Literary Accessions

The book shines a light on Sir James’ days at Charterhouse Square, attending a school for the ‘middle class’ with a good reputation for teaching.  The author presents a visceral account of the school, harking back to the brutal execution of the Carthusians who resisted Henry VIII’s Reformation and whose body parts were subsequently nailed to the door of the Charterhouse.  Similarly, he describes his father’s journey to school through the ‘labyrinth of streets around the Tower and the Docks”.  His father also remembered travelling on the train with a close friend, William Elderton (MTS, 1889 – 1894) – one of the few who saw through Sir James’ natural shyness.
Christopher Jeans praises the education that his father received at Merchant Taylors’ – he relates that the Headmaster, William Baker had founded the Modern side that Sir James moved over to from classics in 1893.  Three Mathematics masters appear to have had a significant influence on Sir James – the Rev. S.T.H. Sanders, S.O. Roberts and C.W. Payne – whose qualities made a ‘good team’ in the words of Sir William Elderton.  Teaching of the juniors was partly undertaken by the senior boys and by 1896 Sir James was Second Modern Monitor and First Monitor in Mathematics. According to a contemporary, Jeans adopted a pose “sitting cross legged, leaning his elbow on his knee and resting his chin in his hand.”  Contemporaries also paid tribute to Jeans’ insistence on clear explanations and his broad range of interests, including playing the organ in the School chapel.

The role of the teacher is made even more challenging by the political context in which teaching takes place. The Red Queen makes an apt analogy. Those of us who work in schools will recognise her methods. You have to run as fast as you can to stay in the same place; to get anywhere else you have to run twice as quickly. I think I have seen 17 Ministers for Education come and go over the course of my career, with an average lifespan of about 18 months.  I am not sure of that figure.

Managing the various diktats and policies which have emerged from this unnumbered set of anonymous and variously ill-informed Secretaries of State for Education is not dissimilar to playing croquet using flamingos and hedgehogs.

Finally, as nobody seems to trust teachers to get on with the job they know and love, teachers have become accustomed to an oppressive compliance culture, enforced by a more or less hostile system of Ofsted inspection. The Red Queen’s cry of ‘Off with his head!’ has been heard by many hard-working and well-intentioned school leaders.

On one occasion an inspector came to see him after a day in the History department and began the conversation with: “The teaching is very didactic.” Anderson’s response was: “Good. What else did you like?”

(The obituary for Eric Anderson, former Head Master of Eton College, The Times, 2020)

As John pointed out in his letter accompanying the book, ten students from Middlesex and five from Hertfordshire were enrolled as part of a scheme to open up access to the private sector (MTS never recognised its classification by the Government as an independent grammar) for talented boys which was part of the reforms introduced under the 1944 Education Act that formed the Direct Grant system.  

For John, the experiment was not a success and he catalogued his academic struggles, punishments and being made to feel by relatives and neighbours that he was lucky to have been afforded such privileges:
“I managed to come twenty-third out of twenty-five in the final class order and was destined for the Lower Fourth, an ignominious position for one selected out of ten from Middlesex state primary schools…I couldn’t roll a French “r”, unscramble Latin syntax or sit with my knees flat on the gym.  I was clearly a hopeless case, unable to take advantage of all the wonderful chances I had been offered”

Although much of the book’s focus on Merchant Taylors’ reflects the emotional challenge of fitting in, there is a touching tribute to the late John Steane who is given his own chapter.  JBS had recently joined the School – amazingly his last year was also my first, 1987/8 and I recognised the description of “a small rotund man with a chuckling laugh."

“I was indebted to him for the way he shared intellectual arguments and never imposed them…He talked to me as an equal and helped me to strive to become one”