Education in life; Attitudes to History

• Rudge says Irwin’s lessons makes him miss Mrs. Lintott’s lessons, and she is flattered.
  • Irwin’s lessons are “free-range…you’ve force-fed us the facts; now we’re in the process of running around acquiring flavour.” – he is thankful for Mrs. Lintott’s “firm foundations”
• Yet, these facts were “force-fed” in the first place, and the boys were not allowed to discover them on their own. His comparison of the boys to chickens being raised for food suggests the “production line” aspect of the educational system, especially as this school seems so concerned with the end result of getting into Oxford or Cambridge.
• Irwin has argued that they acquire some of the “permanence of art” simply by staying popular over time. Rudge calls Irwin’s lessons “cutting-edge” which suggests highly advanced and innovative.
• We already suspect that Hector is lonely, and now the boys wonder whether Irwin is too. Adults in this play have made education their life, but the boys think this fact might make their personal lives less satisfying.
• He reminds them that if they get a question about Stalin, they should not follow the crowd and condemn him—they should find a way to defend him – they need to find “an angle.”
• Irwin also says here that history is not about discovering how you really feel—it is about putting on a show
  • Unlike Hector, Irwin does not see school as a place for personal exploration.
• Irwin says, “the wrong end of the stick is the right one” and “A question has a front door and a back door. Go in the back, or better still, the side.” – the manipulative behaviour of Irwin.
• Scripps says that Irwin eventually became well known as a historian who always took an unconventional point of view. Scripps says that his teaching method has a formula to it. It is not as “free-range” as he pretends it is. It simply involves you to “find a proposition, invert it, then look around for proofs”.
• Scripps here:
  • Stands outside of the action of the play (pg. 35) to break the fourth wall.
  • He is a character and a narrator in the play. He becomes a narrator because he is reflecting on his school life. Looking back at his times, that he was a little lonely in school.
  • Talks about the future as a boy – introspective. We care little about Scripps. He is the middleman between everyone who has significant relationships.
• Irwin says that the boys should take exam questions about things they do not know and answer using knowledge that they do have, like answering a question about Rembrandt with knowledge about Ingres.
  • Irwin believes that the exam is about showing off, not about historical facts, so can bend the truth and “mist the windows” in order to make your exam paper interesting

Irwin and Hector

• Hector believes it is fine to know any book, as long as you know it well.
• Crowther adds that what Hector teaches also must pertain to “the heart.” Lockwood agrees, and says, “it’s higher than your stuff, sir. Nobler.”
• Posner adds that it is not as “useful,” because it is not “focused.”
  • Timms and Akthar agree that Hector is “blurred” in comparison with Irwin.
  • Hector would not compare academics to a striptease, and his class does feel somewhat sacred (earlier on, he even uses a Bible passage to describe it).
• Hector’s vision of academics is not truly “useful” for young people trying to make their way in the world – yet Irwin’s will get the Boys results
• The Boys portray Hector as “nobler” because he shows his intellectual knowledge through poetry.
• Dakin says that “a waste of time” is just like Hector’s lessons. Irwin says that is true, “but he’s not trying to get you through an exam.”
• The boys show that they have at least partly bought in to Hector’s ideas about how education should make them better people.
• Hector’s teachings cannot be deployed on an exam; they are not tools like Irwin’s teachings
• But Posner reminds us that the boys still care about success and would be willing to betray Hector’s pact to get ahead.
• Poetry becomes one more piece in Irwin’s examination game – it helps him teach the Boys how to “mist up the windows”
• His educational philosophy is gaining ground over Hector’s as the exam approaches.
• They pretend that Hector’s teachings are useless, but they know the truth.
• There is continually conflict of opinions –
  • Irwin and the headmaster challenge Hector’s opinion
  • Irwin and Hector are challenged by Mrs. Lintott