The great theme of the 'scale of seniority' was the balance of privilege and duty, itself reflecting the more worthy side of the British Empire. But this was a theme to which 'opening the mind' came as at best an irrelevance.

The Victorian reforms had made their mark, and competitive examinations played a part in public school life. Those who came as scholars had an opportunity to take on the role of an intelligentsia in the 'nation in miniature', tolerated provided they interfered with nothing that mattered. But Alan, who did not belong to this group, was quick to note the 'absurdly small' amount expected of him. And in fact it was the organised team games of rugby football ('footer') and cricket which for most boys would dominate the years at Sherborne and through which the emotional lessons were taught. Nor had the social changes of the Great War made any difference to the total, introverted, self-conscious system of house life, with its continuous public scrutiny and control of every individual boy. These were the true priorities.

In one respect only a token concession had been made to Victorian reform. There had been a science master at Sherborne since 1873, but this was primarily for the sake of the medical profession. It was not for the Workshop of the World, stigmatised as too mundanely utilitarian in spirit to occupy the time of a gentleman. The Stoneys might build the bridges of the Empire, but it was a higher caste which commanded them. Neither did science enjoy respect for its enquiry, irrespective of usefulness, into truth. Here again the public school had resisted the triumphant claims of nineteenth century science. Nowell Smith divided the intellectual world into Classical, Modern, and Science, in that order, and held that: