"It is distinctly advantageous,"
he says, "that rich and poor--_i. e._, young men with a smooth path in
life before them, and those who have to hew out a road for
themselves--should be brought into association. Each class learns a
great deal from the other. On the one side, social conceit and
exclusiveness give way to the free spirit of competition amongst all
classes; on the other side, angularities and prejudices are rubbed
away." Even this I might have swallowed. But the paragraph concludes
with this extraordinary sentence: "We get the net result in such careers
as those of Lord Milner, Lord Curzon, and Mr. Asquith."
Those three names lay my intellect prostrate. The rest of the argument I
understand quite well. The social exclusiveness of aristocrats at Oxford
and Cambridge gives way before the free spirit of competition amongst
all classes. That is to say, there is at Oxford so hot and keen a
struggle, consisting of coal-heavers, London clerks, gypsies, navvies,
drapers' assistants, grocers' assistants--in short, all the classes that
make up the bulk of England--there is such a fierce competition at
Oxford among all these people that in its presence aristocratic
exclusiveness gives way.
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