Howard Dean: The house prefect who would be President

[T_i_B]

Bloody hell, I live reasonably near Felstead! I didn't know he was a public schoolboy.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-923446,00.html

HOWARD DEAN, the frontrunner among Democrats vying for the United States presidency, has described how he spent a teenage year under the rigorous regime of a “cruel” English public school.
The former Vermont Governor won an English Speaking Union scholarship to Felsted School, near Great Dunmow in Essex, in the Sixties and he writes of his days there in his book Winning Back America.

“It was a great experience, but I found the restrictive reputation of English public schools to be well-earned,” Mr Dean writes. “I enjoyed the English dry sense of humour, but a British public school is pretty cruel and the rules are strict.”

Dr Dean says that he played rugby, but does not dwell on that experience. For him the best part of the year was the chance that it afforded him to travel to Tunisia, Corsica and Sardinia.

[maddezmom]

1. can't read

not a registered user. How long did he attend?

[T_i_B]

2. 1 year I think

Didn't say whether or not he sampled the ahem, delights of Chelmsford, where I live.

[hedda_foil]

4. He attended for a year ...

He graduated from High School at 17 and spent the next year at the public school in England before going on to college.

[Julien Sorel]

3. Such, such were the joys.

I thought he was a Bush-type 'gentlemen's scholar.' What's this about winning scholarships?

[wryter2000]

8. Scholarships?

How could a wealthy guy like him get scholarships? Maybe you're thinking of when he went to live back home and attend night school before going to medical school. Of course, "going to live back home" is a bit different for him than the rest of us.

Before someone smacks me, I'm a Deanie. He's never made any secret of his wealth. But, he's done something with his life, as opposed to Whistle Ass. (FDR was wealthy, too.)

[MGKrebs]

10. I'm pretty sure there are kinds of scholarships

that do not consider income. I don't think Rhodes scholars, for example, have any economic criteria for the applicants.

[PaDUer]

13. Scholarships are also based on

merit--BRAINS that whistleass doesn't have. :-)

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Live close? Bloody hell, I went to it!

Well after Dr. Dean, though. One thing I'd correct from the article:
"“Felsted was not a cruel place at all. I was certainly not cruel to him. We had stopped corporal punishment by then."
Bollocks. Corporal punishment, though rare, was only stopped in the early 80's (not that they told the pupils at once, of course. So while the new parents could be told that it had been banned, it still acted as a deterrent for a few months till we worked out no-one had been punished recently).

[KaraokeKarlton]

6. Dean's kids always went to public school here in Vermont

So what do you think about a presidential candidate attending the same public school you went to?

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Well, Felsted does have the distinction

of being one of only 2 schools in Britain to have educated an English Head of State. This was Richard Cromwell, the spectacularly unsuccessful son of Oliver Cromwell (the other one educated at school - all monarchs up to and including Elizabeth II have been tutored in the castle/palace). He's the 'Dick' of the 'Hickory Dickory Dock' nursery rhyme - 'the clock struck one, the mouse ran down' referring to his resignation as Lord Protector after just one year, because he was so bad at it. The monarchy was invited back instead.

The Cromwell Club mentioned in the article - the 3rd rubgy team - is named after him. I couldn't work out if that was self-deprecating humour (name your 3rd team, not the 1st, after the 'highest achieving' ex-pupil, because he was a failure) or not.

There was normally one North American exchange student each year, and normally they were good fun - Felsted was incredibly insular (it's in a village, and the rules were designed to keep you out of the nearest towns as much as possible), so a bit of an outside view on things always helped.

Maybe we need to dig up the 'Death of God' essay - his earliest policy position?

I say 'Go Dean' - just do better than Richard Cromwell!

[wryter2000]

9. Public school

Public school doesn't mean quite the same thing in England as it does here. Royalty and nobility attend public schools there.

[Zero Gravitas]

11. and also

many children of the middle classes and some poorer kids who can get scholarships.

[T_i_B]

15. Double bloody hell!

Talk about a small world! Whereabouts did you grow up? These days I live in Chelmsford & work in Maldon. Maldon is insular enough, nevermind the Felsteads & Black Notleys of this world.

And to think that George Washington's grandparents came from Maldon and $hrubya can trace his family tree back to Essex to boot. Just hope that none of your politicians start driving round in XR3i's with shit music on full blast.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. I actually grew up in Stevenage

so I'm not a true Essex boy. Not that Stevenage didn't have its share of XR3i's.

I've been wondering: I think that Felsted School still had compulsory Combined Cadet Force, ie playing at soldiers, in the mid 60's. Is it possible that Dean does have some military service after all? Or would Dean have had an exemption as a furriner?

[AP]

12. It's not an academic scholarship. It's 10 week summer program

to make connections between wealthy Americans and wealthy British kids.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. The article says he spent a year at Felsted

which is the normal practice - between leaving school and starting university. That would also fit with playing rugby, which is a winter game (September to December at Felsted).

The exchange student would be expected to be academically fairly good, at least, and needn't be wealthy; the one in my year was a Canadian who had been to a normal government-funded school, and wasn't 'wealthy', just 'average'.