§ 4
Mr. Henderson, the creator of Caxton, was of the large sized variety of schoolmaster, rather round-shouldered and with a slightly persecuted bearing towards parents; his mind seemed busy with many things—buildings, extensions, governors, chapels. Oswald walked with him through a field that was visibly becoming a botanical garden, towards the school playing-fields. Once the schoolmaster stopped, his mind distressed by a sudden intrusive doubt whether the exactly right place had been chosen for what he called a “biological pond.” He had to ask various questions of a gardener and give certain directions. But he was listening to Oswald, nevertheless.
Oswald discoursed upon the training of what he called “the fortunate Elite.” “We can’t properly educate the whole of our community yet, perhaps,” he said, “but at least these expensive boys of ours ought to be given everything we can possibly give them. It’s to them and their class the Empire will look. Naturally. We ought to turn out boys who know where they are in the world, what the empire is and what it aims to do, who understand something of their responsibilities to Asia and Africa and have a philosophy of life and duty....”
“More of that sort of thing is done,” said Mr. Henderson, “than outsiders suppose. Masters talk to boys. Lend them books.”
“In an incidental sort of way,” said Oswald. “But three-quarters of the boys you miss.... Even here, it seems, you must still have your classical side. You must still keep on with Latin and Greek, with courses that will never reach through the dull grind to the stale old culture beyond. Why not drop all that? Why not be modern outright, and leave Eton and Harrow and Winchester and Westminster to go the old ways? Why not teach modern history and modern philosophy in plain English here? Why not question the world we see, instead of the world of those dead Levantines? Why not be a modern school altogether?”
The headmaster seemed to consider that idea. But there were the gravest of practical objections.
“We’d get no scholarships,” he considered. “Our boys would stop at a dead end. They’d get no appointments. They’d be dreadfully handicapped....
“We’re not a complete system,” said Mr. Henderson. “No. We’re only part of a big circle. We’ve got to take what the parents send on to us and we’ve got to send them on to college or the professions or what not. It’s only part of a process here—only part of a process.”...
Just as the ultimate excuse of the private schoolmasters had been that they could do no more than prepare along the lines dictated for them by the public school, so the public school waved Oswald on to the university. Thus he came presently with his questions to the university, to Oxford and Cambridge, for it was clear these set the pattern of all the rest in England. He came to Oxford and Cambridge as he came to the public schools, it must be remembered, with a fresh mind, for the navy had snatched him straight out of his preparatory school away from the ordinary routines of an English education at the tender age of thirteen.