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.

I have spoken of certain exceptions to this exclusion of the lower
classes. There were provided at the public schools and the
Universities scholarships founded for the purpose of enabling poor
lads to carry on their studies. 'The schools had long ceased to be the
property of the poor for whom they were designed: their scholarships,
mostly of recent foundation, were granted by competitive examination
to those boys who had already spent a large sum of money on
preliminary work. The scholarships of the colleges at Oxford and
Cambridge were also given by examination, without the least
consideration of the candidates' private resources. There was,
however, a chance that a poor lad might get one of these. If he did,
everything was open to him. The annals of the Universities contain
numberless instances in which lads from the lower mi