ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22678, 5 April 1939, Page 10

ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOLS

SYSTEM CRITICISED BY FORMER MASTER

More than 20 years as a master at English public schools, at Eton and at Wellington Qellege, have convinced Mr Basil 1 Headman that the English public school system is far from ideal. Mr Headman, who is on a holiday visit to New said in an interview yesterday: “I am very much in favour of day schools. Do you think it is natural for children to leave home at eight years old and then scarcely see their homes again till they are 18?” Mr Headman is embodying many or his experiences of public school life in a book, which has been commissioned by a well-known English publisher, to be entitled, “The Autobiography 'of a Scottish Dominie.” A Scotsman by birth, he has spent all his working life in England, and for his retirement, which began two years ago, he has bought a house and small estate in County Clare, Ireland. He does not approve of compulsory games, which are the general rule in the English public schools, though the present tendency is against compulsion. “It is absolute cruelty to animals to force boys to play Rugby football who are not physically fit for it,” he feaid, adding a remark made by a former colleague at Wellington College, England: “Rugby football is a game for cads and bullies, and cricket is an organised waste of time.” Though he did not fully agree with this remark, he believed that compulsory ‘games would gradually be eliminated, and a compulsory “change” substituted —a “change" being some form of exercise, chosen by the boys themselves ,n : keep them physically fit. ‘ , An evil of the public school system was that it segregated a large number of boys away from feminine society and home influences. It was not good, as at Eton, that 1300 boys should be segregated as in a monastery. “It makes them frightfully self-conscious when they meet girls during the holidays—they are as shy as anything,” he said.

Another disadvantage of many of the public schools was the lack of privacy for the boys. "That is the kernel of the whole thing,” he said. “The shy boy has no privacy. At Eton every boy has a room to himself, so that they can develop some sort of culture. But at Wellington the cubicles give no privacy; or else there are studies, frightful little places, full of At present, however, he could-see ho remedy for the defects of the system.