Figure 1.--.

While our focus is references to clothing in novels, there are of course many other topics associate with childhood covered. One of those subjects is school, a topic that HBC covers in considerable detail. We will thus begin to collect refeences to school experiences. Of course there is a rich collection of school stories, especially in England. Here we will focus on school references in other novels.

School References

While our focus is references to clothing in novels, there are of course many other topics associate with childhood covered. One of those subjects is school, a topic that HBC covers in considerable detail. We will thus begin to collect refeences to school experiences. Here we will focus on school references in other novels.

Lyn Andrews

Lyn Andrews in Tomorrow Never Dawns writes, 'Kevin ....was totally confused and miserable. Suddenly his safe little world had gone. He'd left his friends too and there seemed to be no boys of his age (to play with). Tomorrow he'd have to go to a new school amongst strange boys who might torment and bully him.'

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writes in The Naval Treaty:

Watson: " The Board Schools."

Holmes: " Lighthouses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules, with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wiser, better England of the Future

English School Stories

Of course there is a rich collection of school stories, especially in England. One of the most popular setting was school, but interestingly they were almost always the exclusive public (private) schools attended by a frction of English children. The first school story was Thomas Hughes' Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857), but it was more adult than children's literature. Kipling’s Stalky and Co. (1899) is perhaps the next most famous school story. Sports called games are normally paramount in most school stories. Status in the school novels came from hard earned accolades on the games field. Academic or musical talent stood for very little. In the normal school story, the intelectual was generally a desident. The hero was normally a clever boy who did not apply himself. There was a finally developed code of behavior expected from the boys. Honesty was expected above all else. It was absolutely not allowed for a boy to tell on another school mate, no matter how vile his behavior. There were several series of school books, including Billy Bunter, Biggles, and Jennings. Also boys were not expected to show their wealth and family connections at school, interesting in that the mere fact that they were attending these schools set them out as a privlidged minority. One of the most important school hero was Biggles, but he went on to become an important aviator. Jennings was set at a prep school rather than a public school. Some series were based mre on te scol than the boy, suc as Priory School--of course a public school