If we imagine Victorian England without Oxford and Cambridge, what barrier can ...

If we imagine Victorian England without Oxford and Cambridge, what barrier can we see against an all-encroaching materialism and professionalism? Even in their alliance, their too close alliance, with the aristocracy there were elements of advantage.

The Clergyman was rarely an instructed theologian, but

he was not

a seminarist. The scholar growing up among men destined for a public career took some tincture of public interests; the Schoolmaster, the Barnster, the Politician, the Civil Servant, and the gentleman unclassified acquired the same double impress of culture and manners; and the Universities broke the fall of the aristocracy by civilizing the plutocracy.

The old Universities were fed by the public schools, and by the private tutor, commonly a clergyman; the preparatory schools for young boys were in existence, and one of them, Temple Grove at East Sheen, was famous.

Some details have been preserved of the life lived by the boys: hands, face, 'and perhaps the neck', were washed daily; feet once a fortnight, heads as required; a vernal dose of brimstone and treacle purified their blood, a half-yearly dentist drew their teeth, it was the custom under flogging to bite the Latin Grammar. Not a bad preparation, one may think, for Long Chamber, where boys of all ages were locked up from eight to eight 'and cries of joy and pain were alike unheard'. But the system was not yet stereotyped, and much education was still received at home or in the study of the neighboring rector.

...next: >>