David Cameron: The PM plays down his gentlemanliness for fear of sounding snobbish 

Who is the Dr Thomas Arnold of the comprehensive schools? There does not appear to be one. Socialists and egalitarians have an unshaken faith in the virtue of the comprehensive ideal. But they have failed to call forth the inspiring figure who could offer, in his or her own school, an elevated demonstration of the ideal put into practice. It is all very well to wear a T-shirt bearing a picture of a Latin American revolutionary, if anyone still does, but Che Guevara wasn't running a school. The socialists suffer from an acute shortage of constructive heroes, which is why the Soviet Union was reduced to inventing such ludicrous ones.

But this is not just a problem for socialists. As headmaster of Rugby from 1828 to 1841, Dr Thomas Arnold sought to instil "1st, religious and moral principles: 2ndly, gentlemanly conduct: 3rdly, intellectual ability." The new or revived public schools of the 19th century had all sorts of practical purposes, being designed to enable their pupils to pass the exams which permitted entry to various professions, and to provide an imperial ruling class. But the education they offered was saved from becoming aridly utilitarian because they were devoted to the formation of Christian gentlemen. One of the distinguishing marks of a gentleman was that he did things because he knew they were the right thing to do, not because they would bring him personal advantage. Captain Oates was a very gallant gentleman.

The idea of a gentleman was a more inclusive one than it sounds to modern ears. One of its greatest advantages was that you could define it so as to include yourself. You could behave like a gentleman, without possessing any of the social attributes which a gentleman might have: there was no need to possess a coat of arms, or a country estate, or engage in field sports, or wear evening dress. At least since Chaucer's time, there had been a distinction between the social meaning of the word, and the moral. It was evident that well-born people, who ought to know how to behave like gentlemen, did not always do so, while others sometimes did.

Philip Mason, whose perceptive study, The English Gentleman, was published in 1982, argues that "the desire to be a gentleman" runs through and illuminates English history from the time of Chaucer until the early 20th century. He suggests that "for most of the 19th century and until the Second World War" the idea of the gentleman "provided the English with a second religion, one less demanding than Christianity. It influenced their politics. It influenced their system of education; it made them endow new public schools and raise the status of old grammar schools. It inspired the lesser landed gentry as well as the professional and middle classes to give their children an upbringing of which the object was to make them ladies and gentlemen, even if only a few of them also became scholars."