OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 March 1943, Page 4

OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

EDUCATION & PRIVILEGE (To the Editor) Sir, —Mr Atmore, in his letter to you, quotes a petition signed by eminent educationalists as saying: “The British system of education segregates those children who by inheritance, proceed to leading positions in industry, politics, the Civil Service and the armed forces, and by its training strengthens their social privileges.” I may remark that one very poor boy, at least, reached the very top of the political tree by the very system Mr Atmore attempts to disparage. I refer to the late Mr Ramsay McDonald, who, from a mere pit boy, rose to be England's first Labour Prime Minister. This fact alone wipes out Mr Atmore’s arguments. I myself, though only a labourer’s son, received secondary education. The fact that I threw it over of my own accord was no fault of the system. As for leaders in industry we have only to mention such names as Lord Leverhume, Sir Thomas Lipton, John Cadbury and Sir Harry McGowan, to name only a few. All these men started at the bottom of the tree. To bring the topic nearer my own doors, a close relation of mine is at present a director of a firm employing six hundred work people on important war contracts. Forty years ago that same man commenced work for this firm as a trolley-boy and floorsweeper. More, I need not say.—l am, ptc POMMY. Masterton, March 11. 1 Subject to any unexhausted right of reply, this correspondence, arising out of some comparisons between Britain and Russia, is closed. —Ed.