Act 1: Two Teachers
Two Teachers, Two Philosophies
Act 1 of The History Boys establishes the play’s central dramatic conflict through two radically different teachers. Hector has been teaching the boys for years, filling their heads with poetry, songs, and scenes from old films. His lessons have no syllabus, no exam focus, and no apparent purpose beyond the sheer joy of learning. Into this world steps Irwin, a young supply teacher hired by the Headmaster with one mission: get these boys into Oxford or Cambridge.
The collision between Hector and Irwin is not simply a personality clash. It is a debate about the purpose of education itself. Hector teaches for enrichment; Irwin teaches for results. Bennett forces the audience to weigh these approaches against each other throughout the play, and neither emerges as wholly right or wholly wrong.
Hector’s “general studies” lessons include reciting poetry (Hardy, Larkin, Housman), re-enacting scenes from films (Brief Encounter, Now, Voyager), singing songs, and debating ideas. None of this is on any syllabus. Hector calls it “passing the parcel” — handing on the things that matter.
Hector’s General Studies
Hector’s teaching is chaotic, passionate, and deeply personal. When Posner recites Thomas Hardy’s Drummer Hodge to him alone late in Act 1, Hector is visibly moved: “The best moments in reading are when you come across something — a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things — which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else.” This is Hector’s educational philosophy distilled: literature creates a private connection between reader and text, a moment of recognition that cannot be examined or graded.
The boys respond to Hector with genuine affection. They know his lessons are eccentric — they call him “an anachronism” — but they participate willingly because his enthusiasm is infectious. When Posner and Scripps perform the Brief Encounter scene in English, with Scripps at the piano, it is simultaneously comic and touching: the knowledge is useless in any practical sense, but the act of performing it together creates a bond. Hector’s classroom is a space of communal experience, not individual competition.
Hector describes his teaching as passing the parcel: “Pass the parcel. That’s sometimes all you can do. Take it, feel it, and pass it on.” This metaphor reveals several things. First, Hector sees himself as part of a chain — he received literature and culture from his own teachers, and he is handing it on. Second, the knowledge is not for anything — it exists to be passed on, not used. Third, he hands it on for people he will never meet, which suggests a kind of cultural immortality: the poems and songs will outlive all of them.
This is deeply moving, but Bennett also invites the audience to question it. Is Hector really passing on knowledge, or is he imposing his own tastes? Dakin later suggests that Hector’s teaching is “just literature,” dismissing it as irrelevant to the exam. The audience must decide whether Hector’s approach is noble idealism or impractical nostalgia.
Irwin’s Arrival
Irwin’s entrance is engineered by the Headmaster, who sees the boys’ good A-level results as an opportunity for institutional prestige. The Headmaster wants polish, results, and institutional prestige: he tells Irwin to “pull us up the table”. Irwin’s job is to teach the boys contrarian thinking — how to take an unexpected angle on a historical question to impress Oxbridge interviewers.
Irwin’s first lesson is a masterclass in performance. He tells the boys that their essays are “dull” and “competent” — exactly what every other candidate will write. To stand out, they must argue against the obvious. On the dissolution of the monasteries, he suggests they argue it was actually a good thing. The boys are initially sceptical, but they quickly see that Irwin’s approach is thrilling in its audacity — even if it sometimes means defending the indefensible.
Irwin teaches how to argue, not what to believe. His method is performative: take the unexpected position, use evidence selectively, and dazzle the examiner. This directly opposes Hector, who teaches students to feel literature, not to perform cleverness. The contrast is between sincerity (Hector) and strategy (Irwin).
The Headmaster’s Obsession
The Headmaster is the play’s most obviously satirical character. He is a philistine who cannot understand what Hector teaches because he cannot measure it. He tells Hector: “I’m thinking of shelf, Hector. Shelf and display.” Education, for the Headmaster, is a product to be packaged and presented. His obsession with Oxbridge places is not about the boys’ intellectual development — it is about the school’s reputation, its position in the league tables, and his own career.
Bennett uses the Headmaster as a comic figure, but the comedy has a sharp edge. When the Headmaster says “I am reluctant to countenance the presentation of history as entertainment,” the irony is that he is perfectly happy to present education as entertainment — as long as it sells the school. His inability to see value in Hector’s teaching anticipates his later eagerness to sack Hector when the abuse is revealed: the Headmaster has been looking for an excuse to get rid of a teacher whose results he cannot quantify.
Notice how the Headmaster consistently uses the language of business rather than education. He talks about “results,” “selling points,” “shelf,” and “display.” He describes the boys getting into Oxbridge as “a service the school provides.” This vocabulary reveals that he sees education as a commodity and students as products. Bennett satirises the way Thatcher’s reforms encouraged schools to think like businesses, competing for customers rather than nurturing learners.
The Headmaster also uses euphemism and circumlocution when discussing Hector’s inappropriate behaviour, referring to it as “the odd grope” — minimising it when it suits him, then weaponising it when he needs Hector removed. His language is always strategic, never sincere, which makes him a dark mirror of Irwin.