Anne here. When I was a kid, I longed to go to boarding school. Partly this was because we'd moved a lot and I was fed up with making friends and then moving and having to make new ones, and then moving . . .
It was also because my siblings are a decade older than me, and by the time I was ten they'd all left home to go to college or university or to be married, and I was fed up with being the only kid at home.
But I think mainly it was the influence of writers like Enid Blyton and others, who wrote stories about girls at English boarding schools who were always having adventures and making chums and having midnight feasts and solving mysteries. All terribly jolly. My sisters had stacks of those books and I devoured them. It wasn't just girls. The books and schoolboys' annuals my brother left behind were also full of boarding school adventures for boys — usually much more thrilling than the girls' ones.
The Chalet School (by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer) sounded wonderfully exotic and exciting to me set in Austria at first, students from all over the world, swapping languages according to the day of the week, and all the usual adventures, but as well, they dealt with girls adjusting to a new life, learning to be better people and changing.
But looking back at those old stories, as well as great adventures, they're sadly full of snobbery and racism and sexism — which was a reflection of their times. Begun in the 1920's, the Chalet School was located in the Austrian Tyrol, before it was moved to Guernsey in 1939 following the rise to power of the Nazi Party, and again to Herefordshire following the Nazi invasion of the Channel Islands. It further moved to a fictional island off the coast of Wales, and finally to Switzerland.
But back then I loved the idea of those schools, and in fact, when I turned eleven there was talk at home of sending me to a boarding school. (I suspect I might have harped on the theme somewhat.) It almost became a reality — until I discovered I couldn't take my beloved dog with me. I'd been misled by a book called Exile for Annis (by Josephine Elder) where Annis was sent off to boarding school, unhappily, but soon found that all sorts of good things, including pets, were allowed. That was going to be me, I thought — and the girl on the cover even looked like me, plaits and all. <g>
But the people who ran the two boarding schools that were under consideration for me didn't appear to have such an enlightened attitude to pets, so that finished my yearning to go to boarding school.
Of course, boarding schools have been around for centuries— how many regencies have we read set partly in boarding schools for young ladies or gentlemen? I've written some myself and Mary Jo wrote a wonderful series about the Westerfield Academy, a school for boys of "good birth and bad behavior."
But they're not all jolly hockey sticks and midnight feasts. Some of them are a kind of borstal, others are posh and privileged and with some the jury is out as to which it is. Many countries have established boarding schools for the education of bright children from remote regions — according to Wikipedia, tens of millions of rural children are now educated at boarding schools in China.
And in the past countries like Canada, USA, Australia and others established boarding schools for indigenous children, the plan being to isolate them from their cultures and assimilate them into the mainstream culture. Some boarding schools were established to deal with children with psychological problems, and there are military-style schools to teach students strict discipline.
My mother went to a boarding school. A country girl, she won a scholarship to a small exclusive boarding school in Melbourne. I think she was proud to have gone there, and she did well, winning a number of academic and music prizes and being awarded dux of the school, but she never talked much about it. In later years, reading between the lines, I think the posh girls there weren't very nice to the little country scholarship girl who outdid them in everything from academic subjects to gym and music. I think it must have been a very difficult time for her, but of course, it was such an honor to go there, she could never admit it.
A friend of mine was also a scholarship girl in a large boarding school in a country town. In country Australia a lot of the wealthy graziers send their children to boarding school. My friend's family was poor, and despite the scholarship, her parents had really had to scrape together the funds to cover the remaining costs. She felt under huge pressure to do well and deserve the money that had been spent on her, but not on her siblings.
The same pressure is felt by many students from Asia, who are sent to Australia for their education. Sometimes a whole community will work to get the money to pay for the brightest student in the village to be sent overseas to study and bring honor to their community. Having little idea of what is required—living and studying in a foreign country in a foreign language with no family support—they have no idea of the stress they're putting the students under.
The Harry Potter books and movies have brought boarding schools back as a glamorous and exciting choice for those who can afford it. According to this article, there has been a one third rise in sending children to boarding schools in the last ten years, and I'm sure that's partly to do with Harry Potter's Hogwarts.
But as well, with people living more peripatetic lives these days, it makes sense to send the children to boarding school instead of moving them all the time, and perhaps ending up in a place where there aren't good educational facilities.
So the boarding school fantasy lives on. In fact there's a series by Jenny Colgan (writing as Jane Beaton) set in boarding schools, and one of the quotes say: "Just like Malory Towers for grown ups." Great selling point for all those who grew up reading boarding school stories. It's what started me off thinking about the topic.
So what about you — did you read boarding school stories when you were young? Did the Harry Potter books entrance you or not? And if you could attend a boarding school anywhere in the world, where (or when) might it be?
And wishing all you who celebrate it, a very happy and safe Thanksgiving for Thursday.
I grew up in East Africa and went both to a boarding school convent which I hated at age 7, then later at a co ed school that I loved. (very competitive) and finally an English boarding school, where, influenced by Enid Blyton et al, we held a midnight feast in the gym and we were caught!
Posted by: Cheryl L | Wednesday, November 25, 2020 at 03:11 AM
I never went to a boarding school, but I did teach in one for a while. Most of the (highly sophisticated) students seemed to like it well enough, but for me it was a depressing experience. The parents were generally wealthy, and sometimes famous, but the students were at boarding school because there was no room for them in their parents' lives. Some of them were even left at school during vacations. The school seemed to serve as 24-hour daycare for adolescents.
It may have been more fun for them than being at home, but it did not strike me as appealing.
Posted by: Lil | Wednesday, November 25, 2020 at 07:54 AM
I was just like you, Anne, and having read those Enid Blyton books, I badgered my parents to send me to boarding school in England. They just laughed at me though - I guess they knew that I would have hated the reality of being so far from home. I was also misled by the Famous Five books where I think George is allowed to have her dog Timmy with her at school. In retrospect I'm very glad I didn't get to go, although the thought of those midnight feasts is still tempting :-) Lacrosse and hockey, not so much.
Posted by: Christina Courtenay | Wednesday, November 25, 2020 at 08:38 AM
Anne, this is an interesting broader view of boarding schools. I read some of those English boarding school books and enjoyed them, though in retrospect, I was much better off in my rural public school! I agree with you--no point in going to one if you can't take your pet. *G*
Posted by: Mary Jo Putney | Wednesday, November 25, 2020 at 08:40 AM
I went to boarding school and loved it. It was all girls and we had a riot. There was always someone to talk to or do something with. I left at 15 and spent the next two years at a day school - it was so boring going home alone everyday to my parents, as both my older brothers were at uni! I never felt my parents were trying to get rid of me as they struggled to meet the bills. As far as they were concerned, they were giving me a fantastic educational opportunity.
Posted by: Alice Mathewson | Wednesday, November 25, 2020 at 09:22 AM
LOL, Cheryl — I love that you had a midnight feast in the gym. And yes, different boarding schools are each very different, I'm sure, and some suit some kids and others not so much. I'm so glad you found one you loved. And the friends you made there would be lifelong, I'm sure.
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Wednesday, November 25, 2020 at 01:19 PM
Thanks so much, Lil. The Jenny Colgan series I mentioned covers both the teaching staff and and a few students. It's sad that some of those kids were there because their parents had little time for them, and being left at school for the holidays sounds very sad and dreary—she says, thinking of Dickens Scrooge left at school. *g* But I can imagine that for some kids it would become like home — it all depends on the ethos of the school, I suppose and the people who run it. Thanks for contributing to the discussion.
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Wednesday, November 25, 2020 at 01:23 PM
LOL Christina. I suspect there were tribes of us, young girls desperate to go to boarding school and have adventures. I actually liked hockey and actively wanted to learn lacrosse, but I think I would have been a different person had I gone to boarding school. Those school years are pretty formative, and your peers at school have quite an influence, don't they? And I wonder whether I would have loved it or not. I'm pretty sociable in general, but I also like lots of alone time, and did as a kid as well, so being with a group of others 24/7 might have been hard — I don't know.
And you know, those midnight feasts, enticing as they sound, weren't all that yummy. They were a response to wartime and post war rationing (which in England went on for a decade or so after the war). I wrote a blog about food in books once, and I remember one midnight feast that featured a can of sardines, which is about as far from feasty as I can imagine.
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Wednesday, November 25, 2020 at 01:29 PM
Yes, Mary Jo, some of those stories were pure fantasy, and a school where you could have your dog (or cat or rat or cockatoo or horse) with you sounds wonderful to a kid. As an adult, it's undoubtedly a recipe for chaos. *g*
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Wednesday, November 25, 2020 at 01:31 PM
Thanks so much for this comment, Alice — lovely to hear from someone who loved boarding school. That's exactly how I imagined it to be, and while I know that for some it was a difficult experience, I also know there were many who, like you, loved it.
And that experience of having your siblings gone from the home was exactly why I wanted to go to boarding school. I'm sure you missed your friends from boarding school too.
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Wednesday, November 25, 2020 at 01:35 PM
Thanks for a fun and educational post, Anne. You taught me two new words today -- borstal and dux.
With all the moving I did growing up, the only time that my parents considered sending my sister and I to boarding school (in Switzerland, I think) was when my father was offered a job in apartheid-era South Africa. He ultimately chose a different job and thus disappeared my boarding school chance.
I think that living in college dorms has something of that boarding school mystique. I was fortunate to have good experiences in that setting.
Posted by: Kareni | Wednesday, November 25, 2020 at 03:35 PM
No boarding schools in my past! They always sounded both wonderfully exotic and hellish in books. My 4th grade teacher read us Nancy and Plum which was quite melodramatic. I loved reading the Dana Girls mysteries, many of which were set at school. And wasn’t The Little Princess another boarding school book?
Posted by: Pat Dupuy | Wednesday, November 25, 2020 at 10:47 PM
After my husband and I were married at age 24 and 23 respectively, we were both hired at a boarding school in Massachusetts. Gorgeous campus. Gorgeous town. So beautiful I said to my husband before the interview, "There must be something wrong." Little did I know.
The 8 year olds' dorm was below ours, and I could hear the kids crying every September. We had a dormful of eighth and ninth graders, who didn't cry but could not be left alone for one minute without someone's head going through a wall. We had fire drills in the middle of the night and had to lead boys down the fire escape from our apartment on the fourth floor of the building. There I was in my nightgown with a slew of adolescent boys in the snow, putting on a show!
As well as teaching, my husband coached three seasons. We got every other weekend off, and two nights and one afternoon during the week. Which meant nothing, as my husband was on some playing field or at a game. We had to take all our meals in the school dining room, where dead animals hung on the wall that had been shot and donated by Teddy Roosevelt. We got paid once a month; thank God we could eat at school, because we'd always run out of money, LOL.
Looking back at it, the whole operation was kind of crazy. Lots of alcoholism and divorce among the Ivy League-educated staff, and who can wonder? We spent 15 years in boarding schools and managed to avoid both. :)
Posted by: Maggie Robinson | Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 05:06 AM
I never had a desire to go to boarding school, but I did always want to go to a "sleepaway camp". Totally unnecessary because we lived in a beautiful rural area near a large swimming pool, recreation facilities, etc. But many of my friends went away to camp, so after a lot of begging my parents finally sent me to camp for a month one summer. I loved it! Instead of being homesick, I cried when it was time to leave.
Posted by: Karin | Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 07:34 AM
Thanks so much for this interesting post.
I hope everyone is taking care and staying well.
Posted by: Annette N | Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 11:29 AM
I enjoyed those stories set in boarding schools that I did read when I was growing up. But I never desired to go to one. On looking back, I wonder if school would have been different for me if I had. When I was in elementary school, St. Louis was the 10th largest city in the country. BUT — the population of those working for the puplic schools was relatively small. My father was an elementary principal and also active in the NEA; and my mother had gone to the local normal school and new teachers everywhere. My sister and I were known by teachers in every (white) elementary school and highschool; and even by some teachers in the black schools. (You can tell that this was in the bad old days of segregration.)
Posted by: Sue McCormick | Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 11:38 AM
I fell in love with the Chalet School series when I found the early Armada reprints on a trip to England (I'm American). It wasn't easy to add to my collection, though I did have a few chances when friends or relatives visited England or Canada. So I was thrilled when Girls Gone By Publishers began reprinting these and other similar books -- in fact I just got their latest publication "The Encyclopaedia of Girls' School Stories, Volume Three"! I've already read it from cover to cover . . . so many interesting sounding books I'll never be able to read!
Posted by: Jane Nelson | Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 01:56 PM
From the first time I read Mallory Towers I wanted to go to boarding school! How I thought my parents were going to afford it I have no idea as we were just about above the breadline. My primary school teacher wanted to put me forward for a scholarship. She said I'd get it no problem. When I told my parents they said it was no good as they couldn't afford the extras. I was devastated!!
I went to the local 'tec' and left at fifteen to go working. I still sometimes wonder, 'what if'.
This was an enjoyable post.
Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it.
Posted by: Teresa Broderick | Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 02:11 PM
They're probably quite old-fashioned terms, Kareni. And I can certainly understand your parents considering boarding school under those circumstances.
I'm not sure living in college dorms would be quite the same -- at boarding school you're so much younger, and it's an incredibly formative time. Sure, you're still pretty young in college (though you probably don't think so *G*) but I don't think it's such a pressure-cooker environment as some boarding schools seem to be. But we'll never know, will we, because everyone's experience is different.
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 03:46 PM
Pat, yes indeed The Little Princess was certainly set in a boarding school. It was my favorite of hers after The Secret Garden, but it wasn't the boarding school parts that I loved-- well, that headmistress was a right mean creature — but the secret furnishing of the barren attic by the lovely Indian man.
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 03:49 PM
Fascinating, Maggie. Your experience fits with that described in the Guardian article that I linked to, and also with the Jenny Colgan story. The thought of the lack of free time that boarding school teachers had horrifies me. I'm all admiration that you managed 15 years with no ill effects! Ordinary teaching in a high school where I was involved in a heap of extra curricular activities was hard enough, but I chose to volunteer for all those things, and when I did get home, my time was my own—and I surely needed it. *g* Kudos to you both.
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 03:52 PM
Karin, the American habit of sending kids away to camp for weeks at a time has always fascinated me. It doesn't happen here, but I suppose our summer holidays come at Christmas, when a lot of parents get 4 weeks annual leave, so whole families go away and many go camping. Some families I knew went to the same camping ground (always at the beach) every year and over the years they got to know and make friends with the others there, so each year it was a kind of reunion, and the kids and adults had congenial friends to hang out with. We never did that — we went to different places every year, but I was always fascinated by the idea of returning to the same place and mostly the same community each year.
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 03:56 PM
Thanks, Annette — and the same to you. Happy thanksgiving.
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 04:01 PM
Sue, growing up, I was also known by all the teachers in my country towns — because they all knew my parents. And they all had expectations of my, which I hated. (*) I can't imagine how it was during segregation. Years ago I watched a wonderful series of documentaries called Eyes On The Prize, where they were desegregating schools and the hostility of some people towards that horrified me. And the bravery of the black children who confronted it awed and impressed me.
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 05:10 PM
Jane I had no idea of these reprints, though it's a shame there are just the encyclopaedia (do I add an s? or is it already plural -- no idea), and not the books themselves. It's wonderful how so many out-of-print books are being brought back. The Schoolgirls Own Annuals (and similar publications) are, I believe extremely collectible these days. With any luck some of those stories will come out again as e-books.
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 05:14 PM
Teresa, what a shame you couldn't go for the scholarship. A scholarship should cover all the costs. And those what-ifs can haunt you can't they?
I was the same -- no concern for the cost, though my parents were better off once the older kids had all left home. And quite possibly they had no intention of sending me to boarding school but were just stringing me along, knowing that I would never leave my dog. *g*
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 05:17 PM
To add to my love of the Enid Blyton series, I also loved What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge, particularly What Katy Did At School. I thought boarding school sounded smashing! My husband to boarding school in Sydney for some of his secondary school life, as his mother had in England, but was definitely not a fan and became a day boy thereafter. A good writer can make everything sound so exciting...
Posted by: Malvina | Friday, November 27, 2020 at 11:10 AM
I guess I never wished for it because I come from a big family. The oldest of 6 -family was always around including cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. I was/am on the shy side, so going to a place not knowing anyone wasn't for me. I loved the adventures, though! - no one is going to boarding school!
Posted by: Cindy A | Friday, November 27, 2020 at 01:13 PM
Anne, you can see what GGBP have been reprinting at their website here: https://www.ggbp.co.uk/
And in addition to the Chalet School reprints, several authors have written "fill-in" books, creating stories set in the gaps left by Elinor M. Bent-Dyer.
Posted by: Jane Nelson | Friday, November 27, 2020 at 01:56 PM
Thanks so much for that link, Jane. Fascinating. I'm sure a lot of people will be jumping onto that site. I saw Wish for a Pony by Monica Edwards and went OH! Yes! (lol) remembering that story. A lot of the books I read were from local libraries, so I read them once and that was it.
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Friday, November 27, 2020 at 02:24 PM
Thanks, Malvina, yes, that's another one in the genre. I suspect boys' boarding schools were often tougher than girls' ones — the idea that little boys need to be toughened up, and the toleration of a certain amount of bullying seems to go with a number of those schools. On the other hand a friend sent her youngest son to a country boarding school and he loved it and thrived.
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Friday, November 27, 2020 at 02:28 PM
Cindy, yes, a large family would be infinitely better than boarding school. I have a good friend who is one of 10 kids, and though they're well and truly grown up now, they're still all good friends and socialize with each other all the time. I think boarding school would be very difficult for a shy person or an introvert.
Posted by: Anne Gracie | Friday, November 27, 2020 at 02:31 PM