ABSTRACT
The public boarding school stands or falls, at least in principle, by the view that it is psychologically more satisfactory for adolescents to spend a large proportion of their time in their own community and with their own age-group. To approve of something in general, whilst simultaneously objecting to some of its particular manifestations, is to put oneself in a difficult position. General opinion about public schools falls roughly into two equally doctrinaire groups. The first, left-wing, group regards them as bastions of upper-class privilege and hence unjust. The right-wing, group regards them as fine educational institutions which are eminently fitted for bringing up adolescents. The size of the school will enable boys of all sorts to find friends and competitors of their own type, and with their own interests. The function of local or Ministry authorities, like the function of governors, should be like the function of the state: negative, and designed to prevent abuses.
