Sooner or later this suggestion was certain to be made. It appeared, first of all, in an unsigned letter addressed to one of the evening papers. The writer of the letter was almost certainly one of the suffering class. He began by setting forth the situation, as I have described it above, quite simply and truly. He showed, as I have shown, that the Professions and the Services were closed to those who had no money. And he advanced for the first time the audacious proposal that they should be thrown open to all on the simple condition of passing an examination. 'This examination,' he said, 'may be made as severe as can be desired or devised. There is no examination so severe that the students of our Polytechnics cannot face and pass it triumphantly. Let the examination, if you will, be intended to admit none but those who have taken or can take first-class Honours. The Poly students need not fear to face a standard even so high as this. Why should the higher walks of life be reserved for those who have money to begin with? Why should money stand in the way of honour? Among the thousands of young men who have profited by the opportunities offered to them there must be some who are born to be lawyers; some who are born to be doctors; some who are born to be preachers; some who are born to be administrators.' And so on, at length. It was not, however, by a letter in a paper, or by the leading articles and the correspondence which followed that the suggested change was effected. But the idea was started. It was talked about; it grew as the pressure increased it grew more and more. Meetings were held at which violent speeches were delivered: the question of opening the Professions was declared of national importance; at the General Election which followed some months after the appearance of the letter, members were returned who were pledged to promote the immediate throwing open of all the Professions to all who could pass a certain examination; and the first step was taken in opening all commissions in the Army to competitive examination.
The Professions, however, remained obstinate. Law and Medicine refused to make the least concession. It was not until an Act of Parliament compelled them that the Inns of Court, the Law Institute, the Colleges of Physicians, Surgeons, and Apothecaries consented to admit all-comers without fees and by examination alone.
Then followed such a rush into the Professions as had never before been witnessed. Already too full, they became at once absolutely congested and choked. Every other man was either a doctor or a solicitor. It was at first thought that by making examinations of the greatest severity possible the rush might be arrested. But this proved impossible, for the simple reason that an examination for admission, necessarily a mere 'pass' examination, must be governed and limited by the intellect of the average candidate. Moreover, in Medicine, if too severe an examination is proposed, the candidate sacrifices actual practice and observation in the Hospital wards to book-work. Therefore the examinations remained much as they always had been, and all the clever lads from all the Polytechnics became, in an incredibly short time, members of the Learned Professions.
There can be no doubt that the Bench and the Bar, that Medicine and Surgery, owe to the emancipation of the Professions many of their noblest members. Great names occur to every one which belong to this and that Polytechnic, and are written on the walls in letters of gold as an encouragement to succeeding generations. One would not go back to the old state of things. At the same time there were losses and there are regrets. So great, for instance, was the competition in Medicine that the sixpenny General Practitioner established himself everywhere, even in the most fashionable quarters; so numerous were solicitors that the old system of a recognised tariff was swept away and gave place to open competition as in trade. That the two branches of the law should be fused into one was inevitable; that the splendid incomes formerly derived from successful practice should disappear was also a matter of course. And there were many who regretted not only the loss of the old professional rules and the old incomes, but also 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 found, but by far the greater part of the Peers were of yesterday. Nor could the House be kept up at all but for new creations. They were made from rich trade or from the Law, the latter conferring respect and dignity upon the House. But lawyers could no longer be made Peers. They were rough in manners, and they had no longer great incomes. Moreover, the nation demanded that its honours should be equally bestowed upon all those who rendered service to the State, and all were poor. Now a House of poor Lords is absurd. Equally absurd is a House of Lords all brewers. Hence the fall of the House of Lords was certain. In the year 1924 it was finally abolished.
In the next chapter I propose to relate what followed this rush into the Professions. We have seen how the grant of the higher education to working lads caused the Conquest of the Professions and brought about the change I have indicated. We have seen how this revolution was bound to sweep away in its course the last relics of the old aristocratic constitution of the country. It remains to be told how learning, when it became the common possession of all clever lads, ceased to be a possession by which money could be made, except by the very foremost. Then the boys went back to their trades. If the reign of the gentleman is over, the learning and the power and culture that has belonged to the gentleman now belongs to the craftsman. This, at least, must be admitted to be pure gain. For one man who read and studied and thought one hundred years ago, there are now a thousand. Editions of good books are now issued by a hundred thousand at a time. The Professions are still the avenues to honours. Still, as before, the men whom the people respect are the followers of science, the great Advocate the great Preacher, the great Engineer, the great Surgeon, the great Dramatist, the great Novelist, the great Poet. That the national honours no longer take the form of the Peerage will not, I think, at this hour, be admitted to be a subject for regret by even the stanchest Conservative.
[1893.]