FEWER BOYS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 128, 2 June 1939, Page 6

FEWER BOYS.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS AFFECTED.

The decrease in the birth rate in the United Kingdom some fourteen years ago means that in the course of the next two decades

there will inevitably be a steady and xery largo decline in the number of boy* seeking adini-sion to public schools, and to hoarding --.'■hools in particular, said the headmaster of Dover College. Mr. O. R. Renwick, reeentlv.

Although in a^considerable number of the mo-t fmiintirf and more expensive schools there has iilrondy been a drop in numbers of from 1110 to 15(1 hoys, yet the number of boyp attending the public schools as a whole has so far declined very little; the cheaper schools have been absorbing boys to the more expensive ones. That is to say that so far the problem ha* been mainly an economic one. and -aoverning bodies have consequently deluded themselves with the hope that with a return to more stable and more prosperous financial condition* in the country the position will be nn = r'l. The significance of the decline in the birth rate has not yet been fully grasped by them, for even i:o\v the effect is only just

beginning to be felt. What it will mean may be seen from what has happened to the preparatory schools; during the last four or live years school after school has closed.

Hitherto public schools and their headmaster* have considered themselves, bound, in their relations with one another by certain hiehly desirable standards of professional con<iiict. In the future there may be a period of r=uch fierce competition that the observance of three standard*; will be neglected. Tf that happens, without doubt the prestifre. of the public schools and all that they ctand for will be endangered. Already one hears of resort to methods of obtaining- boys which in easier times would have been called unscrupulous. Governincr bodies are devising ill-conceived cclipine* fir reducing fees in veiled fashion.

The solution of the problem, «»id Mr. T!oiiui(k. has yet to be found, but as a first stop it cannot ly? too strongly urged that tnvpming bodies should consider unselfishly the welfare of the whole public school system n> well as that of their own whools. This they can partly do by following the example of Harrow School in limiting the number of its how to MKi. Taking into careful oonsidera--1 ion such matter* ;is the economic number of linys in Miit Ilicir sohoolti. and also the foes which iHRV reafmiilbly bo expected to be within (he ri'.iiii .■ f the type of family from which they normally recruit, they should try to nrrive at m maximum number of boys beyond which they -will resolutely refuse to expand. Tt may even he desirable that <=ome schools, anticipating the peneral decline in numbers that come, should deliberately reduce their numbers by gradual and controlled stagres.