ABSTRACT
The English public school is invariably an island of mellowed buildings in a sea of well-kept playing fields. Nothing more strikingly illustrates the part that games have played in English upper-class education than the view down Music Hill, through Butler Gate and across the sweeping acres ofHarrow 'footer' fields with its thirty-four pitches stretching to the Sheepcote Road. These spatial symbols of commitment, indulgence and privilege bear witness to the power ofan ideology, the wealth ofan institution and the devotion of its pupils, staff, old boys and parents. The latter were the financial source of the impressive facilities on which the public school boy ostensibly developed his character. It was the wealth ofthe upper classes which translated a value system into a set of actions by ensuring the purchase and maintenance of sufficient fields so that each member ofa large school could find space to kick, chase and strike a ball. 1
The Victorian economic substructure determined the reign of athleticism. All other causes were subordinate to it. Wealth released the potential of character. As Geoffrey Best has written: 'The economic substructure must always be there ... the limiting terms of mid-Victorian British Society were prescribed by economic forces. Its "economic miracle", such as it was, alone made possible that unprecedented degree and diffusion of wealth that allowed its citizens, as consumers, to reveal their characters in the choices they actually made out of such an unparalleled variety of goods. '2 Much of this wealth was accumulated between 1850 and 1873; a time of 'unchallenged British ascendancy over the family of nations in commerce and manufacture'. 3 Riches disproportionately held in the hands of the upper classes raised public school chapels, built the houses, purchased the playing fields and provided the security which permitted the occupation of these fields for several hours each day.
