Two alternatives are offered: co-education and the day school. In neither case should immorality be general or serious, and the number of romantic friendships correspondingly slight. It seems hardly possible that a normal healthy boy would be attracted by a smaller boy when, at a school like Bedales, he would be constantly in the company of young and charming scholars. And though the day boarder lives for the greater part of his day in a monastic society, he spends the majority of his spare time outside it. And during the week-ends he has full opportunity to continue any romance on which he may have embarked during the previous holidays. Although it is only possible for me to speak here from second-hand information, it can be assumed, I think, that at the co-educational and day school the moral question must sink to comparative unimportance. It has to be considered, however, whether this relegation compensates for the consequent disadvantages.
Co-education is, of course, a new game, and it is difficult to write of it with confidence. At a lecture that I gave about three years ago, a young woman rose from the back of the hall and asked 'what Mr. Waugh thought about co-education?' I had, as a matter of fact, thought about it very little, but I felt that I could hardly confess as much. I said, therefore, something about 'co-education being excellent for delicate and sensitive boys who would find Public Schools too rough for them.' The young woman then indignantly demanded what the girls had done to deserve the companionship of only delicate and sensitive boys. It was an unanswerable protest, but having since then thought the matter over more carefully, I believe that, if the same question were put to me to-day I should make the same reply. It may be that such a reply would be based only on prejudice and a preconceived idea. But, after all, the evil that one knows is better than the evil that one does not know. And who would wish away his school days.
If you were to ask a small boy of thirteen whether he would prefer to go to Uppingham or Bedales, he would promptly reply 'Uppingham.' If, two years later, you were to say to him: 'Would you rather have gone to Bedales than Uppingham?' he would reply: 'Lord, no.' If at the end of his last term, when it was all over, you were to ask him whether he regretted his choice, he would say: 'Good God, no!' And, twenty years afterwards, when the time had come for him to decide where he should send his son, were you to ask him yet again: 'Bedales or Uppingham?' he would reply without hesitation, 'Uppingham.'