A Catholic Public School in the making: Beaumont College during the Rectorate of the reverend Joseph M. Bampton, S.J. (1901-1908): his implementation of the "Captain" system of discipline

• Autores: Bernardo Rodríguez Caparrini
• Localización: Paedagogica Historica: International journal of the history of education, ISSN 0030-9230, Vol. 39, Nº. 6, 2003, págs. 737-757
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • This article traces the rectorate of Fr. Joseph M. Bampton, S.J. at St. Stanislaus' College (or �Beaumont College�), a Jesuit boarding school for boys opened in 1861 near Windsor (Berkshire, England). Although Bampton did not succeed to a flourishing school (the number of students was then extremely small), his term of office (1901�1908) was so productive that Beaumont received recognition as a public school with the admission of its Rector to the Headmasters' Conference (HMC) in 1906. Several factors which made this recognition possible, and which Beaumont shared with its Protestant counterparts (Eton was only a few miles upstream on the other side of the Thames), are analysed: character formation, athleticism, scholarship, Oxford and Cambridge links, leadership, gentry aspirations, intimacy with aristocracy and royalty, and military spirit. Prominent among them (and of special relevance in this study), is Bampton's introduction of the �Captain� system of discipline, or government of boys by boys, as opposed to the age-long Jesuit system of strict and �ceaseless� boy supervision by masters of discipline or prefects. The latter was the method pursued at Stonyhurst (Lancashire), the �doyen� of the Jesuit colleges in England, and also at the sister educational establishments of France and Spain. The practice of surveillance in French and Spanish colleges run by the Society of Jesus also receives its due share of attention. At once, Bampton's method invites comparison with the reforms introduced by Thomas Arnold (1795�1842) at Rugby in the 1830s. Like Arnold, Fr. Bampton had to face opposition from his community, but his strong will and determination enabled him to pass on to his successor a school restored to its former prosperity. By the 1920s, the �Captain� system of discipline had become a Beaumont tradition which was copied even by Stonyhurst, for so long the sanctuary of Jesuit orthodoxy. For the explanation of Bampton's scheme, �revolutionary� in a Jesuit college, both unpublished material written in the Rector's own hand and the expository articles from his pen which appeared in The Beaumont Review, the school magazine, have been drawn upon. An Appendix at the end of the article gives the names of all the Beaumont Captains between 1901 and 1908.