Playing Fields of Eton

Britain's hallowed public (i.e., private) schools last week ran into a fight that sounded for a while like the Battle of the Atlantic, but they finally limped into port, safe for the present. Up before Parliament was a proposal euphoniously titled the Public and Other Schools Bill, to let hard-pressed schools draw on the principal of their trust endowments to meet their operating deficits during the war emergency.

Some of the most aristocratic schools in Britain backed the bill: Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester, Westminster, Shrewsbury, Charterhouse. Their existence depended on its passage. Financial troubles had already forced one public school, Weyrnouth, to close down (TIME, April 28.) The rest were in dire straits, attacked on one flank by fading revenues, on the other by reformers who think the public schools are undemocratic.

While members interrupted the debate with cries of "Snobbery!" the bill was brought out in the House of Commons for its third and final reading. It was defended by President of the Board of Education Herwald Ramsbotham, an old school tie from Uppingham. Said he: "There is no intention of bolstering up decaying institutions. ... If this measure of self-help were refused, there would be a risk of losing ... a great national inheritance."

Bitter was the opposition of Laborites, virtually all State-schooled. Argumentative Labor M.P. Aneurin Bevan* -- told the House tartly: "There is a great body of opinion, which isn't sufficiently articulate, that public schools should be allowed to die a natural death. Some would like them to die a little more violently." Crumped acid Labor M.P. Charles Ammon: "While it is said the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, it can be answered now that the Battle of Britain was won on the playing fields of the [State] schools of England."

But when the smoke cleared, the bill was law. Meanwhile Ernest Bevin's Labor Ministry issued a series of decrees making it harder than ever for school ties to avoid military and defense service by going on to a university. Students from 19 up are now required to join student military-training units, report their progress in university to recruiting boards, and if they fall behind in their studies they may be called up at once. Only scientific, dental and medical students get this exemption. Students of arts and humanities can get just a one-year draft deferment to enter a university and then only if they show "promise of leadership."

In London, Winchester's headmaster, Canon Spencer Leeson, deplored the competition between schools that leads to undercutting of fees. Said Canon Leeson: "The school is not a shop. It is a spiritual community. . . . The State might select schools to meet the needs and close the rest." Answered Eton's provost, dry Lord Quickswood: "He talks just like Adolf Hitler."

*No kin of Labor Minister Ernest Bevin.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.