Discussion Groups / English Usage / December 2003

For extended discussion, see Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy's
The Old School Tie (1978).

No.  I think in most families the nanny looked after the youngest
one or two children, and her duties did not include teaching
reading, etc.

Most boys went to a local primary school at age 6 before
prep school (boarding or daily) at age 8 or 9.  My prep
school required passing entrance examinations at age 8
in reading, writing, arithmetic (and music).

There were important differences 1900-1950, e.g. all
British boys had to take Latin to Junior Matric. level
(age 15 or 16, nominal requirement for university
admission), and thereafter specialized in either
classics, science or history/English (writing no
exams in the other subjects after this age) etc.

Boys normally entered "public school" at age
13 or 14.  Conventionally the lowest or second-
junior class was the Fourth Form and the top class
the Sixth Form.  At my school it was:
bottom (age 13-14) Fourth Form
next (14-15) Middle School
next (15-16) Fifth Form (Junior Matric exams at end, in
   any number of subjects between 6 and 12;  mine were
   Latin, English, French, German, History, Elementary
   Maths, Maths & Calculus, Divinity, Advanced English)
next Sixth Form
next Upper Sixth (Senior Matric and univ. scholarship exams
   in no more than two subjects, e.g. Physics & Chemistry
   or French and German.)

There were 550 boys in total and most stayed
5 years, thus passing through all five classes
(except that scholarship boys started in Middle
School.)  This was a boarding school organized
in 11 houses, thus 50 boys in each of all ages,
supervised by a (bachelor) housemaster with
one assistant and 4 or 5 prefects (senior boys
with disciplinary powers.)

The system was not particularly uniform because
most schools deliberately maintained their ancient
traditions, e.g. scholarship boys at Eton (largest
school) were segregated in  their own house.

Games illustrate a difference from US high schools.
Sports activities were compulsory 6 afternoons a
week (cross-country runs if you were not scheduled
for rugby or cricket etc.), practically every boy was
on some team or other, and inter-school competition
was very important.  But there were no professional
coaches.  Teams were managed and fixtures
arranged solely by the boy captains.  The only
external coaching was by those schoolmasters
who happened to be interested and able.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)

Probably, if the family lived in a town large enough to offer such
facilities, he would first go to a pre-prep school [4-7 years old]. If not,
and the family were wealthy enough, he would have a governess. The nanny's
duties were more to do with welfare and so on than with schooling - a sort
of surrogate mother. These two women had a certain status in the household
(the governess might indeed be a lady but of small means), and there was
therefore also a nursery maid for the most menial tasks.

The boy would go to prep school (probably as a boarder but fairly often in
cities as a day boy) at 7 (never as late as 9, I think) and at 13 proceed to
his public school [NB an exclusive private school!] almost certainly as a
boarder, but in London perhaps as a day boy at St Paul's or Westminster. He
would normally stay there until 18 or 19, when he would probably go to
university but could embark on a career in the City. These ages were not
fixed: a very clever boy might move faster through the system.

The term "fourth-form boy" meant different things in different schools. At a
prep school it would be a boy of 11 or 12, at public day schools a boy of 14
or 15. The boarding schools, oddly enough, followed that system too, so that
a boy entered at 13 as a "third-former", but there were all kinds of
oddities in year nomenclature, such as the "Remove", usually but not always
a staging post for boys who needed a further year of preparation rather than
enter the Lower Sixth after the Fourth Form, or who might choose to leave at
16.

A boy entering a prep school at 7 was expected to be proficient in
arithmetic and most aspects of English: he might also have had a French
governess (possibly a German one before 1914) and have acquired a good
accent and general vocabulary. At prep school he would immediately start
Latin, a core requirement for entrance to most public schools, and a year or
two later Greek. There would be little teaching of science in most prep
schools, though this changed gradually through the period 1900-1950.

I don't know how you could relate this to the US system. A major difference
might be academic selectivity: some prep and public schools were and are
highly selective, and their pupils formidably well versed in traditional
school subjects. As I understand it, US high schools are what we would call
"comprehensive", accepting children of all abilities. Your high schools
have, I think, a local intake: our so-called "public schools" (not now the
official term) recruit nationally, except of course for day boys.

Hope this helps!

Alan Jones (a retired English schoolmaster)