5

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

Under Classical head masters £
,» Mathematical head masters . .
Mathematical and Science head masters
Science head masters . .
Other qualifications . ,

Total

28,300
2,200
[,450
1,050
220
33,400

In other words, 82 per cent of boys attending the
public schools of this country are under classical domination,
 whereas only 7'5 per cent of the total number are
in schools where the head master has any academic
qualifications in science whatever.
It would be absurd to lay down the dictum that a
master with classical scholarship is thereby unfitted for
the responsibilities of organizing a public school which
should be closely in touch with modern progress and the
outer world; but it will probably not be denied that,
speaking generally, a classical head master is much more
likely to be out of sympathy with modern national and
social problems and industrial movement than a modern
one.
But when we find that over 80 per cent of the masters on
the Head Masters’ Conference are classical head masters,
whilst only 135 per cent have received a mathematical education,
 and that but an insignificant 10 per cent are, even
partly, scientists, can we wonder that the Head Masters’
Conference, taken as a whole, is terribly biased in educational
 ideas, with little if any sympathy towards that type
of education which must be essential for national supremacy
 in the future.
Not only does this affect the public schools of this
country but it also influences the preparatory schools.
A permanent Committee of the Head Masters’ Association
exists solely for the purpose of advising preparatory
schools as to their curricula, and, at the other end of the
educational ladder, we have the ancient universities which
have to cater for the public school product. Is it thus a
matter for astonishment when we find that out of the