59
''made it seem less important that the state should create a general system of
secondary education for the whole country" (Roach 1986: 238). This parallel universe
outside the state sector has continued to exist and to exert an influence - certainly on
examinations, as will be seen later - disproportionate to its size, which hovers at about
7% of the school population.
The private sector asked for and received its own examining board, and was
completely omitted from the remit of the 1944 Education Act. A closer look at this
omission neatly illustrates how these strands in English thinking are inter-related. The
failure to include the public schools when planning the reform of secondary education
appeared extraordinary to at least one cosmopolitan observer. Sir Fred Clarke, newly
returned from a distinguished career in education “in the dominions" [ie in Canada
and South Africa] to lead London’s Institute of Education, was struck by the absence
of any reference to the public schools in the Norwood Report, on which the Act was
based. He pointed out that “the leading secondary schools of the country are nowhere
discussed within its pages..." and suggested that:
We can hardly continue to contemplate an England where the mass of the
people coming on one educational path are to be governed for the most part by
a minority advancing along quite a separate and more favoured path.
(Clarke 1940: 44)
Similar objections were voiced by G T Giles of the National Union of Teachers.
While supportive of the Norwood Report’s general aims, he too called attention to its
omissions, particularly “its failure to address the issue of the public schools"
(McCulloch 1994: 52).
In fact, ButIer had not overlooked the public school issues, but had made a tactical
decision to preclude its discussion by the Norwood Committee and instead to allocate
the matter to a separate committee chaired by Lord Fleming. The committee having