SUMMER 2012 ISSUE No. 150 - Shrewsbury School

ceaseless proliferation of activities and the increasingly heavy
demands on the time and energies of staff and pupils alike,
together with the universal tendency to communicate by electronic
means rather than by personal encounter, all inevitably tend to
present threats to community. While the community of the staff in its
widest sense, as the most effective guardian of the ethos, is the
most important priority of all, the explosion of administration, the
development of specialisation and the provision of separate subject
areas, together with the increased pressures on time, all combine to
reduce both the opportunities and the inclination to arrange social
encounters.
Our pupils, too, need to safeguard that vital sense of community.
One of the characteristic features of the traditional boarding school
has been its challenging intensity. Specifically, the social intensity of
a single-sex group of thirteen-year-olds, whose membership
remained virtually unchanged over a period of five years, was the
hallmark of the traditional Public School and it has consistently
generated its own strong sense of community and loyalty: certainly
it has had its negative aspects, but in its most positive manifestation
the bond which resulted was lifelong. This consciousness and
response now need a new stimulus and focus. The contemporary
intensity is an intensity of activity: the current Salopian has the
opportunity both to make his or her choice from a wide spectrum of
opportunities, academic, cultural and athletic and then to develop
those talents, in that chosen sphere, to their highest potential. In
the academic context, we must remember not to confuse results
Upper Sixth History set, May 2012
7
School News
with quality. Perhaps, here too, we need a little more space and
surprise, this time of an intellectual kind. It is characteristic of our
age to focus on statistics and standards, but inspiration, loyalty,
generosity and devotion, like all the most important things both in
individual and community life, and of far greater intrinsic value, are
not so easily measured. Salopians have always displayed a streak
of non-conformity – that, too, is part of the ethos: and even a little
eccentricity has its place in a great school.
Scholae meae alumnos agnosco. After all the changes and
chances which I have examined, I conclude that the ethos is alive
and well but that at a time of ever more challenging and varied
activity and of rapid and significant change, it requires very careful
nurture. Shrewsbury does indeed have golden chains, as Ronald
Knox discovered long before I did. To the School’s very great
advantage, it has had the good fortune to be led by a whole
succession of Headmasters who, without exception within my own
recollection – and some would say from as far back as Alington and
Butler – have each in turn contributed to and enhanced its strength;
and it has been a privilege to serve with seven of them. The School
is flourishing mightily and I contemplate its future with the greatest
confidence. I am only a Salopian by adoption, but I hope that I have
become a true Salopian if not in origin, then by conviction and
allegiance. Shrewsbury has been worth a life.
Floreat res Salopiensis!
David Gee