Figure 1.--Billiards is a popular activity at many schools which have tables. Here two boys patiently wait their turn. We found that the boys at the schools we visited have learned to share and in a larger sence generally accomodate others. Usually this goes on with minimal adult supervision and generally reflects values the school has helped the children develop. |
While much has changed at Britain's prep schools, the core of the program continues with many of the basic approaches. The modern prep schools, like their Victorian predecesors, continue to promote values. The outward appearances of schools may have changed and methods maybe different. The modern schools are much more opten to diversity. While they still seek to promote the values and standards that will enable the children to achieve, they are ganerally more willing to tolertate indivdualism and meet individual needs. Many schools, like the All Hallows school in Somerset, stress in their prospectus that, "The aim of the school is to give each pupil every oportunity to discover personal abilities and to develop them to the full." Most schools now seek to develop each child's full potentIal, his whole personality, including his ethical, physical, mental, social, and emotional development, so that he can participate fully in his community. It is the community, however, that has changed. Modern England is no longer the center of a great empire, but now only one of several important European countries. Britain no longer needs a large military or an administrative elite needed to run an empire. What is needed now is a business elite capable of suceeding in the increasingly competitive commercial world of the 21st century. The success of Britain's preparatory and public schools is yet to be determined.
