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Bartlett's Brilliant Bronze! The magazine for former pupils and friends of Glasgow Academy and Westbourne School Bartlett’s brilliant Bronze! Laura and the girls celebrate Editorial Contents Reithian values 3 Colebrooke Street – the way of the future In 2004 Time magazine named Niall Ferguson one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He is 4 Reith Lectures 2012 pretty much universally acknowledged as one of the 5 Olympic dreams world’s most able thinkers and debaters – something I discovered earlier than most when (a brand new 6 Anecdotage teacher at Glasgow Academy) I found him sitting in 11 Events and get-togethers the front row of my A Level English class! I learned a 12 My father, Mike Page lot that year… 13 The reluctant Apprentice It was particularly appropriate that Niall should have been chosen as the BBC Reith Lecturer, 2012 – and 14 A Bed’s Eye View by Andrew Wylie not just because of his intellect and his influence. The A wonderful moment Reith Lectures are named after Lord Reith – the first 15 Academical Club Governor-General of the BBC – and, as most readers of this magazine will know, John Reith was a former 18 Changes at The Glasgow Academy pupil of Glasgow Academy – something to which 1992 to 2012 Professor Ferguson alluded when he acknowledged his 19 Westbourne debt to ‘a far greater Glasgow Academical than I’. 25 Updates And acknowledging debts was one of the motifs of his final lecture recorded at the Royal Society 27 Family announcements of Edinburgh and the question and answer session which followed. In examining 28 Obituaries institutions whose primary purpose is to preserve and transmit particular knowledge and values, his attention turned inevitably to schools – and to independent schools 31 Picture Post in particular. He knew he was being controversial when he said, ‘In my opinion, the best institutions in the British Isles today are the independent schools.’ Do we have your e-mail address? One of the questioners in the audience was fellow historian and fellow Academical, It’s how we communicate best! Professor Colin Kidd – and Niall couldn’t resist pointing out that he, too, was a fugitive from ‘70s state comprehensive education. Keeping in touch ‘Before you start taking sideswipes at private education, before you complacently The External Relations office is situated tell yourself that everything is absolutely great about the state sector in Scotland, in Colebrooke Terrace. Former pupils the reason that Colin and I had successful academic careers was that our parents got are always welcome to pop in for a chat us out of the failing state schools – and they were failing state schools in Ayr in the and look round the school. Just give 1970s, trust me. us a call to arrange a time. Our address is Colebrooke Terrace, Glasgow G12 ‘You know that’s been the key to my life, and you may find that politically incorrect, 8HE and you can contact us on 0141 but I can tell you that there are a whole bunch of people who have had as much 342 5494 or at [email protected] intelligence, probably more than me – not as much as Colin – but there are kids out there who have not had the advantage of a decent education. And because of the The Glasgow Academical Club failure of the public school central state model, will never have the opportunities 21 Helensburgh Drive, Glasgow G13 1RR that he and I enjoyed to study at great universities, to write books, to develop our President – Iain Jarvie minds…’ E-mail – [email protected] Secretary – Kenneth Shand His argument wasn’t about elitism but about diversity – about how each sector can Tel: 0141 248 5011 benefit from the challenge posed by all the others. I would encourage you to listen to E-mail: [email protected] the programme on the BBC i-Player. If you don’t possess a computer, you’ll find an excerpt on page 4 of this magazine. The Academical Club pavilion is available for functions. Given that two such eminent historians started learning history at Glasgow Academy, Academical Club’s London Section one can’t help wondering which of our current crop of pupils might be giving the Secretary – David Hall, 20 Cadogan Place Reith Lecture of 2042… London SW1X 9SA Whether there is a Reith Lecturer – or indeed a Lord Reith – among us only time Tel: 020 7235 9012 will tell. E-mail: [email protected] Editor’s note We would like to clarify that the Mrs Hislop mentioned in the last issue of Etcetera (Schoolboy Memories, page 10, paragraph 3) should not be Malcolm McNaught, Director of External Relations confused with Miss Winnie Reid – later Mrs Hyslop – whose career was recorded in Etcetera 13 (page 19). [email protected] 2 Etcetera Colebrooke Street – the way of the future Trusts and Foundations help The Academy needs to raise significant funding from the wider community if we are to start building in 2013. We urgently need your help in identifying trusts and foundations that may support this great project. If you are aware of – or could assist with links The Academy has moved forward with its ambitious plans for a new Science and Technology to – any philanthropic building on the site of two tenements next to the school on Colebrooke Street. An application organisations, whether for permission to construct a state-of-the-art, 37,000 square foot, four-storey building has now trust, foundation or been submitted to Glasgow City Council. business, which could The building will provide 15 Science laboratories on the upper floors and a 175-seat auditorium support the school with the and food and hospitality department on the ground floor. The development is the most Science and Technology significant since Glasgow Academy moved to Kelvinbridge in 1878 and is the key stage in development, please do completing the Rector’s 2020 Vision. get in touch as soon as possible. In due course The Academy will launch a public appeal. With the support of our community (and subject to planning, of course), the school intends to start building next year. If you would [email protected] / like to learn more about this great development, please contact: [email protected] / 0141 0141 342 5494 342 5494. a dat e f o r yo u r d i a r i e s The Glasgow Academy Ball The Chronicle will be held on online Saturday 22 June 2013 at the Hilton Glasgow hotel. By the end of this month, it will be possible to read all Chronicles from Tickets will include reception drinks on arrival, a the period 1940 to 1990 online. fantastic three-course dinner, entertainment throughout The ‘Chronicle Archive’ page the evening and music to dance the night away. ALL will be found in the community proceeds from the evening will be donated to Glasgow section of the school website: Academy PTA funds. www.tga.org.uk Official invitations and booking forms will be sent We would like to thank all to all parents and former pupils, in January. This event those who supported the will sell out quickly, so we recommend you reserve your Glasgow Acadepedia project, table(s) now. For advance booking, further information which was part of this and sponsorship opportunities please contact PTA Chair, year’s Regular Giving Sandie Watt, on appeal, for making this [email protected]. possible. Etcetera 3 as well as in England and Wales, it would be a policy that aimed to increase significantly the number of private educational institutions and, at the same time, to establish programmes of vouchers, bursaries and scholarships to allow a substantial number of children from lower income families to attend them. Of course, this is the kind of thing that the Left reflexively denounces as elitist. Even some Conservatives, like George Walden, regard private schools as a cause of inequality – institutions so pernicious that they should be abolished. Let me explain to you why such views are utterly wrong. For about a hundred years, there’s no doubt, the expansion of public education was a good thing. As Peter Lindert has pointed out, schools were the exception that proved Tocqueville’s rule, for it was the American states that led the way in setting up local taxes to fund universal and indeed compulsory schooling after 1852. With few exceptions, widening the franchise elsewhere in the world led Niall Ferguson swiftly to the adoption of similar systems. This was economically important, because the returns to universal Reith Lectures 2012 education were very high: literate and numerate people are much more Professor Niall Ferguson (1981) was this year’s BBC Reith Lecturer. Below is an productive workers. excerpt from his fourth and final lecture in which he argues that the dead hand of the state can stifle initiative. But we need to recognise the limits of public monopolies in education, ‘Above this race of men stands an immense guest rooms several times a year. I give especially for societies that have long and tutelary power, which takes upon itself regularly, though not enough, to two ago achieved mass literacy. The problem alone to secure their gratifications and to charities. I belong to one gymnasium. is that public monopoly providers of watch over their fate. That power is absolute, I support a football club – no longer, I education suffer from the same problems minute, regular, provident, and mild. It hasten to add, the illustrious Scottish club that afflict monopoly providers of would be like the authority of a parent if, like recently and ignominiously forced into anything: quality declines because of lack that authority, its object was to prepare men liquidation.
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