Saturday, January 20

When I wrote about the number of UK Prime Ministers who went to Eton College, I thought of the famous quote: 'The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton', supposedly said by the Duke of Wellington.  Apart from the fact that the Duke hated his three years at Eton, the school didn't, in fact, have any playing fields until much later, so he probably never said it.

Matthew Arnold, the poet, was quite scathing:

The aged Barbarian [ie: a member of the English upper classes] will, upon this, mumble to us his story how the battle of Waterloo was won in the playing-fields of Eton. Alas! disasters have been prepared in those playing-fields as well as victories; disasters due to inadequate mental training - to want of application, knowledge, intelligence, lucidity.

And, George Orwell, writing in 1942, picked up this criticism.

‘Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.’

He went on to elucidate that, since the 1850s, all wars involving England (sic) have been marked by a series of early defeats, and eventual victory has been attained by the efforts of people socially inferior to the chinless wonders in command (often Highland regiments or Irish volunteers).  Orwell said the quote was an example of 'interested knowledge' where the words supported the position of the powerful.  He believed that knowledge is generated and sustained by 'the elite' and we poor mugs just accept what we are told.  And the fact that more than one-third of Prime Ministers went to Eton can't just be an accident. I wonder what would happen if the quote wen't something like this, 'the disaster on the Somme had its birth on the playing fields of Eton.