Words by WSC Reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown, London on behalf of the Estate of Sir
Winston Churchill Copyright © Winston S. Churchill
Was WSC hindered or advanced by his education?
His first school at Ascot was quite brutal. The second school in Brighton was gentle but not
particularly academically challenging. At Harrow WSC did not necessarily cover himself in glory and
struggled in his Latin and Maths lessons. The Head Master, Mr Welldon gave WSC extra Latin lessons
but these lessons did not improve matters. WSC commented later when writing about his education
that ‘Mr Welldon seemed to be physically pained by a mistake being made.’ WSC did however show
an aptitude for History and English Literature. He also had an excellent memory. At school he was at
times in trouble and also perhaps lonely. He had a small speech impediment and had trouble saying
the letter S. At Harrow WSC was placed in the army form. This seemed logical as he was interested in
the military. Unfortunately it took WSC 3 attempts to gain at place at Sandhurst. He went to
Sandhurst in September 1893.
‘I was what grown-up people in their offhand way called a ‘troublesome boy.’ WSC
WSC ‘Personally I am always willing to learn although I do not always like being taught.’
WSC considered History to be one of the most important topics that is taught in schools. ‘The farther
backward you can look the farther forward you are likely to see.’
In October 1896 WSC went as a member of the 4th Hussars to India. Once there he launched himself
on a rigorous reading programme to make up for what he saw as deficiencies in his education. His
mother sent him many books. The first books she sent were the many volumes by Gibbon entitled
‘The decline and fall of the Roman Empire.’ She then sent out at his request several volumes by
Macaulay. WSC also read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species’
and Henry Hallam’s ‘The constitutional history of England.’ WSC then had his mother send him 27
volumes of the Annual Register. These he read and summarised and even commented on and in so
doing gained an exceptional knowledge of Parliamentary business going back to the time of Disraeli.
‘I am all for public schools, but I do not want to go there again.’ 1930 WSC
‘…by being so long in the lowest form [at Harrow] I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer
boys … I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence – which is a noble
thing…’ 1930 WSC
‘Hitler, in one of his recent discourses, declared that the fight was between those who have been
through the Adolf Hitler schools and those who have been at Eton. Hitler has forgotten Harrow.’
WSC 1940
‘When I am in the Socratic mood and planning my Republic, I make drastic changes in the education
of the sons of well to do citizens. When they are 16 or 17 they begin to learn a craft and to do
manual labour, with plenty of poetry, songs, dancing, drill and gymnastics in their spare time. They
can thus let off steam on something useful. It is only when they are really thirsty for knowledge,
longing to hear about things that I would let them go to university.’ From his book ‘my early life’
1930
WSC loved books and had this advice for those who had a library ‘If you cannot read all your books
at any rate ... fondle them, peer into them, let them fall open where they will, set them back on the
shelf with your own hands’