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 middle class made their way, and a few instances—­a very few—­here one and there one—­in which the sons of working men thus forced themselves upward.  We must remember these scholarships when we speak of the barrier, but we must not attach too much importance to them.  One may also recall many instances of generosity when a bay of parts was discovered, educated, and sent to the University by a rich or noble patron.

In the Army, again, many men rose from the ranks and obtained commissions.  In the Navy, this was always impossible, with one or two brilliant exceptions—­as the case of Captain Cook.