WHAT SCHOOLS DO FOR US

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 112, 8 November 1930, Page 25

WHAT SCHOOLS DO FOR US

OLD BOYS WHO NEVER GROW UP

1 There are three ways in which one can Tegard boys' schools —and, for that matter, girls' schools, too, I dare say. Tho first'and simplest is from the point of view of education, writes Evelyn Waugh in the "Daily Mail." This is usually overlooked by parents, but is a'matter.of unsuspected concern to schoolmasters. My own opinion is that a great deal more education goes on at public schools than anyono ever realises, and that the predominant obsession of athletics, with which they are always charged, is not so much typical of the large and famous schools 33 of the smaller and' less august, who imagine that they can better raise their status in public esteem, by producing Test match cricketers than by producing professors or artists. A second very sonsible point of view is that boys between the ages of thirtoen and eighteen are completely odious creatures, destructive of peace and property, uncouth, solf-asserlive, and generally unsuited to civilised company. Accordingly parents have to find a raco of men so desperate and mercenary that they will dovotc their lives to keeping them away ftom home during tho greater part of this period. Ido not sco how anyone of oxperionco can quarrel with this opinion. But the third idea, equally widespread, is that by going to a public school a boy is given "a. start in life." I am sure that this motive impels a grent number of parents to make severe sacrifices in order to pay tbe high fees of a public school. . . Tt is looked on as a form of insurance.' For five or sis years of a ■ boy's life premiums are paid for him in the form of his terminal bills. At the end of that time—provided no untoward incident ■upsets his career —he is presented with his "leaving book," ho pays his subscription to the Old Boys! Society, buys himself two or three old boys' tics, and sets out a fully equipped member of the mysterious secret society of "public school men.'.' ,He is supposed to have made friends who will be useful to him, and to have received a stamp by which other public school boys all over the world will recognise their own kind. Of' tho first of theso advantages I can speak from experience. There is nothing so useless as useful friends. They are far too busy retaining and onlargiug their spheres of usefulness to bo able to waste tinic in being actually useful. The other is more doubtful. There is certainly a distinguishable similarity between men who have had a public school education. One can usually—though not invariably—recog-

3 niso them as such. Butlhis ia just like t saying that you can recognise, Scotsmen . or parsons; Tho point is whether the b recognition is of any'value. Except for i schoolmastering, there is practically no profession nowadays in which the pos- , session of a public school old boyp *. tie — 1 and that alone —is of any definite' value. s There is, moreover, a sad race-of a people one can only doscribo as profesr atonal schoolboys. Mr. J. B. Priestley, t in his new novel, has drawn b. painful t picturo of one of these. They are for i tho most part the men who have been s least successful at their schools. Boys j who toiled painfully up the school, just r avoiding superannuation, just scraping I into their house teams, inconspicuous, - neither popular nor unpopular. For some reason it ia usually these f who aro the most zealous old boys; they - subscribe to new buildings and come s down to see them opened; they read - their old school magazines and write - querulous letters.to it when they detect any sign of change; they attend x old boys' dinners. They follow the - careers of their schoolfellows and als ways. wiite letters, of " congratulations j when they become. ongaged to be mar--3 riod. They encounter you anyyrhere. i They1 greet you boisterously by" some long-forgotten nickname. There is a sadder type of professional c schoolboy. That is tho one who was '' brilliantly successful in boyhood, but x for some" reason proves unable to re--0 peat his success in after-life. s They were able athlete*, respectable scholars, just and dignified prefects — ■.' just the typo beloved by their housee master, who writes in their reports: "I 1 havo tho i utmost confidence in his suet oesa." But suddenly they seem to stop t developing, and they remain school preli fects for the rest of their lives. If they arc born with estates to s manage, they aro ablo to settle down to 1 useful, if limited, lives. "When, howe ever, as ia frequently the case, they c have no advantages of money or position, they drift into subordinate posis tions in commercial or Government ofe fices: and thero they remain doing their c work sensibly and honestly, but never .- again rising to the eminence they held at tho age of eighteen. It is no wonder I if they look back rather wistfully to s their schooldays. !. Another type, happily becoming cxI tinct, is tho old boy who feels that by o virtue of his public education the world 7 owes him a living. He is at first greatly concerned with the dignity of whatever c post he is offered; he will only accept a, what'he considers a "gentleman's job"; a- he will refuse to work under someone ..' ii-linrn Tifl xnnairlprii an "outsider."