bay
FOR SALE. Girls' O Boarding School 200
ry. pupils. No expenses or ndupkeep. Good pronts. Will accept reasonable offer for quick sale."
n.
Ox
egr
go
'M simple minded. I'm American. But in five years in Britain I've cottoned on to some- little English mysteries. I can add up farthings and half-crowns, translate running conversations in the local lingo, and even sometimes remember to Push Button A.
But five hundred years in Britain wouldn't clear up your big mysteries for me. I try, but I will never, never understand how or why you put up with your educational system.
First those prestige factories, the private schools, They really baffle me.
For every good one in the limelight there are five bad that neither limelight. nor light of learning ever touches.
Bad rchools are cold,
business
propositions.
fot They
crazy cachel of exclusivity still change hands as casually so fiercely admired and coveted
Every shopwindow dummies.
In England.
. time one changes bands in a ssle, the children coiled are sok too. I'art of the xiures and Bitings, but not as dear as fitted carpets.
QUICK SALE
Ever read the advertise-
Here's recent one!- Benk?
FOR SALE-Girls' Boarding School. 200 puplis. No expenses or upkeep. Good profts. WITH acrept reasonable oßer for quick FO Write Box K301,
Quick sale to Qule: ale whom? Anybody? Yes, buddy with the right sort of
money.
or
It's a let. Anyone red st chicken farming
bead- stringing can buy and run school. Or start one,
Gela
Д
tumbledown house
49
cheap. Slap some paint over the damp spols, appoint your- self head master, and take wit
ex-odd-job Vomer
man Dream up a History master,
plous-sounding prospectus, let- ter "Holowhead Hall" on the Hate, and you're in business.
Teachers? Teachers are easy. AnyLoug
be むする
teacher. Nothing to it. But pick then
tsp locally. It's cheaper.
The worst intentioned parents will ship their children off to any school just to get them out of the way.
Not SO? But here is an Englishman who wrote to me of his own experience:~~~
"I was dumped in a badly conducted private school at the age of three, and left there for is years with the degenerate family who ran the school. There people had to scholastic qualifications.
"The jers were paid by
THE CHINA MAIL,
FRIDAY, MAY 16, 1958."
How de mer schools qumpare with those of other nations? Here an American who has (lved in England for ties yuzro gives a provocaživa and scathing verdict: in the ofuestion race England la a resounding fallure. Do you agree?,
Sports Day! Speech Day! What a sham to please
the snobs...
Inspection is cusicr
by DEE WELLS
DO WITH ED
to say extin-
ats]}. can still beat the State schools AN EXAMPLE;
school. One privat: of a seconday modern Dress 'em up, lay on extra all hollow, Too anuny State school, unable to replace From which he is likely to give any really em- schools are to education," what a history master, threw the job to emergo as part of the 91.5 per barrassing teacher a day's leave, buches of sand is to r camp fire. the Latin master. His idea of a cent who quit
school at the and buy a bushel of second- Silers, Not
history class was simply to let minimum-allowed age of 13. hand books to strow about guishers.
each of the 25 boys read aloud
A disastrous wasinge rutel Impressively.
paragraph from the book. No
But who cares? FLEDGLINGS It's niggly American thinking,
explanation. No guidance, No posalbility of history coming to
American immigrant famliles but the curious thing to me Is
How can it be otherwise when life and meaning anything. Even allowing for the English schools rely
their THE RESULT: Puplis didn't save for years to profession 0 fetish af aklag progress slowly, whose new, improved pay rate know Ancient Greece from the children bettor education. Com- placent low-income Englishmen why 11 yeart?
Is £4797
ኣቦ Less than an engine Great War. They had to
their children only 03 Les privately tutored to pass their potential wage-corners. And the driver makes in a year, than a second-rate
movie star common entrance exam,
Booner the better, makes in a week.
Teachers
that it took 14 years to happen.
1st, and unly on two occa- sions in tive 15 years wugs there a visit from the people who had dumped me....I was half-crucificil during mILE whole childhood, and suffered gross malnutrition, fear, filth, Lack of afection, and was used by an unpaid servunt...
"As you will see from ques- flous arced in the House at nobody knows 10 Commons, this day how many children
are suffering a simila~ fate.
"As children are confined to the precincts of a school, they are out of reach of the eyes you get? True, that new upstart It is a Elon was born in 1440. But St of the N.S.P.C.C. horrifying thought
that Peter's, York, was founded in Charles Dickens exposed these €27. King's School, Canterbury, same social evils over 100 in 0001 wears ago..
Only one man, One man with grolusquely bad luck. Your child's schoot is not like his.
The town dunk--he may need Jul.
All right agree. Or perhaps a man with
But what is it like?
a criminal recuti will respond
to this less sky calling.
in
Surely no English parents their right minds wil set children to such a school! Ot. wouldn't they Just. They do, They save up and queue up to
do so.
It em'.
on
Sure.
Ah
saya the Ministry Education. Well, the schools needed time the O y'know") lo spruce up their
risos. get stuff to be able to pass on ins- They can inch right up to the
Jizzy
ol high
£900~In 17 years, weuld work hard and skilfully excepting
for peanuts like that?
pection.
Time. How much Ume can
THEY ADMIT....
All excellent schools, Thine was the last thing that they, and the others lite them, licked. That 14 years wasn't for thent.
Leave aside what it cialis in the shiny brochure. Do you The Ume wns purposely given really knew how good or bad to bad schools. And any school the school is? How can you? that needs 14 years to spruce up Even the Ministry of Education has no right to be in business. vidn't know. Or care.
The Ministry admits this Ofly this year, on April 1-me-gift:
operation www.the
Who,
monkeys,
Teaching is hard work. It
Bui. should be skilled work. with the best will in the world, how can the teachers be rkilled?
Rafely out of their teens,
be
Yes. But the blue Crazy? ribbon for madness goes fo something crazier still: the The grim 11-plum UKZN. reaper that saythes out 80 per Dent of who take it.
bul
is
Until they stir from their #ecurity rut and recognise the necessity for better eduestion for more people, Britaly will never realise ber brain-power potential. Not only children fall it, For
I showed
philosopher Already
out- Britain fun. Bertrand Russell three 11-plus paced in the education race by questions. He shook his head both America and Russia, and sold:-
With only three times more people than Britain, American universities educate twelve limes The Russian figure 13 more.
"I couldn't possibly do these." This, from the cleverest mind not alvemily-trained Britain has produced in two themselves, fledgling sachers centuries From the man who, are turned loose after a two-s we say on Third Avenue, has year course, With that rich brains he hasn't even used yet, background they are expected
to teach every subject, every age from five to 15.
для
WHO CARES?
ק
Why I hope Charles
WE hear that the Queen
W
wants her son, Prince Charles, to-go to Eton.... we hear that his father, the Duke of Edinburgh, would prefer his own old school, Gordonstoun.... and the Prince himself, it seems, would like to go to Charter- house. Obviously thia Prince's question of the education is now being dia-
cussed at the Palace.
It is all very healthy... for
this will be the Orst time that
gets his own way
.AND GOES TO
the Heir to the Throne has been CHARTERHOUSE educated publicly, In the old
days he would have been educo- ·
ted privately by tutors.
in the case of, the Duke of Windsor there WOS Q short period at Magdalen at Oxford....but he
In
by DONALD EDGAR
WOS rearcely an ordinary undergraduate, or treated as such.
to whom he had been secretary, to help him start school on Eton fines.
So Salem was started. And when Hitler came along the school was transferred to Scot hand and became Gordonstoun.
It is Elon run on rather Prussian lines.
There is all the toughness. All the emphasis building.
on
chameter-
It is, in effect, a tremendous revolution that the Duke of He thought this was the Cornwall should be having J answer to the British success. normal education.
He was at the prep school in Knightsbridge, cmong the children of ordinary professional people. He is now at Chram, which, although famous, is not particularly exclusive.
What of the choices now?
ARTERIES ELITE
It la the school. FIRST, Elon
There Prince Charles would One can say what one likes have very, very short shorts, a but this is the school to which pullover, and on Sundays a grey every successful man wishes to sult, also worn with shorts.. send his son.
He would save
Usual Is still much the same ce spurts....but the great sport when 1 wes described by that Gordonstoun prides itself Disraeli in "Coningsby", .....the on is sailing. school which
an elite..
'There
produces leaders,
pre
the aristocrats.
But, I think, all a little too Prussion.
the
ENTERPRISE
There are the sons of the great NOW for Charterhouse.
the new leaders,
A
Industrialists.
mixture <if tradition.
from On Carried generation to generation, with
Elon is Never think that stuffy. In spite of all the talk about the necessity of being "put down" at birth, Eton will always find room for the son of a man who has found wealth and fume.
Eton thinks big. It thinks in the terms of educating people who may be important in 교 Irenewerk thet will the British way of life.
If
It has not the pre-eminence of Eton. It has not the prestige of Gordonstoun,
which educated Prince Philip.
But it is a great British pubile school.
Charles has
Prince
sold ho would like to go there because tis friend at Cheam, David
Dawkes, is going there.
When Thackeray was at the school the buildings were
stil in the City, near Smithfield.
Later in the nineteenth cen- moved Godalming,
tury It preserve
Charles went there he would play the Field Game, Eson's special kind of football. an
even higher. Both these coun- tries spend five times more of their national incorts education than does Britain.
He
ITC
SunTey,
It is a great school British middle-class.
he
has
for the
Beer-
It produced Sir Max
It produced. Sir Lionel would play, perhaps, the bohm. Wall Game, where the goals Heald, the former Aliomney-
It Ho General. a tree and a door,
produced would be able to ruw on the "Stinker" Murdoch. IL has Thames. He would play cricket produced General Sir Rozeld Weeks, the chairman of Vickers, on Agar's Plough.
If Prince Charles went there would play Soccer, Ha. able to play And there hockey and cricket. La sailing on ponds near by.
It is a tough school....very British public much in the school tradition. But it also he
tradition of scholarship. Maybe Prince Charles is right. Maybe this is the school for him.
What to do? Train teachers To me, the 11-plus looks like more thoroughly. Pay them Only three per cent fail their cuped-up copy of American better, Bulld more schools. and only a mere 14 years after has been deliberately delayed two-year course. A highly come intelligence tests. Questions are Spend more money. Throw out The best-intentioned parents the Education Act in which I unit such time as independent amendable low percentage? gimmicky tricks with no bearing the 11-plus, These will all help.
And all his time there he elther would be able, where Nonsense. A highly suspect low on
information do su out of pure pully sub- is Included was passed-did it schools
But until peopl
care, undi
would be very near to Windsor, bery. To them.
private become the law that all private necessary, to improve.... ELIV
percentage. Only two things intelligence. schoo automatically better schools must register with
You see how a poor foreigner could account for it either the America, though, was at least they want education half so end to the sons of the friends would be also
avidly as they want television and advisers of his mether and then a State school.
Ministry of Education. And, if might easily be Gamed? But course is 100 elementary, or too thorough in its lunacy. We were sels, schooling in Britain with father. The organised nccessary, The uniformn,
Inspected.
don't get me wrong. I'm not many are passed who shouldn't intelligence-tested every year, remala bad and briet,
of Any morsel of progress must out to knock
but private be. down
nothing ever game. The phoney school spirit,
happened A bleak picture. Not to mu The pompously unetuous middle- be given its due, But there's schools slone by stone.
Even at this teachers are because of it.
king, but if it is to yours respuetability of sports precious little due here.
Bud as come are, and little as reate. Some schools can operatu Here, too much happens. One woll, it's your country. It's your The fo 5.tel dy.
Hegistration is easy.
admire their smugly "U." only part time. Others have to go, and a child's out, Banished system. And you're stuck with príggish products, the good ones icke-do and double up.
to the "educational scrapheap" It.
clas
day and itself.
All these make up that out a form.
Just B I
ANNIVERSARY STORY
by James A. Hockley
ONE VOTE SAVED THE PRESIDENT
the afternoon of Saturday, May 16, 1868, Andrew
quietly at the desk behind the closed doors of the White House, in Washington.
On the afternoon of Saent of the United States, snt
There was nothing in his manner to show that the day had been anything out of the ordinary. But now, 90- years later, students of American history remember it as the day when the Presidential system of the United Staten had ita narrowest-ever escape from destruction.
1 For Andrew Johnson was on tell by the Senate, which was
sitting as a High Court of Im-d so be compelled to vote for
The whole. peachment Three months be
fore, two Congressmen. Thad. The President was accused of
for more
of the subsequent impeachment The high inisdemeanour" was proceedings. By March, they the advice
The President wan
course, there would be certain difficulties. He would have to fag, like all the bays in He would the Lower School.
wear on Eton Jackel have to until he was tall enough to wear tails.
And Eten jackets are very cold when you have to get up for early morning school before breakfast on a winter morning.
LEADERSHIP
He would be going to a school where the boys, In most cases, have no career already made.
Most Carthusians have to make their own way.
And it may well be that in that spirit of enterprise and S for Gordonstoun... well, inillative Prince Charles will A this is a curious institution, not only be happy. But also Dr Kurt Hahn, a German, came best prepared for his
task....
to Britain before the First War to be King of England and the and admired Eton enormously. Dominions Overseas in a world When Germany was defeated he that is already looking forward
ceeded Abraham Lincoln, Every which seemed to reflect the though he was, he had resolved voted according to his own judg-Induced Prince Max von Baden, to the twenty-first century. attempt was made to discred!! country's mood. The morning to record his vote for a convle- ment"Not guilty." him, He was wildly accused of sun fought its way through the tion.
sinaisen.
been defeated. They recorded only 35 votes for a conviction, against the 19 for an acquittal,,"
The lost of the 54 senators to all kinds of moral and political clouds as the people of Wash-
answer, at about 1.30 pm, was wrongdoings, and even with Ington gathered in groups to At last the Chamber was Mr Willey of West Virginia. It compiletty in Lincoln's assas recues and even bet on the out- silent. The Secretary called the was another vote for "Guilty." come of the trint." Before 11 roll and the Chief Justice rose. But the radicals had already am, a steady stream of ticket to his feet. All these charges were un holders began to make for the founded; the self-made Johnson Capitol gates. wus IL mun of the highest integrity and morality, Incap- able of political trickery.
SELF-ASSURED
was only tour.
The
authorities were afrald
of a wild demonstration of joy If the President was acquitted. There was soon a brisic demand for admission tickets, at high prices.
"Mr Senator Anthony, how say you, is the respondent Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, guilty or not ulity of a high misdemeanour, as charged in this article"
FLUSHED FACE
Rhode
and
A single vote prevented them goining the necessary total of two-thirds for conviction, the Chief Justice declared the President acquitted on the all- important eleventh article.
re
hed complied eleven articles of sold to have given to the pro- feared by aristocrats.
theas an alderman, he rose to the Grimes of lown had been very when the two Democrats who cour in his mind, no exultation Andlelment.
Southern staler to disobey the highest office in the land by the
The hearing began at the end of the month and was presided over by Chief Justice Chase.
visional government of
luwa of Congress.
time he was 57.
deus Stevens and John Bingham. ofeging that the thirty-nintis Like Lincoln, Andrew John-
Immediately the result was had appeared at the bar of the Congress was not constitutional, son had known extreine poverty. Mén in tall silk hats were
known, hundreds of exelled ab- Senate and in the name of the and of trying
The gentlemanly bank accompanied by women duller- to prevent the His father was a humble
servers rushed from the Capitol House of Representatives and execution of three Acts, one porter who died when Johnson ing crystal and gold-bedecked Island senator sprang to his feet, to spread the news. They pass-
the the people of the United States
Andrew became tnns. Normally
feminine one hand in his trouser pocket ed Thad Stevens being carried for the had charged the President with zuspert of the army, making appropriations
another, taller and married. His wife interest was in the bonneta ot and the other holding a pen. HIF high above their heads by his high crimes and ratsdemeanours providing
efficient taught him to read and write. other women in the gallery, but face was flushed. To the amaze negro boys. His face was con- in office."
it was different. The ment of the gallery and most of torted with rage and disappoint- avernment of rebel states, and He had a passion for oratory now
bowed ment. even the third regulating powers of and polities and
paid women leant forward to take in the Senators, Anthony people to read to him while he everything happening below. his dead in a courteous bow to among the certain civil servants. The pair were
worked. A true, Democrat and
the-Chlef Justice and answered In the silence of the White neven men appointed "monagers"
of champion
the labouring
House, Andrew Johnson Chief Justice Chase took his curtly, "Quilty." classes, he was
ceived the news with completo disliked and sent at 11.30. Only one Seno-
Starting tor's seat
But there were relieved sighs self-control. There was no ran- was emply - Mr His absente might be followed voted for the President," or desire for revenge. Whatever critical for the President, Then came a succession of eight the Senale decided, he knew that Motions were
the great body of Americana had and votes for "Gulily." proposed of medium Although only
regarded his trial as "the Great But Johnson's counsel quickly
passed that the eleventh article height, the taflor-turned- But his efforts to preserve some made it clear that
the only politician
The two elck men rose pain- American Faxco." semblance
thick-set and be placed first and a vote taken of a judicial trisi legation with substance was
His folth In the people WAS very strong. He had a large at once. It was then 12.30 pan., fully to their feet in spits of an were so often overruled by the the suspension of Edwin W.
Thousands Justined.
cheered cancelled, out each other's vote. managers, and several radical Stanton, Secretary of the Wer head, black hair and deep-set, and there were anxious looks on invitation to remain seated They
plercing
Ня eyes.
features the faces of many Democrats. nators, that the proceedings Department, without
Howard laid nside his shawl the verdict in New York, Brook- the con- rarely relaxed into a smile, but
other big cities, In became a theatrical fiasco.
of the Senate. currenco
One Senator asked The Charles Dickens
for 30 and eald "Gully," whilet Grimes yn and said he was minutes wait for Mr Grimes,
Hartford, Connecticut, 100 guns voted for the President, Stanton remarkable" President had treated
and hud
were fired to mark the defeat of with great tolerance, but it be character of mark".
But he need not havo worried.
the radicals. Below the Whito The Senator from, Iowa, ap- Mr Patterson, of Tennessee, House balcony, - came apparent that he was an
crowds cla- informer and adviser to the op- After three starmy yourE as peared through a door to the shouted "Not quilly" so loudly moured again and again for
President. Johnson was all us right of the Chief Justice. There that the Chief Justice had to sight of Andrew Johnson, self-assured and saturnine were traces of physical pain sa prove him.
14 his face.
But the President did not ari- dressed, ever, Always neatly
A Mr Rose, one of the repre- pear until about 10.30 p.m. Grimes was not the only sick bentatives of Kansas, fingered a brass band had boen serenading The honest and hard-hitting man, in spite of his lowly birth. mas present. Senator Howard of demand from a thousand alert him and he stepped. to. that those who could not vote but often tactless Johnson had
But now his whole reputation Michigan had been taken to tire or demanding the conviction window and thanked the musl for, one part would and some been at loggerheads with the
ад a dull day Capitól, on a strutcher. Torbie of the President. But the ennator clana, then drew back in again. thing convictable in another, Senate from the time he auc- was at stake
GREAT OUTCRY
On May 16, 38th day of the pration. There was a great out triel, Johnson's enemies preased cry and Stanton was reinstated for a vote on the eleventh article, to the Cabinet, This was more cunningly drafted
than the other ton, in the hope
WOJ
he looked every inch a gentle-
D
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