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A British reader tells us that he has been reading about a British scientist named Geoffrey Pyke. He opened a school based on Freudian psychology ideas. The school was the Malting House school in Cambridge (1924-27). Malting House came into being when Pyke was looking at schools for his 3-year old son. He asked a psychoanalyst named James Glover to help find a school which would give his child a truly enlightened upbringing. He wanted a school in which his son would not experience the bullying which he endured at schol. He did not find a school that he thought was suitable for his son. He finally solved the problem by founding his own school. He had a psychologist as head of school. The British mobilized their scintists in World War II and Prime-Minister Churchill took a special interest in their ideas. Pyke was the inventive mind behind Pykrete which during World War II was an idea for inexpensive, unsinkable aircraft carriers built on sawdust infused icebergs. They were never built, but Lord Mountbattan at the First Quebec Confrence (August 1943) almost took out the Allied High Command when he fired pistol rounds into a block of Pykrete to demonstrate its indistructability. He proved his point, but the bullets wizzig around the confrence room could have taken out top Allied commandrs who were very much destructable.
Geoffrey was the son of Lionel Edward Pyke, a Jewish lawyer who died when Geoffrey was only 5 years old. The family was left with little money. His mother managed tgo quarrell with relatives and according to Geoffrey made life 'hell' for all her children. She managed to come up with the mony to send her son to Wellington, an English public (elite privte boarding) school. The sons of many Army officers attended Wellington. At his mother's insistence, Geoffrey maintained the dress and habits of an Orthodox Jew. One might question the woman's sanity when she then sent him off to school. British boarding schools at the time were not noted for their acceptance of diversity. As a result, Pyke became an atheist when he was 13 years old while at Wellington. The persecution he suffered at Wellingtin instilled in him a hatred of and contempt for what we now call The Establishment. After 2 years at Wellington, he left the school and was tutored privately. He was admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge to study law, following his father's profession.
Germany at the turn of the 20th century was seen as a advanced country with the world's leading scientific establishment, which was close the the truth. But other countries alao had important scientific establishment which played important roles on both World War I and II. You can see that in Nobel Prize awards. As a result of Germany's importance many foreign science students studied German as a foreign language. German was much more important as a foreign language than is the case today. It was the most important language offered in American high schools. I supect that this was the case in Britain, although French may have been more important. As a result, a young Geoffrey Pyke studied German. During World War I, he became a foreign correspondent for the New Chronicle. He was to report from Berlin. It was thought that a journalist could not get into thr German capital. Pyke did but was soon arrested. He spent a few months in prison before escaping and getting out of Germany back to Britain. The British authorities thought that this was impossible without help and kept him under observation.
A British reader tells us that he has been reading about British journalist and inventor Geoffrey Pyke. He opened a school based on Freudian psychology ideas. The school was the Malting House school in Cambridge (1924-27). Malting House came into being when Pyke was looking at schools for his 3-year old son David. As a result of his experiences as a boy, he took a keen interest in education. He asked a psychoanalyst named James Glover to help find a school which would give his child a truly enlightened upbringing. He wanted a school in which his son would not experience the bullying which he endured at schol. He did not find a school that he thought was suitable for his son. He finally solved the problem by founding his own school. He had a psychologist as head of school. It was financed from the profits from his stock market trading. The Malting House schol came into being. It was an infant school for children aged 2 to 7 years. It’s first location was at Pyke’s home. His wife supported her husband’s ideas. Soon it moved into the Maltings in Newham Road. It was a scientific school. The pupils were thought of as little assistant scientists.Its philosophy was based on the theories of John Dewey. Pyke recruited a psychologist called Susan Sutherland Issaacs to run the school. He promised that she would have full reign on running the school and that he would not interfere but in due course he did. The school focused on individual development of the children. They had a lot of freedom to develop an enquiring mind to find out for themselves. The children were not forces to learn any specific subject. The children were supported rather than punished or reprimanded. It was a pioneering institution and many educationalists visited the school. It was the subject of a film documentary.
The school only lasted 3 years. Despite promising not to interfere with the running of the school he did which resulted in the resignation of Susan Isaacs. It closed in 1927 when Georffey Pyke went bankrupt.
Pyke's son David recalls attending the school. He was psychoanalyzed by Melanie Klein. David went on to work in medicine where he became an expert in the understanding and treatment of diabetes. David was born in 1921 and died in 2001.
Pyke was horrified with the rise of NAZI Germany. He was especially disturbed when he learned that Hitler was mobilizing Germany's scientific community to prove the pernicious character of Jews and the diseases Jews suposedly carried. As a result any German academic or scientist was offered a sure fire method of obtaining Government funding. German scientist was significantly affected. One result was that nuclear physics became known in Germany as Jewish phsysics. The result was that atomic energy, the one technology that could have guaranteed a NAZI victory, did not obtain the priority it waranted. To show how little understood Hitler was at the time , Pyke actually conceived a plan to carry out public opinion polling in Germany and convey the results to Hitler to show him how wrong he was.
The British mobilized their scintists and inventors in World War II as they had in World War I. Pyke had pacifist orientations, but despised the NAZIs. Prime-Minister Churchill took a special interest in the ideas of scintists and inventirs. Pyke was not a scientist, but he was an inventor intereted in science. He had all kinds of idea. He was the inventive mind behind Pykrete which during World War II was an idea for building inexpensive, unsinkable aircraft carriers. Britain had lost several carriers. And the idea of unsinkable crriers guarding convoys in the North Atlantic picked the interest of Prime-Minister Churchill. Pycrete was sawdust infused icebergs. They were never built, but Lord Mountbattan at the First Quebec Confrence (August 1943) almost took out the Allied High Command when he fired pistol rounds into a block of Pykrete to demonstrate its indistructability. He proved his point, but the bullets wizzig around the confrence room could have taken out top Allied commandrs who were very much destructable. The Allied conferences were often quite heated, but this was the only time a gun was fired.
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