ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22068, 26 September 1933, Page 8

ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOLS

ON THE RIGHT TRACK (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, August 8. In an address given to the students of the City of London Vacation Course, Mr P. H. B. Lyon, headmaster of Rugby, defended the public schools of England. He said he believed that the public schools were on the right track, and would reform rather, than destroy. *" We are already approaching a right view of physical education, and beginning to realise the importance and master of technique of education in sex. More still are we beginning to link school up with the world, and to teach boys, especially towards the end of their time, the duty of service, the necessity and understanding of the need for sympathy." It was true that parents who eent their boys to public boarding schools took certain risks, but they were far less than they were 10 or 20 years ago. • " There is a movement going on inside our public school," said Mr Lyon, "which is making them in all respects more fitting to receive our children. That movement is due to the work of the assistant masters in our public schools. They and the work they have done, together with certain tendencies in the outside world, are *making our public schools better places to-day than they have ever been in the past. To-day I believe it is the exception for a boy to come across bad influences in his school. "There are difficulties, of course, in public schools which a new boy has to face, and I believe that there should be these difficulties. Character is formed by facing and overcoming difficulties, and I can only claim that in our public schools these difficulties are not unreasonable, and they are not malicious or corrupt. "The public schools are called exclusive, and are supposed to encourage snobbery. I do not believe this. We are getting boys from homes where snobbery is encouraged it is true, but, as far as is possible, that attitude is not only not tolerated, but is denounced at the public schools. "The boy we value and the boy we want to get is the boy from the poor home with the tradition behind it of service to t the country." With regard to the criticism that too much attention was given to games, Mr Lyon said that boys to-day definitely disliked what he might describe as "a tough." That waß the boy who was all brawn and m-.'scle and no brain. Though this was the type of boy who used to be regarded as the school hero in days gone by, to-day boys reserved their real hero-worship for character. On fagging and bullying, Mr Lyon said: "For the ordinary boy the only fagging you get nowadays in school is not undesirable and is even rather enjoyable. As for bullying, this is comparatively rare to-day—especially the bullying of a younger boy by an older one. But you do find some of the younger boys bullying their contemporaries. Little boys are great bullies, and this is one of the things we try to stamp out."