Retrospective essay · October 2025. Written in November 2026. This is a thematic reflection, not a report originally published in that month.
There is a familiar temptation in schools with a history: to mistake the photograph of a tradition for the tradition itself. The old team picture is framed; the school song is printed; the motto appears on a new website. These things have their place. They cannot do the work of living people.
The labour of inheritance
A choir continues because someone teaches breathing, listens to a difficult passage again and persuades the late arrival to care about the rehearsal. A library continues because books are chosen, repaired, read and discussed. Inheritance entails work, much of it rather ordinary. The adjective traditional should make a school more conscientious about that work.
Why explanations matter
Children deserve to know why a custom is kept. A thoughtful explanation need not drain it of mystery. Explain the school’s patron saint, the words of a prayer or the reason for a ceremony, and the pupil gains a way of entering it. He may later deepen, question or renew that understanding. Mere compulsory familiarity gives him much less.
A living judgement
Age alone cannot make a practice good. An institution can inherit laziness or an unkind habit as readily as courtesy. Christian fidelity requires judgement: what expresses truth and charity, what needs repair, and what ought to cease? A school that cannot ask those questions has confused loyalty with timidity.
Handing on
The real test of tradition comes when an older pupil shows a younger one how something is done. If he does it patiently, and can explain why it matters, the inheritance has acquired another custodian. We should certainly preserve the photographs. We should also see that there is something worth photographing next year.
Editorial draft for review. This journal is edited by Ferdi McDermott, Headmaster of Chavagnes International College; that connection is declared where the school is discussed.
