Peter's education in historical context

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

In the event anybody is curious (or is able to expand on and/or correct anything I say here), I learned some history today.

We all know that during VDT, Peter went to Professor Kirke's cottage for tutoring so he could prep for entrance exams. During my first read through the Chronicles, I decided Peter was 14/15 in LWW. Thus, he was (in my mind) 16/17 in VDT. Made sense to me because I naturally am familiar with the schooling system of my present day and country, and entrance exams for post-secondary education at that age is normal for me. (When I later found out that Peter is canonically 12 in LWW, I willfully ignored it. I’m the type of reader who requires information like age and appearance early, and once I have a mental image firmly set in my head, I can be pretty inflexible about correcting said notion. I saw no reason why LWW Peter and Susan shouldn’t be in the 13-15 range, so that is how I perceived them, and anyway, I don’t think that perceiving them as a couple years older is really an issue… until something like WWII British education becomes a topic of interest.)

Somewhat to my surprise, though it really shouldn’t have been because of course Lewis knew what he was writing about, I found my long-time willful assumption of Peter’s age to be truly wrong. From what I can see from a not-super-in-depth look at pre-1944 British education (because VDT is in 1942, and 1944 saw some changes made to the system after the war), compulsory education covered ages 5-14. Peter, canonically, is exactly at the end of this range. Society deemed him mature enough to enter the world, at least to the extent of being employed full-time.

However, I can’t seem to find anything about post-secondary education from that time, at least, not anything pertaining to things like entrance exams or accepted ages or whether one had to go to a different type of post-secondary school before university. Does anyone know anything about that side of Peter's entrance exams?

[marmota-b]

I have no idea at the moment, but would learning about Lewis' own pre-college tutoring help, or would that have been too different at his time?

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

Hmm, I’m not sure! I don’t recall reading anything about significant system changes between 1900 and 1944, but I’d have to check.

[hobbit_of_narnia]

I know Lewis went to boarding school and then was tutored...I'd have to reread the biography to remember all the details because the bits I do remember (he was bullied at school, his tutor was the reason he was an atheist for a while, etc.) don't really help us out here.

[knightofnarnia]

The real question is how education might have changed in Britain between 1910's (when Lewis was schooled) and 1940's once we know the answer to that we will know how to answer the question of Peter's education however about that question I don't know the answer.