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| Private Education |
Framing Our Children's Future
Aline Sullivan
05/03/2004
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Arthur Wellesley, better known as the Duke of Wellington and the scourge of
Napoleon Bonaparte, must have been much admired by nineteenth-century British
public school headmasters. A strong disciplinarian with an unshakable belief
that a person’s character determines his destiny, Wellington famously (and
perhaps apocryphally) avowed: “The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing
fields of Eton.”
The British have many more centuries of experience in what
they call public, and we call private, education, than those of us in their
former colonies. Eton, after all, opened its doors 50 years before Columbus
sailed. But our aims are quite similar to those of parents who sent their boys
off to become the first Etonians during the reign of Henry VI: to give our
children the core values and expertise that will help them succeed in all facets
of their lives, whether in business, in family matters—or in the midst of a
decisive battle.
“You are buying into a philosophy and
trusting the judgment of the people in
charge.”
Barbara Johnson |
Today, we enjoy an unprecedented variety of educational
options. There are 27,000 private schools in the United States, according to the
U.S. Department of Education, and many excellent public schools. Deciding which
one is right for our child requires us to carefully weigh our family’s goals and
values, and only then seek out the school that can best help us achieve
them.
Children of affluence, especially those in families that have acquired
their wealth recently, often face enormous challenges (i.e., forging a work
ethic, building self esteem based on their own achievements, avoiding the lure
of rampant materialism) that they must overcome in order to realize their
potential. Our choice of the right school is crucial to their making this leap
successfully.
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