of those who hold them.’  These scholarships, it was argued, had been founded for poor students, and belonged to them.  All the papers took up the question, and all, with one or two exceptions, were in favour of ‘restoring’—­that was the phrase—­’his scholarships’; ‘his,’ it was said, assuming that they were his originally—­to the poor man.  In vain was it pointed out that these scholarships had been for the most part founded in recent times when public schools and universities had long become the property of the richer class, and that they were needed as aids for those who were not rich, not as means of maintenance for those who wanted to rise out from one class into another.

The cry was raised at the General Election; the majority came into power pledged to the hilt to restore his scholarships to the poor student.  Then, of course, a compromise was effected.  There was created a class of scholarships at certain public schools for which candidates had to produce evidence that they possessed nothing, and that their parents would not assist them.  Similar scholarships were created at Oxford and Cambridge, out of existing revenues, and it was hoped that concessions opening all the advantages that the public schools and universities had to give would prove sufficient.  By this time the country was fully awakened to the danger of having thrown upon their hands a great class of young men who thought themselves too well educated for any of the lower kinds of work, and were too numerous for the only work open to them.  No one, as yet, it must be remembered, had ventured to propose throwing open the Professions.

The concessions were found, however, to make very little difference.  Now and then a lad with a scholarship forced his way to the head of a public school, and carried off the highest honours at the University.  Mostly, however, the poor scholar was uncomfortable; he could neither speak, nor think, nor behave like his fellows; the atmosphere chilled him; too often he failed to justify the early promise; if he succeeded in getting a ‘poor’ scholarship at college, he too often ended his University career with second-class Honours, which were of no use to him at all, and so he was again face to face with the question:  What to do?  His college would not continue to support him.  He could not get a mastership in a good school because there was a prejudice against ‘poor’ scholars, who were supposed incapable of acquiring the manners of a gentleman.  So he, too, fell back upon the only outlet, and tried to become a journalist.

Every day the pressure increased; the pay of the journalist went down; work could be got for next to nothing, and still the lads poured into the classes by the thousand, all hoping to exchange the curse of labour by their hands for that of labour by the pen.  No one as yet had perceived the great truth which has so enormously increased the happiness of our time that all labour is honourable and respectable, though to some kinds of labour we assign greater, and some lesser, honour.  The one thought was to leave the ranks of the working man.