Societies
At Eton, there are dozens of organisations known as 'societies', in many of which pupils come together to discuss a particular topic, presided over by a master, and often including a guest speaker. Some societies are dedicated solely to music, some to religion, some to languages, and so on. Among past guest speakers are Andrew Lloyd Webber, J. K. Rowling, Vivienne Westwood, Ian McKellen, Kevin Warwick, Boris Johnson, Rowan Atkinson, Ralph Fiennes, Terry Wogan, King Constantine II of Greece, Katie Price, Zoe Wanamaker, Boris Berezovsky and Kit Hesketh-Harvey.
Read more about this topic: Eton College
Famous quotes containing the word societies:
“There is no human failure greater than to launch a profoundly important endeavour and then leave it half done. This is what the West has done with its colonial system. It shook all the societies in the world loose from their old moorings. But it seems indifferent whether or not they reach safe harbour in the end.”
—Barbara Ward (1914–1981)
“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modelled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators. Even the lonely savage, who lies exposed to the inclemency of the elements and the fury of wild beasts, forgets not, for a moment, this grand object of his being.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)