at St Paul’s fittingly described it in 1837 when he said to a questioning parent: “At St Paul’s we teach nothing but the classics, nothing but
Latin and Greek. If you want your son to learn anything else you must have him taught at home, and for this purpose we give three half-holidays a week” (ibid. 37).
Pupils were taught not only to read and translate classical authors, but they were also taught to compose Latin and Greek verse. In 1840 about three-quarters to four-fifths of the time, which comprises about forty hours a week, was spent on classics (Gathorne-Hardy 150).
However, the excessive emphasis on teaching classics was at the expense of English learning, so that the majority of boys could neither write nor speak English fluently (ibid. 37). The
Royal Commission note from 1864 reports that when leaving schools, boys often knew
41 nothing, neither Latin nor Greek: “(a public school boy was also) ignorant of geography and of history of his own country, unacquainted with any modern language but his own and hardly competent to write English correctly” (ibid. 157).
The majority of people in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were uneducated and hence the knowledge of Latin served as a distinguished mark of the educated people.
Besides, the opportunity to learn Latin was limited only to those who could afford to pay for the education. This made the possession of the classics a definite class distinction (ibid. 39):
“Kings may make titles, heralds scutcheons plan/But education makes the gentleman”, and education meant the knowledge of Latin and Greek (Chandos 33). As I have mentioned earlier, the aim of public school education was not to train for a job. Public schools did not aim to be academic either, but they were designed for social and “character” reasons. As Lord
Plumer noted at Eton in 1916: “We are often told that they taught us nothing at Eton. That may be so, but I think they taught it very well” (Gathorne-Hardy 151).
Public school masters also considered classics a part of the defence against the evils of industrialization and materialism. As one schoolmaster wrote about the classics in 1906:
“(classics) formed the one bulwark against that purely utilitarian tendency today which deprecates any study that has no practical value” (ibid. 151-2). Since only clever men studied the classics, it was often deduced, mainly in the Victorian era, that learning classics would make one clever. The Victorians considered the mind to be a muscle that once made strong by the classics, would be able to tackle everything. The same applied to the books. They believed that what you read would affect your character. And since the aim of education was to change the character, to make it wiser, more profound, more civilized, they aimed at books that would help develop these characteristics. The works of classical authors were considered appropriate for this purpose: “The real defect of mathematics and physical science as instruments of
42 education is that they have not any tendency to humanise. Such studies do not make a man more human, but simply more intelligent” (ibid. 152).
There has been a lot of pressure on the public schools to extend their curriculum based on the Clarendon and Tauton Commissions. As a result in 1840s some science was introduced at Eton and Rugby and by the 1880s nearly all public schools had “Modern” and “Army” sides, teaching science, German, French, English literature and history (ibid. 153). However, the curriculum of the major boys’ public schools remained to be dominated by classics
(McKibbin 244).
In the interwar years in addition to the classics, more subjects were introduced at some schools, such as mathematics, science and modern languages (ibid.). But these schools were rather exceptional and the change in the curriculum at the majority of public schools was not so significant. As long as the “ancient universities” of Oxford and Cambridge kept offering disproportionate numbers of scholarships in classics or mathematics and classics, the schools were compelled to continue teaching them. By way of illustration, there were thirty-nine classics masters at Eton in 1936, which is a very high figure when compared to nine masters in science and four in history (ibid.).
The situation changed after 1945. The reasons were the growing prestige of scientific and technological subjects, “modernizing” experience of war, and, perhaps the most important, the pressure from business (ibid.). Business always recruited from the public schools, but after the war firms began to encourage their senior staff to send their children to public schools, while influencing the curricula of the schools. Thus the relationship with the needs of capital and industry becomes closer (Walford, “British public” 132). This led to the establishment of the Industrial Fund for the Advancement of Scientific Education in 1956, whose aim was to help the schools produce more trained scientists (Gathorne-Hardy 402).
The fund assisted the schools in the construction of laboratories and workshops (McKibbin
43 244). The industry placed over three million pounds at the public and direct grant schools disposal (Walford, “British public” 132). However, this applied mainly to the “pure” sciences.
Business and industry were introduced to the curriculum later.
So far, the public schools have developed business studies, economics and business with modern language courses and as regards the developments of this kind they belong to the top. They have also invested a lot of money in computer laboratories and engineering and technology centres within the schools (ibid.). Consequently, the majority of the sixth form pupils are math and science scholars (Tapper, Salter 192-3).
44 3.3.3 Extra-curricular Activities
Besides the curricular activities, the public schools offer their pupils opportunities of taking part in a great variety of the so-called para-academic23 or extra-curricular24 activities such as games, sports, music, arts and crafts, drama, school societies25, and CCF26 (Dancy
61).
Games have always been popular among public school pupils. However, before the second half of the nineteenth century they were not considered a legitimate part of school life and were played only for pleasure (Gathorne-Hardy 60). Public school headmasters often held games in contempt. In 1840s one of them passed a comment on boys who devoted themselves to games: “The Idle boys, I mean the boys who play cricket” (ibid. 158). The situation changed dramatically as organised games began to spread from the 1850s on and they soon became obsession for more than thirty years (Heward 159).
The reasons for the popularity of games were multiple. First of all, games arouse excitement and they are more entertaining, especially when compared to the boring classics.
Secondly, games serve as a good exercise and are thus beneficial to the boys. They teach cooperation and by playing games boys can both test and enjoy their skills. Games also generate confidence. As Gathorne-Hardy puts it, when your school wins matches and thus becomes in a sense a “better” school, you gain confidence that this school can also teach you better (160). Moreover, games appeared to be an appropriate solution to the problem of caged energy and rebellions that many schools faced in the second half of the nineteenth century.
They gave the pupils opportunity to give vent to aggression that would otherwise be expressed in the undesirable gang behaviour and offered opportunity for self-abnegation that
23 Dancy 61. 24 “Extra-curricular”. 25 There are about fifty societies and clubs at Eton. They are not necessarily linked with academic disciplines and the majority of them are run by the boys. 26 Combined cadet force.
45 was replaced by team spirit. As Gathorne-Hardy sums up, games trained mind, character and body for anything (160-2).
In his book Gathorne-Hardy points out yet another purpose of games. They were regarded as a means of overcoming sex, which is also one of the main reasons why they became popular among the Victorian and Edwardian schoolmasters. As the headmaster of
United Services College observed: “My prophylactic against certain unclean microbes was to send the boys to bed tired” (Gathorne-Hardy 169).
The popularity of games reached its peak around 1900-10 (ibid. 163). According to
Gathorne-Hardy, by 1900-1914 public schools could no longer be considered academic institutions, as far as the majority of the pupils were concerned (165). J.H. Simpson, a Rugby master, wrote in 1900: “A great many people think of public schools […] as being primarily places where boys learn to play games […] the popular impression is in this matter true”
(ibid.). For example, at Charterhouse boys were given points for athletic activities and there was a limit of points that a boy had to collect in a week (ibid. 375).
The rising popularity of games was accompanied by a growing disrespect to academic and intellectual activities (ibid. 167-8). As Leonard Woolf, a British political theorist and author who attended St Paul’s school from 1893 to 1899, wrote: “Use of the mind, intellectual curiosity, mental originality, interest in ‘work’, enjoyment of books or anything connected with the arts, all such things, if detected, were violently condemned and persecuted”
(Gathorne-Hardy 168).
Between the years 1900 and the 1930s success at games had even become a perfectly legitimate qualification for a job (ibid. 326). This development is characteristic of about fifty years of the public schools’ existence. Yet in 1960 Woolf passed a comment on the public schools, whi ch were according to him “the nursery of British philistinism […]” where “the intellectual was […] disliked and despised” (ibid.). Gathorne-Hardy even argues that the
46 philistinism was a marked feature of the British middle and upper classes: “Since they were never taught to read good books, to think, to look at paintings or to listen to music, how could they regard them as anything but ridiculous?” (168).
Games did not die until the 1950s, though they were weakening into the 1930s:
I mean that games as a prime engine of education, as an ideology, vanished. They were no longer considered a method of instilling moral virtues, no longer a yardstick of a successful school career and therefore a passport to outside careers generally. Games have reverted to what they were at the schools up till about the late 1840s – just games. (Gathorne-Hardy 430)
As far as different types of games are concerned, cricket, football, hockey, rowing and rackets were considered the most prestigious. Other games were tolerated but had little prestige in the school and were classed as “minor” (Dancy 61). Nowadays there is a wide range of activities available for public school pupils such as athletics, swimming, tennis, basketball, gym, cross-country running, bicycle-rides, country rambles, etc. (ibid.).
Public schools encourage all boys to enjoy physical exercise and acquire physical skills. In most public schools a kind of exercise is required every afternoon (ibid.). By way of illustration, at Eton pupils can choose from a variety of sports. There are team sports, such as football and rugby as well as individual sports (badminton, athletics, tennis and shooting) available. The pupils can also take part in one of two Eton’s brands of football – the so-called wall game and the field game, or choose to participate in recently introduced martial arts.
Many pupils take part in rowing, which is very popular at Eton. The Eton Boat Club is said to have more members and boats than any other boat club in the world (“Extra-curricular”).
There was a change upon the Combined cadet force. Most schools added a Royal
Naval and an RAF “section” to the basic Army organization and recognized the value of paramilitary activities, such as adventure training, assault-courses, bridge-building, first aid, etc. (Dancy 62-3). The Eton College CCF, founded in 1860, was the first school corps of its
47 kind: “The aim of the Corps is to provide boys with a range of military skills, adventurous pursuits, leadership experience and the opportunity to complete the Duke of Edinburgh Award at silver level” (“The Combined”).
All schools have a choir and usually an orchestra and the majority of pupils are trained in music appreciation. Music counts in the life of the school and the best musicians enjoy a good status (Dancy 63). By way of illustration, at Harrow, which is famous for its strong music department, around sixty concerts are produced a year (“Arts”). The music department focuses not only on the gifted musicians whom it raises to a high level of skill, but also involves every pupil “in a good level of enjoyable musical activity” (ibid.). It claims that every pupil takes part in musical activities on a regular basis.
Pupils can also educate themselves in arts and crafts. The schools offer a wide range of such activities, e.g. drawing, painting, sculpture, carpentry, pottery, modelling and many more. Besides the already mentioned activities, Eton offers its pupils courses in information and computer technology and printmaking (“Extra-curricular”).
The same applies to drama. There are over twenty productions staged at Eton every year (classics, musicals, contemporary plays, or plays written by the boys) (ibid.). Drama is teamwork, so that boys who are not interested in acting can focus on set design, lightning, scenery-building, sound-effects, props, or even direction and writing (ibid; “Arts”).
48 3.3.4 Boarding
Boarding is what makes the British public schools unique among the educational systems around the world (Gathorne-Hardy 34). Pupils at public schools may be either full boarders, who live in the school grounds during the whole term, or weekly boarders, who return home at weekends. Besides, some public schools also accept dayboys/daygirls who return home each evening (“Boarding”). Boarding schools outside Britain are rather exceptional. However, some boarding public schools can be found in countries that were once part of the British Empire, such as Australia, South Africa, Canada, India and Rhodesia
(Gathorne-Hardy 468).
Gathorne-Hardy speculates that there may have been an impetus to boarding right from the start. Religious communities tend to isolate themselves and the sources suggest that even the first schools were boarding in their character, e.g. the description of Albert with his pupils at St Peter’s from the eight century says that he “fed them, cherished them” (34). There were only a few schools and the pupils had to travel far to get education. The majority of parents, especially the rich ones, did not feel any emotional anxiety about sending their children to schools far away, since it was a common practice of many rich families to send young children to other people’s houses to be educated. Later, boarding became a way of making money and it gave rise to the famous house system, which has already been discussed in the historical chapters.
According to Dancy, the combination of day school and home is more natural than boarding. Nevertheless, he admits three advantages that boarding has over a good home.
Firstly, the adults that carry out the education at boarding schools are experts who have experience of educating adolescents. Secondly, the pupils in boarding schools learn to become independent of their parents, to live among their fellows and find their place in the
49 community. Thirdly, boarding schools offer the pupils a far wider range of possible interests and activities (75). The schools help to develop maturity, independence, and self-confidence.
With the words of Lord James: “there is little doubt that the boy from the boarding school is often more socially mature than one from a day school” (qtd. in ibid. 74).
However, boarding has been criticized for separating boys from home while creating no emotional substitute and for cutting them off from contacts with the world (Dancy 81). The boys often felt homesick and this could have created a feeling in them that they were not loved, because they had done something wrong. In her book, The Deprived and the Privileged published in New Zealand in 1954, H. M. Spinley described that beneath a self-confidence that is visible in all public school children, the pupils also reveal feelings of anxiety and insecurity (ibid. 82). As Dancy sums up this theme:
Whatever else the school provides better than the home, there is one thing the school will not provide, and that is love: understanding […] yet to remove him (a boy) prematurely from it (love) is to risk inhibiting his emotional development at a crucial moment: the stiff upper lip of the typical public-schoolboy may have its uses, but it is not much use for kissing one’s wife with. (81-2)
E. M. Forster shares the same opinion: “They go forth into world with well-developed bodies, fairly developed minds, and undeveloped hearts. Undeveloped hearts, not cold ones – the difference is important.” (qtd. in Dancy 82)
Public schools have sometimes been blamed for encouraging homosexuality, by depriving boys of the contact with girls. According to Dancy, it was never claimed that there is a higher incidence of homosexuality among men from boarding schools than among men from day schools (85). In addition, he assumes that there is a period of homosexual attraction between boys in “natural” environment, too (qtd. in Gathorne-Hardy 88). Royston Lambert did not find any evidence for the argument that public schools cause homosexuality either. He said that they only “sensitise boys to their homosexual instincts and homosexual situations”
50 (ibid. 190). The study of public schools carried out by H.M Spinley shows a “satisfactory sexual development” of boys in boarding schools:
Although he (public school boy) does not have an opportunity to associate with the opposite sex until he leaves school, when he does meet girls he enjoys their company, has no worries about his ability to attract feminine admirers, is able to engage in the by-play of sex, to fall in love and to make plans for eventual marriage. (qtd. in Dancy 85)
Gathorne-Hardy argues with Dancy and claims that the public schools might have some effect on the boys in terms of their sexual development. He refers to Kinsey’s
“circumstances of adolescent experience” that influence the sexual pattern later in life and assumes that the public schools may be bringing increased homosexual response (192). Based on his studies and interviews with public school alumni, Gathorne-Hardy estimates that about twenty five per cent of former public school pupils had sexual relations with each other on regular basis (179). The variations of sex ranged from passionate eroticism to very crude forms of experiment and victimization. As one of his informants says: “there was a great deal of sex, a great deal. I had an enormous amount – but I wish I’d had more […] (ibid.).
It is not a purpose of this work to discuss such a complex and controversial subject in detail; however, I have found this issue important to mention. Generally, the question of the origins of homosexuality has not been completely answered yet (Kaňka 5). The majority of experts nowadays agree that homosexuality is caused by a combination of genetic and hormonal factors during the pregnancy and shortly after the birth and thus they would find the discussion about the influence of the public schools on the development of homosexuality irrelevant (“Homosexuality”).
The critique of boarding schools often touches the issue of social isolation. Since boarding schools were mostly founded in the country or in small towns, the pupils did not have any contact with the outside world (McKibbin 245). This isolation has led to the
51 development of a public school argot, which served as a means of excluding the outsiders.
The schools that most differentiated themselves from the external world also had the most elaborated argots, e.g. Ampleforth, Oundle, Malvern, Charterhouse, and Winchester. Day schools and smaller boarding schools had only a few argot words besides nicknames for masters (Wakeford qtd. in McKibbin 246). Moreover, the pupils had been isolated from the lower social classes. Their notion of ordinary working people was full of political clichés and cultural stereotypes. They often saw them only in subordinate roles, such as someone who carried their baggage (ibid.). According to Dancy, the isolation is nowadays compensated for by the fact that the boys come from different areas of England and the world (89). The physical isolation is also more often eroded by the contacts with parents, who usually live within commuting distance and the neighbourhood, e.g. by sharing of facilities and social welfare activities (Tapper, Salter 192).
52 3.3.5 Religion
Religion and the Church have always played an important part in the life of public schools. “Godliness comes even before good learning” was regarded as their prime function
(Dancy 72). However, in connection with the general decline of religion from the 1870s on, the ties with the Church begin to loosen, for the first time after 1,200 years, and since the second half of the nineteenth century laymen are appointed more frequently. By way of illustration, by 1886 in twenty-three leading schools there were seventy-three per cent of masters who were not clergy, while only four years later, the percentage increased to eighty per cent (Gathorne-Hardy 208). With the exception of Catholic schools, where most masters continued to be priests.
The majority of public schools have a link with a particular denomination and therefore it is their desire “to make their schools into more specifically Christian places”
(Dancy 67). Among the traditional instruments of Christian education are the influence of the community, scripture reading, and the chapel that can be found at virtually all public schools and where school assembles for worship. Attendance at chapel was on the wane in the 1960s and 1970s and though it survived it can no longer be considered the essential school ritual
(Tapper, Salter 192).
If a boy without religious beliefs attends a faith-based school, he is expected to follow their customs. Each school may differ in its policy on this issue; they may be indulgent or rather strict on these matters (Sutch). The styles and frequencies of religious worship vary - school assemblies may be daily or weekly, they may be either specifically religious in content or they may simply serve to carry out the school business. There may be morning and evening prayers, too. Most schools have a weekly service of worship. The majority of public schools
53 also provide opportunities for students to carry out public service, such as community service, and work with local, national or international charities (ibid.).
Since the British Government regulates by law that some areas of religious beliefs are to be studied during a child’s compulsory education, some schools offer specific courses in theology and philosophy that may lead to qualifications such as GCSEs and A-levels. The scripture teaching is part of the curricula.
By way of illustration, Eton gives its pupils opportunities for worship through the regular chapel services and assemblies, which follow the practice of the Church of England
(“The religious”). Roman Catholics have their own mass on Sundays and every weekday evening and they take part in daily School services of a non-sacramental nature. Boys of the
Jewish, Islamic and other faiths can be excused from Sunday Chapel, but they are also expected to take part in School services on weekdays. Instruction in the Jewish and Islamic faiths is given during the time of Sunday Chapel by the Jewish and Muslim Tutors (ibid.). As the school claims on its website: “Not every Etonian would call himself a committed religious believer; many have doubts which they can and do express freely. However, up to two thirds of the boys are confirmed during their time at Eton, and the climate in the School is by and large sympathetic to Christian life and practice” (ibid.).
54 3.4 Academic Excellence: the Main Reason for the Popularity of
the Public Schools
The institution of public schools has been enjoying popularity for centuries. Its long tradition has made it a brand name not only for the British but also for the international markets. A survey shows that the proportion of parents who would like their children to be educated in private schools is high, though for many this wish remains unrealised because of the school fees (Walford, “British private” 1). Increasing numbers of pupils at private schools come from abroad, e.g. France, Germany, Spain, Russia and other eastern European countries.
Large numbers of children who are sent to the private schools in Britain come from Hong
Kong and China (“Private Schools Experience”). By way of illustration, there were over
8,000 overseas pupils in the British boarding schools in 1999. The majority of them comprised pupils from the Far East (“Germans”).
The majority of public schools’ clients consider the schools to be academic excellent institutions that prepare young people for significant roles in the society and this is, of course, the main reason for choosing these schools. The academic success of public schools is an indisputable fact. The schools in the private sector, in general, seem to be more successful in preparing A-level candidates for high performance at the examinations. They supply 38 per cent of all candidates gaining three A grades or better at A-level. In 2004 more than 50 per cent of GCSE entries from independent schools scored an A* or A. By way of contrast, for the state schools the figure was 13.4 per cent (“Facts”). The disproportion of the results between the private and the state schools and thus the inequality between the private and the state sectors of education is evident.
As far as the figures on entry to elite universities are concerned, the private schools are again more successful. As much as 92 per cent of ISC school leavers go on to university
55 (ibid.). The historically close connection between Oxford and Cambridge colleges and the public schools has a great impact - nearly half the student entries into Oxford and Cambridge universities comprise pupils from the private sector (Sullivan, Heath 77). When one considers that less than ten per cent of the age group attend the private schools, the figure is quite high.
Therefore it is not of a surprise that more and more parents desire public school education for their children with the hope of ensuring them examination success and better chances of getting to university (Walford, “The Changing” 129).
However, what is it that makes the public schools so successful? First of all, the reason for their success stems from the reform in their educational and social character. As it has already been discussed, the emphasis has shifted from the “character” and the aim of creating
“well-rounded, Christian gentlemen”, to examination success with the aim of providing
“aggressive, well-qualified specialists” (Tapper, Salter 192-3). Secondly, unlike the state schools, which must educate everybody, the public schools have advantage in selecting their pupils (Gathorne-Hardy 407). And thirdly, there has been an overall increase in the size of the school-age population, which resulted in the expansion of the sixth form numbers in the state sector, whilst the private sector has managed to maintain their numbers and thus improve its performance (Halsey, Heath, Ridge 26, 32).
As far as intakes are concerned, the public schools have advantage over their state school counterparts, since they are privileged in social and/or academical spheres. The research that was recently carried out by Sullivan and Heath has proved that private schools, in general, have privileged intakes in terms of students’ cognitive skills and parents’ social class, education, reading behaviour, and interest in their child’s education (94). For example, they have the highest proportion with one or other parent leaving full-time education at age 19 or later and also the highest proportion of mothers reading books regularly (ibid. 87).
56 High fees allow many private schools to provide greater resources than the state schools. These comprise well-maintained buildings, smaller classes, better equipment and facilities. Private schools are also more attractive for teachers, since they offer them better salary and encouragement to pursue their academic subject. This attracts better teachers to join the schools. As a result, private school teachers are much higher qualified than the teachers at state schools (Sullivan, Heath 80). Although researches have not established a clear interrelation between financial resources and schools’ performance27, the teachers’ characteristics, such as their assessed verbal abilities, knowledge of the subject, the selectiveness of the institution where they obtained a degree, seem to have some impact on the academic success (ibid. 81). Moreover, private schools are known for having the lowest average pupil-teacher ratios, which also reflect the higher level of financial resources.
However, Sullivan and Heath’s research supports the findings of literature by stating that the pupil-teacher ratio appeared to have no effect on the examination results (95).
It is not only material things that influence the academic success of the public schools.
According to Dancy, one of the important factors is the habit of their pupils to work hard in order to pass the Common Entrance Examination, and fewer teaching periods at the public schools both for the teachers and the pupils, which give the pupils more time left for private study (45). Public schools teach their pupils to work unsupervised and plan their work. The time for education is more flexible and there is more time a day available for education, since less time is wasted, e.g. by travelling (ibid. 49-51).
Public schools have also high academic standard, according to which it is assumed that everyone can succeed at ‘O’ level28 and the pupils therefore receive enough encouragement by their housemasters and tutors (ibid. 45-6). A higher proportion of sixth form pupils enable
27 Coleman et al. 1966, Betts, 1995; Grogger, 1966; Hanushek, 1986, 1989; Hoxby, 2000; Wenglinsky, 1997 qtd. in Sullivan, Heath 80-81. 28 Ordinary level of the General Certificate of Education for children aged 14 to 16 – in Britain it has been replaced by GCSE.
57 the private schools to offer a wider choice of subjects and it also offers a stimulus of competition (ibid. 47).
Last but not least the social composition of the schools also seems to have an impact on the academic success. Two thirds of pupils at schools in membership of the Headmasters’
Conference come from the upper-middle class, in contrast with the state schools where the same proportion represent the working class children (Halsey, Heath, Ridge 22). According to
Sullivan and Heath, schools with a high proportion of students of low social status or low academic ability are at a disadvantage (81). It seems that the educational environment influences a child’s school performance and being surrounded by peers of high academic abilities can stimulate for better achievements. Therefore the social composition of school is also an important factor in the school choice (Carroll, Walford qtd. in Sullivan, Heath 81).
When dealing with the academic success of the public schools one should take into consideration that the public schools are fee-paying institutions and are thus dependent on fees they receive from parents. They are part of a competitive market-system and work under the system of accountability, which means that they must respond to the demands of their clients in order to survive. It is natural that the public schools are forced to do their best in order to attract pupils on whom they are existentially dependent. It follows that it is in their interest to care for the success of their pupils, which secures them a good name in the educational market. This could also be a reason why the public schools are believed to be better run and more effective than their state counterparts (Sullivan, Heath 77).
58 3.5 Public School Debate
Considering that the private sector of education is unimportant or marginal to the educational system, since it concerns only a small proportion of children, would be a mistake.
The private sector of education has been arousing discussions for the most of the twentieth century and the desirability of it is still disputable. In Britain most of the debates have been directed towards the public schools. In my opinion, one of the reasons is that the advantages of the private education seem most evident in them, whether because of their relationship with the British ruling class or the predestination for educational and occupational success that is restricted to the selected few. Even today the institution of public schools remains a controversial matter.
The academic success of the public schools that was discussed in the previous chapter is a strong argument in support. There is no doubt that pupils in many ways benefit from public school education. However, to objectively assess this issue, one should consider that there are children, in case of the public schools the majority of them, whose parents cannot afford to send them to a public school. Therefore in the following part of this work I would like to open a debate on the desirability of the public schools’ existence and discuss the antagonistic opinions.
59 3.5.1 Arguments in Support
The major question is whether the private sector of schooling has its place in a democratic society of the twenty-first century. As terminus a quo, I would like to introduce the three functions of the alternative schooling as defined by the Czech educationalist Jan
Průcha. In my opinion, these functions can at the same time represent the positive features of the public schools and can therefore serve as arguments in support of the public schools in a wider sociological debate. Průcha defines alternative schools as “all types of schools, without regard to promoter […] which differ from the mainstream standard schools of a given educational system” (20). There is not doubt that British public schools fit into this definition.
According to Průcha, the three main functions of the alternative schools are compensation, diversification and innovation. The function of compensation consists in compensating for the imperfections of the mainstream standard school system and thus satisfying the needs that the standard system of schools is not able to meet. The diversification secures the plurality of education, and the innovative function grounds in creating a space, in which experiments and innovations in education can be carried out (Průcha 32-33).
When applied to public schools, the diversification function seems to be the most obvious. No one can object to the argument that the public schools, together with the independent schools, serve as an alternative to the schools in the state sector and thus contribute to the plurality of education. The existence of an alternative in education is closely connected with the freedom of choice, one of the main pillars of the European democracies.
The right of parents to choose suitable education for their children has already been confirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed in 1948: “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children” (The Universal).
The freedom of choice is also central to the workings of a market economy (Fox 45). Some
60 arguments also emphasise the parents’ right to spend money on education they find most suitable for their children. To make the picture complete, in the British politics the right to purchase schooling has been supported by the Conservative Party.
It can sometimes be disputable to what extent British public schools are innovative.
However, when considering the position of the public schools in the British educational system, one can see certain preconditions that the public schools have in order to introduce innovations, such as the fact that they are not constrained by the National Curriculum. This gives the public schools more freedom to decide on what they would like to teach and what methods they want to employ and thus makes them more flexible in terms of innovation. In the historical chapters public school system was compared to a Monolith and examples have been given of how difficult it is for the public schools to change. Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that there have actually been a number of progressive schools within the system.
One of the most famous people concerned with introducing innovations into education was the Rugby headmaster Thomas Arnold29. He introduced morals and religion into education and dedicated his teaching career to fight against the sin that we all have inside of us (Gathorne-Hardy 80). Arnold was concerned with boys’ character, through which, he believed, the soul could be saved. His aim was to make schools places of Christian education and bring up Christian gentlemen, which was a fully new concept at that time (ibid. 80-85).
As Arnold put it: “What we must look for here is, first, religious and moral principle, secondly, gentlemanly conduct, thirdly, intellectual ability” (qtd. in Smith). He used the prefect system with fagging as a means of keeping discipline and stressed close relationships between the masters and the boys. Arnold also contributed to the modernisation of curriculum by introducing modern history, languages and mathematics (“Thomas”). Thomas Arnold has inspired many newly founded public schools and has had an effect on the further development
29 1795-1842.
61 of the public schools in Britain. Since focus on the character training was not common in other Western school systems, it became a distinguished feature of the British public schools
(Gathorne-Hardy 85).
England is believed to play an essential part in the progressive education movement, since the theories of many of thinkers, such as Rousseau, Pestalozzi, etc., were put into practice there and then spread around the world (Gathorne-Hardy 299). Among the most famous English followers of Rousseau are Robert Owen30, who founded Lanark Schools and
William Gilpin31, the founder of Cheam School, in Surrey. The examples of these schools, which advocated educational ideas of Rousseau of free natural development of children in harmony with nature, have shown that public schools can do better without using oppressive methods that were common at that time. At Cheam School there was no hierarchy or fagging, since Gilpin was an advocate of equality under the law. He replaced corporal punishment by a system of fines and encouraged the boys to keep gardens and shops where they were trading apples, gingerbread and cakes (ibid.). Another progressive school, Hazelwood, with its revolutionary schools buildings that were designed by Rowland Hill, was famous for having the best-equipped laboratories in England. Neither punishments nor rewards were used, but the emphasis was laid on love of knowledge (ibid. 300-2).
It was not easy to run a progressive school at that time, since the public opinion took part with the traditional public schools. The teaching of science at Hazelwood was a thorn in the sides of many parents. By the 1840s this forced the majority of progressive schools to close or become conventional again (ibid. 303). Nevertheless, the progressive movement continued to have an impact on the further development, since it had shown that education without using corporal punishments and other tyrannical means of keeping the discipline is possible.
30 1771-1858. 31 1724-1804.
62 The other two names concerned with progressive movement are Cecil Reddie32
(Abbotsholme) and John Haden Badley33 (Bedales). Most sources cite Badley as the father of the progressive movement. However, he taught at Abbotsholme and therefore is sometimes accused of stealing Reddie’s ideas (ibid. 307). At Abbotsholme the curriculum was in English and it emphasised manual labour. Discipline was based on supportive relationships between the staff and the pupils. At Bedales Badley evolved a system of drill and adding up of faults as a compensation for the corporal punishments (ibid. 305-310). The key principle that was fulfilled at these schools was freedom. Badley, Reddie and their followers started a new line of boarding schools in Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland and Belgium34 (320).
I cannot omit to mention Summerhill, founded by Alexander Sutherland Neill in the
1920s. This school has had a great influence on reform movements, especially the movements of antipedagogy that criticised the negative aspects of the traditional education and demanded its elimination (Průcha, Walterová, Mareš 245-6). He promoted non-authoritative education, where pupils were allowed to be free and even the lessons were not compulsory. UNESCO lists Neill among the top 100 most influential educational thinkers (“Summerhill”). And I could follow by listing other progressive schools, such as Dartington, where even smoking was allowed, Bembridge School, Rendcomb, Wynstones founded by Rudolf Steiner,
Gordonstoun founded by Kurt Hahn and many others.
As it has been said, there have been a lot of progressive schools in Britain, some of which could be considered public schools. These schools have contributed to the development not only of the public school system in Britain, but also became inspirational for many schools around the world. Although some of these schools ceased to exist, others are still working and continue to adopt alternative approaches to teaching and learning, e.g.
Summerhill School, Rendcomb College, Abbotsholme, Gordonstoun, Millfield’ Schools and
32 1858-1932. 33 1865-1967. 34 Wickensdorf, Bieberstein, and the Ecole des Roches.
63 Frensham Heights. In this respect, enough arguments have been given to support the idea that public schools can also be innovation bearers.
The compensation function of the public schools lies in the fact that they offer things that the state sector of education is missing. In my opinion, public schools have fulfilled this function right from the start. Until the late nineteenth century the public schools had been, in fact, one of the few educational institutions in Britain. When the formal schooling started to gain importance among the elite groups in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the free market of schools was working sufficiently enough so that the state did not feel any need to support it. However, as these schools started to provide exclusively for the rich, the state began to consider providing education for the poor. The first limited grant to education was given by the Parliament in 1833, but it was not before 1850 when the state started to provide schools for children in England and Wales (Rosen). The education Act of 1870, the so-called Forster’s Act, embodied a commitment to nationwide provision of education and as a result of the Education Acts of 1870 and 1891 all children up to the age of 13 were determined to go to school (McDowall 151). The public secondary education was available only since 1902 and by 1915 England, Wales and Scotland had a kind of an educational system (Rosen; Thompson 158). In 1944 the Butler Act made education compulsory and free for all children aged between 5 and 15.
Nowadays the public schools can no longer compensate for education as such, since the state provides education for everybody. I see the compensation function of today’s public schools in offering education to gifted bright students and children with special educational needs or talents. This became even more evident after the state education system has moved towards the comprehensive secondary education system in 1976. As a result of this, many state grammar schools that were offering selective education became independent and started to charge fees and the state schools began to mix pupils of different abilities. The
64 compensation function of the public schools was formally recognized by the introduction of the Assisted Places Scheme and is supported by British educational policy that ordains that a local education authority may recommend placing a child in an independent school and meet all expenses, if maintained schools cannot meet the child’s educational needs (Private education 134).
One of the main characteristics by which the public schools differ from the state education is the amount of extra-curricular activities they offer to their pupils. The complex development of pupils is something the state schools are missing and thus the public schools can compensate for this deficit. According to a survey carried out for ISC by MORI35, extra- curricular activities are one of the main reasons why parents choose the independent schools
(“Common”).
Some arguments in support see the role of the public schools in providing standards against which the state sector of education can be measured. They also claim that through public schools the state schools can be improved, by raising the state schools to the supposed standard of the private schools (Devanny; Fox 45). The education secretary, Alan Johnson, also expressed this opinion when he said that state schools should learn lesson from schools in the independent sector. According to him, the private schools prepare pupils better for the job market than the state schools by teaching them vital attributes, such as teamwork and building confidence, communication and social skills (Taylor).
Some defenders claim that independent schools, in general, are in fact financial benefit to the state schools. The state funds the education system through taxation and the taxes are also paid by parents who send their children to private schools. This means that there is more money per child in the state sector (Devanny). According to Jonathan Stephard, general
35 Market & Opinion Research International.
65 secretary of the Independent Schools Council, the ISC schools save the state more than £2bn a year, since they educate 500,000 children at no cost to the state (Stephard).
The role of the public schools is also seen in furnishing economy with a highly educated elite and upholding the cultural and moral standard of the society (Fox 45).
An argument of a great significance is, of course, concerned with the long tradition of the institution of public schools in British society. The institution is considered unique among the educational systems in Europe and should therefore be respected and maintained as a part of the national heritage and culture (Covington).
66 3.5.2 Arguments in Opposition
In the previous part I have talked about the contribution of the public schools to the plurality of the educational system, supported by the argument that parents have the right to choose the kind of education for their children they like. However, public schools are not an alternative for everyone and they thus violate equality of educational opportunity, one of the basic principles of education policy of the majority of developed countries around the world.
As it has been mentioned earlier, this principle has been advocated by the Labour Party at the
British political scene. The public schools violate the equality of educational opportunity both directly, by enabling parents to buy a valued form of schooling, and indirectly, by questioning the credibility of the state sector (Tapper 12). The existence of fee-paying schools together with a number of parents willing to invest money to it can actually imply that the state schooling is inferior.
Since the public schools are primarily fee-paying institutions, they divide the society into two groups: those who can afford it and those who cannot. Besides the high fees, the public schools educate only a small proportion of school children and thus the advantage of the “superior” education, as many consider it to be, is restricted only to the selected few. As not every parent can meet the fees, it is mainly children from wealthier families that attend the public schools. Even the bursaries and scholarships that the schools often use for their defence have only a negligible impact on the social composition of the public schools. Namely, the majority of pupils come from the middle class families and as many as three-quarters of the parents are “upper middle class”, working in professional or higher managerial or administrative professions (West, Noden 178).
Public schools are also highly selective as far as the children’s abilities and talents are concerned. The selection often starts at the time when a new potential pupil is born. Until
67 relatively recently the children of parents who failed to register them for a particular school at birth were deprived of the chance to sit the entrance exams.
The choice between the private and the state sector of education is not really part of consideration for many parents. On the one hand, for many parents the private sector of education is simply unattainable. On the other hand, parents of children in the most prestigious private schools do not even consider choosing a school from the state sector (Fox qtd. in Foskett, Hemsley-Brown 196). Sending children to private schools has become a tradition in many British families. These parents believe that a prestigious public school will ensure their children a good educational and professional career:
Choice of primary school is often the first of several strategic decisions involved in the careful construction of their children’s school career, in which the ultimate goal of university entrance and a high-status job for their children are prime motivators. (Gewirtz, Ball, and Bowe qtd. in Foskett, Hemsley-Brown 197)
Bridgeman and Fox identified this category of parents in 1977 and named them
“traditionalists”. This category comprises the upper classes, which recognize the only educational pattern that starts with a prestigious preparatory school, is followed by a boarding school, and ends at either Oxford or Cambridge college (qtd. in Tapper, Salter 180). Yet there is another category of parents, the so-called “pragmatists”, for which school choice is influenced by negative experience of schooling within the state sector, whether it relates to the educational environment, e.g. huge classes, insufficient incentives for learning, insufficient emphasis on formal learning, or socio-cultural environment, e.g. insufficient teaching of good manners, limited stress upon hard work, lack of emphasis on correct speech, too many rough children (Bridgeman, Fox qtd. in Tapper, Salter 181).
However, it is believed that many parents select the public schools not so much for the educational advantages as for the reasons of snobbery (Tapper, Salter 185). The research has proved that one of the processes at work, the so-called elitist effect as defined by Bain and
68 Howells, is that parents choose a public school because they want to distinguish themselves from others and desire to be identified with the elite (qtd. in Foskett, Hemsley-Brown 203).
The ability to pay for private education can also serve as a distinguished feature. That is to say that many of the parents who pay the enormous sums for the education hope that this will ensure them a status of wealth and personal success in the eyes of other people (the so-called
Veblen effect) (ibid.).
The study of the Parental Attitudes to Independent Education (PAIE) showed that the choice of private school is made either with the aim of social replication, in case parents want their children to follow the same pathways as they did, or with the desire to enhance the cultural capital to the group to which they aspire (Foskett, Hemsley-Brown 202-3). Besides the high academic achievements that serve as a passport to the most prestigious universities and influence the further professional development, social learning and environment become a priority in school choice for many parents. They want their children to develop high standards of behaviour and appropriate attitudes and values (ibid. 197-8).
One of the main arguments against the public schools is that they are considered elitist institutions that cause or rather reproduce class inequalities and make them legitimate (Fox
45). Their elitism is derived not only from the social composition of the schools in which the upper classes prevail, but is also actively instilled in their pupils. This is deduced from their historical role, where the place of public school alumni was supposed to be at the top of the social hierarchy. The aim of the public schools was to produce “men fit to rule” people that were not able to run their own lives (Botsford 7). The First World War had strengthened the concept of leadership, since the British victory served as a justification of the public schools’ teachings. However, after the Second World War the concept of leadership started to be questioned by many. The arguments has questioned the desirability of the existence of leaders in democracy and touched the questions of equality. According to Dancy, experience showed
69 that even democracy needs its leaders and the qualities sought after in modern industry are some of those criticised in the public schools (92-5). After all, the idea of leadership has changed and the word itself is nowadays hardly mentioned. It is more often replaced by the word responsibility (ibid. 98).
Besides emphasising superiority of their pupils, public schools were also instilling attitudes of social snobbery in them (Tapper, Salter 185). According to Gathorne-Hardy, the
English class-consciousness in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries could in some respect be compared to racism (139). As it has already been mentioned, since the boys made only few contacts to the locals or outside their social circle, they used to consider other people inferior and their attitudes to the lower classes were rather scornful. The superiority came to be intensified by the public school accent that “intensified the various manifestations of class and elaborated them in a way with which we are now becoming familiar” (ibid. 140). The schools employed a set of class bias prohibitions, e.g. at some schools boys could not read newspapers which supported the Labour Party, other schools would not permit their boys any contact with girls from secondary modern schools or council estates, let alone the strict rules about where boys could and could not go – they were not allowed to use public transport, go into pubs, cinemas, or libraries (McKibbin 246).
The idea of reproducing class inequalities is enhanced by the fact that public school alumni often occupy the most prestigious places in the society. Although according to the
Economist, the impact of the old school tie seems to be weakening, it is still a feature that cannot be completely ignored (“How”). Research published in 2005 funded by the London
School of Economics showed that social mobility has declined in Britain over the past thirty years. Britain even had the lowest mobility of the eight industrial countries surveyed (“Ex- public”). Public school alumni still prevail in many professions, such as legal profession or politics. About 70 per cent of barristers in the top chambers had attended fee-paying schools
70 and a third of MPs (Gibson). It is surely an interesting finding that the majority of journalists attended private schools and Oxbridge. According to a research carried out by an educational charity in 2006, more than a half of Britain’s top 100 journalists were educated at private schools. This proportion has even increased over the past two decades, from 49 per cent in
1986 to 54 per cent in 2006 (ibid.). And what is more, of the 81 per cent who had been to university, more than half of the leading journalists went to Oxbridge. One in three went to
Oxford (ibid.). These figures can imply a lot and should be taken into consideration when analysing public school debate in the media.
A new report from the Institute of Education at the University of London showed that pupils from private schools are more likely to gain higher qualifications than their contemporaries at state schools (Jones). At the same time, the school they attended directly affects their future earnings. While only 7.6 per cent of the state pupils surveyed were earning more than £70,000 in their thirties, this figure more than tripled among full-fee-paying independent school pupils (ibid.).
A separate chapter could be dedicated to the undesirable features of public school life, such as the brutality, corporal punishments or the separation from home. I have already touched some of these issues in the previous chapters. However, I do not venture to comment on these issues in more detail, since I have no personal experience with the British public schools and cannot therefore assess to what extent these feature are still present in them.
Nevertheless, when discussing the desirability of the public schools’ existence, these features should also be taken into consideration.
One of the most controversial features that surround the existence of public schools is their status within the legal system of Great Britain. Since the nineteenth century the public school have enjoyed a charitable status, which has protected them by means of law against personal liability of its governors and through which they received a full range of taxation
71 privileges (Palfreyman 144). By way of illustration, about 80 per cent of independent schools are listed as charities and they collect about £100m a year in tax relief (“Private schools face”;
Wintour).
From the legal point of view, an object can become charity even thought it benefits the rich as well as the poor. And what is more, the poor do not have to benefit at all, since
“advancement and propagation of education and learning” are generally considered charitable purposes (Halsbury qtd. in Palfreyman 144). This is, of course, a thorn in the public school critics’ side that do not see any reason why schools that are charging fees and serve the privileged members of society should be classed as charities. They have therefore decided to request much stricter requirements for registration of schools as charities. As a coalition of
Labour MPs puts it: “Fee charging public schools must be legally required to do far more to help state educated children, or lose their £100m a year charitable status” (Wintour).
For the new charities bill that was reintroduced by the government in 2006 the advancement of education or religion alone is not automatically sufficient to justify charitable status. A new test will require the public schools to show that they provide a public benefit.
The passing of the test will enable them to maintain the charitable status (ibid.). The bill will also affect the top public schools (e.g. Eton, Winchester) and remove them from the so-called exempt list, which enabled them not to have to register as charities (“Private schools face”).
The Home Office Minister, Fiona MacTaggart, adds: “We must protect the charity brand so that people are confident about giving money to charities and know what is and isn’t a charity” (ibid.). The public benefit test for the new charity bill is now in the Commons and the debate on the charitable status of the public schools is again escalating.
The independent sector seems to be confident of doing enough in order to benefit the public at large. Jonathan Stephard, general secretary of the ISC, presents his arguments.
Firstly, the independent schools educate half a million children at no cost to the state or the
72 taxpayer: “If the taxpayer had to pay for those children, it would add £2bn to the tax bill”.
Secondly, Stephard stresses the sharing of facilities, teaching materials and staff (“Private schools face”). According to him, it is actually the independent sector that is subsidising the state. They pay £200m in irrecoverable VAT36 and give help with fees of nearly £300m. This seems a lot to him, since they receive in return about £100m as tax relief from the charitable status. He also claims that the independent schools are not academically selective at all, with some being solely for children with special educational needs. And what is more, the independent schools have expertise that should be available to any child (Stephard).
According to Stephard, the independent sector requires public funding to be able to give children from disadvantaged backgrounds the chance of a good education.
The public schools are at the same time assailed by an education columnist, Fiona
Millar, who claims that only 30 per cent of pupils get scholarships and bursaries, mostly on condition that they pass a competitive entry exam and besides, these often do not cover the full costs. This means that as much as 70 per cent of parents pay full fees. According to
Millar, one can not talk about sharing facilities when the schools charge money for it and the facilities, mostly sporty, are only available at odd times of the day and night (Millar).
I cannot assess the extent to which the public schools deserve to maintain the charitable status. However, one thing seems clear to me. The debate on the charitable status of the public schools is of a great importance, since being listed as charity secures them a distinguished position in the society and has saved them from the accusation of simply being business (qtd. in Palfreyman 144). Although the charitable status debates often operate with money, the real concern over the charitable status seems not to be financial. I fully agree with
Tapper and Salter that if the public schools lost their charitable status, it would rather represent a symbolic victory for their opponents.
36 Value Added Tax.
73 4. Conclusion
In this work I have focused on the British traditional educational institution - the public schools. I have followed its development right from the beginning, when the schools served as the only educational institutions in Britain and educated pupils from poor home backgrounds until these days, when the public schools are considered elitist institutions for children from wealthy families. It was not my intention to decide whether the public schools are good or bad, but I rather aimed at describing the institution from the different points of view and discussing the main arguments that could be used when questioning the desirability of their existence in the twenty-first century.
The institution of British public schools is very controversial and it splits the public into two groups. On the one hand, its defenders consider the public schools as an alternative to the state schools that responds to the needs and wishes of their clients, gives opportunity for bright pupils to develop faster and better and provides the society with highly educated people. On the other hand, the critics regard them as socially divisive institutions that create and reproduce class divisions in the society, violate the principle of equality of educational opportunity, favour already privileged classes and exclude children on the basis of their lower abilities or parents’ incomes.
When considering the key features discussed in this work, the major issue seems to be the desirability of selective education in a democratic educational system, regardless if based on pupils’ abilities and talents or social background. This question still remains open to debate in many democratic countries. As far as the public schools are concerned, the question whether they should be abolished or not seems no longer relevant. The focus has shifted to ways how to tackle the existence of the public schools within the educational system. In accordance with this opinion development it would seem sensible to find a way to make this
74 kind of education available for pupils who would benefit from it and most importantly take measures to apply the positive features of the public schools to the state sector. This could contribute to narrowing the gap between the state and the private sector of education and thus lessen the privileges of the private sector by making the state school pupils academically competitive with their private school counterparts.
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