[John Whitworth]

Private school to you. Boris Johnson and our PM went to Eton, the best known. Is it actually any good?

Yes it is but why is that? I spent a day at Westminster School which is our top public school. It's where Nico goes, that clever, and very nice chap who is already winning Speccie and Staggers competitions at the age of seventeen or eighteen.

I'll tell you why these schools are the best in the world. First because the pupils are so clever. They have to be to pass an examination called Common Entrance, like the state Schools 11+ but taken a couple of years later. Second because the classes are so small, ten or eleven. Third because they can expel anyone they like. And fourth because the parents are so rich. This gives the pupils confidence.

Everyone studies Latin. It is absolutely obligatory for three years. Most of the ones I came across knew at least three languages quite well.

If I were rich I would have sent my daughters there. Actually, no I wouldn't have because the one thing they never do is mix with the proletariat and that is a pity. But the place is wonderful, right next to Westminster Abbey and all those dead poets.

Girls go too. Supposing the places are a paedophile's paradise is a vulgar error. And their manners are perfect.

Three cheers for England's finest export. The Scots have similar schools but they are not so good for some reason.

[Jan D. Hodge]

"they can expel anyone they like." By which I assume you mean they expel anyone they don't like. What a wonderful advantage.

One of the more interesting ideas I've heard posited to solve America's enduring "education crisis" is to end mandatory education at 13. The argument goes that then only people who wanted to be there would be there, and the premise that education is a privilege rather than a requirement would change the basic attitude. And it has been suggested that one who "drops out" at 14 would quickly learn that the options at that age are less attractive than school. Hmmm...

Then again, Conan recently offered this joke: the Texas legislature is considering allowing concealed weapons to be carried at schools, so you could just shoot anyone who insults or hurts you, or tries to teach you science.

P.S.: John, England's finest export is iambic pentameter.

[Roger Slater]

Because a fellow goes there who wins magazine competitions, and a couple of politicians went there (while presumably most others did not), you declare it to be the best school in the world? And then you decide that you know exactly what makes it so superior? OK, let's say I follow your logic. What is your point? Why are you telling us this?

[Allen Tice]

Roger, I think he's been buttering his pate with boar's fat. Or has Allinson's disease. Or maybe Tice's windrome.

[Steve Bucknell]

The funniest, most touching, account of the atmosphere of an English Public School, the fictitious “Albion House” is by Alan Bennett in Forty Years On . John Gielgud played the headmaster in the Apollo Theatre production in 1968. A few of the headmaster’s lines:

Headmaster: Clad in the magnificent white silk robes of an Arab prince, with in his belt the short curved, gold sword of the Ashraf descendants of the Prophet, he hoped to pass unnoticed through London. Alas, he was mistaken. "Who am I?" he would cry despairingly. "You are Lawrence of Arabia" passers-by would stop him and say, "And I claim my five pounds."

Headmaster (of the Bloomsbury Group): They were all socialists. Why is it always the intelligent people who are socialists?

Franklin: Have you ever thought, Headmaster, that your standards might perhaps be a little out of date?
Headmaster: Of course they're out of date. Standards always are out of date. That is what makes them standards
.
Headmaster: Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.

[John Whitworth]

To find out the opinions of those who have opinions, Roger.

[Roger Slater]

It would help to know the basis for your own opinion, John. I mean, you declare it to be the world's best school, but you can't seriously think you've made even a prima facie case by observing that one of their students is good at the Speccie competition, and another is Boris Johnson.

I would add that having rich parents doesn't just give children confidence, but it gives them tangible opportunities and opens doors for them in the real world in ways the typical young adult cannot as readily access. And if that's the case, it's not really the school itself that accounts for the presumed success of so many alumni, but their family connections and capital. You can go to any number of schools and do well in life if you start off with a fortune in your pocket and a host of people in business and politics who are only to happy to make your acquaintance.

[Allen Tice]

I think he is looking for a job with someone.

[John Whitworth]

Roger, I never had rich parents (hooray or alas, I'm not sure) but, as I remember from Oxford too many years ago, rich people do have confidence and, very often, charm. I was, and still am in part, a Scot and the Scots, the East Coast Scots tht is, not the western layabouts, have many virtues, all of which I have, but charm is not one of them (as Gavin Ewart, the Scottish poet, opined in verse), so perhaps I'm a sucker for charm.

I read somewhere that Oxford and Cambridge are numbers two and three among the universities of the world. Wow! Well, if you want to go To Oxbridge,then an education at Westminster will help you quite a bit, rather more than it used to, perhaps. English State education is not very good these days, as you may have heard. I think, I think, it is the same in the USA. Where were Harvard undergraduates educated? How rich are they? I would suggest generally not at the ordinary schools and very.

My daughters were educated quite well by the State, but they went to a girls' grammar school and there aren't very many of those left here, except in our blessed county of Kent.

Iwouldn't believe a word Alan Bennett says about public schools. He resented very much both Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller who were posher than he was. And funnier too.

If you want a career in politics or the City then a public school education is very helpful. And if you want to be an actor or a sports person (not footbal of course).

I have no information about poets. Or I have a bit. Auden and Betjeman, public school men. Larkin's father paid for his education too.

Mine was free. And my education at Oxford was free too. Now it is not so.

[Mary McLean]

Speaking as someone who deals with Oxbridge students daily, I think the main thing they pick up from their posh educations is a phenomenal sense of entitlement. But good manners too of course -- the lackeys are so much more compliant if you use a bit of charm on them.

I'm the product of a public (=comprehensive) school in a rather insalubrious suburb of Washington DC, back around the time DC was murder capital of the world. I wouldn't entirely recommend that either, but I was lucky enough to have some wonderful teachers, and I think I came through it all with a better education than most. I don't think I'd swap if I could for Westminster school, progressive as they are to actually admit girls. But I am left with a lingering resentment that such extremes exist in society, condemning many bright pupils to a far worse education than I had.