It gets mentioned when they meet up with the people from the school. They mention that Hailsham was an experiment to try a gentler way but that the country had moved on and went with a “different approach.” I don’t think they came right out and described the horrors of it (because like everything in that book it was just alluded to in gentle language), but my imagination had no trouble putting a disturbing picture together.

One of the main reasons why art was pushed so hard at their school was that the founders were trying to prove they have souls, proving that they should be treated like humans rather than like livestock.