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The Old School Tie: The Phenomenon of the English Public School
Originally published in England under the title The Public School Phenomenon, 597-1977.
Though there have been previous books about the British public schools, this long, entertaining, and probing work stands in a class by itself. The author gives us the whole chronicle from the Dark Ages through the crucial and formative nineteenth century to the modern phenomenon of girls' and progressive schools. It is a story which must fascinate anyone anywhere concerned with education, children, class, society, or the human condition.
Though there have been previous books about the British public schools, this long, entertaining, and probing work stands in a class by itself. The author gives us the whole chronicle from the Dark Ages through the crucial and formative nineteenth century to the modern phenomenon of girls' and progressive schools. It is a story which must fascinate anyone anywhere concerned with education, children, class, society, or the human condition.
480 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
About the author
Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy
29 books5 followersBritish author born in 1933, nephew of the English garden writer Robert Gathorne-Hardy.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 3, 2012
A history of the English public school (what, in the US, we would call a 'private school'), charting the institution and culture of the schools from the 15th century until the 1970s, when the book was written.
What a fascinating book. Very dense - both in content (hundreds of years are covered) and information (most of it was almost entirely new to me.) But it was fascinating. The history of the English public school is one of surprising violence (even as late as the 1950s, corporal punishment not the main method of discipline, it was the ONLY one, and beatings were often carried out by prefects. And then there was the bullying) and passion (many boys had intense crushes on boys in their class, and there were periods of rampant sexual activity, often spurred on by the ridiculous paranoia of the headmasters.)
The author also traces many of the stereotypical 'upper-class' characteristics as well as several ones we think of as stereotypically British, to the 'total societies' the public schools formed, and the particular environment British upper and middle class boys spent the ages of 8 - 18. In fact, the experience was so intense and so formative that many public school boys became Old Boys when they grew up, unable to leave behind their school days, eternally trapped in a kind of agonized nostalgia.
Despite how dense this book was, I really loved the writing style. The author links together evidence from dozens of 'public school genre' novels and autobiographies, as well as correspondence with hundreds of Old Boys from dozens of schools, with a confiding and honest tone.
What a fascinating book. Very dense - both in content (hundreds of years are covered) and information (most of it was almost entirely new to me.) But it was fascinating. The history of the English public school is one of surprising violence (even as late as the 1950s, corporal punishment not the main method of discipline, it was the ONLY one, and beatings were often carried out by prefects. And then there was the bullying) and passion (many boys had intense crushes on boys in their class, and there were periods of rampant sexual activity, often spurred on by the ridiculous paranoia of the headmasters.)
The author also traces many of the stereotypical 'upper-class' characteristics as well as several ones we think of as stereotypically British, to the 'total societies' the public schools formed, and the particular environment British upper and middle class boys spent the ages of 8 - 18. In fact, the experience was so intense and so formative that many public school boys became Old Boys when they grew up, unable to leave behind their school days, eternally trapped in a kind of agonized nostalgia.
Despite how dense this book was, I really loved the writing style. The author links together evidence from dozens of 'public school genre' novels and autobiographies, as well as correspondence with hundreds of Old Boys from dozens of schools, with a confiding and honest tone.
December 20, 2022
I won't alter what I said in my review below but upon looking at the work again when checking a reference (there is a wonderful but utterly improbably story regarding the genesis of the film of Death in Venice, see pages 171-2) I couldn't help but be awed by what an extraordinary time capsule the book is. It is utterly of its time, the mid 1970s, a world and way of thinking that was about to disappear with the changes that Margaret Thatcher's political and economic reforms were about to usher in as well as the changes in social attitudes and behaviour, that originated in the 1960s but were only now beginning to be absorbed by the population as a whole. It is fascinating to read a work that at its time seemed so liberal and radical but which almost immediately was to be rendered out-of-date and in parts ridiculous.
Nowhere is this instant obsolescence more obvious then the books discussion of public schools and Homosexuality. We are treated to extensive late 1960s theories on child rearing - much of it based on anthropological work of those like Margaret Mead who went to places like Samoa and 'discovered' that homosexuality didn't exist because of the relaxed and laissez faire child rearing attitudes of adult Samoans in particular with regards to accepting widespread adolescent sexual activity. Mead's portrait of Samoan society was on the verge of being revealed as a fantasy both with regards to homosexuality and the rather strict Christian morals most Samoans actually followed.
There is much of interest in this book but it is as a portrait of the age it was written that it tells us most. What follows is my original review.
I read this book for the first time in 1978 not long after it came out (in 1977) and it still stands up as a fine, penetrating and important examination of the Public (i.e. Private) School phenomena in the UK. Of course other books will tell you more about those schools today, and time itself has brought many changes, but the fact that so that at the time I write this an Old Etonian is PM of Britain and the graduates of so many of these schools still dominate all aspects of British culture (including sport - nowadays unless you get into one of the Sports Academies that train Olympic hopefuls then only chance your average school boy or girl has of getting any decent kind of a sport training/experience is at one of the public schools).
The book is of its time - but that has an interest in itself - 1970s pre-Thatcher Britain is a vanished country that is hard to recognize or remember - reading this book brings it back. But most important is the chapters on the history of the schools through the Victorian age through the second world war. The story Gathorne-Hardy tells is essential for understanding Britain then and now.
Nowhere is this instant obsolescence more obvious then the books discussion of public schools and Homosexuality. We are treated to extensive late 1960s theories on child rearing - much of it based on anthropological work of those like Margaret Mead who went to places like Samoa and 'discovered' that homosexuality didn't exist because of the relaxed and laissez faire child rearing attitudes of adult Samoans in particular with regards to accepting widespread adolescent sexual activity. Mead's portrait of Samoan society was on the verge of being revealed as a fantasy both with regards to homosexuality and the rather strict Christian morals most Samoans actually followed.
There is much of interest in this book but it is as a portrait of the age it was written that it tells us most. What follows is my original review.
I read this book for the first time in 1978 not long after it came out (in 1977) and it still stands up as a fine, penetrating and important examination of the Public (i.e. Private) School phenomena in the UK. Of course other books will tell you more about those schools today, and time itself has brought many changes, but the fact that so that at the time I write this an Old Etonian is PM of Britain and the graduates of so many of these schools still dominate all aspects of British culture (including sport - nowadays unless you get into one of the Sports Academies that train Olympic hopefuls then only chance your average school boy or girl has of getting any decent kind of a sport training/experience is at one of the public schools).
The book is of its time - but that has an interest in itself - 1970s pre-Thatcher Britain is a vanished country that is hard to recognize or remember - reading this book brings it back. But most important is the chapters on the history of the schools through the Victorian age through the second world war. The story Gathorne-Hardy tells is essential for understanding Britain then and now.
January 2, 2015
A strange book in its sudden veering into discussion of what the best education would be. But I found the rest interesting having caught glimpses of the subject in novels and histories. The fetishistic interest in flagellation in some former school boys is almost cliche now. But Gathorne-Hardy tries to show its roots and its psychology. His look at the psychology behind the schools--the teachers, the students, etc., is interesting. I liked his discussion of girls' schools as well.
November 23, 2014
Although overlong and burdened by some ludicrous excursions into theory, this book has changed the way I think about schools in general and my job (in a private school) in particular. Well worth the slog.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews