An original and stimulating contribution to the history of public schools, educational ideologies and secondary education.

Prologue; Part I: The growth of the ideology; 1. Reformation, indifference and liberty; 2. Licence, antidote and emulation; 3. Idealism, idealists and rejection; 4. Compulsion, conformity and allegiance; Part II: The forces of ideological consolidation; 5. Conspicuous resources, anti-intellectualism and sporting pedagogues; 6. Oxbridge fashions, complacent parents and imperialism; 7. Fez, 'blood' and hunting crop: the symbols and rituals of a Spartan culture; 8. Play up and play the game: the rhetoric of cohesion, identity, patriotism and morality; Epilogue.