As We Are and As We May Be - Walter Besant (most recommended books txt) 📗

apprehensions among their poorer brethren. We can trace, easily enough, the progress and growth of charity. It begins at home, with anxiety for one's own soul first, and the souls of one's children next. Charities give way to doles; doles are succeeded by almshouses; these again by charity schools. The present generation has begun to understand that the truest charity consists in throwing open the doors to honest effort, and in helping those who help themselves. Else what is the meaning of technical schools? What else mean the classes at the People's Palace, the Polytechnic, the Evening Recreation Schools, and the City of London Guilds Institute?

I believe that a conviction of the new truer charity, and of the futility of the old modes, is destined to sink deeper and deeper into men's hearts, until our working classes will perhaps fall into the extreme in unforgiving hardness towards those whom unthrift, profligacy, idleness, have brought to want. But with this conviction is growing up the absolute necessity of more technical schools and better industrial training. We want to make our handicraftsmen better than any foreigners. More than that, there are some who say that the very existence of the United Kingdom as a Power depends upon our doing this. Can we afford any longer to keep up, at a yearly loss of all the power represented by ten thousand pounds a year, that house of Shams and Shadows which we call by the name of the ancient and venerable Hospital of St. Katherine's by the Tower?



THE UPWARD PRESSURE:

A PROPHETIC CHAPTER FROM THE 'HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY'


The most striking part of the great Social Revolution which was witnessed by the earlier years of the twentieth century was the event which preceded that Revolution, made it possible, and moulded it; namely, the Conquest of the Professions by the people. Happily it was a Conquest achieved without exciting any active opposition; it advanced unnoticed, step by step, and it was unsuspected, as regards its real significance, until the end was inevitable and visible to all. It is my purpose in this Chapter, first to show what was the position of the mass of the nation before this event, as regards the Professions; and next to relate briefly the successive events which led to the Conquest, and so prepared the way for the abolition of all that was then left of the old aristocratic regime.

Speaking in general terms--the exceptions shall be noted afterward--the Professions during the whole of the nineteenth century were jealously barred and closed in and fenced round. Admission, in theory, could only be obtained by young men of gentle birth and good breeding. Not that there was any expressed rule to that effect. It was not written over the gateway of Lincoln's Inn that none but gentlemen were to be admitted, nor was it ever stated in any book or paper that none but gentlemen were to be called. But, as you will be shown immediately, the barring of the gate against the lad of humble origin was quite as effectually accomplished without any law, mule, or regulation whatever.

The professional avenues of distinction which, early in the twentieth century, were only three or four, had, by the end of the century, been multiplied tenfold by the birth or creation of new Professions. Formerly a young man of ambition might go into tho Church, into one of the two services, into the Law, or into Medicine. He might also, if he were a country gentleman, go into the House of Commons. At the end of the century the professional career included, besides these, all the various branches of Science, all the forms of Art, all the divisions of Literature, Music, Architecture, the Drama, Engineering, Teaching, Archaeology, Political Economy, and, in fact, every conceivable subject to which the mind of man can worthily devote itself.

In all these branches there were great--in some, very great--prizes to be obtained; prizes not always of money, but of honour: in some of them the prizes included what was considered the greatest of all rewards--a Peerage. The country, indeed, was already beginning to insist that the national distinctions should be bestowed upon all those--and only upon those--who rendered real services to the State. One poet had been made a Peer. One man of science had been made a Privy Councillor, and another a Peer; two painters had been made baronets; and the humble distinction of Knight Bachelor, which had been tossed contemptuously to city sheriffs, provincial mayors, and undistinguished persons who used back-stairs influence to get the title, was now brought into better consideration by being shared by a few musicians, engineers, physicians, and others. Nothing could more clearly show the real contempt in which literature and science were held in an aristocratic country than that, although there were a dozen degrees of peerage and half a dozen orders of knighthood, there was not one order reserved for men of science, literature, and art. Feeble protests from time to time were made against this absurdity, but in the end it proved useful, because the chief argument against the continuance of titles of honour in the great debate on the subject, in the year 1920, was the fact that all through the nineteenth century the men who most deserved the thanks and recognition of the State were (with the exception of soldiers and lawyers) absolutely neglected by the Court and the House of Lords.

Let us consider by what usages, rather than by what rules, the Professions were barred to the people. In the Church a young man could not be ordained under the age of twenty-three. Nor would the Bishop ordain him, as a rule, unless he was a graduate of Oxford or Cambridge. This meant that he was to stay at school, and that a good school, till the age of nineteen; that he was then to devote four years more to carrying on his studies in a very expensive manner; in other words, that he must be able to spend at least a thousand pounds before he could obtain Orders, and that he would then receive pay at a much lower rate than a good carpenter or engine-driver.

At the Bar it was the custom for a man to enter his name after leaving the University: he would then be called at five or six-and-twenty. A young man must be able to keep himself until that age, and even longer, because a lawyer's practice begins slowly. There were also very heavy dues on entrance and on being called. In plain terms, no young man could enter at the Bar who did not possess or command, at least, a thousand pounds.

In the lower branch of the law a young man might, it is true, be admitted at twenty-one. But he had to pay a heavy premium for his articles, and large fees both at entrance and on passing the examination which admitted him. Not much less, therefore, including his maintenance, than a thousand pounds would be required of him before he began to make anything for himself. A medical man, even one who only desired to become a general practitioner, had to work through a five years' course, with hospital fees. Like the solicitor, he might qualify for about a thousand pounds.

In all the new Professions, chemistry, physics, biology, zoology, geology, botany, and the other branches of science, engineering, mining, surveying, assying, architecture, actuary work--everything--long a apprenticeship was needed with special studies in costly colleges.

In Teaching, he who aspired to the more distinguished branches had no chance at all, unless he was a graduate in the highest honours of Oxford and Cambridge.

In the Arts--painting, sculpture, music--long practice, devoted study, and exclusive thought were essential.

The Civil Service was divided into two branches, both open to competitive examination. The higher branch attracted first-class men of Oxford and Cambridge; the lower, clever and well-taught men from the Middle Class Schools. But the latter could not pass into the former.

In the Army, the only branch in which a man could live upon his pay was the scientific branch, open to anybody who could compete in a very stiff examination after a long and very expensive course of study, and could pay L200 a year for two or three years after entrance. In the other branches of the services, a young lieutenant could not live upon his pay.

In the Navy the examinations were frequent and severe, while the pay was very small.

The barrier, therefore, which kept the Professions in the hands of the upper classes was a simple tollgate. At the toll stood a man. 'Come,' he said, holding out an inexorable palm. 'With an education which has cost you already a thousand pounds, be ready to pay down another thousand more. Then you shall be admitted among the ranks of those for whom are reserved the highest prizes of the State--viz., Authority, Honour, and Wealth.'

It is apparent, then, that no one could enter the Professions who had no money. No need to write up 'None but the sons of gentlemen may apply.' Very many sons of gentlemen, in fact, had to turn away sorrowfully after gazing with wistful eyes upon that ladder which they knew that they, too, could climb, as well as a Denman or an Erskine. As for the sons of poor parents, they could not so much as think of the ladder: they hardly knew that it existed: they cared nothing about it. As well sigh for the Lord Mayor's gilt carriage and four, or the Field Marshal's baton. No poor lad could aspire to the Professions at all. In other words, out of a population of thirty-seven millions, or eight millions of families, the way of distinction was open only to the young man belonging to the half million families--perhaps less--who could expend upon their son's education a thousand pounds apiece.

Nor for a long time was the exclusion felt or even recognised. He who wished to rise out of the working class either became a small master of his own trade, or else he opened a small shop of some kind. But he did not aspire to become a physician or a barrister or a clergyman. And it never occurred to him that such a career could be open to him.

But as happened every day, such a man had got on in the world and was ambitious for his son, he made him a doctor or a solicitor, these being the two Professions which cost least--or perhaps he made him a mechanical engineer, though it might cost a good deal more. Perhaps if the boy was clever, he managed to send him to the University with the intention of getting him ordained. Such was the first upward step in gentility--first, to become a master instead of a servant; then, to belong to a profession rather than a trade. Always, however, one had to settle with the man at the toll.

He was inexorable. 'Pay down,' he said, 'a thousand pounds if you would be admitted within this bar.'

The young man, therefore, whose father worked for wages, or for a small salary, or in a small way of trade, could not so much as dream of entering any of the Professions. They were as much closed to him as the gates of Paradise. But during the nineteenth century a new Profession was created, and this was open to him. This they could not close. It had already grown went and strong before they thought of closing it. It was open to the poor man's son. He went into it. And with the help of it, as with a key, he opened all the rest. You shall understand immediately what this was.