ABSTRACT
In the preceding chapter it was argued that individual differences in both ability and character - which include motivational factors, such as a willingness to work for relevant objectives - should rightly determine differences in the education offered. This is a justification, then, for the existence of different types of schools, including specialist academies for those with particular talents, for instance, in the arts. However, there is no reason why requirements such as these should not be met within a state-supplied system of education. It remains to consider how far another factor, the wishes of parents and their ability to pay, should affect the education children receive. The existence of an option to provide a formally organised education in privately financed schools is resisted on grounds which differ significantly from the grounds on which greater equality within the state's system is advocated. The principle of paying for some elements of education - swimming lessons, music tuition, tennis coaching - is in general unquestioned, but payment for the central core of education is seen as an infringement of the rights of others. Where the schools concerned are small and are of no particular standing, then parents who choose to make use of them may be seen as no worse than misguided - snobbish, perhaps, and a social irritant, but hardly immoral. Where the major independent institutions are concerned, however, with their high prestige and reputation for efficiency and academic success, then the opposition aroused is of a different order entirely. Here the charges are that privilege is being purchased, and that because of the generally assumed correlation of academic success in youth with material success (wealth, power and influence) later in life, a procedure comparable to the purchase of the rotten boroughs is being engaged in by those who make use of the system.
