[Janice D. Soderling]

Well said, Mary. If good education were available to all, and the student body always mixed in terms of race, gender and class, (alas, it seems that class will always be with us), and religion (but not ethics) totally banned from the educational system, I think the world would be a much better place. Wishful thinking.

Half of all the brains in this unhappy world--top ones, middle ones, weak ones--arrive packaged in female bodies. Every day I think of the captured girls in Nigeria who only wanted to get an education and improve their lot. On April 14th, it will have been one year.

[John Whitworth]

All English Public Schools admit girls.

What do you mean by a sense of entitlement, Mary. How do you recognise it when you see it? And how does race come into it. There were no black or brown people at my Scottish school, and no Catholics either, though quite a lot of Jews. At Westminster there seemed to be all sorts. And quite a lot of Jews too.

[Matt Q]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

All English Public Schools admit girls.

Here's a list of the "top 20 boys only boarding schools" (though some of those go co-ed at six form).

-Matt

[John Whitworth]

You are right and I was wrong, Matt.

I was talking nly about sixth forms.

And not about Scottish schools.

It's a funny list though. Where is Kings Canterbury. Where is Rugby Achool. Where is Ampleforth?

[Michael Cantor]

John, if you're in your sixties, and can't recognize a sense of entitlement when you meet one, that pretty much says it all. Maybe it's there, but you don't know it. Do you still tug at your cap at times, or have a feeling that the other guy (or woman) expects you should, if ever so slightly?

But I do admire your ability to pick out the Jews, both at your own public school, and during your one day visit to Westminster. Was it their hook noses and swarthy complexion, did they have little money lending stands set up somewhere, did they wear pink sweaters (oh, wait, I believe that was the homosexuals). or was it their air of, well, you know, Jewishness that made it so easy? Are there Jew-spotting competitions one can enter?

As I've said before, John, you're a wonderful poet, but when listening to you sound off on social issues - which you appear to love to bring up - it really helps to pretend that you fallen into some kind of time warp and the world is frozen in 1914 or so.

[Roger Slater]

I don't see much difference between "confidence" and a "sense of entitlement" in this context, i.e., the context of how coming from a rich and well-connected family affects a child's attitude and chances of success in the world.

George W. Bush would always grow resentful at the very notion that his success in life and rise to the presidency had in any way at all been helped by the fact that his grandfather was a senator and his father was president before him. According to W, his success in business (ventures that took him in without a penny of investment, then gave him millions in profits when his introductions panned out) and politics (funded by donors who owed allegiance to his father) has absolutely nothing to do with his family name.

And now Jeb Bush is a leading candidate for president, and he also claims that his stature has nothing at all to do with his family connections. It's just a coincidence that the same circle of donors who had supported his father's and his brother's campaigns, and who had benefited from government jobs and access as a result, have rallied around Jeb.

Now John, you can attribute the success of young men like GW and Jeb to the quality of their education in boarding school, but to my mind you have to be willfully obtuse to think that they or countless other individuals from privileged backgrounds who went on to succeed did not derive a LOT more help from their money and connections than they did from the quality of their Latin instructors at school.

Yes, of course, there are some students in all these schools who do not have the same level of wealth or family connections, and many of them succeed. But they do attend these schools and meet and have a chance to befriend many people who are wealthy and connected, and in the process they become connected themselves. Some achieve greatness by coming from a great family, and some by having roommates who come from a great family.

That doesn't mean that those who succeed with wealth and connections can't end up being splendid human beings filled with talent and spirit and goodness and leadership, etc. I'm saying all this not to suggest that privileged kids should not be permitted to succeed in life, but only to recognize that they have a leg up on the others and that their success in life can't really be cited as proof that they went to the schools that provide the best academic education.

[John Whitworth]

Michael, it was quite easy ay my school. The Jews did not attend the morning assembly. Thirty five of them gathered in a classroom which I, as a prefect, supervised. I have written a poem about it. They were not notably swarthy, since you ask. There were no Catholics since they had schools of their own. At Westminster it was the fact that some studied Hebrew which was the clue.

I have never met anyone to whom I felt I had to doff my cap. I don't have a cap to doff. My teacher of English at school, Hector MacIver, a Gaelic poet, and my teacher at Oxford, John Jones, were men I much respected, though perhaps not enough. Come Michael. You are rich. To whom do you doff yours? Really the chips people carry around on their shoulders are remarkable. At our age, Michael, we should be beyond that sort of thing.

Death is someone we will all have to doff our caps to. And quite soon.

[Mary McLean]

Whew -- Roger said all that much better than I could. By "sense of entitlement" I mean an attitude that leading the country or going straight to the top of their chosen profession is somehow their birthright. In one sense this is admirable self-confidence, and in another it is less appealing.

The less appealing aspects hit me particularly strongly when I go to events at the Cambridge Union Society, the debating chamber that is the training ground for parliament, and I see a lot of Borises-in-waiting strutting their stuff. Not everyone there is like that, but a sizeable minority are, and they seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time at the microphone.

[John Whitworth]

Oh come, Mary. ALL politicians are like that. It is what makes them politicians. The only one I can remember who wasn't was Sir Keith Joseph, Maggie's mentor, who waited until the street was deserted before he went walkabout. It is nothing to do with schools. Robin Cook, bless him, was exactly like that, and he went to the same free school as I did.

But politicians are necessary. And I hope you are not saying the women are any different. Bags of wind all of them.
Even Maggie? Yes, even Maggie.

As for the other professions, if those at the top know what they are doing, that is what we want. The man who operated on my heart was very rich indeed. Whether he went to a public school I have no idea, but he was pretty good with the knife. I'll doff my cap to him. I'll even buy a cap to do it.

[Julie Steiner]

Three words: Narcissistic Personality Disorder.