has the largest circulation of any of the London dailies. This is an
important newspaper in that it is the most accurate reflection I know
of the tastes and mores of the new working class in Britain. There are
many indications elsewhere that Cecil King, its proprietor, and his
chief lieutenants have pondered long and earnestly about Britain's
problems. The _Mirror_'s pamphlet on trade unions and an earlier
pamphlet on Anglo-American relations are solid contributions to the
literature on these subjects. But the _Daily Mirror_'s customary
approach to policies and issues is as robust and sharp as that of a
policeman to a drunk. It is belligerent rather than persuasive; it
loves big type.
But the _Daily Mirror_'s handling of certain types of stories,
particularly those involving industrial disputes and crime, is
excellent. (British crime reporting in general, although circumscribed
by the libel laws, is of high caliber.) The _Mirror_'s editorials, with
their GET OUT or PASS THIS BILL approach to politicians and measures,
may alienate as many as they win, but the editorials are alive, dealing
often with problems--such as automation and wage differentials--that
are of the keenest interest to the industrial working class.
The _Mirror_ is much closer to the thinking of this class than is the
_Daily Herald_, usually considered the official Labor newspaper. The
Trades Union Congress owns 49 per cent of the stock in the _Daily
Herald_, and Odhams Press Ltd. owns the remainder. Once powerful and
well informed on industrial and labor-movement happenings, the _Herald_
no longer seems to represent either the movement or the industrial
working class that supports the movement. Its approach is stodgier
than that of the _Mirror_, less in keeping with the tastes of the new
working class.
The _Mirror_'s most renowned features are "Cassandra" and "Jane." The
former, written by William Connor, is one of the hardest-hitting and
most provocative features in British journalism. Connor has evoked the
wrath of statesmen of both major parties. The Communists hate him. He
is a deflator of stuffed shirts, a pungent critic, and a stout defender
of the British worker.
The _Mirror_'s other salient feature is a comic strip called "Jane."
Jane is a well-proportioned young lady whose adventures nearly always
end in near nudity. She is a favorite of British troops abroad and
their families at home. The information value of this daily striptease
is nonexistent, but a _Mirror_ employee once defended the strip on the
grounds that "the bloke that buys the paper to look at Jane may read
Bill Connor or the leader."
The London press enjoys an advantage that does not exist in the United
States. This is the presence of a remarkably well-informed critical
opinion in the weekly reviews that are also printed in London. The
_Spectator_, the _New Statesman and Nation_, _Time and Tide_, and,
occasionally, the _Economist_ are careful, if sometimes pecksniffian,
critics of the national newspapers. Fleet Street is one big family
(it would be stretching things to call so tumultuous a community
"happy"), and the inner workings of the great dailies are laid bare
to the weeklies often through the agency of disgruntled reporters.
Consequently, "Pharos" in the _Spectator_ and Francis Williams in the
_New Statesman_ are authoritative and knowledgeable critics of the
newspapers and their proprietors.
The weeklies themselves are a valuable supplement to the newspapers.
They have time to reflect and space to discuss. In many cases they are
often slightly ahead of public opinion, more so than the daily papers,
and they are not afraid to criticize tartly such sacred cows of British
journalism as the Crown.
Since the end of the war the tendency among the popular newspapers has
been to entertain rather than to inform. This recognizes what I believe
to be one of the fundamental truths of the communications business in
Britain: the majority of the people get their news from the British
Broadcasting Corporation's radio and television services and from the
news services of the Independent Television Authority.
Readers of the more responsible London and provincial newspapers listen
to the news on the BBC and then turn to their papers for expanded
stories and ample interpretative material. But the average reader does
not read _The Times_ or the _Manchester Guardian_ or the _Observer_.
When he turns off the radio in the morning and picks up his "popular"
newspaper, he is confronted with gossip columns, comic strips, newsless
but beguiling stories about the royal family, sports stories, and, in
some papers, a dash of pornography.
The "popular" papers do print hard news. Correspondents like Sefton
Delmer of the _Daily Express_ and William Forrest of the _News
Chronicle_ send interesting, factual, and frequently important stories
from Germany or Russia. But such stories are increasingly rare. The
trend even in this sort of writing is toward entertainment.
For example, not long ago a London popular daily, once renowned for
its foreign staff, sent a reporter to Communist China. This was
an opportunity for objective reporting. Instead the readers got a
rehash of the reporter's own political outlook plus a few flashes of
description of life in modern China.
This tendency toward entertainment rather than information is deplored
by those who believe that a democracy can operate successfully only on
the foundation of well-informed public opinion. In Britain, however,
newspapers are customarily considered not as public trusts but as
business, big business. If entertainment pays, the newspapers, with
a few exceptions noted above, will entertain. Unfortunately, the BBC
cannot provide the time necessary to give the news that the newspapers
fail to print. Obviously the great mass of the British people will
become less well informed about the great issues at home and abroad if
the present trend continues.
During the thirties the critics of the British press liked to repeat a
cruel little rhyme that ran:
_You cannot hope to bribe nor twist,
Thank God, the British journalist,
But, seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there's no occasion to._
Yet, from a knowledge of the type of man who writes for the popular
press and a thorough acquaintance with his product, I would say that
the blame rests not with the reporter but with the management.
It is certainly within the power of the proprietors of the popular
newspapers to change the character of the papers. Some editors in Fleet
Street habitually sneer at American newspapers and their practices,
although these men are not above adopting some American techniques of
news presentation which they think will sell newspapers. But the amount
of factual information about national and foreign affairs in many
small-town American papers is far greater, proportionately, than that
provided by some great "national" newspapers in London.
Those who are interested in the improvement of relations between the
United States and the United Kingdom must be concerned about the
reporting of American news in the popular press. More space is devoted
to news from the United States than formerly, and correspondents for
the London dailies travel more widely than they did in the past. Men
like the late Robert Waithman of the _News Chronicle_ did their best to
get out of Washington and New York and see the country. But too often
the correspondents devote time and space to the more frivolous aspects
of American life. From the standpoint of international relations, the
space devoted to the stream of stories about the royal family might be
better spent on a frank discussion of why the mass of Americans feel
as they do about the Communist government in Peiping.
Some good judges of the national character believe that the great
mass of the British working class would not read such information
even if the newspapers provided it. They see this group as complacent
and politically lethargic, no longer willing to be stirred, as it was
a generation ago, by great events in the outside world. If this is
true, the future is dark indeed. For more than at any time since the
summer of 1940 the British people must take a realistic view of their
position in the world. They cannot do this if, beyond a few perfunctory
headlines, their newspapers provide only the details of the latest
murder or the bust measurements of Hollywood stars. To an observer from
abroad, it is only too evident that the great problems of our times are
not being brought to the people of Britain by their popular newspapers
in a serious manner.
THE OLD SCHOOL TIE
Few institutions in Britain are more difficult for Americans to
understand than the public schools. Yet a knowledge of the system,
how it works, its influence upon British society, its traditions and
customs, even its sports is essential to a knowledge of modern Britain.
We are going to hear a great deal about the public schools in the
coming years, for one of the great battles between the egalitarian,
socialist Britain and the traditional, conservative Britain will be
waged over the future of these schools.
The "public school" is in fact a private one. The public-school system
includes all the schools of this type in Britain. As an influence on
the national character it has been and still is extraordinarily potent.
This influence is social and political as well as educational. It is,
I think, fair to say that to hundreds of thousands in the upper and
middle classes, attendance at Eton is regarded as more important than
attendance at Oxford.
There are about two hundred public schools in Britain. They range
from old established institutions like Eton, Harrow, Charter-house,
Winchester, Rugby, Haileybury, and Wellington to smaller schools whose
fame is local and whose plant, equipment, and teaching staff are little
better, and in some cases inferior, to those of the state schools.
What keeps the public-school system alive in an era that has seen
the fall of so many bastions of class and privilege? To begin with,
the public schools represent a well-established, wealthy, and acute
force within British society. Such a force fights to maintain its
position against the public criticism and political maneuverings of
its enemies. The fight is led by men who are sincerely convinced that
the continuation of the public-school system is necessary to the
maintenance of Britain's position in the world, and they will devote
time, money, and effort to win the fight. One of the mistakes made
by the Socialist groups that attack the public-school system is to
underestimate the wit and energy of those who defend it.
Yet the existence of a powerful institution is no guarantee of its
future life in a country that has changed and is changing so rapidly
as Britain. The public schools survive and even flourish because of
the conviction widely held throughout the upper and middle classes
that such schools provide the best type of education for their boys.
Indeed, the conviction goes even deeper in the class structure: it
is noteworthy that as new groups move up the economic scale into the
middle class, these too seek to send their boys to a public school.
Elsewhere I have mentioned the sacrifices that the old middle class
makes to preserve its position in British society. Nowhere are these
sacrifices more evident than in the struggle to raise the money to
send the son or sons of the family to a public school. The Continental
holiday may be given up in favor of two weeks at an English seaside
resort. The car must be patched up and run for another year. Father
will go without a new overcoat, and mother will abandon her monthly
trip to "town" to see a play. But John will go to his father's old
school. Why?
At the best public schools the formal education is excellent. But when
the middle-class Briton speaks of the education his son gets at a
public school he is referring only partially to what the boy learns
from books. Principally, he is thinking about the development of the
boy's character at the school, about the friends he will make there,
and about how these friends and attendance at this old school will help
the boy later in life.
Critics of the Foreign Office have often charged that British diplomacy
is filled with the products of the public schools and that the
representatives of the great mass of the nation are excluded from the
Foreign Service because they have not attended public schools. Lord
Strang, a former Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
and thus head of the Foreign Office, answered this criticism in his
book _The Foreign Office_.
"The Foreign Office," he wrote, "can move no faster towards fully
democratic methods of selection than the State as a whole is moving in
its educational policies, though it has already moved far at the pace
set for it by these wider policies of political evolution. The fact is
that the Foreign Service always must and will recruit from the best,
in brains and character, that the prevailing educational system can
produce."
Note that "character" is coupled with "brains" in this indirect
reference to the public schools.
What does the middle-class Briton mean when he says that Eton or some
obscure public school in the Midlands will develop his son's character?
There is no complete answer. But I would say that he includes in
character such traits as willingness to take responsibility, loyalty
to the class conception of the nation's interests, readiness to lead
(which implies, of course, a belief that he is fit to lead and that
there are people willing to be led), truthfulness, self-discipline,
a love for vigorous outdoor sports. I have heard all these cited as
reasons why boys should go to public schools and why fathers will give
up smoking or limit their drinking to a small sherry before dinner to
provide the money for such schooling.
In considering the development of character in the public schools it
should be remembered that these schools often represent the third phase
in the education of a British boy. The boy's first preceptor will be a
nanny or nursemaid, often chosen from the rural working class. At eight
or nine he goes away to a preparatory school. At twelve or thirteen he
is ready for his public school. Because of economic pressure only a
wealthy minority can follow this system today, but it was the system
that produced the majority of the leaders of the Conservative Party and
not a few prominent Labor Party leaders.
Direct paternal influence is much less evident in the education of
Britons of the middle class than it is in the United States. One
argument for the system maintains that the boy learns self-reliance;
when in his twenties he is commanding a platoon or acting as Third
Secretary of Embassy in a foreign country he is not likely to be
wishing that Mom were there to advise him. This argument implies
acceptance of the proposition that people will consent to be led by the
public-school boy or that his education and character will fit him for
a diplomatic post abroad.
Critics of the public schools charge that the concept of public-school
leadership was exploded by World War II. This does not jibe with my own
experiences with the British forces from 1939 to 1945. I found that
most of the young officers in all three services were products of the
public schools and that, on the whole, they provided a high standard of
leadership in the lower echelons. Their earlier training had enforced
upon them the idea that they were responsible for their men, not only
in battle but elsewhere. So they would tramp through the Icelandic
sleet to obscure posts to organize amateur theatricals or sweat through
an African afternoon playing soccer with their men because this was
part of the responsibility. They were told that they had to lead in
battle, and they accepted the obligation without doubts.
A great many of them were killed all over the world while sociologists
and reformers were planning how to eliminate the public schools. Those
who were killed were no more intelligent, no more attractive in person,
no more energetic than those they led. But when the time came to lead,
they led. These remarks, no doubt, will annoy critics of the public
schools and public-school leadership. When I am informed how wars are
to be won or nations to be governed without leaders I will be properly
contrite.
The public school's place in British society rests basically upon this
conviction that a public-school education provides character-training
that will equip a boy for leadership in business, in politics, in the
military services, and in society. But the system as it appears in
British society is composed of much more than formal education and
character-building. The public schools also mean a body of traditions
and customs often as involved and as unrelated to the modern world as
the taboos of primitive man.
The Old School Tie is one. Almost all middle-class and some
working-class institutions in Britain have a tie striped with the
colors of the institution or ornamented with its crest. There are ties
for cricket clubs and associations of football fans, there are ties
for regiments and clubs. But the tie that generally means most is the
tie that stands for attendance at a public school. It is at once a
certificate of education and a badge of recognition.
The phrase "Old School Tie" stands not only for the public schools but
for their place in middle-class society. The tie is not merely a strip
of silk but all the strange, sometimes incomprehensible customs and
traditions that surround the public schools. Slang phrases used at one
school for generations. Rugby football rather than soccer because there
is more bodily contact in rugby and hence it is a more "manly" game and
better suited to character-building. School courses which have very
little to do with the problems of the modern world but which supposedly
"discipline" the mind.
British public schools, like American universities, have been
criticized for developing a type rather than individuals. There is a
resemblance among their graduates, and the old Etonian and the old
Wykehamist (Winchester) and even the graduate of some small school
in Yorkshire have a great deal in common. The public-school graduate
will be enthusiastic about sports, rather contemptuous and sometimes
shockingly ill-informed about the world outside Britain, well-mannered,
truthful, and amenable to discipline. In a crowd, whether it be an
officers' training unit in war or an industrial training school in
peace, he will seek out other members of the fraternity announced by
the tie. He is ready to serve and sometimes idealize the State. He
believes in, although he does not invariably personally support, church
attendance, _The Times_, the monarchy.
Naturally, there are mavericks. Some of the greatest individualists
in recent British history--the influence of the public schools on the
nation really became apparent in the middle of the last century when
the new mercantile and industrial leaders began to send their sons to
them--have been public-school products. By a pleasing coincidence, Sir
Winston Churchill, Prime Minister Nehru of India, and Field Marshal
Earl Alexander of Tunis are old Harrovians.
Politically, the public schools are conservative in thought, and
usually their graduates adhere to the Conservative Party. But there
are many exceptions. Hugh Gaitskell, the present leader of the
Parliamentary Labor Party, is an old Wykehamist. His predecessor, Earl
Attlee, went to Haileybury. Scattered through the ranks of the modern
Labor Party are dozens of Old Boys of the public schools. If the Labor
movement gradually sheds much of its old extremism, it is certain to
attract an increasing number of public-school graduates.
The principal criticism of the public schools voiced by reformers at
home and critics abroad is that it perpetuates in Britain a class
system that divides society during a period when unity is essential to
survival. There is truth in this, so much that it cannot be answered,
as supporters of the system do answer it, with the assertion that
there were no class differences in Britain until the Labor Party
created them. Nor is the argument valid that the masses in Britain
like class distinction, like to live their lives within a precise
social classification. British society is changing today just as it
has changed in the past. It would not have changed without popular
pressure. The newly rich manufacturer of cheap cotton who decided to
send his boy to a public school a hundred years ago was just as much a
part of this change as the Labor Party politician who wants to abolish
the public schools even though he himself is a graduate of one.
Another disadvantage of the perpetuation of the public-school system
in its present form is that it is unsuited in many ways to modern
conditions. It was admirable training for young men who were to rule
thousands of untutored natives or maintain the might, majesty, and
dominion of the British Empire with a handful of police or administer
without deviation the justice of the Crown in smelly courtrooms
half a world away. But today the young men are going out to sell
Austins or electronic products or to represent a weaker Britain among
peoples tipsy with the heady wine of nationalism. At home the old
stratifications are breaking up, new groups of technicians and managers
are shouldering the once unchallenged leaders of the professional
middle class, new industries requiring a high degree of technical
training are ousting the old.
In these circumstances the road will be difficult for a man who has
been trained to regard himself as a leader, either born or educated
to leadership, who has been taught that his caste is automatically
superior to the industrialists of Pittsburgh or the scientist at
Harlow or the excitable politicians of New Delhi and Athens. Certain
traits encouraged by the public schools will always be important. But
self-discipline, truthfulness, physical courage must be accompanied in
the modern world by a broader outlook on that world and a more acute
realization of Britain's place in it.
There is a strong movement in Britain for the expansion of technical
education. The public schools are not technical schools; their
object is the well-rounded product of a general education. While the
public schools maintain their social prestige, the new middle class
as well as the old will send its sons to them. But the leaders of
tomorrow's Britain will be the leaders of the new technology taught
in the technical schools. As these schools develop, they may offer a
real challenge to the public school's position as the trainer of the
governing or leading class.
The indictment of the public schools is that they are educating boys to
meet conditions that no longer exist. Yet the public schools are trying
to change with the times even while maintaining that what is needed
to meet the challenge of modern conditions is not narrow technical
education but precisely the comprehensive schooling backed by sound
character-training that public schools are supposed to provide.
We should not overlook the role the public schools are playing and will
play in the absorption into the middle class of the new groups that
have entered it from industry, science, communications, and management
in the last decade. Many men in these groups had no public-school
education. In fact, a decade ago many of them were among the severest
critics of the system. But a surprisingly large number today are
sending their sons to public schools. The desire to keep up with the
Joneses--the Joneses in this case being the old middle class that sent
its sons to public schools as a matter of course--is one reason for
this. Another is the recognition that the public schools endow their
graduates with certain social advantages.
When change occurs in Britain it often takes place behind a façade
that appears unchanged. The battle over the public schools is certain
to take place, and, whichever group wins, the schools themselves will
be altered by it. It is inconceivable that they will be eliminated
from the British scene. It is equally inconceivable that they will not
change under the pressure of the times.