Britain | Decline and pall

Sad little boys: the backlash against Britain’s boarding schools

Does posh care lead to bad outcomes?

Eton College students looking down on the annual Eton Wall Game, a unique college tradition, Berkshire, England, 1st November 1976.
Unjolly japesImage: Getty Images

The moment when his chemistry master pulled a pistol, declared it loaded and waved it in the air was “probably”, says Justin Webb, a broadcaster, the worst point of his boarding-school career. Winston Churchill would recall the floggings, done until pupils “bled freely” and screamed loudly. In “Such, Such Were The Joys”, George Orwell writes of being beaten so violently that his headmaster broke his riding crop and “reduced me to tears”.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Decline and pall ”

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