YOUNG HEAD MASTERS

Evening Star, Issue 19615, 22 July 1927, Page 1

YOUNG HEAD MASTERS

1 Surprise has been expressed that a .young man of thirty-four, Mr Spencer , Lceson, should be appointed to the head mastership of a great public school, the Merchant Taylors’ (writes G. C. Hescl- : tine in the ‘Daily Mail’). Yet as the I best head masters go he is compara- | tively mature. The greatest of them, j almost without exception in the history I of public schools, have been very young men when’ they accepted their heavy rej sponsibilities. Indeed, tho facts seem to show that.a long and wide experience is quite unnecessary for the ruler of a great school. Mr Leeson’s predecessor was appointed at the ago of twenty-seven, and even such a youthful appointment as that was in the very best_ tradition. , Richard Rushy, .known to posterity as “Whacker” Rushy, and considered by many to have been the greatest of head masters, commenced his reign of ; fifty-seven years as despot at Westminster (where hq taught John Dryden and John Lock) when ho was barely thirtytwo. So did Moberley, Winchester’s I most famous ruler,, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury. Tho great, Arnold of Rugby, famous , for the revolution ho effected in public | school conduct and .principles, was ap- ■ pointed ‘at thirty-three, and his succes- ■ son, Archibald Campbell Tait, later Archbishop ■ of, Canterbury, at thirty. Another Archbishop, Temple, was head 'master of Rugby when ho was thirtysix. John Keatc, Eton’s most famous j tyrant, and perhaps her greatest head | master, also took command at thirtysix. | But for really young head masters {•Harrow takes the palm. Joseph Drury, I appointed at thirty-five, was followed by Dr George Butler (Senior Wrangler) at thirty; Dr Charles Wordsworth at twenty-nine; Vaughan, to whom most of Harrow’s present fame is due, at twenty-eight; the great scholar Dr Hpnry Montague Butler at twenty-six; and Bishop Wellclon, now Dean of Dur- > ham, at thirty-one. ■