Schooldays

Note: I normally leave historical subjects to my young protege WhysWhys. I beg him to forgive me this once for venturing onto his territory to describe some fascinating material I have recently come across.


I was very interested to read, recently, a book about a school called 'Hogwarts'. Although I found the information in it fascinating and thought provoking, I do wish the author had been more rigorous about sources because, unfortunately, he does not tell us where his information comes from. We have to take his research on trust and take his word for it that what he describes is actually the case. 

I can at least offer a little help here: I have also been reading a series of books recording the day to day life of boys at a school. The school was called Greyfriars and it existed in the early part of the last century. The similarities are remarkable. The boys were not allowed home during term time despite having committed no crime; they were constantly having 'adventures'; eccentricity seems to have been a requirement for being on the staff, and there was a dignified headmaster. 

Even more interestingly, there is strong evidence that, by 1950, they were playing 'Quidditch' at Greyfriars. Here is a contemporary illustration of a game in progress during that year. As you would expect, the technology involved is less sophisticated than that at Hogwarts; even so, it's quite similar to the drones so commonly in use now.

 










It is clear from these books that phenomena and problems we regard as modern were around in the past too. This illustration dating from 1931 shows that schoolchildren were, even in those days, taking mobile phones to school despite, I'll be bound, rules banning them. Sadly, we can see also that, then as now, they were used for the purposes of 'cyber-bullying'.










Greyfriars does, however, seem more humane than Hogwarts. There, punishment for misdemeanours went no further than savage beatings with sticks, whereas at Hogwarts the pupils are constantly in danger of being consigned to hideous nether worlds of non-existence with no chance of remission.



Note: the illustrations and quoted text are from The Greyfriars Holiday Annual 1931 by Mr Frank Richards.