child of a noble race, trained by surrounding art

11:28 | 10-07-2013 | Culturology, Education | 1 Comment

вот, кстати, и статья об английских привилегированных частных школах:

There is a bizarre belief held by many that success in Britain correlates to intelligence and hard work. This is a very middle class concept. What the upper class understands is that success stems from two things: confidence – or, at least, the appearance of confidence, and community. And they are the purpose of public school.

So, all those hours of sport, the diet[1], the uncomfortable beds – they are all part of a process. They ensure that no one is fat, and that everyone reaches the maximum of their genetically permitted height – that everyone appears healthy, fit.

But more importantly, they are all about team building. These activities exist to build generation after generation who will work together to run a now vanished empire.

все так.

 


  1. love that part, too:

    Every afternoon, for at least an hour, and often two, we played sport. I say “played”. It was, particularly in the pre-Christmas ‘Michaelmas’ term, significantly more brutal than that. To warm up before rugby, we would be made to sprint lengths of the pitch until, sometimes, the less fit children vomited. We would lie in the mud with our feet in the air until our stomachs screamed in agony, and, gradually, formed themselves into neat rows of muscle. And then, come rain or hail or ice or snow, we would play.

    When we’d finished, we would limp back to our various houses, where we’d boil a large pot of spaghetti, mix in a jar of pesto sauce, and sit round with our peers and a loaf of bread. Using the sliced white to grab, we would swallow handful after handful of oily, salty pasta. Table manners are largely a chain the aristocracy use to tie down the aspirant bourgeoisies.

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