SS 2005 Preuß Texterschließung Staatsexamen Herbst 1989: Text 3
By 1900 public schools had become close-knit
communities, highly disciplined, obsessed with games, fervently religious,
intensely class-conscious and geared to turning out gentlemen all-rounders. To
develop physical hardihood there were cold
showers (1) cross-country runs, spartan dormitories, outside lavatories and compulsory
games. But the schools also
sought to give their pupils moral training, to develop self-restraint, a proper
sense of values and preparation for the exercise of power. The monastic all-male
environment, the playing of games (with the ideas of team spirit, abiding by the
rules and being a sporting loser), the cultivation of traditions and rituals (school
songs, slang, uniforms and colours) into which all new boys had to be
religiously initiated, the strict disciplinary system, the rigidly defined
hierarchy through which a boy rose from fag to prefect, all aided in the
creation of group loyalty, corporate spirit and elite solidarity. There was also
a code of behaviour the boys developed for themselves: no “squealing”, no
stealing, cooperative preparation of work, the phlegmatic bearing of all anguish
and irritations. This overlapped with and reinforced the code that was imposed
on them from above.
The
prefect system gave the senior boys a taste of the exercise of power and put
them on their honour not to abuse it. The Public School Commission (1864)
credited this system with an enormous effect on social life and national
character, fostering the special characteristics the British claimed as their
own: “their capacity to govern others and control themselves, their public
spirit, their vigour and manliness of character, their strong but not slavish
respect for public opinion”.
Almost unconsciously the public school boy absorbed a complete code of behaviour which would enable him to do “the right thing” in any situation. It produced the gifted amateur, trained for nothing but ready for anything, who had a relaxed air of command, a sense of duty and a feeling of the obligation of the superior to his inferiors. It also involved the traditional British phlegm, reserve, understatement and the stiff upper lip, a result of the inculcation of modesty in victory and defeat.
(1) Remember Hitchcock's "PSYCHO"?
SCHOOL & EDUCATION (1)
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