There are always sad farewells at the end of the Summer Term, not only to the boys, but also the staff. We are very sorry to be losing Mr. Bye.

Capt. Walter Bye

Mr Bye joined the staff in 1914, but on the outbreak of war he joined the University and Public Schools Brigade of the Royal Fusiliers. After his training with them, he took up a commission with the Royal West Surreys. He returned to us at the OPS last year as Capt. Bye DSO MC and he has shown himself to be an excellent schoolmaster and housemaster. He has taken the top mathematical set during the year, and has carried out some systematic science teaching, with most satisfactory results.

General Science lessons have been given on Thursday evenings to the boys in the upper part of the School, and I think this innovative action in the School curriculum has been quite justified, in spite of the fact that some boys have missed a small amount of Classical Prep!

That some form of Scientific teaching is necessary is to my mind a settled fact. It can, at least, cater to some extent for the intense natural curiosity about ‘things of everyday’ with which these boys of 12-14 come into constant and immediate contact. It can also attempt to give them some slight appreciation of the greatness of Science in modern life, and to give them some idea of what the great men of Science have done for everybody’s comfort and health. The pre-existing state of affairs has been that boys are well able to write five lines or so on such historical celebrities as Lambert Simnel, Perkin Warbeck etc, but not one line could they have supplied on such men as Galileo, Faraday, Newton, Kelvin or Crookes…

The following are some of the subjects with which Mr Bye has dealt in broad outline: the Atmosphere and Atmospheric Pressure, Water, Combustion, some of the fundamental principles of Electricity and Magnetism, Radio-activity, Liquid Air, X-rays and the Solar System.

Mr Bye has been appointed Headmaster of Thame Grammar School, and we wish him good luck.