lso
the old professional _esprit de corps_--the old jealousy for the
honour and dignity of the profession: the old brotherhood. All this
was gone. Every man's hand was against his neighbour; advocates sent
in contracts for the job; the physicians undertook a case for so much;
the surgeon operated for a contract price; the usages of trade were
all transferred to the Professions.

As for the Services, the Navy remained an aristocratic body; boys were
received too young for the Polytechnic lads to have a chance; also,
the pay was too small to tempt them, and the work was too scientific.
In the Army a few appeared from time to time, but it cannot be said
that as officers the working-classes made a good figure. They were not
accustomed to command; they were wanting in the manners of the camp as
well as those of the court; they were neither polished enough nor
rough enough; the influence of the Poly might produce good soldier
obedient, high-principled, and brave; but it could not produce good
officers, who must be, to begin with, lads born in the atmosphere of
authority, the sons of gentlemen or the sons of officers. Yet even
here there were exceptions. Every one, for instance, will remember the
case of the general--once a Poly boy--who successfully defended Herat
against an overwhelming host of Russians in the year 1935.

It was not enough to throw open the Professions. Some there were in
which, whether they were thrown open or not, a new-comer without
family or capital or influence could never get any work. Thus it would
seem that Engineering was a profession very favourable to such
new-comers. It proved the contrary. All engineers in practice had
pupils--sons, cousins, nephews--to whom they gave their appointments.
To the new-comer nothing was given. What good, then, had been effected
by this revolution? Nothing but the crowding into the learned
Professions of penniless clever lads? Nothing but the destruction of
the old dignity and self-respect of Law and Medicine? Nothing but the
degradation of a Profession to the competition of trade?

Much more than this had been achieved. The Democratic movement which
had marked the nineteenth century received its final impulse from this
great change. Everyone knows that the House of Lords, long before the
end of that century, had ceased to represent the old aristocracy. The
old names were, for the most part, extinct. A Cecil, a Stanley, a
Howard, a Neville, a Bruce, might yet be f