Cricket Witness No 6 - His Captain's Hand on His Shoulder Smote

145 The Educational Effect could not afford the full range of accoutrements, the bats pads and batting gloves that the school provided were as essential as the pitch, the wickets and the ball. This was at a time when in many areas the cricket clubs, although not unwelcoming, were not as technically geared up to junior cricket as most, thankfully, are today, although cricket does remain an expensive game for individual participation. Thus the state school ensured during the first two-thirds of the 20 th century that keen youngsters could participate in genuine cricket matches. This was indeed a boon and a bonus. All of this points to an unusual two-part conclusion. There can be little doubt that the indoctrination of generations by school-based literature eased the way for the British to accept a bespoke ‘boarding school’ model for common secondary tier usage. There can be little doubt that, in consequence of its permanent position in that formula, cricket was confirmed as the sovereign summer game in that system. As an educational historian I deplore the one and as a cricket historian I applaud the other. The trouble was that the outmoded secondary school system endured but the cricket and its attendant literature declined. For almost a hundred years cricket and schoolboy literature coloured by cricket had been in the ascendant. Both quite suddenly dwindled. Sources Eagelsham, Eric From School Board to Local Authority 1956 Blaug, Mark Introduction to the Econo0mics of Education 1970 Bowman MJ & Anderson CA ‘Concerning the Role of Education in Development’ in Geertz G (ed) Old Societies and New States 1963 Midwinter, Eric State Educator; the Life and Enduring Influence of W.E.Forster 1995 Midwinter, Eric The Billy Bunter Syndrome, or Why Britain failed to create a relevant secondary school system 1998 Musgrave PW Society and Education in England since 1800 1968 Quigley op.cit Read, Donald England 1868-1914 1979 Stephens WB Education, Literacy and Society 1830-1870 Walter PB ‘Educational Change and National Economic Development’ Harvard Education Review vol. 51 no.7 1981 Wooldridge, Adrian Measuring the Mind; Education and Psychology in England. 1860- 1990 1997