Eton College Documentary (1967) Part 1 of 2

Oh the 4th of June at Eton on this great day the College presents itself to its own world as its own world likes best to think of it as the preserve of the English ruling class and the source of most of their virtues its world is reminded that on these playing fields the Battle of Waterloo was won by an unflappable upper crust which has never ceased since then to maintain a rich supply of top people from the same mode the bishops the ambassadors the generals the Tory cabinets the landed gentry and other blessings this is what used to be called the top draw - most of these people it would be unthinkable to send their son anywhere else to the rest his presence here is the culmination of a life's ambition even as a policy it pays off Eton is reputed to have the most influential old boy network in existence there's not much the competition the selected half-dozen old Etonians the ceremonies of the 4th of June of tribal and not directed outwards they served to intensify a group feeling it's a sentimental nostalgic occasion whose message seems to be not only that what was always done at Eton still is done of always will be but a hint that the confident world in which these River rituals once had a significance for the whole British tribe may not have gone forever on the riverbank on the 4th of June it might still be 1913 when the antics of the ruling class were a source of pride to the people and Englishmen were by and large one nation with shared prejudices and a common belief in the rightness of the social setup it might the 1913 but it isn't and this time the serene rights were rudely interrupted by a plague of marchers young people who hold as an article of faith what in others is merely a growing suspicion namely that it's a top draw were prized open a strong smell of privilege and mothballs would emerge and little else relevant to the state of the nation how much of this is jealousy and Prejudice what in fact goes on at Eton in the course of the day Eton College began its long life as the noblest Grammar School in the kingdom with free lodging and tuition for seventy scholars more than 500 years after the founder King Henry the sixth laid down its statutes that are still 70 Kings scholar that eaten at a quarter past seven any morning in the summer term or half as they call it the day has begun where it began for the original 70 yes try well any late hydronic paris be fed by our seven singular Ariston decorative passes the paris grad so Brandon sees our junior boys and where the ends of their white ties tucked into the collar and if they're less than 5 feet one it's a broad turned down Eton collar there are 15 of them the only boys had eaten without rooms of their own they live in chamber all that's left of an enormous room where for centuries all 70 colleges lived and were locked up for the night to their own devices these included bullying as a fine art and up to about a hundred years ago catching rats to eke out the sparse and dreadful college food Audrey's are very enterprising colleges who have called tugs wear gowns the others called epitomes don't the colleges are King scholars and by definition intelligent boys the others may or may not be the old fall between the two on this score is now only a ghost in the feverish minds of very small boys King Henry's plan for Eton allowed any number of boys from outside to share in the teaching of the college if they arranged their own vault and lodging the teaching became famous the boys came flocking in and lodging houses to cater for them sprang up all around the college they're still there there are Eaton's houses and though the men in charge of them nowadays are schoolmasters not lodging housekeepers they have retained a good deal of their ancient independence there are 25 houses at Eaton of various sizes and more than 1100 boys live in them they off Adams they outnumber the college's by 15 to 1 most of Eden's peculiar flavor is due to the early opportunist it must have been difficult to treat them as children they paid out their lodging housekeepers with their own money they brought tutors with them to help with the work they had to think on their feet and order their own lives to this day the Eton Manor is a mixture of independence and competence even a quarter of an hour before early school there's little sign of life but however independently maybe at Eton they have to be in their places by 25 past 7 for 45 minutes work but for breakfast 7:25 just made it will you take meanwhile Lord oddities who are not moved tempered to the Odin flute to rough satyrs danced and forms with cloven heel wrong from the glad sound would not be absent long and the older meters loved to hear our song in all its essentials this class has been going on in lower school for five hundred and twenty years Carter just smooth it out kuba before we were nursed upon the self-same hill fed the same flop by fountain shading reel together both there the high lawns appeared under the opening eyelids of the morn we drove filled and better together heard what time the gray fly winds her sultry horn breakfast is at 10 past 8:00 a do-it-yourself meal which you don't take long about and until nine o'clock your times your own except in some of the new houses Eaton interiors are aptly pretty start one of the things you can do after breakfast is read all the newspapers in a sort of cellar at Eaton you're expected to take an interest in what's going on in the world they hope you may make some mark in it and there's a strong anti parochial attitude the inside world is catered for by Eaton's own newspaper the Eton College Chronicle published once a week see very little correspondence this week I know drip all over the editor's book they've got old editors say so you know tip number 7 usually write letters yourself under pseudonyms I think maybe we ought to the joint editors are college' and adopted in' take very much their own line and criticizing their leaders even the most sacred of eating's institutions they hold opinion polls on such matters as the abolition of tagging or corporal punishment or the school dress it's a big myth isn't it that about being in mourning for George the third year anyone's always told I thought that was the reason it was introduced aunt thinks I think it was just a fashion wasn't it it in the last century or little before at ten minutes to ten chapel compulsory Chapel Anglican of course and officially regarded at Eton as effectively all the public schools as the central fact in the school's life but it's not too central to be examined by the Chronicle nostalgic remembrances of College Chapel on a warm summer's evening the Chronicle says are neither here nor there there may be valid emotional experiences but they do not necessarily have anything to do with religion what they are in fact commending is school spirit get a spray adored God Almighty leave us not we beseech the destitute of thy manifold gifts nor yet of grace to use them alway to die on and glory to Jesus Christ and odd methods of Christian propaganda ought to be brought up to date the Chronicle says and it goes on compulsory Chapel has no value unless it is an instrument for this purpose if it is anything less than this it becomes a hollow pseudo religious ritual no different from those which Christ incessantly condemned in the established religion of his day in fact under the new headmaster the old rigor about Chapel attendance has been considerably softened Eaton's curriculum is in process of revision since the universities now require a levels and won't accept the college's own examination but the methods are still very largely traditional there's a good deal of learning by rote with groups of little boys hearing each other their construe how'd you say by day yeah crumble faced three problems the first was the Eton seems to be a sort of cross between a medieval University where they accepted boys at 12 years old and a comprehensive school comprehensive because it Eaton accepts all streams except the very lowest it has never required a highly intellectual standard of entry its aim is to educate the whole man to this end it deploys a staff of the highest quality a tutorial system which ensures that it can never be out of touch with the progress of any boy and the unique tradition of personal freedom the true is taken to be ten to the power of seven eggs because a Joe is the work done by a force of one Newton when it moves through one meter so a Joule you can work very hard or theoretically you needn't the system goes to great lengths to leave the choice to you in the past the college has succeeded best with boys of high academic ability or those of practically none who chose an athlete's life few can afford that anymore and the average boy has to earn a living in Jules in many of us we left our maltese toilet loose you put just poorly oh by the way well besides all the normal lectures and classes every boy comes under the tutorial system junior boys meet their tutor in groups for what's called pupil room and here he takes them for work of all kinds which they have been set by him or other masters this is by no means the same as the mayor supervision of prep but active teachings prep at Eden as a boy's own affair and done in his own time Jupiter will one be pleased in English the turn girl like a ball in the geyser ball translation but as literally as a bull in the guise of a bull right she clung on to it and she clung on to one thing and clung on to another with her right with her left to cling on to a blood and she feared that touch tectus you know tango tango at etiquette Ekta the noun plural there if you scan it you'll find his tattoos lured his back beneath the waters in order that you lift out this one very important more strongly literally radio rather wasting my time the point of this is the you write a good essay with some sensible material bring it back at 7:15 this evening wine with the gas already corrected you can ingredient so we can see them and then we can construct between ourselves a rather better essay as such very vexing I'm not really free therefore however all right do better next to her senior boys the tutorial is an individual session the system originated in the old days of the lodging houses when they opt ins brought their tutors with them the old universities have the same system Etonians have in fact been living undergraduates lives for years before they reached the university let's finish the essay of yours quite a good introduction then we had tea or something quite a potential conclusion nothing to do with this introduction on course in the old random point in between even if link one sees and forget this essay the subject all the matters wasn't become to be a man starting in the beginning of spurs a man who is looking something deeper in life and the business of eating and sleeping and working yes why I'm glad except that Forster but take a range of pigeons Montaigne Goethe whoever there may be haven't they got something in common which could lead you towards an appreciation of what the ideal cultivated man might be you're talking about these authors or the characters of they write about focus on it well both fair question but course both will be lawful they in their personal lives they're all bad but always in 15 but also as creative artists and the took small characters they create a whole one I was loudest no daman dear this realm dismantled was jove himself and now reigns here a very very patient you might have ride a good Horatio I'll take the ghosts word for a thousand pound it's perceived very well my lord upon the talk of poisoning I did very well knows him then in come present ransom John Stehr and you see Hamlet's Gotti's experiment successful he knows now the Kings done it and goes off into wild exultant talk about it when really what all he'd be thinking of well planet kill the king yes because Kings now war and time will be short in which you can do it that are out of school tutorials too called private business these can be anything from Mozart on a gramophone to political arguments or reading from Shakespeare one thing's obvious tutors at Eton are by no means idle Eton looks more like a university town than a town with a school in it the houses are scattered all over the place like colleges at Cambridge and the boys spend a good deal of time in the street this probably puts a fine edge on the Etonians famous heir of self-possession Eden is full of tourists coach loads have been moving on from Windsor Castle up the Thames make a stop at Eton to photograph the boys in their quaint clothes you grow an extra skin if you have to be a chimpanzees Tea Party the town has a population of about two thousand and practically every one of them is in business with the school most of the shops are there because the school is and many of them have been serving Etonians for generations besides the predictable sport shops that are antique shops and the jewelers for birthday presents several sophisticated tailors those school clothes are off the peg nowadays and of course the shop the first springs to mind at school at Eton it's called the sock shop it gives some idea of the value of the Eton trade that when recently a free period before lunch was made a working period the sock shop lost a hundred pounds a week young Chui Oh as there's no natural focal point to TP it has had to be created and at five minutes past 11:00 every morning the school staff meets the headmaster in chambers staff common rooms don't exist at Eton and this is the only opportunity the staff has to get together and discuss matters of common concern there are 112 Eton masters or Beeks as they're called and after the last war the charge against Eaton was that it was two in bread a very high proportion of its masters were old Etonians it's a good indication of how far Eaton has stirred from its narcissus like trumps but now only 25 out of 112 went to Eton and that for the first time in centuries the headmaster himself was not there at Eton a housemaster is almost as independent as the president of the University College but in three vital matters the headmaster is paramount he appoints the house masters he settles the curriculum and he is the magistrate six school should have been to in his capacity as magistrate the headmaster may receive that chambers four or five complaints against boys the Masters who make the complaints will consult with him and the names of the offenders will go down on a list which is called the bill the big sleeve chambers have become immersed in a sort of general scrimmage this is the only chance in the day for a boy to be sure of meeting a master he wants to speak to indeed anybody who has any business with Authority is here outside chambers in the mid morning break this is in fact the only general point of convergence in conveniently near this point of focus is the school office where all the business of internal communication and administration is carried on by the school clock those are the people tonight they'll see you at 12:15 okay you better do the ones that a bit further away your name is Riley here well basically now I'll do dot of James Queens foil now music school so you better I don't want his own room they are the other ones Addington these two sixth formers one an efficient and one a college' act as the Headmaster's representatives for one week they're called free posters during their week of duty they do no school work what they're concerned with now is the bill the list of boys were summoned to see the headmaster the preposterous are very much aware that there the chief magistrates representatives know knocking on doors so at 12:15 every day a row of boys waits on the Headmaster's staircase the bill is not necessarily a list of offenders it also contains the names of boys whom the headmaster may wish to commend or congratulate Mario Joel complained off for missing the last school yesterday the last school in the afternoon why aren't you in it messiahs have you really school in their own sir baptized mentor because the master mr. Pilkington said he'll be away then but he wasn't away was he was taking school miss so did you read the latest board no house yes sir but I thought as mr. Pilkington was would be away then I thought we'd stay alone but I got the wrong divisions how do you mean he was wrong division well it was the morning one sir he went to thought mr. Hilton was taking that division in fact he was taking the boy yes yes I see the overture that you didn't miss it intentionally yes you do miss it entirely by accident yes yes I see well I think Coursera naylet you you ready master you're quite enough nightmare which master exposed to be taking you at which time in which school and he wasn't to computer well I think undersurface disease it who haven't been in the bill before I'll just simply ask her to do the same amount of work 45 minutes work to do on the next half of the afternoon yes tomorrow all right yes and in so larger school as Eton the bill may be the only chance in his career that a boy gets to speak to the headmaster the headmaster himself is concerned with advance along the whole educational front a house masters command is almost an independent one but he could not for example exempt his boys from early school what the boys learn and in what proportion of their time is the Headmaster's affair and it's in this role that the headmaster leads the school forward what confronts the present headmaster is the need to compete for university places and the fact that the average even boy will need to earn his living can he tilt the balance in favor of the average boys career without resorting to a Newtonian compulsions the last division of the morning once the voluntary work period is now a compulsory one the sock shop mob has vanished from the street and until lunchtime boys were not doing classes must be in their houses working the boys own rooms are fundamental to the Eton scheme of Education from the moment you enter the school you have your own room to live in and to work in in your own time this is Eaton's chief excellence it takes the curse off the public school system a boy with a room of his own is on his own he is neither sustained nor intimidated by communal pressures as our boys in other public schools are always part of a crowd this is why there's no such thing as an Eton type if you can spot a newtonian is because he's so much his own man even down to the decoration miss Rome but even if you are in your room at the appropriate time it doesn't always mean you're working if a is pushed for time he'll take it out of working hours though are called upon to do their tag masters chores they're relieved of a good many of their own there are maids to make their beds and tidy up their rooms these maids and the whole domestic economy in the house are in the charge of what at Eaton is called a dame yes yes yes turn it wrong punish and then watch him is anything broken anywhere and you were washing Ilario so forth any hinge on a cupboard door yes who is that piece of the cupboard oh yes right away and they mean to see the positions of both Dame and house master have evolved from the lodging house keepers of the old days and the house master known as the tutor has an almost independent command his boys are his in a very special sense because he chooses them himself a house master normally keeps his house for 16 years some 13 years before he gets it the headmaster will tell him that he may begin to make his list that is a list of the boys he will accept in this house when gets it whether your newborn son goes to Eton or not depends on persuading a master who is making up his list to take him house is very very greatly depending on the house master it is fond of rowing for instance the boys will be influenced to row more important various values and these can range between a strict Puritanism and a spirit of laissez-faire it's the luck of the draw to assist him in the administration of his house the house master appoints a house captain and together they select a committee of senior boys these are known as his library they sit with him at meals and they're responsible for all matters of petty discipline and organization and in consultation with him the punishment of offenders in these minor categories it costs 17 pounds a week to keep your boy at Eton the demand for places is enormous and probably because their parents are more aware of this 60% of the boys are old Etonian sons they're into the Berk even if conception though this practice is strictly forbidden whoa very dismal get sighs oh there's a very intricate system of all the cards and tickets and markings all in the nature of reports on the boys progress or conduct these can be made by any beak and they all have to be shown by the boy to his house to a community the house tutors room therefore is a sort of clearinghouse for information about his boys he can never be unaware of their problems this showing up goes on every day am each day after boys dinners the process is my vocation racism don't seem to be making very much of a success with Bill French I think that's an improvement on last time you do something it doesn't seem to think that I highly of your prepared work well net it's the only DSA sorry it's just but do you think perhaps you're giving enough time for these essays but I think when do to them um well off tonight I sing for the altar diversion little bit more time and then you might be more successful yes all right busted me all the time - you ready right down to red let's get top dozen eggs to tin the peaches in the thymus shoot okay only the library have the privilege of shouting for a boy and any who hears with Alma Sunseri the last man there gets the dough all right you others go away horn

Channel: tituscaesar

Views: 135,607

Rating: 4.8762889 out of 5

Keywords: Eton, English Public Schools

Id: YLxNg5nKCYQ

Length: 30min 36sec (1836 seconds)

Published: Wed May 16 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/loopop]

This is a bit unusual for this subreddit, being old and B&W, but I think these old documentaries have something different to offer. They aren't as ADHD as modern documentaries.