n service.
The fact is that a new class distinction has in a measure taken the
place of the old, a distinction which has nothing to do with blood or
with money, but solely with service. The nation is graded, not in
degrees of social importance but in degrees of capacity for service. The
only superiority is one of sacrifice. And each grade takes its hat off
to the other on the equal standing ground of an all pervading
patriotism. The only social competition is not in getting but in giving.
National advantage takes the place of personal profit, and there is a
sense of neighbourliness such as Britain has not experienced for many a
long day, possibly for many a long century.

The supreme problem before us, I take it, is how to conserve this
relationship and carry it over from the day of war to the day of peace.
To do it will call for just that same spirit of sacrifice and service
which is its own most predominant characteristic.

For one thing we must be quite definitely prepared in every section of
society for a new way of life. From the economic point of view this will
mean that the rich will be less rich, and the poor will be enabled to
lead a larger life. Already the wealthy classes have been learning to
live a simple life, and to substitute the service of the country for
their own personal enjoyment. A serious call will come to them to
continue in that state of life when the war is over. In some degree at
least the pressure of the financial burden which the nation will have to
bear will compel them to do so.

To the workers too in the same way the call will come to a new and more
worthy way of life. I am thinking now of the workers at home who have
been earning unprecedented wages, and thereby in many cases are already
assaying a larger life. They will be reluctant to give this up, but only
a gradual redistribution of wealth can make it permanent. It is not of
course merely or mainly a matter of wages. The only real enlargement of
life is spiritual. It is an affair of the mind and the soul.

The more we bring a true education within reach of the workers the more
will there arise that sense of real kinship which only equality of
education can adequately guarantee.

And speaking at Cambridge one cannot refrain from remarking that the
University itself will have to submit to a considerable re-adjustment of
its life if it is to be a pioneer in this intellectual comradeship of
which I speak. A University may be a nurse